GODDESS, Rewrite

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GODDESS,
Rewrite




The first time I saw you.
I was in a remote world.
It was years ago.


You, yourself, were in a niche, manifest,
In a Hindu temple, a marble figure,
With your eyes carved wide-open.
You were adorned in regal, pageant gown,
Dyed scarlet; gold thread woven within it
Made you shimmer in the flickering candle light;
I noticed your eyes were painted violet.

Your right arm, it protruded direct, out
From the shoulder, it was bent right angle
At the elbow, it had a barely clenched fist atop,
And from your fist a thumb extended
Straight up perpendicular to your head,
Its signal was unmistakable, providential,
It portended good luck, ‘thumb’s up’.

Brass bowls of red-hot coals burned,
They burned perfumed joss sticks at your feet.

Your supplicants cued from portal to portal arch,
They humbly attended chance to implore good fortune.

And they carried on polished metal trays
Oblations of fresh-cut flowers and I remember seeing
Strings of marigolds, cluster upon cluster of pompons,
And with them bunches of large lotus flowers.

They offered all kind of fruit.
There were bananas, coconuts, and pomegranates.

All was splashed with bright vermilion powder,
As if to inform the procession,
To remind those petitioners that once
Your altar demanded blood,
Your countenance necessitated animal sacrifice.

And me, I await, patient.
I am yet another mortal, who prays for favor,
Hope to tease meaning from your stare,
I desire, I wish for you to bless me,

My eyes are locked,
They dwell upon your motionless and painted face.

I hear drums tap out devotional rhythm,
And through the distance a din of flutes and whistles,
Singers repeat your name to accent your ascendancy.
Oh! How deep the people’s love and ardor.

I go deep within my pocket, pull
Wrapped, hard candies, add them to my tray of gifts,
And excitedly show the temple priests,
I wear appropriate raiment. I tell them

My nostrils detect your mango fragrance!

And in the clamor, coming up, almost inaudible,
Against the background noises of the street,
I believe I hear your coded parlance,
'I miss you'. You tell me, you miss me.

I am on my knees, I plea,

Goddess, Love, grant me the serenity
To accept the long absence
Before you are flesh in my arms again,

The courage to change those things about me
So better to pray and be proper devotee,

And the wisdom to remain faithfully yours,
To be yours and yours alone, today, tomorrow,
Whatever obstacles may bar the way,
Stay course steadfast and loyal, fervently always.

SWEDISH INTERMENT, Illinois Enchantment

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SWEDISH INTERMENT,
Illinois Enchantment




You know it's bullshit, honey,
This talk of visionary moment and prophetic feat,
No more than ploy,
Another way me getting into your pants.


Yet loving you no quick turn of verse,
It is serious task, requiring dedicated effort.

At prognostication I am gifted.
I have always been able to see around corners.
On that, our first night we had slept together,
You may recall, I told you I saw our future,
I knew how it was to transpire.

And once you actually experience,
Live an event which I prefigure,
You recognize about it uncanny familiarity,
Déjà vu, you feel the situation,
As if it were previously known,
Or may have been already played,
An occurrence, you would swear,
You had witnessed ages before.

This power strikes deep. It causes tremble,
And it bestows pleasant excitement;
It makes life expectant.
With me you will learn to swoon and shudder.
You will know warm and be hot all over,
Whereas others freeze in midwinter.

I told you your grandfather speaks to me.
His voice emerges from a dream.
Though the setting is familiar, my own bedroom,
The light comes from afar,
Suffusing the space and me within it,
I dwell in delicious, excellent hues of red and green.

He tells me I am the man of the house,

Oh! He speaks with unmistakable clarity,
Happiness the product of our life together.

I have another secret; I want to share with you.
I envision major experience,
Not unlike Leda's when she learned;
It was a god who had entered her.

You should know from you will issue --
Yes, marvelous to relate! --
Being supreme, a mortal whose
Life and renown, belongs to that golden,
Regal realm, where Homer rules king.

I slip, revealing more than I intend.

I knew it. I recognized it early on in my life,
Long years before your birth,
Within truck farm fields,
Along the rows of cabbage and corn,
My love for you was growing strong,
I had sight then, ears to catch the sounds,
And nose to whiff out the dreams,
Conferred on me, oracular, from on high.

I stepped out from the Hitching Post Diner.
I saw you! It was you.
On the packed-mud bridal path, just ahead,
By a yard or two, down the trail were you,
Your form, it preceded me, walking apace.

This last August, eleventh,
Before we had begun to date,
Between bed sheets wet from too much sweat,
Your heat wakened me.

I rose up, breathed in the air, and
I learned the smell of you!
They were your odors bursting up my nostrils
From the threads of woven cotton,
While me in my bed that lonely summer's night.

I had instantly recognized those fragrances,
Once I slept with you,
Once your presence entered my pores.

And now, again, the moment, fate commands
My fingers on the keyboard in front of me.
Before I had met you,
I realize I heard it, your name!
I heard your name,
It came to me from time, prior,
Yes, actually previous to your birth!

I assure you, when yet not adolescent, a child,
No more than ten or eleven years old,
I witnessed destiny from landscape in Illinois.
The refocusing veils of shimmer, aurora borealis,
The phantasmagoric curtains of shifting color,

So utterly present, then, in a feint,
As if by trick of hand, gone, shows of polar light had
Held me captive; I had fallen to trance, bewitched.

And in the midst of this awesome display,
From the far North, your name, I heard it.

I heard! I heard your name; it was announced,
While green and red flames crackled,
Burned along the vault of the universe,
I looked, glimpsed into future time.

And that very self-same night,
I was no more than ten or eleven years old,
From the backyard lawn of my childhood home,
Facing North and up into nighttime colors,
Once more sky portended hereafter,
It was world beyond my youth and Illinois.

I saw oak trees; they grew outside a low, black iron fence,
Before that fence a fresh, earthen mound,
And at its head a cemetery marker,
My name, it was struck upon a gravestone.
I understood. I knew in an instance the certainty;
The ground I saw upturned, it was in Sweden.

I heard! I heard your name; it was announced,
While green and red flames crackled,
Burned along the vault of the universe,

In a flash, in enchanting shift of color,
I envisioned the circumstance of my own interment.

I was a child, no more than ten or eleven years old,
I stood entranced, captive,
Gazing into the aurora borealis, bewitched.

BEAT IT! Canal Street Lessons

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BEAT IT!
Canal Street Lessons



Let me comment on our Western tradition;
Money talks, every other thing walks.

Now, in this, mine, particular scene,
Sam is key,
He’s the boss, the king to the thing.


But conduct, also, counts.
Say “Hello! Good mornin’ ma’am!
Do not forget, “Hey babe, how you doing?”
And behind this deportment, be doctrinaire,
Remember to talk three things in one person:

Pussy, the weather and always include
A word or two about sports,
Otherwise masculinity might open to question.

And let us say what things soever the law says,
Get an invoice,
And make sure to write it all in carbon.

Fair and square, it’s hard to trick in duplicate.

I believe, was it not, Saint Simon, who teaches?
“To each according to his need, and
From each get a copy, every transaction.”

Careful with Leo; he is hooked up,
High as a kite and looking for trouble,
He may not remember
How he spoke one day or the other.

And Bernie, he’s the intellectual type,
Try to explain what course of action remains
Good for today and possible tomorrow.

That basement desk with the single light bulb above it,
A hanging one-switch receptacle on a wire,
No shade, why adorn it?
Send the lawsuits down the wooden, threadbare steps,
To bottom, the barely paved, beaten concrete floor,
And have a laugh at the process server’s expense,
What a notion Bernie authored.

And should you go out for a drink,
Keep an eye on Bob whose favored fun,
Slip you a Mickey and laugh while you fall,
Knock your head on the barroom floor.

And Stanley, why he carries a box blade,
He might act to settle a score,
Good Lawd, what a whore!

Sell! Sell! Keep ends tight! And sell!

Today we have diamonds, tomorrow the world!

Say hey, Willie Mays, you’re the greatest,
And now the world knows it!

PLEDGING MY LOVE, Abide with Me, Christmas, 2009

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PLEDGING MY LOVE,
Abide with Me, Christmas, 2009




Abide with me for fast closes day.
Darkness deepens with alacrity,
Nothing halts the night.

Stay with me while time permits,
Yet, when other comforts flee,
Accept I mean the best,
Help, where others only helpless seem,
Spare your soul from bottom and regret.

In every deed, my every word,
I want to be true, do right by you.

Though many things to tell,
One thing sums it right,
One thing huge, deep and great,
With ocean of delight,
My heart embraces you.

You, my love, are all my life today.

I wish to assure, let it be known,
Though you in mortal moment seem,
Great Light, Infinity blesses you.

Happy outcome, your every secret dream,
An absolute alignment, God’s will be done,
That power to carry it out,

And to top it off!

I hold belief, whose strength
No public fire, no coliseum of wild, hungry beasts,
Nor awful rendition, chamber in far-off land,
Might ever shake, nothing my faith dissuades,

Yes! Certain, when I write,

For you awaits the greatest gift,
That each and every early day,
You will have come to believe,
And learn to say,
Thank You, Lord, for life,
And yet all You do for me.

SIR LANCELOT, Reread

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SIR LANCELOT,
Reread



You had better get ready, Princess.
Because when you return to my arms,
I plan to kiss you red, and then
Feed you, until you are plump.


Be forward, and you will see,
You will learn who’s the stronger,
You, the sick little girl,
Or me, your crowned Prince!

RATNA, You May Laugh At Me, A Love Poem Inspired by T. Wijaya

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RATNA,
You May Laugh At Me,
A Love Poem Inspired by T. Wijaya


Ratna, you may have left me,
But the blanket on our bed remains.

Sometimes out from the shadows in the street I hear
A chatter; I push open the drapes, look outside,
But see no one. Because the event
Reoccurs daily, at intervals,
Fifteen minutes before the bell of the ninth hour,
I imagine its source children, who hurry, hasten,
Not to be late for school. It is a collective voice,
And it seems to capture, as if these youngsters
Recite my poem, aloud, the words, the meter,
And within its clamor, how the poem means.


The verse swelling over the bedroom window sill,
Out from the shadows in the street,
It seems to express the fire in my heart.
I hear my love for you, said aloud with excellence,
A match, were the poet himself to read the lines,

How strange it must be when in classroom
These students learn, study the language of science,
Realize, my own textbook teaches,
Reveals nothing but great passion and affection,
A knowledge that no everyday, timely attendance,
Might bring to reason, or be sufficient to
Realize with easy, algebraic, chalk–board formulation.

Ratna, my feelings, the terms of my endearment, dwell
Far removed from any chapbook lesson,
I am reminded of the hapless task, trying to reason
The abundance, all the marvel, God bestows
Though we may not merit, no way deserve
His grace, the bounty which freely befalls us.

Ratna, you may laugh at me, but when I awaken
I pretend to percolate coffee for you,
Or that soon I receive your telephone call,
Your voice at the other end, you,
No longer at business, but here, now,
The distance between us breached,
The gap closed, when I hear your vocal timbre.

Ratna, my dreams of you are constant and happy.

You may have gone, flown from my arms,
Still, I remain deeply enamored,
My thoughts of you, our life together, remain indelible,
My remembrance, joy, boundlessly happy,
It burns within my mind’s eye, and warms my soul.

Remember the tree I planted in your garden?
Its fruit has become property of another,
And each and every time I think it over,
Our life, the every moment together,
I find myself sitting back at desk to write,
Hoping to explain, yet though my being over-burdened,
To tell all audience the splendid images,
The visceral weight, and the deep compulsion,
To relive the time our hand in hand held together.

Ratna, in endless run of sentence after sentence,
My life returns to great day, the glory chapters,
Which comprise the big book of our love,
Oh, how thrilled I am to have been at your side.

Ratna, in your heart my love for you may be dead.
But each day I arise in that blue room,
That blue bedroom, where we started the day,
Each day I wake to the same blue sky,
Which houses our Lord, to Him I pray,
I ask for nothing, only His Will for you, for me, today.

Ratna, my lovely light, the dream which floods
Across this room, down upon the key board,
And propels my fingers to write the distance,
How far my heart races,
And this dream, please, believe, no mere chimera,
No flight of fancy, but real as any earthly object
You may now touch or see before you.

Do not fear me; do not fear this verse.

Darling, listen not to friends who claim misgivings,
Who believe I have taken leave of my senses,
That my ultimate design may want best for you.

You know that is not the case.

Ratna, I write in the moment,
This instance sums all a human may possess,
But I mean every word I say for the ages,
World and all posterity to see.

Oh, what a lucky man I have been,
My good fortune, the gratitude I feel in having
Loved you and making your acquaintance.

A DREAM OF YOU, Desert Vision, A Poem in Three Parts, Part III

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A DREAM OF YOU,
Desert Vision,
A Poem in Three Parts,
Part III



I remember Central Avenue, Phoenix, Arizona,
Danny’s store packed with Native American silver,
Bracelets, necklaces and rings, properly displayed
On racks, in trays, locked within
Glass enclosed showcases, on clear shelves,
The velvet pads, the array of colors, Alexander,
My son, maybe eight, but not more than ten,
His years of age, playing behind the counters,
Next to the shotguns, diagonally propped,
On the floor twelve-gauge shells in open boxes,
Should there be need for extended engagement.


I share with you the times when, flying in
From Dallas, the grand noise, engines’ reversal
To land at Sky Harbor, the ground crew,
How they scrambled, and then, rolled up the staircase,
The platform for debarkation, and me, I would descend
The steps full-tilt straight onto the tarmac,
Fahrenheit, ninety-five degrees in early morning,
A rental car awaited me, and I was off
Over to the parking lot at the Dog Track,
To the swap meet that was unfolding and I sought
The cowboy named, Roadrunner, who always had
Tons of loot, the goods, every Sunday’s hauls.

Though at his point, it all seems dream-like,
I recall the very special meeting, when traders
Lined up, raised hands, and one after the other,
Volunteered to say that jewelry great here and
Proclaimed that whosoever is welcomed into
The lounge camper, who greets the Navajo,
Both the man and wife, eyes at slight, diverted,
Who knows the children and divines a pattern,
From their running across the gravel lot, left and right,
Up and down, then unto the asphalt sidewalk,

Who enjoys when they stop to refresh from
The water-cooled, stainless steel, floor-pedal fountain,
That bright sparkling, that eye of the desert,
The stream which gushed upward, next to,
It was on the right side of the pari-mutuel windows.

Upon those persons, who bore witness to the design,
Who abstracted the anagram from behind
The children’s scurry, who traced,
Out upon the open parking space, meaning,
Those, who were brought to new vision,
Sight seen within the minds’ eye, the dance,
The dance holy ones once danced in godly regalia,
Those, who heard within the children’s feet the drums,
The rhythms ancestors had orchestrated
So to let go, leave this material world,
And find entrance to separate reality,
The traders at the meeting, in-order, one-by-one,
Called upon Great Spirit to sanctify their decision,
They bestowed their most precious title,
And among the ghosts and the human beings
One word cemented the union, ‘Friend’.

One Sunday afternoon, I felt good magic
When a child ran up behind me,
He quickly, then, touched the back of my hand.

Later I went up to South Mountain to the home
Of a Mexican. It was painted a distinctive blue.
I bought more jewelry and got into my car,
I took the Express Way North, exited at Bell Road,
And headed to way out West of the city.

At one point, I passed the shopping mall,
I thought about Monday’s appointments,
How a salesman's lot means he sits,
Marks time to wait his turn with buyers.

That night on the concrete patio, the one surrounding
The big swimming pool, at Community Center,
I buck danced to beat, which played
On the rock an’ roll, radio station.

Although it was already that Sunday’s dusk,
And the day’s high temperature had receded,
It still was ninety, over ninety degrees while I sat back
On the lounge chairs and watched Alexander,
Time and again, practice dives off the high board.

Even then, it was long ago, and in Phoenix,
It was you! Darling, I had been waiting for you;
The desert air brought dream of you,
The shimmering, the uplifts, the vertical lines,
Up, upward, shafts of heat rising
Out across the desert vista,
Now I know it, a dream of you and the vision,
My verse racing, galloping through my mind,
Sat at the tip, the tip of my tongue,

I was reciting poetry, not out loud, but to myself,
Though I knew not its power, no idea the prophecy,
I knew not the meaning of that woman,
Who walked out among the columns of earth fever,
And stood next to the Saguaros, in the twilight,
Who I saw for a moment out on horizon,
Seemingly, over and against the floor of the desert,
Before she disappeared leaving me to these lines,
Whose cadences I repeat at key board,
These words I use to describe a dream of you.

Long before I had ever made your actual acquaintance,
A figure in landscape,
I saw her in time prior to when you were born.

At the airport, when security stopped me, I stood
In a booth whose sliding curtains dropped to the floor,
The jewelry I carried, x ray showed
A concentrated jumble of metal, my carry-on bag,
It must needs be opened and inspected.

In that booth, halted before my return to New York City,

That was the moment, the time I began to wonder,
(I tell this event, though it occurred decades ago,
It remains fresh today, as if it were yesterday.)
I began to wonder, when you, when your love might
Saunter in and make my life complete.