Recent Poems on the Past

Presents

I have yours in four books,
in a necklace with matching earrings, in some lost-and-forgotten things
in a small teddy bear, and in anklets I never wear,
in many, many, letters I re-read, and in wishes every night before bed.
You have mine in music,
in a handcrafted wood box that holds your name card
in a long, unusual letter that won back your heart (if only for a while).
in a picture of two pairs of interlocked hands.
in messages sent on phone between our desert lands.


Will

i will be reading a book when you arrive
i will be writing notes in my diary
i will be singing on overcoming
i will be tying the last knot
i will be occupied
i will be busy
i will be
i will
be
I.
Will I?


20 July 2010

Something to remember

Cascando

1

why not merely the despaired of
occasion of
wordshed

is it not better abort than be barren

the hours after you are gone are so leaden
they will always start dragging too soon
the grapples clawing blindly the bed of want
bringing up the bones the old loves
sockets filled once with eyes like yours
all always is it better too soon than never
the black want splashing their faces
saying again nine days never floated the loved
nor nine months
nor nine lives

2

saying again
if you do not teach me I shall not learn
saying again there is a last
even of last times
last times of begging
last times of loving
of knowing not knowing pretending
a last even of last times of saying
if you do not love me I shall not be loved
if I do not love you I shall not love

the churn of stale words in the heart again
love love love thud of the old plunger
pestling the unalterable
whey of words

terrified again
of not loving
of loving and not you
of being loved and not by you
of knowing not knowing pretending
pretending

I and all the others that will love you
if they love you

3

unless they love you



(Samuel Beckett, 1936)

maybe the same poem

My poem left me. She walked away.
I’m tracing the echoes of what she said.

Each day is a brief relief -
Breathing in the day that is lived,
Breathing out the day that is lived.

"The Power of the Present"

In one of the exercises in a workshop I took today called "Igniting the True Purpose of Your Life", we had to visualize what we would do knowing we only had five minutes to live. The exercise would demonstrate "the power of the present."

Our moderators gave us the exercise and left the room. Although this was the last exercise, I think it should have been the first.

It set me completely at ease. Instead of worrying over the past or future, it had me completely where I was, more focused on my environment and at ease in it rather than wondering/wandering. Also whereas the entire session I was thinking about how to apply these skills and how they would work for me, this one time I was just living the moment. I remember similar exercises with Paul Mitri in theater class where you just got a handle of where you were - felt where you were, smell, touch, taste.. so on..

I was just immensely comfortable, and felt like talking to the people around me. I tried to - to these two girls, but I think they didn't appreciate the intrusion. Yeah maybe I wouldn't either in my last five minutes. That relaxed state was strange, and I cannot recreate it. Even now, I am tense - jaw tense, frowning, mind-boggled.

I often look back, and want to smooth over the past, and erase so many things. And I want to be more open, more honest, but it's such a risky task. The world is not so kind, and I come off as naive rather than trusting - as if to trust was a stupid thing to do.

On my drive home, I just shared a friendly conversation with this taxi driver, and he asks if I would go to "'Aasal Iswid" with him. Crash right there, rescind all trusting fingers back into my closed fist. Jaw tense, frown in place, mind-boggled again.

When I was younger...

The Beatles make even the bad sound so much better.

I wish I knew a prayer that I could repeat to myself
On nights like this

When I don't know who I am
I could reach for You, and it would make sense.

I thought that life could be ticked off using achievements. Done this, got that, am here, over that. It's only recently I realized how restrictive that structure is - how much like a narrative - with a clear beginning, middle, and end. Emphasis on "the end" - as if things could be neatly tied up. That when you got your degree you could take it home and put it on the shelf and that would be it. That when you faced a fear, that you were its master. That you did not have to pull it out again, and prove it every day - who you are, what you stand for. Even if it were only to yourself.

Then again, what you are, what you want changes. And that that too is okay.

Desert Places

They cannot scare me with their empty spaces
Between stars--on stars where no human race is.
I have it in me so much nearer home
To scare myself with my own desert places.

- Robert Frost, "Desert Places"

As you go along..

I make it up.

I make up days and months and letters written and torn over this loss.
I make up work and nights and waking dreams.
I make up my face, my mind, my resolve, then break it, and make it up again.

As you go, I go, too, back and forth, on my word, on my mind,
up and down with moods, up by day time and night time, with rational season and seasonal reason.
I make it up - like food, like poetry, like pottery.
then eat it, and breathe it, and break it. It goes in and out of existence.

Is it getting over and getting better, or maybe just forgetting more and forgetting better?
But now and then, here and there, time and again,
it does get better, as you go along, and as I make it up.