Buccinalia (for Robert Gibbons)

In a shaded cove
a flower grows
vivid
wishing he is steel

Buccinal petals
trumpet flowerness
“flower” “flower” “flower”
Forging steel

Turn soil & struggle
shit & sun
into bright burnished petals & peals of flower
& steel

Trumpets rarely flower
Flowers rarely trumpet
Edge your petals in sharpened steel
Root your roots in hidden steel

& blow & blossom
& blossom & blow

where eagles turn to ice

Where eagles turn to ice
& pines whisper rhymes to snow
I will pitch my tent & gather
wood & wait until the thaw
cocooned until the thaw

The mountain flows until it’s sand
& snow piles mountain high
Lost in white on white on white
sightfrozen ‘til the thaw
igloo’d until the thaw

My clothes will smell of smoke
& dust; my ears a shout
in air and amber-trapped
until the thaw
And amber never thaws

3 Sijo

I


It’s all playground politics and chimpanzee relationships
Only one universal law: how you treat the other
Karma/dharma are just metaphors but flowers bloom each spring



II


Pleasure is often underrated; need is a poor principle
A Spartan life may suit some people but it’s not robustly
satisfying. Wake up! Wake up! Joy is the payoff




III


As the shoot springs from the soil, as water shoots from the spring
As the blossom becomes the fruit and as the fruit wombs the tree
As hope floats at sunrise, so mind, self, and soul, bubble from brain



(the Sijo is a Korean syllabic form. from wiki: "Sijo may be narrative or thematic and introduces a situation in line 1, development in line 2, and twist and conclusion in line 3. The first half of the final line employs a “twist”: a surprise of meaning, sound, or other device.")

Day 192

I still walk around

to my side of the bed

even though I sleep 

in the middle 

now

If wars were fought by poets

If wars were fought by poets, the Pentagon would pay five thousand dollars for alliterations in iambic pentameter


If wars were fought by poets, there would be serious statues guarding the gates of Whitman Square Park; Shakespeare would be the fifty-dollar bill.


… there would be a sonnet in every basement.


If wars were fought by poets, every child would learn 4 R’s – readin’, writin’, rhymin’, and ‘rithmetic


If wars were fought by poets, crimson splashed canvas would remind us of birth.


… library cards would be mandatory.



If wars were fought by poets, the only borders would be our minds.


If wars were fought by poets, I would be a soldier.

Is this the Last Villanelle I’ll Write for You?

I own the clock from 4 til 2
striding streets myself again
but 3 am belongs to you

An arrow arced by Japanese yew
the heart of archery & zen
I own the clock from 4 til 2

My head explodes, enfolds Sun Tzu
I command both storm & wind
but 3 am belongs to you

The days are filled with adventures new
& fresh words flowing from my pen
I’m fast asleep at 1 and 2

but in night’s black hole comes something new
like unseen insects across my skin
at 3 am the itch is you

then thoughts of futures lost intrude
& each tick tock’s a raucous din
I own the clock from 4 til 2
but 3 am belongs to you

Ars Poetica

muse fickle words
diamond mined
from carbon thoughts
carbon thoughts
chthonic mind
‘til crystalline
clear
faceted
faced
focused
spare