The Virtues of Subtraction

 

“Make very little of yourself if you wish

to see clearly. Shut up, deeply, if you

wish to hear. Stop your preening and

disclaiming. Pour your bottles of

perfume into the dirt.” ~Lewis Hyde

(On Butterfly Hunting)

 

i

Lord, let me be content

to be small.

There’s virtue in the lowly.

Consider the violet, ant, pebble,

every abandoned leaf.

The sky bows down

to uphold them all.

 

Let me strive to be silent

that I might hear

the cumulus clouds

accumulating,

to know

the bounties that flow

ever downward,

or comprehend how

a seed births a self.

 

Think of the trees

reaching every which way

for an answer

when what’s true

lies in the asking.

 

ii

A part of me fell away today,

falling from my mouth;

a memory dislodged

from a tipsy sentiment.

How I am

to live without it

is beside the point,

sublimity being achieved

not by adding more

but by taking away.

 

What is the labor

required to return

me to my 

nakedness?

 

 

iii

If you can’t visit paradise

without putting down your bags

then you will never be

an adventurer, a traveler, or journeyman.

You will only be a tourist

because you put yourself first

and can’t put yourself down.

You encircle everything

by building a wall

between you and it

with your requirements,

minutiae, mind's detritus,

your self-importance.

Learn to put yourself aside

for the sake of being present,

in order to connect,

in order to take part,

otherwise no matter

where you go

you won’t be here or there.

 

If happiness is no more

than a beautiful moment;

beautiful moments

are everywhere.

To arrive there,

prune away your

anticipation and frustration;

impatience with those you love,

jealousy toward a friend,

anger at your family.

Learn to take away

until there is nothing

left to remove.

 

What is left?

Only an action.

You are in it,

whether in art, or sport, or in love,

with clarity, intensity and solidity.

You adjust quickly and deftly.

No longer bound by addition.

You are free to act.

 

10/1/23

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Colossians 5:18

 

Climbing down from

the watch tower of my mind,

lasso looped round my shoulder

for pulling down the moon,

I catch sight of promontory

rose-tinged clouds

populating the sky

outside the window;

a delicate, natural light

in contrast to

the blood curdled blues

radiating from the tv screen,

aglow, yet unable to enthrall.

 

My cat,

having sat in the dark

for who knows how long

staring into a space

few of us will ever

have reason to enter

sits fixated (as is her way)

on everything and nothing

at the same time.

 

It dawns on me

in this single moment

that every minute is

as numbered

as a holy verse,

yet we

take no notice,

even when each minute

 unfurls easiest by

our getting out

of its way;

a tick

without need

of a tock.

 

At 5:18

someone’s water breaks

to pour from a mouth

like a stone fountain.

The flowers

(outside where they once belonged)

rise up an unruly crowd

freed from their pots

to wriggle ecstatically,

roiled by an unseen wind

only to smash

the glass panes

and abruptly enter

my home!

A congestion of green

encircles the television

bent on strangling it from behind.

Tendrils thick with thorns

head straight for the voice boxes

snuffing out their speechifying

mid-sentence

as the pretty faces

choke and flame out

bursting in close-ups

like cherry tomatoes

under a broiler;

all for the crime of

having refused to give

us back to ourselves.

 

In the real world

the weak are born

in the wee hours,

breach babies

refusing to suckle

while the rest

lie recovering

from yet another

surprise assault.

Someone is heard shouting:

I want to see my baby!

fearing the worst.

 

What if life is unfolding

simply to push us out

like a sliver?

How is that beauty?

Or is it?

 

We enter the nurseries

in search of our own face.

telling ourselves not to panic

 if there’s no smile.

Life is life

no matter what color,

or shape of leaf,

piston or stamen.

Do its tiny fingers

comprise a hand?

Twice?

Does it have a mouth

for wailing, singing,

or both?

 

There you are.

There there.

We press our ear to your heart

listening for its gentle morse

like a drumbeat in the distance

dictating the rest of

all our lives.

 

9/10/23

 

 

Confessions of a Town Crier

 

I was 6 the first time I cried at the cinema. 

I wept so hard the sobbing impaired my vision, 

so hard that my poor mother leaned over 

and asked if we should leave.

She thought I was unhappy, but I wasn’t.

Not at all. 

The minute the movie was over 

I wanted to feel whatever that was

all over again.

 

So began my love affair with 

crying amongst strangers in the dark. 

I don’t mean being reduced to tears,

because that’s no reduction.

Crying for art is an honor. 

It’s applause with mucus and salt.

I suppose it falls to the actors themselves

to guide us away from any awkwardness

we might harbor over  their

dissolving us into tears.

The willingness to be vulnerable before the world:

a kind of ritual sacrifice.

Tears as holy water.

I’m thinking of that lone tear that Denzel Washington

releases as he’s whipped in “Glory”;

two centuries of exploitation in a rivulet

of vicarious mortification.

 

Less and less we are attending

the cathedrals of crying. 

Instead, I fear we’re numbing ourselves. 

Even our lacrimal surrogates in Hollywood 

have been turning their backs on us

towards age-defying procedures that 

culminate in faces that can no longer 

approximate our sorrow. 

 

I see a crisis of deadening being passed down…

Why are we running from ourselves?

Evading the inevitability of emotional difficulty?

What if my mother had yanked us up that day

at “E.T.” and insisted that a boy inconsolably weeping

was somehow inappropriate? 

What other beauty would I have become dead to? 

What truths?

 

When my dog died I cried so loud 

I worried my neighbors might call the police: 

It’s a peculiar experience, crying that way: 

undammed, with your entire self, 

with everything in you, roaring out.

If crying distinguishes us from the animals,

it also arouses the animal IN us. 

I didn’t know such a creature,

a werewolf in my case, 

resided in there.

Not a hulk but a hurt. 

You won’t find it on your “to do” list.

In other words you don’t access it. 

The wolf finds you. 

It proceeds to drag immense sorrow

through the tiny openings

of your nostrils, eyes, and mouth. 

Its release as healing as any peel of laughter.

Think of all that’s happened to us

in the last few years.

 

I think it’s the animal inside us that needs to speak now…to cry out.

IT’S waiting, ready for a mass howling.

I know I’m ready, what about you?

 

                                                                              

              

The Beauty that Endures by Aching

 

The more life takes away,

the more aesthetic

I become.

Maybe this is how

an artistic soul

clarifies itself:

through privation.

 

I’ve heard it said:

a heart that hurts

is a heart that works.

If true, then it is

entirely possible

I may live

the rest of my life

bound by a buoyant

sorrow.

 

Though my capacity

for joy is equally great,

I cannot abandon

my wound.

In its aching

rests a potent

source of strength.

Who’s to say

this aching

has no claim

to beauty?

 

I see my wounds

as altars

calling my body

to be attentive

like a parishioner

in a church

where silence

and singing

cry equally out

to be heard.

 

My wound is

a painting by Pollack,

miraculously appearing

in the basement

of a dimly lit tenement

as local children

gather round,

curious to see

for themselves

the magnum opus

that appeared

where one least

expected.

They huddle round

its spattered canvas

as if to keep it

and themselves

warm.

A hush falls

naturally over them

as one boy distributes

a small carton of

cake candles

like cigarettes

and begins lighting

one from another

until all are lit;

their combined

brightness

illuminating

their faces

let alone their lives

in the presence

of my conspicuous

yet beautiful

bruise.

9/1/23

 

“Stellar work.” ~Ward Nixon (Director & Actor/teacher)

“You blew me away.”

“The Poetry Defense was my favorite performed piece ever.” ~Dametria Daniels

“So well done!  Congratulations on a your

fabulous performance. Your presentations 

were fantastic and creatively embodied

the theme:  "Love, Loss, Life".  You are so

brave, truthful and heart-felt with your

words and feelings.  Thank you again for 

sharing such depth and wisdom, so true 

to your essence."  ~Carol Endrody

“You were incredible and brave.” ~Frankie Verona

“You are the prince of poetry, if not the king.” ~Barnet Schindlman

“Best of a great evening.”

“Fabulous work. You were raw and humble and true. 

You are truly at the service of your thoughts and words. 

Your are a rare treasure who is capable of touching us deeply. ” 

~Ellen Martin (Actor & Singer)

Tender Fallacies

 

We are not a thing

to whom things happen;

we are a happening.

 

When someone says something

that you find callous or galling,

say to yourself: they don’t know.

 

They don’t know whom of us

lives in private extremis.

 

They don’t know

 

That some of us are like oysters

whose illnesses have produced pearls.

 

They don’t know

 

That while contemplating the face

of a withering pumpkin

we see our future

swimming in a jar.

 

They don’t know

How sometimes for no reason

our bodies bleed tears

that lead always back to

the ocean.

 

Or how in the scent of

ocean water is the diary

of all our feelings

preserved in salt.

 

They don’t know

 

Who amongst us

wrote our love songs

on pianos in a psyche ward.

 

Or how our hometowns

have become no more

than retired fables.

 

Or how we had climbed into

the arms of trees to escape

the neighborhood bully

we had dared to love.

 

 

Or how the local priest could be

aroused by the ragged beauty

of our youthful sorrow.

 

Or how some of us

will one day trace a beam

of a light back to land

in order to attend

to the lost.

 

8/23/23 

 

 

 

My Camera Obscura

 

At night asleep, I'm

neither here nor there,

but extend in all directions,

as much of me behind

as ahead.

 

To dream is to go 

in search 

of someone who

understands that blood

is not red

in rhe dark,

but instead, 

the hue of

one's own shadow.

Are those gargoyles or angels?

They’re too high up to tell.

 

Night is a darkroom

of undeveloped negatives.

Occasionally a chimera’s

double exposure appears;

a picture in an exhibition

of rapidly depreciating prints.

Only when awake

am I able to

hold my life up

to the light.

 

At dawn,

I find the city

erased by fog

as if I’d traded

one dream for another,

deserted in a dim room

after traversing the

parameters of another life,

with nothing left but

to cut my losses.

Isn't remembering

my way of developing?

But no, the child

so filled with feeling

that his loneliness

had become a

sun-scorched

flower cannot stay.

Where is that smile

that knew

no greater grief?

What wicked trick

is this…returning me

to my youth without

any evidence

save the pure joy

of a breaking,

though yet

unbroken heart?

 

Imagine my surprise

at seeing

my younger self again.

Not in some photo

or on film

but in all my

fresh aliveness,

adorned by a crown

of seashells

dancing knee deep

in the holy

waters of a hitherto

unformed self.

 

Here, now

in this room

of morning

I need no news.

With no sign

of a ghost, and

no trace of pictures

that might

qualify as proof,

I'm only this fading

memory of what never

happened

wanting for a form

as clear as day.

 

These aren’t dreams.

They are the compass-less

machinations of some

interior camera obscura.

If you use the word

dream, you miss.

Everyday words fail

truths too unsayable

to be spoken.

Can't you see

some spell

has been broken?

 

Outside the window  

a twin fog is lifting.

The city regains

its rigid logic even

with its concrete

walls still wet

from weeping.

 

My body arrives 

home again

in a room made

by brute hands.

Yet I am infirm,

soft even, barely

able to contain

the blood

holed up inside me.

Where have I been?

Who can tell?

In a place where

nothing

and everything

was all my own.

Why end here

in the midst of

only half the world

when something

as simple as

a poem may

offer an answer?

  

4/17/23