^oG.Ha£
DAVID JAFFIN
Light Paths
Charles Seligcr (American, 1926-2009) passionately pursued an inner world of organic abstraction, celebrating the structural complexities of natural forms. Like many artists of his generation, Seliger was deeply influenced by the surrealists’ use of automatism, and throughout his career, he cultivated a poetic style of abstraction that explored the dynamics of order and chaos animating the celestial, geographical, and biological realms. Attracted to the internal structures of plants, insects, and other natural objects, and inspired by a wide range of literature in natural history, biology, and physics, Seliger paid homage to nature’s infinite variety in his abstractions. His paintings have been described as “microscopic views of the natural world”, and although the characterization is appropriate, his abstractions do not directly imitate nature so much as suggest its intrinsic structures.
Born in New York City but raised in Jersey City, Seliger spent his teenage years making frequent to Manhattan’s many museum and gallery exhibitions. Although he never completed high school or received formal art training, Seliger immersed himself in the history of art and experimented with different painting styles including pointillism, cubism, and surrealism. In 1943, he befriended Jimmy Ernst and was quickly drawn into the circle of avant-garde artists championed by Howard Putzel and Peggy Guggenheim. Two years later, at the age of nineteen, Seliger was included in Putzel’s groundbreaking exhibition A Problem for Critics at 67 Gallery, and he also had his first solo show at Guggenheim’s Art of This Century gallery. At this time, Seliger was the youngest artist exhibiting with members of the abstract expressionist movement, and he was only twenty years old when the Museum of Modern Art acquired his painting Natural History: Form within Rock (1946) for their permanent collection. In 1950, Seliger obtained representation from the prestigious Willard Gallery, forming close friendships with gallery artistsMark Tobey, Lyonel Feininger, and Norman Lewis.
By 1949, Seliger had his first major museum exhibition at the de Young Memorial Museum, San Francisco. During his life time, he exhibited in over forty-five solo shows at prominent galleries in New York and abroad. In 1986, Seliger was given his first retrospective at the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, which now holds the largest collection of his work. His work is also represented in numerous museum collections including the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Museum of Modern Art, and the Whitney Museum of American Art. In 2003, Seliger received the Pollock-Krasner Foundation’s Lee Krasner Award in recognition of his long and illustrious career in the arts. In 2005, the Morgan Library and Museum acquired his journals — 148 hand-written volumes produced between 1952 to 2009. in 2012, the Mint Museum in Charlotte, North Carolina will present the traveling exhibition Seeing the World Within: Charles Seliger in the 1940s.
Light Paths
^oC.HaC
DAVID JAFFIN
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 978-1-84861-174-0 (Shearsman Books, UK)
Production & cover design: Neufcld Verlag, Schwarzenfeld, Germany Composition: Markus Neufeld, Bamberg, Germany
Copyright May 2011
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.
Title picture:
Charles Seligcr (1926-2009)
Crystal Moon (detail), 2005 acrylic on Masonite 11" x 14", signed
rcdit Line: Courtesy of Michael Rosenfieid Gallery, LLC, New York, NY'
Printed in Germany
Contents
Against forgetfulness	13	Ca 70. AD	33	
Left behind	14	Faith	35	
Star phrasings	14	Close-thinking	35	
“To the bottom of it”	15	A cause	35	
That house	16	That house	36	
Imagined (2)		Moissac		
a) At the shirt	17	(Meyer Schapiro/David Finn)	37	
h) Scenes of childhood (Schumann)	17	Church bell	37	
Cynthia	18	Garden	38	
The first	18	His mind a	38	
The less	19	Age	39	
That speck	19	Organ music at St. Peters (Munich) 39	
He’d	19	When there’	40	
In-coming	20	Subway	40	
He closed	20	Games (7)		
Sized-down	21	a) Soccer	41	
Waiting	21	b) Chess	41	
To touch	21	c) Tennis	42	
Mendelssohn		d) Golf	42	
(Trio op. 66, slow mvt.)	22	e) Boseboll/f siting	43	
Eb (minor Trio, Haydn)	22	J) Ping-pong	43	
A standup	23	g) U. S. Football	44	
An over	23	The tree	44	
Widowed	23	Stream	44	
Dark	24	Climb	45	
When the	24	Old Black Joe (Steven Forster)	45	
Each poem	24	“Swing low	46	
Small bird	25	“Far from the maddening (Hardy)	46	
David (Donatello)	25	Holding back	47	
Mar)- Magdalene’ (Donatello)	26	Schubertiade	47	
Black-cvok	26	Blued	48	
For the Rose	27	Look	48	
Climbing	27	Dream	48	
Subdued silences	27	The wave	49	
4 poems for him		Summer	49	
ii) Time hod	28	Curtain	49	
b) reeling for others	28	Is a woman’	50	
c) Triettd	29	Shading	50	
d) Only once	29	She took	51	
Inconsistencies	30	The lake	51	
Last A major Sonata	30	When	52	
Burda	31	Words	52	
Palin Sunday	31	He had	52	
Roman portraiture	32	A fish	53	
Severalled	32	Evening	53	
Does taste	33	The slow	53	
Chroniclers	33	If I could	54	
Roman	34	The rose	54	

Women	54
Even	55
The cool	55
Polonius’ Advice	56
The long-	57
Raphael (our retarded son)	57
Accordion	58
There	58
The strange one	59
We lived	59
Corning back	60
If cloud	60
If there’	61
These cloud	61
Last time	62
“Not many (S. L.)	62
If one	63
“I would have”	63
When two (S. L.)	64
For Rosemarie	64
Less-than-dog	65
The wind	65
Crowded	66
Listen	66
Can	67
Sunshine words	67
Too hot	67
It became	68
Rail track	68
A round-a	69
Aborigine	69
Gorilla (for Warren and Carol) 70 When a Jew	70
Some have	71
Isaiah 43:1	71
One of them	72
First time	72
I saw	73
The swan’	74
Mozart (Flute Quartet k. 285 b) 74 The holo	74
Schumann’
(op. 102 cello and piano)	75
An assem	75
That little (in Munich)	76
When	76
A sense	77
Prearranged	77
65 years alter	78
Haydn-gone-	78
Schumann’ (Is1 piano trio)	79
A fear	79
Beyond “the real” (4)
a)		Saul	80
b)		Faust and Gretclien (Goethe)	80
c)		Beethoven’ (op. 71,1)	81
d)		Macbeth’	81
Italian	82
Mozart’ (Quintet k. 581)	82
Tatoo	82
Trite	83
When	83
Desenzano	84
If	84
The lake	85
Money-mi ndedncss	85
The glare	85
That	86
When	86
The bird	86
She felt	87
Boats	87
Desenzano	87
Pink	88
Is a poem (for Warren)	88
Shoe	89
A multi-	89
His	90
Do real	90
T. V.	91
Mountain	91
Hymnal trium	91
Weeping	92
The brigde at Borghetto	92
For Rosemarie	93
Castle at Borghetto’	93
Madonna at Borghetto	94
Business	94
In love	95
Bombed	95
Only	96
Through	96
Italian	97
A fisher’	97
The other	98
My life’	98
Faith and fair)- tales	99
A distant	99
Theprett	100
A flotilla	100
“Newborn”	101	
She took	101	
She swing	102	
Intact (for Ingo)	102	
For Rosemarie	102	
The sparrow	103	
Upswing	103	
A flutter	104	
Predated	104	
She	105	
Shoot	105	
“Shake it off’	106	
A calm	106	
Cypress-	107	
Amos’ 4th vision	107	
With him	108	
The form	108	
Outfacing	109	
That sound	109	
Hades-times	110	
1915	110	
The “Idea of Progress”	111	
Early	111	
Afghanistan 2010	112	
The reading world	112	
Dream-waved	113	
Told	113	
Phantomed	114	
Was if	114	
Have these	115	
Gauguin’	115	
The youth	116	
Aging	116	
Dogs	116	
Burgonvilla	117	
I	117	
For Rosemarie	118	
A two-sided investment	118	
Change of	119	
She-that	119	
Perhap	120	
As a Vermeer	120	
That aging	121	
When pain	121	
History	122	
Framed	122	
The older	123	
Apollonic	123	
Do women	124	
The great oil-spill	124	
She flute	125
After-sensed	125
Named	126
That pale	126
Charles	127
The Tempest (Shakespeare)
a)		Spirit	127
b)		Extra Nos	128
c)		Forgive	128
d)		Storms	129
e)		The church	129
Moraliz	130
Drawing the line	130
Aging’	131
Violin Sonata (Debussy 1st mvt.) 131 Op. 41.3 quartet
(Schumann 1st mvt.)	132
A museum	132
A room	133
If Atlantis	133
Survivors	134
For Rosemarie	134
Wallace	135
He a	135
When the	136
Kabale und Licbe (Schiller)
a)		When love	136
b)		Greek-like	137
c)		Can a modest	137
d)		A choric-	138
e)		When words	138
f)		Lady Milford	138
g)		Wurm	139
While list	139
Mutations (for Warren)	139
Eden-time	140
Love-death	140
When	141
At a loss (for Lenore and Doris) 141 The rain	141
2nd hand	142
Rain	142
After	143
An unseen	143
Forbidden	144
In memory (Charles Scliger)	144
Do	145
Cows	145
The ferris	146
For Rosemarie	146
The butter	147
Off	147
An emptied	148
The Idiot	148
Rules	148
For Rosemarie	149
She (for mother at 102)	149
Does the	150
Time-sense	150
He	150
Where	151
Leave	151
Recurr	152
At 13	152
Too long a	153
Pain	153
When (2)
a)		When	154
b)		When	154
Found-in	155
Sometime	155
Robert Volkmann’	156
Only love	156
Formed	156
After a Landscape (by John Marin) 157 Sparrow’	157
Shored	158
Charles	158
Pin-up	159
Sail	159
Snow far	160
These	160
Misplaced	160
Night	161
The Jews	161
Dark	162
These sound	162
There was	163
If man’	163
Lizard	164
River	164
Amphytrion (Kleist)
a)		Two identi	165
b)		Concealed i	165
c)		The slow	166
Computerized	166
Bird-	167
In-step	167
These swan	168
David meeting Abigail (Rubens) 168
Counterfeit	169	
Dandelions (in memory G. M.	S.) 169	
Tommy	170	
Ugliness	170	
Adolfv. Harnack	171	
Short-changed	171	
If one	172	
Classical	172	
Ben Jonson	173	
Did language	173	
That woman’	173	
For Rosemarie	174	
White gulls	174	
Brahms Quartet		
(op. 67; 2 sides 1st mvt.)		
a) dialogue	174	
b) slow nwt.	175	
c) agitato (3"1 nwt.)	175	
d) last nwt.	175	
Beethoven		
(Quartet op. 59,3; last mvt.)	176	
Italian Serenade (Hugo Wolf)	176	
Langenargen	176	
Books	177	
A good family		
(Thomas/Claudia plus)	177	
Dogs die	178	
A cause	178	
With him	179	
Tired spells	179	
Dementia	180	
Some room	180	
Schumann’	181	
For Rosemarie I	181	
For Rosemarie II	182	
Pfullendorf	182	
Aging	182	
The sun	183	
Quartet 5		
(M. Weinberg slow mvt.)	183	
Amphytrion (Kleist the ending)	184	
Leaf-touch	184	
Robert	185	
Still life (Mirandi, Munich)	185	
Weinberg’	185	
Therapy’	186	
Mirandi’	186	
Uncertained	186	
Umbrella	187	
Guardi’	187	
Pin-whcclcd	188
Quartet 7 (Weinberg l5t mvt.) 188 Totally ini	189
Why docs	189
This room	190
Poeined (what it is for Warren)
a)		Key word	190
b)		Surprise	190
c)		Half-	191
d)		Repeal	191
e)		When the	191
J) Only words	192
Weinberg’	192
One-stop trains	193
Bow-tied	193
As they	194
A dark	194
Autumn	194
Arcrca (Gauguin)	195
Seed voyage (Seliger 1994)	195
Her face	195
Standing	196
Berlin 1945 (for R. G.)	196
No one	197
The road (for W. W.)	198
Morandi	198
When	199
Dream	199
The parrot	199
Dark	200
Wind-evoking	200
M. S.	201
For my Rose	201
Rooted	202
Autumn	202
This autumn	203
Pretty	203
A tired	204
That tiny	204
Ifyou	204
When	205
These small	205
The golden	206
These fall	206
St. George and the Dragon	207
Madonna and Child	207
Some medieval	208
Taste	208
Autumn	208
Butter	209
Lost	209
For Mother (at age 102)	209
On his 11th birthday	210
The first still life	210
Annunciation
(Antonella da Messina, Munich) 210 What could	211
With Kleist’	211
If we stand	212
Returned	212
Weinberg (1st solo cello sonata) 213 Childing	213
Otherwise	214
For Rosemarie	214
Moon-souling	215
The Siena	215
No answers	216
Reiterquartett
(Haydn op. 74,3; last mvt.)	216
Harvest	216
Predator	217
As the Adam	217
Dark imag	218
Mosquit	218
Even at	219
Life	219
Rewritten	220
Oneness	220
Chamber Symphony (Weinberg 1992)	221
N '	221
Was it	222
Unseen	222
Weinberg’	223
A church	224
Meyer-Amden’	224
Are these	225
Unsaid	225
If taste	226
A stain	226
How can	227
When speed	227
In to the	227
Too late I	228
Teacher’ (Dr. Voltz)	228
Annunciation	229
Even	229
Some of us	230
A last chance	230
Mantegna	230
Gladioles	231
His tie	231
The heaven	231
Jacopo	232
When her	232
Age	233
Illmensee	233
The fog	233
“Finding yourself’	234
Holding on	234
Pedestailed	235
Lightmeres	235
Train stat	236
A world	236
Jeweller	236
Is	237
The blind	237
Colorings (4)
a)		Autumn	238
b)		Pin-wheeled	238
c)		Butter	239
Marians Vesper (Monteverdi)
d)		contrast	239
“One-track-mind”	240
For Rosemarie	240
Paws-down	241
Serioso Quartet
(op. 95, Beethoven)	241
Preaching	242
There	242
Middle-	243
Beethoven	243
Our skin	244
Waiting room	244
Forbidden fruits	245
Quartet 1 (Schonberg, 1st mvt.) 245 Quartet op. 20,3
(Haydn slow mvt.)	246
Mooned (for Rosemarie)	246
His own way	247
Closer	247
Wind	248
To keep busy	248
“Open ended”	249
Chilean	249
Concert (Munich, Oct. 14)
a)		Piatto/Woodwitid Quintet’
(Mozart, k. 452)	250
b)		Trout Quintet
(Schubert, slow nwt.)	250
c) Piano Quintet
(Dvorak, slow nwt.)	250	
d) Piano Concerto’ no. 11		
(Haydn, last mvt.)	251	
These star	251	
Raphael	252	
Raven sburg’	252	
Dark	253	
Self-revealing	253	
Death-processional	254	
Dead	254	
When lang	255	
The family’	255	
Penthesilia (Kleist) (5)		
a) way ahead of	256	
b) Penthesilia	256	
c) She did it	257	
d) Love-to-death	257	
e) Where those	257	
Orchid	258	
Rain	258	
The time	259	
Rain	259	
Wasn’t	260	
The home	260	
If man’s	261	
Cheer-leading	261	
For Chung	262	
When	263	
For Rosemarie	263	
The touch	264	
Purim	264	
Israel’	265	
Soul-descending	265	
That late	266	
Dark motion	266	
These leaf-	267	
Mother	267	
“The last one”	268	
Wilhelmina 1	269	
Wilhelmina 11	270	
Money girl	270	
Richard III (Shakespeare)		
a) ‘‘a horse for	271	
b) Richard	271	
c) Evil	272	
Not yet for healing	272	
Last chance	273	
Kingdom of darkness	273	
Changed	274	
At 73	274
African fantasy	274
Hunting-eyes	275
Found-out	275
Arcarea (Gauguin)	276
The alligator	276
Learning from books (3)
a)		Sie knew	276
b)		a iwo-sid	276
c)		her dream	277
Learning from life (2)
a)		The world	277
b)		always	Til
Autumn’	278
To mind him	278
The scape	279
Spidered	279
Ergo	280
The Gauguin (La Orana Maria) 280 The Jew	281
The thought	281
Are the	282
Goodness	282
The distant	283
Light-screaked	283
A sell	284
Poems from Crete 2010
a)		Shrub-	284
b)		The mount	285
c)		The sound	285
d)		Our hotel	286
e)		A butter	286
f)		The caqyet e	286
0)		Pomograti	287
hj At Chersonisos	287
1)		These mass	287
j)	Silent mem	288
k)	The harbor	288
l)		Light-phasings	288
m)	A rcade ’	289
n)	The tired	289
o)	The tide	289
p)	A court	290
q)	Tile	290
r)	The scare	290
s)	Perhap	291
t)	One can’	291
u)	Grass can'	291
v)		That aban	292
w)	Street	292
x)		Aron	292
y)	A letia	293
z)	Blind alley	293
aa) When	293
bb) Sea-salt	294
cc) He sat	294
dd) He became	294
ee) Ktiossos (9)	295
iff) 2. Blood-	295
gg)3. Opened	296
hit) 4. Blue ladies	296
ii) 5. Wave-curv	296
jj)	6. Linear	297
kk) 7. Cyclade	297
U) 8. Bull-spring	291
mm) 9. Dolphins	298
nn) Isolat	298
oo) This cliff-	299
pp) Warned	299
qq) The poem	299
rr) Night	300
ss) Out of	300
It) Light-spending	301
uu) Birds	301
vv) Out	301
ww) Mythed	302
xx) War-minded	302
yy) Dreamed-	302
zz) After Brueghel	303
aaa)	At Knossos	303
bbb) Light-panor	303
ccc) A white-	304
ddd) People	304
eee) Either way	305
fff) At parting (for the 4 A’s)	305
Silence	306
For Rosemarie	306
2"d Commandment (Moses)	307
Vacant	307
For many	308
1st Sextet op. 18 (Brahms)	308
Those left behind	309
Out-of-bounds (an answer)	309
Uncle Irving	310
Wintered	310
Ice-skat	311
Ice-fish	311
For closure	312
In the dark	312
ll
Poems (from Alsfeld, to and from)
a) Wind-thoughts	313	
b) The inert	313	
c) Late autumn ’	313	
d) After-sensed	314	
e) When	314	
J) It’s blu	315	
g) Wilhelm	315	
h) Tivo-lined	315	
i) Passing	316	
j) Curtain	316	
k) Dead-tir	317	
l) Wind-rain	317	
m) Giraffed	317	
ti) Brahms’	318	
o) 1001	318	
p) Do the	318	
q) Dried berr	319	
r) Leafed- va	319	
s) Doesti ’	319	
t) Rows of	320	
u) Time-sitting	320	
v) Curtain	321	
w) A life-view	321	
x) One could	322	
y) Alfeld’	322	
z) Some	323	
aa) The light	323	
bb) Rows of	323	
cc) Stairs se	324	
dd) A moon	324	
ee) Trees	324	
jf) Pink ’	325	
gg) That old-	325	
hh) Silhouetting	326	
Darkly	326	
Interior	327	
Ifl	327	
Holding on	328	
Foreseeing	328	
Played out	329	
A no man’s land	329	
The first	330	
Pink’s	331	
The wash	331	
These	332	
Islanded	332	
If guilt’	333	
Snow	333	
Repentance and Prayer day Contrasts	333	
a)		Untamed	334
b)		She possess	334
Day of the dead (Totensonntag) 335 Eye-shyness	335
Bow and arrow	336
Cezanne (still-life in Munich) 336 The pianist	337
Beethoven’s 7th (first 3 mvts.) I 337 Beethoven’s 7th (2nd mvt.) II	338
Schumann’	338
Suspicion	339
Candy-color	339
An open-un	339
Is this	340
Cezanne’ (Munich 1870)	340
Night-light’	341
Smoke-	341
Kaminski’ (Psalm 130)	341
Life goes	342
Here a dy	342
Tunnell	342
I saw	343
Outflown	343
The Boccher (op. 31,2)	344
The last Walzc	344
3 Quartets
a)		Hatp Quartet (Beethoven) 345
b)		Dvorak’	345
c)		Haydn’	346
Ambiguities (3)
a)		A turk	346
b)		Liebermann	347
c)		Jaffiti	347
Non-week	348
That	348
Left behind	349
It was	349
Angel bringing light to the dead 350 Italian Concerto I
(Bach, slow mvt.)	350
Italian Concerto II
(Bach, 1” mvt.)	351
The inner	351
A child’	351
Cynthia’	352
She	353
When	354
Chaperoning	354
Against forgetfulness
Writing a
gainst for getful
ness the e asing away as
melting snow from what
had landscap ed his mea
sured view of time’s so
elusive call mgs.
“mine is the moment”
(Andreas Gryphius)
Left behind
The field
s of flow ing grain we’
ve so sad ly left be
hind us as if their
seed wasn’t deeper sown
imbedded in the depth of
their alway s recurrent
phrasing
s.
Star phrasings
The season
s however self-fulfill
ing they may appear circl
ing us a round as a
ferris-wheel through a
night of end less starphrasing s.
“To the bottom of it”
If he never
got “to the bottom of it”
as our Ver rnont lake with
out one It was more
those soul- immersing
darkness es that kept
holding him down to where
the ends never meet.
That house
seemed strange
at first dark iy inhabit
ed I felt my way through
its emptied rooms (each
somehow in their way
vaguely fam iliar) until
I found the key at last
turned the light-switch
through my ever-loom
ing past.
Imagined (2)
a) At the start
of winter
butterfly-
thought
s color ing his i
magined needs for
light-in stinc t
s.
b) Scenes of childhood (Schumann)
as if music
had become the true
source of lighting
the imagin ed realm
s of child hood.
Cynthia
She learn
ed so well always
(even as now in her
60s) a school girl
with a fict tive sachel of
books upon her bend
ing back to that scholar
ly look of prepared-pa
pered aware ness.
The first
light snow
but a glimp se of time’
s instinct ively re
calling.
The less
he could
hear the more the
world fa ding from
dream-like.
That speck
of a bird sudden
ly there excited its
wings color ing a person
ally imagin ed sit-down
place.
He’d
seen so
much of the world that
he couldn’ t find him
self back to where home
had become but a stopover station.
In-coming
He felt
the snow incoming the
way animal s predeciph
ering a close ness of light
and air that needed the
soon of re lease.
He closed
his eyes in
to that darkawareness
of those soundless
depths with in.
Sized-down
He needed
to be sized- down to
where his clothes
could fit tightly
secure.
Waiting
with only
the window s listen
ing in or out becoming
transpar ently alone.
To touch
ever-clos
er to the sounds of
color mg lightvoiced.
Mendelssohn (Trio op. 66, slow mvt.) A simpli
city of song as a
truth al ways known
Now merg ing in to
voiced re sponse.
Eb (minor Trio, Haydn) as remote
as that key a seldom
sadness that touch
ed through his vague
ly afar oft' from.
mirror tabl ed-alone
reflect ing thought
s he’d al ways seen
but never really
known.
An over
flow of leave
s clouding the winds in
solemn remem brance.
Widowed
Coming home
to a house emptied of
his being there increa
singly shad owed.
Dark
rain’s pre
vailing shad ows heavy
with the numbed si
lence of all these satia
ted leave s.
When the
rains left
us burden ed down with
the weight of our selfenclosing fears.
Each poem
as a girl
firstly-
dressed to
a colored- surround
ing self.
Small bird
swinging
its branch ed becoming
into the sky thm of some
unknown co lor-swell.
David (Donatello) more a poet
than a warr ior here
beautify ing a one
ness of faith with that out
reaching sword Christ would
deny to defend His peaceable
kingdom.
Mary Magdalene’ (Donatello)
s spiritual
eyes aged with clothed-suf
fering over flowing pen
etential gar ments.
Black-evok
ing birds en
circling the sky in to their
cruel darknessbreeding in
tendon
s.
For the Rose
marie of
mild winds that have soo
thed southlike the
current s of my irre
vocable call mg.
Climbing
the steps of
a ladder in tervalled
to a time-re ceding full
ness of grasp.
Subdued silences (after a photography by H. B.) The lines of
snow left an after touch
of sound-im pression
s.
4 poems for him
a)		Time had
swept him a lone rock-
bound the tides inhab
iting his daily ebb and
flowing in to the time
lessness of a no-way-out.
b)		Feeling for others
Can one feel
for others not knowing
their when and why we’re al
ways on the o ther side of
that not-be ing-there.
c)		Friend
ships (how
ever fully manned) though
sailing un der foreign
flags can’ t harbor
when most needed at
that lost- from-home.
d)		Only once
Being pre
pared for what can only
happen once he tried i
imagining (as he’d al
ways done) still repeat
ing that only once.
Inconsistencies
It’s those
unaware in consisten
cues that make more of
us than righting
things just right
ly-wrong.
Lost A. major Sonata (Schubert, slow mvt.)
An irrepres
sible sadness that took
hold of the all-of-him
rhyming to the where of
winds invis ibly touch
ed.
Burda
A wander
mg ghost neither man
nor woman with search
ing eyes imprison
ed in cloth.
Palm Sunday
Never was a
king less of what He was
supposed to be Donkeyed
an eternal sadness in a
royal city of misguided
acclaim.
Roman portraiture
seldom beauti
fied as the Greek so real
istically there that
one still fear ed those o
pen-eyed in tendon
s.
Severalled
If there’
s a one-per soned me irre
vocably same ed Why am I
the many-sid ed otherwise
ness involv mg.
Does taste
change as or
with time’ s revolving
seasons unde niably yet my
sterious ly sourced.
Chroniclers
Why that need
with which they (meticu
lously pen- minded) chroni
cled their med ieval time
s papered a gainst death’
s undeniably short-liv
ed claim s.
Roman
cities street-
plans all that practical-im
perial abund ance layed-
out as if soulless
ly imper soned.
Ca 70. AD
they (the Ro
mans) carried a way all the re
galia of that onesome temple
as if they could outgod it
from the dark ness of His
own indwell mgs.
Faith
is only
when it’s be come more of
us than our overhear
ing self.
Close-thinking
as touched-
cloth so fine ly felt as a
woman dress ed and color
ed her self- defining
sense-in-be
mg.
A cause
If we need
a cause from that vacancy
of self It’ s because
we’ve not yet been docked
tied-in from the rising
tides of those self-reclaim
ing wa ters.
That house
When that
house was finely finish
ed the dream of their
through-to
gether
ness It stood (somehow)
outside its own sense-
of-being as if dream could
become awaken ed to stone
and touch.
MoisSdC (Meyer Schapiro/David Finn) famous
ly document ed with all
(every-sid ed) that
art could ex plain But the
faith that created it
somehow left alone for
the monks who otherwise
inhabited
it.
Church bell
s claim
ing the time- beat of celes
tial distan cings.
Garden
ed in to
the illumin ating voice
s of all these wind-
surround ing flower
s.
His mind a
drift with
the light- timed phase
s of dawn’ s awaken
ing silence s.
Age
has become a
slow-down time of these
indwelling
shadows
reigning ever longer
deeper with in my need
for find
ing a way out.
Organ music at St. Peters (Munich) Oceans of
sound-soar ing waves to
their golden ed-ceiling
ed heights with hard
ly a single tone clear
ly discern able.
When there’
s none of
that little- girl—of—thenn
shyly reced ing into the
playgame s of youth’
s partly-re minding inno
cence.
Subway
ed into a
sea of nonreclaiming
faces tunnell ed through
dark sound’ s secluded
realms of van ishing self-
identiti
es.
Games (7)
a)		Soccer
Have we been
kicking that self-inflat
ing ball-of- a-world round
ed to its final goal
ed-out fin ish.
b)		Chess with each
move so care fully preplanned u pon a spac
ed-out world that those
figures seem ed touched
even before the time to
be telling them so.
c)		Tennis
netted more
of his downplaying fear
s than e ven a spider
could insect in-to a web
of time-hold ing appetite
s.
d)		Golf
met the over
flowing dis tances of his
eye-sensed callings into the lighten ed roundness
of a tiny well- placed ball.
e)		Baseball/fishing
He left-field
ed most of that sun-de
dining af ternoon
when the ease of fishing
would more likely have
awakened the pull of
a hooked- strung mo
ment.
J) Ping-pong
eye-rhythm
ed reflex ed those met
ronome Chopin- called finish
es.
g) U. S. Football
left the
field of com bat warrior
s flatten ed out Much
as Shakes peare’s her
oic ending s.
The tree
s so still
and high a hove the long
ing reach of even these ex
pressive ly words.
Stream
s running
through the bare-faced
stone’s glis tening aware
nesses.
Climb ing roses
beyond the breadth of
their coloring find
s.
Old Black Joe (Steven Forster) cotton
ed me to the time
less aging of those
picked-out fields that
have left me just as bated and barr en as that
black man’ s calling.
“Swing low
sweet char
iot” I heard the silent
arc of its slowly draw
ing near but the angels
(I feared) may have been turn
ing their shin ing faces
from my holl owing dark
nesses.
“Fayfrom the maddening (Hardy)
crowd” an in
timacy of just-between-
us that spac ed a unity
of touched- phrasing
s.
Holding back
If you don’
t say what you think
(wisely dis creet)
the thinking may become
ever louder while hold
mg itself back.
Schubertiade
Always with
friends twovoiced in the
midst of sur rounding
loneliness.
Blued
The sky
blued in to the depth of
its always finding
there.
Look
ing the o
ther way un til that o
ther way take s one off on
its own oneway of timed-
forgetful
ness.
Dream
s persist
ingly close- sensed to a
past that’ s now irre
vocably pre sent.
The wave
s so soft
ly reminis cent left
her mind to a dream
less world in creasing
ly afloat.
Summer
winds breathtouching a whisper
ing need for response.
Curtain
s drawn-down
through a touched si
lence that left the night
faintly star- sensed.
Is a woman’
s beauty more
of a pre-form ing mask pro
tectively
full-length
ing what’s deeper known
than the wak ing eye can
possibly con ceive.
as if these
trees were en veloping
us in to the shadows of
what they’ve so secret
ly known.
She took
on the pro
portions of her loss that
one looked long to find
those eyes once vibrant
ly toned.
The lake
may know
well the quiet of its conceal
ing voice listen
ing long e nough to the
softness of its remem
bering wave s.
When
the grass
cut to the freshness
of your first spring-smile.
Words
must be felt
in to de sign the
touch of their singul
ar meaning s.
He had
that look of
loss about him that one
wanted to find what
he couldn’ t vacant
ly expos mg.
A fish
silver-seal
ed quite sudd enly surfac
ed that mir roring mo
ment last ingly surpri
sed.
Evening
bells silen
cing in mood of these
sun-fading
times.
The slow
ing lines of
the wooded hills merged
gently in to the rhy
mes of their in-spoken
sadness
es.
If I could
only sense
the flow of her slight
ly whimsi cal thought
s might leave a faint im
pression of one rare
ly touched.
The rose
s small chaste
with a childlike affin
ity for de scribing
colors.
Women
were once a
better spec ies as Mary
suffering
the loss of
more than self-denial
Creating through their
inner quiet a unity of
home and fam ily Women were
once ...
Even
the thought
of a snow- felt land
scape evoking a lasting
sense of ser enity.
The cool
summer shad
ows us in to its dense
ly reclus ive enclos
ures.
Polonius’ Advice
Don’t play
the dead-down oldie stoop
ing when you should be
high-heading Or the grand
pa doddling with play-
made smiling exposure
s Or the young er-than-fit
panting for breath at un
seen offside appearan
ces But be true to your
self if there’ s still a
self left to be true to.
The long-
length stork
eloquent ly nesting a
top the local town hall im
penally staling spacious
ly beyond those lower
ing instinct s of man’
s mostly sub ordinate
claims.
Raphael (our retarded son) He scarce
ly under stood the word
s he sang a live to a voice
that became more of him
lyrically
self-attuned.
Accordion
sounds as
from a distant time and place
transform ing the where
of now in to a longing
for a world only remote
ly recalling.
There
they came up
the winding stairs a whole
troupe of tiny children bell-
chiming inter vailed to
their touchassembling ac
cords.
The strange one
Nothing
to be seen except his
hands tight ly-feared
fending off an unseen
though all- apparent
danger.
We lived
each day a
life unto it self a length
of realiz ed meaning
though each day lived us
but mostly its own way
out.
Coming back
We knew we
wouldn’t be coming back He
knew but did n’t want to
know as we left that last
time as if it wasn’t
really so.
If cloud
s speak vague
ly insuffi cent at time
s it’s be cause their
message re mains inde
cipher ably ob
scure.
If there’
s a season
of wholeness- completion
it’s that summer ease
that still s time mot
ionlessly
self-fulfill
ing.
These cloud
s having tra
veiled breath lessly far
left behind a sense of
their tran sient incom
pleteness.
Last time
the room empty
ing out until he stood a
lone his voice unseen though
still vibrat ing through
his former re solve.
“Not many (S. L.)
pleasure s left” he
felt resign ed his voice
lowered as a room
continual ly lessen
ing from use.
If one.
could only
live through one’s child
ren their times their
dreams their hopes as if
re-person ed blood-cy
cled.
“I would have”
as if I
were he and became into
that placetime would
have denied such identi
ty-transfer
s.
When two (S. L.)
friends
die at the same time he
felt twinn ed to mourn
more of him self than
his fragile age could
body-soul it out.
For Rosemarie
who’s be
come more of me than I
could find back to a
former vacant ly incomplete
selved-being.
Less-than-dog
The shy in
nocence of that somewhat less-than-dog felt my hand
s in to the depth of his
eye-descend ing dream
The wind
s reflect
ing their night-escap
ing silen ces.
Crowded
shadow s echoing
those un spoken not
quite selfdefining
thought-
moment
s.
Listen
ing through
glass to the other side of
sound less impress
ions.
Can
thoughts
travel dis tances of
their own creating
miles of lost image
s.
Sunshine words
Little girl
so prime- dressed that
she seemed like a flow
er posing sunshine
words.
Too hot
to take hold
of why I’ m still so
self-assur edly un
known.
It became
so hoc so
long that we couldn’
t quite feel the form of
our own be ing ghostlike scarce ly inhabit
ed.
Rail track
flower
s closely- feared scent
ed rushed- upon wind-re
minding dis tances.
A round-a
bout track
circled him in to a con
tinuity of repetitive
self-enclos
ures.
s with that
need to wan der to move
on desert-mind ed search
ing out secret
ly interned.
Gorilla (for Warren and Carol) s may be
peaceable
reclusive
ly mount ain-orient
ed But then- sudden appear
ance as those darkly-savage
dreams of ours.
When a Jew
doesn’t
look like the one you’ve
been taught to see and
doesn’t be have that way
either it wasn’t a Jew
at all but only an ap
pari ti on of mistaken i
dentity.
Some have
been so marr
ied to money that their
way-of-life seemed as if
coined far below its
minted value.
Isaiah 43:1
If we were
pre-created as only us
into what mothers most
ly realize well before
the start Why do so
many of us seem cloned
into the comm on mind-set
feelings ot others.
One of them
He so want
ed to be one- of-them that
he imitated their speech
took on their manners read
their favor ite books un
til fashion s changed and
he felt him self on the
outside a gain.
First time
She was feel
ing us out the way dog
s sniff litt le children
scream, until they know
more than they should
without giv ing much of
themselve s away.
I saw
through her though she was
hardly trans parent Even
her pained- life more a
performance that took on
a plaintive character
on the stage of where she
remained still more of what
she wasn’t.
The swan
s’ wave-mov
ing shadow s left only
their touch ed-silence
s behind.
Mozart (Flute Quartet k. 285 b)
ean chandel iers light-
curving ton al-transpar
encies.
The holo
caust twinn
ed German and Jew in to a
ground-zero of speech
less identi ties.
Schumann’ (op. 102 cello and piano) s year rhy
thmicaUy marked uneven
ed contours of romantic
reminisen
ces.
A n assem
blage of an cient statue
s staring through
their histor ic past irre
deemably lost from
view.
That little (in Munich) Hellenist
ic child so closely rabb
it-envelop ing the warm
th fur of its dead-time
past.
When
art become
s so close ly-real dia
logued to the mind’s
touch of spaceless af
finitie
s.
A sense
of sameness o
ver came her the way cloud
s cover the heavens with a
oneness of al ways now.
Prearranged
She married
more the way she wanted
him to be pre arranged as
an emptied table so fine
ly silver- set.
65 years after
How can one
remember what one can’
t like look ing in to a
blank sky for stars
that aren’t.
Haydn-gone-
wrong his
last trio seemed to find
the true length of its rhythm
ic being as a camelion
turning co lors too quick
ly to body more than those
elusive change- overs.
Schumann’ (Vpiano trio) s rhythm
ic impuls inga once-
of-fear voice less at its
tone-felt cen ter.
A fear
that his
pen would dry-down as
a well shad owing only
its emptied hollow
ness.
Beyond “the real” (4)
a)		Saul
called up
the witch of Endor from
her depth of primeval dark
ness that strange wo
man who knew the untouch
able secret s of what no
man should e ver require.
b)		Faust and Gretchen (Goethe)
lovers of the deep pair
ed to those strange oc
cult rhy thms of
that eter nal dance-
ot-death.
c)		Beethoven’ (op. 71,1)
s “ghost trio”
s eerie-sleek sound
ing me un touchably
through
dim-silk-sens
es.
d)		Macbeth ’
s witches
called from the waste
and water s of the
mind’s eter nally blank-
down dark nesses.
Italian
ate summer watered the
cool-stone- touch of the
moon’s light- apparent
source.
Mozart’ (Quintet k. 581)
s clarinet soothing
ly flowed through
streams of unrehears
ed light-sad
nesses.
Tattoo
ed skin-blem
ishing more than the sur
face of one’ s falsely
self-identi lying pose.
Trite
novels for
paper-weight ed minds
searching through with
that lost- off look for
what they haven’t real
ized.
When
what’s seen
focuses an intensity
of timeless ly now.
Desenzano
that myster
ious city a cross the
lake with its silent
ly time-e hiding
street
s.
¥
we’ve only become a
ware of the lake’s sur
face-sound s as with
some person s reflect
ing speech less unrecall
ing depth s.
The lake
soft-down
serene ly thought
ful of its wave-like es
caping pre sence.
Money-mindedness
That determm
ed glassframed-tighteyed smile matching his
mind’s irre verent money-
mindedness.
The glare
of Van Gogh’
s glass-lit eyes star-
flaming.
That
boat-ease
distanc ing moon-
celestial
light-ac
cords.
When
he found
his voice im itating the
inflect ions of a
dead friend’ s aliveli
ness.
The bird
searching
out in wing ed loneli
ness the sea’s time-
resound ing shore
s.
She felt
through the
shore-resign ing waves
years of her unremem
bered past.
Boats
anchored
through the night-escap
ing winds but still be
spoken of their dark
and time less dream-
flow.
Desenzano
city at the
other side of the lake self-
encompass ing the after
math of why time had left
it so motion lessly there.
Pink
checker-
shirted his two-sided
cross-bridg ed life-style
of that most eloquent
man-at-the-
middle.
Is a poem (for Warren) a dialogue
with the un seen reader
almost on e qual terms
Or docs it help read
him into those (until
then) uninhab ited sphere
s of being.
Shoe shop’s open-
faced model’ s empty-foot
ed claim ing a perpet
ual on-the- move rest
lessly a dapting lifestyle.
A multicolored litt le girl up
swinging her anticipat
ing eyes un til she sat
so profound ly no-where
s-else.
His
locomot
ive spirit had puffed
him out to a slightly mis
taken middle- aged post-
appearan
ce.
Do real
people live
here or only touristic im
itations Sun-shine per
sons weathering over a few
weeks from those vacant
appearan ces of smil
ing hotel fa cades.
T. V.
took their
eyes out staring
hours-on-end through the
soundsofva cant image
s.
Mountain
s shadow
ing an al most iinper
sonal expanse of their time
less expos ures.
Hymnal trium
pliant the
final move ments ofSch
umann’s D minor trio
so self-suffi cient as if
he’d re discovered
Columbus’
world-round
edness.
Weeping
willow’s
down-phased
mourning
some untold though per
petually en dearing loss.
The bridge at Borghetto
A passage
of the mind this as if
stone could recreate
those un seen though
still muted thought-
steps.
For Rosemarie
Only through
the wavelike realm
s of our to getherness
could we calm to the
lake-seren ity of these
self-surround ing water
s.
Castle at Borghetto
s still
shelter not persons but
distance s between
time’s voice lessly e
hiding presence
Madonna at Borghetto
Can one im
itate the timeless
sanctity of a pre
dated i mage.
Business
people’
s black suit cases elon
gating the profit-pre
sence of their self-
conclud ing smile.
In love
with love
Pink land scaped the
mysteri ous calling
s of unknown yet vastly
beautify ing women.
Bombed
out ofher
security-
shelter
ing self She appear
ed more like a ruins of
life-appear ing fapade
s.
Only
in the se
eluded close ness of Sir
mione’s win tered street
s stone-en visioned
the still e choing of
its awaken ing medie
val past.
Through
whisper
ing blue the light mist
lifted to its own self-
revealing
wind-appear
ances.
Italian
ate morning
slowly awak ening through
the cloud s of dream
ed-remembr
ances.
A fisher’
s finger
ed line scarcely
touching be yond the
self-immer sing depth
of its un told silen
ces.
side of the
lake scarce ly apparent
dreamed through the
mist of a prehistor
ic dawn.
My life’
s becoming
the all of this now
timeless ly self-en
closing.
Faith and fairy tales
If we did
n’t imagine our child
ren through a world of
faith and fairy tale
s How could they accept
a dream less world
faced fact- down.
A distant
far-off boat
drifting si lently through
the mists of these time-
receding wa ters.
ied pretend
ing charm of those dress
ed out young ladies color
s my mind and sense with
the delicate touch of su
gar-plumed
transpar
ent sweet nesses.
A flotilla
of ducks
following the mother’
s nonturna bout claim
s of float ing-samed
obedien
ces.
“Newborn ”
Why is the
newborn so often reborn
as Christian Communist
Zionist that his feature
s often fade and blend into
much of that sameness of
his former self
She took
quickly in
charge color ing their
marriage with the in
sistent call of her
voice-modula
tions.
She swing
’s into the cloud-immer
sing realm s of self-re
velation
s.
Intact (forlngo) They row
ed intact to the breath
less water’ s time-re
ceding.
For Rosemarie
That smile
as the smoothholding touch
ofyour hand’ s so placid
ly reassur ing as this
peacable lake level
ing down to its pristine
inclinat
ions.
The sparrow
hop-jump
ed the speck- taste of an
implicit mo ment.
Upswing
ing the
child-like
impression
s of heaven ly release.
A flutter
ing laugh a
bout her butterfly
ing the less er hold of
some unbespok en branch-
length.
Predated
I knew too
much about him to see
who he real ly was pre
dating the other right
s of false assumpt
ions.
She
couldn’t
make up her mind so she
made up her face cream
ed and powder ed to a mir
rored though not quite
self-realiz ing sameness.
Shoot
ing gepard
s in Africa Taking aim
at her faith less husband
precision ed to the
eye-sensing speed of their
failed marr tage.
"Shake it off”
they advised
like a tree leafless
ly autumn- spent But the
bared branch es however
tight held on tenuous
ly aware.
A calm
summer morn
ing the sky a silent
ly spoken blue the lake
recalling its self-same
shallow wave s increasing
ly ashore.
Cypress-
moon dense
ly aware precluding
the night’ s growth-
darkness
es.
Amos’ 4rh vision
These over
ripe times too heavy to
bear the weight of
their downfalling con
elusions.
With him
there wasn’
t any blood- link left
him alone to a world
homeless ly self-find
mg.
The form
of our feel
ings is often why the poem
recreate s its self- escaping im itation
s.
Outfacing
So many-si
ded he ap peared as if
always out facing from
that self-con cealing
center.
That sound
less boat’s
slowly mov ing the wind
s through their remote
ly untouch ing thought
s.
Hades-times
Where they
more bodied appearan
ces soul less shad
ows inhabit ing these
Hades-time s of our
s.
1915
20 steps
down-in those dugg
ed out tren ches to the
bottomed depth where
death would bury their
blood-sus
taining
fears.
The “Idea of Progress”
(J. B. Bury for Arthur Haberman)
That great
motion less under
ground war’ s silent
ly unseen death of the
myth of pro gress stillstanding self-defeat
mg.
morning swim
cooling oft' the dream-
flow through night’s darken
ing pulse.
Afghanistan 2010
When all
the ways out lead only
to more way s in to a
labyrinth of self-de
ception
s.
The reading world
If the read
ing world’s (also) a
real one pa pering over
a soulless world with its
own imagin ary claim
s.
Dream-waved
This early
morning quiet softly en
tranced in the gentle
flow of a dream-wave
world.
Told
She told
me with her silent eye
s and word less touch
what I’d al ways known
became real.
Phantomed
These gull
s flying the unheard
realms of their white
ness shadow ing self-be
yond.
Was it
Monet’s re
finding eye or the depth
of his mind’ s envision
ing the shall ow-light-i
mage of that momentary
thereness.
Have these
leisur
ed waves been creat
ed in Co the image of
that moon- increas
ing night.
Gauguin’
s last paint
ing that snow scene where
the sense of purity over
comes such self-longing
distance
s.
The youth
ful weeping
willow’s more a touching-
transpar ent sadness
not yet doom ed in its
all-encompass ing darkness-
flow.
Aging
eyes mute
the depth of coloring
expressive
ness.
Dogs
live timeless
ly innocent of death’
s realizing their always-
now.
Burgonvilla
flower
mg through those stoned-
in medieval walls with
the affluen ce of color
ing persuas ions.
I
only became
a Christian through
the Jewish ness of Christ’
s redeeming passion.
For Rosemarie
listening
to your eye s star-mov
ing these windless
time-pursu ing nights
of ours.
A two-sided investment
If she inher
ited his age as she would
his money spent on keep
ing her re linquish
ing beauty touchab
ly intact.
Change of
place change
of person It’s like re discover ing a street
you’d once known (its
shadow ing indwell
ing touch- feel.)
She-that
Did I see
her shoot ing wild in
nocent an imals in Af
rica Or at her digni
fied desk document
ing deeds of local person
al relevan ce The same
person or was she-that.
Perhap
s it’s that
sense of re volving sea
sons always s reminds us
of time’s lost-becom
mgs.
As a Vermeer
lady-room
ed in those eye-touch
ing object s continu
ally rede fining their
familiar
self-ac
cords.
That aging
sense of
loss when e ven our voic
ed-shadow seems trans
parendy ex posed.
When pain
sits deep e
nough It’ s become a
part of us as a mouth or
a hunger con tinues to
feed upon its own persist
ent need for growth.
History (Altdorfer Alexanderschlacht, Munich) painting
s only succ eed when
light and
space over
time their visually in
herent cause.
Framed
Picture
s must be so framed that
those aliven ing faces ol
color and sound frontal
ly kept in tensed.
The older
I’ve become
inhabited with those
longing s for a stea
died deep ening time
lessness.
Apollonic
Can self-de
scribing beauty without the
shadowing phases that
immerse man’ s fallen na
ture still re main true-to-
life.
Do women
select
their dress ed-for-color
s to match an intricate
sense of per son Or to ex
press an em bellishing
longing for another yet
secretly hid den self-real
ization.
The great oil-spill
If no one’
s responsi ble then it
didn’t happen That thrust
ing blackcoating death
plaguing man fish and
fauna from th eir dollar-
and-cent’s re fining calcu
lation
s.
She flutt
ered about
bird-like caged in
time-spend ing hurried
eyes uneas ed at the
center of a no-finding-
where.
After-sensed
It rain
ed down to its silent
after-sense until an un
seen bird voice-color
ed that spa cial-depth a
new.
Named
He became
named for a disease
(famed in the annals of med
ically record ed history)
as if he him self had per
soned the cause of all
that hopeless suffering.
That pale
moon as vague ly decipher
able word s shadow
ing what’s untouched
only partial ly reveal
ing.
Charles
may have lost
track of some of his paint
ings so intrin sically his
own outward ly displayed
on foreign walls I write
for an in visible aud
ience as if my voice
could still be heard dis
tantly paper ed to un
seen thought s.
The Tempest (Shakespeare)
a)		Spirit
s enlighten
that island- world of their
s to an un seen (airy)
identity.
b)		Extra Nos
Only out
side the realms of
man’s dark est urging
s can he be come reattun
ed to a spiritual awaken
mg.
c)		Forgive
ness Prosper
o’s reclaim ing man from
his soul less dark-in
debted de signs.
d)		Storms
can carry
us through to those un
landed realm s of a new
ly realiz ing-self Or
they can break this
restless boat of our
mast-and-
all.
e)		The church
can’t refuge
this Jewish soul of mine
from a world it’s become
so much a part of my
need for H im rock-of-sal
vation from this ship-
wrecked-soul of mine.
Moraliz
ing’s usual
ly proudly stanced at
the blind side of those
self-mirr oring truths.
Drawing the line
Where do we
draw the line if we’ve be
come so much of both side
s at either end as those
1st World War trenches dug
deeper even than death
could hold a common faith
nationed a part.
Aging’ s an uneven
process Some look older than
their mind would reveal
while other s feel the
call of roman tic instinct
s wheel-chair ed and protect
ively nursed.
Violin Sonata (Debussy V mvt.) Muted mo
ments heav ily held
through the rain-ripen
ing glow of autumnal
afternoon
s.
Op. 41,3 quartet (Schumann Is' nun.) Short-breath
ed but in tricate
ly involv ed mirror
ing dark ly imbued
sub-strata
s.
A museum
of science
replete with relics of
its own holy perpetuat
ors as if man was en
abled to re create the
final reach of this
inner puls ed vastly un
told univer se.
A room
ofbared
walls empt ied sound
s as if nothing
could be listening
back.
If Atlantis
that phantom
kingdom sunk into the si
lent and un discover
ed depths of a sea-down
underworld Who’ll remem
ber the doll ars and cent’
s faith of our own high
ly polished- up post-cul
tural king dona.
Survivors
Few survivor
s even fewer returned that
emptied land blood-soaked
estranged from its still
unspoken remem brances.
For Rosemarie
Beauty
may age blem ished with
time’s un yielding
cause But it still remain
s a lasting image of
its always becoming-
for-now.
Wallace
Stevens wrote
this 15-year- old oncom
ing poet “You must be your
own strict est critic”
I can still hear him now
more the voice than
that scalpel of his own
mostly blood less poetici
sings.
He a
woke in the
midst of a star-reclaim
ing night that even dream
merged in to distant but
still self-de fining phrase
s.
When the
fogs came
(as if they hadn’t al
ways been there)
We couldn’ t see beyond
the outline s of a lost
(but yet) self-emerg
ing world.
Kabale und Liebe (Schiller)
a)		When love
transcend s all else
even the source of its
life-intrin sic being.
b)		Greek-like
tragedy’s
static per sonae hold
ing fast (as little
as they could) a
gainst those oncoming ir
resistible
wave-likes.
c)		Can a modest.
musician’
s daughter claim the
high-flood of Schiller’
s rhetori cal expan
ses.
d)		A choric-
like back
ground Miller’ s wife Hof
marschall Kalb and Soph
ia dead-timed convention
al “correct ness”.
e)		When words
“falsely sign
ed” can pap er death’s
all-ensuing
claims.
f)		Lady Milford
the lone Brit
ain’s truly ten sed ambigu
ity of per son.
g)		Wurm
pre-dating
the death-op portune
killers of our time.
While list
ening to his
self-reflect mg thought
s a strange voice he heard
listening
intently
back.
Mutations (for Warren) A poet’s
image and i dea may mutate
from its in itial cause
to a subtl er finality
of mind- sense.
Eden-time
The air heav
ily rain-sens ed fruit
hanging an un touchable
ripeness
full-flesh
ed the eye’s seminal grow
th.
Love-death
One would
almost think (if theatre’
s the rneas ure of a high
er realizing truth) that
love impass ions its own
self-resolv ing death-
calls.
When his mouth
ran dry pro filing those
inhibited rocks sound
lessly out pulsed.
A t <2 loss (for Lenore and Doris) ol person re
finding what you were
(that inner pulse of
former be ing) before
he wasn’t.
The rain
weighted be
yond the mean ings ol what
my mind could hold Too heavy-
encompass
mgs.
2nd hand
persons are
like listen ing through
translat ions of a
too-familiar
word-sense.
Rain
bows however
softly phas ed still re
mind more of the great
flood than of those light
ening winds of promise.
After
rain the e
ver green’ s sheen of
light-pearl ed pre-Christ
mas star-sen sings.
An unseen
silver-sens
ed fish break ing the sur
face of its underworld
seclusion
s.
Forbidden
fruit at the
threshold of where
touch become s the lush
taste of death-con
suming word s.
In memory (Charles Seliger) You canvass
ed those pre enduring color
s releasing in messages
of sounding- accords.
Do
crowds
crowd us out shadowing
unseen ap pearance
s or silen ce us in to
a corner of self-kept pri
vacies.
Cows
heavy with
the weight of lesser con
tentment s timeless
ly wind-sha dowing.
wheel
ed him spac iously alight
ing moontime appear
ances.
For Rosemarie
49 years on was it
beauty that caught his re
fleeting eyesensing soft
nesses
myster
iously awaken ing instinct
s as yet for eign to his
void at the center of
self.
fly’s tenta
tive wings tremulous
ly leaf-ex panding.
bounds the
lines clear ly marked
chalked-out
delineat
ing a no wheres be
yond here danger breed
s its own un touchable
darkness
es.
An emptied
vase flower
lessly dried out of its
withhold mg light.
The Idiot
Maybe he
couldn’t think right
but he could hold that
stone tight to its numb
ness color s.
Rides
They didn’t
play by the rules they’
d never known but theirs
which ruled out our own
helpless ly self-pro
tecting.
For Rosemarie
Do hands
(their flow) stream us
gently in to the kissed-
warmth of our self-harbour
ing accords.
She (for mother at 102) who mother
ed us with the wombed en
closure s of a fami
lied sense became the
last to keep those resil ent home- fires from
finally burn ing out.
Does the
mind see or
is it the voiced-touch
of these waves timeextending.
Time-sense
This late sum
mer grass cut down to the
scent of its intimate
time-sense.
He
couldn’
t find back to himself
but an i
mage of most
ly where he wasn’t.
The map on
his out-liv ed wall of
a world that wasn’
t anymore Countrie
s renamed boundar
ies other wise that he
began to wonder where
had actual ly become
of him.
Leave
s overgreen ed turning
yellow that she feared
for her sail ow face-mir
roring.
Ream
ing image
s as dream- spells uneas
ing the sum mer flow
ed mind-se quence.
At 13
his first
orphaned
picture
s that par ented the
blank claim s of his un
known ori gins.
Too long a
lone only
the indwell ing shadow
s darkly a live to the
fears that personed
her through- echoing.
Pain
(if nothing else)
defines the most exact
ing presence of timed-
space.
a) When
parents
haven’t been awakened
through the eyed and mind
of their child ren’s inre
vealing life’ s renewing
source.
b) When
teacher
s have learn ed more from
their blank- ended paper
ing books than from
their pupil’s open-eyed
life’s quest ioning need
s.
Found-in
Landscape s rarely re
main static They move
softly in to a view as
silken - touch-teel
They walk us through
their woodshadowing
enclosure s until we
feel secret ly found-
in.
Sometime
s he felt these window
s had been looking
through a spaceless
view of time’ s unrecord
ed past.
Robert Volkmann s quartets
left me un evenly satis
fied with a world at time
s out-focused from its own
self-continu ing sense
of source.
knows more
than these illusive
unanswer ing quest
ions.
Formed
A little
girl with a light-color
ed-ball lar ger than
her eyes could hold
the wind took its own
way increas ingly form
ed.
After a Landscape (byJohn Marin) Rough sea
s the wind s as if sudd
enly alert to why those
small boat’ s sound-cur
ving.
Sparrow’
s impecca
ble devot ion to a
finite
cause.
Shored
This sea
still shor ed with the
futile re mains of
long-aband oned cause
s.
Charles
sought out
the secret ly intense
forms of na ture’s un
seen design s I seek the
same through the hidden
densities of scarce
ly unspok en words.
Pin-up
couples tann
ed for just the right smile
s lastingly- in-love as
long as the vacation’
s sunning ly high-noon
ed.
Sail
boats wind-
surmising their ever-
whiteness es’ free-fmd
mgs.
off in the
mountain’ s highest en
closing a sense of
timeless ly there
ness.
These
soft water
s sound ing me in
to the flow of reflect
ive silen ces.
Misplaced
He misplac
cd her smile d an evas
ive sense oflost-
phrasing
s.
Night
waves dream
lessly appar ent as if
the winds subdued
from their illusive
shadowing
s.
The Jews
who wanted
nothing more than being
German died in those o
vens perfect ed by the
highest le vels of Ger
man science and technol
Dark
birds se
cretly e merging
wave-like
through
the flow of night’s re
current call mgs.
These sound
less wave
s as if a risen from
their own feeling a
sameness of time’
s repeat ing cause.
There was
something
premature ly worn from
her dead-cen ter looked-a
bout smile.
If man ’
s his own
worst enemy Why doesn’t
he finally face-up
to what re mains so in
visibly apparent.
Lizard
s voiceless
ly inhabit ing the cold-
stone-touch of their allu
sively vibrat ing sense
d moment s.
River
s find their
own ways out instinct
ively puls ing the land
routes of their pre
determin ing course.
Amphytrion (Kleist)
a)		Two identi
cal I’s talk
ing back at each other
(perhaps an inner dialoe ue) despite their other wise creden tials.
b)		Concealed i
dentities
(in the Shakes pearian sense)
here even con cealing from
one’s own ap parent self.
c)		The slow
boat to Des
cenzano wind- drifting e
pochs of re vealing hist
ory slowed down to that
momentary
now.
Computerized
He kept close
to his compu ter always in
touch as a lover who fin
gers the key s of her feel
ings and screen s her beauty
far removed from the mode
s of convent ional usage.
Bird-
tree inhabit ed with that
momentary urge for short-
flighted
touched-en
deavor
s.
In-step
Walking instep common rhythmic
arm-swing ing the o
ther’s sha dowing same
ness.
These swan
s’ supreme
ly self-justi fying the ele
gance of their statu
esque appear ances.
David meeting Abigail (Rubens)
Rubens’ his
torical op ulence over
spreading the delicate-
intimacy of those first-
finding fruit s.
Counterfeit
She looked
as if she’ d always
been looked at that way
a'counter feit of what
once (per haps) had
become real.
Dandelions (in memory G. M. S.) may be
thought of as a common
breed But for him they be
came a wide field spread
ing out all— of-his-imag
ined color ings.
Tommy
had that
look of “ don’t ask a
gain” like all those who’
ve outliv ed what can’t
be forgott en A hurt
at the heart of that no-
where’s-now.
Ugliness
defies a
2nd looking back I fear
ed at my own blemish
ed Christian appearan
ces.
Adolf v. Harnack
When that most
esteemed Christ ian theolo
gian refused to converse
with a “lowly” Jewish rabbi
Was Jesus him self perhaps
listen
ing in to the
innuendoe s of that
more-than-in
formative
non-dialogue.
Short-changed
So many feel
that life has short-changed
them High hope s meagre re
turns they feel somehow
specially cheated as
if life it self had squan
dered away its own unlim
ited possibil ities.
If one
could only
hear behind those unspok
en silence s list ening aloud through a
wall’s vast ly shadow
ing under breadth.
Classical
cats roaming
the ruins of a once rever
ed past as if they them
selves age Icssly oppor
tune.
Benjonson
eye-pledg
ed the li quid intent
of even more than touch
can seem.
Did language
begin as
voice or as sign What’
s seen contin ually vibrat
ing word-sen sed.
That woman’
s cat-like
eyes closed an intensity
of night-glow ing awareness
es.
For Rosemarie
The soften
ing length of your hand-e
voking smile s much of my
impending
darkness
es away.
White gulls
as wind-recurr
ing dream s increasing
ly sound-sens mg.
Brahms Quartet (op. 67; 2 sides V mvt.)
a)		dialogue
d dense col or-finds.
b)		slow mvt.
Where’s the classical
ly depthed to a no-
wheres-but-
now.
c)		agitato (3rd mvt.
passion
ately defy ing all else
but its ur ging need
for release.
d)		last mvt.
a let-down
theme weakly varied to a
look-back, for what should
have been left behind.
Beethoven (Quartet op. 59,3; last mvt.) where begin
where end a start
ing-stop rhy thrnic fireworks.
Italian Serenade (Hugo Wolf)
Ice-cream
umbrellae d loli-pop?
s free-find s.
Langenargen
lake-landscap
ing the width of interior-
withhold ing fapade
s.
Books (though prin
ted out of dried wood)
can recreate the sap-lines
of a world’ s self-real
izing.
A good family’ (Thomas/Claudia plus) s oneness
spaced with the breath
ing light- flow of flow
ering diver se color
mgs.
Dogs die
different
ly instinct ively realiz
ing a death that’s been
so much a part of their
abounding
lifeful
ness.
A cause
She always needed a
cause the way some
women all- dressed—up
to that some thing more of
self-conceal
ing-
With him
some theme
s couldn’ t even be
touched break able as valu
ed china care fully closed-
locked be hind glass fa
cades.
Tired spells
Those tired
spells that age use down
to a bottom- deep where
only dark shallows outsold timeless ly through.
Dementia
We knew
he was wear mg down
that way for getful of
where he was n’t looking a
side from that center
less self straight to
the eye-length of only that
now-him.
Some room
s space
fully attun ed can e
ven open out the width of
such unseen colors.
Schumann’
s 4th George Szell
pulsed it more than it
sang to the no-return of
rhythmic wave- streams.
For Rosemarie I
Thinking
out a world without
your being the more of
me than I could possi
bly conceive
For Rosemarie II
the blue-
touch of your recept
ive smile d me in to
those realm s of sea-
bottomed
stillness
es.
Pfullendorf
a small city
finely kept rehears
ing an appear ance of what
it really- wasn’t.
Aging
If he’s
still the same person
he always was Why these in
creased sha dowings at
differing
lengths-of-
feeling.
The sun
after these
long rain- spells de
dared such a cool bright
ness almost untouch
ably heard.
Quartet 5 (M. Weinberg slow mvt.) a ghostlike remem brance of
what’s still playing his
mind through danced-re
callings.
Amphytrion (Kleist the ending) Do “the gods”
make fools ofour turn
ing them in to express
ions of our own ungod-
like creat ions.
Leaf-touch
ed remembr ances as
if their au tumnal color
ings awaken ing his hand’
s time-sens mg.
Robert
never found
back to where he’d never
been as if lost from a
beginning that started
him out emp ty-handed.
Still life (Mornndi, Munich)
as if lift
ed from the very-source
of its be ing sound
lessly a wake.
Weinberg’
s circul
ar sound’ s a depth-
feeling empti ness at the
void-center.
Therapy’
s often a
lifeless
alternat
ive to the one you did
n’t lead.
Morandi’
s picture s as if
mysterious ly rubbed
through with the
faintly re vealing
urge of an indelible hand.
Uncertained
I couldn’
t certain her to the
where of my own becoming
s known.
Umbrella
s landscape
the color ing round
ness of our impervious
ly redund ant world-
sense.
Guardi’
s light-re
fleeting glassed i
mage of why the world’
s masked from its

Pin-wheeled
When the
words ran out as a
child’s pin- wheel color
lessly wind- stilled.
Quartet 7 (Weinberg V mvt.) A loneli
ness so con suming as
if voiced in an empt
led land scape that
couldn’t be echo
ing back.
Totally im
mersed when
the problem s of other
s inhabited more of him
than his own ways for gett
ing out.
Why does
the ivy keep
climbing its shadow
ing way up wardly light-
obscuring.
This room
(the poet's)
voices an intimate
quiet of its own re
ceiving a pre-given
need for light.
Poemed (what it is for Warren)
a)		Key word
s that satis
fy a poem’ s inherent
tonality.
b)		Surprise
endings that
turn upon themselv
es to a complete
(as yet) circling
off.
c)		Halfwords weave in to phras
ing musical accords.
d)		Repeat
ing image
s seeing through
those elus ive other
sides from self.
e)		When the
senses inter-
create a spell-work
beyond their own
one-faced
meaning
s.
j) Only words
that shape
and shadow their sens
ed-through
being.
Weinberg’
s lonely vio
lin trans cending
those desol ate height
s even of funerall
ed ash-fire s.
One-stop trains
These only
one-stop trains stat
ioned for death closed-
tight the fears of their
blood-dull ed forebod
ings.
Bow-tied
His words
forgotten (however im
portant they might
have been) but his bow-
tied smile d me still.
As they
caged Pound
in his irrev erent abuse
perhaps its intended bird
could have ta ken that i
rnaged flight away.
A dark
lake sunk
in phantom s of the
past moon- intensed.
Autumn
al shadow
s enclos ures of a
darken ing forget
fulness.
A. rcved (Gauguin) She fluted
the flower s to a dance-
semblance of color
ing-light.
Seed voyage (Seliger 1994) ’s minute
ly celeb rat ing intri
cate flight- appearan
ces.
Her face
as over
used word s paled out
from their freshly
blooded
time-sequen
ces.
Standing
on an immov
able rock solemnly
contemplat ing his al
ways-need for distinct
ing him self out.
Berlin 1945 (for R. G.)
Dark places
sound proof strange voi
ces uncloth ing his mo
ther’s crie s vibrate
his own in audible sob
s left him always life-
lonely.
No one
knows the
way out of this one
(nothing really spec
ial about his return
ing home in a semi-dark
ness) his steps went
only so far until they
disappear ed into the
thicken ing wood
s of a timeless
night.
The wad (for W. w.)
stopped un paved it was
that moment that turn
ed his life around to
where it started no
wheres but now/then.
Morandi
Rough and
smooth sur faces that
left those untouch
ed moment s behind.
When
the light
darkened and only the
winds became sense’s nightconsuming.
Dream
ed-sleep un revealing
waves of a time-sunken
past.
The parrot
colored
my reti cent voice
with the caged-in
wings of its shadow
ing silen
ces.
Dark
streams a
wakening
through
the moon’ s voice
less call ings.
Wind-evoking
Her hand
so slender as reed
s wind-evok ing.
M. 5.
Secretive
she was e ven beyond
the need of self-protect
ing her own tightly-clos
ed most in timate of
thought
s.
For my Rose
marie dream
ily lightcoloring
as breez es of a cele
brating morn ing’s first-
found open ing flower
s.
Rooted
What became
of what once was —
You can’t judge a tree
by its rough bark the in
visible roots grow
th deeper soiled to
their dark re claiming
depth.
Autumn
time the
winds have blown their
shadows in to these re
sidual depth s of fear.
This autumn
al day too
bright to realize the
depth of its own self-con
suming shad ows.
Pretty
daint
ily color ed flower
s ornamen ting the fa
cades of their own
darkly-felt
interior
s.
A tired
ness over
coming of clouds that
took him down even
lower-lev
elled.
That tiny
whiff-of-a-
girl’s bright eye’s trans
parently
smiling.
If you
can’t de
cide on marr iage don’t
do or it will do you
out.
When'
parents
would create their child
ren to their own self-secur
ing image they’re mirr
oring without thought of
what can’t be looking
back.
These small
white flow ers tight
and prim lyjewell
ed as if
from scent and stone.
The golden
age of music
levelled deeper seclu
sively dark er than that
mere appear ance of
sound.
These fall
days bright
beyond the reach of
where I can feel myself
through.
St. George and the Dragon (Altdorfer, Munich) The shining
glance of woods envel
oping man and beast in
an eternal ly envision
ed light- depth.
Madonna and Child (Privateli, Munich early 16. c.) as classic
as Bellini’ s oneness
of person ed-place
statical ly sensed-a
live.
Some medieval
paintings so
lost in their flowering
symbols that the less-cent
er’s most ly fragile
ly untouch ed.
Taste
and person
seldom match a unity of
other sid edness.
Autumn
night the
moon strong er sensed
than even the depths
of darkness could heaven
ly describe.
Butter
fly color
s more wind- sound’s a
wakening
s.
Lost
she became
in the leaf- expanse of
sky-immers ing memor
ies.
For Mother (at age 102)
She became
so much of this world
that even as times chang
ed with her becoming
for us
almost time lessly there.
On his 11,h birthday
A late start
er they call ed him as
if the be ginning
wasn’t then at all of a
growing up after-thought.
The JlVSt Still life (Jacapo da Barberi, Munich)
just hang
ing down a casual mo
ment from time’s last
ing place.
Annunciation (Antonella da Messina, Munich)
Maria strange
ly reach ing out to an
unseen world even beyond
touch-find
s.
What could
have been
wasn’t the fear resolv
ing ca dences of
steadied
stream-like
after flow.
With Kleist’
s all or noth
ing a moral ist poised with
in his own uncertain
ties left him the nothing
ness of hav ing said-it-
all.
I f we stand
at opposite
ends of our self-being
the battle field of un
resolv ing conflict
s.
Returned
Ulysees
and Tolstoi’ s Pierre re
turned with little else
to bring back than
their long ing need
for it.
Weinberg (Is' solo cello sonata) cello
ed me in to the in
tervals of his self-de
fining reson ances.
Child ing
My father
could oft child him
self down to their
hop-jump
impulsing
s.
Otherwise
To trace
with genuine ly ascrib
ing finger s the geneal
ogy of why he’s become
so remote ly other
wise.
For Rosemarie
You can’t
possibly (at age 72)
with that subtlely
wind-describ ing hair of
your being so beauti
fully self- revealing
as now.
Moon-souling
That autumn
al night spacious
ly moon-soul ing the dark
ness from her self-pre
vailing emp tiness
es.
The Siena
of his fine
ly eye-de scribing
birthed
spiritual
innuendoe
s.
No answers
When there
are no answer s left only
the quest ions long-lin
gering as a flag half-
mast.
Reiterquartett (Haydn op. 74,3; last mvt.) croach
ed down take the mark for
the chase pur suing its
own wherea bout’s find.
Harvest
moon impuls
ing the grow th of ripen
ing secret ly accord
Predator
A nest
at the top cat climb
ing steal thily paw
ed to an in stinctual
need for easing in
nocent blood.
As the Adam
s and Eve s clothed
themselve s deceptive
ly hiding be hind decora
tive phases of that other
self-creat ing self.
Dark imag
inings e ven the wing
s of the ra ven’s flight-
encircl ing blood-
enthused
forebod
mgs.
Mosquit
o’s touch-
sound stirr ing the va
cant air’ s blood-de
cipher
ings.
Even at
dawn the
moon timefading in
to its invis ible realm
s of night- evoking
shadow
s.
Life
became for
her more a self-dialog
ing its ill usive time-
flows.
Rewritten
They re
wrote hist ory didn’t
change what actual
ly happen ed if not
now why only then.
Oneness
A field of
sun-flower ing the green
foliage with an image
of scarce ly identify
ing oneness.
Chamber Symphony (Weinberg 1992) Its archaic
beauty so much of a
century ear lier the kletz
mer clarinet soulful lone
ly express ively
sad and o pen realms of
distant
unrequit
ed longing s.
N had become
an apparent inclinat
ion of her therapist’
s suggest ive-insinu
ating voice dream-evok
ing-
Was it
stone that
he touch ed-in that
hot summer day or the
feel of his own mind’
s awareness es’ seeing
through.
Unseen
If we can’
t see oui- self only
through the eyes of o
thers or mirr ored from a
pre-select ive pose But
if we list en hard e
nough we can still hear
the unseen i mage of our
self-confin ing voice.
s charred vis
ions of his family’s ash
ened remain ed still a
beauty of es cape a
world they couldn’t
hear but through the
living tonal ities of his
sounding them through-
alived.
A church
dead-ston
ed worn down from its im
posing shad ows to a
time when they closed
the doors onJesus and
his discip les jewed to
their inex plicable
loss.
Meyer-Amden’
s faint re
miniscen ces of what
could have appeared
almost real.
Are these
flowers
colorless ly night-
awake.
Unsaid
Some
thing import ant unsaid
over-look ed that it
plagued his memory re
peating in unformed syll
ables word lessly a
live.
If taste
distin
guishes the essent
ial person Why are most
inconsist ently prone
to contrast ing self
less express ions.
A stain-
on their
past as with Lady Macbeth’
s no means of rubbing it
off no
night-wander
ings either as if the
morning light full
of forget fulness.
How can
you forget
what you can’ t remember
History rare ly dawns on
us as wind s over the
horizon’ s edge.
When speed
train-length ed merges
in to the silence
ofbared- down resolv
ing field s.
In to the
dark of where time
hesitant ly touch-ob
scuring.
Too late I realized
the resonan ces of his e
vil eying me as a poison
ed snake readied/cur
led-to-
strike.
Teacher’ (Dv. Voltz) s seminar
like malle able clay
still-form ing in to a
mode of more than self-de
signing in stinc t
s.
Annunciation
(Pleyendotff, St. Lorenz, Nurnberg 1460)
as if The
Father gold ed-chained
history in to the pur
ity of Mary’ s celebrat
ing recept ion.
Even
these light
winds leafphrasing
caressing ly mild.
Some of us
become more what we do
than what we are Schubert releasing music from his scarcely real izing self.
A last chance
as if she
could have chosen other
wise a fin ality of now’
s the never realizing.
Mantegna
cold/hard
and heathen without e
ven a breath of Bellini’
s touching softness.
Glad ioles
elongat
ing the reach for
their color ing-touch.
His tie
more like
perform ing the co
lors to his own attun
ing smile - lengthed
importan
ces.
The heaven
ly blue
Bellini in spiring a
purity of untouch
ably light— distanc
ings.
Jacopo
Bellini’
s paralleleyed Madonna
s as if The Virgin rout
ed to a Christ-same
ness.
When her
husband
died only the tiny depth
of a little— become-dog
could lick her apprecia
ting finger s back to a
need for life and love-ap
peals.
inhabit ing a new
ly discover ed land which
had always s been map
ed out but neverthe
less became.
Illmensee
fading in
to the mist of its cloud-
evolving sha dowings.
The fog

floating through midair time-sus pending.
“Finding yourself”
You just
have “to find yourself’
they said as if those
mute shad ows darkly in
habiting a terrain of
their own could (how
ever silent ly) answer
ing back.
Holding on
She needed to
hold on to some thing
as the cool railing of
her tilt ing ship se
curing a grasp that de
fied the space Icssucss of her own self-impend
ing shadow s.
Pedes tailed
When those
deciding mo ments (as
if pedestall ed to a now
or never) step down
from their self-assum
ing sense-of- importance.
Lightmares
Her train
fog-bound in the depth
of its own impervious
sound ing out ee
rie light mares.
Train stat
ioned in the
wee morning hours empty-
voiced self- inhabiting.
A world
adrift
in the fog- light of its
echo less self-i
imagining
s.
Jeweller
exact
ing touch- pinned
his finger s reliab
ly sensed.
Is
the fall
ing of leave s a sign
of sadness or the va
cant loneli ness of a
world naked ly self-find
mg.
The blind
singer felt
more the trans parent light
of its voic ed-through
intonat
ions.
Colorings (4)
a)		A utumn
al sound-
sense
d that lies itant inspok
en stirr ing of predescend ing leafed-
coloring
s.
b)		Pin-wheeled
That small
child pinwheeled
the vibrant touch of its
wind-color
ings.
c)		Butter
flies inno
cently coloring the un
evened flight of their own
self-elud ing moment
s.
Marians Vesper (Monteverdi)
d)		contrast
ing the in timacies of
voiced soundtouching
the dense coloring
s ofVenet ian festivi
ties.
“One-track-mind”
Those plag
ued with a “one-track-
mind” may dis cover that
missing the train could
time-table them to the
consuming
vacancie
s of obscur ed destinat
ions.
For Rosemarie
Aging love
continue s to warm
us young with the em
bering coal s of these
thirst ing fire-
finds.
Paws-down
She had
that look of a boneless
dog about her on-the-
scent paws- down modulat
ing.
Serioso Quartet (op. 95, Beethoven) That kind of
music can force the is
sue on its own terms dia
loging a deep ly dissatis
fying unanswer ing self.
Preaching
the unseen
Easter-revel ation’s like
angelical ly transfer
ming the im purity of our
down-to-earth lifted flesh
and blood.
There
he was
before he wasn’t always
s one step a head of where
his feet were taking
him down to the stair’
s bottom- felt blood
fulness.
Middle-
minded med
iating bet ween two
sides that left her
bridged from an ac
cumulat ing deep.
Beethoven
forced his
always-will self-deter
mining be yond the home-
for-enclos ures of class
ically final ized.
Our skin
doctor’s
Sherlock-Holm
es-like
light-scann ing whatever
percepti ble clues
could be touched-back
to mind.
Waiting room
The waiting
room filled with those
time-shar ing fears
that left each-of-them
(however
different
ly clothed) as a unity
of a pre-call ing presence.
Forbidden fruits
That scare
crow (even if it didn’
t scare us) scantily cloth
ed a field of protect
ing bird-like shadow
ing intake of all those
(but for us) forbidden
fruits.
Quartet 1 (Schonberg, V mvt.) They all
started be fore it be
gan tuning up an over
flow of “I’m my only
voice”.
Quartet, op. 20,3 (Haydn slow mvt.)
The cello
depthed in the darken
ing flow of a child’s
timbre of its own
voice dis covering.
Mooned (for Rosemarie)
My world’s
only become complete
through your moon-en
circling
other-sourc
ed brighten mgs.
His own way
He had his
own way of overstat
ing what ever he could
hardly be lieve dialog
uing a need for a
temper ing respon
se.
Closer
I grew clo
ser to him than his
stand-off
ish-word-
profess ings could
decide.
Wind
still the
trees unmov ed as if
time-con
templating
the depth of their autumn
al exposure s.
To keep busy
She tried to
keep busy as if the
thought of her being
left alone could open
out unheard shadow-whis
perings.
“Open ended”
They call
ed it “open ended marr
iage” as if love always
would need a secret es
cape to its backstair
ed down-way s.
Chilean
mine worker
s praying the dark
ness through to the light
of their earth-depth
ed enclos ures.
Concert (Munich, Oct. 14)
a)		Piano/Woodwind Quintet’ (Mozart, k. 452)
s inner harmon
ically calm ed shadow
ings as of wind-sensed
cloud-trans
parencie
s.
b)		Trout Quintet (Schubert, slow mvt.)
The water
or the trout’ s transpar
ent unity of sound-flow.
c)		Piano Quintet (Dvorak, slow mvt.) as if the
world had been slowed to a
self-contem plative a
wareness of its own un
fathom able beauty.
d)		Piano Concerto’ no. 11 (Haydn, last mvt.)
s strange
ly foreign irresist
able dance d intonat
ions.
These star
less autumn
al night s enclosing
even the touch of
their un heard
light-dis
tancing.
Raphael
We couldn’
t get to the touch of
those empt ied space
s he left so immune to
our own sell- relying sen
sibilitie
s.
Ravensburg’
s sun-dimm
ed warmth southern-im
itating med ieval light-
paths.
Dark
words sha
dowing a woods of un
spoken
phrase
s.
Self-revealing
If we could
see through those secret
ly hidden thought
s of other s might bring
our own to their self-re
vealing
light.
Dea th -processional
No death-pro
cessional I’ve ever
seen more ser iously in
tensed than of those sum
mer ducks en circling
the forbidd en death of
that lonely one-of-their
s.
Dead
end side
street s us to a
no where s beyond
the range of self-im
pending en closure
s.
When lang
uage began
self-tun ing its
strange (and yet
vastly fam iliar)
accords.
The family’
s the last
barrier to fall from
man’s being freed to a lasting lone liness from
self.
Penthesilia (Kleist) (5)
a)		way ahead of
his time’ s feeling to
that Kafkaes que identi
ty crisis but way oft
(as well) from a believ
able human frame-to-be
mg.
b)		Penthesilia
emancipat
ed Amazon-warr ior let love
in only-so- far as a sunlit view clos ed down cur
tained to her overbear
ing darkness es.
c)		She did it
killed her
scheming lover fed on
the flesh and blood of
her own self- denial.
d)		Love-to-death
a passion
ed flesh and blood unity
of a more than life
can hold.
e)		Where those
dogs and ele
phants of her animalled
instincts opposed to
the Greek’ s veneer of
a higher sense-for-
meaning.
Orchid
s holding
on to the tropical
ly color ing inter
iors of this late
autumnal
glow.
Rain
drops prefiguring the touch
ofVermeer’ s pearl-
like innuen does.
The time
ornament
ally clock ed to an
artific ally stone-
environ ed wall’s
steadied- down pace.
Rain
winds cloud
ing the touch ed persuas
ions of these scarce
ly envision ed inter
ior echo mgs.
Wasn ’t
She wasn’
t what she was before
time refash ioned her i
maged to its self-forebod
ing appear ances.
The home
less out on
the street s with no
shelter left but their
time-endur ing feet.
If man’s
the solemn maker of his
own self-deny ing history
he keeps writing to
paper over the flesh and
blood of what usually turn
ed out wrong.
Cheer-leading
Alena at
age 9 cheerleading all
the rah-rah dance-impet
uating form s of team
less self-ex posure
s.
For Chung
Clean
ing up clear ing out what
she’d left be hind the cloth
es select ed to match
colors and touch-felt de
signs the jew els not meant
to sparkle but to cool
and cleanse what death
had claimed for the rest
and its own safe-keep
ing.
When
thought be
came that blank-stare
of his win dowed into a
framed com pleteness.
For Rosemarie
To ask why
I love you is like ask
ing the flo wers why they’
re colored white blue
and red I’m not I not com
plete with out you Ask
God He color s the flow
ers too.
The touch
of a rose
folds me in to the realm
s of its
through-fmd ing scent.
Purim
What Hainan
couldn’t Hitler ful
filled a dance not
joyous ly triumph
ant but slow ly inbecom
ing danced- to-death.
Israel
s national
hymn in the minor key of
its mediev al longing
s for a re turn to that
God-given land of its
blood-ful filling re
demption.
Soul-descending
Is it the
sadness of the entire
world fall ing with these
late October leaves down
to the emp tied bareness
of man’s fut ile attempt
s to master himself and
his sovereign claims over
the many-color ed designs of
this world’ s soul-de
scending.
That late
autumnal
night moonclouding me
in to its surround
ing celest ial bright
ness.
Dark motion
less morn
mgs as a boat anchor
ed to the depth of its
not finding from where.
These leaf-
descending
trees as Adam and Eve with
nothing left to hide from
the naked ness of their
self-reveal
ings.
Mother
at 102 age
lessly endur ing her child
ren’s loss of their life-
consuming
strength.
“The last one ”
“I’m the last
one” he said after a fun
eral “All my classmate
s are bur ied mostly
here” I saw him wander
ing grave stone to grave
stone as if i magining the
down-depth of his one
ness with those class
mates of his indelible
past.
or the power
of the broom stick the
wish-fulfill ing image of
a minister’ heart Mary and
Martha all-in- one the inward
prayer and sermon- recipient of
all the necess ary clean-up
work as well But beware if
a woman dared come in pants
to the week ly bible group
Beware of her penetrating
eyes and not- so-closely
kept mouth.
and the power of the broom-
stick-Saturday s cleaning up
for the pur ity of The
Lord’s Day the swinging of
the broom the rhythmic im
pulsing mod
esty of her
Mary and M ar tha’s heart.
Money girl
One could
see through the self-cer
tained way she dressed
and spoke her hands a
live to the shifting of
monies taken in as if
she could only be lis
tening through the artifi
cial light of that se
para ting glass.
Richard III (Shakespeare)
a)		“a horse for
a kingdom”
Richard tra ded his own
soul for a blood-aspir
ing phantom- kingdom.
b)		Richard
tempted o
thers (some times with
success) for his amhiti
ous designs as if a sha
dow of his own self-re
vealing
heart.
c)		Evil
justifie
s its own ways not in
mind but in the continu
ing act of its alway
s being so.
Not yet for healing
The leave
s are fall en the rose
curled down to its dy
ing scent only the
thorn re mains and
those open ed spaces
not yet for healing-
times.
Last chance
Her last
chance d it quick
er than she could de
cide and left her
chance lessly un
done.
Kingdom of darkness
Only Christ
could affirm the depth of
that kingdom of darkness
that we could n’t even see/
feel oursel ves through!
Changed
It may have
been the same person
so chang ed that I
couldn’t re member even
less of why he hadn’t been
so/then.
At 73
death’
s calling’ s become as
common as this leaffalling sky-hold.
African fantasy
Exotic
names and their color
ing over dressed-ap
pearance s seemed to
be exposing more of their
insuffi cently voic
ed-innuen
does.
Hunting-eyes
If some ani
mals can see the dark
ness through their hunt
ing-eyes al ways aware.
Found-out
A poem’
s that-al ways-there
until it’ s sufficient
ly found- out.
Arcarea (Gauouin) Wild dog
sound- felt in
stinct ing color.
The alligator
pre-histori
cally armour ed for time
lessly mindfloating.
Learningfrom books (3)
a)		She knew
more while always reali
zing less.
b)		a two-sid
ed view of her own self-
dividing.
c)		her dream
s paper ing over
scarce ly decipher
able imag ery.
Learning from life (2)
a) The world
outside those inner
rooms of self refresh
ingly other wiseness.
b) always
in dialogue as if life
could be learn
ing from you.
Autumn’
s reflect
ive not only when it
spaces in to a solemn
depth of pre ordained
quietude
s.
To mind him
It’s only
when he him selfbegan
to hurt the feeling
s he’d done the same
came back to mind him.
goat with
its final blessing
released in to a de
sert bloom ing strange
ly untold flower
s.
Spidered
A dark-view
spidered him unseen
in to the hold of its
alluring
phantom-pre
sence.
Ergo
She at the
height of her littleness
stance
d more hand
s than mind ing her week
ly rub-in therapeut
ic voice- likes.
The Gauguin (La Orana Maria) he awoke
in the mid st of this
bare-down sea son to a
strange ly foreign
feeling of densely con
suming color.
as Cain
with that stigma of be
ing marked- off from o
thers yet as Abel most in
timately
God-invok
mg.
The thought
of Crete
abstract ed his mind’
s-touch to a bareness
of sound-in flection
s.
Are the
Don Juans
perhaps a fraid of a
woman becom ing more of
them than they could
so easily leave be
hind.
Goodness
can still
stand alone as an un
armed warr ior over the
fields of Freud’s con
suming de bris.
stone-scent fires awaken
ed somewhere in die depth
of his mind’ s vacant
fields of a bandoned
longing
s.
Light-streaked
Shoot
ing pain s they call
ed its not coming back
light-streak
ed.
A still
life because
it stilled bis eye-
touch to its space-defm
ing presen
ce.
Poems from Crete 2010
a)		Shrub-
down bottom- ground of a
rock-fed cul ture long
since last ing its time
s out.
b)		The mount
ains at a
height of forgetful
ness still witness
ing centur ies of lost
remembran
ces.
c)		The sound
of the sea resign
ing itself to that un
change able voice
fate-evok
mg.
d)		Our hotel
in patio
style flower ing an inti
macy of selfenclosing
after
thought
s.
e)		A butter
fly’s wing
s uncertain ly echoing
its need s for ingra
dating
light-touch
ing moment s.
f)		The carpet e
longating
into a mos aic of sound
less impress ions.
g)		Pomogran
ate’s close
ly held juice-inten
sing its me ticulous
self-refin ing taste.
h)		At Chersonisos
only the
floored mo saic remain
s ofan an cient church
hill in creasing
invisible
faith-find
s.
i)		These mass
ive unspok en cloud
s conceal ing a depth
of celest ial light-
j)		Silent mem
ories increa
sing in to a sha
dowing un ease.
k)		The harbor
at Chersoni
sos encir cled our
sense-of- seeing its
boat-awaken
mgs.
1)		Light-phasings Wind creat
ing moment arily lightphasing s.
m)	Arcade’
s interval
s of step-re claiming
voiced-e
choing
s.
n)	The tired
ness of a
ging as these tree
s shadow ing their in
creasing ex panse.
o)	The tide
s seem slow
ing down here as if
time were shifting in
to the se curing length
for a perpet ually encom
passing
warmth.
p)	A court
yard flower
ing enclos ures rarely
fathomed
secret
ly intens ed.
q)	Tile
floor’
s cold i mage reflec
ting a faint ly incomplete
momentar ily there.
r)	The scare
crow scar
ed no one but his own
poorly dress ed thinly
disguised
self-deciph
ering es cape route
s)	Perhap
s the bird’
s circling lonely o
ver the sea’ s unfathom
ed message- wings still
unrealiz
ing.
t)	One can’
t read a per
son’s eyetouching
decipher ing respon
se.
u)	Grass can’
t really
ripen here it leaves
an impress ion more of
barely-felt
exposure
v)		That aban
doned scope
of the Vene tian harbor
at Heraklion imperson
ally time-e hiding.
w)	Street
lights o
minous ly night-a
ware at the dawn of their
voice
less pre sence.
x)		Aron
nimbly awak
ening fleet ing stone-
bred impress ions.
y)	Alena
at 9 more
girl than wo manly round
ly coloring her selfextending smiles.
z)	Blind alley
way cat’
s stealth ily pawing
self-decept
ions.
aa) When
left alone
to vacant ly shadow
the ship’ s out beyond
sound
appearing
s.
bb) Sea-salt
ed scent pungent
ly wind-re minding.
cc) He sat
there for
hours silent ly contempla
ting more i mage than
words as if through a
continui ty of cloudstreaming s.
dd) He became
too close to
himself as a tree clutch
ed down to the weight
of unripen ed fruit.
ee) Knossos (9)
1. Can an
cient stone s speak in
strange dia lects recount
ing where rains and
winds have left them so
desolate ly unheard.
ff) 2. Blood-
stones mute ly sacrifi
cing the un answered
animal’ s rhythmi
cally respond ing crie
s.
gg) 3. Opened
sky anoint
ing the col umned God’
s wind-implor ings.
hh) 4. Blue ladies
Three women
ornament ally dress
ed out to their hand-
encompass ing eye-sens
ings.
ii) 5. Wave-curv
ing origin
s of where flowering
s growth- touched.
jj) 6. Linear
eye-length
ed the “
Lily prince”
’s sound-col orings.
kk) 7. Cyclade
idol’s arm- encircl
ing vision of an un
seen sit- down worldview.
11) 8. Bull-spring
ing his e
thereal air -enchant
ing acroba tic somer
saulting
s.
mm) 9. Dolphins
peaceably
coloring a world of
vanish mg light-
flow.
nn) Isolat
ing palms
as proud ly sourced
ladies lux uriating
their lush-
green heaven
ly aside s from this
coarse and nakedly stone-
bred island.
oo) This cliff-
down culture
of wind-de sc ending
timed only now to the
tide’s eter nal expos
ures.
pp) Warned
She couldn’
t be warn ed as flash
ing light s calling
her ever-so- closely to
that inevi table no-
wheres-else.
qq) The poem
ed intensi
ty thought- imaged a
focus pre cisely un
heard.
rr) Night
city-light
s on dark waters re
fleeting a tideless
continui ty of sound-
flow.
ss) Out of
the dark en
closure of unremember
ed time the world creat
ed each (and only that
day) anew.
tt) Light-spending
Smooth
winds self-re assuring
as a mother’ s hand calm
ed to those withholding
inner silen ces increase
ingly lightspending.
uu) Birds
attenuat
ing a wired evenness
of sound less expos
ures.
vv) Ont
lines of a
house color- bare hold
ing down these wind-
climbing
hills.
ww) Mythed
Crete may
have been mythed from
its sea-a risen shoresensing s.
xx) War-minded
body built to muscle-
out those strange
ly recurr ing fear
s of his.
yy) Dreamed-
night as the
outspread ing clouds
timeless ly expos
ing.
zz) After Brueghel
Children gaming life
in to their imaginary
self-express ive playtimes.
aaa) At Knossos
the stone-
down ruin s of a sky-
enchanc ing bright
ness-cult.
bbb) Light-panor
ama of these
white-wash ed house
s message a tenuous
purity of hill-confin
ing.
cce) A white-
bred flower
earth-trans
cending
the singul ar whole
ness of its petalled-re
fining touch ddd) People
s can’t
fully and freely live
without the dawning
past of their self-aspir
ing heroic myths.
eee) Either way
Those who
can see thing s either way
may become in tellectual
ly cross-ey ed blankly star
ing at the center.
fjf) At parting (for the 4 A’s)
A touch of
sadness at parting not
deep and swell ing but as
a slight re miniscence
already in passing.
Silence
s (those
thrown up
at you as
walled barr iers) can de
fend even harder than
stone.
For Rosemarie
It’s that
left-over little girl
innocence that woman
s you even more attract
ively mine.
2nd Commandment (Moses) He created
himself a new in his
own image that left God
staring
through those
blank-down spaces of his.
Vacant
A room
left vacant because I’
ve become a ware of the
window’s
darkness
es being left so
vividly
behind.
For many
some quest
ions aren’t asked but
simply lived out as leave
s tred upon until they’
ve become no better oft'
than those self-same
images down ed.
F‘ Sextet op. 18 (Brahms) A rich dark
ness prevad ing the con
trasting co lors of depth
ed silence s.
Those left behind
Do the win
ter bird s (those left
behind to the vacant still
ness of their snow-sens
ing shadow s) feel a
kind of sad ness through
their lesser winged need
s for flight.
Out-of-bounds (an answei What’s new
(because it couldn’
t be other wise) out-
of-bound s beyond that
close-kept court of gram
matical re straint.
Unde living
that most
ly modest self-refrain
ing listen er always in
voked the last word as
a judge wis doming the
voice of un answer
able truth s.
Wintered
The sun
kept down closer to
the horizon’ s edge as
some person s cooled to
those lesser vista’s
self-re
strain
mg-
Ice-skat
ing the e
lusive ly rhythm
ic feel of sound
lessly in herent self-
escaping
s.
Ice-fish
ing below
the endang ered surface
of our noescape route
For closure
A word
less inde scrib
able void as an empt
ied pre-fash ioned well
filling to its brim-
needs for closure.
In the dark
person
s become phantom
s of shad owing fear
s untouch ably pre
sent.
PoentS (from Alsfeld, to and from)
a)		Wind-thoughts
The train’
s wind- thought
s at the speed of hav
ing been there.
b)		The inert
flow of these hill
s timeless ly forgett
mg.
c)		Late autumn’
s green-down
fields bar ing for co
lorless find s.
d)		After-sensed
Threaten
ing wind- clouds con
trasting sun-bred af
ter-sensed.
e)		When
what we don’
t know only momentar
ily assur ed like your
hand-pulse
reclaim
ing my vi sion of now’
s otherwise ness.
f)		It’s bin
ing up to a skied-mirr
ored through appearance
even if the trees escap
ingly self- fmding.
g)		Wilhelm
ian moust
ache glar ing eyes at
either end of a self-
deceiving out-timed
appearan
ce.
h)		Two-lined
highway
one-direct
ioning par allel cau
ses.
i)		Passing
through
Niirnberg even the
name deaden s down crowd
s of still— obscur
mg evil ac cords.
j)		Curtain
ing off dark rains of a
strange and foreign city
as if list ening to
some un known where
at the depth of his im
person ing self.
k)		Dead-tiled Hades of an under
worldly flow of time
less forget fullness.
1)		Wind-rain
the curr
ents of sound dark
ly phras mg.
m)	Giraffed
The wooden
ed reach of that high-
phasing gir aff lowered
him down to an upward
s aspir ing of skysensing’ s evermore.
n)	Brahms’
First Sextet
continue s to intone
me with the poetic stream
s of its out lasting time
lessness.
o)	1001
Wax candle’
s cold-shine glimmer
ing through stone-reflec
tions.
p)	Do the
blind hear
more out of the dark
ness of our strange
ly-felt
voice.
q)	Dried ben ies
sun-ripe hard Octob
er-clear Now as but
a lessen ed remind
er of thing s past.
r)	Leafed-va
cancies
dulled-shine
of November’ s wayward
light.
s)	Doesn’
t the out
er eye of ten become
us closer than the
mind’s
heart-re
vealing.
t)	Rows of
emptied
chairs lis tening as
hard as wood could be sig
nifying some thing more
than eyes or even ear
s could poss lbly retain.
u)	Time-sitting
She became
so used to herselfby
being no wheres o
ther than where she al
ways was time-sitt
mg.
v)		Curtain ed morning still
ness as fine
ly felt through as
these trails parencie
s of light ening wind
s.
w)	A life-view
Can look
ing through window
s reveal a life-view
as those o pen court
yards in De Hooch’s paint
ing us be yond even
where the eye could be
come timesensing.
x)		One could
perhaps com
pare plugged- in-music-
dweller s to the
cavemen of prehistor
ic tim
ing their per
sistent beat to the resid
ual accord s of loom
ing darkness es.
y) Alfeld’
s old e
nough with its half-tim
ber houses to remember
why its past’ s become so
time-elud
mg.
z) Some
collect rare
stones to discover un
told color ings with
in their own sound-bear
ingtouch- finds.
aa) The light
darkly un
told switch ed-on the
sudden touch ot
space-reveal
ing.
bb) Rows of
window
s lifted his eyes beyond
their glass ed-through
shadow
ings.
cc) Stairs se
cretly climb
mg the cir cling of some-
other-thought s being left
behind.
dd) A moon
less night grey and
dead-drab as if the
sky was sear ching still
spaceless ly unatten
ded.
ee) Trees
darkly e
merging from the
wind-kept
secret
ly moon-tim ed phras
mgs.
jf) Pink’
s youthful
side of his sunny-set
bright ly adorned
suit
ed that parr
ot-like smile of his cag
ed-in part ly subdu
ing reminis cence
s.
ao)	That old-
<±X±>/
chuckling
face of his reminding
of a far liter’s bean
stalk and the wind-
rained fm ality of a
scare crow’ s persis
tent there ness.
hh) Silhouetting
Can the mind
be silhouet ting reclu
sive downtime imagin
mgs.
Darkly
timed squirr
el lithely skipping o
ver spaced affinitie
s to his in tuitive
ly rehear sing poetic
phrasing
s.
Interior
side-show
s the u sual could-
have-been s dressed
out to the full-length
of false ap pearanee
s.
Ifl
mostly see
my own face through
the disclos ing eyes of
others Do they really
mirror-me- back or their
own decept ively recall
ing self-con templation
s.
Holding on
Cluster
ed they were dried-down
the last leaves as if
holding on tight to their
only-time sapped out.
Foreseeing
I’ve seen it
before she meant but
couldn’t re member the
why or when but only
this now’ s foresee
ing.
Played out
A play in
which the charact
ers couldn’ t find them
selves out only their
shadow s echo
ing a spaceless
void.
A no man’s land
It wasn’
t too late (though
there seem ed to be
little time left)
to where he took that
same path as before dress
ed in his u sual thought
s but the further he
went beyond his farthest
doubts in to a no man’
s land with no possible
means of re turn.
The first
snow unreal ized at first
scarcely heard fall
ing the night’s out
reaching
silence
s.
Pink’s
morning
dressed in the usual
pink-blue of his alterna
ting break fast ensemble
occasion ed that
outlasting
brightness
of his most self-enthu
sing chari table smile.
The wash
ed over white ness of these
self-appeai- ing house
s almost lost in the
forget fullness of
the first realms of
snow.
These
bird-felt
wings word lessly de
daring the lighten
ingtouch of their skyinfolding s.
Islanded
He island
ed some sides to his
less comfort able person
to(o) far off and mostly un
named region s of the
mind.
If guilt’
s always
where I’m not Let’s
change its name to ap
preciate more of the
same doubledealing.
Snow
white house
s spotless ly self-i
magining.
Repentance and Prayer day
called oft
the calendar a blank at
the heart of a people
to make way for higher
(economic)
concerns.
Contrasts
a) Untamed
Some
thing un tamed about
her as cag ed-in ani
mals night ly but bright-
glaring eye s.
b) She possess
ed so little
of self-assur ance that not
even self- pity could in
habit the most of her.
Day of the dead (Totensonntag) the last
day of the church-year
As if death had run out
of its fully armed arsen
al to make way for prefiguring the birth of
Christ.
Eye-shyness
He couldn’ t look me in
the eye-shy ness of fear
ing I could penetrate
whatever he hadn’t
found of him self in
there.
Bow and arrow
He knew
more than he could real
ize why the word had
found its pre-intend
ed mark.
Cezanne (still-life in Munich)
it ran me as
kew over-lapp ing cloth
finding oft' to a nowhere
s depth of holding me
back/up.
The pianist
wasn’t built
the way she played with
her pre-sup posing pre
sence lyri cally attun
ed.
Beethoven’s 7th (first. 3 mins.) I Those wood
winds sound ing a call
classical ly intoned
to my apollon ic Beethoven
perfectly
measured
dramatic ally undersleeve.
Beethoven’s 7th (2nd mvt.) II perpetuat
ing relig ious accords
as a pilgrim’ s progress
beyond the where of
it’s becom ing now.
Schumann’
s piano con
certo’s poet ic lightstreaming an enchanted
world dia logued to his
Clara’s melt mg finger
s.
Suspicion
Suspicionchanging co lors in the
blood-stream ing out dark
bird’s shadow ings.
Candy-color
ed matching
strawberr ie’s sugar
and cream’ s lighter tast
ing value s.
An open-un
inhabited
feeling more the loss of
not realiz ing for space
d self-defin ing.
Is this
cold-down
city wind ow-eying my
transpar ently reflec
ting through.
Cezanne’ (Munich 1810)
s railstrip
left me crosslining the
light-blue sky’s releas
ing a com ing or go
ing heaven ly out.
Night-light’
s lake re
fleeting silent wind
s and the im mutable i
mage of these vastly perpet
uating star s.
Smoke-
clouds as
the incense of priestly
prayer-aris ing the voice
less realm s of an in
visible God.
Kaminski’ (Psalm 130) s double-voic
ing choir ing the depth
s of a fath omless deep.
Life goes
on even for
those wind- emptied voi
ces of burnt ash surfac
ing from the blood-cries
of their ghet toed past.
Here a dy
ing faith
with thejew- ash remain
s of Christ’ s Auschwitz-
crucifix
ion.
Tunnell
ed in to
the dark fore bodings of a
sleepless ly encompass
ing night.
I saw
age in that
baby’s inno cent face
Was it those dark eye
brows simu la ting what
they weren’ t and that
face-sitting pose grown-up
to a fully as suming statu
ed presence.
Outflown
A bird
flew out of the winter
ed wood s and left
me shadow ing silen
ces behind.
The Boccher (op. 31,2)
ini quintet’
s last move ment serena
ding a Span ish open-night’
s star-re vealing.
The last Walze
(Schubert, String Quintet, last mvt.)
dark-death
ly dancing a final fare
well from his world-re
leasing plea sures.
3 Quartets
a)		Harp Quartet (Beethoven)
dramati
cally spaceopening
the recall ing touch
(as of a harp)’s
time-seclud
mg.
b)		Dvorak’
s op. 105
quartet ab stractly
folk-evok ing ro
mantical ly too much
feeling
ness.
c)		Haydn ’
s op. 77,
1 alway s in becom
ing as if sound’s
life-process ing almost
cosmical ly related.
Ambiguities (3)
a)		A Turk
(the only one) alone
in a fully- packed wait
ing room I felt for him
Wasn’t the Jew samed
that way in the past
an outsider His people
poised (now) against my
own.
b)		Liebermann
the most hon
ored of Ger man painter
s stripped downed to
his Jew ish roots
nakedly un inhabited.
c)	Jaffin
(as he call
ed himself “the last of
the German Jews” neither German
nor “Jewish” ly proud of
his false i dentity.
Non-week
That nonweek last Sunday
in church- year to
first of Ad vent as if
the dead were in waiting
to(o) candle their dream
less sleep for that re
mote star dawning so
bright ly inbecom
mg-
That
unchain
ed dog’s re lentless
ly still
ed eyes fix
ing her for fear.
Left behind
The bird
s left be hind to win
ter their short-sensed
flight in shadow
ing reflect ions.
It was
more an e veiling
of descript ive caution
not daring to touch
where wound s could bring
to the surface as skater
s circl ing on ice
of impene trable depth.
Angel bringing light to the dead
(Christian Rohlfs, 1925)
transpar
ently touch ing through
the source d otherworldly light-i
maged.
Italian Concerto I (Bach, slow mvt.) As if the
finger- touch inward
ly attuned to the realm
s of silen ce could o
pen out where space
has found the voice of
its own a wareness.
Italian Concerto II (Bach, V' mvt.) as a stream
running through the
rhythmic ac cords of its
own need for stone-color
mgs.
The inner
quietude
s of Kerst ing’s souled-
silence
s.
A child’
s meeting-
eyes more of having
been seen.
Cynthia’
s husband
ed his daily quiet-routine
rarely spoke but then
what his book of correct
manners de dared to
be social ly accept
able behav ior.
She
a natural
ly born and bred scien
tist groom ed in that
common stable when asked
about God’ s wondrous
creation
couldn’t
science that one in
to a scholar ly accept
able answer.
When
the news be
coming more like a talk-
down show’ s searching
for a comm on denomin
ator as if peace had be
come why we couldn’t
be last ing it out.
Chaperoning
“My foolish
heart’s ever constant
moon” chaper oning the
ebb and flow of her kiss-
aware d in stinctual
touch.
Poetry books by DavidJaffin
1.		Conformed to Stone, Abelard-Schuman. New York 1968, London 1970.
2.		Emptied Spaces, with an illustration by Jacques Lipschitz, Abelard-Schuman, London 1972.
3.		In the Glass of Winter, Abelard-Schuman. London 1975, with an illustration by Mordechai Ardon.
4.		As One, The Elizabeth Press, New Rochelle. N. Y. 1975.
5.		The Half of a Circle, The Elizabeth Press. New Rochelle, N. Y. 1977.
6.		Space of, The Elizabeth Press, New Rochelle, N. Y. 1978.
7.		Preceptions, The Elizabeth Press, New Rochelle,
N. Y. 1979.
8.		For the Finger’s Want of Sound, Shearsman Plymouth. England 1982.
9.		The Density for Color, Shearsman Plymouth,
England 1982.
10.		Selected Poems with an illustration by Mordechai Ardon, English/Hebrew, Massada Publishers, Givatyim, Israel 1982.
11.		The Telling of Time, Shearsman, Kentisbeare.
England 2000 andjohannis, Lahr, Germany.
12.		That Sense for Meaning, Shearsman, Kentisbeare, England 2001 andjohannis, Lahr, Germany.
13.		Into the timeless Deep, Shearsman, Kentisbeare,
England 2003 andjohannis, Lahr, Germany.
14.		A Birth in Seeing, Shearsman, Exeter, England 2003 and Johannis, Lahr, Germany.
15.		Through Lost Silences, Shearsman, Exeter, England 2003 andjohanms, Lahr, Germany.
16.		A voiced Awakening, Shearsman, Exter, England 2004 andjohannis, Lahr, Germany.
17.		These Time-Shifting Thoughts. Shearsman, Exeter, England 2005 andjohannis, Lahr, Germany.
18.		Intimacies of Sound, Shearsman, Exeter, England 2005 andjohanms, Lahr, Germany.
19.		Dream Flow with an illustration by Charles Seliger, Shearsman, Exeter, England 2006 andjohannis, Lahr. Germany.
20.		Sunstreams with an illustration by Charles Seliger. Shearsman, Exeter, England 2007 and lohannis, Lahr, Germany.
21.		Thought Colors, with an illustration by Charles Seliger, Shearsman, Exeter. England 2008 andjohannis, Lahr, Germany.
22.		Eye-Sensing, Ahadada, Tokyo, Japan and Toronto,
Canada 2008.
23.		Wind-phrasings, with an illustration by Charles Seliger, Shearsman, Exeter. England 2009 andjohannis, Lahr, Germany.
24.		Time shadows, with an illustration by Charles Seliger, Shearsman, Exeter, England 2009 andjohannis, Lahr. Germany.
25.		A World mapped-out, with an illustration by Charles Seliger. Shearman, Exeter, England 2010.
Book on DavidJaffin’s poetry: Warren Fulton, Poemed on a beach, Ahadada, Tokyo, Japan and Toronto, Canada 2010.
“David Jaffin is a scrupulous weigher and weighter of words - by which I mean that a poem is, for him, always a matter of collaboration with the true spirit of the language. Every word is given its value, neither more or less.”
Edward Lucie-Smith
“David Jaffin’s Precautions is a fine book. Jaffin’s poems, slight on the page, entice, engage, amuse. Yet their brief touchings often reach wholeness, and they are poems of philosophical consequence out of keeping with much of modern poetics. The poems catch perceptions in the act of happening, to be, the short-line verse appropriate to what becomes.”	Paul Ramsey, The Sewanee Review
“Jaffin’s poetry is as ‘modernist’ as abstract painting while still poetry in the traditional sense, whose purpose is the verbalization of basic human experience and whose form derives from a serious exploration of language ... it is remarkable what depth of experience Jaffin manages to relate through his severely limited vocabulary and imagery.”	Victor Terras (Brown University) “Mr. Jaffin uses words with real fineness of diction which emphasizes a characteristic understatement of emotion. One recognizes a cultivated sensibility. He adopts a theme and mode which one cannot help but admire. He writes very well indeed.”
the late Norman Holmes Pearson (Yale University)