“I’m not sure what it is, life’s puzzle.”
– Jim Harrison
Tokugawa’s sword
Like silver cranes on the wing
Life’s puzzle is solved
Not Mincing Words
“In this world of dreams don’t let the clock cut up your life in pieces.”
– Jim Harrison
Clock hands
Hollow-ground like knives,
Sharp and thin as seconds,
Make mincemeat
Of the hours.
Today we feast on time:
Seasons, thyme,
Suet cut from the loins of day,
Marrow spooned out dawn to dusk.
Vinegar of want.
Broth of baby's breath.
Birth dates, wedding days,
And reason, left answering
To the sun.
Grab yourself a fork.
Belly to the bar.
Feed your dreams a slice
Of humble pie.
I'll cut.
You pick.
"Pyes of mutton or beif must be fyne mynced & seasoned with pepper and salte and a lytel saffron to colour it / suet or marrow a good quantitie / a lytell vynegre / pruynes / great reasons / and dates / take the fattest of the broath of powdred beefe. And if you will have paest royall / take butter and yolkes of egges & so to temper the floure to make the paest."
Haiku – River Bend
“The only answer I’ve found is the moving water whose music is without a single lyric”
– Jim Harrison
Zen Master skips stones
Fireflies raise their lighters
The river’s rock band
Pilgrim No More
“The violent wind. The violent wind. The violent wind “
– Jim Harrison
I pilgrim no more
To the temple of storm,
Where the heart shakes
Like a fist
Against the axis of sky.
Where anger and fate
Turn about each other,
Tornados
Of a dual-faced god.
I no longer seek
Old or new testament
Of my losses,
Or to tabernacle
My wounds.
Make no mistake,
I am as capable of rage,
As capable of murder
As you,
And no more forgiving.
We walk through life’s tempest
Unsheltered,
Our garments
Soaked with rain.
λόγος
“Tiring of language, the mind takes flight”
– Jim Harrison
She tries to find a comfortable position
To sleep. Pregnant with Meaning,
Logos feels her growing belly.
She is off-center
And exhausted.
She wants to dream unburdened –
Relieved of the back-aching litter,
Pupae, embryo, or
Whatever dark brood it is
She carries.
No one asked her
If she wanted to foal,
If she wanted any part
Of birth
And squalling creation.
She wants only to be dreamless,
And, most of all,
Without words.
Hot/Cold
In this fevered
New York Minute
Of an afternoon
The air
Invigorated with heat,
Ecstatic with heat,
Courageous, charging into traffic
With heat,
Perilous with heat
Humidity
A stalker,
A crazed lover
Bitter about rejection,
Just can’t let go,
Texting
“I want you, need you”
But we
Are running super chill
Mobile electronic
Caffeine,
Cold brew
On ice
In our veins
So we’re red hot
And blue cool
And don’t you forget it.
On Waiting for my Wife to Return from Surgery
The surgeon’s hands
And her hands
Knitting, darning, mending
The world –
Frayed tendons
Like stray thoughts
Re-raveled.
Listening to
The slow oxygen
Of a spinning wheel,
Wool
Spooling anesthetic its
Soft
Breathing.
Click your needles
Three times
And return her to
Scarves and sutures
Shawl cross stitches,
Gut tied in knots
But not wrenched.
July Challenge – Song/Physik
Raven q(r)uark, crassing, voicing,
mate circling a similar air.
Independent, minded, capable
of linguistic displacement, weighted
with significant information –
it was present at inception.
This new part(icle) bird, part
Gesture, a caws celebre,
Big bang of wings a flight path,
String theory applied
To its nest of black gravity,
Its entangled stare, its feathered
Dark matter.
My Physics take on Petru’s (petrujviljoen) Song. Latest attempt at Jilly’s July Challenge.
July Challenge – Anathema Couplet
The joy of the fish whosoever would know
The kingfishers flash – what ignorance they show
My Antithetical Couplet for the July Challenge.
In the Desert – Stephen Crane
In the desert
I saw a creature, naked, bestial,
Who, squatting upon the ground,
Held his heart in his hands,
And ate of it.
I said, “Is it good, friend?”
“It is bitter—bitter,” he answered;
“But I like it
“Because it is bitter,
“And because it is my heart.”
Stephen Crane, 1895
From poets.org
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