Posts Tagged Angels
Recursive Empty
When the lightness of sky, darkened and shattered by winter branches, showed me my fears
Pierce my will-
ingness, make me sail
over shocked
towers fir-
ing waves, that iron jumps, kill-
ing angst, making m’love.
The Sharp Brevity of an Isolated Spiritual Experience
For most of the day,
I had been treading
carefully, waiting and hoping
the tiger would eat me,
or leave me, and my daughter,
suffused in weightless smiles,
happiness. We had walloped
golf balls, hammered them
and missed them and whiffed
at them, so our energy
had been expelled. Driving
east in a smooth vehicle
like an oblong bubble. It was
evening, the sun in the
obligatory west, and maybe
it was a rear-view mirror,
but we were bathed in
gold, bliss and blessedness
on Highway 10.
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I Want a Robot (1)
to go out to the bridge,
break down, cry terrifically,
become breathless, unable
to speak of the terrors, but
demonstrate them with the full
jacket of emotions, take all of
my despair so I may sit
here professionally, with no
theatrics, no tears, no feelings,
and take the attacks of my boss
and the volatile piles of shame
from the bad dog, the boss’s boss.
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(My thanks to Erik, who has kindled a beautiful soul and shares some of it here, where the linked post and others spark the good kind of reflection in me as well as good discussions with Erik, for inspiring this series, which could go on forever, if I do.)
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Lessons on Madness and Flow
Lessons on Madness and Flow
Rolling back, go gentle,
pray with the blackbirds
as they scatter to the soft
trees, trees bending graciously
with bright air, and remember
the leaves are moving for you,
so move with them and when
particles of evil come after you
fast and hard, duck down on a
slight bend and feel the energy
as yours, and if someone greets
you, smile at the beauty of being
there and remember those knives
from people who don’t know you
are false, and dig with integrity
to live as you wish, and this I tell
myself, each day, trying to be
the man I want to be someday.
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Against the Minuses
This is my poem for Day 5 of the PAD 2013 challenge. I’m having fun writing more than I have been and forcing my editor to sit on the back bench instead of guarding the front gate.
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The work was a drag, but the music,
a plus. Tornadoes of gossip, wiped
by Mahler or the trinkly angels
of Beethoven’s Seventh. The edits,
the critics, but cubicle walls, a plus.
Crystal, a plus, she floated through
the hallways, another angel, dainty
with perfect shapes and glorious smiles
with reddish hair. The windows exposed
dystopian architecture, but the angles,
a plus, forging desperate thinking, clever
gimmicks. The carpet, not so staid,
with patterns of light dark medium dark
light, a plus, and, the biggest plus, three
four five four three, ending with two threes;
and march to fives, a plus when permeated
with a need to meditate, need to soften the blows
of the day, the battering of pride, which perhaps
should be gone, where we keep our heads down
so we don’t know about being disregarded,
and that’s a plus.
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Lightly, Not Trespassing
This is my late submission for PAD Day 3. My dog ate the first one and that is why this is so late. The prompt for this day was to write a poem on something tentative.
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Lightly, Not Trespassing
Her ego, too large, but perhaps not,
might it be a sensitive soul,
needing defense, causing compassion,
and I’ve fallen in, or have I?
She talks of her fans. They love
her, cause her to be reticent in shar-
ing, about how close they get to her,
and I want to be one, a fan, close to her.
More of her takes me into deep, warm
areas, and I must hold back, not tell
her any truth about my desires, so I
watch her, shiver, downed by longing.
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Brahms, Revisited without Tears for Today
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Brahms, Revisited without Tears for Today
Brahms has the twitchy fuse,
lighting me in acidic
flames and the arguments inherited
from old elephants, between piano and orchestra,
are trudging – me, I verses the world,
and I’m losing
but I’m pounding the keyboard
until I get a break, a breath, a sigh,
and I show this grace
that is un-Brahms
but is
Brahms at his greatest,
and when the horns arrive
in red army coats, you know
victory is grasped with dirty,
dry, crisp finger nails, but it
never happens, never consummates.
I am finished, a heaping
pile of slippery dung
when Brahms is done.
And as a practicing drunk, the tears
would wilt tarnished cheeks and create heat
emanating around thorny eye sockets,
but these days are desert dry, pain layered
and hidden and only Brahms, only the
master knows, knows the truth, and now,
at least I rest, I stop, I pray, lost.
.
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p.s. – Embedded below is the referenced piece, performed by my favorite conductor and one of my favorite pianists. The exposition of the first movement lasts 3:45, so patience is needed in waiting for the arguments between piano and orchestra. The climax/recapitulation of the first movement at about 13:20 is one of the most intense sections of music I know along with the ending of the first movement. It is immense music. The third movement is a kick ass jam if you make it that far…
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The Birds Mock Me, But Harry Loves Me
Wandering madness catches me briefly
after I skip exercise, after I stress over
my lack of discipline, and the birds come around,
they mock me, but it’s not personal,
and the pigeons vibrate detestably, so I
send Harry through the sliding glass door, and
while he smiles, he makes a lazy but quick lunge
at the pigeons, causing me to wonder whether they
can take off quickly enough, but they plod like
C-130s and off they go, and I wonder, where do
they go with such sloppy bodies. My enjoyment
of Harry’s antics, his smiles and circling tail, his
wiggly glances, sideways, quizzing my sleepy stare,
my enjoyment chugs uphill, fights my shame,
and I stay right here with Harry,
for a moment.
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A Friend? A Friend Stopped by?
Odd the things we channel our minds on
when preparing for the day in the water closet
(I’m not British, but the term is nicer than bathroom).
My mind will be a rocket ship on roller skates
in the middle of an infinitely-wide, seemingly so,
hockey rink, with all of the best from the hated
Sharks team, skating at me, not the goal, and they
all have pucks and more pucks so they do not feel
compelled to fear running out of ammo, and these
guys shoot hard, and I never have any pads, but
glory-be, instead of making slight attempts at
stopping the pucks, I’m pelted over and over as my
mind considers all the fabulous things I’ll do today,
sometimes projecting conversations in which
I feel as if I’m Winston Churchill, perfectly
undefeated in my oratory skirmishes, and this, after
all, is how I fuel my pride, how I feel sufficiently
armed to go out into the human world where every
glance is likely to melt me into the painted ice with
the molten black and rubbery smell of the pucks.
But today, Time, she came by.
Actually, just outside the window, which was closed
to the prickling chips of winter, but she looked
positively on fire, and you know what Time does,
she scolds you, and she was here this morning to tan
my hide, “Hey pig, piggy-pig, pig, pig, pig, pig.”
She said, Carl, you fool, your life is all gone.
Why do you fret and fritter about getting ready this
morning for a world that is all gone, that is not for you?
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stillfugue 