Original image by Andrew Mercer via Wikimedia Commons. Modified by W. Stubblefield.
Dreams fly free, Embracing phantom lovers, Absent friends, lost In a rubble of memory, Inhabiting imagined worlds— A body forms from thought: Choirs of humming synapses Enfleshed and wandering. A dream is a physical thing.
I dreamed I was on The soft edge of sleep, Dark, warm, adrift. A small, frightened thing Fluttered onto my lap. I held an injured bat, As soft as a kitten, As ravening as night, Felled by a broken wing. A dream is a physical thing.
I held her close, a gift To protect. Animal Wisdom guided my hand Across dark fur, onto The wing’s trembling leather To touch her injury. She bit my hand; I felt her fear As I felt her sting. A dream is a physical thing.
She vanished. I awoke, Got out of bed, Showered, dressed, and ate. Without thinking, I massaged The back of my hand, Soothing a forgotten injury, A non-material wound In nerve remaining. A dream is a physical thing.
Shards of memory litter my mind, Adolescent complaints and ancient regrets, Hopes and disappointments left behind Like yellowed notes of uncollected debts.
Useless fictions, dreams, desires, lies, The masks I wore for work, success, protection, Love’s nakedness—a lonely man’s disguise. Longing becomes a habit, desire a reflection
In clouded eyes. But from the rubble, a man Patient and true emerges to close my years, Mind clear to comprehend, discover, plan, Create, compose—old age brings little to fear.
I will not crawl into darkness, a dying beast. Let my soul escape—at last, released.
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James Cobb, the drummer on Kind of Blue with the Miles Davis Sextet Died last year. I bought the album When I was twelve years old, Browsing in a record store, new to jazz, Intimidated by the endless rows of records Until an older stranger (he must have been all of twenty) Reached into the confusion without hesitation, Without searching, and withdrew an album, A hipster magician conjuring a bright talisman From the chaos. “You’ll like this,” he said As he placed it in my hands.
I remember the opening of the first song, “So What,” How James Cobb’s cymbal crash at the start of Miles’ solo Seemed to vibrate forever, resonance of creation Tearing a passage through the walls of childhood Into a world of mystery, desire, and creativity.
That was a long time ago, But I remember that day, Just as I remember how Learning of his death Left me feeling Irrevocably diminished.
I have those feelings often now, As if my life is steadily contracting.
It contracts with each death Of a man or woman whose music Nourished me, with the deaths of poets Whose words shaped me, of artists who Taught me to see, of lovers who Understood needs older than thought.
My life contracts with the absence Of people I’ve known, Parents and teachers, Friends and colleagues lost To death or neglect. It contracts with health’s decline, With legs that can no longer carry me Through the foothills I once walked. It contracts with time wasted In doctors’ waiting rooms.
But as life contracts, it also Surges forward, like a river Accelerating between a gorge’s Narrowing walls, passions Intensified by age, breathtaking Rapids, currents of longing For poems and stories I have yet to write, for songs Struggling to escape My limits as a musician, For discovery, for experience, Currents of love for those still Near me.
All these sustain me, As if the stranger’s gift had finally Revealed its deeper purpose.
As I pass through time’s funnel, The turbulence tears away years of pretense, Of regret, of self-doubt. It tears away the false, the valueless, The twin prisons of culture and desire, Until what remains flows Unhindered through a final closure, Into a cymbal’s incandescent shimmer.
I wrote this poem some time ago, when I was first married and working to complete my doctoral dissertation. Isis was a lovely cat who, along with my wife, endured the throes of my dissertation. I wrote this elegy on her passing. I had published it on an earlier version of my website, and thought it worth migrating to my new site.
Elegy: For Isis
When I married my wife,
you had already lived with her
ten years. That is how we remained:
The old, orange and white cat,
and the new man in the house.
My wife loves cats; I like them
well enough. But when you growled
and clawed her favored Persian,
a pampered, aging bimbo,
I liked you quite a lot.
You and I, we formed
an understanding:
I became your companion
of second choice, and you
my favorite distraction. Continue reading →
The day Donald Trump began his campaign For the presidency, a few in congress (Mainly presidential candidates), Called out his cruelty, corruption, Incompetence, racism, and lies. But after He won a freak victory, they cowed and quickly Joined the other cowards in the party, and Republicans in Congress did nothing.
When he refused to release his tax returns, Exploiting technicalities like a crime boss (Can he take the fifth on tax returns?), Republicans in Congress did nothing.
When he mocked the handicapped, and drove His rally crowds to frenzy with a wink and smile Beckoning racists, anti-Semites, Sexists, gay-bashers, xenophobes, And other inhabitants of the darkness in our society Now freed from the bounds of shame and public decency, When he insulted his political foes with vulgar Names and called the press the people’s enemy, Republicans in Congress did nothing. Continue reading →
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