(no subject)
What stays with you latest and deepest? Of curious panics
Of hard-fought engagements or sieges tremendous what deepest remains?
-Walt Whitman
1.
In my early years I spoke in many languages.
Then I grew quiet.
(This is not an obituary.)
Some of my dreams faded,
if they could count as dreams.
I was a good friend,
though I mostly called
when there was no one else
I was a poet,
though I only wrote
when there was nothing else
(That was often enough.)
2.
I was truly in love once, as least as I remember it.
A boy from another country said,
I intend to go alone,
which was not what I intended.
I learned to sleep in a hammock,
my body sagging to the floor.
I bathed in the river fully clothed:
the cotton clung, translucent.
(A man watched from the outer banks.)
I spent the night on an ancient pyramid,
monkeys shrieking through the trees,
I bribed a guard to leave me alone,
and there was no one left to tell.
3.
A young man skipped ahead on the trail.
I must have said, Wait.
(Years passed.)
How could I say goodbye?
I sealed leftovers in ziplock bags;
I wore a flowered bathrobe.
I began to listen to books on tape,
especially biography.
(This is not an obituary.)
There was a jungle-book ending:
strands of dirty-blond light
shone through the spreading palms.
((Lexi Rudnitsky))
Stonefish Tigerlilies & Other Oddities
Free the guilty hang the innocent
Love your enemies hate your friends-
an elephant paces the floor
outside my room
knocks on the door-
Tulips sprout in the toilet bowl
paintings hang from trees
clouds drift through my head-
cars sitting idle at night
on these quiet streets
of what do they dream-
Her eyes were tiger-lilies
her face was a mirror
walking around inside her head
I discover it is a house of mirrors-
paddling through shimmering glass
canoeing across reflected blue skies
& drifting clouds-
On a sunny day there are tropical fish
swimming in the sky-
birds etched trapped in stone
dream of taking flight-
a naked woman sits
on the edge of my bed
stone marble tears
slide down her face-
Unknown poets sit in a restaurant
feasting on the flesh of dead poets
fishing for visions-
Out walking on a warm spring evening
admiring the new blooms
of fish on the trees-
In the shadows those fish near death
sprouting out of the ground
speaking their last enigmatic words-
Congregations of giant leopard slugs
performing a secret ritual
in the bushes
gnashing rows of razor-sharp teeth
as we approach closer
we are frozen in our steps -
Reading meaning in the cracks
in sidewalks -
Seeing Angels dancing
in swirling cigarette smoke-
Menacing demons' eyes
staring through dark windows-
Turning clouds into mandala
& weeping Madonnas-
Finding visions of Gods
in rainbow-colored puddles
of gasoline-
twisting slips of the tongue
into an insight-
Freezing moments of madness
frozen in moments of madness-
Cutting out pieces of a life
creating a collage-
Pasting limbs & torso together
breathing life into the Golem
without a soul-
Ripping apart a sculpture
to understand its form
composition & meaning-
Stripping away layers of paint
to see the artist's vision-
((gordon coombes))