original poetry – Underground Turtles

To the Morning Robin

June 23, 2023 ut1 Comments 0 Comment

The early bird catches the worm,

the early worm catches the bird.

To the morning robin listen closely.

There within you will find,

there within you will hear

the hoot of the owl. Dawn’s crack comes as a door open

but only so slightly.

It comes as a muskrat would gnaw at the edge of night.

Take a walk. You will forever remain in the present’s wake,

therefore, “take” remains—and is always—took.

Within the shadow of the nightshade

I could smell and taste the milky sap of the morning glory

and within the morning glory:

moonflowers.

Present is always one step behind.

As we advance we retreat into dawn.

And dawn’s sister is dusk. And dawn’s reflection is the moon.

No matter how well-meaning, the present could not sustain.

It could not tolerate or weather or endure or stand.

The moving-mirror-time-space-continuum,

this menagerie of moments, this battleship of molecules

and inertia,

always pressed—always presses—close,

forever compelled near,

at last, falls in upon itself because it cannot stand upon itself.

It’s as but bones without its skin

and eternity wins.

The Egret

May 31, 2019 ut1 Comments 0 Comment

A white egret
Is juxtaposed against the moon.

If not for its dark silhouette,
You would have missed it,
The white on white,
Bone on bone—
The way the scene was lit.

T.S. took a back seat
And so did Whitman.
The miracle of meter
No longer mattered or so it seemed;
It all flowed together

So seamlessly,
O, in such symmetry
And endlessly,
Or so it seemed.

This whole universe stood still,
Stands still,
As in a tableau. Yet
The egret
Flew;

The egret;
Black silhouette;
Death;
Unseen, save by the light of the moon.

And Wyeth,
N.C., came, and comes to mind.
And so did Sassoon.
And I thought of Monet. And Rilke:
Poets, painters, “poet-painters,”
All of the same ilk,

All, breathing from the same turgid tube;
Not pretentious, not dull from storm,
But solemn—
Somewhere where Plath and Keats
Met,
Meet,

Somewhere where the sea and the path forget.
This is no longer dry land.
Flies the egret.

Is for better or for worse.
The train has arrived,
You have left the station.
Occupation-wise
There is monetary gain,
Momentary fame—
If you’re lucky—posthumously.
It keeps you awake at night.
You clamber for
And hoard
Scraps of paper. At night you rise
Among melting dreams.
There is a railroad track, a chicken coup.
An evening sunset, a morning monsoon.
A water buffalo is cleaved in half.
Rat-a-tat-tat.
A former stick, a yellow-lipped Krait,
Glides through manioc.

You ask yourself: is this real?
Thunder answers,
A bell answers,
Poetry answers—all one long peal
like a train whistle through a long tunnel
And there is no appeal and no recourse
But to press on in the dark,
Press on or forever hold your peace.

Silent Music

June 17, 2018 ut1 Comments 0 Comment

Sometimes
silent music is the best music of all.
It falls like night.
It falls like a snowflake.

It is a smile as opposed to a laugh.
It is a poem as opposed to a song.
It comes to you as on a noiseless wing
of no required footstep.

You need not walk out to meet it.

In winter’s hour it comes like a snowflake,
yet, as welcoming angel, its embrace is warm.

At the Butterfly Garden, the Bench (San Francisco Bay Don Edwards Wildlife Reserve)

April 17, 2018 ut1 Comments 0 Comment

At the back
overlooking
is a bench. I listened to a sparrow
thought this bench to be
perfect for writing poetry.

Sure,
a sign explains how Monarch butterflies
store up the poison from
their food plants: milkweed,
and how this, hopefully,
keeps the predators away

Also, how the California Ringlet,
the most abundant in California,
lays its eggs upon the grasses: Bunchgrass
to be exact;
then the California Tortoiseshell Butterfly—
and so on and so forth—
over here on a purple blossom,
over there on a dark-orange one . . .
They are called Ceanothus or California lilacs.

A gaggle of kids on a field trip on the other side of some trees
move behind me. “This is boring,” one says.
(I’m sure he’d rather be about some iPad playing video games.)

Meanwhile, a bird darts.
Bees are about blossoms.
A lizard scurries then sits motionless perfectly camouflaged.
Six crows rest in a tree a ways off,
then fly over my head, silent.
Honking geese follow,
the cacophony in competition
with the troop of kids,
feet too firmly planted and dragging on the ground.

I’m still looking
for the poetry.

As the songbird returns with song,
through a hole in the trees
I see a kid wearing headphones.
The whole gaggle seems to be heading my way.

O, the poetry!
O, the humanity
to write about such things.
To write about such things,
sit with pen and pontificate

orange and white and yellow
butterflies flitting about
and gone.

This is boring! The phrase
suddenly enunciates in my mind.
And in my mind Mugworts
and Sticky monkey-flowers
labeled and in proper order:
yellow blossoms,
one or two, deepening into crimson.

I open my eyes.

The garden itself!
that is the poetry.

My notepad is empty.

I’ll be back tomorrow.

A Word About Words

March 30, 2018 ut1 Comments 0 Comment

Always adequate,
Always measuring up (and
how quickly they
can become has-been

often laughable, even derisory).

Untie the words, you say,
loose them from their pain;
unite them in reason, one to another

till they follow like sheep
to the slaughter in their inadequacy.

The Washing of Dishes

February 10, 2018 ut1 Comments 0 Comment

When you are through
with
the washing of dishes

there is the
washing of dishes

and when you finish
the
washing of dishes

there is the
washing of dishes.

Find time to milk the cow.
And plow?
How?

Find time to make things rhyme.
Find time to be word-absurd,
soak head in bucket of water..
How?
I shall soak my head in a bucket of
slop; yes, I said poetry.
(Paint word-acrylics
and be embecilic. I said poetry.)

How?

When you are through
with
the washing of dishes

there is the
washing of dishes

and when you finish–
the
washing of dishes.

My Roving Shoes

December 18, 2017 ut1 Comments 0 Comment

This morning my shoes took off without me.
Across the floor they clomped and clattered,
then,
one kick of the door
and they were gone.

Funny to imagine, them out there without me,
stopping by a shoeshine boy,
searching for a dime,
but so assertive now,
the two of them in their newfound freedom.

There they are in front of the newsstand
now feeling important,
leisurely, hanging carelessly about,
their laces hanging out.

This morning they were impertinent,
a bit self-possessed.
They were tired of me too long
in the bathroom
probably seeing me as vain;
perking the coffee, sitting down
with pen in hand drawing a blank.

They needed to make a statement,
two empty shoes,
here we are, here!
Tongues hanging out from too much wear
but rows of eyes from which to look out of,
two empty shoes
out to face the world.

Underground Turtles

When nothing worth saving no longer seems right

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Tag: original poetry