The poetics of madness

 

Not a Grave Poem

 

Keep from me the livid quiver of uncertain poems, the poetics of madness

   their bridgewalking words

 

Not a grave poem, or set of thoughts on struggle

   with another metaphor of death

 

I cannot channel one more sad line, mine others’ pain

   whose eyes sink low on the head

 

Nor can I gouge out my own pain, summoning illusions of equanimity

   in the crying room of childhood

 

Not dismay, disgust, depression or doom, nor any other D word

   scrawled into the history of gall

Spare me, screen, from the livid quiver of uncertain poems, the poetics of madness

   their bridgewalking words

 

Mark my word. A thin slice of now--limitedly aware of itself--tunnels

   straight to its scarce root

Dear woman on the bridge

Dear Woman Wearing Orange on the Franklin Avenue Bridge

Today, we could not cross back over

The Franklin Avenue Bridge, the flashing lights

Suggested an accident

It’s about four seconds down to the Mississippi

Could a car have blown through the rail?

Ask a young Somali guy watching from a bench

He points it out, and all you see

Where the perfect arc of strength thins at the apex

Is her orange blouse

A homeless man’s arms flail up to the heavens

Such things on a Sunday afternoon seem inconsequential

Until you see her form

And you pedal southeast to the Lake Street Bridge

Averting your eyes as you cross

The mighty river

Dear woman wearing orange,

Look around you, see us on the banks, rooting

And climb back over

Her Name. Buried at sea. 1912.

Her Name                                                                                                                                            For Ana. Buried at sea. 1912

 

Everyone mentions

The bobbing life vests

From the rescue ship, dotting

The distance “like seabirds”

Amongst the bergs

 

Everyone mentions

The number of survivors

In journal entries and letters

Hands thawing aboard the Carpathia

Crying happiness, and horror, and shame

 

Everyone mentions

The chivalry as it sank

How orderly the gentlemen

In lines, the band, yet very little

Of third class

 

Everyone mentions

How kind the passengers

Mending their clothing, surrendering

Blankets, giving up their rooms

To sleep on deck

 

On the 18th of April, however

After bobbing images of frozen bodies

Had sunk in, a funeral

For victims, and one other

At the stern

No one mentions

These five souls

Wrapped in bedsheets

Weighted, to be dropped

Into the Atlantic

 

Some mention

The clergyman’s prayers

A few passengers, crew, survivors

Gathered. But lost to history is

The baby’s name

 

It was her first born

A daughter. On her way

Back to the old country

She had given up her room

Ana Pavel

 

Was her name

Everyone went back to New York

Where the Titanic had been heading

And the family would never

Meet again

 

I mention her

Little known, but not forgotten baby

Because she was my aunt

And may she rest

In peace

Parable of the horizon and sky. Actually, an allegory of the pandemic

Parable of the Horizon and Sky

Someone spilled milk into the sky
soaking the blueberry cream tart
oozing with scoops of orange sherbet
dripping over yellow flan puffs and
into the maple cracks of dusk

But the floor of the horizon
could not think to pick it up
Instead, it held the disarray in
his gaze until his eyes drooped
and barely any light shone back

And the world turned in
When glittered crystals of sugar
blinked like a city upside down
Syrupy shapes made a dim morass
of beauty, into blue air muddle

Like opium smoke in 1868

Lying down, he whispered to himself
lines of Gibran, Neruda
conjuring memories of sky
when clean, free of spills
or blurring color

Those were the clear times
that the horizon would now
only see at distance
Ahead, the honeyed dome
a sweet and flaky firmament

Dark omen though it may be
with this acknowledgement
he closed his eyes
and kissed the whole
body of the sky

Flowing over with (a word goes here)

Lay It Down

This fall’s rime torrents

Made gardens die sideways

And pensioners wash away

Altogether

Your hide, so thick

That rains pelted

But could not wet you

Flowing over with

     (A word goes here)

Coming up for air

A concept you have known

Like an infant smile

A word you’ve stroked

     (Insert that word here)

We splash in it

Blissfully about

When we are pouring over

The edges

Like all words

This is a symbol

For your dusky eyes

Caressing paradise

Don’t worry about the stove on

Go as you are

Leave the place unlocked

No mirrors involved

     (Gently lay the word down)

Scream that word

Run until your pulse

Drowns all weary

Exhalation

Until the pandemic...

Lean Into It

You knew no such thing as fear

In your horse-drawn, stable life

Until the pandemic

Then, the quinoa plants germinated in three days

Sprouts longing toward the window glare

Evolving, ridiculing all doubt

In a park on a hill in a crisis

Stands a man, stark

Aroused by color and chill

You are he, governing the dusk

Considering the color of friendship

The scent of who you were with for twenty-four years

Smile anyway. Disregard the blinking thoughts

Like cop cars at a call

Watch the orange sun decline on the cityscape

A yellow seagull flying overhead

The color of caution signs

Gaze a little more at the sun

Look out from cliffs

Where Chumash boys once stood still

After throwing stones into the surf

I texted my dead friend today

I miss you, Jim, I said

He texted back, I miss you too

Keep in mind yellow sea birds

The orange sun, or how tendrils of quinoa

Lean into it

Lean into it

How exceedingly well is nothing operating in your life?

Zero

You ask the arc of the sky

How exceedingly well is nothing operating

In your life?

Alexander the Great met a naked, wise man

Sitting on a rock and staring at the sky, and asked him,

“What are you doing?”

“Facing nothing. What are you doing?”

“Conquering the world.” They laughed

Thinking each other a fool

In the Temple Chaturbhuj, at the fort of Gwalior

Carved in a wall, the first zero, nothing

Special

To the Buddhists, Shunyata

Draining the pondering mind

Mathematical zero

Indian mathematicians, their voices

Counting well into the trillions, considering

Types of infinity

Today, the abundant engines

Their prolific gears oiled and loud

Churn nothing

In the beginning, the earth was zero

Without form, and void, a seed for ideas:

Calculus, physics, making love

Christians found Satan in nothing

As god was in everything

So, banned zero

What zeros lurk in your mind, undiscovered?

Ask the arc of the sky how exceedingly well

Is nothing operating