Sunday, April 30th, 2006

Last week, I explored a writing exercise, sent to me by Thom Ingram, designed to get me to stretch my writing in a new direction. Thom also asked if I had any ideas for assignments he might do. I sent him a set of ten and told him that for fairness, I'd try them too. So today I picked one randomly. The assignment: Write a history of the next few centuries, in the style of Nostrodamus.

Through 2500

Between the four unbroken rivers,

A king only to the mad will rise

And humble sorrow's foundation.

Shaking the desert and the inner sea.

The displaced that were scorned

Will bring fire to the winter city

But their many voices make undone

Only the low path and the red dome.

On a calm day, the Asian bow will split the moon

And its parts divided inside and out,

Will go in trifles to China and to Naes,

And the shadow men will hoard the rest.

After scorning their neighbor's table

The faltering eagle will turn upon their own,

Spreading fear of the cannibal mind,

But their late measures will be as nothing.

The young lion will abandon Persia,

And come home too late to save the harvest

And though it is quartered and more,

The lion will exact blood for fifty years.

Monday, May 1st

This is the result of another of the assignments I sent to Thom. See if you can guess the premise before I explain.

The Box

I know the day has been hard

When I turn to the box.

Its gold clasp bright on the dark silk wrap,

That shines more than it shields,

Sewn with waves of red gone wild with white,

A slant stark on the deep grape sheen.

Just the crisp cool feel of the cloth,

And the cold heft, the bite of the latch,

Brings my day up a notch.

And to free the tight spring of the hinge,

Feel the joy with which it wants to leap,

Grips me with its charm and makes me smile.

What need is there to lift the lid?

Crane the top up and back and let it fall?

See the red felt sheer that lines the lid,

Its twin dents that cup and keep the pearls,

The cool green orbs and their soft bells

Still in this fine trunk?

Close to none, but for their sake

Since now they have seen the light.

Though it does not cross my mind

That I could close the box and lose the chance

To take them up and swirl them round,

Both in one tense hand,

Make them roll and glide and chime

And dance their yin and yangs into a blur

And strike them firm from time to time.

Spin the day's harsh glare to ground,

Sooth the bells to sing their rest,

And feel the flow of my breath come right.

It's been a hard day, I guess, but a good one now.

Can you guess? The assignment was as follows: write a poem with words of just one syllable. If done right, few should guess at the restriction unless told. Did it work?

Tuesday, May 2nd

Today I'm swamped with preparations for moving. I'll have to leave off the assignments for a bit. As it is, I found it difficult to shake my preoccupations and to concentrate today.

Meander

Treading this backward space,

This allotted stand of time,

No noble joust of words send up

Their meander or their rhyme,

More forgotten than forgiven

On the road to reason's doom,

All for nonsense and for nothing,

Unwarranted and sublime.

Wednesday, May 3rd

Mirage

My eyes are blue.

I'm lying.

I have no eyes.

But in their place

Curves and lines, letters

That make you whisper

In the back of your mind

Sounds--

The word for eye

Is not an eye but a word,

No matter how well read.

No matter how clearly

The image of an eye

In your mind's eye

Scans and blinks,

Seeks you out and locks

Focused but ever blind,

The image of an eye

Is still not and eye.

And even when

The player reads it,

The speaker shouts it,

It is no more a truth

Than when I speak of love

Or death or hope or anything.

For I do not exist

But as a ghost

Of scant perception,

A character upon the stage

Or your own making.

But even so,

I am ever free to claim

I am the author

And more, that

My eyes are blue.

Thursday, May 4th

Burying Paradise

Maybe I've strayed too far

Into the valley of the mundane--

To far to hear the roar of wisdom

From the gods on high

As anything certain,

Anything more than a whisper

Under the murmur of clouds,

The groan of the growing trees,

The footsteps of the ants

And the conversation of the bees.

Too far downhill,

Spilling from Olympus

On a promise on the breeze

That there is another place

Better than the one uphill,

Where creation is new

And man is still trusted,

And no one sees the iron edge

Of shadows cast by the sun.

A place where I can be naïve.

But I don't travel light:

I drag my bag of ambition and skill.

And as if bringing fire or the wheel

To a world that knows of neither,

I make myself a larger name.

And for a moment I am the voice

The icon, the god from above,

To a boss that doesn't know better,

A crew that's seen only worse,

And their exaltation draws attention.

But I'm not a god and barely a man.

I am a stone falling far

And sliding to rest at their feet.

And just the first:

For here comes another and more,

Their footsteps a rumble

Their wake of dust prickling a cough

From a host of innocent lips

As the avalanche of gods descend,

All seeking a sign from the summit--

A sign too distant to hear.

Friday, May 5th

Dismantled

The emptiness starts at the top,

As the books come down and disappear.

And the hole on the shelf, loose as a tread,

Spreads down the line

To leave me feeling unraveled.

As if with physics gone from the stack

The moon should abandon her rounds,

And if not the moon of the world,

Then the moon of my soul

The clock of my inner tides quiet with dread,

Or with architecture stuffed and sealed

The roof should grumble away.

And if not of my home,

Then the roof of my skull

Opening history to the hungry wind,

The next to be packed away,

Whole museums vanish without a fuss,

Lovers pause in mid-thrill,

Wars sputter and whimper and hold their breath

Along with kings, dragons, and gods,

Artists, scientists, and fools,

My teachers, friends and muses,

Imprisoned and waiting

For the rough treatment of movers,

And pining in silence and darkness

Longing for reunion,

Or at least a good old interrogation.

Saturday, May 6th

Dreaming of Each Other

All through the day,

On the deck, under the sails,

The slick coolness of wet fiberglass

The cross and crash of the chop,

The certainty that salt is an enemy

And is everywhere I will ever look

On everything I will ever touch,

Turning the ropes to mush,

Steel to mud, lips to leather,

Keeps me too alert,

My thoughts nimble,

Braiding knots around stanchions,

Filling time with watchfulness,

And filling my self with time.

But at night I cross the threshold,

That shifts between air and sea,

And I swirl in the heavy cool,

The echo of any movement

A kiss in the cradling dim

Where salt is as welcome as dreams,

Kin to the ocean in my veins,

And where every surface shadow

Throbs a meaning of its own,

And leaves me winding underneath

To marvel as the line, the cable,

The chain that binds every boat

To the ocean floor, and there

One with the earth, all connected,

All hum in sympathy

To the same deep song

Sung by distant relics

In their distant seas.