Poem

Nina and Vermeer in Dublin

The elongated creaks and groans
of the varnished floor
of the National Gallery,
waxed and polished to their spit-clean
ending as grade school classes,
teenage art students and mid-day
browsers parade past
the painting hung
in the middle of section 40,
a Beit gift,
paid only stolen chance
glances, unadorned, as if to say, ‘Stop
here only if you see the value
in illumination.’

Through left over pall
from the mid-morning
shadow, after overcast days,
her eyes adjust to the painting,
to the tossed items on the white,
gray and charcoal tiles:
the purse, the wax, the seal, the letter.

The key is in her hand,
the seal on the floor.

In the painting the overflowing sun
highlights a view of despair
or air of rebuke,
heart in repair, the lady
and her maid basking in mosaic
of pearl-flecked sunlight, shadow.

The key is below the folded arms,
the letter on the floor.

Through high glazed windows
bright, washed faces, tears,
birth

of clarity: the child
in the painting within
a painting that breathes,
communicates with naked
faith and brushed hope

and where Nina sits cross-legged,
the atrium light tapers and reflects
from her white paper journal
and metallic pen.

Poem

Thirsty

The cool water drips
staccato
out of
the green
garden hose
onto
her tongue.

She swallows more air

than water, her throat
a gurgle
of guttural clucks
until I thrust my thumb
in the hose opening,
a sluice. My hand
opens the valve.
Flabbergasted, she grabs
my wrist and pulls. Water falls
on her face
creating small
creeks, rivulets, tear
streaks down her cheeks,
neck, collarbone and t-shirt.

All “I’s” flushed,
I twist the spigot off. She
laughs; thirst slaked.

nice hats

Poem

Hitherto

the man
coming
and going
in the night
will be-
come
a pillar
of desire
or thirst
for skin
or dew
on morning
grass gone
astray.

Poem

Love

is hardly a matter of fact;
is it a question
or an answer
to the new sun in your eyes
as you lay in scrunched crabgrass
and scattered small rocks
tearing the skin of your back
as she whispers again,
'pair of balls’ or ‘parable.’
You can’t tell which and either way
you would miss the point.

Morning Blue Jays sing and Red-belled
Woodpeckers beat song:
when things might be different
love makes them the same:
clouds, cobblestones, curators of dreams;
when things might be reasoned
love makes them absurd:
mountains, moments, measures of desire;
when things might be lost
love rescues the ends:
pulp, pleasure, painstaking belonging;
when things might be deemed
love at long last:
breathe, breathe, breathe.

The solitude of the clear sky,
the moment
regards your existence
like a trace of ginger, typhoid,
alchemy: we are
what we are
and are not, a question,
an answer.

Poetic Justice and the road taken.....

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/24935777/

Poem

Tell Your Sins

The Boeing 767 cruises at an altitude
that bumps you like that last minute of microwave
popcorn just before the ‘I’m done’ ding; descends
through the gray and white
cloud layers as her words ring
through the cabined silence:
“What’s not to love,” and “Shoot for the moon.”
You are still unsure of their meaning;
believe in the delivery, the genuflect
of your knees, her incandescent smile.

Where do you begin a moment if you have
always failed? There is no diving board at a safe
height, no pool or water deep
enough to survive the fall. You
should have taken the window seat.

Your ears begin to pop as the plane’s atmospheric pressure
increases or decreases, you forget which. Physics, no,
simple matters escape
your consideration when faced with anxiety and the stark
promontory of smiling back.

The allure of her words like sections of the plane breaks
apart in your mind: fuselage, verbs, wings,
nouns, participles, cockpit. There is nowhere
to hide; what’s not to love.

The Memos!!!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TtRjmY6UX5k

lyrics - by Joy Division

Love Will Tear Us Apart

When routine bites hard

And ambitions are low

And resentment rides high

But emotions won't grow

And we're changing our ways, taking different roads

Then love, love will tears us apart again

Love, love will tears us apart again

Why is the bedroom so cold

You've turned away on your side

Is my timing that flawed?

Our respect run so dry

Yet there's still this appeal that we've kept through our lives

But love, love will tears us apart again

Love, love will tear us apart again

You cry out in your sleep

All my failings exposed

And there's a taste in my mouth

As desperation takes hold

Just that something so good just can't function no mor
But love, love will tear us apart again

Love, love will tear us apart again

Pistorius - Double amputee ruled eligible for Beijing

http://nbcsports.msnbc.com/id/24665015/

Poem

Sodom and Gomorra
Let the DJ play
`Cos I’m only gone tomorrow and here today

--from the song ‘V. Thirteen,’ by Big Audio Dynamite

The Light Rippling

away at the end of this
feral day,
my speech desecrates its strings
of dusk as it plays magenta,
bridged to hard fuchsia
and orchestrates the last sparkle
that flicks
in your eyes; rises
with the call of a gull
left alone for one last sweep
of the beach; tumbles
along the bumpy road
of your tongue. Dead ends
measured allegro for my heart
in silence.

‘Moments like this/I wish that you were mine
And I find that all the tears that you have cried were mine’

-- from the song, “Perfecting the Art of Common Ground” by Ultravox

Moments Like This

Zero hour
and the back of my eyes
kisses my dream: tinted
butterfly pirouettes
and kaleidoscope tears
cartwheel my cheek. Mid-
night and darkness colors
my chalked outline
in the greasy street. Believe
the scene; taste the odor,
know the crux
of my crucifixion
knee-deep in the guttural scarlet sounds
of passing

"Les Noces de Cana" - Paolo Caliari dit Véronèse

lyrics - by REM

"Accelerate"

Sinking fast, the weight chained to my feet
No time to argue with belief
I'm not alone, a thousand others dropping
Faster than me
What put me here?
Nothing to hold on to
Nowhere to brake

Where is the ripcord, the trapdoor, the key?
Where is the cartoon escape-hatch for me?
No time to question the choices I make
I've got to follow another direction (although fall down is much cooler)

The last thing I remember was climbing up the stairs
I threw the window open in challenge and despair
I don't know what I needed
I needed time
I needed to escape
I saw the future turn
Upside-down and hesitate.

Where is the ripcord, the trapdoor, the key?
Where is the cartoon escape-hatch for me?
No time to question the choices I make
I've got to follow another direction
Accelerate.

The vista I see now is changing
Uncertainty is suffocating
Our hope has never felt so great and
Lit up down
A pounding pulse
To make it go
Make it slow down,
Go.

Where is the ripcord, the trapdoor, the key?
Where is the cartoon escape-hatch for me?
No time to question the choices I make
I've got to follow another direction.

The city's burning, it's like it's ready to explode
Accelerate to make it slow
Make it go
Accelerate to make it slow
Make it go
I'm incomplete
I'm incomplete
I'm incomplete.

poem by Wilfred Owen

Dulce et Decorum Est

Bent double, like old beggars under sacks,
Knock-kneed, coughing like hags, we cursed through sludge,
Till on the haunting flares we turned our backs
And towards our distant rest began to trudge.
Men marched asleep. Many had lost their boots
But limped on, blood-shod. All went lame; all blind;
Drunk with fatigue; deaf even to the hoots
Of tired, outstripped Five-Nines that dropped behind.

Gas! GAS! Quick, boys!-An ecstasy of fumbling,
Fitting the clumsy helmets just in time;
But someone still was yelling out and stumbling
And floundering like a man in fire or lime.
Dim, through the misty panes and thick green light
As under a green sea, I saw him drowning.

In all my dreams, before my helpless sight,
He plunges at me, guttering, choking, drowning.

If in some smothering dreams you too could pace
Behind the wagon that we flung him in,
And watch the white eyes writhing in his face,
His hanging face, like a devil's sick of sin;
If you could hear, at every jolt, the blood
Come gargling from the froth-corrupted lungs,
Obscene as cancer, bitter as the cud
Of vile, incurable sores on innocent tongues,--
My friend, you would not tell with such high zest
To children ardent for some desperate glory,
The old Lie: Dulce et decorum est
Pro patria mori.

Poem

“One thousand three hundred ten and fifty years from the birth of Christ to this night and this is the second year since the coming of the plague to Ireland. I have written this in the twentieth year of my age. I am Hugh son of Conor MacEgan and whoever reads it let him offer a prayer for my soul. This is Christmas night. On this night I place myself under the protection of the King of Heaven and Earth, beseeching that he will bring me and my friends safe through this plague and restore us once more to joy and gladness.”

--- from a note in the margins of Seanchus Mór (or Great Ancient Tradition)

To This Night

Hand in hand
we sink to dirt floor,
light of the fire
leading our descent.
I count the seconds
to keep from screaming,
nudge my shoulder to your shoulder
to keep from fleeing.
Pray there is nothing
to this black night,
starless, cold, silent,
creeping horror around
every village corner.
I could laugh and echo
mindless matter to prove
my love for life and you
does not wane or give
to casual bright tidings:
I am a light, you are flower,
grow in the soil of my being
alive; this clarity doesn’t remain
fallow in each symmetrical tower
of brick and mahogany sublime
in a land with and without
instrumental design.

Joe Jackson Lyrics

You Can’t Get What You Want

Sometimes you start feelin’ so lost and lonely
Then you’ll find it’s all been in your mind
Sometimes you think someone is the one and only
Can’t you see, it could be you and me?
But if there’s any doubt
Then I think I’ll leave it out

’cause I’ll tell you one thing
You can’t get what you want
Till you know what you want
Said you can’t get what you want
Till you know what you want

Sometimes you keep busy reaching out for something
You don’t care, there’s always something there
Sometimes you can’t see that all you need is one thing
If it’s right, you could sleep at night
But it can take some time
But at least I’m here in line

’cause I’ll tell you one thing
You can’t get what you want
Till you know what you want
Said you can’t get what you want
Till you know what you want

Sometimes you can’t see that all you need is one thing
If it’s right, you could sleep at night
But it can take some time
But at least I’m here in line

’cause I’ll tell you one thing
You can’t get what you want
Till you know what you want
Said you can’t get what you want
Till you know what you want

mood

Poem

Beatitude

Your smile begins
the dawn, a bright
vermilion sky
uncurling
and unwinding
barbed wire coiled
along the sown field,
daybreak sun
peaks and twinkles
between oaks and pines,
allows exhalation
of thorns, cones
of anxiety
and laundered thoughts,
tear ducts and mercy.

Happy St. Patrick's Day - March 17th

Irish proverb (somewhere, I'm sure):

There are two versions of the two sides to every story &
(at least) twelve versions of every song.

An Irish Toast . . .
Here's to our wives and girlfriends: May they never meet!