Poetry
Inspiration and Influence
I live my life in widening circles
that reach out across the world.
I may not complete this last one
but I will give myself to it.
​
I circle around God, around the primordial tower.
I've been circling for thousands of years
and I still don't know: am I a falcon,
a storm, or a great song?
​
Rainer Maria Rilke
It’s the skin’s ashes begging for revival
that I can hear, every day
calling me in waves of familiarity.
My choice: do I perpetuate their longings? Or do I choose
to close the door
temporarily.
I see their flecks around every avenue
my mind seeking to make bonds
tie knots, make a muse of melancholy.
It’s easy to ignore their whispers
momentarily.
Yet encased within those loudest minutes
spirals descend:
pushing me to become louder -
perhaps then, I can rise with those ashes
that have peeled themselves away from my flesh
imploring me
to make them spin
once more.
I’ve chosen to dance again
my inhibition cut open
by the knife in my own hand. I’ll pierce my own skin
paint words with this blood
replaying their stories
execution of grace:
their skin
having become
my ashes.
Wind breathes through in meandersas blood drips through new openings
awakened
by the dusk that infiltrated its way into those days
where all I did was wait.
Solitude took me for four days
as I lay stranded opposite a bronze age burial ground
reminding me, continuously,
this breath will end.
Traffic began to commence once more even when
I didn’t feel ready;
I wished to stay by the stream
reflecting tears not ready to fall from my eyes
just yet
and yet
morphing time saw an exposure back
into a concrete world where it was hard to spot the jungle,
more difficult to ascertain where our roots were buried.
Amongst dirt saw freckles reflected back to the earth
remaining hidden underneath cracks
about to break open;
a recentring formation
breathes in cold winds to keep me from falling,
holding in air to keep me afloat in a world
forsaken in darkness,
in a light not fully penetrating through
as we forget mortality’s limits.
There is a city where we walk
misplacing grandeur for iron,
cementing bones in amnesia
eyes closed, remaining hidden
from continual unveiling.
There is a city where I walk,
attempting to scrape surfaces
paved before I was sent through my mother’s canal,
awaiting my eyes to notice their gleam
whilst I rip through tarmac
in an attempt to allow soil to breathe;
once again
acknowledging those that brought me here.
There is a city where I walk
in an ongoing quest to locate the ruins and bones
of lives held in a different atmosphere;
lives held,
under guidance from those that take our exhale,
give us breath
and in my yearning
I bow
in reverence
to the beats that come from a pulse
which remain consistent,
and insistent reminder
to make an attempt
to remember
scents that were carefully picked
for their fragrances
to awaken senses
out of lingering ashes,
chosen
to remind us
of who
we came from
and who
we return to
when we exit this city.
A Ritual to Read to Each Other
William E. Stafford
If you don't know the kind of person I am
and I don't know the kind of person you are
a pattern that others made may prevail in the world
and following the wrong god home we may miss our star.
For there is many a small betrayal in the mind,
a shrug that lets the fragile sequence break
sending with shouts the horrible errors of childhood
storming out to play through the broken dike.
And as elephants parade holding each elephant's tail,
but if one wanders the circus won't find the park,
I call it cruel and maybe the root of all cruelty
to know what occurs but not recognize the fact.
And so I appeal to a voice, to something shadowy,
a remote important region in all who talk:
though we could fool each other, we should consider—
lest the parade of our mutual life get lost in the dark.
For it is important that awake people be awake,
or a breaking line may discourage them back to sleep;
the signals we give — yes or no, or maybe —
should be clear: the darkness around us is deep.