Interview from JaneCrownRadio

Delighted to announce the availability of my August 21 interview with Jane Crown from JaneCrownRadio. Jane, the publisher of Heavy Bear, does a wonderful show, asking questions and eliciting responses that turns the interview process into a conversation of hopes and dreams, facts and fancy; I also read several of my poems throughout the conversation. The show is about an hour and is available here. You can download it, burn a cd from it if you like, or just listen.

2 Poems

Phases


He found himself a box
a small, undistinguished box
to put himself into.

Not all of him, a part
unlamented by him, the part
most recently over
and ready to be forgotten.

Not forever - he knew
that was not possible - he knew
though it would try its best

not to fidget, to keep still,
not try to turn over, still,
it could not rest

forever, it would have to knock
at one side or another, knock
hard at times, just tap

at other times to recall him
to its time, pinpoint him
to its place on his map
for a moment or two, a year or so.

*

When he first laid it in the box
on top of the older parts in his box
he watched it settle in

without a sigh, a shrug, a lock
he closed the box without a lock
a sigh, a shrug, a smile.

SKETCHBOOK, April-2008


Someone Else's World


There's a time of will, of stout-hearted sensibility
when all may not be right with the world
but it is your world, with all its back-breakers,
its griefs, its bumps in the night ...

it is your world, where stumblings or spectres,
disturbances or despair are dare-able,
when you can settle in to work or cry or fight,
when to shatter the black knight
or be shattered
is real.

And then, there's this: tremors
under your feet, shaking the coffee cup
you've raised to your mouth; tremors,
like the aftershocks of an earthquake,
every few days, or hours. Nothing
catastrophic or unexpected, just tremors,
from the rupture in someone else's world,
rumbling through yours.


HAMMERS - 1998

2 For Today

The Children's Hour


A lonely kid, like most other kids, stuck
inside an omnipresence I didn't know;
always on edge, searching for clues to show
me how the rules work, show me how to make

my self touchable, teach me how to fake
being part of what I was attached to
by a trick of blood. How could they be sure who
I was if I did not remind them, take

them to the bed they gave me? Off a hall-
way, a pentagram of sounds, thick and hard,
a plot to kill, so insignificant

the sounds are swapped like jokes to pass a dull
day among deeded rooms, I am not barred
from or asked to enter. I move my scent
to other space, my chant

unheard. Space is made for me but none is mine.
I look into my eyes and check for signs
I'm here. And when I win

I tell them. I have to. Tell them. If they
forget my name, I will forget it too.


HAWAII REVIEW #45/95

==============================
A Villanelle Variation For My Last Duchess


Dedicated, with much admiration, to the memory of Browning, the Master Poet

They tell me my painting remains on the same wall.
"My last duchess," he repeats to each father come to
          propose
his pubescent child's worthiness to succeed me

to imperial riches and papal honors, and to be painted.
The Duke has had several Raphaels and Berninis moved or
          removed
but, they tell me, my portrait remains on the same wall.

Does the Duke consider, you think, how Fra Pandolf
may color her cheeks and drape her gown to highlight
the lovely child's worthiness to succeed me?

She will revere, unfailingly, the Duke's 900-year old
name; but should she falter she may, perhaps, be comforted
by my portrait remaining on that same wall.

They say the Duke has grown fond of my glance, the same
glance that so distressed him and must be guarded against
by the chosen child, however demure, who succeeds me.


I wonder that I have ever been happier than here in the
          convent:
I bestow my glance as I desire, including to my dear Duke.
They tell me, again and again, my painting remains on the
          wall. I pray
that will give solace to the father of the worthy child who
          succeeds me.



SKETCHBOOK - 2008

"POLITICS"

In America


A child sitting on the edge of a cot
in the cell of a jailhouse;

his head droops into his folded arms,
the toes of his stocking feet
skimming the ground;

10 feet above his head is a slice of light
onto sky and barbed wire.

On someone’s sidewalk there are teddy bears
and candles, photographs and photographers.

In a hospice for dying children there is wailing,
there are caresses and prayer, hope
for an end to grievous pain.

Not in this cell, in this jailhouse
no candles, no caresses; a slice of light
onto sky and barbed wire.

SKETCHBOOK, 2009

==================================
Considering “Empire” by Kaplan – The Day After

Warm, always warm
every day, warm
not hot, never hot, warm
everyday, warm
every night

A bird, not an eagle
dozes on a railing,
a suspended railing
in danger of melting
into the smoky milk
of a triumphal arch

while smaller beings
too new to remember cold
poke, scamp about
in yellow light,
and plot

PROTESTPOEMS.org, 2009; GUYANAJOURNAL.com, 2010

2 LOVE POEMS

Old Age, Alone: A Love Poem


If I must live a long time
without you, I will grieve
but I will not mourn.

If no one of blood or brain
stops by to touch my face
or roll me into sunlight,

if no one is left to speak
to me as if I still exist
or nod at my babbling,

I will start the tape at August,
a hot afternoon, when your breath
questioned mine and our lust-

driven, love-drenched epic began.
I will dawdle over every frame,
mouth every syllable, until

the reel whips to its end. I will
sob and shake my head like a forlorn
beast; I may even call out your name.

And if I'm touched and rolled and
spoken to and heard, I'll wait
until they've gone to press my heart

and start my tape, again.

Comstock Review, 1997


===================================
Forever & Forever & Forever


"This is forever - we are in it now" - A. R. Ammons

What are you looking for, Beloved,
what do you seek?

Why ask me such questions, Beloved?
You are not as meek

and wide-eyed as you pretend to yourself
to be, a Byronic Don Juan,

sultry newborn, happy hostage
to your own innocent charm;

You know as well as I, your make-believe
Venus, that all my tricks

of seduction, my blinding beauty
are out of Kabala books.

And what does Kabala say, Beloved
what do the books say?

That forever is a pretty thought, Beloved
a thought we create

in our own image of unending love
and pleasure for as long

as we want to stay in this place, drawing
each other's breath, as long

as we want to promise, as long as we see
ourselves in each other's eyes,

in each other's sighs;
this is Forever, Beloved, it is now.


JerseyWorks.com – Summer/2008