Flowers in Interlaken
How delicious it is to wake up in a place where no one, no one in the world, guesses where you are. Rilke He takes time mounting the stairs. The years are heavy in his lungs. Peaking out of his small backpack, a bunch of three yellow roses, a gift for the woman he’s summiting. Over the last week, many middle aged and old men have rung our bell, asked for ‘Jason’, looked lost, mis- reading our confusion as confession. Then sigh with relief and head up. We joked about it being a brothel, not the home of an ‘American family’, as our holiday rental landlord told us. No American voices, just shuffling at night. Today unmistakably squeaky percussion. No joke anymore. Disgust mingled with awe that you could be so old and still desire minutes of conquest. Perhaps he goes there for the company, gives roses, talk lovingly of a dead wife. Time Traveller in Sion For the creative artist, there is no impoverishment and no worthless place. Rilke Outside the Grand Cafe in Sion he rests, a Victorian artist from a Vallais art school, just up - afternoon coffee and custard pastry crumbs in his jaundiced beard, scattering down into his pyjamas, greying slippers. Dressed in questions, he has pan-pipes strung around his neck, and a Peruvian woven bag from which he fishes a notebook and pen to write or sketch in a shaking veined hand. He debates with himself, waves his hands at invisible members of his retinue, mumbles. Suddenly summoned by Rilke’s angels, he gets up and leaves, stumbling back into the artwork he was trying to create out of his shadows. Not Forgotten Find perfect tiny blue alpine flowers forget-me-nots, Wald-Vergissmeinnicht I am reminded of being a little boy when flowers were everything beautiful and right about the world. We collected them, made chains, pressed and painted them. Plato would be smiling. But not the German knight who, wanting to pick the blue winks for his lady, falls into a river, drowned by the weight of affection, ‘Vergiss mein nicht!’ Forget me not! Remember, yes, but no loss can be recovered in flowers, however wished. Writer's Block at Murren Most experiences are unsayable; they come to fullness in a realm that words do not inhabit. Rilke. Words fail me. No, I fail words. Empty dictionary. All synonyms are cliches. Every time I pick an adjective to describe the mountains as they rise thousands of metres above the unparalleled U-shape valley of Lauterbrunnen my dumb pen is left sterile. I am not the poet, the mountains are. Monch, Eiger, Jungfrau - your names are words enough. No stanza here can capture this vista of monumental stone and glaciers, pristine alpine meadows, tiny towns perched at drunken angles. I keep following the line of the cliffs, plunging down with the waterfalls, and all I can is fall and accept the inadequacy of flesh and ink. Published in Ginosko Literary Journal, #28, June 2022.
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The Tree Swallows Return
I awaken from the nucleus of meditation and find the space filled with electrons, fired up in flight, defined in moments of white, that scoop and slide and slip through all levels of being down the river’s potential. That night, through a valley in the tops of the pine trees, they wink past in wrinkles under the waxing eye of the moon. The next day, the air clots with eddying particles rejoicing the return to the river. They pirouette sharper than waves, faster than currents. They are both feather and water until observed. They rise up like a ballerina's circling hands. The Zen of a Garden Sprinkler I saw my doppelganger walking down a flight of steps and suddenly cry out as ten foot high sprinklers blasted the bank, soaking one entire side of his body. In the cold April morning, sun yawning over the Cascades, I expected shouts and curses. instead, he shook his head, laughed, thanked the spray for teaching humility, how to find a rainbow in rain. Published in the spring/summer 2022 edition of The Oregon English Journal. Calculating The Cost
I want to say to the student stressing about the next math test, worrying her score with never reflect her best, the trauma adding up, she fears the rest, that stupid tests are not the real math. It's just the system of keeping account, creating a product that can have skill enough to add up spending amounts. Math is a bee's hexagon honeycomb, the minutes since you last saw your love the distance the sun's hopes to roam, the fractal divisions of the trees above, the sum of all our warming actions, the urgent need of healing subtractions. Cape Lookout We look but don't see any whales. Instead we see the Pacific as an upturned offering bowl from the heavens. Comets current white lines that pass close to the yellow start of infinity. Dark matter pools in random places, the invisible energy of tug and tear. Pelicans shoot through the net of blue, constellations of action and hunger. Islands eject from the coast like still comets, the sandy tail trailing south. Tree sparrows star the cliff top with their pointed wings. We look but don't see any whales. Cheated Outside a Safeway, Starbucks in hand wondering if there exists places devoid of the poetic. Car park tarmac. Gloomy January evening. Almost evidence only there is an irregular puddle of water into which falls tampering rain drops as if it was its own private cloud. Published in June 2022 by Shot Glass Journal |
Poetry Biography:I have had over 70 poems published in the following worldwide magazines and literary journals: A Handful of Stones, Acta Victoriana (Canada), All the Sins (UK), The Amethyst Review (USA), Amsterdam Quarterly (NL) The Blue Nib (Ireland), Bolts of Silk, Borderless Journal, The Brasilia Review (Brazil), Bushfire Literature & Arts Review (US), Cadenza, Cake Magazine, Carillon, Cha: An Asian Literary Journal (Hong Kong), DASH (USA), Clackamas Literary Review (USA), Cooch Behar Anthology, Dawntreader, Dreamcatcher, The Dillydoun Review, Earth Love, The Ear (US), Eastlit (East Asia), Erbacce, Envoi, Finger Dance Festival, Ginosko, Gloom Cupboard, Hidden Channel, Inlandia Journal, IS&T (Ink, Sweat & Tears), Into the Void (Canada), The Journal, The Lakeview Journal (India), Lothlorien Poetry Journal, Lunch Ticket (USA) The New Writer, One Hand Clapping, Orbis, Oregon English Journal (USA), The Passage Between, Prole, Sentinel Literary Quarterly, Sonic Boom (India), Third Wednesday (USA), Of Nepalese Clay (Nepal), New Contrast (South Africa), One Hand Clapping, Opportunity Publishing, The Oregon English Journal (USA) Origami Poems Project (USA), The Paddock Review (USA), Panoplyzine (USA), Paper Swan Press, The Passage Between, The Peacock Journal (USA), Pens on Fire, Poetry Salzburg (Austria), Potomac Review, (USA) Prole, Pulsar Poetry, Rear View Poetry, Queen Mob's Teahouse, Qutub Minar Review (India), Red Ink, Shiela-Na-Gig (USA), South Bank Poetry Magazine, Stand, Waterford Teachers Centre, (Ireland) We Are a Website New Literary Journal (Singapore), Weber - The Contemporary West Review (USA), Windfall (USA), Writing Magazine, Words for the Wild and Verbal Art (India). Archives
March 2024
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