Confiteor of the Day
(In Poetic Prose)
A prayer for the end of a summer’s day! Oh yes, we all must let them go, grieve them if you must. For there is a certain delicacy, sensation, vagueness, intensity to each one, and no one is any longer or shorter than the other, except for the last one, which is shorter.
Oh, the delight of each one being fixed, this one, I glance into its immense darkness, out into my garden! It is 12:26 a.m. the solitude and silence. The end of the day was like a little sailing-boat drifting towards the horizon; in its littleness I could see my irretrievable existence.
All these things, little reflections of my thoughts for the day, the grandeur of the day, which is soon to be lost, has been lost twenty-six minutes ago: without quibbling, never to return.
In any case, these thoughts that have now formed within me projections from things throughout the day grow tense; the energy of the day has brought me a little unrest, but positive vibrations.
And now, now the darkness of the outside intrigues me, it is like a sea, this night is like a sea, a rival, yes: an unpitying rival of darkness—there is a beauty in this last part of the day, and I guess I have seen it before, it has now been defeated, for I live.
#3207 (3-2-2012)
Common Sides
Youth has its age
And age its pride;
One thinks he knows
The other thinks why;
But youth and age
With separate ties—
Have common sites:
Life, death, and quest,
And a hope chest
That never rests.
Note: written May of 1981, No: 69/review by Poetry North,
Anchorage, Alaska, by D.A. Sterling, Editor (“The poem: Common Sides):
”…very smooth and conveys real feeling….”
Two Rivers
Love Path
Because you are not with me, my mind is
in a depression—here in my apartment.
When I hear people describe
me, as yours, I look proud—yet now
I know that far inside us, we have never
met—
Then what do I call this love of mine?
It makes me uncaring to eat or sleep;
it makes me restless…
The only gift left I have for you,
are tears.
Love Grief
The flute of the griever is played weather
we hear it or not.
What we mean by ‘Griever,’
is the sound of the loss
leaving the body.
When it reaches its edge,
it reaches wisdom.
It penetrates
Goes through walls—
This all takes time.
Where else have you heart a flute
like this?
#3308/3309 (3-4-2012 (For: MC)
Making of a Man
(Haiku)
Let’s make a man:
Tobacco, beer, sex and ham!
Knucklingly crisp
(…or beat to shit!)
#3327 ((3-8-2012) (11:54 p.m.))
Animal Brain
the animal brain
clotted with loosely hunches…
“lo ok!”
“there!”
“now!”
“to ok!”
“take!” … “tak en!”
“catch”
“eat”
suddenly and skillfully—
in a thick silence… don’t speak
hunch, reaction—stop! looking…
voices…(?)
“es cape…”
#3326(3-8-2012)
The Brother-in-Law
The house has lain moldered
for ten-months now.
The windows are smeared, rain—
and the curtains dusty and dirty!
Mice and cockroaches came in I see!
The stove is new, but looks old—
nobody cleaned it I suppose.
Like everything else,
there’s an inch of grim.
The Garden is pert near ruined
it hasn’t been watered in a long time!
And all the bedrooms have murkiness.
My brother-in-law lived here
free as a bee, all utilities paid!
He left with a turned-up face
(all he had to do was keep the place
clean and safe, what a disgrace).
He forgot he came in, from out of the rain.
He even forgot my name.
I guess it’s better to let it sway—:
too bad, he didn’t sleep with the
quails, and mice and swirling worms
in the sawdust air,
in the garden
beneath
the trees!
(The house would have been better off!)
#3325(3-8-2012)
Black Girl Walking
Light blows across her face
The Negress—across her
Yellow silk blouse…
In this pale city called Huntsville.
It’s January, 1970.
I’m half awake, had a long night!
My Army Greens are folded over
My right forearm, looking for
A drycleaners…
She has shivering ankles
Not from the cold…
Her poise—is as if she’s
Deep in the jungle!
She’s snuggling under her arms
She’s scared to death,
I might stop to talk to her!
Pity, she must fear the watching eyes
Of the white leopards and crocodiles
Those that doze along these
cozy jungle roads.
#3325(3-8-2012)
The Shadow
and Human Nature
Human nature is like a shadow
You can’t get rid of it
No matter what you do!
And what is human nature?
God forbid, I must account for
My sins, much alone yours!
Had Christ not appeared, we’d
All be headed for Hell,
In a gunnysack,
Because of our
So called: Human Nature!
#3324 (3-8-2012)
She Weeps Over her Lover
Heat falls softy,
softly falling, over Lima—
where does her lover lie?
Sad is her voice that tells me,
at noontime.
Love, she loves him!
He never told her why…
Dark heat falls softly,
softly falling, over Lima—
and whimpering sighs.
#3316 (3-7-2012) For: MC
A Quiet EveningIt is a warm and quiet evening.
The park across the street is nearly empty.
The only things moving are the sparrows
and the mice and two quails…
as I open the back glass doors to our garden.
There is a privacy I love in this quiet evening.
Looking about, I will waste more time.
#3310 ((3-6-2012)(6:30 p.m.))
Counting Skulls in Vietnam
We killed so many in Vietnam;
I don’t know where they put them all—
Just one year’s supply of skulls
(300,000)
Would have filled a barn house full—
We could never have fit the whole body in—
And every soldier wanted a keepsake.
#3312 (3-7-2012)
Men Shouting
I wanted to make up with my sons
But we had muddied the waters,
burnt down all the bridges.
The street, no—the path is a boiling
sea!
The anchor is too heavy to lift alone.
Let it remain on hold.
Let darkness win.
Why listen to grown men shouting.
#3311 (3-7-2012)
Waiting for the Mice
Pointed
faces coming out of the garden!
I turn away,
irritated—
When I write of such things
the clouds burst
greyly!
Well, that is how I spent this week.
And what good does it do me in the coffin?
I did kill three out of five of them…!
#3313 (3-7-2012)
Quail Wings
That’s always weird—
I’m trying to relax
outside in my garden
are my two quails
they stretch out their thin limbs
—which surely they feel are wings
(but cannot fly but a few feet at most
with them)
They stretch out their thin limbs
in the shade of Elephant Ears…
while, on the another side of the garden
it’s blistering hot.
#3314 (3-7-2012)
Heat wave in Lima
Full moon, last night—
and steaming heat this morning.
The streets in my neighborhood
nearly empty.
It all rose off the Pacific,
plowing East, over the city.
Like a mountain sinking into
the sea!
looking for its grave.
#3314 (3-7-2012)
