Lost Youth

“It is difficult to get the news from poems

 yet men die miserably every day

 for lack of what is found there,”

                                   ~William Carlos Williams

With every failure the will can fade.

I’m revealed through the things I've made.

Without an art, as a matter of fact,

the ego's left to take up the slack.

 

If great fiction is a lie

that teaches us truth,

then, who wouldn’t long again

for the imaginings of youth?

 

Because the eye is never

fooled by what is smart,

we might have arrived less

brazenly from the start.

 

Why not make your life an opus,

even a tragic 3 act play,

for the very same ingredients

make for a first rate flambé.

 

Dare to have an appetite

for far more greater things,

a vocabulary learnt by heart

is how we bear our stings.

 

You can’t woo a trick

with a poem no matter

how you try, you’ll only feel older

while not entirely certain why.

 

Every dawn’s a perfect blank

I feel a need to fill it in,

as encroaching light gradually reveals

the cages we find ourselves in.

 

Imagine you are dying

in hopes of keeping death close.

Being in and not of life

is how I’ve reaped the most.

 

Feelings are always heightened

by the prospect of their loss.

So, expect to cry your eyes out

as you reckon with the costs.

 

Why do we feel the need

to try and be ourselves?

When isn’t our very being

proof of substantial health?

 

The weeks go by like days,

yet another chorus refrain,

as tides encourage the moon

to continue to wax and wane.

 

Our lives can go by unnoticed

hidden inside our mouths

forming the same words,

issuing the same doubts.

 

A cat meets your eyes

with its all-absorbing gaze.

I’m just as alive as you are

behind this enigmatic face.

 

If we all pay for our joys

then joy comes round again

as we brace for its opposite

while others lose their Zen.

 

For those content to chat,

eat, drink and be merry,

I envy your lackadaisical view

as I’ve never been one to tarry.

 

The need to recount my life

has left me in a narrative shamble,

it leads to walking around a ruin

with a mind that tends to ramble.

 

Some die of unnatural thirst

beside a running spicket,

longing for a sprawling forest

as they clutch a sticky wicket.

 

Then one day a young stranger arrives

having gotten off on the wrong floor,

and just as I was lamenting my lost youth,

lost youth came round my door.

 

“Are you looking for me?” I asked

as he stood perplexed as myself.

“I must have the wrong apartment” he said,

as we considered the cards fate had dealt.

 

At that moment my imagination kicked in

and I watched as he put down his pack.

“I’ve come from the future to find you,” he said,

“I’m here to bring you back.”

 

I looked into his eyes and knew at once

this youth was my younger self

and wondered what he’d want with me

too old and in less than good health.

 

“I want you to tell me all you know,”

he confessed having just arrived.

“I don’t want to live and I need you

to give me a reason I should stay alive.”

 

I looked in his eyes so clear and bright

and hesitated on what to say,

then putting my thoughts aside, I spoke:

“Together we can find our way.”

 

 

10/01/22

 

The Heart is a Clock Without Hands

 

Aren’t we all of us

painting over our favorite

pictures with new ones,

even if they're less favorable

because life is in three

dimensions...if not four 

and there’s no chance

of preserving anything

other than to memorialize

the things we hold

most dear.

 

Take my hands.

Fresh layers of paint

keep being added so that

they now barely resemble

the hands that once

held yours and gave

love through

the oak shaped leaves

of my palms.

 

The hands that

grabbed the rungs

of the water tower

as I climbed up

intent to prove

I’d not compromise

my love by growing

old without you.

 

But alas, I climbed

back down,

too afraid to

end it all,

only to remain alive

in a perpetual state

of hours slipping

through hands

like memories

bleeding through

fresh paint.

9/17/22

 

 

Stories I No Longer Tell Myself

 

Our I’s have a lot to answer for.

They’re addicted to stories.

Whenever they themselves

are involved even if

the stories affect others

as they regularly do,

they hold themselves

entirely responsible

for their own outcomes

no matter how adverse.

Well, at least I do.

 

The implications of course

are up for debate.

For instance, I believe

cultivating consciousness is

to take responsibility for one’s

own vibration.

Others may well be

more reactionary.

 

I’ll fondle my manhood

hoping to arouse fortitude

as if boldness were a genie

inside a spouted lamp.

Now I’ve stopped

making wishes at all.

“Do you have children?” I’m asked.

“No. I have imagination.”

 

I recently saw a film

about a man who

was told he was dying

and began behaving

uncharacteristically selfishly.

He wrote in his diary:

I do what I want now,

now that I know.

Me? I’d rather do nothing

and be at peace with it.

 

The poet Donne kept a skeleton

hanging in a hall closet

to remind himself to make

no bones about death.

He insisted on astonishment

as a constant companion

no matter how mundane

his present circumstances.

I’m taking his cue.

 

Growing old is not

about piling on more

experiences; not

a ticking off a bucket list

by executing yet another

daring leap, but rather

an elimination of minutiae

that one no longer

wants or needs

so that life grows lighter,

less crowded by

unessential things.

 

I no longer carry bags

with me everywhere I go.

I am quietly preparing

to be anywhere 

and nowhere at all.

I never enter a room

dragging bags full of

personal memorabilia.

Let me just be here now

without histrionics.

Would that I might feel

this quiet moment,

astonished by a lack

of a need for narrative.

 

 

9/12/22

 

                                                       ~painting by Ellis Kayin Chan

Gull Without a Sea

 

My life is unnatural,

my perspective as real as

Hitchcock rear projections.

Even my God has a stand in:

eyeglasses atop a thick book.

 

Plants are as close as I get

to fields, let alone woods.

I live for the memory of trees.

Granted, my prison is cozy,

It has earth tones for walls

and bric-a-brac for bars.

 

I relieve myself in a bowl

embellished by a mandala.

My window looks out

on man-made things.

Chimes hang from a nail;

a little noose to give

what I cannot see

an ethereal voice.

 

I’m going nowhere

at the drop of a hat.

The roof over my head

exhibits my gratitude.

My mouth speaks only

what is acceptable, so

not to be ostracized.

 

I bury my hands in

potting soil to feel

the touch of earth.

I water plants with milk.

My watch tells the weather

to my wrist, quickening

my pulse when it rains.

 

Living so high up

I can only dream

of what lies beneath.

Why does its beauty

hurt the most when

I try to fly backwards?

My Eden is unattainable,

sealed off by clouds.

 

I pour a salt bath

to conjure the ocean.

I am a wayward gull

lost in the city's sky.

Its cries are my cries.

Both of us homesick

for what is essentially

inside us.

 

 

9/6/22

 

Life on the Planet Corona

 

The sky,

full of itself,

looks down

with nothing

else to give.

You are so thirsty

you wish for rain.

You mutter like

a dying man

face down in

the flotsam

of a night

of bad dreams.

But no dream

is bad;

every dream

worth

its salt.

 

Do you wish

or pray for rain?

If you pray for rain

is that prayer

a real prayer

if its prayed

by a huckster

pointing his rod

at a faucet?

Are you

virus or vessel

and which

the diviner?

 

Lying here you feel

something vital

is being taken

from you.

Something other

is using your body

to stay alive.

Whatever it is,

it’s desperate,

greedier for life

than you.

 

You hear

a distant siren

feel its way

through the city

toward some

anonymous need.

But not yours.

Why be content

to fish for

God in the sky?

Are you hoping

to snag him

on this very line?

Would that you

could extract

a message of grace

in spite of yourself.

 

Across the street

at the Port Authority

asylum seekers

are stepping off buses

wanting what you

want:

the right to grow free.

But this is no garden.

Here on planet Corona,

it takes a crack

for a seed

to find light

enough to grow.

 

If you hadn’t been

so happy there

would you be hurting

this much here?

Only when one feels

the loss of something

does it take on  

its proper

measure;

a reward

reserved

for only those

who can let go.

 

The local tribe

of pot bangers

brings you to

the window.

It must be 7:00.

Their noise making,

an impromptu call

to honor those

who care for

others.

Why not make

your heart

a makeshift drum?

 

If this is joy

had you ever been

truly happy?

You who’d always

insisted on going

your own way.

If so, why?

Imagine if

as a teenager

love had

landed you in

an institution.

Love literally

made you ill.

Believing love

couldn’t exist

without heartbreak,

this loneliness

will make for a

sorry state

of grace.

 

 

9/01/22

 

Never Give a Cat a Woman’s Name

 

My cat and I have agreed not to love each other.

It’s better that way. No really.

The very touch of her fur disturbs my equilibrium,

nothing should feel that soft and abruptly walk away.

 

Eyes that seem to stare through you can hardly be trusted.

There’s no telling what she’s thinking of at any given moment.

She whines about everything yet couldn’t care less what’s troubling me.

She doesn’t consciously overlook my problems, she ignores them.

 

Selfishness is her religion, the hell with all that’s holy.

She probably prays to her water bowl.

She’s above wearing jewelry as she is her own accessory.

She sticks every landing like a gymnast pulling a heist.

 

She licks herself as if her whole body were an open wound.

The look in her eyes says: You did this to me.

I’m frankly tired of putting her on a pedestal

because she always lets me know she couldn’t care less.

 

She has many Gods but apparently, I’m not one of them.

She wakes me every morning with an agitated call to arms.

It was never my intention to join the army.

Bugles are more delicate than her barking orders.

 

So why does my heart melt at the mere thought of her name.

Oh, my darling Clementyne.

 

8/22/22

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Clouds As Seen from Beneath the Soul’s Equator

Ever since we sat together

looking up at the sky

describing the clouds

so not to abandon whimsy,

I’ve not stopped looking up.

 

You’re gone now

but not the peace

of those pointless hours

where we put aside

our thoughts

in favor of being.

 

I pointed out an elephant.

You, an umbrella

sheltering a mushroom.

 

Freud said that in the id

contrary impulses exist

side by side

without cancelling

each other out,

that in fact,

there is nothing

in the id which

corresponds

to the idea of time.

 

So could this mean

those random chalk erasures

that lured our imaginations

away from our troubles,

mine old, yours young,

make us two versions

of the very same yearning?

 

The sky is nothing

if not an equal playing field

for no other reason than

it un-shelters us all

with a series of deft smudges.

For this I will always

be grateful.

 

Go ahead, erase my words.

You are enough.

 

8/20/22