The Cache That Can't Be Cleared (by way of reply to William Blake)

There's a smile of delight

And a smile of regret

Another day older

Still carrying all that

Credit card debt

In between the worlds

I've failed to mention

And what I manage

To scribble down

There's a score more hits

Recorded to the weblog

But what of that other smile

Unprompted it appears

While sitting in meditation
Perceived yet unrecordable

From one session to the next

It's there - remote but palpable -

Beyond Self with all its memes

In the cache that can't be cleared

A Tweet for Leonard Cohen

"Poetry is just the evidence of your life.  If your life is burning well, poetry is just the ash"     -- Leonard Cohen

I stumbled on this quote online a few months ago.  It captures something very close to the way I've come to feel about writing and art -- that it is nothing more than a residue of the way we live at any given moment in time. And as Cohen suggests, the purer the flame, the better the poem may be and the closer the poet will then be to living exactly as he or she says; and then perhaps, the poet will also become even more familiar with silence and the taste of ash upon the tongue. 

When art is purest ash

It’s life that’s all aflame

Best to be a poet burning
Instead of worshipping what remains

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November 11^th update:  Yesterday morning, the day of Leonard Cohen’s death, my glasses fell off the dresser and the frames snapped, sending the left lens skittering across the floor; and since then, quite literally, everything is cracked, including my field of vision, and I’m unsure how the pieces fit back together, even as the light keeps streaming in.

Ring the bells that still can ring 
Forget your perfect offering 
There is a crack in everything 
That's how the light gets in

For Marissa

Today is my beloved wife's birthday.  On Saturday night we celebrated with family and friends.  Our party culminated with a bonfire in our newly installed firepit in the backyard.  Here is a poem I wrote but didn't have a chance to read on the occasion.

Love alone has 

Never ruled the world

But tonight it seems

Ever more preponderant

Triumphant in a single glance

Of your face in the firelight

Luminous and inspiring

So poetry begins and ends

Bracketing a decade

Of conjunctive bliss

With the simple truth

Of our bond forged

In love's flame

Overleaping

Mere words as

Our separate

Life strands 

Are forever

Annealed as one

Ten years ago - on Marissa's last milestone birthday - I also wrote her a poem (which you can read here).  That was one of the first complete poems I wrote.  This one feels like it may be the last, at least for now.  In the ten year interval I've had a chance to write more than 500 poems, most of which you can read here on my blog.  The truth of the matter is that without the example and inspiration of Marissa's artistry I likely never would have tried my hand at writing poetry, so it seems only appropriate, however belatedly, to dedicate this collection, as it begins and ends, with all my love for her.

This photo is a birthday selfie Marissa took in her studio.  As she explains it: "I took this selfie , sans makeup, to show what 60 looks like, and what I am thinking about these days. Not to get compliments on how well or badly I look, just to put it out there, as a statement saying I will not hide what I look like or what I do because of my age."  More and more I realize that an essential part of the artist's gift is to be able see and present beauty without adornment or disguise.

More Boomerang Than Arrow

Lately it occurs to me

Time is not linear and
Its forward progress

Is purely illusory because 

Not only do the seasons

Take us round and round

But our lifeline loops

Around a central hub

Weaving out and back

As we wax and wane

And centrifugal force

Gives way to centripetal

Just like any flower

With pistils stamens and petals 

Attached to its central stem

We die by slowly retreating

From our extremities

And yet a few more ways

We are like flowers

In that when we open most

We are also closest to death

And it is we who must learn

To let go of the stem

Co-terminus with
Our final breath

In the Stillness of Night

In the stillness of night
(but for the horn blaring)
The window propped open
With a drumstick
I sit and I sit
Meditating as I go
Wearing old sweat pants
In full lotus unfolding
On a blue exercise mat
Navel and nose in theory aligned
Ears and shoulders too
The moment flickers
Like a candle shimmering
With each breath
Illuminating the vast emptiness
Within and without
Of the bottomless pit

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This is a meditation poem written in the manner of Ryōkan (more or less) who was an 18th century Zen monk. One of the unique elements of Ryōkan's meditation poems is that they often incorporate references of specific meditation techniques, which is not to say that they are prescriptive but merely descriptive of of both his internal and physical state. 

A Short Poem on the Passage of Time

This poem is with thanks to @utktun who earlier today posted a great photograph by Eva  Besnyö to his Twitter feed.  I don't recall ever seeing the photo before.  But then again it looked remarkably familiar.  I looked at it long enough and began to think I could see the woman in the photograph breathing.  This struck me as extraordinary and I felt inspired to write the following poem. I've also taken the liberty of posting the photograph below (with many thanks to Eva and Nicole ... (and Genie)). 

In the mid-ground stands

The Salon de Vries and

In the background there’s

A church with a couple of trees

Perhaps along the Rue Montparnasse

While Eva Besnyo’s friend

(I wonder is it Nicole Dumont?)

Stretches out for a nap

With a studio cat by her side

Looking outside
She breathes out

She breathes in

You can almost

See her diaphragm

Moving

And more time will

Elapse in the moment

Necessary to take in a single

Great photograph than a woman

Can otherwise imagine

Is possible just by

Closing her eyes

And breathing deeply

From then to now

Time traveling by means

Of a short afternoon nap

With me and the studio cat

Right by her side

Poem For Dan on the Occasion of his 21st Birthday

By whatever means

Of extra fashizzle

Or alignment of the stars

When you were begotten

Somehow it gave rise to

The extra enlargement

Of your beating heart

Endowing you with

A massive capacity both

To give and receive love

Which admittedly

Is a mixed blessing

(but a blessing still)

In a perilous world

Constantly pumping and

Putting you at risk of bleeding

Whether needful or not

No one else can ever say

But now that you have

Attained your majority

Please indulge me in

A bit more fatherly advice

Which is that from

Such great cardio capacity

Eventually great sagacity

Also will come

Because over life’s course

The heart becomes

Ever more reliable

As both faculty and guide

Capable of reading any situation

Involving man woman or child

Or any creature from land or sea

For that matter

It’s the only character

You ever need to know

In making the most

Difficult idiom in

A foreign tongue

Completely

Your own

So live large

And let it beat wisely!

Much love ...  Dad

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