The wind’s cut,
and the dust is aromatic.
summer gorgeous.
***
I got burned when
the cold circle of the sky
said, hello, this is the darkness.
***
reflection of the moon
in the black pool,
looks good enough to eat.
***
sometimes i dream
i am a droplet
rolling off a silky leaf in the jungle.
***
bald rubber,
rocky highway,
phantom rolling off the rubble.
***
When I write Haiku
I am Roshi Joshu Jushin
and I place Mu in a glass of water.
The streets here look like newly paved black gold
Lined with moss speaking conquistador’s beards
The Americas aging to god knows what
And the conquests have hardly begun.
Today brought carriages running up the boughs of trees
Forward through all directions, endlessly.
Mother Progress weeps dumbfounded, abandoned.
To all Copper and Clay
I address this new age, and I salute your flexibility.
Night no longer possesses inhuman demons.
Only true light.
Sweat cools in this heat.
Heat the Spanish ate
While the nude west sweats before the smartly kindled flame.
Insects tilt their noise towards gilded leaf.
…Elephants still cross the Alps, I’m sure
And Hannibal unites banners of several gods
With few words sans promitto.
…Impossible for this to be the same sun!
Our native sun pale green, as copper at sea!
We have been cleaned, abolished of our heir!
Lex talionis padme hum…
Yes, Oyster petals,
irridescent and of the sea.
my voice seems clearer
when i break out
the bottle; i seek such flower
as you.
similar in day as in night.
what great poet shall spit at me today?
of what shall it consist?
dining with great devils
can confirm anything and all
through small talks,
in naught thoughts collected
in halls of tall proportion and
sculptures of an hour.
Eliot declares i reek of tins
evaporated of their oil.
So To the River Excrement,
my great friends,
amistad de facto,
mis compatriotas,
my fig leafed and gifted
of days never existed.
To where i give up my luck
in a trough of black cigarettes
all vertically threshed, packed
together in imitation of the
wiry heads of your children,
O River, my lecturer.
[Your children who’s shoulders touch.
who’s lips are pulled tight along
sephia teeth from the recitation of your
cuttlefish inked poems,
its squared metre snapping glossolalia
into familiar
cursed ears…y altro argonauta]
“do not fear,”
was once declared to me.
“infinity i guarantee
but a timeless eternity you may never see.”
i imagined these words even before I wrote them
that for instance there would be two lines for each stanza
that i would now be reading on the second stanza
as if i saw the poem even before it happened
when it happened after the children played and signified over the
world of grown-ups
when it happened after voices burst in surreal and beautiful display
words seen in the mind’s eye happening
even before they happened to deepen in the skin of the moment
that music vibrated even before it is heard
words were said before the tongue even tastes their shapes
even before the pen catches the symbols with which they should be
written
in the imagined how they are real and in the writing how they are real
and in the reciting how they are real forming a moment that is here
but also so much there before in the imagined on that stage of creation
events happen even before they happen as imagined by the universal mind
and events imagined the universal mind as well even before they occur
and the day is never too late as the night is never too late
music is shared because it is good words are shared because they are good
for the goodness comes from before even previous to touching the heart
for the heart was there before as it is very here now
in the night of play and music with the magic of the moment
almost always coming from the imagined as if they never happened before
for the beauty of the forming
for the beauty of the shaping
there would be two lines in every stanza as imagined
and the voice ripe with prophecy
and the writing as well as the tasting of the words
in the hour that is very here and was very there before
in the drama of presences that can be traced soon after
every time someone attempts to open the moment’s door
the wind brings her to me,
the stir of weather, the play of water.
touch sails along secret routes,
till voice comes washing the sand.
water spills into wings.
ANALOGY
(Seeing humanity through the eyes of a Hawk)
Don’t be troubled, vox populi has little
Effect on my cognitive state. Especially
Those bitter words and opinions disgorged
By nosy parkers, tattletales, and rumormongers,
Meant to malign, belittle, slander, and just plain
irritate the recipient.
I have learned from experience to pursue only
What sustains life. And in so doing I can reciprocate
In like fashion to complete a cycle written into the
Fabric of who I am
In this place, life
Beckons on open wings …
Having wandered exotic lands
In search of something inexpressible –
Seeking those gems projected upon
The shifting sands of moldering languor –
Caught betwixt fulfillment and rejection
As curiosity follows the innovatory path –
Where shades of indifference and numbness
Barricade the mind seeking wisdom while it
Penetrates the puzzle of human eccentricity –
Life beckons me to spread my wings …
I will admit
That your way
Is not a highway
To be traveled –
That your way
Is not an example
To be followed –
That your way
Does not echo life
And hope —
As a matter of fact,
Your way leaves
One clawing up cliffs
In desperation seeking
Abandoned eggs in
Small crevices.
Your way quenches
All hope for one
To cling to, and
Your way lessens
Expectation while
Tumefying the ego
It is a test of endurance getting here;
One that challenges the mind and body.
Along jagged granite ramparts which have
Seen unremitting centuries pass before,
I hunt for sustenance that sustains life.
Up here the winds blow freely, and
As the heart opens to potential, within
Those moments when hunger and survival
Join hands in harmony,
I swiftly become
A predator that flies unfettered
Richard Lloyd Cederberg
I had of your warmth
and blush
like a senior boy with the melancholy of departure
mind quivering in the border of love and light
with drowned voices had buried at the bottom of separate ways
never have a woman’s cry never had a woman outcry
to come out toward my shadows and be so sweet of surrender
of whispering and haunted passion to my soul
and even never seen always seen your eyes
its oceans given to me as eternal lighthouses of thought
giving me the next stigma of the blind path of poetry as abyss and resurrection
it is so strange that the distant face when you touched me in my dreams
brought to me so much light. you were so clear to me so clear to me
a blue kiss of aqua touch,you were so close to me so close to me
and then the next bend of light burned our souls and parted us again