It’s not often you learn
a new word after a certain time,
but I’m finding there’s always
room to learn
Even after teaching for years,
even after taking various
degrees, even after reading
and reading more,
The mouth can still form a new
word, the mind can still shape
a new concept.
A single jade leaf can make a new plant,
transforming the soil, light and water
into new roots, stems and leaves.
I’ve seen it so many times before
yet I still marvel at a single leaf,
commonplace, splendid, wise,
only plants grow silently.
Yes, as everyone knows, mediation
and water are wedded forever.
-Herman Melville.
Come, you soft-shelled poets filled with sea-water.
Come and leak your speech on thirsty beaches!
Come and christen this hour the necessary source.
Come and sing the ocean’s primal power.
Come and listen to the seas—the rivers—the lakes.
Come and bring tribute to the tributary.
Yes, come and find your calling; your true vocation:
The marriage of mind to cherished hydration.
The vines are so spent
nearly devoid of fruit,
a few bunches hang on
only to be plucked later,
late harvest is sweeter
more prized for enduring,
the skies grey chill
tule fog rushes in,
cold silence then storms
that promise new birth.
Mother, the poetry that I write today is a whistling blowing song,
discovered in the wind that ruffles my surroundings. Yet it was at
your behest that I recited verse moved by music and the sonority of words. I did not possess stage fright as I recited poems written by others.
Yet today poetry has a special making, a deeply troubled voice as I
reach arcane depths to discover voices, my voice: protest, anger,
sadness like a gladiator sparring. Yes, Mother, poetry is what you took me to, adventurous, when I was just five. And, today at fifty nine, poetry stirs the everyday nuance of my soul. Not water tight, but a deep breath, disabling stoic beliefs.
Spectres and spectacles of wild wants
ironclad links
and oral history of oral histories
counterintuitive improprieties
in the halo of time
art machines of a clandestine flow
very intact
heart full of napalm
at the dawn of a sizzling moan.
More at https://twitter.com/rusdaboss.
Dog howling, head pointed
towards the stark moon,
what is there in the moon
that makes it bark,
raucous anger and then petering into a whine, abysmally low,
everything is quiet,
as the silence is punctuated by the howls
the moon climbs up fearing this creature
the dog curls to sleep,
dreams. I shut the door
of my childhood, and the howl continues late into
the night. The winds of March and April lash the window panes.
Everything merges suddenly into litany of silence.
I heard your
warble voice come through
clearly on Sunday
not just when we telephoned
but in my own voice
calling back to you
echoes of one another.
Bold man and bold news
take out the trash
watch the sky for wind
water the tomatoes.
Heat rises into the apartment
I keep busy on the computer.
Long loves rinse clear in years
my hands older than my face.
Break out the pitcher plant face
to catch flies
and liars
practice gritting your teeth.
Whatever war is coming is inside
more than any gun
I fear who I’ll become
in summer.
More at http://www.robindunn.com.
Find in me
the soiled and sustained
history you
have been searching for.
See in me
the trembling hands
holding hope
at the feet of
a new land’s monument.