Qing Chou and Lao Nian

I trouble myself
Now and again
Thinking about
The three stages
In the life of man
Qing Chou and Lao Nian

Wondering where
In their midst
I presently stand
Betwixt the there I go
And the here I am
Not entirely sure
I still know the difference
Between Qing Chou and Lao Nian

At MOMA Wendesday Afternoon

By the Philip Guston
You stood deep in
Contemplation
For a long while while I
Blackberry in hand
Proceeded through
The arabesques
And swirls heading
Towards whatever
Next came to mind

Not long after
Pollack realized
He wasn't Picasso
You saw how he figured it out
Through a flick of the wrist
Paint thick on the brush

And in the room next but one
There it was again
An image that lingered
On the retina of
Barnett Newman’s inner eye
Abstraction made
More vivid through
The pushing and shoving
Until you stood
At the very forefront
Of daylight's parade

Then heading down the corridor
Twenty years in the making
By Rothko in contention
With failing light itself
Along the dimming path
Of a darkening palette

It was precisely then
I understood you
As a student in
In the same academy
The same impulse of light
Though sometimes
Inclined to take up
Disguise just
The reverse

With a firm grip on the brush
The horsehairs bristle with life
In a virtual reenactment of
The flowering act
You follow a genetically
Determined path just like
A bumblebee races along
The curve of light
Enfolding the tip
Of the hibiscus bud
Next about to bloom

Sonnet No. Thirty-Two

If I just happen to be
Wearing a cardigan
Due to inclement weather
And there’s no message
Inscribed either in the top
Or bottom of the bottle
And I’m stuck in the middle
Of the universe trying
To clear my mind in preparation
For rhyming meter or blank verse
Though a paper cut may give rise
To a daub of blood upon my brow
As I prepare once more
To assume my forgetful state
Let the real world slip
A continent or two away
Though I remain incarnadine
In an inconsequential sort of way

From the Extension Chord series by Brad Melamed

In the Jungles of the Heart

for Sarah K

Via the hyperlink
You sent me yesterday
I saw this video clip
Of a captive lion
Who through the bars of his cage
Gave capacious embrace
To his indigenous savior

This being no mean trick
Accompanied by a typically
Incoherent news report
I imagined the back story
Of this noble beast
Enslaved by some Colombian drug lord
And then for reasons obscure
Perhaps as the federales
Pressed in was cut loose
To fend for himself
A monarch exiled
An ocean or two
Away from his
Original realm

Surely any king
Would likely starve
Finding himself thus deserted
And dethroned
If not for the apparition
Of a savior of last resort
Passing through the forest
In act of loving kindness
To the animal shelter brought
The starving lion and
To good health it restored

And to see the lion thus
Embrace its maiden savior
Is to know gratitude
Is not to humanity confined
But as with other feelings
Thus refined
They're equally shared
By us with animalkind
We have such likeness undeniable
Being all sisters and brothers
From the Pekinese tossed
Roughly to the curbside
To the raven proudly sporting
The tools she has made

And thus we all
Grieve over our
Respective Edens
And savannas lost
And dream of lifetime restored
To our full natural glory
Instead of living out
Until the end of days
Being everywhere confined
By this widening pall


If and when the day comes and
It's our turn to be struck
By hunger and despair
Whether in dark forest solitude
Or a cage of our own making
Much better that we remember
There's a Natural order
That overlays the statutes
By which we humans aspired
The entire world to enslave

And by standing upright
We all may better clasp the bars
That have kept us apart
Almost embracing
Each other
Skin to skin
Lions and humans
We're creatures akin
To each other beholden
And it’s the same love
That rules the jungle
Inside every beating heart

A Short Poem for William Blake

The deeper into the purple
Of the world that I get
The more I discover
Whether to better
Or pleasure yourself
First you must put
One skate forward
And then the other

Not always marked
By urban woe
These faces I see
When I’m pedaling so
Cousin Billy

That’s the way it is
Not everywhere
But more yes than no
Among the places I know
Deeper into the purple
Where I choose to go

Photo by Marissa Bridge

Sidewalk Sailing

Wing and wing
You and I
We’re sidewalk sailing

I’m the jib
And you’re the main
Or sometimes it seems
It might as well be
The other way around

Anyway it’s all the same

We catch the breeze
Running down wind and away
From the late afternoon sun

A water tower
Squat on the rooftop
Serves as constant reminder
Of our common destination
As we travel
One and together
From first to last date
As with hoops of steel
We are strongly bound

On the Heart Sutra

Suddenly it hit me
As they were fixing
My Mac and I was trying
To keep my hard drive
From spinning
Out of control

Like it says in
The Heart Sutra
No matter how well
Life suits you
Each product feature
Also contains
This indelible flaw

Parasamgaté

It’s emptiness
And nothing more
The raison d'être
Of every body
Even with the
Extended
Warranty
And all