Poetry as the Soul’s Self-Diagnosis

“We write to taste life twice,

 in the moment and in retrospect.”

                                 ~Anais Nin

Rumi once wrote:

Sell your cleverness

and buy bewilderment.

I think I know why.

 

Yesterday on the television

a tornado

destroyed everything

in its path

as it meandered

willy-nilly

through Rolling Fork,

Mississippi.

Did you see

how objects

held out

no safety?

 

Inside the hospital

I, too,

am an object

ill at ease

in my body,

illogical in

my dreams.

My mind, its own

round the clock

news on channel 5.

 

Had it been possible

to be this strong

if my heart

had not been broken

in innumerable places;

a smashed clock

thrown against the wall

of youth,

or am I meant

to decipher

the timeless

with my own 

two hands?

 

This nose bleed

would like to

return me

to the sea.

Why keep

my blood

to myself

in so red

a world?

If everything flows

downward

toward

what's left

behind,

then why

all this

clamoring

uphill?

 

When my body

betrays me,

and it will,

I intend to

be my own

medicine.

Either way,

I am best

in small doses,

diluted

by intervals

of silence.

 

Meanwhile,

to the doctors

who misspend

days on end

trying to reconcile

the mystery of

my soul’s reveries,

I leave

this poem

at the edge

of a ruin.

 

03/28/23

 

 

                                                      Painting by Salvadore Dali

Confessions in the Sand

 

Marooned on the island of this moment

I sift through the debris of what came before,

artifacts buffed smooth by a million waves.

 

Here, poems brew like storm clouds on the horizon

despite beginning life in an empty sky, they are

determined to use this beach for their SOS.

 

This shore won’t keep my letters alive for long.

I know because I’ve seen things come and go,

so many true tries and false starts

blown open like pages of a diary in the sand.

 

It is an art making use

of the detritus of the departed.

I fashion a wire coat hanger

into a makeshift antenna

and try to contact the living.

Come in, Mother.

Do you read me?

 

Racked with a survivor’s irony,

I’m reluctant to covet a sole souvenir,

doubting as I do

that anything ever

belonged to me.

 

Island life is not without its pleasures

though joy is a rare sighting,

I cling to my grief because of its buoyancy;

the only logical response

to all I’ve left behind.

 

Dreams are now my source of travel.

Every dream is a foreign country, and

it’s true, they do things differently there.

 

I've learned to speak a language

made of rubble, shards of sea glass

and desire strewn like broken bric-a-brac

longing to be reborn

and take up life anew.

 

This moment’s island culture

is a microcosm

where prayer is still

preferable to sleep.

 

Will I ever get out of here?

Where else is there to go?

I will have to work to wake.

 

And so, I’m doing my pushups

on the beach until it hurts.

This is how I’m making

myself stronger.

 

I say a man’s sorrow

can move mountains

because the heart

is a muscle

that needs to ache

or better yet break

before it's made able.

 

03/03/23

 

 

 

A Psalm

for the

Discontented

 

"Let this darkness be a bell

 tower and you the bell. As

 you ring, what batters you becomes

 your strength."

                          ~Rainer Maria Rilke

 

Here lieth

the language

of the unsaid,

where trees

grow green

remedies

and medicines

from fruits

are bred.

 

The fact that

repetition always

forms a rut,

it’s best

to cleanse

your lens

of ways

as aches

and pains

that come

with age

can and do

build up.

 

The days

of the week

might have been

fashioned by men

in pitch black robes,

but to keep repeating

these ghostly

demarcations

is like being tethered

to a rope.

 

If weeds 

be heartier

than the flowers,

perhaps the garden

not be pruned.

Being caretakers

of our own environs

can be like being

put in charge of

an amaranthine

ruin.

Thank goodness

what's no longer useful

eventually falls away.

Just be careful

you don't burn bridges

as the moat

seems here to stay.

If you can

learn to tell

the time without

glancing at a clock,

then don't you feel

it may be time

to find freedom

from the flock.

 

Nothing outside us

can satisfy

if the self

can’t step aside.

Discontent is an angel

whose breath blows

far and wide.

Let this prayer

blow through you

like a reed

not letting

one judgment

go unchecked.

Though everyone

is doing

their best

despite being

a veritable wreck.

 

From here on out

take notice of sleep

when shopping

at the market

or walking

the street,

or even when

coming back.

Your dreams

have a verdant vitality;

a primal life

that can break through

the cracks.

 

If the ego

should go sour

inside the owner’s

mouth,

don't blame it.

It’s only the mind

that conquers

and divides 

by cleaving

North from South.

 

To know

what someone’s

going to say

before they

even say it

is consciousness

turned on its head.

This prayer

is for them,

so why

not pray it

just before

going to bed.

 

Some say that God

after lending us his

very breath

ends by deigning

to take the fifth.

Rescinding on

his agency

as if it’d

been a myth,

so that from

here on out

we walk

and breathe

as if apart and

on our own,

as wellbeing is

a participatory sport

and never ours alone.

2/20/23

 

Attack of

the Colossal

50 Foot

Feelings

 

“Feelings, nothing more than feelings.”

                                   ~Morris Albert

 

Holed up in a darkened bedroom,

I’m forced to eat flowers to survive.

 

The feelings (or creatures) are known

for taking infinite forms.

 

Last night I wrapped my heart

in an ace bandage to stifle its beating.

 

Now, here, in this moment

within an hour of a day,

all that’s left and all

that ever was are the feelings.

I know I must preserve them

despite their attempt to devour me.

If they die, I shall too.

Aye, there's the rub.

 

My friends have all succumbed.

Whether from trying not to feel,

being unable to feel,

or feeling too much,

I can only pray they win the battle.

I fear that most are hiding the truth:

that the feelings have taken over

their bodies and are controlling

their thoughts. This is how they

swarm in mass and procreate.

Sparking off each other like

firecrackers setting off fireworks.

They live by knee-jerk reactions

and their desire to live more fully.

 

Our dilemma is complicated

because the feelings

which live on emotional triggers

are engendered by our own sensitivities.

We are their gun powder.

 

Joy will cost you.

Pain, on the other hand,

is free, but highly contagious.

Grief is quite sticky.

Fear tends to flood.

Jealousy is a fire.

Hurt leaves a wound.

Love, well love

leads to rehabilitation

by making the ego helpless,

therefore, vulnerable to disease.

More than once

have I relearned to walk,

speak, and even weep.

 

Hate is a quake.

Sadness, a collapsing.

Anger an explosive.

Disappointment, a detonation.

Horror is a contraction.

Disgust, a spitting out.

Awe expands the mine field.

Longing baits the hook.

Loneliness cannot see

any beauty in itself.

Frustration is a hunger.

Confusion circles the wagons.

Admiration, opens a wound.

 

Last night I wore a pain patch over my heart

because the feelings are coming.

God help you.

 

2/13/23

 

 

 

 

World Builder

 

This morning I noticed

the cord of my vacuum

had inadvertently formed

the outline of a man,

the discarded shadow

of an imaginary self.

I wanted to believe

it was a sign, if

for no other reason

than to reassure

my real self

that every detail in life

has a meaning, that

even the accidental

has its purpose.

 

Only the night

before while

on the hunt for

the sacred

pinecone

did I discover

I’d been wandering

inside myself

in search of a thing

I could not

swallow.

Maybe it’s our duty

to devour what

we love in order

to gestate

new life

deep within us

like a seed.

 

Today I am desperate

to find something sacred

in real time, even

while at the mercy

of this morning’s

callow math,

I’ve taken to using

my days

with their abbreviated

appellations…

Mon. Tues. Wed.

Thurs. Fri. Sat. Sun…

like the artifacts

of some

humdrum division.

I prefer to think

of this day as a vessel,

each moment,

a cup made of

interlocking hands.

I favor the body's 

geometry.

 

After all, the hours

seem to grow on trees

telling as fluttering diaries.

The seasons groomed

by a sky of

dictatorial stars.

So what if at night

I lay asleep at the wheel.

It suits the territory!

Isn’t it enough that

during the day

I’m awake

at the brake!

 

My predilection for stories

is a narrative contrivance.

Aren’t we all

unreliable narrators

pushing to

the head of the line

to tell things our own way?

 

Here, now,

as my fingers

tentatively glide

across a

dormant alphabet

of keys

like a pianist

creating a sonata

on the cuff,

I sense

the growth-spurt

of a zillion buds.

 

 

2/5/23

 

Something Wild

 

“How should we like it were stars to burn

 With a passion for us we could not return?

 If equal affection cannot be,

 Let the more loving one be me.”

                         ~W.H. Auden

 

i

 

If a tree sapling burst through

the floor and stood pointing

its finger toward the door,

is this my mind showing me

something I have never seen

with my own eye,

and if not my mind,

then what and why?

 

If it’s true, that

everything that’s natural

is made of God,

then is this his limb

forcing its way in?

Or is it mine?

We, who are too wild

for so mild a place.

What better than tears

to wash a face?

 

 

ii

 

My melancholy begins at 6:00 A.M.,

a swaddled newborn in so much gauze,

as morning gives birth to mourning,

a sober nativity of unexplained loss.

 

To read death’s autobiography

its best to sleep,

with resurrection the only proper epilogue.

Then why not pray the Lord our soul to keep,

though it was I who slept just like a log.

 

If every day must begin with goodbye,

why saddle me with grieving my

loss of everything,

with all I was a moment ago

now gone?

Why not reassemble a self

to improve upon what’s wrong?

If I’m the griever of my own loss only,

then perhaps this be how life

is made holy.

 

My sadness is a soup

from wilted greens.  

My longing, a fragrance

that speaks in dulcet tones.

I honor life by missing things

around me, as this is

how I love when I’m alone.

 

This being no one’s dream

but mine only,

I dare expect to be misunderstood.

No one has had this dream but me,

really, no one! What sort of

other man wood?

 

Like pain in the extremity

that means nothing but to me,

after all its I who must feel it's

sting.

Would that my gentle wail

blight everything in its wake,

all I said, did and saw and lost,

occurring for my own sake.

 

The best man plays best

his role and not much more,

who makes a boat of his room

to reach the shore.

 

My memories live in me

like meat within a sleeve.

I remember willy-nilly

the whirl of scattered leaves.

Pieces of a puzzle

putting a self together

is the best way to recount

how I remember.

 

I live backwards;

the whole having been

here all along.

The forests I once walked

along in song

live inside me waiting

to retrace my steps;

though diaries in green ink

were all they kept.

 

I wake and everything

I said and did are gone,

all that’s left:

this empty moment

waiting to be filled.

Now I try to live

more slowly

than the throng

and wake to greet

the morning

my soul has willed.

 

1/24/23

 

God of Feeling

 

I met the God of Feeling

in the middle of the night

in an underground garage.

He, an informant,

and I, his operative,

as my body

lay sleeping

41 flights above.

 

He was in a trench coat

and possessed

a kind demeanor.

He hung back

in the shadows

seemingly intent on my

making the first move.

I broke the ice.

“I have a frozen lamb

in my heart and I don’t

know how to melt it.”

I said, not caring

how it sounded.

He stepped forward

into better light.

“I know someone.”

he said simply.

Would I be willing

to travel cross country

to see a specialist?

 

I felt a chill

of uncertainty

as he spoke so 

deliberately

and with great tenderness,

I suddenly felt

I was the lamb

in the basement

of my own body's

boundless geography.

“Shall I drive?”

He asked, nodding his chin

at a nearby auto.

I figured I'd

no reason not to

trust him as he

helped me into

the passenger seat

of a Chevy chariot.

 

“Is this your car?” I asked,

thinking: God drives a Mazda?

“It’s a rental” he replied,

moistening a finger and

rubbing out a smudge

on the windshield

before settling into

the driver’s seat.

 

As we drove off,

he kept assuring me

that everything

would be fine and

our goal was to merely

defrost my senses.

I began imagining

a small surgical-like

procedure that would enter

at the pupil of the eye.

 

Outside the car windows

a needle-like sleet

pelted the windshield.

The world seemed to be

weeping chilly tears.

Along the road,

remnants of an ice storm

had littered our commute

with downed branches

glazed in a husk of glass.

The fields along the roadway

were as clean and waiting

as a painter’s canvas.

I wondered with what of myself

could I have filled it in?

 

We arrived

at our destination,

just as the dread of

the procedure

was growing larger

in my mind.

God pulled the car over

and got out,

crunching cautiously

around to my side before

rapping on the window,

signaling me to get

out of the car.

In the distance 

I could make

out on the horizon

a gaunt snowman

with branches for arms

and a wilted carrot

drooping from its

lopsided head.

I took a breath

and got out

and as I did

God and I

inexplicably faded

together into white.

A moment passed

and we were

standing inside

a child's sketch

of a room;

it’s details

etched in crayon.

 

Out of nowhere

a young boy appeared

in a white lab coat

to play doctor

and introduced himself,

grinning as

if he were the punchline

to a juvenile joke.

I thought to myself:

This is the doctor

that’s going to perform

the procedure

to thaw the lamb

in my heart?

 

Despite my trepidation

I felt he had sympathy

towards my plight as

he was obviously still

ahold of something

I was not.

I needed to trust him,

favored as he was

by God, though God

was now nowhere

to be seen.

I resigned myself

to the fact that

a mere boy

would be executing

what may well be

a tricky procedure

to jumpstart my heart.

Still, the clock was ticking

as the recovery

of my feelings

waited in the wings.

 

The boy instructed me

to lie down on a table

sketched by his boyish hand.

He then brought

a white cottony ball

up toward my face,

and said reassuringly:

“See you on the other side”.

An acrid odor prickled my nose.

I struggled to stay aware,

fighting not to lose myself

to what was plainly

the erasing effects of ether.

10, 9, 8, 7, 6…

and then,

in the instant

I went under,

I woke up.

 

I lay reunited

with my body

in a warm, dark room,

foolishly realizing

I’d been asleep

through all of this.

I wanted to thank the boy

who seemed so beyond

his years and so kind

but it was too late.

God, the snowman, the boy,

the car, the ice storm…

all were gone.

 

Across the plaza, Christmas lights

throbbed like a purple heartbeat.

I laid my hand on my cat’s back,

marveling at her harmonizing effect

on my senses; her fuzzy warmth,

her feline smell, her brindled litheness.

Her very being as silent

and still as the dawn.

To lie so closely

beside another creature

was to make one’s sorrows palatable.

 

I tried to remember

how, what, why, and where 

I had been

just moments ago.

I must remember…

I’d met the God of Feeling

in the guise of a man…

in a dark parking garage.

He’d been kind and loving.

Then there was the boy

dressed like a doctor

and me lying on a table

and the boy putting me out

with a cotton ball soaked

in ether…and as I counted

to 10...I fell asleep

and promptly woke up

in the very same instant

with nothing to show

for any of it 

but my weeping. 

 

 

1/13/23