the French lai

How many heartfelt vows
have crossed my lips now,
broken
by wrongs I allow
and the petty rows
spoken
with swords forged from plows,
seeking sacred cow's
tokens

in the dark days since
the first subtle hints
were seen
of truth, that glints
beneath a thin chintz
(the means
of experience)
and gives evidence
in dreams?

30 MAR 2004

She with fond memories of elders now gone,
& I with my own youth to call back to mind,
bought a ten gallon dogwood last year, late in spring
(& though maybe later than some would advise
for a tree that the hot summer's swelter might fry,
we thought of it grown and the flowers in bloom
& risked all & planted it one afternoon).

We nursed it with water through many dry days
& watched it grow parched & its leaves curl
(until late November, when those leaves were lost
& the ground turned to stone in the grip of the frost).

Now, one short year later, our still watchful eyes
watch the new shoots come from its dormant limbs;
The leaves are unwinding & stretched to the sun,
its roots well established and firm in the ground.
The young tree we planted to grow, with our love,
has passed through the seasons still vibrant and whole;

And we two? Also thriving, and counting the ways
that the universe joining us here deserves praise.

29 MAR 2004

Following the trip trap tripe of the day
With a mentholated cigarette and a soda
Letting the ringing in my ears
From endless hours in conference calls
Die dammit die so slowly as the night settles
Raindrops in my ears, the leaky drainpipe sputters
Underneath it still the steady hum of streets
And the kill rebirth kill murmur of central air
The telephone sits like a spent whore
Laying hot in its cradle recharging its battery
And I write this nonsense
Having spent the afternoon editing
Seventeen lines of text
Four hundred lines of code
With no energy left to modify this poem.

Instead of letting each of us choose what we want to watch and hear, Congress is moving quickly to require large fines on "indecent" content. This economic censorship would dramatically infringe on the First Amendment and would hinder the diversity of programming available to consumers. We each have a right to watch what we want on television, and change the channel if we don't like what we see. If a television show is offensive we can complain to the broadcaster and choose never to watch that show again. This market process allows us to find programming that meets our individual tastes and is free of government interference. New legislation, the Broadcast Decency Enforcement Act of 2004 (S. 2056), would allow the government to levy large fines on broadcasts that the Federal Communications Commission considers "indecent." This vague definition would lead to broadcasters censoring their content and forbidding their staff from playing controversial material. The proposed legislation would even allow the FCC to impose large fines on Musicians, comedians and other artists who it considers "indecent." -- ACLU Free Speech Alert

Is it real obscenity, or just a lack of taste?
To legislate morality seems such a useless waste.
For standards vary by observer, and from day to day;
Leaving little black or white, but only shades of gray.

Let Washington decide the content, and it won't be long
Before no matter what you say, it will be judged as wrong.
If personal objections are imposed by a select few
You can be sure that who decides will not be me or you.

I wonder if those who cry out against culture's decline
Have paused to look at their actions, their own state of mind?
It seems to me that feeling tempted comes of false pretense
that man cannot discern between paths to experience.

And worse, to think that being tried is not required for faith,
that we can become wiser by remaining stale and safe,
leads only to destruction as we weaken from within
and learn to label evolution as some kind of sin.

So, what is real obscenity? And what makes it obscene -
The context, or the message, or delivering machine?
If you would have your own opinion, mind the censor's might,
Before you want to disagree, and do not have the right.

22 MAR 2004

I once folded space and time
and made it from Memphis to Jackson
in less than two hours
by imagining myself lifting the road
folding the blacktop
making sure the lines met up
letting them blur together into one
keeping the accelerator slightly down
and breathing evenly
deeply.

But that was a long time ago.

Now I find myself enjoying
a four hour drive
just watching the other fools
who get there too fast
and then have a lot of time
to get in trouble.

19 MAR 2004

Delaying the inevitable writing of another daily poem by digging into the archives. This one is from my "ee cummings meets gertrude stein" period. The title refers to, if you can believe it, the Prince Edward's abdication of the throne of England (that would be the edward) because of his love for Wallace Simpson (that would be the "wall"). That leads one to believe that the poem is about a willingness to pay any price for love. And it MAY be.

come fall with me, he said,
where i have lain alone beside myself
and watched in silence
screaming it is not for me
to say or not to speak the words
that self-destruct and
creep unseen between your lips
where i have seen eternity.

come lay with me, she said,
where i have fallen into trusting you
and waited longing there
explaining it is not my fault
to blame or not to curse the seeds
that self-inflicted and
once wanted from between your lips
i wear now like eternity.

come live with me, i said,
where i have been and seen and done
and wrested quiet angels
whispering it is not for you
to know or not to guess the secrets
that self-deprived and
ancient slip about your head
where i have thought of eternity.

come laugh with me, you said,
where we can blissful meet entwined
and write our heartless memoirs
wishing it were not the same
to you and i or not to anyone else
that self-indulgent and
zealous stripped our guilt away
and thrust us together in eternity.

1994

Once New Orleans weather starts to warm
it becomes quite bearable in shirt sleeves
to linger under the carport at night
enjoying a cigarette in the dark

while the light scent of jasmine fills the air
and the bustle on the main streets is slowed
(in those few short weeks before summer starts,
and the dense, wet weighted swelter bears down

to sap the strength from your pores, and slowly
suck the breath from your lungs - even the cloud
of smoke leaking from a cigarette sags
to the ground under that ponderous damp)

and in those too few evenings of short spring,
before the chorus of locusts comes back
from its winter hiatus to rehearse
and the palmetto bugs (or big roaches)

are still hidden, too busy with breeding
to venture out and scratch at the screen door
it is often very still and quiet -
and you can forget you are underneath

a carport (in a sometimes dangerous
city where tourists come to drink too much,
urinate on the streets, and leave their trash)
and see beauty in the sunset's colors.

17 MAR 2004

If just one word I write or say, some thought I manage to convey
in describing my frame of mind or experience in this life
touches even one other mind then I have truly accomplished
what I set out trying to do.

I write to be of creation when the entire world is distilled,
cast in a single space in time; to be consumed, not by those who
peruse to say they are well-read, nor by those who desire to find
in my words some explanation

(of my life, the world, our purpose), but by seekers who in being
themselves, look for others' musings that echo their own conjectures.
My intent? To identify these striving individuals,
not by recognizing that look

in their eyes, or their reaction to anything I may have said.
These are indeed my true brethren, who realize that not knowing
is only just the beginning of who we actually are.
The rest is in the finding out.

16 MAR 2004

I extract this comment from a thread on my Poetry at Poetryslamming, not because I want to draw attention to the person who wrote it, but rather because I think that forum is not the place to engage in a debate, at least at this time. The gist of it is that this person thought my Poetry boring - which I thought a valid comment, but wanted clarification, as follows:

Are the poems boring because you are not interested in the subject matter, or because they did not make you interested in the subject matter, or because they simply did not convey their content in a manner that was exciting to you?

Their response was:

Yeah. You got it. Pretty much all three, or some combination thereof. Because it is both short and exemplary of your other two, let's look at the last poem Rilke.

(Here's the poem, for reference's sake):

Rilke

Where did you find the most inspiration,
as each line cut like a diamond-edged drill
through layers of effluvia that still
the seeking heart? Was it your frustration
with a cold and unfeeling world, that sought
to silence any expression of joy
in the blossoming soul of a young boy
whose only sinful act was being caught
worshipping beauty in ordinary
things? Was it a way to battle against
each day's regimen of daily dross,
the hardness that can infect one's very
core and so cheapen the experience
of living that its end is no great loss?

10 AUG 2003

They went on to say:

Number one, the language is flat. Chock full of too many large, grand, vague, general, etc. abstractions: inspiration, layers, effluvia, heart, frustration, world, sought, silence, expression, joy, soul, beauty, things, battle, hardness, infect, experience, living, loss These words I find especially boring. They are not specific. They are not interesting. I cannot see them. They are cliche. As for subject matter, it's very difficult for me to care what a poem is about when the language is this bland and abstract. To improve your Poetry, I suggest you try to write about these things (loss, experience, beauty, frustration, joy, etc.) without actually referring to them. For example, in the third stanza, worshipping beauty in ordinary things instead of saying "ordinary things", which is vague and abstract and nearly meaningless, why not list a few actual ordinary things? I.e., what ordinary things did the boy worship? Make a list if you want, and if your list is effective, I as the reader will be able to tell they are indeed ordinary without having you tell me. A mental spark will fizzle in my brain and I will think to myself, "Ah! That boys only sin was worshipping ordinary things! How unjust and fucked up." That is, it is much easier for me to be interested in, empathize with, care for, not be bored with, etc. a boy who worshipped the beauty of two yellow monopoly die, a red ribbon in that girl's hair, the frown of a goose, and the pitcher of water on the stove about to spill than a boy who worshipped the beauty of "ordinary things." And I'd suggest the same thing for each day's regimen of daily dross. As in, what is the regimen? What is the daily dross against which he battles? Give me examples. In general, replace every single abstraction in that centered and italicized list of abstractions with a specific image that conveys the meaning of the abstraction. Once you do that, I think your Poetry will be much less boring to me, regardless of subject matter.

Now, let me start off by saying that Rilke is not in my opinion a great poem. It has its weaknesses, I'll admit - the first being that it is an immediate visceral response to having read some Rainer Maria Rilke. But it got me thinking about Poetry in general, and here are my thoughts.

First of all, Poetry to me is, as Francis Bacon described painting, "a distillation of images". Distillation is the process by which the essence of a thing is extracted from its parts. In that process, the defined form and substance of a thing is eradicated to extract something that is, but is not, a concrete representation of a thing. Think of rose oil, distilled from the petals and other flower parts of a rose. Once you have the oil, the rose itself as a defined, separate thing is no more. What you have left is its "essence", that suggests the original rose, but in no way actually could be used to identify that particular specimen. That abstraction, if you will, is used to suggest, to provide in memory and by association, a quite different thing than if I were to hand you a rose. To me, that abstraction, the large, grand, the vague and general are absolutely ESSENTIAL to Poetry. If a pure, concrete, absolute description is what you are after, what you have is prose, not Poetry. The point of Poetry, to me, is not to provide absolute images that do not require anything of the reader to interpret. To say that a poem must include, like a grocery list, an itemization of "things that are ordinary" so that the reader can say, oh, yes, those are ordinary things, limits the scope of the poem. After all, the point is not that THESE things are ordinary, but rather that each of us, in our own individual lives, considers a widely varied and perhaps unusual set of things to be ordinary versus magical or special. And the daily dross that each of us encounters, that must be swept away in order to find the kernel of meaning in our own lives? It is as different from person to person as one snowflake from another. To put specific examples into words is to dilute, to weaken, the meaning that is required to be provided by the individual reader. The point is, that words such as "inspiration, layers, effluvia, heart, frustration, world, sought, silence, expression, joy, soul, beauty, things, battle, hardness, infect, experience, living, loss" have must have specific meanings to the reader, that may be completely different from that of the poet - and I'm sure are quite different for me than they were for Rilke, who is after all the subject of the poem. To know Rilke's history is to have an inkling of what "daily dross" or "ordinary" might have meant to him, but that context is only secondary to the meaning that they have for you, the reader. Who has not found something quite ugly, ordinary, mundane or commonplace that when put into the perspective of a day's events has become a Grail, of sorts? Even if it is unique and magical for only a moment, it is, like in the Little Prince, no longer just any rose, because it has been named, and it is yours.

The bottom line, I guess, is that for me, if a poem doesn't keep your interest simply because it doesn't tell you what to feel, how to interpret, or which square inch of the snapshot to focus on, then it is not the fault of the poem. My interpretation is that Poetry is not supposed to do those things -- it is about possibilities, not actualities. It is about our potential, rather than our past. The abstract, rather than the concrete. For Poetry is the basis by which culture is defined, inherited and ultimately evolved and transcended. It deals not so much with how things are, their definition and shape, the rigid lines of meaning that describe the box in which our experience is caged, but rather how to bend the bars, blur those lines, and step beyond.

Peer: a person who is an equal in social standing, rank, age, etc., example: to be tried by one's peers [ETYMOLOGY: 14th Century: from Old French per, from Latin par equal]

The Fiction of a jury of my peers:
To think that there are twelve more just like me,
Who'll be available should I require
Their patient ears and minds to keep me free.

To be complete, the dozen must include
Not only those who've walked my walk, but more:
The ones who might have done it, but refrained;
A couple souls that chose alternate means;

Perhaps another who went far afield,
Whose situation started where I stand;
A few who should have made it to this point,
But found their progress blocked by chance, or place.

To truly be a twelfth of what I am
Each member of this elite group will be
An equal coward, hero, sage or fool:
My other selves of possiblity.

15 MAR 2004

How does peer critique really work?
You present something of yours to your peers.
They are inspired by your effort
to try to produce something of similar or better quality
of their own.
How they react to what you've done,
as reflected in their own work,
shows you how to improve your product
to better produce the result you wanted,
the impact you thought you'd get,
the influence you figured it'd have.
And visa versa.
Everyone wins.
Some even get distribution deals.
You want to give me advice on my artform,
please do me the courtesy of having absorbed it.
If it doesn't make you a better artist
(for whatever reasons)
there's not much point in such a review.
We're obviously not peers.

If they should tell you all the world is full
of evil, and there's nothing without sin,
that life's bitter extent is but a test
to grind away transgression from the heart,

the better to prepare your way elsewhere,
or that salvation is beyond our grasp,
enmeshed in esoteric rites and laws
requiring a third party to reveal,

know this: they haven't listened to the word
that fills the universe with life and breath,
but learned about the sacred second-hand.
And should they tell you that they speak to "God",

or know "His" plan for you, just smile and nod,
and seek the source if you would know the truth.

13 MAR 2004

Sometimes, the human race acts so advanced,
its possibilities seem without end;
and almost every minute, some new thing
is brought into the world by our mere thought.

And yet, our evolution is not done
(it cannot be, or else that theory's false);
with each step forward, shadows linger on,
and with their darkness comfort the confused.

The world is how it should be, they proclaim,
and man is the penultimate design;
there is no point in searching out beyond
the shallow pool of knowledge where we wade.

Ah, to be so sure the die is cast;
if only I could be convinced of that.

I find myself in recent days at dawn,
a time of morning I've not seen for years,
and in that space where darkness soon is gone
a soft, yet vibrant energy appears.

I used to be enchanted by the night,
and find that time of silence fighting sleep;
but as of late it seems, try as I might,
those midnight rendezvous are hard to keep.

So there under the carport, with the birds
as they begin to sing and stretch their wings,
I listen to the starting sounds of words
and try to notice what songs the earth sings.

It does not rule for long, this quiet peace,
But behind the day's noise, it does not cease.

11 MAR 2004

I have tried to live my life each moment,
Let my imagination run its course;
and sought for truth, to find it, not to own it,
or make it fit my notions using force.

But there are times when I am sorely tested
By things as they appear, or seem to be;
And often my illusions are unwrested
In senseless struggles with reality.

The vain and pompous notions of my childhood
(and who has not had several score of these?)
have each been shattered - neither bad nor good,
but simple fact - and scattered to the breeze.

And now, I find that each small fragment lingers;
The dust of dreams that stains the poet's fingers.

10 MAR 2004

Of all the little things that seem to matter
And petty squabbles that divide our time
in episodes of silence between chatter
and spaces marking off what's left behind

the biggest part of what remains unspoken
is that which each of us holds to as true
and clings to, though now useless, bent and broken:
the line that separates the "me" from "you".

Beyond what is revealed in quick perusal
or idle conversations we employ
to mask our indecision and refusal
to pause and find together each small joy,

There is a place where we will always meet;
and in that moment, make the world complete.

09 MAR 2004