For the Blind 

There Will 

Always 

Be Beauty

 

Stop and take this moment apart.

Hold it still

in your hands.

Speak to it softly,

like a stunned dove

accepting surrender.

Feel its heart beating

through the skin

of your palms,

that age-old

posture for prayer.

 

Now do the same

with yourself.

 

Unless you’re a yogi

we haunt our bodies,

ghosts trapped

in the darkness

of a rented house.

Guess who’s the landlord?

Not you, nor I.

 

Our craniums are

a cave of shadows.

Because we can’t forget

anything really,

we end up shutting

the unforgettable up

in rooms inside ourselves.

 

The heart is a chamber.

The mind, a mansion.

The body, a castle,

The mouth, a trapdoor

tasting everything

before swallowing

it down.

The stomach,

a labyrinthian maze

with only two exits,

cannot be bypassed.

Beware the ogre,

a golem made of  

all that’s lodged

and growing

in the dark,

 

Take my hand,

we’ll go together.

Everything inside

having a correlation

on the outside.

A vein is a road.

Each organ, a room.

The eyes, a window

with a velvet veil.

Each hand, a tree.

The skin, a wall.

Emotions, weather.

Thoughts, a guest.

The mind, a

beleaguered host.

 

I have no clue

how to be a man, nor

to be in this moment

without fear or worry.

Take my hand anyway.

We can go together

through both our darks.

 

Only the blind can

see things as they are.

What’s essential is

invisible to the eye.

The blind take responsibility

for what the seeing 

so easily reject.

The blind touch museums

where the seeing

might view only rubble.

The blind sense sentiment

for what it is,

the shadow of

a privileged cruelty.

How else is one

to parse the chafe

from the wheat

if not

with the hands? 

We who

cannot go back

to anything.

 

And so, we dream;

the means

our souls sift

through the rubble

of our successes

and excesses. 

A single dream

can undo a knot,

unlock a door,

shed a skin,

resurrect what’s past.

Dreaming is to the soul

what sign language is

to the deaf.

 

Reality has nothing on

a night of dreaming.

So, why

not practice

finding beauty

even in our harrow?

 

 

11/7/22

 

 

The Man Who Turned Himself into a Chair

 

“A chair is still a chair even when

there’s no one sitting there.”

                                  ~Hal David

 

It must be a tyranny to be so rigid.

I want no part in this travesty.

You, who were so bored with life

fled into paralysis rather than analysis.

I think of you as asleep, as it

helps me reach you with compassion.

 

Had you known doing and saying

the same things over and over

would result in this staid metamorphosis,

would you have persisted

with such analgesic repetition?

 

I have questions.

Was it not enough to be able

to leave a room at will?

When your need to feel safe

imprisoned you in unsayable stasis;

artistic equal to the plastic flower

sans scent or power to arouse,

a bulb that offers no light, then,

where art thou source of electricity?

 

Is this any way to escape responsibility

surrendering your privilege to respond.

Can anyone really be happy

with a soul swaddled as a mummy

in fetid fabric for the rest of time?

You who once loved classical music,

what can you hear through your gauze?

 

Where do you hide your likes and dislikes

now that opinions are impossible to express?

Was life so intimidating that the blood

in your veins froze into down feathers,

wings that once enabled flight

now only filling without agency.

Do you not miss the give and take

of ordinary conversation?

 

Had you become so dispassionate

that turning into a chair took the form of a relief.

Maybe it is of some benefit not to care

who sits upon you. Still,

how does one run out of things worth saying?

What aesthetic so enticing that you

became content to be part of the decor?

Did you think becoming a chair

might cause others to value you more?

 

A chair is no way to make yourself useful.

If we’re not encouraged to be ourselves

what good is it to retreat into the mise en scene?

Who aspires to be a piece of furniture, anyway?

What uniformity in being human

isn’t self-imposed?

To be alive, awake, is to be

justifiably unpredictable.

 

The truth is, I did not see it

 happening slowly over time,

as wood fossilizes

unnoticed into stone.

Your skin changed its texture

from smooth to parched burlap.

Your back became hunched.

You sprouted wooden arms.

Your bottom sagged.

And now 

by putting yourself out to pasture,

a thing entirely unto itself,

a chair in a field of flowers,

you've become both

a black sheep and lost lamb.

 

 

10/11/22

 

 

 

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