The mourning is
about it never being
the way I needed
it to be.

My life itself a
disturbance of mourning

Stands in my life. Before me. The
dead girl under the bed
her skin transparent as mine

disappears. I come out
and there is no mother. Sometimes
she appears and there is no telling what
attracts her warmth. Approaches and departs.
Becomes desire,
the loot of her mourning.

Empty womb pillow. I am not
enrapt. Its’ tufts flap my fringe.
Behind me, at my sides
stands mourning.

I have only to be busy with your burial.
Sharpening flint to a pillar
pile to a mound
and turn from it.

It is gone
forever.
And I am.

By Noa Vardi, M. D.

Every year
the lilies
are so perfect
I can hardly believe

their lapped light crowding
the black,
mid-summer ponds.
Nobody could count all of them -

the muskrats swimming
among the pads and the grasses
can reach out
their muscular arms and touch

only so many, they are that
rife and wild.
But what in this world
is perfect?

I bend closer and see
how this one is clearly lopsided -
and that one wears an orange blight -
and this one is a glossy cheek

half nibbled away -
and that one is a slumped purse
full of its own
unstoppable decay.

Still, what I want in my life
is to be willing
to be dazzled -
to cast aside the weight of facts
and maybe even
to float a little
above this difficult world.
I want to believe I am looking

into the white fire of a great mystery.
I want to believe that the imperfections are nothing -
that the light is everything - that it is more than the sum
of each flawed blossom rising and fading.  And I do.

There is no space wider than that of grief
there is no universe like that which bleeds.

from Extravagaria

The way the trees empty themselves of leaves,
let drop their ponderous fruit,
the way the turtle abandons the sun-warmed log,
the way even the late-blooming aster
succumbs to the power of frost -

this is not a new story.
Still, on this morning, the hollowness
of the season startles, filling
the rooms of your house, filling the world
with impossible light, improbable hope.

And so, what else can you do
but let yourself be broken
and emptied? What else is there
but waiting in the autumn sun?

Carolyn Locke, from Poetry of Presence An Anthology of Mindfulness Poems

Eternal consciousness
in the Void
(makes trial & jail seem almost
friendly)

a Kiss in the Storm

(Madman at the wheel
gun at the neck
space populous & arching
coolly)

A barn
a cabin attic

Your own face
stationary
in the mirrored window

fear of restroom’s
Tragic cold
neon

I’m freezing

animals
dead

white wings of
rabbits

grey velvet deer

The Canyon

The car a craft
in wretched
SPACE

Sudden movements

& your past
to warm you
in Spiritless
Night

The Lonely HWY
Cold hiker

Afraid of Wolves
& his own
Shadow
~~~

The Wolf,
who lives under the rock
has invited me
to drink of his cool
Water.
Not to splash or bathe
But leave the sun
& know the dead desert
night
& the cold men
who play there.
~~~

a ha
Come on, now
luring the Traveller
Mighty Voyager
Curious, into its dark womb
The graves grinning
Indians of night
The eyes of night
Westward luring
into the brothel, into the blood bath
into the Dream
The dark Dream of conquest
& Voyage
into night, Westward into Night

The moment when, after many years
of hard work and a long voyage
you stand in the centre of your room,
house, half-acre, square mile, island, country,
knowing at last how you got there,
and say, I own this,

is the same moment when the trees unloose
their soft arms from around you,
the birds take back their language,
the cliffs fissure and collapse,
the air moves back from you like a wave
and you can't breathe.

No, they whisper. You own nothing.
You were a visitor, time after time
climbing the hill, planting the flag, proclaiming.
We never belonged to you.
You never found us.
It was always the other way round.

from Poetry of Presence An Anthology of Mindfulness Poems

<>

“I hear bravuras of birds, bustle of growing wheat,
gossip of flames, clack of sticks cooking my meals,
I hear the sound I love, the sound of the human voice,
I hear all sounds running together, combined, fused or following,
Sounds of the city and sounds out of the city, sounds of the
day and night”

Song of Myself (1892 version) by  WALT WHITMAN

                                                   §§§

Irony great, some say unto delicious, for my writing,
be a fusing of surroundings of silences, admixture of
inconsequential noises, atomic horn and geese honking,
sun rays speaking in tongues, my skin translating, both,
the sounds of the city, those of out of city, merged, both,
accessible, instant recall, stored for tongue tasing upon

these blank pages below, needy for wordy fulfillment,
copy and place these mishmash of cacophonous,
on a single page, simmer, blend and sauce, of course,
salt to taste, mine, author of this recipe being born,
born in the night, prepped by day, the lovely sounds,
kettle or pan, broiler, fryer, slow cooked on full flame

they are the melted butter sweetness crossing the span
between the body of the heartbeat, the ache of the brain,
shot out in rapidity, error’d and stain’d, their state natural,
for this mess of beans, collection of noises, stir my soul
where they contain’d, aromatic, fanatic, exotic, sticky hot,
only a singular harsh invades, the shrill of the voice human

this piece, this poem, a flavoring, a dish-not-to-be-repeated,
once consumed, spoiled milk, molded with Jello mold green,
back to hiding in place of unseen, of bravura masked as cowardice,
when crackle of easy wasted word cowards, daily spewed,
so precious these ingredients, these artful sounds, easy ruined,
chitchats of nothingness, parlous blasé wastrels, seize! cease!

take thy tongue, let it memorize all the oddities that fill your ears,
ecrivez! the cooing, smacking, the alliteration of snap, crackle, and
yes, pop! and if you can love the human voice, of that too, tho not me,
more beloved, the exterior symphony of kettle drum, soft cry of violin,
timpani tingling, guitar plucking, the voice of men, too oft abusing and abused by untruths, emboldened lies, they are the sounds
I love least, love to hate.  a shrill disease, the TV liars...

                                                     §§§§§



May
Manhattan Island