Friday, July 29, 2011
AUTHOR EVENT for CARRY EACH HIS BURDEN
I am absolutely thrilled to announce that I will be reading from my debut collection of stories, CARRY EACH HIS BURDEN, on Wednesday, October 12th, at 7pm at Buffalo's No.1 independent bookseller, Talking Leaves.
Low and Golden / new poems 2011
Broke My Neck
Broke my neck
Swinging with the monkeys,
Tree to tree,
Aping my own behavior, acting out,
Pulling stars from the sky,
Burning King James' bibles,
Kissing collapsed bridges,
Wading foul waters' low wash,
Clapping hands against the thunder
Spitting its rain and crooked light
To baptize by electroshock
This primate,
Not yet civilized by Man,
Nor by his man-made God.
Broke my neck
Swinging with the monkeys,
Tree to tree,
Aping my own behavior, acting out,
Pulling stars from the sky,
Burning King James' bibles,
Kissing collapsed bridges,
Wading foul waters' low wash,
Clapping hands against the thunder
Spitting its rain and crooked light
To baptize by electroshock
This primate,
Not yet civilized by Man,
Nor by his man-made God.
Low and Golden / new poems 2011
Jealous Stars
Please don't sleep the day,
Breathe deep the open fields
Where all your own wildflowers
Wait for the sun to climb the sky
Hiding at last all those jealous stars
Pining for your attention as you dream.
Please don't sleep the day,
Breathe deep the open fields
Where all your own wildflowers
Wait for the sun to climb the sky
Hiding at last all those jealous stars
Pining for your attention as you dream.
Low and Golden / new poems 2011
I, a Killer
My own ghosts, versions of me I murdered
With my own hands, move outside this window,
Their brittle laughter breaking a cold, quiet night,
Waking birds who fly blindly on toward blinking stars
And a heaven my dead souls can only dream to dance
While I, a killer, still walk and stalk this mortal world alive.
My own ghosts, versions of me I murdered
With my own hands, move outside this window,
Their brittle laughter breaking a cold, quiet night,
Waking birds who fly blindly on toward blinking stars
And a heaven my dead souls can only dream to dance
While I, a killer, still walk and stalk this mortal world alive.
Low and Golden / new poems 2011
Porcupine Gods
Heaven bristles, dead hair electric even in death,
As our prayers are dumped into all four oceans
By every smiling saint and laughing Buddha
From bluer skies beyond wobbling stars'
Dull reminder of our own mortality.
Heaven bristles, dead hair electric even in death,
As our prayers are dumped into all four oceans
By every smiling saint and laughing Buddha
From bluer skies beyond wobbling stars'
Dull reminder of our own mortality.
Low and Golden / new poems 2011
These Dark Things (Our Blue Days)
These dark things,
Below our steep bank,
Rolling in with the weather,
Hanging from locust limbs outside,
Under foundations, walking attic floors,
Are only night's own dreams of our blue days
Turned black in the quiet and cold of starless nights.
These dark things,
Below our steep bank,
Rolling in with the weather,
Hanging from locust limbs outside,
Under foundations, walking attic floors,
Are only night's own dreams of our blue days
Turned black in the quiet and cold of starless nights.
Low and Golden / new poems 2011
All Our Colours
We bury our innocence in a box,
Widen our eyes and open up our minds
Only to discover all our colours bleeding into one.
Lost heroes aging along with us,
Their spider bites and scorpion stings
Marking you and I anew as we sleep side by side.
So hold mud flowers and remember,
The sound ideas and sights we've seen
Bloom wild again inside our scarred and dirty hearts.
We bury our innocence in a box,
Widen our eyes and open up our minds
Only to discover all our colours bleeding into one.
Lost heroes aging along with us,
Their spider bites and scorpion stings
Marking you and I anew as we sleep side by side.
So hold mud flowers and remember,
The sound ideas and sights we've seen
Bloom wild again inside our scarred and dirty hearts.
Low and Golden / new poems 2011
Off to the Side (for Jim Harrison, poet)
I stand where you have always stood;
There where the light flushes new color into primrose.
At the edge where black clouds hover not overhead but within.
Beyond myself but with both feet planted firmly and walking forward.
Holding Protestant ethic in a hand while furiously working with the other.
Immersed in the quiescence of the wild where thoughts are free to linger.
I stand where you have always stood;
Off to the side, unseen for weeks, months, even years.
In the charity and wisdom of a good woman's unconditional love.
Within my own skin, looking more comfortable with each new decade.
Outside myself to better understand how much I still don't know as yet.
Inside my own mind, a mirror reflecting the beautiful lie and the ugly truth.
I stand where you have always stood;
There where the light flushes new color into primrose.
At the edge where black clouds hover not overhead but within.
Beyond myself but with both feet planted firmly and walking forward.
Holding Protestant ethic in a hand while furiously working with the other.
Immersed in the quiescence of the wild where thoughts are free to linger.
I stand where you have always stood;
Off to the side, unseen for weeks, months, even years.
In the charity and wisdom of a good woman's unconditional love.
Within my own skin, looking more comfortable with each new decade.
Outside myself to better understand how much I still don't know as yet.
Inside my own mind, a mirror reflecting the beautiful lie and the ugly truth.
Thursday, July 28, 2011
Low and Golden / new poems 2011
Forge
Shine so hard,
There is nothing left
But tomorrow,
Whose sun has not said
What light will come
To those who wait
To forge the day
After it has already
Dawned anew.
Shine so hard,
There is nothing left
But tomorrow,
Whose sun has not said
What light will come
To those who wait
To forge the day
After it has already
Dawned anew.
Low and Golden / new poems 2011
As Close As Skin
As close as skin,
But where are my memories
Of you?
There is history,
years cobbled together,
vague resemblances.
Touchstones are few,
and I wonder if it is me, not you,
who is losing his memory.
As close as skin,
But where are my memories
Of you?
There is history,
years cobbled together,
vague resemblances.
Touchstones are few,
and I wonder if it is me, not you,
who is losing his memory.
Low and Golden / new poems 2011
I Have Seen My Arab Heart
I have seen my Arab heart
In a dozen eyes
As familiar as my own
That stare across
This desert America
With hope beating
The blood of sisters,
The blood of brothers
Across four continents,
Across seven oceans.
I have seen my Arab heart
In a dozen eyes
As familiar as my own
That stare across
This desert America
With hope beating
The blood of sisters,
The blood of brothers
Across four continents,
Across seven oceans.
Low and Golden / new poems 2011
Born Into This Blood
Born into this blood, roads as weary as I am
Having walked them on and on
Into the length of broadening, lowering light
Lying down across the trees, brush and bramble
Here at the edge of a thicket mind, of a rose-pricked heart,
The beyond increasingly as dark as the beginning,
With just the unseen owls there to ask the only question
That still seems to matter,
"Who?"
Goes there, has been there, carries on
In the face of a changing face,
Not only because the light is fading,
Sending shadows into the deepening lines
Of a mask at best, but because
The blood may be the only thing
Which has remained the same
Along the way.
Born into this blood, roads as weary as I am
Having walked them on and on
Into the length of broadening, lowering light
Lying down across the trees, brush and bramble
Here at the edge of a thicket mind, of a rose-pricked heart,
The beyond increasingly as dark as the beginning,
With just the unseen owls there to ask the only question
That still seems to matter,
"Who?"
Goes there, has been there, carries on
In the face of a changing face,
Not only because the light is fading,
Sending shadows into the deepening lines
Of a mask at best, but because
The blood may be the only thing
Which has remained the same
Along the way.
Low and Golden / new poems 2011
A New Alphabet
The girl waited an eternity
On the side of a desert road.
The longest day, the day that ended with a kiss
And all was forgotten in an instant;
The allegiances to still-born landscapes, self-indulgent poetry,
mother-father-brother-sister, sister-brother-father-mother,
The now dead-to-her friends in a rear-view mirror,
No sun at their backs, no sun on their faces.
At last, the girl, without direction, with no need for the North Star,
Eyes filling with black clouds, rain not tears running down red cheeks,
A new alphabet in hand, a lame falcon leading the way,
Moving beyond herself there on the side of a desert road.
The girl waited an eternity
On the side of a desert road.
The longest day, the day that ended with a kiss
And all was forgotten in an instant;
The allegiances to still-born landscapes, self-indulgent poetry,
mother-father-brother-sister, sister-brother-father-mother,
The now dead-to-her friends in a rear-view mirror,
No sun at their backs, no sun on their faces.
At last, the girl, without direction, with no need for the North Star,
Eyes filling with black clouds, rain not tears running down red cheeks,
A new alphabet in hand, a lame falcon leading the way,
Moving beyond herself there on the side of a desert road.
Low and Golden / new poems 2011
Forgotten Fight Songs
Going up against the soft, unseen,
Feather armies of self-defeating attitudes
That whisper in my darkest dreaming,
Leaving the pollen of doubt
Below a harvest moon broken by clouds
Where I sleepwalk fields of heather,
Fists boxing all my ghosts
Who hold dead bees and sing
Forgotten fight songs.
Going up against the soft, unseen,
Feather armies of self-defeating attitudes
That whisper in my darkest dreaming,
Leaving the pollen of doubt
Below a harvest moon broken by clouds
Where I sleepwalk fields of heather,
Fists boxing all my ghosts
Who hold dead bees and sing
Forgotten fight songs.
Low and Golden / new poems 2011
With a Hip Full of Roses
With a hip full of roses
I shake money from my pockets
And hope I know myself better than before,
In deference to death hanging in the errant split of a cell,
In the changing of a traffic light, in the black french kiss of depression.
With a hip full of roses
I shake money from my pockets
And hope I know myself better than before,
In deference to death hanging in the errant split of a cell,
In the changing of a traffic light, in the black french kiss of depression.
Low and Golden / new poems 2011
Of a Clap Breaking Silence
On the brink of discovery,
A smile, lying within myself,
A chrysalis rife with signs
Of impending rupture.
Flower heart,
The blood of bouquets
I swim in search of fever dreams
Where I awake a mountain.
Quiet thoughts escape
Upon the wind
Where sleep surrenders
It's own soft laugh.
Broken thunder rides
A shoreline electric with souls
Lost to the sands of time,
Like rain lost to open water.
Breath in air drunk with love
And hovering weightless,
Where the hours forget for a moment
To add themselves to years.
My smile like rain
Falling through your laughter,
Whetted remembrance
Of a clap breaking silence.
On the brink of discovery,
A smile, lying within myself,
A chrysalis rife with signs
Of impending rupture.
Flower heart,
The blood of bouquets
I swim in search of fever dreams
Where I awake a mountain.
Quiet thoughts escape
Upon the wind
Where sleep surrenders
It's own soft laugh.
Broken thunder rides
A shoreline electric with souls
Lost to the sands of time,
Like rain lost to open water.
Breath in air drunk with love
And hovering weightless,
Where the hours forget for a moment
To add themselves to years.
My smile like rain
Falling through your laughter,
Whetted remembrance
Of a clap breaking silence.
Low and Golden / new poems 2011
A Second Chance in the Sun
In the heat and long light
Of the ecliptic, the solstice
Hanging above the Tropic of Cancer,
A memory of a cold June
That belongs to another life,
One bereft of freshwater breezes,
But somehow secreting
A second chance in the sun,
Behind the scratch of
Unseasonal woolens I wore
To combat the shivering
Of suddenly being alone
In the summer of my years.
In the heat and long light
Of the ecliptic, the solstice
Hanging above the Tropic of Cancer,
A memory of a cold June
That belongs to another life,
One bereft of freshwater breezes,
But somehow secreting
A second chance in the sun,
Behind the scratch of
Unseasonal woolens I wore
To combat the shivering
Of suddenly being alone
In the summer of my years.
Low and Golden / new poems 2011
Low and Golden
Somehow surreal,
Though I have no dreams
Which end in bent blues,
Only the perfume
Of something vaguely
Lying upon my skin
Until I shake myself
To walk memories
Of Texas almond orchards
And the sense of light,
Low and golden,
They have left
Beyond sleep's own
Grey reverie.
Somehow surreal,
Though I have no dreams
Which end in bent blues,
Only the perfume
Of something vaguely
Lying upon my skin
Until I shake myself
To walk memories
Of Texas almond orchards
And the sense of light,
Low and golden,
They have left
Beyond sleep's own
Grey reverie.
Low and Golden / new poems 2011
The Wince of Sour Wine
Beyond here lie tangled, dead grape vines,
The ripe virtue of patience all but abandoned,
In turn then turned into the wince of sour wine
Poured over, into and out of these empty years,
Left drunk with anticipation that bears a bitter fruit.
Beyond here lie tangled, dead grape vines,
The ripe virtue of patience all but abandoned,
In turn then turned into the wince of sour wine
Poured over, into and out of these empty years,
Left drunk with anticipation that bears a bitter fruit.
Low and Golden / new poems 2011
10,000 Setting Suns
In the beginning a sense
Of insecurity permeating everything
Along the path where unsure steps
Impeded progress, more like a wish
Than a promise waiting in natural settings,
The smoldering plastic nights smothering dreams
Along with years and years of, "Starlight, star bright..."
And a chorus of tomorrows that only came
In the wake of destroying a love
Dragging me down into the emptiness
Of security, a quicksand where wishes, dreams,
And stars sink with 10,000 setting suns.
In the beginning a sense
Of insecurity permeating everything
Along the path where unsure steps
Impeded progress, more like a wish
Than a promise waiting in natural settings,
The smoldering plastic nights smothering dreams
Along with years and years of, "Starlight, star bright..."
And a chorus of tomorrows that only came
In the wake of destroying a love
Dragging me down into the emptiness
Of security, a quicksand where wishes, dreams,
And stars sink with 10,000 setting suns.
Low and Golden / new poems 2011
Plumb
As long as I can hold my chambered breath,
My boy safe beneath timeless waters with me,
Though sunlight playing upon the surface beckons,
The soul of the cliff diver will not seek the salt-kissed air
But further plumb the depths where conjoined history dreams.
As long as I can hold my chambered breath,
My boy safe beneath timeless waters with me,
Though sunlight playing upon the surface beckons,
The soul of the cliff diver will not seek the salt-kissed air
But further plumb the depths where conjoined history dreams.
Sunday, July 24, 2011
AUTHOR EVENT for CARRY EACH HIS BURDEN
I am absolutely thrilled to announce that I will be reading from my debut collection of stories, CARRY EACH HIS BURDEN, on Wednesday, October 12th, at 7pm at Buffalo's No.1 independent bookseller, Talking Leaves.
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