Is this the past or the future calling?


December 30 2018
Inspired by a quote from the Mexican author Doménico Cieri Estrada

 

TIME

The wind hurried across the green,
leaves and blackbirds flecking the grey sky.
The aging vicar hunches his shoulders
against the chill, making his way
slowly towards the square where
a brood of old men gather
to play checkers and mind games
that trick even their own memories.
Children's laughter bounces
from the walls of the stone church,
quickly carried away
as if there were sun and sand
just around the corner.

Time is like the wind
it lifts the light
and leaves the heavy.


Kintsugi – the art of precious scars – is the Japanese practice of fixing broken pottery, lending not just new life but also refined meaning.

For N.

November 11 2018

 

Un-broken

You told me you were
broken inside
and could not heal
would never feel the way
lovers have dreamt
since the beginning of time.

I did not understand
and turned away ashamed
left to wonder how
it was possible the heart
I thought I knew
could be torn asunder.

The Japanese mend
broken treasures
with seams of gold
restoring the shards
to new splendor
through time and love.

The art of precious scars
seeks not to hide
but to tell the story
of the wounds that
leave their marks of beauty
only the privileged see.


September 8 2018

 

Daydreams

We lazed by the stream
your head on my lap
as I stared up through the pines
at the afternoon clouds
on their way to tomorrow.

Only the gulls cared
and so complained
to one another
and to no one else
who would listen.

The water cooled our dreams
quite sure they
had nowhere to go
but down, and down again
to drown at the edge of the sea.

Yet there was fire
not easily doused
by nature’s will;
we were still young
and I believed in miracles.


Agios Dimitrios Loumbardiaris (Saint Dimitrios "of the cannon") is a small chapel dedicated to St. Dimtrios, on one of the small obscure hills to the west of the Acropolis. It’s a short walk from Plaka, the old historical neighborhood in Athens. My first visit to Athens was in 1987.
Tyche [tahy-kee] is the Greek goddess of fortune, daughter of Aphrodite and Zeus.

August 15 2018

 

Agios Dimitrios

We met one morning
at a cafe in Plaka
Fortune’s mischief-making
had our coffees arrive at once
a ray of prismed sun
cutting across the narrow street
an excuse to nudge my wobbly table
a few precious inches towards hers.

She smiled
and I shivered as
the old stone walls released
the last of the night’s coolness
giving way to the rising urgency
of the Greek summer sun.
I was the timid visitor and
she Aphrodite’s daughter.

I followed her along
the broken footpath leading
through the brush of Nymph Hill
to her secret chapel
- Agios Dimitrios, she called it -
the heat settling on my lips
stinging my eyes
the dust of the ages
filling my nostrils with faint pine and cypress
smelling of millennia and of
my new friend Tyche.

We sat on chiseled rocks
at the front of the chapel
the city below obscured
by olive trees
scrappy thin weeds
and the incoming tide of
midday haze.

We kissed as gods might
at the end of a day’s work
tired and languid
yet full of promise
my damp-dirty hands
soiling her loose shirt as
I licked rivulets of sweat
that formed like tears
running down
the taut curves of her brown skin
tasting of Aegean Sea-wine.

And then she was gone
leaving me to drown
or to live
- no matter to her -
she wandered into my life
for just this moment
leaving me to choose
to descend unbroken
to the streets of Athens
or follow into the unexplored darkness
of her Agios Dimitrios.


The Kuroshio is a warm water current, flowing northeast from China past Japan where it merges with the Oyashio to become the North Pacific Current, eventually reaching the California coastline. The flow is reversed via the more southerly Equatorial Current, where it will eventually again feed the Kuroshio.

July 12 2018

 

The Kuroshio

Motionless, you stand
gazing through the void
that stretches beyond the horizon
to the mysteries of the East
where the tiger-red sun
has just settled
carrying your half-thoughts
to their likely deaths.

The Kuroshio’s warm waters
pause their endless journey
caressing your feet
tugging insistently
as they slide back to sea
whispering surf
seducing you with promises
of far-away pleasures.

Is it peril you seek
or salvation
or are these the same
to a weathered soul
bathed in old sorrows
longing to find the newness
that once nursed you with
the calming cadence of the tides.

Lost in your trance
your seafaring mind
wanders map-less
using dream-stars for guidance
desire the lifeblood and
faith the oxygen
giving flight to the far-sickness
that swells in your heart.


Often attributed to F Scott Fitzgerald, there's no evidence he ever wrote or said anything like this. But that doesn't matter; its message is pointedly clear.

I used each of the five points from the quote in this poem.

July 7 2018

 

She was beautiful

She was beautiful, in a way
you wouldn't notice
in fashion magazines,
painted cheekbones and molded breasts
just a sorcerer's artistry.

She was beautiful, for her mind,
restless and caffeinated, hot
from the friction of
unfinished sentences
destined for stillbirth on her lips.

She was beautiful, for the sparkle
in her eyes when
she chose to love me,
barely distinct from the ire
that flared quickly, faded slowly.

She was beautiful, for making others smile,
her trick of proximity a
kinetic energy, a smile
masking secret sorrows
in their shallow graves.

She was beautiful, for her soul,
ageless lady growing old,
time laps at her features
whispers fog to her thoughts
yet her spirit lives with the gods.


June 26 2018

 

Port Elgin

Wet sand castles with drunken moats
seagulls picking chips from vinegary paper funnels

Sea glass and broken shells edge the silvery driftwood
piles of seaweed cautioning the smell of rotting carcasses

A girl from the cottage next door
tan and blonde
I'd buy her an ice cream
or, on a Saturday night, cotton candy

Late, bagpipes fill the cooling breeze
making the sunset ache
as they call the end of something

running home


May 28 2018

 

Osaka

It might have been midnight as
we danced naked on the rooftop
the soft summer breeze
cooling the day's heat
from still-damp skin
while the lights of Osaka
stretching far to the sea
blushed their approval
at old lovers lost in time
embracing yesterday's sorrows
watching them fade
into the dark horizon.


March 14 2018

 

Ange de l'amour

Je te cherche
     (quand j'ai faim)
parmi les étoiles

danseuse espiègle
     (ange de l'amour)
tu tombes parfois

pour me rencontre
     (mortel terrestre)
dans les nuages où je rêve


February 19 2018

 

The flood

For one eternal instant
you let your primal core
part the rivers of your sorrows
damming your tears
with the awkward lusts of your youth
wading – tentatively,
then with abandon –
unfolding yourself
as you fell
lost for a moment
in the lifeblood
that once marked your essence.


February 16 2018

 

You went away

You went away
to that hidden place you sometimes go
taking our newness with you
leaving but a surf-tossed shell.

I think of the injured seagull at the cottage
as I nursed her back to flight
tossing her gently into the air
her wings taking her farther each time.

She trusted me, one eye at a time,
and I trusted her
even after that moment – the last, of course –
she was gone.

I had no way of knowing she wouldn’t return
and she no way to tell me
I guess that’s the way it is
when love weeps alone.

Now I listen for the echo of us
– Is that the past or the future? –
and I wait, and I trust
we can be new once more.