Seems like a little mouth screaming
the clouds make all the sadness.
I had misread the tone. It is exactly right.
I'll worry.
there is plenty of stuff every day,
virtually all of it discourages you from applying it in the world.
Try to inhale at one or two removes from the ground. None of it is real.
"you have a ruptured disc at C4-5 and osteophytes impinging everywhere, stenosis . . ."
Pain, always in the third person.

Breathe (not real).

LibriVox...

is a very cool site that features free audiobooks within the public domain. Check out the short story and poetry sections.

Representative Poetry On-line

Representative Poetry On-line: Editor's Introduction

"Representative Poetry Online, version 3.0, includes 3,162 English poems by 500 poets from Caedmon, in the Old English period, to the work of living poets today."

hallucinatory drive

tall americano, two extra shots

pack of smokes

loud music cycling through

techno, to folk-rock, to jazz--

back again.

green and chrome and

burning stars in the sky

the tread leans tight into

the salted road--

going home.

at sea

This was painted by my paternal grandfather in 1935, and it hangs on my wall today. I unfortunately never got the chance to meet him, as he passed before I was born, but I understand he loved to sail. There is a wonderful sense of motion and dynamism in the painting, and I look at it often.









Sunset and evening star,
And one clear call for me!
And may there be no moaning of the bar,
When I put out to sea,

But such a tide as moving seems asleep,
Too full for sound and foam,
When that which drew from out the boundless deep
Turns again home.

Twilight and evening bell,
And after that the dark!
And may there be no sadness of farewell,
When I embark;

For though from out our bourne of Time and Place
The flood may bear me far,
I hope to see my Pilot face to face
When I have crossed the bar.

--Alfred, Lord Tennyson

plosives liquids fricatives OH MY!

Gold-dust box from Ghana
Broad-tailed perching birds guard
Precious treasure; quiet
Raptors, greedy, blind to
Beauty—money trumps all.

Yellow reliquary—
Ropy scrollwork looping
Gilded cradle: guarding
Birds encircle borders
Over golden treasure.

Thurible of riches:
Heavy hammered chest for
Precious dust; a shining
Trophy, form and fiber:
Vessels value inheres.

(Not) Brooklyn Bridge

To Brooklyn Bridge

How many dawns, chill from his rippling rest
The seagull's wings shall dip and pivot him,
Shedding white rings of tumult, building high
Over the chained bay waters Liberty--

Then, with inviolate curve, forsake our eyes
As apparitional as sails that cross
Some page of figures to be filed away;
--Till elevators drop us from our day . . .

I think of cinemas, panoramic sleights
With multitudes bent toward some flashing scene
Never disclosed, but hastened to again,
Foretold to other eyes on the same screen;

And Thee, across the harbor, silver-paced
As though the sun took step of thee, yet left
Some motion ever unspent in thy stride,--
Implicitly thy freedom staying thee!

Out of some subway scuttle, cell or loft
A bedlamite speeds to thy parapets,
Tilting there momently, shrill shirt ballooning,
A jest falls from the speechless caravan.

Down Wall, from girder into street noon leaks,
A rip-tooth of the sky's acetylene;
All afternoon the cloud-flown derricks turn . . .
Thy cables breathe the North Atlantic still.

And obscure as that heaven of the Jews,
Thy guerdon . . . Accolade thou dost bestow
Of anonymity time cannot raise:
Vibrant reprieve and pardon thou dost show.

O harp and altar, of the fury fused,
(How could mere toil align thy choiring strings!)
Terrific threshold of the prophet's pledge,
Prayer of pariah, and the lover's cry,--

Again the traffic lights that skim thy swift
Unfractioned idiom, immaculate sigh of stars,
Beading thy path--condense eternity:
And we have seen night lifted in thine arms.

Under thy shadow by the piers I waited;
Only in darkness is thy shadow clear.
The City's fiery parcels all undone,
Already snow submerges an iron year . . .

O Sleepless as the river under thee,
Vaulting the sea, the prairies' dreaming sod,
Unto us lowliest sometime sweep, descend
And of the curveship lend a myth to God.

(Hart Crane)

Thoughts upon Julius Caesar’s Last Moments

When Caesar said "Et tu, Brute?", in shock
his dying breath contained myriad things:
10²⁴ atoms; a flock
of tiny birds on 1 million billion billion wings.
And in the time between his death and now
they have flown from Rome and into your mouth!
And I hear you wondering aloud, “How?”
They have circulated North, West, East, South—
Casting these oxygen and carbon seeds
across the world over land and ocean.
You likely inhale one or two of these
as your chest rises and falls; the motion
of every single quiet breath
brings the flavor of Caesar’s Death.


© jrs

another poem today.

A [sort of] Elegy for the Night-Table

The night-table is an ugly redbrown, the paint slapped on thick,
why were you cast off, left at the curb, a lone bastard son?
Someone had their time with you, and then let you pass
unmourned;. Why? Even as I see you there, unburied,
I know that this is temporary, the interstitial place
where death and potentiation live together, in the
shadowlands. Once loved and now lost, but ready to move on.
I carefully scoop you up, and swaddle you in a wool blanket, bringing you home.
I remove your three drawers, standing them up on cardboard,
numbering them, 1,2,3.
I number your insides and lay you down on a cardboard bed.
Donning a denim apron, I snap on skintight blue nitrile gloves.
I pour varnish remover on your sides, and it slowly rolls down,
aided by a paintbrush in my hand. I wait.
The stripper goes to work, slowly melting and bonding to the old paint, crinkling it up in waves.
The scraper pulls the old finish off in convoluted ribbons, revealing
your honey blond grain beneath, still stained in spots.
Wiping you clean with an old tee shirt, I repeat the process with your drawers, scraping halfmoon carved drawer pulls clean,
feeling echoes of forsaking fingers.
I open another gallon can, hiss of the mouth breathing in the air, sides donging outward. Upending over
another rag, I am bathed in the carcinogen-sweet smell of lacquer thinner.
I wash you carefully with the liquid, running steel wool over your skin,
burnishing out remaining stains.
You dry almost as soon as you are wet, the volatile fumes rising.
I carry you outside, and pour more lacquer thinner upon your face, anointing you.
I strike a match and touch you, setting you alight.
Burning with an ephemeral blue flame, almost invisible,
the heat draws out old wax and impurities.
You sparkle, tiny shining dots push up through your skin.
I put everything away, and begin sanding you with 80 grit
then 120 grit sandpaper,
sloughing off scales, the wind carrying the chaff away,
revealing new wood, untouched and ready
for the kiss of chestnut mist.



© jrs

Ulster Pastoral

Stepping out into coolwet morning air, unlock the bike,
tighten my knapsack straps, my breath trailing behind me.
Out onto the street and up, muted clicking of the chain through derailleur,
the rapid bump of tire-nub and the rush of passing cars.
Up the long hill, my legs pumping, warming,
through the town and up, deep breaths and up,
this long slow hill and all my muscles humming;
then, leveling out, and a slow glide across the overpass,
the breeze climbing down my shirt, my jacket flapping.
Over my shoulder, the ridge reclines, bluegreen and wrapped in fog, not quite awake.
Ahead, rolling foothills and low curling mist easing through the treetops, soft puffs of smoke.
The wheel crunches on the shoulder, ploughing through gravel.
Garlic mustard and wild onion sweeten the air. Robins alight in meadows
hopping and pecking. Occasional rabbits
panic and freeze, panic and freeze.
The hawks watch and wheel, waiting for the sun to break through and warm their wings.
Skirting the edges of culverts, the sluggish seep of runoff nourishing mallows and lilies,
the lime carpet of algae rimmed with froth,
the shale piles in thousands of weathered arrowpoints, mounds of slategrey cloven rock,
my legs moving up and down, up and down in tight circles, breathing in time.
Leaning barns with quiet ghosts and rough rust-red tractors watch over fields lain fallow,
The deer flick their tails and dip their heads down as I pass;
Heading east, the sun is a vague corona above the trees;
it pushes through the clouds, guiding me upward,
onward.


© jrs

okay, another one.

Aubade

The parking lot light shines
through grey Venetian blinds,
an illuminated fence on the floor
Floating in this limitless empty space,
a reference point, defining my place;
it is an anchor, lying on the shore.
Ink-dark carpet ocean:
red and green glowing LED’s
mark a channel, like dim buoys
drifting in slow motion.

Pipes softly hiss and creak
as if trying to speak;
the stress of expansion almost too great.
Quiet stretch and groan, a subdued protest
against bearing this hot unwelcome guest.
An angry slow push against the steel plate
of the straining baseboard;
though the air wafts still soft and warm
it is the calm before the storm,
and cannot be ignored.

Breathing deep next to me
she slumbers peacefully,
her face angelic, relaxed and content
[for she is free from this worry and stress].
I resist the urge to touch and caress
her, lest she wake—this is time well spent
together in our bed—
no place I’d rather be on Earth.
Moments without her have less worth—
morning fills me with dread.

The morning is coming!
Marching dawn is drumming!
The light clicks off and leaves me in blue hue.
Twilight is here and stars are winking out,
I want to hold it back, to rail, scream and shout,
but I know that there’s nothing I can do
but rise and get ready
to shower, shave, brush and get dressed.
[understand I am truly blessed
in love with this lady].

A stack of bills to pay.
Rent’s due on the first day
of the month, or else I wouldn’t get up.
Oh, to stay in bed, in the warmth with you,
there’s nothing I really would rather do;
but without work I cannot fill my cup
or yours with drink, or plates
with food, without money, no rent
paid and eviction notice sent:
we’ll be in dire straits.

The sky is lightening,
the noose is tightening—
I’m desperate to avoid going out,
but I must, and you truly ought to know
that all the day long as I work, although
I have to do what I do, please don’t doubt
I am thinking of you.
You are forever in my mind—
open the grey Venetian blinds,
breathe, and enjoy the view.


© jrs

another poem

Keychain

My mother once gave me a compass, so
“I wouldn’t lose my direction”.
It burned in a car fire. Now a new
one, on my belt, needle pointing skyward.

Three key fobs rattle, the print worn away,
the bounce and click a tight marching cadence.
Medals from a war of attrition, still
ongoing; “One Day At A Time” they say.

A finger-sized flashlight shows me the way:
a tiny beacon against stubbed toes at
midnight, tacks, bugs, crumbs, shoes and loose wires.
My magic wand, warding off the unknown.

Further down, a tiny green pocketknife
dangles, home to miniature scissors,
nail file, toothpick, tweezers and tiny blade:
knife useless for all but the smallest task.

Solid-state circuitry hangs just below,
zeroes and ones sit silently waiting.
Thirty poems packed neatly in plastic
and silicon—the size of this stanza.

A pint-sized, felt-tipped, black sharpie marker
for poetic graffiti—scrawled haiku
left in serendipitous locations
bringing smiles to frowning passersby.

Unsurprisingly, there are keys here too—
Siblings in sharp-toothed brass, a patina
from age, like two old pennies: controlling
ingress and egress—the bolt clicks, thunks shut.



© jrs

The standard all students should aspire to.

Of studye took he most cure and most heede.
Nought oo word spak he more than was neede,
And that was said in forme and reverence,
And short and quik, and ful of heigh sentence:
Souning in moral vertu wa his speeche,
And gladly wolde he lerne, and gladly teche.

Hypnos

a stream of ants travel up and down over old words;

a codex etched in the furrowed brow of an oak tree.

the initiated few sometimes read through layers of meaning

seeing the face of truth. [it's not what you think]


meanwhile: dark entoptic gods flash behind a childs' eyes

while crows bark over the sussurus of august night-rain.

cereus petals unfold, drinking moonlight.


if only we could all wake up

wake up!

from our dreamlife; this nodding false awareness

that passes each day as a languid television river or else

an object-fetish buying frenzy;

if only we could smash the screen, claw, claw,

clawing our way out of stifling black sackcloth

to breathe in the waning moonlight as it gently coaxes the cereus

closed.


the truth is a slippery thing, it slides just out of focus

floating in the periphery, a smudge on the edge of the lens.

[the rippling surface belies the real]

We look for it where it is not; we would do well to remember the

child in the dark

knowing things, hidden in plain view;

ephemeral shades gliding out of sight

frightening in their stark simplicity

unfathomable and alien;

but certainly as real as these words.


©jrs

GATC

floating in nutrient broth,
cloudy amino soup:
a flesh tennisball
studded with pearl teeth
slowly erupting, waiting for harvesting and implantation;
soon we will do this right in YOUR mouth, but we don't have the necessary trials yet:
interested? just sign this...
it's a brave new world, baby
with corneas and ears growing on the
backs of norwegian blacks, just
flip a few genetic switches and we're
tapping the power of organic architecture
in a lexan vat;
all patents pending.

©jrs

Anglo-Saxon Poetry

The Ruin

supposition

supposition


New Years' Eve party, fumbling to get her blouse off, hot breath and thundering hearts.

a pregnancy test drying in the bathroom garbage, thick cake-icing snow falling on the windowsill.

warm september afternoon, lying in a hospital bed, a baby whisked down a white hallway.

29 with a husband and a seven year old; more than enough to deal with,

breathing deeply and moving on

wondering who he'll look like.




©jrs


see also: quaeris