“She Left for Paradise”

“She Left for Paradise”

She left for paradise just the yesterday
Admitted freely through an unlocked door,
A chance escape from where she was to just above the second floor,
Or possibly to the attic or the basement, at any rate away
Thank God, from where she thought she was while nothing gleaned
From nothing’s not that different and labelling’s all the same–
Even heaven must have names.
She stops by some disaffected spa, a coffee bar
To reconnoitre–cats do this. Something
Cold or hot, it makes no difference in the clutch
Of notions chosen wisely for the subway; nothing much,
But once arrived, the touch to give the right appearance–rings
And bracelets, no, but, yes, an i-Phone–finds a vacant chair within the class.
And while she sits, her thoughts are peach fuzz, powdered, smooth.
She’s posed a thousand questions placing each
Within a different light, a different wrap,
Disguises subtle as the traps
Devised for God-knows-why, and meant to reach
The station of a star not unlike her own; to hit the spot,
Delight, to actuate the possibilities:
An infinite momentum in the finite plausibilities,
Intransitive infinitives on the screen and incense lit with tiny candles hot
To touch, but only in the instant. Or while she waits perhaps
A second gilded thought is clearly written on the pristine ceiling
To make a wash of brackish classroom backgrounds, bleed
The many colours on the furthest wall to one when what is apt
To run is total loss of memory, samsara gleaned from evening pains,
And canvases measured not in strokes, but languid drops of rain.

“Idyll of the Notes”

“Idyll of the Notes”

Idyll of the notes: strike the first, then close the second; together,
Hail propinquity, call a third to birth a melody:
From nothing more, strange grace.  Thoughts become celebrity
In congress with emotion in the progress—tethered,
Binding doubled, redoubled—repeated over time,
A saturated affair, approbation
With solemnities, an aspiration
Quickened within a rhyme
Of mere coincidence and proclivities; a leaning
Toward an accidental brilliance, plaudits gleaned
From union and fresh existence and what seem
At first but three streaks’ slight in plaited harmony gleaming,
Potential fugues’ intrinsic affinities drawn from thin air.
Purity of heart inspires the masterpiece and who bears its weight?
At once in lieu of action words foolishly assure themselves it’s not too late.
Without the chill of intellect, there can be no intensity, no heat;
Without emptiness, what, then, is required,
Nothing lacking; nothing is inspired,
Nothing dreamt if in the night there is no sleep.
No path; no looming future present if there is no past,
No memory, no hint of satisfaction where discomfort
Is not found; no unity displaces discord
Where envy or the trial of jealousy cannot last.
Where the comely courage of Perseus if
No Medusa, no Tiresias, no hindsight sorely missed;
No hint of blush in virgins, whose innocence is kissed
And gone for evermore. Richer the magnitude of precious gifts
If lovers prove untrue; the straight line lies and light will bend
Where eternities cannot be seen beyond the beginning and the end.

…art work at top by Paul Pinkman…

“Duplicity”

Duplicity on a monumental scale alters
Vision in a neo-comatose viewing of the facts.
Phatic passports at the border, coy complications wrack
The memory in the act of glossing a myriad of Psalters
That set the price of cavilling, lead and dissect flocks of those
Who would be here, not there surrounding
Witnesses in the outer court’s estate who seek the muted sound
Of pilgrims to the inner state who know what flat rates in lies disclose.
Always here, everywhere in evidence, we are no better than intentions
Postulate and accident provides. Circumspection conceals
The truth but marks the nuance of the spell of many seals
In words of pulp and marvellous aplomb; condescension
Reigns at last where delusions of reality are drawn. Take note of the exceptions:
Who constructs the fence invites addiction and a profitable deception.

“White Men Talking”

“White Men Talking”

White men talking white man’s trash;
You know he’ll take you there in seconds;
It’s the image he explores. He reckons
Knowledge of the thing’s as good as cash
In titbits from the morning business news.
Deception’s deep throat foaming predilection at the profits
Raising mild praise while going long, shorting trusts in sophists’
Perspicuous bends and trends the which to hide vague reviews
In masking casualties in the fray―
Sans the wiser fools who hold the key
And know which racing sheets to play
And which are moot and preordained.
Those who win and those who lose are never meek
At market’s close—they’ll be trading places in a week—
The lines are endless to circuit courts and corner bank machines.
With bankruptcy everywhere as exorcised, an everyday event.
Leaders speak sincerely via Teleprompters as they circumvent
Their margins with the sometime error clearly noted in the weeks’
Receipts of stocks, dead and dying. Mounted, always counted, attacks
Defending anywhere but the living room; placated, always rated,
No one sated by the takeout news of nightly dreams, the dated
Proverbs dismissed at dinner while the guests relax,
Their laughter spinning gilded social checks and votes in tallies
More or less in balanced nuance with the streets and alleys
Of the former evening’s conversation with the O’Malley’s
And kind O’Donahue’s. Their feckless children riot in the basement
Wrestling, laughing, so unaware that such nocturnal loose
Tectonic plates as shift tonight will seal their fates in spent and spending lines
Throughout the later evening, condiments of yet another rubber of
bridge and beer nuts a less than real and nothing near sublime.

Fascism is nothing more nor less than the human dictation of reality.

—Once

…art by KRIS KUKSI
http://www.kuksi.com

“She Never Asked”

“She Never Asked”

She never asked for recognition, nothing was required;
The prognosis, primal tones; a minor key with sparing counterpoint, days
That pass and cannot last from whom no one longs to hear. Routine’s dismay
Combine her airs in all affairs that bear false witness and suffocate
in patterned crosswords of vested interests wired
To disconnect before the mortal stare of casuistry
Armed with kamikaze comments festooned in cacophonies
of planned obsolescence  to haunt, possibly to troll the bookshelves in brisk
Research for some fine day in miniature with nothing to pay and little risk.
Yes! She holds an avalanche in her frown.
A reticent blessing, ablutions in a finger bowl, veils askew to block review
Of motives. Comes a late night message, the oracle to set the straight askew:
Reset all clocks and watches,weed the shibboleths of proper nouns
–The while that foot placed squarely in the door! These cosmic clowns,
These plenipotentiary passions cast a longer shadow on the floor
than suns are wont to do across the planet; she’s always late
And last to hear the call.
Her lessers stroll; she tends to sprint;
Behind her follow patchwork sophistries culled from gatherings of the lint.

 …painting by Pavel Guzenko…

“I Never Really Asked”

“I Never Really Asked”

I never really asked what you thought,
You know, you seemed in such a hurry, running on
Fumes from that black hole of yours, so fond
Of having checked and verified the sacred spot
You fancied you saw in me,
Marking gestures, every slight aside–
Perhaps a pronoun–to you, the indicative, declined;
Or possibly something sublime in the subjunctive–and if to be
Or not to be were close enough, then I must be an adverb
In the vernacular and some small change. Yes, take another look.
I’ve asked nothing of you, so nothing’s left within the book
To leave to either of us. Note!…in the margin: The one you thought you heard
Cannot see you through the paragraph, so drink your milk before it sours
And give no further thought to me as you while away the hours.
Still it seems the stars remain your entertainment, passion’s flowers,
But to your outer eye above a great and lesser scene  built beneath a scrim
And wreathed in valances upon a stage with exits at the splays, the rim
Extended to the orchestra, a raked decline from apron to house; a bower
Of images and idylls constructed from memory, and from the perspicuous tower
Of isolation bathed in time comes pure fantasy as does the very core of that slim
Rift between what think you see as virtue and what falls just this side of sin.
Whether vicarious the experience or seen in flesh, the shower
Of glitter and confetti, of beauteous idols and infinite narration cowers
In the Green Room somewhere between your makeup and the script, a flimsy
Printed page produced by harbingers of dealers in memes and whimsy
To be sold at auction at the first sign of boredom.  Yes! says Schopenhauer,
No, thank you! the audience. And who some forty years on will give a damn;
But for now, do you know to whom you’re speaking and just exactly who I am?

…paintings by Steven Kenny…

“Still No Ease”

Still no ease is welcome from the poisonous fount;
As grey to black as drifts decay, and still so still
The heart. Notwithstanding. The constant chill
Reminds him assiduously to count
The days; he has no other thing to do.
And if he leaves or if he stays
No one notes the difference, no gleaming clue
From greener days gone by, no sweet delay
To think on what must surely come
Between the present and what denies
His every word and devoutly flies
To any place but here. If it were, he’ll run,
He’ll walk, he’ll rehearse; his thanes foregather,
Yes, but that he lives is all that really matters.

“Just Leave It Here”

Just leave it here, or put it over there,
I’ll rip into it sometime when you’re not
Around; perhaps a little later when I’ve caught
Some rest, or just a nap, or seek the tender care
Of the refrigerator―or, maybe just a bath,
Of course! A bath―tonight, no standing shower: bubbles!
Yes! And contemplations of the past while I forget my troubles,
And the neighbours’ radio loud enough to raise the wrath
Of God from migrant angered angels, curses that I’ve never heard
Before, or maybe have, but never memorized. It’s time for Mahler’s Third,
And while I’m predisposed to being altogether unperturbed
It wouldn’t do to push the envelope too far…. Yes, feed the bird,
Walk the dog, and later on, when evening’s gone
I’ll gladly open what you brought me, while I wonder what went wrong.

…painting by Dick Detzner…

“Situations”

“Situations”

Situations at the wishing may well be crude but demand an answer;
Primed from who it is does what to whom and who will surely lose
When Monday’s powers, profits and dominions in the refuse
Fall to Thursday’s victors.  And what was that woman doing at the well? Panzers
For Tuesday’s pounce surprise Wednesday’s pansies in pots once the steppes
Exhaust their rhetoric of chickens and the odd reclusive mongoose.
Culture’s lichens wither in her vast domains and fireflies loosed
Will taunt their former captors in the galleys put to bed while the people slept
And all the while they scan for even greater news. Rest assured
That if their wish were granted crosses would be twisted; someone wins
But someone loses all he has. Surmising spring will witness sins
Of the many vices turned to holy virtues’ within the haunted soul of Perseus
As he gazes at her reflection, someone tonight is not at all  happy with her lot.
Lebensraum is only paradise to them that’s lost to them that’s got.

…scupture by Dorothy Grostern…

“It’s There “

It’s there, now, melding nocturnal odours. The diners’ lucidities compete, grey,
The city; meretricious azure lightning strikes, incessant rhythms howl,
Leaning anywhere but here; unctuous dogs bay at scintillating moons, scowls
Bring out the worst in alley cats that prey
On mice that prey on nothing, or just a little cheese, say.
Depend upon it. Humid hunger breeds neon needs; sway,
A lady’s shape at the pole and there’s no reason left to stay,
They all begin to pray, and then, of course, they’ll prey
Again, and, lo! The answers come but never see the light of day,
And once again, they’re off to just another corner, just another ploy;
Another boy, his knife; the cats, their claws; the dogs, their bones: simple joys.
And not too very far from home; someone bolts, the nosegay
Tossed behind, to appointments better left unmentioned; yes, so naturally odd.
They will forget themselves, these creatures, yesterday; these boys, their gods.

…drawing at bottom by Olga Melamory Larionova…