The Blues - a poem first written as a Facebook post on a late February afternoon

The blue sky too
Soon may be credited
As one of humanity's
Greatest handiworks it seems
First as an observable fact
Only lately becoming an
Internet meme

Once upon a time
The Business Insider reports
We humans could barely
Speak of light at the blue end
Of the spectrum
Like water and sky
It appeared mostly
Part of the muddle
Never standing out
As a pigment in itself
That is until civilization
Had advanced far enough
To perfect the art
Of indigo capture

Whereas especially around
This time of year
Blue becomes its own ubiquity
It's there lingering amidst
The snowfield of shadows
Stretching across the front yard
Overpowering even earthy
Browns and greens in our
Entire way of seeing things
Capturing both the sea
And the sky before
Our admiring gaze
As we all become so
Many little Picasso's
Going through our
Very own blue phase

So much so that now we
Can't imagine the world's hue
Being otherwise as the blues
Have overtaken all other shades
Serving as best expression
Of our true life experience
As well capturing our vision
Of eternity too


*  *  *  *  *  *

This poem was written in response to a news item I came across this afternoon on Business Insider by Kevin Loria.  It was one of the more interesting articles I've read in quite a long time - about how human perception of the color blue seems to be in large part culturally derived and not just biologically determined.  The article is well worth reading if you haven't done so already; it's also quite timely as it arrives on the heels of the latest Internet meme about the blue and black dress.  Click here to read more.

Poem Composed This Morning While Stuck in the Elevator - Take 2

Between the need

To be loved and
The need to love
What is a man?

The doors close behind him
Neither descending
Or ascending but
Suspended there by
Thick cables of doubt
He stands in the middle
Wavering and immobile

Poem Composed This Morning While Stuck in the Elevator

Between the need
To be loved and
The need to love
What is a man?

He stands in the middle
Wavering and immobile

The doors close behind
Neither descending
Or ascending but
Suspended there by
Thick cables of doubt

Poem written about suchness while waiting for the bus

Between the suchness
And thrustness of
Any given minute
It matters not in the least
Whether a blow
Be administered by
Manjusri's sword
Or a falling valise

A passenger in transit
Waiting in the cold after
The day's long slushy rain
When the bus pulls up
And the driver explains there's
A plethora of dreaded black ice
In the vicinity
And still you answer
The summons by
Climbing on board

That you are coming
Or going is one
And the same
Whether victimhood
Or enlightenment awaits
Is not but a hair's breadth
Of difference
Even if your seatbelt
Is tightly fastened when it
Comes to a jolt like that
Administered directly
To the head

A Poem Explaining How it Came About I Saw Venus Riding Astride the Crescent Moon Tonight

Jill texted my wife 

And told us to go outside

And there we saw Venus and Mars

Riding astride the crescent moon

And Jill said to me --

   It looks like another
     Moon tonight as if

       Ours should be rising
           In the East

And I wondered for
A moment if perhaps

She might not be right

Because this resembled

No planetary alignment I'd ever

Seen before 

Only a blurry image could
Be captured even with 

A 35 millimeter camera

So this is
Where we're heading 

Distracted by

The bits and bytes  

Circling the globe

We’ve lost our grip

On the most basic

Things our forbearers

Were sure to have known



Like what

A tripartite sighting

Such as this actually foretold

Instead in our modern ignorance 

We must now wait for the greater

Mysteries still to unfold

Weesuck Creek Through the Eyes of a Snowman

A For Sale sign

Swings with abandon

From the arctic blast

That sweeps down

Our block as

Once again

I find myself

Tramping out to

The mouth of the Creek

There I stand more exposed

But find the sky

Rapidly inflating

Overhead revealing the majesty  

Of those first starry beacons

Venus shimmering in the west

While Jupiter ascends  

In the East -- whatever

Such a planetary standoff

Can possibly

Mean to me

At the base of the dock

I’m truly nonplussed

To see these ghostly footprints

Standing in stark relief

Against the pier’s blacktop

Steps clearly leading

Directly to the water’s edge

Then suddenly disappearing

As if some lonely

Snowy wanderer

Had decided to leap

When I realize

What I’m looking

At is an eerie

Negative impression

Of my walk last night

For these ghostly prints  

Merely trace my own steps

Out along the pier
Through yesterday’s storm

My progress thus having

Been made visible

In the trail of twice

Compacted snow

Which alone remained

On the windswept dock

So the first nen

Comes round to see

What the others

Have wrought

Counter-intuitive

But more deeply attuned

To the ultimate truth

Evident in the negative

Aspect made visible

By wind and time

Of the no-self 

As it has been revealed

To the self’s icy stare

Words Written on a Snowy Evening

Drawing by Peter Rippon

The quality of suffering

Is not strained in the least

But falls in a pristine

Blanket of snow along

The banks of Weesuck Creek

I hear it too in the sound

Of the turbid waters

Churning deep underneath

The Bay Avenue dock

Where the ice also clings

To the pilings' tops 

Growing older

It gets harder

To hold reality’s strands

Separate and apart

As the spectrum of light

Keeps shifting about

But tonight I see it clearly

In the strange luminosity

Of this snowy evening

In the jaundiced glare

Of the streetlight

As it spreads across

Notebook’s page

And plashes onto 

The snow banks

Just below

Poem for Marissa written on the bus

Today is Allan's birthday
I've been thinking 
about him a lot
Even as I stopped to buy flowers
From Tyrone on the corner of West 28th
In the midst of rushing to catch the bus
I was struck by the apt beauty of this bouquet 
Of roses -- lavender and white and 
Adorned with a spray of red carnations

That's sitting beside me

Do you realize Valentines' Day 
Is poised equidistant with 
The Day of the Dead 
-- at least from the solstices' point of view
So I've been prone to visions intermixed 
Of love  and death in their ferocious embrace
With a heart that is straining in the grip
Just as the bus ' engine
Is straining in the HOV Lane
As we're racing ahead
Approaching terminal velocity
Of so it feels to me now
Heaven help us all
Sisters and brothers

With much love - J

(Poem written in lieu of a valentine card to my wife)


Sent from my iPhone

Poem for Marissa

This is a poem I wrote tonight for Marissa while looking at a copy of painting #30 (which is my current reigning favorite) from her upcoming exhibit.  A copy of the painting is included as a reward for those of you who manage to read through to the end of the poem.

Poem for Marissa

What could possibly 

Be the portent 

Of such a present tense

And exquisite 

Delicacy of touch

Showing the least fillip of life

Whether laid out in the shade

Or broad daylight

As if outwitting 

Photoshop itself 

As to both accuracy 

And verisimilitude 

Yet also framed abstractly 

In perfect equipoise 

As to both color and light

As if somehow 

Carrying daylight’s cross 

Each of the 36 steps along the way

Descending to the next rung 

Of the ladder from here to Eternity 

And back again or else in the present case 

Making an ecstatic leap off the page 

Into the very midst of my arms

To sit with me here in the living room

Tonight right now -- or wherever you happen to be 

Dancing with the Bolshoi or singing at the Met

Not just come hither but summoning me now!

Poem Written in Times Square (thinking about Ian McEwan and his not so saucy bark)

This poem is addressed to Ian McEwan.  You see I've just finished reading one of his latest novels - Saturday.  And I have to say I was pretty disappointed.  I've always enjoyed McEwan's novels going back to one of his earliest, A Child in Time, which I remember reading in college, or shortly thereafter, and thinking here is a major talent.  But this latest book falls pretty far short of the mark in a number of ways, most of which I won't bore you with right now.  For purposes of explaining this poem I've just written, perhaps it's only important to say that McEwan's story culminates in a particularly cheesy fashion with a creeky plot device that turns on one of the character's recital at knifepoint of Dover Beach by Matthew Arnold.  Saturday comes across as one of those very English novels that attempts to describe the way we live now but somehow with the intrusion of the crusty old Dover Beach there in the story's climax it all takes on a very Victorian air, as if McEwan is disclosing nothing so much as his very own drawing room self.  This is precisely what strikes me as so disappointing about the book.

That being said, here is my poem for Ian McEwan.

With nary a puff

Yet already my lungs

And my chest

Start to twitch

On a cold winter night

Such as this

And after digging in

To the stash of ghee

In the studio fridge

I've caught enough 

Inspiration and drift

To venture a poem

Here and now

Walking fast

Through the midst
Of Times Square

I’d be hard pressed

To ignore the

Spectacolor screens

Hanging high overhead

On the Vornado Realty

Billboard atop

1540 Broadway

Or on the proximate

Block heading downtown

Where a guy from the Cheetah

Club proffers his business card

I'm lit up just as much

As the Great White Way itself

Only now it unfolds in this HDTV

Display lining both sides of

The street

No doubt there’s

A visual correlative

Of Moore’s Law

Which tells us that

Every two years

The resolution will double

Yet there's no doubling

 In our acuity

Visual or otherwise

As the signal’s

Received in the mind

Of the beholder

Our own perspicuity

Not having changed

Since Victorian times

It seems we’re still lamenting

That note of sadness and
The long withdrawing roar

Of the waves crashing

Whether on Dover or

Sagaponack Beach

It matters not in the least

Poem Written During Superbowl XLIX

The Superbowl is really the holiest of holidays here in the US of A.  So to commemorate the occasion of Superbowl XLIX I wrote the following poem  - started it during the pre-game coverage and then added the finishing touches during the scintillating half-time show.  A special shout out to both Katy Perry and Dante Alighieri for the inspiration...

*  *  *  *  *

In the middle 

Of life’s passage

I discovered by chance

A new middle way

An intersection where

Opposites abut one another

Where folio meets recto

Leaving only the

Faintest line running

Down the middle

Of the page

And each mudra

Raises a tent pole

Of possibilities

Each woman and man

Extends like a limb

Of the family tree

A sister or brother

Or else something

Altogether different

But no less by the xylem

Firmly connected to me

*  *  *  *  *  *

From The Silent Journey by Marissa Bridge;

this is painting #30 in Marissa's new series.  I really love the balance in this composition.  It's exquisite. It suggests to me what it must be like to watch angels dancing on the head of a pin.