David Jaffin 63515815U A VOICED AWAKENING A VOICED AWAKENING Poems David Jaffin First published in Great Britain in 2004 by Shearsman Books, 58 Velwell Road, Exeter EX4 4LD and in Germany by St.-Johannis-Druckerei, Lahr/Schwarzwald www.shearsman.com shearsman@macunlimited.net Distributed for Shearsman Books in the U.S.A. by Small Press Distribution, 1341 Seventh Avenue, Berkeley, CA 94710 Email: orders@spdbooks.org Website: http://www.spdbooks.org ISBN 0-907562-57-4 (Shearsman Books, UK) ISBN 3-501-01499-6 (St.-Johannis-Druckerei, Germany) Copyright © David Jaffin, 2004. The right of David Jaffin to be identified as the author of his work has been asserted by him in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act of 1988. All rights reserved Gesamtherstellung: St.-Johannis-Druckerei, Lahr/Schwarzwald Printed in Germany 34847/2004 Contents That first snow 11 Of unspoken touch 11 Holy Communion 11 At the Window’s edge 12 The Season for War 12 Planning 13 Paradox 13 Preemptive Strike 14 Hot days, cold nights 15 Flemmish, 15th century 16 Blow fish 16 Strange birds 17 Mother Goose rhymes (5) 17 A lightness 20 Pretty 20 Kayaks 21 Making person 21 With the deaf congregation I 22 Hardened 22 “The way I see it’’ 23 With the deaf Congregation II 23 Cadences of sound 23 Small talk 24 Poems about poem (2) 24 Late-down flowers 25 Learning 26 Pawed 26 Realizing 26 In the quiet 27 Awakening 27 Subtractions 28 For heavenly recline 28 Hardy - Return of the native (4) 28 Card Players 31 The poem, the way it is 31 Listening 32 Lessened 33 Non-Heritage 33 Borderline 34 For Ernst 34 Viktor Frankl 35 Isaac 35 Recognition 36 Night’s voices 36 Arm chairs 36 Snails and others 37 Inspoken 37 Incessantly so 38 Dream-for songs 38 Concealing in 39 Nathaniel Pink: in retrospect 39 Thaw 40 Just for a moment 41 Brueghel: 2 Paintings 41 Concert goers 42 Such Witnesses 43 Whiteness of 43 Surprised awakenings 44 Workman 44 A logic to faith? 45 The Liberal creed 45 On the Alert 46 This last berried touch 46 A Door 47 This ground’s 47 A rabbit’s Softness 48 Innocent continuity 48 Opened Piano 49 Emptied waiting room 49 “Giving in to oneself’ 50 “Don’t trouble trouble unless trouble troubles you” 50 “Scatter-brained” 51 That “stiff upper lip” 52 “Finding oneself’ 52 Jungle-jim 53 Making meanings 53 Two ways 54 A tree without leaves 54 Fossils 55 Carpet 55 Night-time shadows 56 In losing scent 56 Advent: wisemen from afar 56 Of false expectations 57 If Croce 58 Outgrown 58 Chest of drawers ca. 1900 59 Preparing for 59 Killing Christ 60 Washed out 61 Floly night 62 Israel 63 The Shepherds 63 The Manger 64 Sectarian 64 Sectarian II 65 Shyness 65 That sofa 66 Getting down to business 66 Who’s measuring who? 67 That static landscape 68 Colored rolling 68 Aron at age three 68 Shutter’s 69 Conceit 69 Self importance 7 0 Airport 70 Downed 71 Nathaniel Pink’s midmorning 71 Waking from snow 72 Snow melting this hill down 72 If that’s progress 73 We never know 73 For Rosemarie 74 Unleft 74 21 Oak Lane 75 Early morning swim 75 The sleepless winds 76 Those palms 76 Of lasting time 76 Out at sea 77 Living up your faith alone 77 Have you ever asked 78 Hunger’s 78 For our children’s sake 79 Freed 80 Jonah and the Storm 80 “He’s not quite himself’ 81 Holbein the Younger’s “Last Supper” 81 Country dining with Ingo and Solvay 82 Of re-seeming eyes 83 Romanesque 83 Up stream 84 Low tide 85 Sea-side houses 85 Train stops 86 Outlasted 86 Can you familiarize stone 87 Moving on 88 At 65 88 Ice-cream man 89 Than this 89 Dolphins 90 Blue Marlin’ 90 Pre-established presence 90 Osprey 91 Can we tame the sea 92 Sand Piper’s 92 Australian pines 93 Dead pelican 93 What man means by freedom 94 Curls 94 When her grandmother died 95 Writing myself wake 95 Seeing it straight 96 Starting a poem’ 96 “Felt it that way” 96 Criminals 96 A strange bird 97 Because he wasn't flying 97 What secrets 97 Morning streetlights 98 The slightness of this pen 98 This blue shell 99 Helen’s romantic urge 99 Border states 99 Self-imaged 100 Horseshoes 100 Mr. Wilcocks 101 Handyman 101 The Basses 102 Phil 102 Tempting a smile 103 Falling with Snow 103 Taking a Measure by myself 104 Becoming aware 105 Melting down 105 Spitzweg: Hunter in the Woods 106 Spitzweg: The Butterfly Chaser 106 “Pouring one’s heart out” 107 Your collared suit 108 Narrowed 108 Through emptied branches 108 Perspectived 109 Dream-felt 109 Soundless voice 109 Only the outside now 110 This wording of 111 Borderline 111 Winding a clock 112 Would/would?? 112 Murky persons 113 Of secret, untold meanings 113 Enthroned Madonna and Saints 114 Afterall 114 Like other ships 115 Too white 116 Broken out nut-shell 116 Listening 116 Taking leave 117 A thirst for words 117 Rowers 118 Unquiets 118 Strung 119 Displayed-in item 119 Nathaniel Pink on the world situation 120 Dresden: 5 paintings 121 Child’s eyes 124 Wheel-chaired 124 Angelic 125 Our background 125 After glow 125 “Thinking positively” 126 Free 126 Over voiced 126 Unsettled 127 Passah Haggadah 128 Plain talk’s 129 Obscuring 130 At the Psychoanalysts 130 Self-defining 131 Caroline 131 “Baldung Grien’s Crucifixion” 132 Awakening 133 Cross-word puzzles 133 Illmensee’s 133 Rembrandt’s “Resurrection” 134 On the Way to Emmaus 135 Painting over 135 Waking through dream 136 Of promising colors 136 Of untold meaning 137 In colored 137 “Justitia” 138 Neil 138 Piano Lesson’s 139 Nathaniel Pink unearthed 139 Overwording 140 Prettiness 140 Sleep 141 Beautifying 141 The example 142 For my dead father, in dialogue 142 Something to hide 143 The Holy of holies 144 Trying to be humane’s 144 Saddam’s palaces 145 Making us mild 146 Roller-Coaster 146 Mozart’s Flute 147 Figurative houses 147 Iraq or that Humpty-Dumpty syndrom 147 For the ordering of things 148 Schwabian Alb 149 Isaac 149 Meditations on Vermeer 150 22 Oak Lane 150 That bird 151 Birch-felt 152 These bells 152 Samuel 152 Grammar 153 Outgrown 153 Until the Fox came 153 Milkweed 155 Field fast 155 If 155 Rivered 156 Self-Protective 156 Rained away 157 Directionless 157 Dart game 158 So many doors 158 No one to know 158 The Trenches 159 “To make the most of it” 159 That piano 160 Candles 160 A part of her 160 Adam stripe bass fishing 161 So lived in 161 Aloneness 161 Lesser Mark 162 Sylvia’s way 162 Leafed 162 Of darkening 163 Scented 163 Out blossomed 164 Bigger 164 After rain 164 5 Masterpieces in the Alte Pinakothek 165 A Pastel Afternoon 167 At the Proms 168 Of marbled stone 168 Historical length 169 Could mean 169 Black Cat 169 Its sense from darkness 170 A quiet place 170 With Corot 170 Mass graves 171 Hate 171 Out spreading 172 Swing 172 Cocktail Party 172 Dream conscious 173 Chagalls “The desparate Job” 173 Nathaniel Pink untangled 174 Van der Weyden’s “Annunciation” 175 After rain 175 On Shostakovich Preludes and Fugues 176 Tolerance 177 If 177 A Form of presence 177 Muted now 178 Flowered 178 Familiarity 179 Bach dancing 179 Master of himself 180 Bach 180 To be pleased’s 181 Through never more 181 Nathaniel Pink’s exposures 182 4 Squared 182 Revolving doors 183 Solemned 183 After taste 184 Because 184 A white horse in a green field 185 Seamed 185 Macbeth — Anatomy of a happy marriage 186 Macbeth at Burnham Woods 187 Hamlet Stagefright 187 Erasing memories 188 Of what isn’t mine 188 Colored carpets 189 Lee’s house 189 An awayness 190 Horse and Rider 190 With the speed of listening by 191 Aged with the faith 191 In rhythmic variations 192 Beethoven Quartet op 59 No. 2 192 Mendelssohn Quartet op 12 193 A fly 193 Insisting 194 Thoughts On Sophocle’s Oedipus Rex (6) 195 5 Masterpieces in Berlin 197 Numbered 200 Quieted down 200 Baldung’s Grien’s Crucifixion 201 Cynthia 201 Chagall’s Crucifixions 202 “Fated”? 202 Chagall’sjeremia 203 Words 203 Diplomatically cool 204 Where/who 204 Continuing on 205 Rising above 205 For Rosemarie in Dallas, Texas 206 Looking old’s 206 So hard 207 Trusting 207 Open Spaces 208 “Reality therapy” 208 Two persons? 209 On his high horse again 210 Chassid 210 Such stability 211 Unlit candle’ 211 “Carrying your heart on your shirt sleeve” 212 Too large 212 Are these plants 213 Over-punctuated 213 Scholared 213 Cooled ott 214 That first snow is more in the tensions releasing now that depth front sky. Of unspoken touch That no where time of now in the fragrance of flower’ s unspoken touch. Holy Communion if it was only the knees that bent their will under the weight of being too much in self. At the Window’s edge Flowers at the window’s edge Being clo sed in to a room of self-told thoughts. The Season for War September not the song of a last- felt longing But the season for war That need for blood ri sing to its own account s as these leaves turn for color and the nights take in their cold breath strange ly apparent. Planning What we’ve plann ed isn’t what’s plan ning us The general’ s astute eyed-in time-less glanced of the where death’ s where he isn’t Fields of blood at tuned from his paper less smile. Paradox if war doesn’ t solve but create s new field s in uncer tainty There may still be a time when to re treat simply postpones the date of that encounter Man’s at war with him self and can’ t solve what he can’t create even in the undoing of himself. Preemptive Strike if we attack the danger before It endanger s us as in the writhing of a snake’ s coiled stance We may cut it through to the steeled edge of our own ex pectation s by doubling the strength of its re coiled attack. Hot days, cold nights and it’s hard to keep the balance intact Where the moon’s decisive glow appro priates more of my person than fears can speak a loud And the afternoon’ s sun Hour ishes an a bundance of superflu ous light. Flemmish, 15 th century The pur ity of these Marian hymns The clear lines of ex pressing the unity of phrasing What we aren’t she became for us. Blow fish bigger than he felt he could possi bly be In flated as Balloon’s rounding readi ness. Strange birds winged with imagined colors Staring out silent repeating wa ters. Mother Goose rhymes (5) a) “Diddle, diddle dumpling My son John’...” s an on and off sort of poem The way we tend to be As if moods could be interchange able with those shoes and day dreams were kept for night’s sleep ing in. b) “There was a little girl, she had a little curl...” 1 don’t know at the middle of what For she was either /or ing it As the blink ing of an eye’s nasty/ prettied look. c) “O, the grand old Duke of York ...” We’re still marching our soldiers a round Even if practice can still make Perfect ly disconten ed. d) “Little Miss Muffit sat on a puffit...” Sofas can still sink us in to those twi light zones of tasty unease. e) “The king was in his parlour counting out his money ...” A plea surable pur suit for those who can af ford it And the honey might taste even sweeter than her all- presuming smiles. A lightness These sands co lor the light ness of the sky’s trans parently blue. Pretty a word for a woman dressed in a light-defining blue Rimmed in the white ness of where scarcely clouds almost touched to the horizon ed edge. Kayaks parting the water’s edge with a re dining ease for touching those proba bilities of distancing in spaced. Making person if making mon ey’s making person Why haven’t we ac quired a pa pered face then. With the deaf congregation I All those waving wild ness of hand ssig nailed- in sense and attributes of mind Taking on the meaning of what words have fin ally come to imply. Hardened bone-felt hand speaks of a life without e ven an eye- touched glimmer. “The way I see it” If it’s the way I see it What hap pens when I can’t see anything anymore. With the deaf Congregation II For words were for them as the soundless speakings ot the ocean’s depths They heard that they knew. Cadences of sound like the fal ling of wa ter’s light impression ably still ed. Small talk Talking about What one talks a bout Like the chatter of bird s activa ting with out bringing those leave s back to life. Poems about poem (2) a) A single word may cleanse the meaning of that phrased-in sense. b) To reclaim language is like weeding a garden from its over grown usage. Late-doum flowers and their color’s fray ed like the cloth of to(o)-seen clothes worn for ap pearance of that daily smile one’s be come too accustomed to(o). Learning One doesn’t learn to write One writes by learning how. Pawed That cat pawed its secre tive in stincts to those step s of see ing eyes. Realizing if children’s thoughts seem bigger than they can see It’s be cause they’ re/bigger than they them selves Realizing. In the quiet It’s only in the quiet of where we come back to ourselve s that this room’s be coming per soned. Awakening Leaves folding m the wind a voiced a wakening. Subtractions He denied more of himself than he could find back to. For heavenly recline Clouds continuing their own way Shadow ing the earth’ s moments for heavenly re dine. Hardy - Return of the native (4) a) Eustasia Vye She was some thing more than person A beauty be yond the claim s of what beauty can mean to the heath’ s ever present thereness being more than what She was or even of that where that couldn’ t hold her. b) Rcddleimii The eyes that watch over us can be per soned as well Not from a bove or even within But at a distance Claim ing that near ness for. c) Heath people A part of that whereness superstitious ly alive to truths beyond the mind’s seeing Timeless as the heath’ s Breeding in that al ways there ness of. d) Clym’s mother and that closed door Why that door was closed Because we can’t see be yond what has happened A finality of sense A brood mg truth as the heath it self Closing us out by Taking us in. Card Players (Cezanne) These cards have touched them selves to their fingered needs that complete in eyed-from certain ties. The poem, the way it is Some thing gro wing within myself May be the way the earth in spring feels itself coming through to bloom in flowered color s. Listening to the move ments of his thoughts on this stone-felt sur face Upset him as colors didn’t quite match this sense of seeing A slight uneasiness crept through his untried veins. Lessened Saying it less is meaning it more And what’s un said con tinues to think. Non-Heritage Jesus couldn’t prove that he wasn’t Jewish But the church has often given proof of its nonheritage. Borderline She crouched in defiance of herself The lioness defending what She could only devour. For Ernst Listening may be a part of why the poem’ s the way It is. Viktor Frnnkl April 1945 To lose all is to know all We need to know. Isaac He knew His father knew the cause the love the where ness of his being Bound/ there to the fear in his help less cries at the stake the fire of God’s burning justness. Recognition Looking through glass May be the same person If he sees the way I’m seeing him in. Night’s voices To the whisper ing of moon’ s lighted thoughts And those voice s through unanswer ing stars. Arm chairs in a certitude of self-assur ance Cir cling last night’s con versations Holding in/ there for voice. Snails and others maintain a household in self- protective seclusion But man walls himself in to systems of self-de termina tion. Inspoken Looking herself down to her son’s telling eye s may have spoken her years younger. Incessantly so Chatter ed on incessant ly so Like birds cheating for the crumbs of lesser pleasure s. Dream-for songs My father sang his dream- for-songs Trai ling his fee lings to beyond long-lost desires. Concealing in Night came through the slow wind s of con cealing in depths of hidden darkness. Nathaniel Pink: in retrospect He was so exact in precising his culti vated ends Taking the meanings to the length of their long- desired-in tendons That his world seemed made- over for the glit— tering win ding paths of where those stars could be turned in or out at the ease of his elongated whispering s. Thaw One can only really know what that soft ness means After the hard- cold of contracting to the muscles and bones of our restrain- ed desires Melting. Just for a moment the buds of touch ing his finger’s wants for light. Brueghel: 2 Paintings a) The Blindfollowing the blind I’m not certain If there may be a cliff hanging down some where that empty feeling in the depths of my hollow ed in thoughts. b) The Tower of Babel Such heights may blind us to a view of ourselves Taking stone instead of the pulse of where flesh speak s aloud that stone-touched in death. Concert goers Most were listen ing to what They were told to listen for Like catch ing an undis covered mouse because the traps were set-in their cor rectly baited fashion. Such Witnesses All these windows loo king out through their glass-reflecting eyes Witnesses to this speech less void of our blinding times. Whiteness of As swans shadow their whiteness in the cool awareness of their passing through these upturned waves. Surprised awakenings in those sur prised awaken ings as flo wers un earthed from being kept cold and dark so long. Workman His hands rough ed to the numbness in this wintered cold Spading this half-frozen earth to an indelible warmth his hands had long since been telling. A logic to faith? if there’s a logic to faith it’s because what I think can’t think me beyond the bounds of my pre-detcrmin ed person Love less as such and in the eyes of death helpless as well. The Liberal creed believes in a man better ed than I’ve come to know And the pro gress of a progressive ly dismal world I’d be a liberal If I didn’t know myself Better than that! On the Alert alarming colors melting into a flow of imagined thoughts Upsetting whatever ba lance I could ease out from there. This last berried touch to its hardened colored sense of There-I- am regained for this mea ning to tell. A Door could go ei ther way But if you’ re alone That touch of its used- in presence is like Asking your self Why you’ re coming back to what isn’t there. This ground’s frozen into its times of forgetful ness Like some animals who take their winter sleep in those urging s for a depth of silence quiet-held in that overfelt flow for stars. A rabbit’s Softness i felt into a flow ing warmness of why It needed to jump As a poem that couldn’ t stay still in its accept ance of be ing there. Innocent continuity This snow’s in nocent contin uity As if All the world could be told through the whiteness of its alway s coming times. Opened Piano o pened The keys in black for white running their length to a presuppos ed sense for sound. Emptied waiting room Rows of seat less person s having been where they aren’t now A lone liness of watching spo ken shadow s emptied of their voices through. “Giving iti to oneself’’ but who’s giving and what’s re ceiving And are we two selves in a dialogue between the one as o ther Or would giving out from be a better method for pleasing, so to say, the “real self’. “Don’t trouble trouble unless trouble troubles you but some people seek trouble by not troubling a bout what could possi bly be Unpre pared in their defense of Habitual mid- streamers without know mg where the other side might bring them in for. “Scatter-brained” because she scatter ed her thoughts and doings out beyond the range of bringing them back in again. That “stiff upper lip” might harden even those sensitive realms of where a kiss could How into real izing unend ing streams those melting winds through desire. “Finding oneself” is like a game of hide and seek Wherever you are isn’t what you’re looking for And where you aren’t is still to be found out. Jungle-jim But in a jungle You can’t get to the heights of Entangled in the over growth of finding your self in for out. Making meanings One word may make the mea ning of a poem As a bird tentatively grasped-in branch even more than it could conceive then. Two ways a) what is isn’t what it seems to be be cause I tell it in my way And it implie s that other wise sense for being. b) It may not be the way We see things But how They’ re seeing us. A tree without leaves naked to the out- lines of its being seen through. Fossils are where me mories can only be touched from. Carpet woven in to its pre determined design Colors itself as a man readied in smiles that speak increa singly a- loud. Night-time shadows less dark as the shade s of previous thoughts But only slight ly touched- Awakened in view. In losing scent Roses withered to their dryness in losing scent. Advent: unsemen from afar What they saw in that felt- distance from a cer- taint’d star through the longings of those fol ding field’ s increa sing hopes to that moment-felt in the nearing light of an eternal truth. Of false expectations Some threads can take the fabric out of its intended designs discolored from misuse And worn down as the range of these pro mising hill s from the breadth of such false expectat ions. If Croce was fat dictatorial and distaste ful for all that’s seen and heard Where does his History of Freedom bring him in. Outgrown my high school days Though the weeds of then en during sense Would have choked this pre-intended bloom. Chest of drawers ca. 1900 Wood carved in a glass- telling view of a world long since deciphered As words written to be privately kept through those touchtelling mo ments of a vanishing time. what we don’t know will be That tense pres- sured blood Tight-clas- ped-in Timed of not yet where. Killing Christ They tried to kill him then to(o) That time in the blood of infant’s cries But now through the dissimula ting word that created Him in the revela tion of the Holy Spirit. Washed out This land’s wash ed out of whatever meaning It could have held through that bloodletting time Soaked in the depths of where con science lost its feeling for in the trivi allties of Changing truths shifting mea nings And the High priest of Baal’s rhythmic urge for a lesser self. Holy night it was so quiet in that night That he could almost hear it thin king out through space to where A choir of star s singing in their brightness enchanted his mind with some thing like a peace Angelically distanced but yet ra diantly near. Israel Being chosen selected specially from all the peoples of the earth to deny their own heritage that the hea then might be told-in the truth of that ever-lasting love. The Shepherds the chosen are the least apparent not in their Way But in His desire s to touch them in the truth of His explicit ly near. The Manger no place to be for one of human-kind They eyed His presence An intruder or their creator As humankind would eye him a bit later. Sectarian Only they seemed to know but exactly the meaning of God’s will and word Dressed in the piety of their thor oughly self- satisfy ing instinct s. Sectarian II That room had too many closed- in window s about it and their fa ding but still angelic apprecia tive smiles As of the childlike in their early 80s Ex peering the wings of their own saving- through Grace. may be a tenta tive uncer tainty of fee ling in to the where of your own imagining self. That sofa display ing the ernbro deries of its newly dressed pre sence As a middle-aged woman eymg-in the wherea bouts for her self-seem ed sense. “Getting down to business’’ may imply that you’re up somewhere else and per haps need those circui tous stairs to wind your selfback down again Or is chat laz iness biding your time a way from the busi ness of where You should be down to(o). Who’s measuring who? if the times are the measure of God’s word Why did He measure us out through the timeless ness of His knowing wisdom. That static landscape standing up to itself as far as the seeing its flat-length ed coldness in view. Colored rolling Ball's colored roll ing through the hands of its round edness from. Aron at age three activa ting more than he can keep from quieting his thoughts back to. Shutter’s closed from their seeing out to a world of darkness prevading eye’s view. Conceit may lower the estimate to your stuck-up self Where comb ing it back down may not please the delicacy for your finger’s grace. Self-importance implies that there’s a self to be important a bout But he judged other s with the standards He’d set for himself As if those other s were there to answer for what He hadn’t made known of their un tried wan- tings. A irport Lights set up to stand witness ing in dark The nowhere out of here that wasn’t there Barbed- wired. Downed It rained my memories down Like leaves fall ing through those overcrowding nights. Nathaniel Pink’s mid-morning Those beauties smi ling back at him to clean his teeth a bit harder Shining up for that mid-morning’s inquis itively mirrored glance for the assur ance that He’s coming well along for a belated stroll with his ne glecting dog. Waking from snow its cool light increa sing aware ness in that feeling-through- dark of why those stars have out told their last glimmer mg sensed for night. Snow melting this hill down in the phrase s of refunding curves and shapes of its shaped for. If hat’s progress we learn by losing what we learned by using But not for an out las ting sense. V\e never know if it’s the last time A call that left her dy ing beside that unused bed. A house lived in through us But not re turned to But what we never know may be know ing us now. For Rosemarie It’s because you’ re always there That I can find my way back to what I’ve always want ed to be - You make the most of me. Unleft The birds have taken all their colors away And left me to the bareness of these wintering wants. 21 Oik Lane '"he vhiteness if that castle- ike-house eemed less so fter this ight powder d snow had re Iressed its ause for stan ling still o long. Early morning swim de teeded the ool of tou hing through he feel )f his bo-lied claims \nd that fresh-tess of think ng tliose :arly morning houghts a- live. These sleepless winds restless with un dreamed thoughts and of the waves sear ching for morning’ s light. Those palms in the soft ness of their flow ing winds have swayed my thought s in sleep. Of lasting time Morning and these wave s have been calmed coming in as the woven thoughts of lasting time. Out at sea Ships far out at sea dis tancing me from myself. Living up your faith alone may be more yours than His who created you and Not you Him in the image of your own devotion. Have you ever asked why these roads extend two direc tions by claim ing the one or even the other It’s like Christ’ s spreading out His arms so far as that un foreseen He knew but these roads seem at time s motionless in their just being passed by. Hunger’s the rage of these cliff s torn from every self- satisfying view these tourists have tucked in their hand- guides Steeped down to that finalized fear ed-in depth s. For our children’s sake What ever our parents made of us may have out lasted its meaning for our children’ s sake. Freed She smiled her wrinkles free to a childlike meaning an eager ness for eyes speaking loud again. Jonah and the Storm Jonah couldn’t sleep his conscience clean as Jesus’ dis ciples in the garden of His fear s We often deny Him by just being the way we are. “He's not quite himself ” implies that that “he’s” and that “self” complement each other as one But what ot that o ther self that seems like whis pering from the shadowed realms of other wiseness Or those in-bal anced sensiti vines that hold to their own way of finding from self out. Holbein the Younger’s “Last Supper” (Basel) Nothing on that table was the way It was meant to be — Pass over seemed here to be passed over from its sym bolic intent Andjudas slouch cd into an ever-prcsence otherwise ness of “Judaic cunning”. Country dining with Ingo and Solvay Somewhere from that near ness of Ven etian overpresent price s And those refuged shadow s that still plague from its past Here in the country side where breathing really takes the air in And taste is opulently enchanced from view. Of re-seeming eyes Watching little crca turcs in the wood with the respecta bility of re-seeming eye s our own inner notion s of word in sense. Romanesque Thicken ed protective walls Assn in mg a lesser height for closed-in prayers to the dark of an in- revealing God surrounding himself with penitant de votions. Up stream As fish swee ping the currents with their flash- for-scaling fins He tried to force him self against those inner tides to his improbably found-for self. Low tide That long flat tcned line ofbeached-in steps Calm ing the wave s in to that smoothed sur face evening out the length to my own clear ing through thought s. Seaside houses These houses framed to the voice of the sea’s listening to their loo king out Con stantly ap pearing. Train stops starting again after the signals have changed As if that train hadn’t all along been taking its stations in Albany New York in that night-glassed image of seeing my child’s eye s through the windows of that unseen dark’ s not reali zing myself from where. Outlasted That house out lasted its time Where others moved wc stayed When others would have built anew That house re peated its wan ting claims on becoming through us Am I (then) that house that didn’t re main? Can you familiarize stone by looking a cross the lake to those distance-seen cities Where the hills glad ly take them up embracing time in place. Moving on This lake’s moving on as a guide book for kno wing where But with the wind’ s transparent meanings and where swans re creating through their whiteness that silent flow from be ing there. At 65 there’s more of sleep becoming of me Cocooned in a closcd-in-silence ofbuttcr fly’s dreams. Ice-cream man changed song But not fla vours Always the same re peating them that he sleep s to the taste of the sound’ s flavour. Than this it can’t get much colder than this down here where Florida’ s buried in the heat of warmed up de sires And winds chilled by evening thoughts. Dolphins presuming another sense of world Between sea and air see king out that language for words. Blue Marlin’ s sanctity in color Only the sea can tell the streaming length of its callings and the plungings of its deepen ing finds. Pre-established presence At the top of these pole’ s pre-estab lishcd prc scncc ofbirds staring out their unseen in-knowing stillness. Osprey Too big fish might weigh them down So they must choose their appetites for somewhat smaller ta kings Asa modest poet’ s for just the righdy weighted words. Can we tame the sea manicured in that touch of shell with domesti eating sails Whitening its expanse with our own pleasuring needs Fished down to the bottom of where these appetite s dwell. Sand Piper’s smallness in quickening feet’s touching the surfac ed imprinting moment’ s needs. Australian pines rising me up to their shaded height’s growth from silenced sway. Dead pelican head buried in the sand from the heights of his climb ing wings and gliding sha dows surveying for fish tee ming in their surfaced glance Now head’s turned in that shallow reach for sand. IWhat man means by freedom as the square ness of that pool defining in the even- armed of those stroking lengths a cer tained and guaranteed course of self- dir ection. (Cmrls The curls of his hair indis tinguished from less- oriented thought s Hanging loose sun-glassed pcrspec tives. When her grandmother died the otic whose heart was bigger than the place where It was meant to be The flo wers were crying And that little girl almost 6 or 7 lost more of her self than any little ness could pos sibly have known. Writing myself wake in the in delible ink of person and page. Seeing it straight as an arrow Quivered in its mark. Starting a poem ’ s like beginn ing yourself All over a gain. “Felt it that way” You may have felt it that way But does the page reveal the same. Criminals if you don’t let them be punished They’ 11 punish you more with their unrc solved guilt. A strange bird not yet map ped out to my sense of name Appearing to a nearness of finding me something more. Because he wasn ’tflying that small blue heron’s thinness in feet Angled an uncertain impression from place. What secrets have these sands buried deeper than the knowing it can tell These broken hopes as shells wash ed up from their dried-down claim s. Moming streetlights as it the dark was still turned on Breeding an unseen fear Reaching through those silent depth s tor night. The slightness of this pen can only touch the out lines ot what I’m meaning tor. This blue shell ringed with the circles It couldn’t con tain A round ness that told for the sea’ s voice per fectly still ed. Helen’s romantic urge (in Howards End) to fulfill her self- deny ing self The way flower s deem their light for a desert setting. Border states All states border on others or a state of mind that can’t quite place its whereabouts from. Self-imaged To believe in God’s be lieving in you isn’t al ways the same. Horseshoes aimed with the eye or hands tightly taught to find in spaced between. Mr. Wilcocks (in Howards End) To own up to what will find you out The hide and seek of life’ s perform mg game. Handyman Whatever went wrong He fixed it back to place Agile with hands eye-minded/de- tailed But his life was out of place Couldn’ t come to grip s to where His eyes seemed helpless ly insecure. The Basses (in Howards End) She caged him in As a parrot celebrating colors She fed with her eyes and bo died kept in. Phil He had a trucker’s strength but mild hands toned down voice quick to a word glimmering his eyes into eager-ed presence. Tempting a smile in that shy ness of an incomplet ed selfsense As if touch could ( signify its own rights Brighten ing you in to that mir rored glance. Falling with Snow These mountains falling with snow the last impres sions from their winter’ s weighted silence. Taking a Measure by myself (Hommagea Wordsworth) I’ve sat under this same tree 30 odd years now with much of myselfbe tween As this lake measur ing out the distance to where these trees comb the otherside in And the same birds or re lated off spring retell ing their mea ning for con tinuing song That time melt s rather than measuring in to my sitting myself out once again. Becoming aware is like those colors coloring me Or the hesitant pull of shadows inside/from. Melting down This snow’s fa ding out Melting sha dows down to those deep treelines dark ly exposed con tinuing growth. Spitzweg: Hunter in the Woods Why did that deer happen to happen Right there with his al most smiling ar ticulation When the hun ter’s mouth stuffed with the sausaged taste of wood ly enclosure s And the nec essary wine to finish off the length of such pro ceedings. Spitzweg: The Butterfly Chaser It couldn’ t possibly be that big His eyes bul ging with wing ed intent But this net smaller than the confines of his irretrie able hopes That the butter fly stood con templadng for a long while the indigenous designs of his own secur ing leisure. “Pouring one’s heart out” The problem with pouring one’s heart out is that even those reinforced damns might breakthrough with too much flooding. Your collared suit but newly starched in with reinforced conclusions. Narrowed That squirrel the one in black narrowing the branch to his slender ness of feet- finding. Through emptied branches a bird sings flowing songs Awakening greeness through those unfolding leaves. Perspectived He was told from various sides As a tailor pinning down for performance. Dream-felt Houses passing through me nrories of having been trans parencies in thought dream-felt. Soundless voice Crystall ed sha dows snow- flaked sound less voice. Only the outside now You’re only the out side now for my having been there White co lumned to those pre-establish ed heights in holding me up from the red brick bright ening my return s into those interior claims drawing me through a close ness ot that familiarly known’s only the outside now passing me by unredeemed hope s of your long forgotten claims on my having been there in leav ing you now as in then. This wording of Have the times changed this wording of Or do we sense and feel the same but need fresh claims in the retelling for. Borderline He was there for Be wildering the inside out of others Until that car hit him down to those be wildering pains through his self’s meaning. Winding a clock up to impulsing his hands with life-like. Would/would?? If she stood up to his taking her down Fist-minded pains Would he be smaller still Backing off frightened through her woman’s deter mining stance Or would he hit her down again through those freely-found instinct s from the strength of prisoning walls. Murky persons inhabiting the lower le vels as in the sea depth’s dark of where light’s re fracted from its clarify ing/glan ced. Of secret, untold meanings Carrying down to the sea The gleam of these Venetian palaces’ unspoken truths cleansed of fears and Their secret untold mean mgs. Enthroned Madonna and Saints (Bellini, 1505, S. Zaccaria) As if there’s nothing left to be said m this im movable perfection of person and place The harmonies of color and sound a-live to that stillness of always be ing there. Afterall Spring may afterall only be flowered because there’s more lightness of mind. Like other ships Friend ship’s like other ships Sail mg an uncertain course Some times quickened for wind or les sened in that lei sured for seeking more If there’ s a harbour here then Why are the anchors so short to reach. Too white These walls too white to be tell ing anything new. Broken out nut-shell as if words could only live when not fully ex posed. Listening for the sounds of flowers growing. Taking leave Funerals’ a ta king leave not of the dead But of our living memories of where He could be told back from. A thirst for words There’s a thirst for words Like the need for splitting wood to that coldness of foretelling hands. Rowers for Ingo The roughness of that wood could only be measured to their ensuring hands-of Boats gli ding past all expecta dons. Unquiets We are all those who read us in differ ing ways The poem un quiets m its stilled-from presence. Strung Those rain-beads budding in their last- told message as the purity of pearl strung from its self-enclos ed meaning. He was so fastidious ly groomed to a cele brated appear ance That it was like china not to be touch ed or even turned a bout those phases illumina ting light Butjust there to be seen as a permanent ly display ed-in item. Nathaniel Pink on the world situation This world may be turning a bout in its pre-described fashions unsettling all that ease of my warm- bathed inclusions — Did you hear it then, there, or any where Now Coloring my semantic thoughts That little ness of bird just fit for its discerning moment. Dresden: 5paintings a) Cranach: Paradise What God created for man took his own way out leaving those animals all alone to people his forelorn hopes. b) Cranach: Fall of Man Equal rights for Adam His own fruit ed touch ed the naked ness of death’s loom ing call. c) Titian: Paying taxes to Caesar You can divide a coin that way The Emperor’ s godly per manence more than touching the surface to Jesus’ undivided re ply. d/e) Rembrandt’s Saskia and Rubens Portrait of a lady There’s a beauty of the flesh so sensu ously recrea ting in that deepening temt for color And the glowing-gold of her hair’ s spelled-in promise But there’s also a beauty beyond defin ing itself in her lighted eyes to some thing more than just seeing there. Child’s eyes He sees me bigger than I am What I know he knows more by not knowing yet the open color of his eyes re colors my sense for see ing so. Wheel-chaired to her help less fin ding feet’ s Eyes rest lessly a bandoned their permanent ly ground- place. Angelic “Getting out ofhand” may imply that your feet aren' t always on the ground. Our background keeps get ting to the forefront of our reali zing in now. Afterglow When color melts in to sound And the stone’ s bright with moon’ s after glow. “Thinking positively” may negate more of what thin king’s all about. Free to do and saying entangled with in his sha dowed-for self. Over voiced That music over voiced his trying to listen in. Unsettled It’s be cause of these small changes that often unsettle us The older we become The more aware of our body’s need s It’s like noticing a bird for the first time Exactly where it sits E ven the ex tent of its song The co loring of its being there And when it starts to fly That’ s where We’re most uncertain for our own balancing measure of things. Passah Haggadah (Passover) It may be that This day is like any o ther day But asking it anew may change the certitude of its being there It’s the asking it that matters Not that day at all Freedom’ s the aware ness of time’ s changing And that’s where God fulfills the meaning of himself. Plain talk's the mid-western e vener Not where moun tains or even hills acquire a beyond-it of a certain sameness where even these flowing fields wind-bound to the breadth of un defined spaced one ness that plain ness for speech. Obscuring These nights ob souring where I can find my self back to. At the Psychoanalysts Dr. W. sat listen ing. Dr. W. longer than his look could appear sedately self-encompassing sat listen ing. Dr. W. attempting a smile that could quite break out from the ser iousness of the situation arose The way Gluck’s heroes do in a semi-operatic sit uation. Self-defining She cut out the odds and ends of making those flowers look pretty again. Caroline Face puppet-round voice a shal lowed sweet ness She wore half-bright ened color s and fear ed the depth s in dark ness Childlike or child ish her 46 year old worn-from keeping smile. “Baldunug Grien’s Crucifixion” (Basel) As if Jesus’ side was only pierced through for Thomas to feel to the wounds of his own self- wanting spirit. Awakening Spring may have brightened his voice from a sha dowless dream. Cross-word puzzles may have crossed his mind’s sha dowing con templa tions. Illmensee’s combed through the wave-length of her re ticent ducks And a slight wind sur- facing the anxieties of these uncertain times Wind en closed Woods beheld The Easter time’s blessing from light. Rembrandt’s “Resurrection” (Munich) Jesus sitting off the sleep He knew was more than death And the Angel of the Lord light-bound that emp tiness of those rock’s encompassing claims. On the Way to Emmaus Have we taken that road to(o) Telling the Lord what He didn’t know of His own salvation Roads can be dark and un certain And we enlighten ed with the certainties of our own self-justi fled meaning s. Painting over gave her a feeling of freshened cleanness as of clothes hanging dry in the indelible sun. Waking through dream as if the sea’s envel oping a tide less forget fulness sur rounded in self as a forelorn boat without a guiding star to find. Ofpromising colors it rained All my ex pectation s away And those fears that tension s find And left a rain- bowed ring a bout of pro mising co lors. Of untold meanings The way you look ed beyond yourself as waves shifting through the tides of un told mea nings. In colored it rained so slightly that you could still hear the in tendons of butterfly wings and that after-view in colored. “Justitia ” She claimed a self-assur ance High to its non-beautified final callings She taught bound through the stature of selfcertainty. Neil I found you back a gain Where ever you were is be ing retold for now. Piano Lesson’s a French im provising theme for those eyed-in touching where sounds. Nathaniel Pink unearthed That ripened smell of some what cloister ed flowers un earthed some of his Finest feelings so much that his Finger’s branched out to that ne cessity oF performing in leafless dance. Overwording if it can’t be put down to to where down is Then over wording’ s like an gelic a floats. Prettiness may pretend to decorate what shouldn’ t be touch ed dee per As a woman orna mented in the cold stones of their na tural light. Sleep wakes me a light Candles of impercep tible quie tilde as waves woven in to a time less shore. Beautifying Flowers may attract bees to their love-find nectar Just by beautifying in their pre- established presence. The example believers should set is of our lost soul The wan derings of a vacant mind As of Abraham through those desert s of yet unreclaimed land. For my dead father, in dialogue 1 knew you knew the stirring of our blood’ s needs for an indetermin ed there Was it that driving unease front our ghet toed past or The Lord’s unrelinguished ed claims for finding us home. Something to hide We all have some thing to hide Most always from our self and if the Neighbour s know it’s coming closer edging in on us Hide and seek’s life’ s game of un founded mea nings. The Holy of holies or that fruit beyond man’s reach which we took for death’ s pleading call’s God’s way of telling us the un told mysteries He’s reclaim ed for our beyond reach. Trying to be humane’s a pulling a gainst man’ s evil nature And if he pulls too fast too far there may be little of himself left for helping. Saddam’s palaces gleamed in the gold of his sunset smiles And the dark of those torture chamber’ s deep in the depth of his unfathomed will for power in ruins now Classically- cat-oriented that ancient culture robbed of the artifacts of what’s past passed. Making us mild Some days make us mild Like that innocent look of childlike uncer tainty whether it’s I or it’s breezy light’s prevading. Roller-Coaster Even if its lan guage may slip from our grasp to those rising stars over heard in plun ging feeling s of where we aren’t returning round for. Mozart’s Flute running through where birds disperse in awareness azur the of contem plating in water’s stillness. Figurative houses climbing from pre-estab lished hills to a finished stance of gathering-in familiar lty. Iraq or that Humpty-Dumpty syndrom Taking the language a part’s only a part of put ting it back together a gain It’s that Humpty-Dumpty syndrom that poets can per form While mili tary means have mostly If The Lord ere ated chaos for the order ing of thing s to becom ing They’re might be a slight glimpse of that left for my teen age daughter. foiled. Schwabian Alb for h. e. What kind of massive sleep have you a toned-through This waiting brooding si lence Rock-held Trees- thought in Climbing the reverence of what’s past by being overheard. Isaac Son of your father Father of your son That transitional nature of man’s non- selective meaning. Meditations on Vermeer She may have pla ced the ob jects of her world in just the way She saw and touch ed them But if o thers did like wise It may not have been her world anymore. 22 Oak Lane No go ing back The house of those first seeings out and knowings somewhere deep Sold to stran gers as if It could be taken away from my gar dened hopes and where the sky still re mains in sum rnered view. That bird would have died in the thicket of its hopeless pleading cries If its voice wasn’t lifted through those saving hands to the in-felt warm th of re gaining flight. Birch-felt The fineness of these leaves birch-felt in moun tain’s protec tive shadow mgs. These bells through solemned clouds shining out sun-told. Samuel quickfaced child Explicit ly blond As the sharpened contours of refining rock’ s certain ed edge. Grammar is mine to express not its laws But in the expressive ness of i- mage crea tings. Outgrown She out grew herself into the shadows of seclu ded silence. Until the Fox came She was as helpless as that muchloved furried rabbit Caged in the satis factions of an ordinary life His mun- chings on car rots and salads much as her distribution of finding friends to keep her in from finding out her helpless lone liness Until one night The Fox came His eyes staring as the moon’s brightening glow His jewell- in-teeth Broke the wirings that held her in that help lessness She couldn’t get out from. Milkweed floating an occas ional sound-lift. Held fast It’s your beauty that holds me fast Despite wea kenings in an aging heart. a butterfly could straigh ten its thoughts out It wouldn’t be as humane as we are. R i vc red He read himself through the river’s tee ming chances of stone-bred lightning caused. Self-Protective Most women want to be cloth ed to a na kedness from themselves The liturgi cal church wrapped in its own self-pro tective tradition s. Rained away it rained that heat away to a cool ness of somewhat self-content ment. Directionless These tracks may be running still But the trains don’ t come direct ionless like intently wait ing for news that’s already past happen ing. Dart game He threw dart s to count his points to their needled insistent hand s quivering in length. So many doors that he couldn’t find the where of finding out the coming back in to. No one to know living in that room where the clock never theless tur ning its time around in visibly de ciphered. The Trenches (World War i) Dug in to the depths of time-number ed deaths unperson ally await mg. “To make the most of it” implies that the most isn’t most ly what we’re making it for. That piano reverent ly polished to those in toned en closures of self-suffi cient stillness. Candles burned down to their co loring length Renewing in formed-re flection. A part of her He was a part of her being her self As an outer face from being confined within. Adam stripe bass fishing This mid-night flood of tide’s moon-eclipsing their striped through run- gleaming- fast. So lined in That room was so lived in That it stopped spea king for itself. Aloneness He inhabited himself in that room of still ed but dis tant houses. Lesser Mark Trying to impress o thers may have left a lesser mark on himself. Sylvia’s way Butter flies flut tering in their ribbon ed estua ries Landing in on sounds. Leafed This green of having been finally form ed for wind’ s chanced-through pleasures. Of darkening Pulling the shade s down’ s another way of darken ing your own sense for night’s self enclosing claims. Scented Rose s darken ing in the rain Leaves spreading out that scent of fal len shadow s. Out blossomed That tree out blossomed itself to a fragrance in being heard. Bigger That car was bigger than she could find of her self sit ting in. After rain there’s a fragrance to touch and the quiet of moon-spell time. 5 Masterpieces in the Alte Pinakothek, a) Resurrected Christ (Rembrandt) Lonely sitting through that waiting corner of death’ s reviving to the light of the Lord’ s angelic callings. b) Wedding Portrait (Rubens) You dressed her all up to that shining splendour of a pose Your poetic love-felt de sires could only secni-in telling as Her touching hand from yours. Munich c) Annunciation (Bouts) That do sed book kept more of my eyes than what that annunci ating angel and Mary could commune of an unopened my stery together ed in- told. d) Vanity (Titian) Her beauty held-in more of your selfadmiration than even those jewels could mirror through a timeless truth. e) Self-Portrait (Diirer as Christ) Those Four Apostels e pically I talianite a cross the way from your intense longing to face into Christ’s fea tures of timeless beauty. Pastel Afternoon with fee lings muted in the soft ness of not even thinking the why or wherefore of. At the Proms two dogs Boston bull black flee ked in-stepped a wareness Sequenced their approa ching feet. Of marbled stone The cold touch of this marbled stone perinea ting sight through transpar ent vein s Awaken ingjoy! Historical length These times over reaching themselves into a now of only just realizing that then. Could mean Thinking flowers smaller than the speaking of touch could mean. Black Cat in garden’ s staring my eyes in to its strange ness seeing through. Its sense from darkness Bird’s co lored song in-tuned from the wood’ s awaken ing through its sense for dark ness. A quiet place where wa ters reflec ting in the stillness of trans parent thoughts. With Corot This in tending blue cloud- touched the nearness of distance s time lessly ap parent. Mass graves That un seen hate Wild fears shot into the blood realizing death’s un buried from their time less grave s. Hate screams impassion ed shadow s. Out spreading Sha dows spread ing this summer gar den’s depth in silenced through. Swing suspend ed to the height of ba lancing- in timed aware ness. Cocktail Party if everyone’ s out to impress the impress ion that’s left — Floating shadows. Dream conscious if this climate changes our attitudes That heat and sun perpetu ate their las ting caused shadow less dream conscious. Chagalls “The desparateJob” He’s bigger than his problems could make him out to be Self-im posed The weight of relentless ly untold. Nathaniel Pink untangled You were more than what was sit ting there Fashioned in that pliant chair of self-as suming comfort s Nat, let’s up it with me as butterfly’s secret ways in changing color s You might have been caught through a tangle of less- prescribing nets. Van der Weyden’s “Annunciation” (Munich) Her fear from hand withheld But the way she said yes as the cloth of her fine ly-told dress touched to that of the angel’s where her purity-white in the lily enclos sed seemedjust quite right. After rain and we sensed our selves nearer to where touch could mean the sha dow of a glance and that cool light reflec ting in-jewell cd through. On Shostakovich Preludes and Fugues op 87 if there’s a range to be ing left a lone to intone your own whereabout s through No public No protests but only the keys of dif ferenti ated in-touch ed dwelling there Soun ded out by hearing in. Tolerance is because However much I know to believe knows more than my knowing it. there’s no longing left That need to be more of what one wasn’t The world’ s lost its shadowing s in. A Form of presence Light’ s a form of presence Performing these trees into a spo ken awareness of being formed from leafed-in’ s awaiting. Muted now Don’t speak too loud now of the dead Because their presence’ s muted now through lifeless a wareness. Flowered Have you been flowered by being dress ed Awaken ing through in scent for color. Familiarity The older one is The more familiar ity recognize s our aging- through need s. It might be the lesser self that deeds it so Or because our times are failing out. Bach dancing to the tune s of his rhy thrnic free-spell ing Impulsed that slender ness of less weighted thoughts for merly column ed in the strength of when The Lord might defend His chosen in need. Master of himself if man’s the master of him self Why isn’ t he more of what he isn’t. Bach may have built on pre- establish ed forms to hold their meanings in Castled thorough ly equipped a gainst those winds in wea thering times. To be pleased’s the way lips assume in smile And eye s have told through in finishing form. Through never more (variations on a Coethian theme) Butter flies over water’s reflec ting glance d them in to that tide less sway ed through never more. Nathaniel Pink’s exposures if you can’t button your shirt in ei ther direction And those co lors may not even match to correct able proce dures Why bring your sensibili ties into play like Hilary Clin ton’s autobio graphing her make-for tears. 4 Squared My glass-framed desk adhering its cut-from spaced defining. Revolving doors While the going in s a going out And he couldn’t cen ter himself to a balanced thereness As if the world was rounded to circling spheres cosmi cally rede fining. Solemned This heat weighs heavy upon my thought s The clouds closing in to a timeless ly now Even the trees breathing down immovably solemned. After taste Has this grass been cut to my instinct for light and left a refresh ingly after taste as that lightness ofbutter fly’s random ly rehears mgs. Because if there’s a weight to shadow It’ s because 1' m sitting so heavily now. A white horse in a green field flowing through the grace of where He’s standing to the beauty of his timely statured. Seamed Moun tains skirting their rimm- ed-find dis tances as the seam of a dressed- in awareness This immobil ity for place. Macbeth — Anatomy of a happy marriage One heart one soul one hand Their works fur thered by a common goal What marriage could equal this for such a u nity of purpose They strived be yond their weak ness to that daring goal In life as in death a oneness our Stratfordian bard has told so picturesque ly unfolding the details of their common mould. Macbeth at Burnham Woods These woods closing in on me En compassing the depths of such a telling darkness The fears of a death I told to un certain hands and heart coming back at me to the beats of their drums sa tisfying in claims against my failing works. Hamlet’s Stagefright was that common cause that kept him from doing the works his father’s death demanded of his tenderness of mind and mostly frigh tened soul That fear of standing to the facts Out right upon a stage higher than his fear ing feet would climb. Erasing memories is like walking on sand in the falling of rain’s telling. Of what isn’t mine Living the room of what isn't mine left at lei death in being Dia logued be yond my sense for seeing speaks imperson ally untold. Colored carpets uplifting why the loo king down’ s can’t re main for place. Lee’s house An aesthetic of light in glassed-through spacedefining that outer glance in garden. A n awayness There was an a wayness of his trying to tell me for true Hand-look somewhere a side from his glanced- inward tell ing eyes. Horse and Rider The horse Carr ying his pride upon a hand-topped hat And the trott ing echo of feet assem bling the thum ping sounds of pre-estab lished heart beats. With the speed of listening by This train with the speed of listening by as stars flourishing to the timeturning of heaven’s in volving heights. Aged with the faith tiredly worn from fingered-down prayer books The pulse in an other life vaguely touched through in meaning. In rhythmic variations This bird’s song repeated in rhythmic var iations might be a way of re minding him self of what he’s remind ing him self for. Beethoven Quartet op 59 No. 2 Was it that tension Or space- creating form Or a Shakespear ian self-told dialogue But controlled to where mea nings stand straight to their being permanent ly upheld. Mendelssohn Quartet op 12 (1st Mut.first and recurring theme) An inner sadness trans parently withheld but repeating in almost whis pering need s As if tou ching through to that some where from your distan cing self. It isn’t what it is But what we’ve ta ken it to mean to be It sits there windowed for a light exposing my view of where I see it less than what it’s sensing out. Insisting These rains keep coming down Insisting on whatever they keep tell ing for Like some persons getting more out of them selves than we would want to be taking in. Thoughts On Sophocle’s Oedipus Rex (6) a) If the blind know because we’re blind in our own see ing out See ing is the be lieving in what we can only know less of. b) Seeing-eye dog Can I (then) scent his world for the length of my own. c) If the God’s have pre-conceiv ed And I am only what they knew more ot Then why have these Greeks made their own un fathomed Gods into what is so humanly formed. d) The Greek “fates” a Christian answer Faith love and hope have outgather cd All the pre conceiveness of my not be ing more than the I I was told to mean. e) If Christ’s the before knowing of All that’s Follow ing Fhm is the where F m not for mine lessening in step. f) Too long ending Why not end it where it should without such pathos Pain speak s more in its saying less. 5 Masterpieces in Berlin a) Guardi That al most unreal faceless world where only light consumes the image of its coming through Waves rest lessly uncer tained/Sensed. b) Canaletto As if Venice wasn’t floating upon the waves of a dreamed- through sur face You established co lumns of self- assuring heights and the respect in mean ingful archi tectural claim s. c) Cranach’s Fall of man Who wasn’ t was it the snake’s whis per or that overbrooding height of his cosmic urge for 2 fruits 2 deaths through the taste of their wanting for more. d) e) Vermeer and DeHooch facing each other though Telling in op posite direc tions The one clarifying in light the ob jects for touching her personed- through The o ther where door and win dows leading out to a space lessness in All consuming light-timed. Numbered His house num bered to his seeing in there As if such a sign could relate to where Steps irrever sibly stand. Quieted down Age should have quieted him down to that pillowed clo sure in rest Or where bird s circling in winds of timeless ly passed. Baldung Grien’s Crucifixion You always had another way with lt/Cross- barked to where It split at His imploring feet’s e longating the weeping Maria’ s sense of our timeless ly told-for sadness. She never grew out of her little girl’ s tears Self- pitying why she hadn’t been loved for more of her own forsaken self. C/1aga IVs Crucifixions As if It was only we He died for Flesh of His flesh Bone of his not being able to be broken through Paschal Lamb’ s freeing in-pained. “Fated”? He couldn’t help being what lie was helplessly more ot. Chagall’s Jeremia Clothed for those blacked-in tears Stone formed to re place that broken-down temple He sat the ageless ness of Israel’ s suffering calls. Words are too many of them selves Like these plural ities of fish Minnowing to surface claims Silver- sensed. Diplomatically cool the clothes for indecis ive words Those doublemeanings in stinctive ly formed to that lipped- in presence of implied com munication s. Where/who Do I sleep in the night Or does that night sleep through me in the darken ing waves en compassing And silence that keeps speaking back into sound less words of dream. Continuing on Period s may seek out their own ending s But the sense of this continu ing on. Rising above But there would be a voice Rising above that other wise oflis tening down Where shells out spoken now Conformed to sand And those gulls repea ting their sha dows of lost moments in the returning seas but Now shallowed for touch. For Rosemarie in Dallas, Texas When you aren’t there 1 can’t fill that space with poem. Looking old’s a question of attitude Time takes its full if we let it wrinkle us in to a submission of You take I’m taken as flowers withered from being looked at to(o) much. 5a hard He pressed the point so hard ’til it broke off. Trusting Why we trust o thers is because We can’t quite find the same in our selves. Open Spaces after a 14th century Chinese master etched- m to that fineness of detailed design What could n’t be answer ed Listening out. “Reality therapy” He detailed his own sense for that being here for now in the lis ting of those warnings and weakening s diminish ing to where He sat and some where outside a bird as yet indecipher able as to form and color sang. Two persons? forO. b. Have you made two per sons of me: poet and priest Can the word be divided then as word and (or) word But through the word was the flesh of His being And the word (the other or samed) creates a lan guage of its own smaller yet but as I try in the love of His creating hand. On his high horse again the sky’s the route Claim ing his heroic stance Saddl ed in self-important bus iness closing s And I felt myself littler than that looking up for. Chassid His beard's rhetor ically gathering us in for the flow of ri vering sounds through the clear wants of his brood ing eyes to be boating us somewhere in the distant realms of a dreamed for past. Such stability Those heavy wooded chest of dra wers Inherited to be kept a live by loo king at Such stability as if the past couldn’t be re moved from now. Unlit candle’ s proper sense for propriety slender ly waxed as these lif ting cheru bic voices to a light that’s angel ically im plied. “Carrying your heart on your shirt sleeve” may seem too heavy there weighed down in so much self-content ment. Too large That space was too large to belong them selves in Only possible with an in crease of self-meaning. Are these plants but dan cing figura tively in twining a space-loved looked. Over-punctuated He over-puncu ated his life More stop s and halffelt starts That he began stuttering-in truths Moses-like. Scholared He scholar ed himself into a carefully kept (Almost meticu loulsy- mindedway of self-pro tective efficiency.) Cooled off for a plastic sense reshaping the depth in shadow. Poetry books by David Jaffin 1) Conformed to Stone, Abelard-Schuman, New York, 1968, London 1970. 2) Emptied Spaces, with an illustration by Jacques Lipschitz, Abelard-Schuman, London 1972. 3) In the Glass of Winter, Abelard-Schuman, London 1975, with an illustration by Mordechai Ardon. 4) As One, The Elizabeth Press, New Rochelle, N. Y. 1975. 5) The Half of a Circle, The Elizabeth Press, New Rochelle, N. Y. 1977. 6) Space of, The Elizabeth Press, New Rochelle, N. Y. 1978. 7) Preceptions, The Elizabeth Press, New Rochelle, N. Y. 1979. 8) For the Finger’s Want of Sound, Shearsman Plymouth, England, 1982. 9) The Density for Color, Shearsman Plymouth, England, 1982. 10) Selected Poems, English/Hebrew, Massada Publishers, Givatyim, Israel, 1982. 11) The Telling of Time, Shearsman, Kentisbeare, England, 2000 +Johannis, Lahr, Germany. 12) That Sense for Meaning, Shearsman, Kentisbeare, England, 2001 +Johannis, Lahr, Germany. 13) Into the timeless Deep, Shearsman, Kentisbeare, England, 2002 +Johannis, Lahr, Germany. 14) A Birth in Seeing, Shearsman, Exeter, England, 2003 +Johannis, Lahr, Germany. 15) Through Lost Silences, Shearsman, Exeter, England, 2004 + Johannis, Lahr, Germany. David Jaffin Poems David Jaffin is a scrupulous weigher and weighter of words, by which I mean that a poem is, for him, always a matter of collaboration with the true spirit of the language. Every word is given its value, neither more nor less. Edward Lucie Smith, on Emptied Spaces David Jaffin's poems are very impressive; there is a real economy of language combined with a subtle evocativeness. David Marshall, Yale University > Jaffin's poetry is as "modernist" as abstract painting while still poetry in the traditional sense, whose purpose is the verbalization of basic human experience and whose form derives from a serious exploration of language ... it is remarkable what depth of experience Jaffin manages to relate through his severely limited vocabulary and imagery. Victor Terras, Brown University Everything about these books underlines the classical nature of Jaffin's art. Language is here refined, pared down an irreducible minimum; each word carries its precise weight in the line ... This is not easy poetry: it is the product of American energy and a Judaic sensibility, it is intelligent and demanding, and it deserves to be read. Michael Butler (University of Birmingham) in Samphire on In the Glass of Winter and As One BK17708854