DREAM FLOW

Poems

David Jaffln

Some of these poems first appeared in Noon (Tokio, Japan)

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-10 1-905700-14-8 (Shearsman Books, UK)

ISBN-13 978-1-905700-14-1 (Shearsman Books, UK)

ISBN 3-501-01525-9 (St.-Johannis-Druckerei, Germany)

Copyright © David Jaffin, June 2006.

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 35787/2006

- Contents

- Charles

- Dream flow

- In coming

- New Orleans: Requiem for a city

- A blind visitor

- When

- The lute

- Deafness

- This cold’

- Dressing out

- The moon

- Unsettled

- Anonymous

- Icicled

- 3 Biblical Persons

- Innocent

- Hommage a Viktor Frankl

- Pussy willow

- Stuttgart: Landesmuseum (3)

- Silver-shined

- Freeing

- A brilliance

- Seeing

- Ghettoed

- Spanish poems

- Chess-board situations

- A single rose

- A sense of protection

- A Humpty-Dumpty

- Dummies

- Frozen landscape

- Nathaniel Pink’s confessions

- My mother at 95

- Theodore

- Melody

- Hades

- Growing old’

- Origins

- White houses

- Where ever

- Scare-crowed

- Horses

- For Michael

- Undertoned

- Low grade

- Impulsed

- Two sides

- Poems from Dallas (for Neil)

- His

- A child’

- That house

- Two ways

- Home-coming 1945

- Chalk-lines (Tolstoi)

- Timed out

- Sylvius Weiss’

- Melting

- Proud

- St. Bernard

- Nathaniel Pink’

- Two drinks were enough

- That twelve-year-old

- Of self-sufficiency

- For Rosemarie

- The same fish

- Divorced

- Some Brahms

- Man on crutches

- “The Jews

- Helmut

- A farewell

- My mother

- Antigone a la Brecht

- Wallace Stevens at the YMHA (early 50s)

- What of Frankl’sfirst wife

- Caravaggio

- Otherwise

- Untouched

- Swings

- Cows

- Cranach’s “Adultress ” (Fulda 1512)

- Fool that I am

- Walking backwards

- Snow late

- Hermited

- Chinese fish

- Vermeer study

- Necklace

- Touch-finds

- If Macke

- Non-judgmental

- So much

- Wooded height

- Hunter’s scent

- St. Francis preaching to the birds (Giotto)

- Vertigo

- Nielsen on his 4th

- Compromising

- The fox’s

- Nathaniel Pink ’

- A professional lady ’

- Thorned branch

- King David’

- Grown old

- Lake reed

- What is or isn’t

- “Who knew notJoseph”

- Suspending

- Out sized

- Darkening shadows

- Icicle-tensed

- Waiting for death ’

- Blood steps

- Flat seeing

- No big theme

- Chalked- in meanings

- Emmanuel Kant’

- Only Christ

- Luther's unfailing voice

- In-purposed

- When Goethe

- John 21

- Worked up

- The slow sway

- Those falling-down stairs

- Rock-privileged

- Off-racing

- Here

- From its other sides

- For Rosemarie

- Dart game’

- Hosea

- The final good

- Sibelius

- Hommage a Homer

- “The Calling of Matthew” ( Caravaggio)

- Nathaniel Pink's moralizing acquisitions

- Nathaniel Pink settled down

- Actor

- Chinese garden’s (for Chung)

- Outlived

- Don’t waken

- Bunchedflowers

- We got here first

- Of winged uncertainties

- Shadow boxing

- Black and white

- Heavy persons

- First

- Buried with his bones

- Only once

- After sense

- These flower

- That white house

- Requiem for the Jews of Poland

- Gatshy land

- Wider

- Solo part

- Circling

- Rope jumping

- Holbein’s Last Supper

- Hung out

- “Can’t quite place”

- A tough way

- A cause

- Their marriage

- Rosemarie

- Cramped

- Pink

- “Don’t let it get you down”

- These bud

- Revealing through

- Pain

- Phantomed

- After a painting (by Tobey)

- Silver-shine

- Tensions

- “Finding oneself ’

- For Rosemarie

- Halloween

- Deaf

- So many

- Revealed

- Two-sided self

- Moving in to dream

- Watering the

- The other side of

- Berries

- Jeremiah’s lamentations

- Niirnberg

- For Rosemarie

- Down below

- St. Sebastian

- Out-used

- Obliqued

- The right words

- Through

- Ghostlike

- “Hodie Christus natus est” (Sweeiinck)

- Florida white

- A 2nd life

- Elegy for Ed

- Closing in

- Old pictures

- To blame?

- What’s familiar

- Quiet poem

- Good marriages

- Scholarship

- J. B. Bury (forA. H.)

- Humanism

- Hotspur’

- At the zoo (4)

- Why they didn’t bomb Auschwitz

- Vermeer

- A kaleidoscope

- The need to spite him

- Darkness

- 28 years later

- Oldfarmer with young woman (Leibi, Frankfurt)

- David playing the harp for Saul

- On the first article of faith

- Moralizing

- Portrait of a lady with

- Nathaniel Pink’

- Emily Dickinson

- Off-keyed sense

- Danger signs

- Vague

- Frost

- After

- Suspicion

- Plato

- Pompous

- The golden rule

- Silencefrom self

- Obsessed

- Crippled

- Proprieties

- For loss

- For being voiced (e. s.)

- Determined look

- In-feared

- Wallace Stevens’ blackbird

- Diffusely lightening

- Margot

- Tightly lit

- For hungerfinds

- Nathaniel Pink

- Nathaniel Pink

- Denial?

- A wildness

- Samuel’s

- An unevened pair

- Disengaged

- Blind-folded

- Such heights

- Cartesian

- Some kind of doctor

- October moon

- Burying the past

- Jericho walls

- Susan

- Thaw

- “He had his day ”

- Timelessly aware

- The other side

- Jewish graveyard (Worms)

- At the end of the track

- At the Christmas time

- To be grieved

- Shadowing in

- Plague ship 1349

- Andersch: Sansibar or that last meaning (6)

- Beyond his seeing why

- Deeper in

- Hieronymus Bosch

- Seymour

- The heaviest

- False modesty’s like

- Intrinsic merits

- Hearse

- Christmas

- Phased out

- Premonitions

- That last remnant

- Empty-shelled

- Old-age home’

- Joseph ’

- Handel’s God

- Blurred

- Closed in

- Awakenings

- It’S

- That tidal wave

- Bi-cyling inclined

- Moralizing’

- By growing

- New Years Eve

- Nathaniel Pink’s no where safe to he here

- “reading, writing ’rithmetic”

- Georges de la Tour (3 paintings)

- Word-switch

- Hommage a Celan

- Flowing

- Relinquished

- Tsunami

- Buddha

- Hopper’

- Village of Scarsdale

- Over-friendly

- Iraq 2004/05

- Across the way

- Where

- Revolving doors

- Open lands

- Stewardess

- Free floating

- Translating

- A lioness

- No exit

- Mellowed

- Outbloomed

- Slow Movement

- Enticing

- Palmed shadows

- At the water’s edge

- Skin-breath

- Quieted

- Those waves

- Man with conical hat

- Nathaniel Pink

- After a painting of Odilon Redon

- As alone as

- Offish-lighting eyes

- Holocaust

- An incident

- The tongues we speak

- Stewardess

- Denials

- Bi-cyling

- That

- Philosopher’

- Advancing on

- For Rosemarie at 66

- What relates

- King David

- Out-jumped

- Wind-sensing

- The sense of

- A room

- The honeyed

- What’s sensed

- It’s the tide

- In your own image

- So slightly sensed

- Pirouetting

- Carl

- With self-imposing silence

- Moon-sensed

- The snake

- City of lights

- Of tidal origins

- After a painting of C. D. Friedrich

- Crab-clawed

- Watching me down

- Gambling ships

- Free-styling world

- “The world’s out of joint” (Shakespeare) This

- Tsunami

- Boats on shore

- Handel

- Those suspicious

- Dream poem

- Other voiced

- Pelican portrait

- The flute

- Duccio: Madonna’s realizing

- Backwaters

- Only the two of us

- Time-telling scars

- Obituaries

- That house of theirs

- Out-directioned

- To(o) detailed

- That crab

- Those clouds

- “A drifter”

- Mud-slides

- Tsunami

- Buying ice-cream

- Horse-trotting scherzi (Beethoven)

- That 3rdgrade chalk

- 6th grade sinners

- All the answers

- 3 English cathedrals

- In-breeding family sense

- Going out with me

- Balancing act

- The meaning for poem’

- Mozart’s pauper grave

- Golden rule

- The stranger

- Suffering

- Sunday

- Pillars

- Dying down

- City of Blood

- When his wife died

- Poet being

- Half-made promises

- Her not yet

- The Barnabas/St. Paul syndrom

- The upstairs

- That slight

- John Marin ’

- Nathaniel Pink

- To(o) distinctly told

- Hand-in-sense

- Catullo’s Grotto (Sirmione)

- Homestead Act

- Far-fetching

- Victory garden

- In-ter-locking

- Too

- Corkscrew Sanctuary

- Encircling

- A snake

- Swamp night

- Hommage aux deux Rousseau

- For Rosemarie

- Sisyphus

- “Playboy of the Western world” (Synge)

- Double-visioned

- Librarian

- Sweetened?

- Harvesting

- A stab in the back

- Two-faced

- Gossip ’

- Owl collection (for Walter)

- Chicago’

- Through others

- Almost lost

- Peter

- That pink dress

- Religious parking lots

- “It was snowing and it was going to snow” (Wallace Stevens) as if

- Signpost

- That ancient

- Seeing

- Hieronymus Bosch

- The Merchant of Venice:

- Internal tides

- Growing old

- Rhymed differently

- Darkens

- Early spring 1945

- Mozart and Monet

- SistineMadonna’ (Raphael)

- Dufay's songs

- Too pretty

- Star-finding dreams

- Prevorst

- Fox

- A parish

- Poems from the Chinese (5) for Chung

- Piano man

- The spirit of the times

- If white’

- In the circusing act

- Father’s ring

- Beaked

- Uncertained

- Even song

Contents

Charles

11

Dream flow

11

In coming New Orleans:

12

Requiem for a city

12

A blind visitor

17

When

18

The lute

22

Deafness

22

This cold’s

22

Dressing out

23

For colorings

23

The moon

23

Unsettled

24

Anonymous

25

Icicled

25

3 Biblical persons

26

Innocent Hommage a

27

Viktor Frankl

28

Haydn’s 99th

28

Pussy willow Stuttgart:

29

Landesmuseum (3)

29

Romeo and Juliet (5)

31

Silver-shined

34

Freeing

35

A brilliance

35

Seeing

35

Ghettoed

36

Spanish poems

36

Chess-board situations

47

A single rose

47

A sense of protection

48

A Humpty-Dumpty

49

Dummies

49

Frozen landscape Nathaniel Pink’s

50

confessions

50

My mother at 95

51

Theodore

52

That white house

Requiem for the Jews

of Poland

Gatsby land

Wider

Solo part

Circling

Rope jumping

Holbein’s Last Supper

Hung out

“Can’t quite place”

A tough way A cause Their marriage Rosemarie Cramped Pink

“Don’t let it get you down” These buds Revealing through Pain

Phantomed After a painting Silver-shine Tensions “Finding oneself’

For Rosemarie

Halloween

Deaf

Retribution So many Revealed Two-sided self Annunciation Moving in to dream Watering the The other side of Berries

Jeremiah’s lamentations

Niirnberg

For Rosemarie

Nassauer Keller

Mary

The Angel

Down below

St. Sebastian

Out-used

156

Obliqued

157

The right words

157

Through

158

Ghostlike

158

“Hodie Christus

natus est”

159

Florida white

159

A 2nd life

160

Elegy for Ed

160

Closing in

161

Old pictures

161

To blame?

161

What’s familiar

162

3 Kings

162

Quiet poem

163

Good marriages

163

Scholarship

163

J. B. Bury

164

Humanism

164

Hotspur’s

165

At the zoo (4)

166

Why they didn’t bomb

Auschwitz

168

Vermeer

168

A kaleidoscope

169

The need to spite him

169

Darkness

170

Passacaglia

171

28 years later

172

Old farmer with young

woman

172

David playing the harp

for Saul

173

On the first article of

faith

174

Moralizing

174

Portrait of a lady with a

dog 175

Nathaniel Pink’s

175

Emily Dickinson

176

Off-keyed sense

177

Danger signs

177

Vague

177

Frost

178

After

178

Suspicion

178

Hieronymus Bosch

204

Seymour

204

The heaviest

204

False modesty’s like

205

Intrinsic merits

206

Hearse

206

Christmas

206

Some kinds

207

How few

207

Phased out

208

Premonitions

209

That last remnant

209

Empty-shelled

209

Old-age home’s

210

Joseph’s

210

Handel’s God

211

The Apostles at Albi

211

Blurred

212

Closed in

212

Awakenings

213

It’s

213

That tidal wave

213

Bi-cyling inclined

214

Moralizing’s

215

By growing

215

New Years Eve

216

Nathaniel Pink’s no

where safe to be here

216

“reading, writing

’rithmetic”

217

Georges de la Tour

217

Word-switch

219

Hommage a Celan

219

Flowing

219

Relinguished

220

Tsunami

220

Buddha

221

Hopper’s

221

Village ofScarsdale

221

Over-friendly

222

Iraq 2004/05

222

Across the way

223

Where

223

Revolving doors

224

Open lands

224

Stewardess

225

Free floating

225

Moon-sensed

246

Translating

225

The snake

247

A lioness

226

City of lights

247

No exit

226

Of tidal origins

247

Mellowed

227

After a painting of

Outbloomed

227

C. D. Friedrich

248

Slow Movement

228

Crab-clawed

248

Enticing

228

Watching me down

249

Palmed shadows

229

Gambling ships

249

At the water’s edge

229

Free-styling world

249

Skin-breath

229

“The world’s out of

Quieted

230

joint”

250

Those waves

230

Tsunami

250

Man with conical hat

230

Boats on shore

251

Nathaniel Pink

231

Handel

251

After a painting of

Sitting out

252

Odilon Rodin

231

Those suspicious

252

As alone as

232

Dream poem

253

Of fish-lighting eyes

232

Other voiced

253

Holocaust

233

Pelican portrait

254

An incident

233

The flute

254

The tongues we speak

234

Duccio: Madonna’s

Stewardess

234

realizing

255

Denials

235

Backwaters

255

Bi-cyling

236

Only the two of us

256

That

236

Time-telling scars

256

Philosopher’s

236

Obituaries

257

Advancing on

237

That house of theirs

257

For Rosemarie at 66

237

Out-directioned

258

What relates

238

To(o) detailed

258

Heaped on

238

That crab

259

King David

239

Those clouds

259

Out-jumped

240

“A drifter”

260

Wind-sensing

240

Mud-slides

260

The sense of

241

Tsunami

261

A room

241

Buying ice-cream

261

The honeyed

242

Horse-trotting scherzi

262

What sensed

242

That 3rd grade chalk

262

It’s the tide

242

6th grade sinners

263

In your own image

243

All the answers

263

Crucifixion

244

3 English cathedrals

263

So slightly sensed

244

In-breeding family sense

265

Pirouetting

245

Going out with me

265

Carl

245

Balancing act

266

With self-imposing

The meaning for poem’s

266

silence

246

Mozart’s pauper grave

267

Golden rule

267

The stranger

268

Suffering

268

Sunday

269

Pillars

269

Dying down

270

City of Blood

270

When his wife died

271

Poet being

271

Half-made promises

272

Her not yet

272

The Barnabas/St. Paul

syndrom

273

The upstairs

273

That slight

274

John Marin’s

274

Nathaniel Pink

274

To(o) distinctly told

275

Hand-in-sense

275

Catullo’s Grotto

276

Homestead Act

277

Far-fetching

277

Victory garden

278

In-ter-locking

278

Too

279

Corkscrew sanctuary

279

Encircling

280

A snake

280

Swamp night

280

Hommage a deux

Rousseau

281

Born out of wedlock

282

For Rosemarie

282

Sisyphus

283

“Playboy of the Western

world”

283

Double-visioned

284

Librarian

284

Sweetened?

285

Harvesting

285

A stab in the back

286

Two faced

287

Gossip’s

287

Owl collection

287

Chicago’s

288

Through others

288

Charles

it’s that

held-in

density

color ing out

As a spi der’s web

intensely

aware.

Dream flow

and the

stars intelling with

the current s of sound

less appear ing’s wave-

washed And how high the

moon’s be coming voic

ed.

In coming

Where

the line be gan he

became only there as

moving sha dows direct

ionless ly timed to

an unknown cause perpet

uating a rhy thm which

wasn’t his continu

ally in co ming.

New Orleans: Requiem for a city

August 2005

a) The damns

have broken The snakes are

out poisoning the waters with their winding through

instinctual dance for a

city afloat with its French

cuisine and Dixie land jazz

No where but water here

It’s that

“as-long-as

it-isn’t-us”

As an arrow bull’s-eyed

to the heart center-

ed-in-sin.

b) The water

s more of my house than

I can con ceive Its ri

sing this window’s depth

from viewed enclosing

most all of time’s out

lasting spell.

c) Under

water city as if lost

from its own shadows a

float o

ver unspoken

houses that cease to

think aloud here only the

silences of snakes and

rats plying their unchar

tered water

s.

d) lost city

washed a way off-map

ped as Pom pei Napolean’

s “center of the world”

he sold off cut down now

from this womb-bred earth

to a sleep less depth

Holding down for its noth

ing ness

call.

e) as their

world’s sinking a

way slow ly in that

doomed after light

as the lower ing of a

coffin’s

time-em

bedded

ness.

J) TheY

wouldn’t return to

their city washed-out

burned-down

plundered to the heart

of its last meanings

On they went as Lot

from being felt-in

the vacan cies of what

they’d left behind.

g) Why

that storm

so sweetly feminine named

turned from the other

side as if Aiming for

the dyck’s holding so

fast for the grace

of life.

h) Not only

people die but houses

too in a unity of

death’s ri sing water

ed claimed-fulfilling

these in-bred height

s from fear.

A blind visitor

a) Darkness

wasn’t dark for him

The always being of what

he always was Day and night

Not the dark ofknowing

us through.

b) The space

of his sens sing out

Where he knew as with the

width of what was telling

him more.

c) He needed

that out of himself for

blindness numbs at the

heart Even the cane press

ed to its in-timed min

ute hands.

When

does sleep

begin through the thought

s of these dream-spread

ing tide s.

d)The seeing-eye-dog

eyed her

way beyond the tapping

of that cane’ s echoing

in for voi ced reced

mgs.

e) His blind ness

opened out

those clo sing from

spaces listen ing for.

j) That waiting chair’

s a person

of itself 4 footed

arm-length s curving a

focus for sitting down’

s transpir ing.

g)V

he couldn’

t see color’ s feeling

out anxie ties That rest

less blood’ s the red

of flowing through

for warmth.

h) He’s looking

straight

beyond my face As if

space couldn' t be kept

between us An intimacy

of not being there.

i) Born dead

to the

not seeing of what it

is but what it isn’t.

j) If our eyes

are telling

to(o) many ways The cen

ter for touch may be lost.

k) Self apparent

He was help

lessly self-apparent

Holding on but guiding

still the message for

a far off calling.

The lute

appealing

to those touched mo

ments of hear ing itself

through.

Deafness

as at

the bottom of the sea’

s creating for tide

less word s.

This cold’

s holding

tight As a hand eyed-

in to where the length

of these veins still

ed.

Dressing out

your window

with a promen ade of sport

ing colors some of those

sun-warmed ex pression

s.

A little

ness of bird’ s emptied

branches’ sense for co

lorings.

The moon

hasn’t

been dis covered be

cause we’ ve landed

there Touch ed its sur

face Explor ed parts of

its feature s Its tides

are still a wakened Seeth

ing the night through with a

mysterious glow the magic

of unheard distances

Listening farther than

even the in ner pulse of

man’s being.

Unsettled

Her hat

looks more frighten

ed than her face un

settled smaller than

she could keep her eye

s from see ing out.

Anonymous

building’

s stone-felt eyes

imperson ally untouch

ed.

Icicled

winter’

s intensing blood’

s cold of A world

defined in the glass

of mirror ed shine.

3 Biblical Persons

a) Isaac

why so

complacent ly normal

After your father would

have sacrifi ced you alive

Didn’t need a therapist

for those nonafflicting

wounds.

b) Blood tears

Jeremiah’

s blood-tear s of a city

and his people at the

mercy of their self-

doomed destruction.

c) Ezekiel

hard as

his stonebracing word’

s command ing a fear

less pose of his people’

s all-consu ming loss.

Innocent

if

children were only as

innocent as their ap

pearing i mage of our

own self-re fleeting

s.

Hommage a Viktor Frankl

I don’t

look for ex cuses

God created me no ex

cuses aside in the flesh

and blood of His ask

ing me out.

Haydn’s 99^' (last mvt.fausse reprise)

You had

me stop to(o) cold

to my breath’ s keyed un

ease Tension ed a final

ity of not-thereness.

Pussy willow

can I

feel the snow melt

ing through your furr

ed escap ing climb

s.

Stuttgart: Landesmuseum (3)

a) Pieta (Vesperbild, 1471)

Mary

matronly strong sprea

ding out her pain in to

the death-pulse of his

hand’s wood ened hold.

b) Mary Cleophas and Alphaeus (Riemenschneider 1505—1510)

The words

She was holding so

self-in

dined Cloth

ed to an adhering face

d timeless repose.

c) Mummied portrait Eirene 40/50 A. D. overeyed her ear ring gaze

where death’s beau

tified in at tending

glance.

the audience old to aging

The love-struck lovers

in the teens of their re

membrance Some yearning

back to that passionate

antitode to daily pains

and needs O thers perhaps

smiling at the strangeness

of such an ill ness without

much hope of a remedial

cure.

Those days younglo

vers needed balconies

of an access ible height

to elude the watching eyes

of parental cares And men

capable of climb ing to the up

per heights of their impassion

ed needs Today other less or

nate ways can be so arranged

And for some love itself

seems so old fashionably

incurable.

Romeo andJuliet (the sacrifice)

Ancient ani

mosities one would think

have found a possible cure

here Exampled in the common

deaths of ro mantic upstart

s In biblical times animals

were sacrific ed instead But

man means it most in self-

immolation.

Romeo andJuliet (the pharmacist)

the pharmacist at odds

with himself Money without

justified means The Re

naissance of the modern

man’s poison ous eluding

eyes turned in to where

that method can be best

found.

Romeo andJuliet (the parents)

the parent’s

choice for a suitable

mate of class wealth and breed

ing their daugh ter to the i

mage

of their own

self-inter

ests.

Silver-shined

An apple

cut to the skin of the

knife’s pee ling blade

silver-shin

ed.

Freeing

Man’s

freeing

himself

from all But that nakedness to self.

A brilliance

The sun’

s calling through a brill

iance of ra diating

Now-snow.

Seeing

has less

to do with

the eyes

than with that focus

ing in for.

Ghettoed

Window

high The ghetto wall

ed her in to a world of

stone shadow s cold glare

of a sun almost dis

tantly appar itioned.

Spanish poems

a) On the way to Valencia

This

land’s as sparsely felt

as the cold winds that in

habit its barren thought

s Moon-telling echoing in for

a stoneless void.

b) Seafront at Alicante

Pictured

more for the winds and the

sailing light s aglow with

those spacious bounds of intelling enclo sures city-

found Rock-con sumed.

c) Spain after the Inquisition

The honor

and purity of their warrior

faith Struck to the bloodlines of their vanishing

strength Cen turies of lost

souls Quixot ically aghast

Shadowed in those desolate

windmills of self-tilting

purposes.

d) Mezquita (Cordoba) This

hollowing out of sound

Columns of triumphal

silence

Distances

of eternal rest time-con

quering.

e) Goya: dog half-buried (Madrid)

More dis

tance than dog That fail

ing of strength consumed in

the depths of a helpless

plea to be heard from a

world that wasn’t lasting

much longer in its not

being for there.

J) Velasquez: The Pope’s barber (Madrid)

You may

have met him around the cor

ner More you than his

position would define

Likeable in his experien

ced looks Modestly just

being there as much as

he could for being only

himself

g) Velasquez: Crucifixion (Madrid)

Jesus alone

on the cross A Catholic

tradition and Protest

ant dogma But with His

hair over co ming that al

most half of his inbending

face The human part of Him

or the mystery of unveiling

godly designs.

h) Murillo: Elieser and Rebecca at the well (Madrid)

The flowing

water of pur ity and life

But a cistern broken through

from its pre serving design From age or meaning

ful use Or per haps where Re

becca would o pen her womb

of the infant Jacob.

i) Autodafe (Toledo) That

square’s more press

ed down now by concern

ing shoes crossing their

daily use Than by the

blood that’ s levelled

deep there And those cries

of faith re sounding in

to a speech less void.

j) Bullfights

Is there a

beauty in blood The glid

ing glance of man’s sover

eign artistry of killing in

to his own brute instinct

s for a plea sing crowd.

k) Penticostal preacher near Madrid

Right down

the middle A performance

that would have had all

those dancing if room pro

vided for Bring ing that roof

down to his 60-year-old-

toe-tops and beneficent

contagious smiling handclaps Whopping it all up

in holy spirits.

I) Ode a Thomas Luis de Victoria

Intervals

of spaced silence

As cathedral’ s stones van

ishing in the vaults of un

reclaim ing height

m) Spain: another view

There’

s more land here than can

people this place The rough

contours as if cut in-to

their tight fea tures passion

ately distinct a self-per

forming sense.

n) Scarlatti and Boccherini

and Spain

still as Euro pean as its

courtly decay would imply Im

porting mu si cal tradition

s as the Eng lish to revive

a deadening spirit for the

heightened meaning of a

cultured

sense.

o) Arriaga

Only Mendels

sohn could have achieved such

a highly classi cal sense at

such a youth ful age

Dead at 20 on Mozart’s birthday The end of why

Spain receded into its folk

loristic

subordinate

culture.

p) Stones of remembrance

If there are

almost no Jew s left Why am

I now leaving stones of re

membrance for what I

can’t envis ion Out-timed

from their suffering A

stranger to their custom

s A living re membrance

to what I haven’ t even for

gotten.

q) Judah Halevi (of Toledo)

Struck

dead at the gates ofjeru

salem Outside his own vision

of return The poet of love

and eternal love Where

Christ died too outplaced as

He was from his own longing

s in time.

r) A question of temperament

Always

quick to that blood-urge

of hastening words As if

the horse was already saddled in pre-determin

ing ven tures.

Chess-board situations

She

always had an answer Knew

how to place persons and sit

uadons in proper perspe

ctive Life for her like a

game depend ing on the

right moves that she most

ly made for others but rare

ly for her self.

A single rose

They left

me a single rose in a

room other wise lifeless

from view But that rose

delicate ly defined

by touch took on in

color my sense for be

ing there.

A sense of protection

He needed

a sense of protection

A house a wardrobe Some

thing to keep him out of

that feeling for shame

(his thought s nakedly o

pen to view)

As a cat

stealth ily creeping

beyond the where of its

viewing it self back.

A Humpty-Dumpty

There’

s too much of me to put

it all back together a

gain A Humpty-Dumpty of my

own wall-sitt ing’s falling

from self.

Dummies

They may

look human But they’re soul

less Dressed up for shop

pers to de cide on dress

ing themselve s in But if

clothes make people Then

those dummie s are reliv

ing themsel ves through

us.

Frozen landscape

teeth-

cold white pressed into perman ent silence

s Here even the earth numb

ed from voice.

Nathaniel Pink’s confessions

Yes, he did

grab that sur realistic

broom-stick from the chim

ney sweep’ s startling

hands and pro pagating e

yes Plunging forward to

where his three-year-old son

had just drop ped his new

shoe into the depth of that

lake’s seem ing stillness

with settled e yes and chanc

ed demeanor waiting as swan

s do to float upon the ease

of such long ing expectat

ions.

My mother at 95

There was

so much of the little

girl about her Even if

she could han die pain and

the loss of what was clo

sest-deared She still li

ked happy end ings Knowing

they mostly didn’t come a

bout that way And prayed to

the Lord I imagine much

as she did 90 years before

That little girl of my dear

est mother.

Theodore

He looked

too official to be true

Upright stead fast A bit

of the Prussian sanctity of

service about his well-groom

ed manners And I never

doubted that almost private

nod of his im plied the

quality of his coming

deeds.

Melody

They called

her “Melody” but most of

her phrases ran rather a

bruptly in-to punctuated

precisions of her teacher

ly look that kept holding

her hands tight in metronomic accou sties.

Hades

If the

world of the dead is a

shadow ed world

without sub stance of

form and flesh floa ting through unreal

thoughts of a tide

less never-for-being

there.

Growing old’

s becoming less Friends

die and there’ s an empti

ness left there as a

house grie ving for loss

We close the shutters

in to an in timate wan

ting for more Even the moon

fading from its apparent

glow as we touch from the

last of flo wers seeming

there our own sense

for loss.

Origins

That

bird didn’ t know its

own colors But owned up

to fluttering pre

ceptions.

White houses

melting

through snow the i

mage of their standing out

there so long.

Where ever

we sat

last night’ s thinking

itself a loud still re

hearsing what hasn’t

been said.

Scare-crowed

poled in

a ground frozen from

such self-assuming as

surances

windless

ly unfelt.

Horses

statued

in snow hill-bound

Speechless ly unmoved.

For Michael

His father’

s train stop ped where he

knew that he’ d be land

scaping more persons than

places A mapp ed-in sensi

bility for words-wants

that touch to the accords

of person While that whistl

ing train could be so

easily pass ing by station

ed for more distancing

needs.

Undertoned

There

was an un touched un

dertone a bout her se

cret quie tudes as a

bird’s spe cially in

volving.

Low grade

film’

s facial pla dtude’s

lifeless i mitation

s As glass ed out butter

flies caught up in their

own motion lessness.

Impulsed

Words have

their own im pulse as

stars light-creating a

universe of space-sensed

intuition

s.

Two sides

a) agrowing-

older-sus

spicious

look as wood s contagious

ly afield Poisoned in

depth some where from the

flow of its childly fa

ced calm.

b) an inno

cent sur prised look

some thing black and

genuine a bout this

As if good nature was a

part of that living nature

itself.

Poems from Dallas (for Neil)

a) At daybreak moon-

dulled light fading through

an enclosing response

of distant ly sullen

clouds.

b) Dallas

It could

have been a reverie

of lights candle-felt

Columned in those stoned

encasement s of up-lif

ting prayer But it was

a strangely overheard

at night in the birth of

a myriad of out-sending

stars.

c) Ives American

with the courtyard’

s flying their patri

otic sensi bilities

low-lined now at war

with those faltering

myths of far-finding and

disenchant ing dreams.

Dallas Art museum 4 Americans

d) Prodigal son (Thomas Hart Benton 1940)

The house

as ruin ed as that

dead-boned life brought

back to a broken-down

car and a hill of slan

ting past re membrance

s.

e) Emma in a blue dress (Bellows 1920s)

neuro

tic color ed blued-

down chair ed exposure

s.

J) Song of the nightingale (Joseph Stella 1917)

as a

song of space-retrieving

light imply ing.

g) Lighthouse hill (Hopper 1927)

Those threa

tening hills cross-section

ed inherent fears Light hou

sed as a man standing a

lone than his breath

could speak.

h) Dallas’

a bi-po

lar city Glassy

sky-scraper’ s reading

through the earth’s woun

ded fields bleeding

from their having been

fears.

i) City dawn

s evasive ly and per

meating As a father

reading through his

child’s storytelling e

yes.

j) Bereft

That lamp

soulless

lyjust

sitting the night

through As a dead-born

child bereft of its mo

ther’s encom passing

needs.

k) “What’s in a name” (Shakespeare)

as the far

out reach of ship’s ply

ing the wa ter’s sound

lessly alive’ s not the

same its be ing there.

1) Death

takes its

time It know s what it

wants never missing its

aim as an archer with bow-quiver ing for place

It decides and not we

Exacting the when and where

of.

m) Dallas sunrise

This city’

s rising out of the

darkness of its be

ing lifted from the

weight of unseen hand

n) Bi-passed

these day

s the center of where it

isn’t circu itously

out-reaching as from the

river’s own self-abandon

ing uncertain ties.

o) The only language

she knew Money As if

persons were bills to be

slipped in to her eye-

slot’s accoun tability and

weighed there according to

size and vene rable appli

cations.

p) Flat city

framed an horizon

ed view outspreading

desert vis tas Indian-

timed under the hoofs of

long-pass ed rhythmic

dried-earth

awakening

s.

q) Turning the page

over’s like

a wave’s un folding to

where it wasn’t expec

ted in be ing.

r) The flag’

s waning low despair

ing of the dead far off

s releasing in blood of

where even winds can’t

tell its co loring high

again.

s) Survivor

denying

a God who didn’t deny

you in the night of

death’s har vesting plea

sures Demoni cally aware

His grasp ing claims

to the depth s of your

out-rooted

self.

t) Transpiring

The elm’

s shelter ing arms over

the concrete silence’ s shadowing down deeper

than where words can be

touched trans piring.

u) Dark light s

in the city’ s vast innum

erable star’ s loneliness

of being so out-spac

ed.

v) Where words

fail Struck to the stare

Anguishly

uncertain

ed.

w) Over-smiling

his deficien cies with a

wealth of bodied

thought

s.

x) Nameless Diag

nosed Paper ed as person

Or branded hot-ironed

for a name less death.

y) City of light s

whisper

ing through glass the un

heard voice of its indwelling darkness.

z) Airport’

s witness

ing a world that wasn’

t theirs to hold As a

mother in

fant in arm

s out-cir cling his un

imagining

thought

s.

aa) All keyed up

for his

rooms open ing out to

those word s of trans

piring view.

bb) As the look of

This wi

thering heat’ s desert

grassed-out city as the

look of a ging uncer

tainties.

cc) The innocence

of that

small dog with his soft

and helpless look touch

ed more than touching

can reveal.

dd) Another realm

Where

has this dark envel

oping another realm’s dis

appearing as at sea

cast-off from star’s

absorbing

light.

His

was that

better know ing kind of

personed

squeezed-in

eyes and an amplitude

of self-in yoking satis

fying conclu sions.

A child’

s eyes

knows more

of what he hasn’t

seen expres sively awa

kened.

That house

bigger than

why the wind s were let

in to its chandelier

s breathed with the cold

of wintered stars could be

shining There its curtains

so immense ly blown from

their person ed touch

ed nothing but emptied

spaces of his mind’s emptied

view That wind’s final

ity of voice.

Two ways

Trying

to walk two ways

in both di rection

s is the still-stand

ing of con fiding

thought

s.

Home-coming 1945

with

out a home to finding

a lost place hollowed

out from re trieving e

choes.

Chalk-lines (Tolstoi)

parallel

to the track s of train

lights in that glaring flood

of night’s war ning for

the beyond of not being

there.

Timed out

The

times over took her

As a race that left

behind for catching up

Until she was timed out

from breath.

Sylvius Weiss’

lute’s

like the voice of an

unborn child strung to

the accords of moonlike awaken ings.

Violin Concerto (Beethoven slow mvt.)

a dialogue of each

lonely in sense

but answer ing that call

to a same ness in re

sponse.

Melting

If

the snow could melt

these word s away dif

fiisely e choing.

s

of inter

twining thoughts A

slender ness of bran

ched design

s.

Proud

She was

proud still A German of

the old school Her face mis

placed from its histori

cal sense And her mind

buried in de cades of grie

ving for a lost past.

St. Bernard

survey

ed more the wave-line

of his out sending

thoughts than those

of the lake he didn’t

see for be ing there.

Nathaniel Pink’

s eyes were

where he wasn’t at the

top of the stairs of to

morrow’s self-illuminating

pristine va lues with his

favorite mor ning bird’s

voiced-in

modulating

colors.

Two drinks were enough

Does one

talk to the minister

before the burial of such

Two drinks were enough

for his young wife’s end

cing prepar adons Now that

flowing in-fol ding call of

haunted flesh to the body

of the earth’ s all-con

suming need s.

That twelve-year-old

who couldn’

t trust his own feelings

Isolated from the warm

th of others and left from

his mother to sweeten his

loneward ways with a hand

full of dollar bills for buy

ing back his lost sense

from self.

Of self-sufficiency

He took to

money His younger wife

to other men A marriage

of self-suffi ciency a

cake of con tinuing sweet

ness for their two seductive

daughters as a trimming

for when the candles dis

creetly lit could silent

ly be blown to rest.

For Rosemarie

Just

looking at your sitting

as you u sually do

with those light-teinted

dream-lined thoughts of

yours Awakens in the near

ness of my sense a close

ness so rare ly refined.

The same fish

What

ever came up the same

fish Head-pop ping for

catch Like some persons

always hook ed on those

same lines for repeating

thoughts.

Stasi (DDR secret police)

Being

watched be cause you’

re the one they’re

finding out

Secret eyes

switched from confi

ding-for voi ces Even those

stolid build ings window

ed through the height of

their eye-seeing you

out.

Schubert (A minor Sonata d 845)

providing

your Viennese classical ere

dentials

Those short mo

fives taken inside or out

Haydnesque without the long

ing beauty of your wave-fold

ing melodic flowing through

untold per spectives

sound-sen

sing.

Divorced

parents

and that small child

more like a train rerouted for the same co

ming and back stations.

Some Brahms

is too

heavy for my taste Like

forcing word s to come out

the way they should

A touch of Mendels

sohnian light ness a deft

clarity of glanced-in

moments as possible anti

dotes.

Man on crutches

one-

legged

Swinging

for an air ed-in

sense for loss.

“The Jews

were getting out ofhand”

then As I was told

Which hand the one that

clenched them to the

deadly grip of their fingering bone?

Helmut

He came

back years later because

he’d never really left

What makes us is where

we start from The rest

are off-shoot s as branch

es from an in-rooted tree

He returned to where

he’d alway s been.

A farewell

Last day

here The winds sailing

in the light ness of their

breezed-

through

thoughts The gulls perpet

uating in dive-catch

response and I time-chang

ing because there’s no

otherwise than that.

My mother

She was

only my mo ther not your

s And your mother not

mine Mother s are most

ly indivis ibly other

wise.

Antigone a la Brecht

IfKreon

becomes a law less dictator

Standing on the firmness

of his own self-equating

statutes And Antigone

pleads for the brother

ly peace of those God-in

sisting claim s What’s left

of Sophocle’ s two-sided

tensions.

New Orleans (apostlude)

Why re

turn to those wood-striken

poverty houses a

city of rape and plunder —

Weimar was once Goethe’s but

now that too-close near

ness to Buchen wald.

Wallace Stevens at the YMHA (early 50s)

Some

times we meet oursel

ves through the voice of

others He told me my

beginning

Realizing

his grasp for words the

image of those elusive

sounds par ting from the

place that time.

What of Frankl’sfirst wife

whored

as she cer tainly was

from the SS to the last

bone of her out-humaned cries Was she the sacrifice for his re birth in mean

ing.

Caravaggio

knifed

him-self in-to the

blood need s of Christ’

s redemp tion.

Philemon and Baucis (for Rosemarie) If we

two could be treed to

gether Hold ing through

with branch es Life-puls

ing our lo ving hands

Swaying with the winds a

timeless ly in accord.

Otherwise

He awoke to

a world that wasn’t his

Strangely

lighted

Nameless ly there

The birds flowing sound

lessly by as fish wa

tered for their turn

ing in Wave-sensed And

he without a certainty

of place and person

ed somewhere otherwise.

Untouched

What her

grandfather did each day

Grasping her down to the

depth of her childlike

cries could n’t take her

soul away Fleshed and

feared as she was Frozen

to the core of her being

childlike still remain

ed Untouch ed even from

his dirt-bred hands.

Swings

hung in

the silence mid-aired

holding tight in-bal

anced wait ing.

Cows

ponderous

ly shadow ed in their

reclining shapes of the

deepening hills so

soundless ly unaware.

Cranach’s “Adultress ” (Fulda 1512)

Two-sided

men in judg ment The one

claiming for her almost

physically wanting The o

ther reflec tively mirror

ing their own impurity

And she calmly frigh

tened with Jesus alone

guiding her through the

pains that death wouldn’

t provide.

Fool that I am

under

writing my own decease

Those moment s pained

as if time were clocked

only in their way of no

way for turn ing back

Quick to un do myself

knotted in just there.

Walking backwards

retrac

ing those vanishing

imprints of why our way’

s have be come so lost

from sight.

Snow late

train’

s levelling-off my thought

s to par allel find

s.

Hermited

He shut

life down on him Hermited

in self con solation

No one left to criticize

Aloned in desolate

self-fulfill

ness.

Chinese fish

over siz ed self-with

holding As if only

those smooth ed-in water

s could be telling the

meanings of their reluct

ant and slow ed down rhy

thmic moving s.

Vermeer study

Can ear

ring’s ovalshaped eyes

brighten the appear

ance of where the inner

glow in re ceding find

s.

Necklace

The sub

tleties of a wordless

necklace strung lithe

ly to the whims of in

ternal ac cords.

Touch-finds

Could

you speak with the les

sening pulse of where

words could only be

heard in their touch-

finds.

If Macke

had lived

through the war Would it

have imbal anced his co

lored through ness for form

That inner harmony of

space despite those bleeding

cries and the guns laying

bare fields of desolate

forelorn

ness.

Non-judgmental

as a throne

without the feet to

secure a pose of self-

imperson ed responsi

bility.

So much

He talked

so much a bout himself

that at the end there

was much more talk

than self a bout him.

Wooded height

s

that keep

climbing my thought

s distant ly approach

ing.

Hunter’s scent

clawed in snow

tightly

pressed

rifle’s shine in the

light of their pursu

ing eyes.

St. Francis preaching to the birds (Giotto)

Why did

those birds come down to

earth assem bling in choir

ed congrega dons when St.

Francis was preaching

such a heaven ly message

Breathing new life into

the creating words of our

Lord’s eternal blessings.

Vertigo

She

lost the ground that

her feet had been tell ing behind Floating

as clouds dream-like without place for holding

farther as only

there.

Nielsen on his 4th

if

music is the only lifetelling art The pulse and

light of it self without

need of sym bol imagery and all those other “as if

s” It’s the only there of

always be coming.

Compromising

much of

his life’ s away as

shadow’s fuss ied in distinctness Until there

was little more to be

telling the why’s out

from him.

The fox’s

nightly

glare of eying-in

star-glance.

Nathaniel Pink ’

s change of clothes in

to imperson ating a due

sense of respec tibility

Those indigen ous colors

flashed his smiles alive

pocketed in hand-

assuring

health-stride

s.

A professional lady ’

s more cloth-

ed-in look than a minis

ter’s apolo getic smile’

s robe-encom passing.

Thorned branch

as the call of wild

birds Grasping for

sun’s reflecting light.

King David’

s too much of having

been given Overcame

the too lit tie of his

wanting for more.

Grown old

This

snow’s grown old from

it’s too much of be

ing seen.

Lake reed

s

with the

watering touch of

bird’s wing ed from re

lease.

What is or isn’t

There’

s still some thing of a

little girl in most women

A continuity of person

or finding back to an

attitude that’ s always

there as a bird claiming

its own right s for the

same branch Or is it more of what isn’t as a reminder

lingering on so hopefully.

“Who knew notJoseph”

Another

pharao pledged to

the storehouses of

his own want s Time-resisting the blood-length

of his pre decessor’

s needs.

Suspending

These

trains keep riding my

nights through Flashing light

s and wheel less sounds

Suspending upon a sea

of wind-re solving

dreams.

Out sized

His

clothes tailored larger

than a per manent fit

making more of him

than he was cut out to

mean.

Darkening shadows

The

snow crea tes darken

ing shadow s growing

the night’ s depth

ed indensity for fear.

Icicle-tensed

Branch

ed shivering cold

icicled-

tensed.

Waiting for death ’

s like

holding to the light

of a candle until it’

s soundless ly waxed

through.

Blood steps

The coming

back’s blood steps

We know that stones are

the echoes that time

tells as church bells ringing

the rites of the resurrect

ed Christ These stones plaster

ed over with the cries of

my desolated people and these

blood steps I take can only

in remember ing Nothing

more than inbeing that.

Flat seeing

train e

clipsed where these

grasses find in

their meanings from green.

No big theme

s

left as a

child’s eye s bigger

than his gassed ball

oon could hold the van

ity of man’ s self-be

lief heaven ly loosed.

Chalked- in meanings

Rains

wash pass ed times a

way as a blackboard

erased from the syl

lables of its chalked-

in meaning s.

Emmanuel Kant’

s Perpetual

Peace Those high ideal

s of man thinking him

selfbeyond

the life and

blood of his indelible

fall.

Only Christ

knew the

meaning of Auschwitz

As he cried over His peo

pie from the hills ofjer

usalem’s tear-descending

infinities.

Luther's unfailing voice

reminds us

that man’s a gainst him

self Lined up for perpet

ual shooting games and de

vastating the fertility

crops of his aids-in wo

men When will he find again

the where of where he

isn’t.

In-purposed

Fruit

still small and hard

Hand-clasp ed to an i

dentity in-purposed.

When Goethe

slowed down

in the flow of his tear

descending s And wasn’t

saddled so high in the

importance

ofbeing

what he was Then a trans

cending clar ity formed

and through-

sensed.

John 21

Why Peter

at his fish ed-from lake

caught no thing except

a lessening of his own

expectat ions Netted

as he should have been

in some dee per and far-

finding

catch-from

Worked up

to the speed

of his own conviction

s As an oil ed machine

fast-run ning to its

dried out and final

ed ends.

The slow sway

of these

trees as some danced-

through

remem

brance s of soft-

light music and the

moon so haun tingly a

live

in glow.

Those falling-down stairs

He never

gave in to age until It

caught up with him on

those falling-down stairs

star-lit but vague

ly assured.

Rock-privileged

if

there’s a purity of

sound the clear birth

as of fresh water’s run ning rock-pri vileged to

its aspir ing hear

says.

Off-racing

He shot

the gun off-racing with

out a pack from behind

ing him.

Here

in the

Black Forest she killed

herself Where the

trees were threatening

down to the gullies of

her mind’s fear Those distant cloud s somberly

atoned roll ing in to

cover the corpse as if

she was only sleeping her

self away.

From its other sides

If you

can’t see a sculpture

from its o ther side’

s rounding in beauti

fying inclin ations why

have we been touch

ed through with these

tacit value s for

thought.

For Rosemarie

always

in that soft blue that

lightens the sky for

my seeing you in the

warmth of what times

us so near.

Dart game’

s the eye of a single

concern That quivering

sense of ar-rowed-in

Sebastian’ s blood-

feathers

framed.

Hosea

whored

into the im purities

of Israel’ s itiner

ate love for a one-seek

ing God.

feet sad

died as if air-bound

Statued in perman

ent ascend ancy.

The final good

If life’

s the final good Why was

Christ born to die all

those deaths that life

couldn’t bear in hold

ing-

For Chloe Levine (age 4 ^2, first poem)

When

eyes see more than lang

uage can ex press There’s

a growing in to the word

that makes us feel a

wholeness of sense.

Sibelius

depthed

in the for ests of his

dark-timed

meanings

But alway s light-edged

to those running stream

s of in-finding sensi

bilities.

Hommage a Homer

The blind

minstraf s opening

eyes to those stringed ac

cords of his Brighten

ing out through the

tides of dis tancing

shores.

“The Calling of Matthew” ( Caravaggio)

No room

could be less spaced

than this drawn in the

calling of a single

moment.

Nathaniel Pink's moralizing acquisitions

Nathaniel

Pink sported himself in

daily acces sories Like his

flourescent tie that tied

him down to a self-impos

ing shininess of shining up

sun-glanced for future and

most certain moralizing

acquisition

s.

Nathaniel Pink settled down

to the confi

dences of his perfumed tea’

s uplifting in scent a

spiritual residue of the

light and ease of his break

fast mint’s after flavor

ings.

Actor

He took

the stage with him So

steadfast ly certain in

stance that foreign eyes

vacated their withdrawal

symptoms.

Chinese garden’s (for Chung)

contempla

ting moment s reflect

ing shiny fish the im

pulses of far-felt

moon-light

ings.

Outlived

She out

lived much ofherself

Couldn’t come back to

the feeling s of times

passing her through.

Don’t waken

the morning

from its sur faced dreams

Guardi-like These over

flowing bird s touching

down to their instincts

for flight And the lake’s

still unheard memoried

from its si lent deep.

Bunchedflowers

closed

hands

light-

in sens

ing.

We got here first

more a stat ue’s claim

of holding on for a

permanen cy of pre

establish ed position

ing.

Of winged uncertainties

This

train’s ra cing in to

an oblivious night of

star-find ing accords

as if wheel ed on a hope

lessness of winged uncer

tain ties.

Shadow boxing

Being for good against

evil I won deredjust

how much of myself was

shadow-box ing that

walled-in

apparition.

Black and white

We knew

the depth of that depriva

tion shackled and chained

from enduring hopes We

marched with you the South

ern route Blood for your

blood But now you’ve shut

us off from not being

oppressed.

Heavy persons

are less of

the danger ous types

So weighted down in

their ponder ous urge for

gravita tional affin

ities.

First

He alway

s thought of himself first

So self-en closed he was

in his indwelling

world of shifting sha

dows and out standing

needs that kept oppres

sing him with their o

ver stanced-in readi

nesses.

Buried with his bones

“The bad’s been buried

with his bones”she

said As if the hurts he caused weren’ t still pain-

ing those who carried

the imprint of his selfexposing stigma.

Only once

I remember

him standing up to him

self to see ing things

as they weren’ t because

he needed to live that

way at peace with a stea

died conscience smoothed o

ver as waves being stilled

from view.

Magritte’s world (October ’05 Beyerle, R iehen/S witzerland)

a) If what is

what isn’t Words decep

tively shadow ing symbol

s of Birds floating the

spaceless ness through

where they aren’t.

b) Advertising man

posters

papering o ver why the

world’s other wiseness

seeming ly through.

c) The wants

of the flesh

Apple-sized Roomed be

yond the taste of touchless

desires.

d) Night visions

restless

dreams Those dark

distant wa ters tide

lessly selfawakening.

e) “The Tomb of the Wrestlers”

wrapped

in the arm s of where

lifeless flo wers in death-

disturbing

scent.

J) “The Month of the Grape-harvest”

All so

different ly alike

Staring ex pression

lessly their ominous u

nity through purpose.

g) “The Seducer II”

Sailing

the waters of its own

color-re leasing time

lessly sk ied through.

h) “The Dominion of Light”

Only the

dark in the intensity

of its o ver sprea

ding power s can keep

such light s artifi

dally confined.

After sense

If words

can be caught in their af

ter sense As a child

running for the leave’

s vacant ness

from sky.

These flower

s

glowing

the night through its

moon-spend ing force.

That white house

across the street where

It’s dissemb ling color

less time s.

Requiem for the Jews of Poland

Weep

ing wind s and the

sorrow ing leave

s such quiet and withhold

ing thought s for a world

that isn’t.

Gatshy land

along the

railway stripe Gawky birds

scratching the black

ness out of their triggering claw ed straight

nesses star ing in.

Wider

Her eyes

wider than her short-

lengthed

thought

s could o pen out.

Solo part

Acting her

self out as a solo vio

lin ranged for space-

stops turn ing timeless

ly about their axis-o

riented.

Circling

He could

n’t find his way back to

as a bird cir cling the

timeless ness of unre

solving

flight.

Rope jumping

Running

off from him self The

way girl’ s rope-jump

their gravi tational

pull.

Holbein’s Last Supper

in Basel

with bread and all the

wrong dish es illustra

ting how un Jewish Christ

and His dis ciples had be

come As if Passover

had really been passed

over here.

Hung out

He hung

so many pic tures on the

wall that that room fill

ed with so much of his

not being there.

“Can’t quite place”

If you

can’t quite place it’

s because it’s sitting

out there Cat-like

self-in

tent.

A tough way

He had

a tough way of looking at

you Grasping your hand to

its boned edge Consum

ing more than he could real

ize in such out-telling

means.

A cause

She alway

s had a cause some

thing to be lieve in

for the o thers who

hadn’t yet realized

the unbend ing length of

her own un

fullfill

ing desire s.

Their marriage

was like

a house re furnished

with renewa ble painting

s over those blemish

ed conceal ing marks of

theirs As if it couldn’t

hold from its own being’

s simply there.

Rosemarie

you’re

that pause in blue

for me The wakening

of unreveal ed world’

s touched for those mo ments in be ing now.

Cramped

His room

cramped in to such short-

findings That even those

windows looking more

in than out.

Pink

un-ner

ved with that out-balan

cing fly’ s irritat

ing the co lors of his

finely spo ken suit

ed his hand s grasping

even deeper Furthering

in for pur pose.

“Don’t let it get you down”

to where

those slimy walls Joseph

couldn’t climb Abandoned

from the depth of their own

cunning self-caused his

helpless ly unheard.

These bud

s finely

touched to the tips of

their finger ing wants.

Revealing through

The min

ute hands of the clock stopped thinking my

way of re vealing

through time-presence.

Pain

took her

longer than She could

hold it out bearing selfhurts time lessly in

despairing.

Phantomed

He didn’

t bother to look his face

in the eyes of where see

ing a phan tom unknown

from being.

After a painting (by Tobey)

All those

commas running the

starts punctuating

in danced re flection

s.

Silver-shine

Swans

drifting the silver-

shine of time’s reflec

ting.

Tensions

Train

late ten sions in

blood That pull the

sounds of where we’

re not go ing getting

there.

“Finding oneself ’

is more

like that game of hide

and seek Wherever

you are isn’t alway

s in being there.

For Rosemarie

You flow

the source of me in

to a melt ing of word

less color s.

Halloween

with cut-

witching eyes and glaring feared-from flame’

s this tense October

night’s search ing through

timeless ly aware.

Deaf

to the word She listen

ed by simply being there

Housed in a faith of

wordless ly communal

prayer.

Retribution (for Manfred Siebald) If the

prodigal son’ s brother was

always true to his father’

s claims But denying a

grace that such justice

would redeem Why have we

meted him out such a harsh

punishment when grace and

love should have spoken a

sweetness of another

kind.

So many

artificial

lights rehear sing the

Christmas season That

whatever star may have

been as invisi ble to most

Now as pro bably then.

Revealed

Why the

other re vealed

Him in a nother way

than our own doesn’t mean

that The Lord isn’t alway

s the same in His being

Two-sided self

Woman

in those day s lived a

two-sided self The one

with inner needs for the flesh And the other clothed

over in re spectable

distancing

s.

Annunciation (Fra Angelico, Florence)

If the flesh-

in-being of Christ was

beyond man’ s comprehen

sion Why was that annuncia

ting angel cho sen to report

such a humane deed When the

sinful nature of man was

beyond the li mits of its

own unfallen purity.

Moving in to dream

is like a

boat with speechless

waves And all those glancing stars heavens above

from their telling

through these time

s of receiv ing winds.

Watering the

windowed

plants with the urge for

light that colors more

than your sensing-from-

dress could be telling.

The other side of

his sneaky looking ar

ound the cor ner way

some person s whisper

in deceit.

Berries

that last in-

tensed touch for color

ed hardened soundless

ly obscured.

Jeremiah’s lamentations

flowering from stone

Chaliced the inquie

tudes of where breath had ceased for light.

Niirnberg

no

where more than here

Cut down to the middle

of where my faith affirm

s/divides Diirer Stoss

and Streicher street

s the imprint of an implor

ing describ ing faith

faithless ly trampled

on/denied.

For Rosemarie

I need

a woman’s voice no one

but yours to tell me that your hair has been

stroked to the fineness of

receding gold and your eye

s somewhere deeper than

I could have known in re

ceiving.

Nassauer Keller (the restaurant)

down

below

medieval

vaults

claiming

for stone I sit

closed off in the lone

liness of being timed

in from here.

Mary (Angel’sgreeting, Veit Stoss, Niirnberg)

That

breath of air encir

cling for voiced an

gelic accord s Hands and

eyes of your s plastic

ally acclaim ing for the

words of not knowing why.

The Angel (Angel’sgreeting, Veit Stoss)

commit

ted to the cross while

proclaiming a birth of

heavenly finds A pur

ity of unremem bered glance

not fallen but raised to this Godtelling at

tunement

flowing

through his unfolding

words of their time

less mean ings.

Down below

a world

under sun-level manmade enclo sures of sha

dowing wall ed silence

s in.

St. Sebastian

pained

with

question

ing meaning s pierced

through a-rows of re

deeming

faith.

Out-used

This

room’s out used from

its child hood remem

brances E ven the ca

lendar’s pa pered over

from pre vious thought

s I dreamed that night

silently at sea and

only the stars to a

waken their gathering

in ofun heard whis

perings.

Obliqued

view

ed scarci ty of light

for bird’ s flight

soundless ly aware.

The right words

She knew

all the right words for

selling her brand of

the faith Marketed one

would hope with an ex

piring date clearly visi

ble for all those uncon

cerned.

Through

Cars

on an emp tied road

Miles of in expressi

ble thought s smoothed

down to space and light and

invisible a wareness

through.

Ghostlike

A city

ghostlike

withheld

in the mist of its not

quite out lining imper

ceptibly.

“Hodie Christus natus est” (Sweeiinck)

as if

Joy could be heard

through the heavenly light

of their chan ting out Cen

turies of fear and dark Here

and now only then.

Florida white

those waving

sands and accumu lating breadth

ofhouses

Angelically

appraising why man’s

been cast off for such

distancing

shores.

A 2nd life

down there

through those out

spreading palms and the

soft winds of gentle de

sires calm ing the waves

in as dreams that ease

through to a satisfac

tion from self.

Elegy for Ed

Can I lis

ten to that same music now

for the way I felt it

would be sen sing you

through A death apart

but still those same re

vealing sound s.

Closing in

The cold’

s closing in for the

singular

whiteness

of that across-the-

way house.

Old pictures

fading

from their being too

often seen.

To blame?

Ami

to blame The fault I couldn’ t have reali zed then

Who knows what we don’t

And if He does Am I

(then) to blame because

He’s reali zing my undis

covered guilt.

What’s familiar

even pain becomes a place

of our own As if pre-

establish ed Until it

leaves us less from be

ing there.

3 KitigS (Guislibertus, Autun) A single touch placed that

star-awak ening eye.

Quiet poem

s the way

birds touch for snow im

pression less form

ing.

Good marriages

are like

double por traits In

time they come to look

that same way.

Scholarship

like most o

ther ships outdates it

self in time Worn from use

its high-fly ing flags at

the last pull ed down to

half-mast.

J. B. Bury (forA. H.)

If the idea

of progress was reduced

to a nothing ness in chance

Your eyes seem as smok

ed in as Napolean’

s at Borodino on his splendid

horse command ing high o

ver an un seen view.

Humanism

without a

faith in man’ s tempering

his nature’ s like be

lieving that stuffed once-

wild-animal s could a

gain inhabit our own in-

natured fear s.

Hotspur’

on the scent

of where his horses can’t

be holding themselves

back Sniff ing their

used-for pow derkeg Noth

ing’s the more of do

ing it now.

At the zoo (4)

a) The lion

stolid in

the certain ty of his

calling The Grand Rabbi

defending land and law

He sits im penally

profound.

b) The giant turtle to the slow

steps of his post-viennese

waltz carried along with

pre-prepared

long-timed

rental hous ing.

c) The brown bear

stumbling

the stones of his bod

ily sancti tudes Weight

ed to a shy and essenti

ally self-withdrawn

appearance.

d) The giraff

with a dig

nity that only such height

s could en vision Envel

oping leaves from their

delicacy of long-tongued

apprecia

tions.

Why they didn’t bomb Auschwitz

when they could and they

knew Jewish life’s cheap

these days Not even a fence

to defend and perhaps worth

a little clean sing soap and

those left o ver shoes you

wouldn’t even want to fit

for your own.

Vermeer

knew only

that room Its enclosed

soundings for a portrai

ture of place and that odd

touch of thing s But it

was a world big enough

to be telling all of him

self through.

A kaleidoscope

can turn the meanings

of its world around until

you’re touch ing into the

timeless ness of where

space continue s to sound

out signals of its las

ting fragmen tary design

s.

The need to spite him

She had

the need to spite him

As a spitting stone

the venomous eyes of a

snake’s re coiling glance

That stung to the heart of

her bleed ing wounds.

Darkness

Can I see

darkness or seeing through

it sees me Spaces increa

ses into a sense of feel

ing as if a live the way

the sea sing s Darkness en

compasses

releases

transparent

ly-

Passacaglia (Ravel’spiano trio Beaux Arts Trio) I was

waiting to be moved

Eyes prepared to close Hands

almost feeling for their folded

ness But first that alighting

surprise Press ler calling out

the first move ment as if It

was why we were there for be

ing Light-shimmering unexpec

ted Those un known depths of

why forests have always been

calling us in for.

28 years later

It still

hangs there 28 years later

The warrant of their own de

cease A parish dying without

the youth they wrote off

through their own moralizing

terms Papered instead of

personed Self-justifying word

s engraved in to those last

ing tomb-ston ed silences.

Oldfarmer with young woman (Leibi, Frankfurt)

an unequal

pair an ag ing theme

with hands caused from work and eye s curving in

to that same superior

sense of what’ s achieved

at the other’ s cost through

an ageless u nity of design.

David playing the harp for Saul

(Rembrandt, Frankfurt)

Two kings

from the same hands annoint

ed The one at tuned to the

music of his soul Finger

s touching in to the

light of sound s increasing

ly felt The o ther fixed on

his spear Face intent to the

evil of his deadly designs.

On the first article of faith

Do you sup

pose The Lord completed

his creating work to let

it all run on its own

As a train ra cing through

an unfathom ed darkness

uncharted

conductor

less while un limitedly en

dangered.

Moralizing

is a way

of thinking oneself

better than one is.

Portrait of a lady with

a dog (Pontormo)

He was

most afraid of himself

The death of him he saw

mirrored in her un

timely pos ed.

Nathaniel Pink’

s day off

from himself Second Tuesday

from the depth of such presupposing dis tances Beach

slippers sil ver threaded

and night-fish ing hat in

supportive roles Combing

the beach for altruent shell

s and those clasping

sounds of energising rock-

surface’s free ing.

Emily Dickinson

obscure

ly closet ed-in sur

prising thoughts as

flowers pick ed from their

undue bright ness wan

ting for word s.

Off-keyed sense

That off-

keyed sense Oblique

ly as fingers inde

termina bly defin

ing.

Danger signs

On-the-look-

out Danger signs As the

imprinting

blackness

of claws on her snow-

whiteness of mind.

Vague

ly trans

piring Smoke air-

sensed.

Frost

from the

glance of stars

crystall

ed.

After

sounds

of the wind and the

snow’s see king for

likeness.

Suspicion

hardened

into fact As that small

uncolored fish in those

dark and murky water

s aimed its poisonous

tongue right at where

you immova bly couldn’

t get away

helpless ly staring

there for the needs for

safety.

Plato

kept his poetic self

out of his own kingdom

in the dark of that

cave’s pro longing

depth.

Pompous

is when

those cush ions are sea

ted higher than your

own indul ging self.

The golden rule

Even if

the golden rule could

span as a bridge We’d

need to walk backwards

in finding ourselves

there.

Silencefrom self

That mystic

silence from self

comes only when listen

ing’s harder.

Obsessed

Fear

took ahold of where

he wanted for seeing

Gasp

ing sounds

as a ship gutted from

landing

rights.

Reversed roles (in memory K. R.)

We rever

sed roles As a train

on parallel tracks with

its never crossing-o

ver endless ly distanc

ed to find ourselves

where the other had

started out from.

Crippled

She was crip

pled to a chair of hs

tening through for the pur

ity of un spoken sound

Proprieties

He was

mostly dress ed in with

a collared whiteness

for the pro prieties

ofbeing so seen.

For loss

Sadness

framed his face for

loss The line s broken

through his holding back

as if stagger ing from his

child’s death down those

deepening hills that

couldn’t hold her back.

for him.

For being voiced (e. s.)

Can you

play those tones back

fingering to their

first sen sed- in mea

nings of why you’re

reclaiming a timeless

ness for be ing voiced.

Determined look

of having

outlast ed what

ever his hands were

clutching so tight-

tensed for.

In-feared

The out

side of that house so of

ten curtain ed with fear

s of seeing in to Where

it might be looking back

from us.

Wallace Stevens’ blackbird

There’s

Wallace Steven s’ blackbird

staring through the

cedar limbs A conviction

of irrepres sible selfcertainty.

Diffusely lightening

The snow’

s diffuse ly lighten

ing why she needed brigh

ter clothes for telling

it all

through.

Margot

Her husband

died sudden ly Injected

with contras ting colors

as she be came a contrast

to herself a re

plica of him High-

horsed Saddl ed in mount

ing political conviction

Tightly lit

Are these stars tightly lit frozen down

As a candle turned cold

from incessant convictions.

For hungerfinds

Imprinted

in the rook’ s claw

that density for hunger-

finds.

Nathaniel Pink

cold down to that boot

ed icicled underpath

of such re dundant mean

ings He chose in his u

sual refined manner a tie

to match His smile beguil

ing that pleni tude of land

scaping per spective

s.

Nathaniel Pink

branched

through a profusion

of entang ling thought

s Bird encom passing

contempla tive dance-

perspective s with the moon

shadowing all that presupposing night through.

Denial?

She

tried look ing away

from what she was thin

king in A1 most retell

ing the out side’s of

seeing there.

A wildness

in his

glaring

two-sided

eyes couldn’ t touch to

a center ness there.

Samuel’s

choice of

two evils Himself caught

in the crosscurrents of

sin A king that Israel

shouldn’t bear or his

disobedient sons for ta

king his di vine place

Only prayer brought him back to the answering

God.

An unevened pair

from the op

posite sides of where

they met As those Dan

bury bands of Ives’ youth

Clashing in bronzed aware

ness Polyton ed shining

the sun’s up wards for

a self-deter mining glan

ced.

Disengaged

from herself

She was more like that

blackness

ofbird’s

seeking for its far-off

shadowing

s.

Blind-folded

as if

the dark

was seeing

her through for touch

ing it back in view of

realizing

spaced.

Such heights

Maybe

the devil knows more

of his self-deceiving

heights

Where we can

only stutter out in awe

of such trans cending tempta

tions without The Christ

clothed in his clouds of

purifying

deeds.

Cartesian

He ques

tioned every thing except

himself As a house

bared of all its furnish

ings with but a single light

shadowed within its

own persis ting glow.

Some kind of doctor

They blooded his unborn baby

with his girl friend’s pa

thetic cries for life

So he took to doing it

better Anti septically

precision-ed in pain.

October moon

alarmed

in light The density

of unheard silences

Deep in the wooded glow

ofbestial eye’s through-

finding.

Burying the past

Can one

bury the past with the bone

s of unrecon ciled guilt

Those flesh ed out cries

and that high-booted stanc

ed in super ior pose.

Jericho walls

Israel

ghettoed in with the

hands of its own making

Jericho walls to be blast

ed down at those shrill

cries of the trumpet’

s final call.

Susan

You could

see she was stronger

felt than those sweeten

ed implying eyes would re

veal As an arm-chair

cushioned for its intrinsi

cally soften ing effect

s.

Thaw

gracious

ly mild As wind’s sof

tening flesh and touch

that could hear itself a

gain percep tively

awakened.

“He had his day ”

they said But the night

seemed Ion ger than that

And those dreams as prehistoric crea tures ascend

ing from a never-to-be

finding sea.

Timelessly aware

Images re

main Even the voiced si

lence of her face Smiling

as if time lessly a

ware.

The other side

of where

he wasn’t Fenced for

a touching view bare

ly distin guished.

Jewish graveyard (Worms)

Those

stones long worn down

from the look ofin-deciph

ering hands Touching to

the lasting depth of

their protec tive silence.

At the end of the track

It was

at the end of the track

Standing his own length

for a train that couldn’

t be telling more.

At the Christmas time

trans

parancies of snow

healing the wounds of

this naked ly-kept-land

Concealing where even

the pains have touched

deeper down than

that tense cold could

reveal.

To be grieved

with those same mistake

s that keep reminding

as wounds re-opened

blood-in

censed.

Shadowing in

If you

look to see what other

s see of your shadow

ing in from self.

Plague ship 1349

a drift

without waves to

verify its course 312

dead cover ing the realm

s of its lifeless

body Rats at the helm

teethed into putrify

ing flesh Harbouring

manlessly a drift with

out any length of cause.

in sight.

Andersch: Sansibar or that last meaning (6)

a) Gregor

If there’s nothing left to

believe in It’ s that “nothing

left” that frees us to witness

why life itself s worth believ

ing.

b) The priest

If there’s

only a distant inscrutable

God and the words left be

hind fast in Satan’s fateful

grasp Why did Christ envelope

all that near ness to Him

at the cross As forsaken

and destitute as we all are

without.

c) The youngster

stopped and turned

back from all his dreams

When he could have gone on

to save a nother who

couldn’t dream

at all.

d) Judith Levin God

delivers those he chose e

ven out of the lion’s mouth

or the nets of Satan’s all

seemingly

scope.

e) Knudsen

redeemed

by a love that held him

even tighter than that

coarse wooden ed boat could

conceive.

J) Barlach’s "Cloisterstudent”

not in the image of God

but The one who wanders with

his people of The Book out

side the realm s of what

sanctuaries can hold.

Beyond his seeing why

As a fisher

man’s watch for a presupposing fish And those

waves gliding so ever soft

ly beyond his range for

seeing why.

Deeper in

There’s

too much of my father

in me Looking back from his

death As I shovelled

those last stones in dee

per than I could be call

ing him back from.

Hieronymus Bosch

deviled

the holy stor ies with the

myth of a pre-established

evil Transcen ding in whis

pering words a lordless

creation.

Seymour

his glasses fit him small

er Pressing to the lesser

print of im-personed

beings.

The heaviest

What

weighes the heaviest on

filial affec tions is

seeing one’ s own weak

nesses living down the

ways of one’ s children.

False modesty’s like

most always sitting in

the last row Hair bound to

a knotted o-bedience

Hands fold ing something

more of self than of prayer

She sat just that way with

her most al ways know

ingly nod ding approval.

Intrinsic merits

Checking

the cost of presents is

like valuing a gift on

the intrin sic merits

of money-minded

ness.

Hearse

black smart

and sleekly moving to

a long-shap ing look

of inward be nevolence.

Christmas

with al

most all its white

ness wash ed away and

leaving us almost na kedly un told.

Some kinds

of sweet

ness have a sting about

them As those honey-flavor

ed bees And your overdone smile’ s blemish

ed that way to(o).

were pun

ished who punished the

innocence of others

Firing-squad

tribunals

now turned in to those

peace-abiding Mengele trac

tors clearing blood-ridden

fields for the fresh smell

of plowed-through wheat

and the smil ing graces of

distribu ting family

morning break fasts.

Phased out

Cities

of white houses Sandstretching illumina

tions of Why these imprints in sand so quick

ly phased out

from sight.

Premonitions

most al

ways deep and darkening

through Fore bodings of

why those birds harvest

ed in the black of cir

ling an un seen aware

ness of.

That last remnant

of snow As a bird’

s voice may be left

for listen ing hesitant

ly aware.

Empty-shelled

Doors

may signi fy a house

Shiny knob bed cleansed-

in wood grain ed oriented

for a touch ed silence

to the no where yet of

opening out Empty-shell

ed.

Old-age home’

s shadow

s speaking louder Christ

mas-time’ s lights over

heard their nearness

for loss.

Joseph ’

s being married to

a Madonna must have

sainted his inner

urgings

to(o).

Handel’s God

fashion ed out of

imperish able stone

Has much of those lordly

claims in spiring a

genuine fear of His all-

assuming

judgment.

The Apostles at Albi (Georges de la Tour)

If you

left nature behind You

told us

more of what

it implies in the sparse

ness of man’ s delinea

ting uncer tainties.

Blurred

window

view of an after

thought

indistin

ct forms what we

thought might be wasn’t.

Closed in

She

was closed in her out

wanting self That even

the doors locked be

hind in sha dowed aware

ness.

Awakenings

Snow

through the night dri

fting star s and the

dreams of timeless

awakening

s.

It’S

those

surprising

uncertain

ties that un balances

us back for place.

That tidal wave

heighten

ed well be yond the com

forts of such tropical

shores With those soft

breezy winds so self-assur

ing calming all of our

outer needs It came

as a giant struggling

for death Goya-like

from the fired furnaces

of its all-consuming

wanting greed.

Bi-cyling inclined

A man

turning a round his bi

cyling in dined

thoughts Until the

snow eases him back

from view.

Moralizing’

s that self-

portrait You’ve fram

ed just right for a

nother With your own out-

featuring Such glowing-

through self appearan

ces.

By growing

The night

stood word lessly there

Stripped of all its mean

ings windless timeless

growing for its instinct

in stars.

New Years Eve

in Times

Square riotous ly lit

pulveriz ing effect

s War-crack-ling candles

stacatto ed in-to

dawn-phas ing silence

s.

Nathaniel Pink’s no where safe to he here

floods e

ruptions Sea animals

abound trying to get

away mirror ing from

in a premeditated

dawn And where have all those

stars been lif ting out from.

“reading, writing ’rithmetic”

but Miss Dud ley’s strictly

facing it my way all

the number s wrong Eye-

balled me to smaller

spellings-

stut-

tered at her immaculate

glance back-treading.

Georges de la Tour (3 paintings)

a) That Nativity

Never

was a light as still as

this And a voice so quiet

ly told through those hands

of in-reced ing darkness.

b) Mary Magdalene

A skull

touched-

from-view

mirror re fleeting

where your eyes had once

sought for the beauty of

hair-fold ing phrase

s And that sensed-envel

oping dark ness.

c) Gypsy sounds

Her eyes

turned the o ther way

round of in side out’

s appearing touch dissemb

ling as if through cloth-

spokening

s.

Word-switch

signall

ed light knife glanc

ing star’ s edge.

Hommage a Celan

Words

cut-stone

fissures

Breath un spoken irri

descent.

Flowing

The soft

ness of your cheeks

as the moun tain’s white

nesses flowing in to the

valleys of my hand.

Relinquished

if I

heard my selfin a

nother’s voice those

sound-currents of re

versible i dentities.

Tsunami

The sea

bursting through its

depth of bottomness

A vulture hungry for

boned-

in-frame

Ribbed be yond those

fleshy wave s pulsing

through in blood.

Buddha

untouch

ed from his contempla

ting the no thingness

as of cloud s self-trans

forming.

Hopper’

s silence speak

ing louder Intensing

space That even wood’

s soundless ly apparent.

Village of Scarsdale

at dawn’

s lifting al most weight

lessly from the shadow

s of its in dining

ease.

Over-friendly

that door

man’s pro truding smile

d his arms into obses

sively gestured.

Iraq 2004/05

In

side the hor net’s nest

Head-out appearing in

stinging

brightness.

Across the way

from 50 Pop

ham so many windows loo

king out transforming

views That it must have

been Noah’ s ark out

there animal ed with such

transpiring

awareness

Where

do we go from not be

ing here Yet those san

died virtue s of smooth

ed under currents.

Revolving doors

She

got out the front door

Gestapo through the

back A house may prove

such a depth of distan

cing revolv ing door

s.

Open lands

not yet

growth by more than

shrub and scent’

s touch of just those

ground-root’ s emerg

ing.

Stewardess

rolling

out carbona ted smile

s Pretzel snaps up-sea

ting edged-in taste.

Free floating

spiri

tuality as clouds

horizon ed out

from view.

Translating

You

can’t trans late a bridge

across to the o ther side

Both ends only meet if

the middle’ s redefin

ing.

A lioness

protec

ting her grown-up

child Was she of stone

guarding the entrance

to what might hurt

her in him.

No exit

if

there’s no exit a labyr

inth of lost possibili

ties As the blind sear

ching for where

i

eyes can’t be finding in

even out.

Mellowed

She’

d mellowed as Adam and

Eve’s apple’ s outgrown

its or iginal fla

vour.

Outbloomed

Flowers

outbloom ed to this

darkened

morning’

s search for a fading

light as a dead child

wanting for the love

of increa sing grow

th.

Slow Movement

(Carl Maria v. Weber Clarinet Quintet op 34) as if

the clarinet could lower

its embrac ing tone

to the out going of the

tide’s search ing sunset

s a time barely touch

ed unvoiced from the

depth of its lasting still

ness.

Enticing

Herjewell

ed presence Enticing

the glow of distant

stars.

Palmed shadows

surfac

inga

depth

in water ed aware

ness.

At the water’s edge

Small

birds at the water’s

edge

their touch

ed-in gather ing for the

whiteness of shells.

Skin-breath

Flori

dian winds surfacing

for sound’ s skin-

breath.

Quieted

Those pain

tings walled in the dark

of their sleep less nights

quieted now subdued

through the waking tide

s for dawn.

Those waves

reaching

in for shore as if drawn

through from unseen

hands distant ly voiced.

Man with conical hat

He stood

at the top of his see

ing out A man with his

conical hat Praising up

for such pro mising view

s.

Nathaniel Pink

would have said yes

to why the whiteness

of those birds kept fluttering him a bout that e

ven his shirt sleeves un

easied palpi tating in the

rhythmic urge of

sun-bred

choirs.

After a painting of Odilon Redon

Far

off hori

zoned from view

The voiced sails dis

tantly con fining Where

the boat’s only a word

for its tide less flowing

through for sound.

As alone as

He sat

for his wife less chair

as alone as the thinness

of his boned-in frame’

s staring out from.

Offish-lighting eyes

The tide

s of this bottom

less sea Where dark’

s the all

night aware

ness of fishlighting

eyes.

Holocaust

blocked

her from understand

ing her na tive tongue

Only the shells of

words couldn’ t speak her

aloud again.

An incident

She was

only an in cident

for his re membering

of her hair-felt color

s and a coy

smile her

lips of selfsensing ex

pressive

ness.

The tongues we speak

Are the

tongues we speak the

voices our parents have

told us-imi taring Or

the inflec tions of our

landscaping

instincts

for sounds.

Stewardess

ran out

of smiles Too many

handouts to keep her

automati cally machine-

liked face from coming

out for more.

Denials

We all

need den ials against

ourselves It could be the

outer walls of a city

Or the inner protective

stability of standing

up to(o) And when that’

s all broken down we’re as

nakedly left The tsunami’

s claims flood ing through

the heart and sense of such

self-imposing

denials.

Bi-cyling

the flat

ness of the sands to those

smoothed

touched-in

self-appear

ances.

That

little

ness of bird fluttering for wing s as if re

creating in color

ed sound s.

Philosopher’

s not see

ing what he’ s looking

out for Star ing a time

less imper manency As

if the sea’ s but mir

roring his own sense

from view.

Advancing on

He was a

fraid of the life he kept

advancing on Strident

ly self-assur ing as a

conqueror with all those

troops he could amass

for the final

overcoming

from the realm s of self.

For Rosemarie at 66

She loved me out of my

self air-bound as if

the heaven s were trans

parently

ours.

What relates

Culture

is not what begins but

what relates Shakespeare

needed his sources to(o)

But what if this sky

stopped see ing me back

Or roses bled from to(o)

much inter nal meaning

s.

She

heaped on so much fat

tinesses As mounds of

sand-waving

persuasion

s With those in-dwelling

of eyes as ’potomuss’

twinkling

ear-resonan

ces.

King David

Even

a king need s to learn

what he can’ t Proclaim

ing a justice beyond his

own instinct ual needs

the law and that of The

Lord’s a li mit to his

limitless

warnings

for more.

Out-jumped

He out

jumped him self as a

frog that would be get

ting himself there even be

fore his feet could

find their going’s out

from.

Wind-sensing

Those

space less out

findings of where the

pelican’ s wings and

through-sound’s windsensing.

The sense of

taste sub

tly enhan cing a rich

ness beyond those del

ving inade quencies

of word.

A room

of artifi

cial flower s That what

she touched wasn’t an

swering back Her finger

s faded from pulse and

her face dried to the

surface of such impervi

ous appear ances.

The honeyed

bee per

fumed with desiring

colors.

What’s sensed

is more

than one thinks As a

child’s a loneli

ness from the encircling

voice of its mother’s felt-

out for nearness.

It’s the tide

s

that’

s created the marlin’s

sweeping sounds The

blue of its plunging

phrasing depths and

the moon creative

ly alive to its light

ning strength.

In your own image

IfJesus

was created in our own

image: German French black

and even the route to a

nother gender What would be

left of the Jew and the

biblical as surance of

His messian ic promise

s.

Crucifixion (Stefan Lochner, Cologne)

beauti

lying the poetry of

person Each with the sym

bol of his own meaning

And Christ a lone on the

cross almost too pretty

to be blem ished through

with blood.

So slightly sensed

These

flowers so slight

ly sensed the yellow

of their out bringing

colors.

Pirouetting

Like a

ballerina

pirouet

ting a light ness of touch

ed toe’s ex tending for

the world’s lengthed-

in meaning s.

Carl

from Ohio

had that far out view of

things Bi nocular

ed eyes where the ships

were sea-high from view

as if record ing his past

to an intense closeness

in percept ion.

With self-imposing silence

The out

going sun’ s drawing

the sea in with its tide

s of emptied response

left the beach es bare and

flatly lit As if person

ed in with self-imposing

silence.

Moon-sensed

Are these

palms ’wake in the night

Brushed by the darkness

es of wind’ s flowing

in for dis tant waves

moon-sensed.

The snake

revell

ed in vene mous glance

its cold instinct

for pain.

City of lights

glass-

felt wave s distan cing boats gliding in

soundless ly aware.

Of tidal origins

where

the fish in this wondrous

night moon-brighten

ing alive rhythmi

cally sens ed.

After a painting of C. D. Friedrich

On the rock

s standing to that sea’

s witness ing the ri

sing of the moon as if

lifted from the depth of

their own in-telling

darknesses.

Crab-clawed

Too close

to be shell ed in for

safety Crab-clawed from

that other’ s out-try

ing voice.

Watching me down

Some

times I think these stars

are watching me down Asa

candle lit in its mel

ting in for wax.

Gambling ships

three mile

limit As if some of us

weren’t landed in

with that same sort

of problem.

Free-styling world

The square

of that pool tropically

palmed de fined in stroke

his so alway s free-sty

lying world.

“The world’s out of joint” (Shakespeare) This

world’s be coming the

way it wasn’ t Disorien

ted from the axis of its

revolving spheres And

we’re pulled out from its

center Fall ing off as

the setting sun from its

horizoned

view.

Tsunami

There’

s a voice at the bottom of

the sea Darker even than me

mory can re cord Hidden from the depth s of its own

despondent longings Un

til split o-pen the midst

of those tropi cal winds Cry

ing out for the blood of all

those vanquish ing victims.

Boats on shore

still feel ing out

where the rhythms of

the sea’ s sailing

through.

Handel

must have been a proud

man with stee ping convic

tions and ly rical quie

tudes embra cing moment

s solemn ly esteem

ed.

Joe

was busy sit ting out his

life Slouch ed over time-

receding thoughts Sundrenched in the Floridian

waves of timetending year

s.

Those suspicious

of others usually have

some thing to conceal

from them

selves It’

s like those gulls alway

s looking a round protec

ting their catch from o

thers they’ ve stolen

from before.

Dream poem

The train

stopped where I wasn’

t Empty-hand ed as if

filled with the ghostlike person s moving

on.

Other voiced

The stair

s so close that I couldn’

t hear my steps coming

down as if other-voiced

from those shadowing

sounds so per ceptively

near.

Pelican portrait

The peli

can’s face sad for the

catch of fish so as

tutely in dined.

The flute

intuned to

the bright ness of your

fingering-

through

sounds.

Duccio: Madonna’s realizing

those fine lines from

her robe’ s rhythmi

cally aware of such tou

ching pulsesensing

Backwaters

where

you become silently a

ware of those boats swaying

so tideless ly to the

soft winds gently rehear

sing as word s whispering

in silent ly unheard.

Only the two of us

but that

room inti mately invol

ved in un touchable

silence What listens re

fleets as this glass

through wai ting phrases

of our eye s inwardly

withheld.

Time-telling scars

This

palm’s still reaching sky

wardly expos ing its rough

bark’s timetelling scar

s.

Obituaries

Most would

like to read their own o

bituaries with self-

satisfy

ing eyes and

phrases that assuage their

innermost

feelings

I’ve imagin ed the tear

s of some for so much

loving and lasting of

forgotten

care.

That house of theirs

You couldn’t

see through that house of

theirs Face lessly untell

ing As if e choing some

unseen truth

hollowing out spaced-

silent whis perings.

Out-directioned

He was

rounded more in to the in

timacies of self An

off-stage theatre man

behind the

scenes as if

life was where you weren’t

looking at-out-direct

ioned.

To(o) detailed

Her face

to(o) detail ed to take in more than an outer

glanced uncen sored lips

and eyes im perceptive

ly if fine ly exposing.

That crab

clawed in

its obtuse vision The

side-ward ness of in

direct ex pression.

Those clouds

creating

in metamor phoses of involving revel ation’s dream-

flow.

“A drifter”

as she said

a ghost of where he

wasn’t Sudden ly there

knife in hand Bleeding her

to the depth of his own

feel-ffom

self.

Mud-slides

plaguing

the Califor nian coast

As if we weren’t all

some thing of those

small house s below Sit

uated for an outside of

that oceaned view.

Tsunami

and her

house only that marking-

off of where others

weren’t A space of

out-lived

passing.

Buying ice-cream

He only

went to buy ice cream

for wife and 3 children

just before Those hills un

rolled their own appetites

enveloping in taste for

the timeless cries of the

dead spent.

Horse-trotting scherzi (Beethoven)

with that

up-beat of stamped-

through impressions dus

ting off all those remem

brance’s time-escaping.

That 3rdgrade chalk

Who

stole that 3rd grade chalk

until we were teachered-

in to our confession

al selves And the black

board washed down of all

such aspiring guilt.

6th grade sinners

and we

on the wood ed scent to

those leaf-bared preadolescent exposing

All the answers

If you

have all the answers You

may not be asking the

right kind of quest

ions.

3 English cathedrals

a) Wells as if

flowing in to the harmon

ious accords of those out

lasting

sounds.

b) Ely

risen from

the sea from the of

ferings of forelorn

prayers more ancient

now than e ven time

can remem her.

c) Salisbury (after Constable)

The lithe

ness of that spire trans

cending even the inner

realms of gardened

pleasuring

s.

In-breeding family sense

There was

some thing homely a

bout their in-breeding

family sense Storied with

the accents that only a

•    distant dia

lect of time

s once told could compre

hend the chron icles of

their being alived

for now.

Going out with me

The tide’

s going out with me and’

s left those bared place

s as unheal ed remembran

ces that I hadn’t found

somewhere

deep-downed

myselfbe

fore.

Balancing act

Life’s be

coming more of a balanc

cing act from me As

the aging bal lerina but

still toed-on to its

lasting sense.

The meaning for poem’

s as elusive as why birds

find in the winds their

colorings for flight.

Mozart’s pauper grave

No one’

s ever ex plored the

depth of Mo zart’s pauper

grave But they say it

becomes more bottomless

the longer you keep loo

king it down.

Golden rule

If o

ther’s pain s could pain

me as much as my own

Then I could love my neigh

bor as my self.

The stranger

You

wouldn’t want to look

at him Each step was more

than a mile away He grasped for place Eyes holding

on to where he wasn’t

No where else than

that moment’ s being

there.

Suffering

brings a

dignity to man Take

s that care lessness

from his face less feature s away Dee pens in to

its sense for loss.

Sunday

has its

own sense for feel It’

s like when the mind e

ases your breath and

there’s that soft

ness of touch as of bud’s

first real izing.

Pillars

standing out to the

sun as those of ancient

Greece ab stractly de

fining a gainst the

sea’s tideswelling depth

and the wind’ s in-reveal

ing darkness es.

Dying down

She’

s been dy ing down to

where death’ s the only

answer left The rib taken from A dam’s living

needs now fleshless

ly outsung.

City of Blood

They’

11 bomb us back to the

desolation of their own

God-thirst ing needs City

ofblood melting from

their recoil ing hate to

the warmth of speechless

stone moon-reflecting

its outtaken light.

When his wife died

a thinness

took her place Standing as

high as he could for a

diminish ing sense

from there.

Poet being

She became

a poet as her hair flowing

into those

longings of be

ing more than what she

wasn’t.

Half-made promises

what you

said but didn’t really

mean is like a moon only

partially visible by

hiding the o ther side of

its darken ing face.

Her not yet

eyes as co

lors vaguely unmatched

elusive ly there for

not being touched.

The Barnabas/St. Paul syndrom

Some

poems have to be written

out with the most patient

ly cared for not being quite

good enough Because some

where around that unseen

corner’s a nother priming

in for place.

The upstairs

If the

upstair’s where the comings

down for poem Why do my

thoughts keep climbing high

er than I can hold them

back from.

That slight

girl’s father’s standing high

er up than the holding

of his hand could be tel

ling for her eye’s out

ward finding glance.

John Marin ’

s sea-sur

fing sails inclin

ing for that co

lored rough ness of

wave.

Nathaniel Pink

in an atti

tude of pole sitting pro

cession ally about

his ceremon iously hori

zoned in-depth Sun-set

ting innate claims for

sitting so pre stigious

ly down.

To(o) distinctly told

She was

to(o) distinctly

told as if over-heard

Out-lined rather than

softening

in.

Hand-in-sense

Those

shutters coming down

hand-in-sense Until he only

heard what night could be

seeing back from.

Catullo’s Grotto (Sirmione)

steeped

down this space of

years High ground where

I stand to those stone-

listening shadows of

his voice Phrasing

in out-

searching wave

s for the far of being

so down below.

Homestead Act

s staking

out their place for a

plot of land As if per

sons could only hold for

meaning in that then

and there of measuring

it out for the assur

ance of the deed.

Far-fetching

Little

dogs trotting an ap

preciation of why their

feet keep thinking-out

such far-fetch ing conclu

sions.

Victory garden

She tended

her little patch of a

victory gar den with its

vegetable sense in growth Cul

tivating the needs of her

hands and the spirit of a much-

fearing mind Until the enemy

came and claimed her

land on a re newable longterm basis.

In-ter-locking

The chain-of-command’s

so in-ter-loc

king that it

tightened his scope

from view.

Too

Some per

sons were too understand

ing to under stand why

He prefered being left a

lone.

Corkscrew Sanctuary

Shadow

ings enclo sures the in

ner sanctu aries of self-

Light reflec ting un-seen

sound’s hid den voices.

Encircling

The ibis

curved his beak right a

round my straight

thinking’ s out encir

cling.

A snake

caught in the hawk’s

dangling

clawed-eyed

taste wig gling as a

feather less bird

aired

through.

Swamp night

alligator

s buried deep below

the watering surfaces of

our rising fears Wild

cries as of dried leave

s rustling time-like

through the wind’s sterile

after thought s.

Hommage aux deux Rousseau

Ancient

forests now lost from

man’s primi tively lit instincts And all those

untimely fears night-bound

dream-enligh

tened.

Born OUt of wedlock (Hommage a Tolstoi, Bellini...)

of two un

evened halves As some arti

ficial agricul tural bi-pro

ducts not of sufficient

marketing value But re

claiming for the depth of

self-orient ed finding

ness.

For Rosemarie

Some

beauty out lives the fa

ding breath of its winter

ing light And shines that

darkness

through The way curved

moon’s night-

brighten

ing.

Sisyphus

keeps

rolling that big stone

up the rhy thmic hands

of his immed iate needs

the bottom ness of where

I’m star-felt atop the

persuasion s of ano

ther’s contin uing task.

“Playboy of the Western world” (Synge)

It may

be Northwest Irish to hero

oneself with the blood of

parental failures Whis

key-danced

stampeding

out the hor sing of those

barren hill’ s resonat

ing the

vigour of song

and dance act s.

Double-visioned

looking o

ver his shoul der’s shadow

s closing deeper increa

sing a see ing length

from his own.

Librarian

She was

modestly so inwardly

self-assur ing lending

out books and

personed

taste That I wondered if

I might take her off one

of those specialty-

viewed shel ves.

Sweetened?

Being

born with a silver spoon

in your mouth doesn’t al

ways sweet en such remem

brances.

Harvesting

You

don’t find dead birds

on these swim ming beaches

Somewhere in

land in those

tropically crowding bush

es they’re harvesting

from fear.

A stab in the back

It would

have been a stab in the

back If he had anything

left to stab with But his

daggers had all been thrown

otherwise And the stain

s were drying deep some

where unsuspect ingly through

his own wrinkling sleeves.

Two-faced

Talking be

hind your back’ s not a fa

cing up to what wouldn’

t be there for the after

math.

Gossip ’

s like a

lynx with too many trail

s to scent its coming

s back from.

Owl collection (for Walter)

His owl col

lection was so replete with

out-staring eyes That he

must have felt woodlessly

hollowed

through.

Chicago’

s back

drop of se cular build

ings Amassing the sky’s vi

sage for its own earthy-

claimed pre dominance.

Through others

Living

your life through o

ther’s like a dog trail

ing the scent of his own

shadow.

Almost lost

So much snow here now

That even a snowman

would feel almost lost

from the same ness of such

serene surroun dings.

citied me

into another kind of shiny

brightness

Overtower

ing in where abouts

lost.

Jonah

might have

been a whale of a person

Only in the protecting

darkness from his own

runaway

self.

Peter

trying

to be warm ed by that

fire of de ceptive i

dentities.

That pink dress

for a three-year-old

girl’s hang ing there

as if she could be so

neatly as signed.

Religious parking lots

That kind

of rabbi’s parking lot

imagined in in numerable

designs for the high holi

days of paid per-seated

Cars duly re dined.

“It was snowing and it was going to snow” (Wallace Stevens) as if

there’s a con tinuity a

timeless sense of be

ing As wave s the endless

sounds of bringing them

back in voiced.

Signpost

small

of stone numbered

No where to be other

wise than in the midst of

a field Outlasting

its sense in meaning.

That ancient

Jewish graveyard in Worms

not a soul

of their kind left to re

member All ex posed to a

“final solu tion” that

left but this ancient field

of stones moss ed over fa

ding even for touch-Rehear

sing the his tory of a once

homeless

people.

Seeing

We see

so much what we see

That we can’ t see why

others don’t see it.

that way as well.

Ugliness (da Vinci)

has its

own claim s on the

beauty of its being

the other wiseness

of man’s self-distorting

nature Dwarf ed or hide

ously une vened the full

range of his own accentu

ating fall.

Hieronymus Bosch

and where

did the de vil get his

start Did God push him off

from the top Or was he al

ways demoni cally there

devouring for the re

mains of all those

holy epistle s.

The Merchant of Venice:

A Jewish tragedy (5) (Shakespeare)

a) Shylock left a

lone En circled from

the world that made him

what he was Their pound of

spirit bled from his no

way out of being what

he is.

b) Jessica ’

s treach

erous beauty To win the

world at the cost of her

own infamous soul.

c)The rialto at sea

with the

waves of mer

can tile goods floa

ting out gall ies of slave

s still

bending the

cause of their profit

able gain.

d) The Music

of moon

light and the waves

of where a timeless

heaven’ s phrasing

beyond the soul’s in-

lighting for stars.

e) The ending

at least

three amen s before

the curtain decided to

come down on a Jewish

tragedy in the name of

Christian

mercy.

Internal tides

He felt

so much his feeling

s through A river

pre-destin ed to the

flow of in ternal tide

s.

Growing old

together As if I

could sha dow you

in mine.

Rhymed differently

We were

rhymed dif ferently

But even if those ends

didn’t meet just as we

like Parting a together

ness in.

Darkens

if

the snow darkens be

cause night’ s reflec

ting in the earth’s out

growing

from.

like thinking deeper Draw

ing down to where form

must form it self around

the such con trolling con

templation

s.

Haydn: G minor Sonata (hb 44, Andrds Schiff)

The sad

ness of that key kept

over com ing Driven on

a passionate need for

hearing it self out.

Early spring 1945

when only

the ash that sweetened

smell of burnt flesh remains

And the o vens cooled of

their perspir ing wants Not

even the dead liest of men

Cain-like

blood-drenched

as they were would linger

to remain Haunted through

those deepest forests of

their surviv ing fears.

Mozart and Monet

Women

mostly love Mozart and

Monet’s flow ing from

form in to the fields

of distan cing through

flesh-find ing sensibil

ities.

SistineMadonna’ (Raphael)

s choco-

angels with those sur

rounding

self-impos

ing witness es And a

Madonna star ing out dis

tances that He not she

would be crossbound to take.

Dufay's songs

with their

strange melif luous sweet

ness harmon izing through

time’s over telling truth

Too pretty

She was

too pretty to be more

than for her self As a

picture hung on the

wall to be looked at

She posed her face in

to a self expression

less void.

Star-finding dreams

Some

thing soft and gentle

about this snow As a

child layed deep to rest

Blanketed in the depth

of his starfinding

dreams.

Prevorst

That place e

stranged me from a distance As eyes

more from their moon-

ed-in-glow ing fears

of ghostly habitat

ions.

Fox

His

eyes darted the imprint of feared-in

perspec

tives.

A parish

left 10

years be hind As

a ship tide lessly pre

sent Shored in from har

bouring views.

Poems from the Chinese (5) for Chung

a) The reed

s if where water’s

slender ing out.

b) A bird

color-

touched

position ing tree.

c) A

spurt of bird’

s aftercoloring’

s rest.

d) Static land

scape in snowed a

wareness tree con

fining.

e) Fish e

yed-in glass per

spective

s.

Piano man

There’

s a blank-down bottom

where it means most

Name and i dentity lost

No proof of be ing there ex

cept as he was The piano

man with only his finger

s and their out-felt

conscience to tell the

where of his being

his for.

Possessed

She was

possesed with a pair

of tried-to-be-interest

ing eyes Like looking through

a lengthened telescope

visioned with a carefully

felt blue hat atop that

may-have-been

concealing

some down town thought

s below.

Ddisy (The Great Gatsby)

as a flo

wer too of ten picked

Beautify ing an empti

ness from such emula

ting phrase s.

The spirit of the times

spirited

him out lonely flag

ed into the more of free

finding wa ters.

If white’

s all the

colors told down into these snowy eclipses

Why this samed unity

lessening

express

ioned.

In the circusing act

Squirrel’

s in the circusing

act-ing out where

his free finding tail

ing off the returns from

nutted-in

pleasure s.

of hill

ed-out pro

pensitie s Barren ti

med the lo sing of its

former tenu ous grasp.

Father’s ring

marked

with the initials of

that time Gold-stamped indelibly engraved his named-fingers fitt

ingjust right for

mine.

Beaked

The

bird’s beaked eye

d him through Nakedly exposed.

Uncertained

She was

so uncer tained for

being lost That even her

feather ed hat seem

ed un-pluck-ed from where

its wings might be co

ming in from.

Even song

The lake’

s quieted back to sleep

as a child being layed

to rest for what the

stars would be telling

The boats an chored to their unseen depth And

those hills a cross the

lake encom passing in

waves of on coming night

as a book be ing closed

wordless ly out

touched.

“One reason why we read poems is because they refresh the language, because they bring words alive, and rub off the tarnish which accumulates in daily usage. This cleansing function is one of the most important the poet can exercise, though it is not necessarily the one which will make his work immediately popular. David Jaffin’s characteristic spareness and economy make the reader particularly keenly aware of his concern for good language, which means fresh and immediate language. He deserves to be read because he improves and extends the instrument he uses.”

Edward Lucie-Smith

Jaffin’s “Through Lost Silences” offers a rare display of manifold poetic variety. Succinct and challenging enforcers of new-insights and deeper understanding, his poems soar in far higher realms than those of prosaic description and rational analysis. Their hall-mark, the unexpected, unnatural and natural sentence-, line- and word-breaks, disrupts habitual ways of thought, catches in the act of thinking as in the act of breathing, envisioning the variegated immediacies of higher meaning. There is sincerity and conviction in Jaffin’s crisp, multi-sensory poeticisation of ideas. Existential and philosophical shapings of language, simple and complex at the same time, draw out the true nature and significance of his chosen subjects in an original way, overwhelming the faint echoes of older poetic traditions and leaving behind a profound aftertaste of experiences lived through for the first time.

Edward Batley (University of London)

David Jaffin is a poet with his own particular manner of sensibility and with a method of construction issuing from his idiosyncratic preferences for manner of expression. This rightly implies that he is serious, inventive and independent, a poet given to quality and genuineness. If you add playfulness and profundity to the foregoing traits, you may have a good sense of his work.

The poems visited in this article are largely from his most recent two books, “These Time-Shifting Thoughts” and “A Voiced Awakening,” in which his spare and simply elegant style is brought to a consistently high level.

Most of his poems hang with charming mystery at that line between realization and “the not yet arisen.” The realization itself is at the moment of clarity and the turning into the unexpected sense of it - like a near silent and enlightening epiphany with poetic surprise in the realm of intuition.

Neil A. Chassman in “Pulse” April ’05, Poughkeepsie, New York.

The jacket illustration is reproduced from an water-color created for this volume by Charles Seliger.