Category: Poetry

The 44th Turn

On By NW FilbertIn creative writing, Poetry, Reflections3 Comments

You ache.

You are older,

and beautiful,

in the way piles of gravel

surprise you

along the turnpike.

 

Those gathered around you

are increasingly less –

less in years, less in words,

and less in common –

saving the uncommon

tastes and thoughts and talents.

 

You still have books

and a dimming light

and more than enough love.

You eat, you drink, and make merry.

Some things you remember together,

almost

 

almost the necessary ones,

say a child, a lover, a poem.

There are gifts, a few –

those given you yourself

and to others –

“the allowance” –

 

allowing

care and celebration,

some sweet welcoming,

some join.

 

It’s alright,

she is here, beside you,

they are sleeping in their beds,

are scattered to the days,

are bleeding, are breathing

 

so much talk of labor

in our culture –

piles of effort

for finding peaceful paths,

to the country,

the cabin,

toward some freedom

to live.

 

We live.

Our days adding up

while counting down,

in strange measures –

now in years,

by the hours,

in moments.

Abracadabra Cliches

On By NW FilbertIn Poetry2 Comments

“The outcome belongs to nobody,

the approach, however,

depends entirely on us.”

-Edmond Jabes-

 

The temple always crumbles,

this is not a complication.

The birds arrive from here and there, departing.

A canvas is made from canvas

composed of canvas still beyond.

 .

I’m writing words

knowing they are fashioned without meaning

until read by you or me

or still something further in,

between,

 .

making all of us disciples

and messiahs

in our gleaning expeditions

with embodied repetitions

re-membering in minds…

 .

recapitulations with their novelty

of time and place and person(hood).

 .

And our present filled by abracadabra’d clichés:

yet let’s meet there – (here) –

with wonder and amazement

and a just amount

of what’s familiar…

 .

to you and I and all of us

in now.

Naming Influences: In Retrospect

On By NW FilbertIn Poetry8 Comments

Naming the Influence : In Retrospect

.

Things designed to grow

often get away from us

 .

One look at my yard

or my children

would evidence why

this might be of concern

to me

 .

disease and debt,

dust and doubt,

all maintain this quality;

 .

It’s not a bad thing really –

imagination, desire,

patience and hope

are also items that accrue

over time and with attention

 .

It’s the sort of thing one,

well, simply notices:

that desire and decay

operate on similar terms

 .

both of which catch us unaware.

 .

“They feed they lion”

it’s been said

and I know

what it means

(at least in part)

 .

what we emphasize

while naming our influence

is suspect at least –

 .

“side-swiped” we declaim,

“should have known”

or “could have seen coming”

of this, that and other

ever going, growing,

right along, alongside,

 .

perhaps unseen,

perhaps simply ignored

(and that prior to perception)

 .

all our –isms, habits, beliefs

in their cumulative gentle violence

 .

what our mouths spray

our lives belie

 .

in retrospect.

Ever-Unprepared

On By NW FilbertIn Poetry1 Comment

It’s said that “readiness is all,”

yet the readiness required

has no subject, and its object

can be anything

which portends – what – ?

we do not know

which is the point

and is beside it

 .

Turns out that knowing

neither how nor when nor what

nor where nor why

can still be useful –

ever-unprepared is our preparing

for all we cannot fathom

 .

getting used to

every there becoming here

drawn by perception

and a yes however secret

she arrives

and I, unready

.

open eyes

and take her in

with an open-handed

readiness,

is all,

and I receive

these many things I cannot fathom

 .

into this here

where I, bewildered

and ever-unprepared

and open-handed

 .

allow her to arrive

and arrive

and arrive

in waves of all

and getting ready

Summer Recapitulation

On By NW FilbertIn Current Reading, Language, Philosophy, Poetry, WritingLeave a comment

Given the nature of things… withdrawal from school… disregulation of schedule / child-rearing / presences… obligated projects, desired collaborations, attempts… preponderance of labor… decrepitude and erosion of house, car, body…

Herein lies a revised Summer Reading List – old and new and recapitulatory…

“FICTION”

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“POETRY”

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“OTHER”

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From the Notebooks… a poem perpetually in progress…

On By NW FilbertIn Journallings, Poetry, Writing3 Comments

Untitled (In Progress)

The poem linked above I pushed out last week… and marked it as “in progress” because for some reason it is one that the process of making, unmaking, forging and revising it (still feels “off” as published at above) has intrigued me.  Here are the pages of notebook from which it hails, perhaps this is of interest, perhaps not, for better or worse…

We are working on an exhibition of new media for June at Wichita’s Fisch Haus, and have been battling over how to show process and creation when exhibiting technologically enabled and activated art.  Perhaps that is why I’ve been more conscious of my own processes of making and revising.  In any case, here is a little trail through the notebooks as a piece is coming to be…

edited drafts

In Progress….

 .

I am thankful for this loosening quiet,

your slackening ties of dusk.

Though often shackled by a fear of loss

in love, I may open toward a growing –

 .

possibilities of a learning, as in youth,

less about the being something

than, profoundly, just to be…

that which relaxes and allows

 .

like a cow caught up in weather,

or warm engagements with a child,

with the blossom, and make-believe.

Empowered when our symbol’d systems –

 .

confused by what is happening –

begin to sign that loss

(a form of death) ensures the safety

of our risks.  That harm and haven

 .

are our home – the same as truth:

what’s loved is lost –

and thus we come to love.

Wisdom undoing opposites

 .

in terms of life.

I amt ridiculed by youth –

it’s how I know that many lessons

come unlearned,

 .

that “completeness is

a process of revision”

as they say,

and that our closures

 .

are what open

every day.

.

The above was an editing of the following…which is why it’s still “In Progress…”

child, the blossom, the make-believe

And

 .

And then I want to say

that I am thankful

for this loosening

 .

I want to say

And then I want to say

that I am grateful/thankful

in/for this loosening quiet

for its / and the slackening of ties

 .

perhaps we’d once been shackled by

the fear of loss in love

 .

leaving space for other and tenderness and availability,

freed of the shackling fear of loss

in love

not in the order of other pursuits

thus fencing a truth again

or forging some identity –

burned and brandished iron –

 .

but that we might allow

the finding, its discovery –

all the safeties that arrive with risk –

in all directions

whether in the child, the blossom, or the make-believe

 .

the will to love and to enjoy

our engagement

with world and things and persons

 .

unraveling the expectations

of hurt and damage

parenting ourselves to freedom

 .

the assurance we are looked after,

at least by ourselves,

as well the plenteous others –

our families, our species, our friends

 .

we will probably survive,

unless we do not

and then no matter

death was here from the start

 .

nor had it intention or opportunity

not to be

attachment and loss

and room for growth

 .

so we begin, so we will be

the template that stifles

symbolic structures

learned of experience

 .

in certain ways

 .

do not ask permission

but simply deceive

they are not truthful

 .

Look at your child,

your pet, your mother –

you would not have them

to be a certain thing

 .

an object, tool or concept

but to live and change and grow

until they die and thus dissolve

which is not damage so much

so much as change

 .

thus let it be,

it is quiet

the ties are slackened

the noose loosened

 .

around your heart.

we are here –

the squirrel, man and mountain,

every weather, part and parcel,

as are you

 .

It is begun

we are resolved

to open and allow

for your enjoyment

for your experience

should you engage

 .

and cease to fear

cease to fit to your equation

to whatever maths you assent and ascribe

and start to scribble

doodle, sketch

 .

to select potential

over priority

exception(al) over rule

dynamic in place of determined

 .

and friendship more than fact

 .

perhaps you were meant to be

over being

to selve more than self

 .

for “we were not meant to survive,

only to live.”

 .

*********************

 .

We thank you for the loosening quiet

We are the slackened ties of dusk

 .

I am grateful to this the loosening quiet,

the darkness and this its slackening of ties…

what is once was shackled by the fear of loss

in love, now opened may open toward a growing –

 .

possibilities – a learning, as in youth,

that it is much less about being something

as than it is, profoundly, just to be

that which relaxes and allows

 .

the squirrel (cow) caught up in weather,

our warm engagement with the child,

the blossom, or the make-believe,

empowered when our symbol’d systems

 .

can be get confused with awareness by what is happening,

and when we are able to see that loss,

a form of death, ensures the safety

of our risks.  That harm and heaven haven

 .

are the same – our home as truth

what’s loved is lost

and thus we get come to love.

Wisdom undoing opposites

 .

in the terms of life

I am get ridiculed by youth

it’s how I know that lessons

are get unlearned,

 .

that “completeness

is a process of revision”

as they say, and that a that our closures

opens every day.

 .

“TO SPEAK SO AS NOT TO MEAN, BUT TO BE”

-Dan Beachy-Quick-

 

 

 

 

Waking the Invisible…with Jack Gilbert

On By NW FilbertIn Current Reading, Poetry3 Comments

Waking at Night

The blue river is gray at morning

and evening.  There is twilight

at dawn and dusk.  I lie in the dark

wondering if this quiet in me now

is a beginning or an end.

.

Cherishing What Isn’t

Ah, you three women whom I have loved in this

long life, along with the few others.

And the four I may have loved, or stopped short

of loving.  I wander through these woods

making songs of you.  Some of regret, some

of longing, and a terrible one of death.

I carry the privacy of your bodies

and hearts in me.  The shameful ardor

and the shameless intimacy, the secret kinds

of happiness and the walled-up childhoods.

I carol loudly of you among trees emptied

of winter and rejoice quietly in summer.

A score of women if you count love both large

and small, real ones that were brief

and those that lasted.  Gentle love and some

almost like an animal with its prey.

What is left is what’s alive in me.  The failing

of your beauty and its remaining.

You are like countries in which my love

took place.  Like a bell in the trees

that makes your music in each wind that moves.

A music composed of what you have forgotten.

That will end with my ending.

.

Suddenly Adult

The train’s stopping wakes me.

Weeds in the gully are white

with the year’s first snow.

A lighted train goes

slowly past absolutely empty.

Also going to Fukuoka.

I feel around in myself

to see if I mind.  Maybe

I am lonely.  It is hard

to know.  It could be

hidden in familiarity.

.

To Know the Invisible

The Americans tried and tried to see

the invisible Indians in the deeper jungle

of Brazil.  They waited for months,

maybe for years.  Until a knife and a pot

disappeared.  They put out other things

and some of those vanished.  Then one morning

there was a jungle offering sitting on the ground.

Gradually they began to know the invisible

by the jungle’s choices.  Even when nothing

replaced the gifts, it was a kind of seeing.

Like the woman you camp outside of, at the five portals.

Attending the conduits that tunnel from the apparatus

down to the capital of her.  Through the body

and its weather, to the mind and heart, to the spirit

beyond.  To the mystery.  And gradually to the ghosts

coming and leaving.  To the difference between

the nightingale and the Japanese nightingale

which is not a nightingale.  Getting lost in the treachery

of language, waylaid by the rain dancing its pavane

in the bruised light of winter afternoons.

By the flesh, luminous and transparent in the silent

clearing of her.  Love as two spirits flickering

at the edge of meeting.  An apartment on the third

floor without an elevator, white walls and almost

no furniture.  Water seen through pine trees.

Love like the smell of basil.  Richness beyond

anyone’s ability to cope with.  The way love is after fifty.

– Jack Gilbert, The Dance Most of All

Jack Gilbert

 

To live, deeply

On By NW FilbertIn Current Reading, Poetry, Traces, Writing1 Comment

British Museum mummy

There was earth inside them, and

They dug.

– Paul Celan

 

On Rage, a poem

On By NW FilbertIn Poetry6 Comments

Rage

 

Rage

“            …that dog

barking at nothing

because every time he’s barked at nothing,

nothing’s gone wrong and why not keep it that way?”

– Bob Hicok, “One of those things we say…”

 

Blaze searing eye-corner

fierce rupture

a hazard of blades

 

we two, entangled –

emotion dug deep and flung far –

architectonic

 

like the causes of weather

complexity systems

large beyond measure

 

on any scale

insinuated within

spaces we intimately share

 

archaic wounds – a butterfly’s wing –

tempest stress to tumultuous effect

(deep dug, far flung)

 

we two, engangled

emotive amygdalas in action

safe love, a hazard of blades

 

Found Autobiography

On By NW FilbertIn Current Reading, Poetry5 Comments

autobiography

 

A country mapped with invisible ink

– Bob Hicok

Like we are the hole that grows in poor, unmendable

nothing: we blind needles: we unmoored threads:

like feeling I’m the enaction of a waterfall by my tongue

.

upon your body, as when a boat is brought to the edge

of exile and a hand extends to a hand or a tree

beseeches with its shadeshawl: however born,

.

there is reaching, we agree the wind smelled of copper

one day, a passport the next: like how to escape

my brain’s slum of words, the ghetto of the said,

.

while adoring there the rocks, the teacups,

if half of me is a Molotov cocktail and half

the inflection of loss and half a genuflection

.

to breath: like wondering if this extra half

is a country mapped with invisible ink:

like how windows ask to come along with the going

.

and preside over the staying, and I look at them

with all the love, all the shatter I can muster:

shards cutting me when I try to put the sky,

.

the distance back together: boredom cutting me

deeper when I don’t: like searching for a man

in a burning house and finding a piano as echo flees:

.

a whetstone still warm from the blade: sheets pressed

with brainfolds of sleep: a whisper from the bathroom

of running water: but no body: and I carry

.

these things to safety that are not the man: the piano

in my arms, running water in my mouth, the vespers

of sleep, the knife, so like a wing, like flight:

.

and say of him, that was me, to the ashes, the char:

and sift the memory of flames for their sorrow,

holding smoke to the mirror interested only

.

in solid dreams: like it will finally see

what isn’t there and give it my face, this presence

of absence I have tried and tried not to be

**********

“almost as if I’m making her and this poem and my past

up as I go, to help me feel nothing

.

goes to waste, not even waste.”

-also Bob Hicok

Nathan Portrait