old news

The stories we remember?
Are the stories we tell.
Not as they happened
Any more than what we see is what is
When I was a boy
Which I don't remember being, not like the photos, not like my parents would tell you
but there I was
and when the Challenger exploded
there was a spark which traveled up
outside the shuttle
inside which were all those hopes
and fears
and those in 7 bodies
And there's a roar of death as I write this. The animal who one day will come
for me
there's no faces on the shuttle
Need Another Seven
but I didn't know them - I knew they should have gone higher
and returend
I knew the stars were less mine
without them
I didn't know what the fires meant
How long they'd burn
how many bodies had burned before
those 7
all the bodies of the earth
I didn't know the bodies who burned in West Philadelphia
but I saw one boy
Was he my age? Older? Younger? He was being held. A news camera saw him
with my eyes
and I see him now
as a boy
for all I know then
I saw him as a brother
friend
other
was his mother with him
who is he now
more radical than I
Or am I
untethered from the dream of
freedom
that played on my old fisher price
Pete Seeger leading a sea of voices
WE SHALL
how did I see those faces then
how do I now
who was with him
and me in my room
as the record spun
As reagan said "I don't remember"
100 times
all these
happened
to me
at one
time

fragments, transcribed from notebook, c.2007)

Oh face!
That to my vision as a floating flower came
arisen through dark water to the sunlit surface
--
Alas! I have no sense for beauty,
you have proved me blind as a clod of earth.
Stepping from behind, your face revealed, radiant
striking me silent, staring in awe
I wondered that before I have not seen
you
--
Although we have studied in the same room,
for weeks,
and although your face is radiant, beautiful,
such that seeing you at my side I was awed
into silent bewildered contemplation of your features,
although even from across a crowded mile
you would stand out to me as the most fair
it is only today I have seen you, only now, only this morning
as you stepped to stand beside me, and laughed lightly,
your eyes shining
--
Not to have seen you sooner, I must be blind
or a fool, to have so long stared at soil in the presence of a flower
--
I have too many days dwelt blind
Too long by
A flower bright and fragrant in a garden grew
I stood hard by but in its shadow, never knew
(I stood unwitting by)
--
Yes, oh, I stare
I do not reason eidelons
or attend idols
--
Forgive me, I stare
I do not hold up eidoloons
or idols
I worship you now
who are b-
because you are beautiful
as I face you
and I love you for your beauty
my own desire loves you
as you lay on the early autumn grass
in classic pose, your side curving
body full against your layered clothes
I sit on the earth, in shade
watching as you stretch
and lay akimbo
in the afternoon sun
I desire
without will to pursue
--
Long I tended the earth and weeds of my garden
laboring in the loam, dirt caking my nails
but found one day a flower blooming solitary in
bright and fragrant adorning the green hairs of the earth
amazed I knelt, beholding still and silent, awed out of action

Now returning each day to the garden the rows are ragged
I ignore the daily work, and tear good plants to pieces
searching for my bloom, to stare

--
my garden passes, ruined and rotting
where once I labored, my hands caked in earth
Since I beheld you, beauty, flower, bloom
adorning the green hair of my old love
(adorning her green hair, my old love earth)
who now seems dull, her green jewels(hair /strands /wig) dun and false
obstructions to the sight of your bright face
which, starving (ravished) I each day return to view
where I, each day, starving, seek your face to view
trampling in my hunger the crops I grew
--
my passing glance your glance attracts
repeating after in my memory and playing out
a frame to t-
that glance remains in mind
and there I study it and overlay
on it the empty papers of my mind's eye
to trace/rub an image on the contours of your look
the hope I hold for g-
--
in passing by I found your gaze cast free
and caught it
thought to catch it glimmering
and lovely
and jealous hoard it close away
but catching I was caught
and now am lost
--
in passing you have lent me looks
that jealous I have hoarded holding close
those glancdes minted in my memory to print
your image on my empty hours between
so memory and hope your image bear
and your look I hold that you have lent and left
and cont?ixi? continue?
those visions spent
--
in passing you have lent your look to me
that in your look I love
and thinking to catch am caught
your glance has covered all my world
but only return only look again on this and break again my world with that lok
and I caught by thee
will wake and be free
--
my garden ruined, rotting to barren soil
where once I broke my hands with worthy toil
since I your bloom beheld

laboring, my face downturned to the black earth
with green strands /jewels my old love's brow adorn
which once I labored to
now seem dull obstructions to your scorn

with green jewels I my old love's head adorned
her body caked my hands, my downcast eye
thought only she had worth

my downcast eyes the green-strung earth beheld
which filled my daily labors, caked my hands
and seemed...

stars. starts.

This can of beer.
Open. Empty. Forgotten. Needing disposal.
Unremarkable in its blue and red and gold and white, in its shining and its matte,
its machine-perfect cylindricity,
warnings and measurements of volume and assurances of authenticity, all
without meaning
without distinction from
another can
object
moment
on the street it would be stepped over
here at the desk it has been gathering dust
and yet
it is less than a century old
as are its oldest brethren
the idea of its being
the metallurgy of its making not yet two centuries
metallurgy itself not yet 10 millenia...
this can is an infant and will die in infancy
not aged enough to merit a name

The Gift (unattached)

Even remaining still
We come around
To this place
Or that

Just right

We are cast from the garden
But return
Not through the gate
But by beginning there
Ever
Simple

The Gift

Even remaining still
We come around
To this place
Or that

Just right

We are cast from the garden
But return
Not through the gate
But by beginning there
Ever
Simple

 here again
I come down
With you

Who art new
Yet this old love
And delight
Ever was
Tis
Yours

Miracles of Morning (for S)

Framed in the vastness of the universe
   the sunlight first touches your face

                                  These                          
                                
Infinitely small                              moments 
Infinitely brief                 
Infinitely rare                                      are
Infinitely significant

Giving meaning 
To the sun 
Light
Time 
And
Creation