Alone in the Cold

Homeless
Hungry
and Cold.

His placard drips
with ice rain,
a forgotten man stationed
a few feet to the side
of a highway off-ramp.
He shifts slowly
on his cane,
searching for the angle
that shelters him best
from a driving Chicago wind.

Alone.
Such a hopeless place
to be during the
numb-to-the-bone frosts
of a February that seems
to go on forever.

For a moment I try
to match his gaze,
but the lights have all gone out.
There is only a dull glare
as he stares, mangy beard pointed
to the ground, and freezing rain
which rolls down his cheeks
like the many tears
he must long to cry.

Yet in the passing moments
between red light and green
It is I who feels like weeping
as I struggle to reconcile this,
an image of my brother locked
in a forgotten state,
wondering, with my solitary tear,
if he was ever loved at all.

On John Clare's "I am"

I have dreamed you
within the walls of that asylum,
friend of the earth and dearest friend to me.
I have seen you, heartsick and dying,
Guiding your pen with fury across the page;
striving to soothe both your pain and my own.
you foresaw that the storm of abject solitude
would thunder and punish again,
and you left your words as a mighty bulwark for me
against the rising tide of nothing but alone.
You knew not my name, but you were certain I would come,
One to press your words, a healing balm, against the soul,
one who would not forget you or ever forsake you
locked inside those walls.
I hope you too find calm in this, my simple song
of thanks and praise. Sleep in peace,
Remembered, revered,
and hold close forever my final words:
we are.

hate's mastery

Why must my thoughts of vengeance return?
I despise the hatred within,
the control it takes over the body:
my blood boils over
and my muscles hold tense,
poised like coiled snakes
so eager to unleash their rage
in a flash of violent fury.

at times I tremble because
my thoughts can be darker
than the sin of Cain.
There are brothers whose malevolent hearts
I would tear, still pulsing, from their chests,
and I would spit in their faces
as I dangled the vessels of lifeblood
before their failing eyes.

I am as sorry for these thoughts
as I am that so many sins
are swallowed, accepted,
unanswered and unpunished.

Alas, the stroke of justice
is not mine to give,
but oh, how thoughts of vengeance
boil within.

words and a new friend

I suddenly feel less weary
than I have in days beyond count.
Some weight has been lifted,
unmarked and unnoticed by me
until now.

My mind seems clear,
with room enough
for every image I desire.
The words are simple yet fearless,
unadorned but also unafraid.
they flash their teeth tenaciously
if they disagree with where
they fall in line.

So different, this feeling.
I've never known harmony
but this must feel like its conception.
No more vacant rooms for my thoughts to hide,
on the winding paths within
inspiration walks freely
where only solitude used to tread.

Two Centuries Late

Dear Wordsworth, where are you in such an hour?
We have no fire, the sonnet drowns in scorn.
We pump out dying words, devoid of power,
My gift is lost, I am untimely born.
We could have sat upon Westminster bridge,
Together poring over Milton's words.
We could have climbed the height of every ridge,
And let our songs fly loose up with the birds.
You could have shown me those untrodden ways,
The fields that Lucy held within her sight.
O that I might have lived in brighter days!
When you, and Keats, and Blake professed your might.
I strive to praise, to frame you with my rhyme,
Reviving your bright flame within our time.

A momentary pause

I trudge the silent path,
the expanse of my mind laid bare
against an empty world-
life teems for someone, somewhere.

Words in disarray.
that is my consciousness,
and the truths I would nail
upon Heaven's gate
lie disjointed and twisted amidst
the sprawling harvest
that I cannot seem
to reap from my soul.

Astray, my thoughts are so very astray.
They long to swim
in the current of liquid song,
unleashing their melodies
of love and desolation with rhythmic pleasure,
perhaps the exstasis of Dionysian odes.

I marvel that my words and thoughts
can also dream,
their own wills smeared
in deep hues across the page.
Such poor housing for them are
these perfunctory verses,
quietly spilling from
a tarnished heart within.

Answers May Await You, So Hold True

A clear silence is born
in the agony of dawn,
A deeper mystery than prayer.

His wilted hands kiss
flesh to flesh,
while vaporous and inaudible
words escape his lips;
No force for these syllables
deftly crafted in the center of his universe,
Which slowly evolved
into the Seat of despair.

White pillows, white blankets,
wisps of white hair
which no one attends.
There is only his breathing
mistaken as silence,
In the dying heart's core
such a thunder of noise.

The Poems of Mallarme

I would share with you
the poems of Mallarme,
His words so like my own.

And your eyes and ears
would drown in sensorial wonder.
Images of surf-green emotions
would swirl around you,
hazy and confused.

You would trace the
sliding sadness of his words,
until syllable by syllable
the blueness undulates across the page,
and off the page,
and stains the whiteness
of your changing eyes.

In your heart you would feel
a surging, a rush of inspiration,
The host of words you dreamed
would rise within.

alabanza inutil

mi contemplacion era las preguntas, su belleza era las respuestas
-Saint Augustine


La amo, eso es todo,
aunque algo me mueve a decir que la amo
en la manera que la luz anaranjada de la salida del sol
ama a las olas del mar.

es como no quiero decir nada,
inefable hasta el fin sera mi postura.

La amo, eso es todo,
pero he querido decir
que su presencia es la voz de Dios
susurrando directamente a mi alma,
diciendo -aqui estoy, mi hijo, y esta es
la felicidad que he preparado para ti-

Inefable he dicho,
tanto su hermosura como mi amor
que florece madura y paciente
en la tierra fecunda de la corazon.

La canto, eso es todo,
que importa que no la puedo
alabar con justicia,
que mis palabras son sombras echadas
por la luna cuando las comparo
con su imagen de luz y gracia?

La amo, ella es todo,
el sol que crece rayo por rayo en el horizonte,
la luna que me guarda contra la oscuridad de noche...

es que no queria decir nada
por tanto que la adoro,
alabanzas inutiles son todos los versos que yo le escribo

Sonnet: on forging perfect love

How sweet! that wisdom steadily should grow
Within the machinations of my brain.
What joy to learn, and plot the things I know,
And feel all failures were not loss but gain.
My aim is high, my tests must then be great,
A soul untroubled cannot be complete.
My mind's wheel turns, I will not trust to fate,
It is my victory or my defeat.
Farewell days of my youth, I hold you dear,
For in your playful care I forged my base.
Now I must venture forth devoid of fear,
A love of stillness I must now embrace.
I attune my eyes with the sky above,
And dream of constant, un-reflecting love.

he recalls undocumented thoughts

undoubtedly you have been here before,
unraveling some mystery
and driving, hammer-handed,
the nails that sealed the coffin of our youth.
so strange, the pace is quickening
while the things you know
and the things you wish you had learned
float indiscernable
at an alarmingly comfortable distance.

dream on, you hear plainly,
keep dreaming- you listen.

undaunted by hope's betrayal
your mind turns peacefully to god-
submission would be both
refreshing and ironic,
and as the voices keep calling
the inspiration to obey begins to shine.

Revelation

So strange, these thoughts of you
On an evening such as this.
I stand and talk with Lysander
Who knows nothing of big city living
And houses that stretch four stories high
Into the crisp metropolitan air.

I remember a word
You spoke to me once: demure;
How your face sparkled like victory
as its meaning evaded me.
And you laughed a little, too,
Having bested me at last.

Too long it has been
Since I have dreamed of the city.
Too long are these days
That pass without your words.
Too faint is this hope:
To reconcile at last.

So strange these thoughts of you,
As crystal as the stars that rise.

Let Go

The sour taste of
Nothing as I willed it to be
Stains my tongue,
And these happy days
Reverberate with the
Draining sorrow of the years.
Mine is the silence of tomorrow,
the slow, aching quiet
That dismembers conscious thought
And suffocates itself in tears.
A nerve fires, triggering
The slideshow of our lives
That we might see our existence
Frame by frame
and cling to the stored thoughts
We desire to keep the most.
My ears grow weary of fraudulent discourse:
Words without meaning and a specious smile.
I unhook my eyelids that I might finally close them;
Dreaming of everything,
Desiring nothing at last.

A walk with my father

I step out into the mist,
my memory replete
with adages of old.
I walk by dim streetlights
grudgingly caged in fog,
hindered in their only charge.
when you walk my son,
the timbers will shake.
An ambulance passes me,
smashing the silence of evening
with a cacaphonous howl of sirens.
For a passing moment, I think
of the man inside the box of flashing lights.
A tear wells in the corner of my eye
as hiswife clings to his lifeless body.
Dead on arrival:
we should carve it in stone.
Living in the past is regret,
Living in the future is fear.
I push the man away,
my stride never breaking.
So this is way:
right foot, left foot, right foot, left foot.
What enemies will I face in life?
Is it within my power
to make my existence what I will?
And Theseus spoke as he faced
the great monster "his shoulders
are broader, but mine are stronger."
The sky continues to spray its mist,
profligate with the water
so essential for life.
It gives equally, falling in
rivers, on trees, on streets,
on wandering sons whose own prodigality
is reason enough for pause.
Your light wil not be dimmed
like these lamps that line your path.
Your charge in life is to shine my son,
What blinding light you'll be.

religion and stuff

Just some thoughts on religion...not poetry but still really interesting.


So Blaise Pascal is really smart. About 350 years ago he comes up with this chart that basically says this. we have four choices : either we believe or don't believe in god, and there either is or is not a god in reality. If we believe in god and are correct, the reward is great, while if we believe in god and there is none, or likewise if we don't believe in god and there is none we have sort of a wash, no loss on our part. the last scenario however is the most intriguing. If you reject god and are wrong, then the eternal fire awaits you. We see that simple logic can be persuasive in the theist's cause. To show that I am not engaging in mere sophistry here and employing specious arguments, let us look at some evidence. Albert Einstein, most likely the greatest scientific mind ever, said this "I believe in God. there comes a point where you're mind can only take you so far, after that, the only explanation is God." You will not hear that from any college professor today; nor in the hooplah surrounding racially charged events when the image of Dr. Martin Luther King is called upon will you hear of the phenomenal presence of faith in the life of that great leader of men. Modern secular scholars like to treat religion as though it were transient, changing always to meet the capricious demands of the people in the moment. They fail to see the unity between a group of southern baptists praying in the aftermath of Katrina and those Christians who held prayer vigils when the great Saint and church father Paul was held for execution under Nero. Even before that Abraham called out in the wild to Yaweh, I am that I am, the same as I do when I undertake a long journey or feel lost in the great maze of my existence. What takes more faith, investing all in science, in reason, in the capacity for man to justify himself, or in accepting that that there are things out there so great and powerful that we will never understand them? As for me, I take the path of per solam fidem. There are truths in this universe that cannot be undone.

The Ineffability of Esmeraldas

Hold pen, do not write "love."
Do not write "beauty" which is
To insult her name.

Be still and quiet, word-locked clichés,
And bow before she who
Would not be described.

Away all these liars:
"Graceful" and "Lovely,"
And "smile like the sun" or "cheek like the rose."
These all lie in soft repose,
Not even dreaming of transcribing
The wonder of Esmeraldas.
And her name stands alone,
Untouched and unshaken by trifling metaphors .
She outshines all names, all names but one:
Esmeraldas, Esmeraldas, mi esperanza, mi amor.

Twilight fading

Dig deep into memory,
Brushing away the sediments
Of six years of longing
Til dreams
Float in synchronistic suspension
Before your eyes.
Visions heavy with purifed
Images of raptured youth
Fog the air; slow your breathing,
Repeat the words imprinted
On your mind:
"We will never be here again."
Dangling strands of starlight
Flicker in the sullen and solitary breeze,
Serenade of the darkening sky.
We will be here again,
When the discontent of waning youth
Is far behind, when shadows darken
On the horizon of our years.
Our dreams will linger, however, nourished
In the lachrymose starlight of crepusculum.
They will be our markers,
our only reply to the charge
That we never lived at all.

It falls away in morning,
When intimations of orange
Creep up on far horizon;
When wistfully we guide
The last dying strands
Of a beautiful dream.

Mourning in winter,
When we become aware of our chimera,
Delicate and desperate though it may be.
Sunrise comes bringing light to the world,
Yet covers the landscape of the soul in darkness.

Another minute could be a lifetime,
But alas, the sunrise is calling my name.
"Awaken, young dreamer!" it's rays seem to shout,
"The day is before you, away with those purified
images from starry dreamland"

Morning in winter,
And the last visions of joy neverending
Fizzle drearily
As I wipe the sleep from my eyes

Medidation on another year passing

the final tumult
of the year's cascade
leaves me with the knowledge
that nothing ever happens.

we go nowhere,
and we see no one.
Our years creep past
Draped in silence,
and masked by illusory sirens
of contentment or success.

only as children could we hear the music,
only as adults we realize
that music is the way.

We huddle sleepily in the prelude to dawn,
Wondering if we'll ever find the time we've lost
As the last breath of night
expels across the star-spattered sky.

Concluding "Veinte Poemas de amor, y una cancion desesperada

You’ll have to pardon me tonight, Neruda,
But I’m finished.
I’m done poring over you words,
Tracing the perfection of their weave and hating myself
Because I cannot make my words sing like your versos mas tristes,
Verses so sad indeed that they flood my heart with ice water,
And buckle my knees if I think of them in stride.

I cannot transcribe the silence of evening
Nor the perfection of a floating bumblebee.
But things such as these you capture in words,
And as I read them I throw my hands in air,
Half in celebration, half in disbelief.

I have often wondered how it was you learned
The perfection of your craft. It could have been practice,
But as I sit here now, having intended to write a poem,
I am almost certain you were born with it.

I have been patient, dear Neruda,
But I cannot go any farther.
I am weak, for as much as
I praise your gift, I covet it more.