Recent interlude

"So what’s he like, April?"

April knew she didn’t mean how good a talker.

“Like most men?” 

She sighs.

“Well, sometimes its better than others.” She stays quiet, blushes.

All about me

Its all about me , isn’t it? 

I do the thinking, 

all of it, 

I do the feeling, 

all of it. 

Don’t I?

Wherever 

I am 

it is me.

I think of doing that 

or this, 

it’s me all the time. 

It is me. 

Isn’t it. 

Me, me, meeeee!

Ever tire of it?

Do I?

 Should I? 

If it wasn’t me, 

who would it be? 

What would it be? 

What could it be?

It’s boredom, 

idiot. 

Plain old BOREDOM

My Heart

Where fire and water tilt decision

Feel

The beginning of that throb

And the hum of doing

Where I look back 

On long macadamized roads.

Thoughts

Memories

My volcanic eruption

The ejaculation of passion

Where froth and foam lie 

Kissed by tears.

Where I don’t want to remember

Where I feel pain

Where time does not wrinkle

And space is never filled 

Where pouring

Never fills and where 

Inflow, and what is lost

Separate, 

come colored 

differently.

Where everything finally stops 

On thunders last beat 

And my life is buried, forever.

Riding the Clouds

The saddest thing is when we die we leave ourselves. 

Leave part to remain in a place 

where we cannot be; 

Left for others to care. 

They hold a while

Then they leave. 

All that was remembered is lost. 

Finally we are no more, 

Not even memory.

 

Is that when our spirit finally leaves the earth? 

I don’t know.

Diary of a changing garden

 

It was another year. 

The past one gutted.

I had forgotten to make continuous diary entries. 

That left pock marks and scars in my diary writing.

 There were few references for much of that year.

I have started again. 

Begun with the same opening sentence from last year for little has changed since my original scribbles  of yesteryear.

Differences were around me. 

The size of the trees, questions why fruit trees did not bear heavily, 

why the weather was so indifferent so changed from previous years. 

 

I will continue with  the same sentence 

because I am hopeful of better things. 

Perhaps it will help me forget the darkness of the past year 

and start afresh with sunshine painted hope.

 

I begin to write:

 I saw the first leaves fall today, November 22^ND

Fall had started with consistence.

 The leaves did not play in the breeze. 

They floated to land, 

lay motionless.

They did not cry. 

I placed my ear close to the ground to hear the silence of their sigh, heard only the movement of green grass

Outstretched arms waiting.

 I smelt the richness of soil.

Did not hear leaves cry. 

More leaves will fall from the big oak 

as the clock ticks into colder days.

Of that I feel sure.

 

Now I will begin with a new sentence each day. 

I’ve promised myself to be more diligent.

 

All this made me think of how forgetful I had been.

Perhaps it is somewhat understandable because there had been no major catastrophe, no great catharsis, no hurricane, just a long dry summer after a short feeling of spring. 

With summer rains delayed 

heat stretched itself to the commencement of autumn.

 

Well, I could have written about that 

Because it had an affect on the fruit trees. 

Their long drawn out pregnancies 

resulted in smaller shrunken fruit,

 and midget bunches of bananas for an endless term 

that stretched into winter. 

That is when they froze, stayed green, 

stopped growing, 

hung bunched up on an extra long stem 

with a small purple bag of leaves 

dangling at the end. 

All frozen, 

all without memory, 

all without colors. 

Indifferent to sweetness

They remained suspended in death.

I was too disheartened to record it all 

Everything stayed a drooping green, 

hoping for another year of life.

 

I don’t really know why I came back. 

Body speaks

 

Let my body speak to me

Let the tree tell its story

Let the bird sing its song

Let me feel I belong

 

Dreaming in Africa

I felt light. 

Floating, I filled the space that pulled. 

It was lovely. 

I felt at ease and dreamy and real, 

noticed nothing but the thrill of floating. 

My waking came like the clap and roll of thunder 

across the veldt. 

Suddenly pulled and bewildered 

I was afraid. 

Withdrawn and depressed, 

wrapped in a sleeping bag 

next to an exhausted fire.

I waited for first light.

Nothing seems to last. 

Each different moment brings the new 

As I walk the paths and trails of Africa.

 

Year after year

I leave footprints 

Take memories with me.

Bird Sings

 

Just one bird sang, sang all the time. 

It stopped. 

Suddenly started. 

Sang for long, long time.

 

 There was a bird that sang from the top of a tall tree 

near the big house on the hill. 

It sang everyday. 

Then it suddenly stopped. 

Later workers who planted vegetables 

in the nearby garden heard it singing.

 

It sang of love and death 

and birth

 and the way to heaven- 

The laborers understood that.

Cuban Shore

The sea languid

Water timid

Holds

Soft it heaves

Moves

Slowly

Towards the shore

 

This water 

Is my comfort

Happy it holds

No anger

No moody currents

Just rests

Peacefully

On a Cuban shore

Bananas.

Long banana leaves, agonized, brown and yellow in the torment of fall, crumple to a trunk that holds proudly the last hanging bunch of summer’s labor, ripened before deep cold comes to sap its strength.

“I am the last of what I hold

I am the strength of what I bear,

Cling tight sweet ones,

For the gardener comes to shear’”

Now in my hands, the hide, beneath yellow jackets, they scream, ‘unzip me’.

Gleefully I taste: ti’s the fruit of love and labor; that birth of sweet satisfaction.

Soldier Dies

She felt the beauty and compassion of being there.

It hasn’t left me.

I can feel it inside.

Comes to leave

leave slowly

Leave a shadow.

No, I won’t be lonely.

She shivered.

No, I won’t be empty she prayed.

I’ll remember all of this.

She tried to promise herself.

I’ll cling to every moment.

He is my soldier buried,

I so wish he could be besides

Tender thoughts passed through her.

I love him so.

Tears came.

More tears came.

She knew he lay dead and buried.

Never would she be able to see the image of his bravery, 

those final moments when he had to do and die.

Ammunition volleyed and thundered

when In honor he charged.

Dismal sleep–he slept, ready to be dead.

Dying is made a rare gift for some. 

For me?

Deep in trenches, glare, flies, hot wind, 

a great sun rakes, sweat, grit. 

Bullets twang, hit the wire, hell’s a frying fire, airplanes moan.

 

A black spot broods over fellow soldiers drunk with fatigue.

I am going mad because of the guns.

I could never have imagined this.

I will die if you forget me.

Pain turns into poetry.

Desire for reticence fights against a desire for vengeance.

Old eyes are full of memories. 

Hold tight to feelings.

It’s hot, its all sun.

 Too still the air.

The wind is dead, my messenger dog is dead.

Distance to the horizon is endless.

Day and night, day and night on sand

Over splintered rock my feet move forward

Horizon to hell is nearest.

I charge

to die.