For our dearfriends of Ft. Myers Beach: Warren and Carol,

Helen and George,

Michael and Rebecca,

Rudiger and Maria and for Leroy and Linda www.shearsman.com

shearsman@macunlimited.net

Distributed for Shearsman Books in the U.S.A. by Small Press Distribution, 1341 Seventh Avenue, Berkeley, CA 94710 Email: orders@spdbooks.org Website: http://www.spdbooks.org

ISBN 978-1-84861-100-9 (Shearsman Books, UK)

ISBN 978-3-501-01649-7 (St.-Johannis-Druckerei, Germany)

Copyright January 2010

The right of David Jaffin to be identified as the author of his work has been asserted by him in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act of 1988.

All rights reserved.

Title picture:

Painting by Charles Seliger (b. 1926)

“Caravan” (detail), 2003, acrylic on Masonite,

14 3/H” x 15 72”, signed

Credit Line: Courtesy of Michael Rosenfeld Gallery, LLC, New York, NY

Gesamtherstellung:

St.-Johannis-Druckerei C. Schweickhardt GmbH, Lahr/Schwarzwald

Printed in Germany 37350/2009

Contents

q) Etching out

37

r) Touristic shirts

37

s) Chicken

38

t) Rock-sourced

38

u) Toplitz Corge

39

v) On the way

39

w) Soft sand

40

x) Remembrance

40

y) Up to the caves

41

z) When

41

aa) This island’s interior

42

bb) Chappeled

42

cc) The Roman emperors

43

dd) Gorty's ee) Faistos'

43

44

ff) Faistos'

44

gg) Discus

44

hh) Stella

45

ii) Caves at Matalla

46

jj) Colored stones

46

kk) Half-crippled

47

11) Dried-out

47

mm) Sun-hungried

48

nn) Phrasings

48

oo) Lonesome

49

pp) At dusk

49

qq) Adrift

50

rr) The wanderingjew

50

ss) No cause lift

51

tt) A colorless flag

51

uu) As the winds

51

w) Emvloping

52

ww) Argos-eyed

52

xx) Ash

53

yy) Voicelessly exposing

53

zz) Luther got it wrong

54

aaa) That snail

54

bbb) When the words

55

ccc) “Sentimentaljourney ”

55

ddd) Pidgeon-holed

56

eee) Too much

56

(ff) Child-eyed

57

Economic crises ’08

57

To be trusted

58

When the fogs

58

Hommage a Chirico

59

These October

59

In living truth

60

Awakenings

60

Apples

61

For knowing why

61

Childless women

62

Aface

62

The white

63

A lone fisher

63

What’s said

63

These mild

64

The late Corot

64

Rosemarie’s

65

Talking to one’s puppet

65

Blood stains

66

5

Those failed moments Ghostly envisioned The antagonist The final answer That hidden voice Is evil Freed

No turning back Time’s up “No words for it”

As those old men Euripides Autumn’s left The choice

“Nothing left to be said”

“The end of the line”

For Rosemarie The aftermath Answering Cclan Poems from Aue

a)    The night through

b)    Cooling phrases

c)    Aue

d)    Sight-taken

e)    These stones

f)    Rembrandt's Saskia

g)    This room’s becoming

h)    Obscured

i)    After

j)    The apples

k)    The smoke

L)    Hommage d Hopper Portrait of Hedwig Berend in a pink morning gown

Self portrait with fur coat and hat

Darkness

Rained out

Quasthoff s bodiless voice

The turtle

Testament

After Auschwitz/Israel Crete

When you’re slow In the God

Poems from Crete '08

a)    Clouds

b)    Tamed

c)    These waves

d)    This dead sea

e)    Lifelessly imitating

j) Bearing witness

g)    The origins

h)    Riders on the beach

i)    Culture shock

j)    The life guard

k)    A Jew

L)    Mountain divide

m)    In silent resolte

n)    Colored stones

o)    Left cruelly behind

p)    Swinging

The way we do it

66

Don’t look

67

Pre-pocmed

67

Fading out

67

Hand-enclosing

68

Self-entrancing

68

The voice

69

Shamed

69

Precision’s

69

Pumpkin-time

70

The remains

70

Those voiceless

71

The burial preacher For Rosemarie’s

71

71

He dreamed

72

Your ring

72

Mild autumn days

72

Holding on

73

Can

73

When he died

74

Feared

74

Wild strawberries

75

Closer in

75

"Forgotten”

75

A flat Sonata

76

Slightly touched

76

Sound-awakenings

Grethchen’s

77

77

Who’ve known it all

78

Ever-so-slightly

78

The dark voice

79

Gudrun

79

Her house

80

Revealing loss

80

Seen before

81

Moods

81

The swings

81

Late autumn nights

82

Dreamed

82

Heard

83

In the train

83

Poems from Alsfeld

84

a) Early Saturday morning

84

b) They mount

84

c) Dead-growth

85

d) Faith streets

85

e) Empty-street feeling

86

J) Wind-vacancies

86

g) City of darkness

87

h) Lost imaginings

87

Spirits

88

Young Russian Jews

88

Wind-sourced

89

Those dark voices

89

Listening

90

Not quite right

90

A no-getting-away from

91

That never came through

91

Full meaning

92

Only in

92

This room’s

93

Piano Concerto no. 4

93

La Chasse

94

Mozart in a minor key

94

First

95

Shore-bound

95

The Black Forest

186

This dry

187

So soiled deep

187

This winter

188

The day

188

1 )ead-down

189

For Rosemarie

189

Ode a Keats

190

Somalia’s

190

A quiet voice

191

Ingrown

191

A Jewess

192

To start again

192

Her complaint

193

Too good

193

Brahms

194

Pre-voiced

194

A sculpture

195

Simply there

195

Our favorite teacher

196

So right

196

Indecipherablv there

197

Fallen snow’s

197

That room

197

Confessed

198

To the where

198

Fading image

199

A signet ring

199

If death was

200

Viktor Frankl

200

If

201

Those who didn't hear

202

Light-beam

202

Of waiting-silence

203

From marriage therapy

203

a) He

203

b) Self-pity's

204

c) Imaged

204

d) Outjdthomed

205

e) Empathy's

205

f) Forgiveness

206

g) In becoming

206

No escape

207

On Donne’s Holy Sonnets

208

The deepest

208

Release

209

Tommy

210

Stone-shadowings

210

A silent

211

In-resonance

212

Ancient instruments

212

The where of

213

No where’s now

213

Unharboured

214

Whispered alive

214

In sense-from-sclf

215

Before Genesis

215

The Baal’s

216

For Rosemarie

216

See-saw

217

Readings

217

Why he left

218

5 % credit

218

Taken in

219

The chronic

219

In print

220

Tiny birds

250

Unremembered

277

Of formed presence

251

Bi

278

Cleansed

251

Pelicans

278

Flowered

251

Ice cream

278

Titled

252

Restlessly

279

January ’09

252

Unrevealing

279

E C. '

253

To remind

280

Mourning

253

Left-bchind

280

New York’s

254

Having been there

281

Close-downed

254

L’appel

281

The Ferris Wheel

255

Low-keyed

282

Uncaged

255

The more of

282

4 American masterpieces

256

Failed

283

a) Peach blossoms

256

Too close to himself

283

b) Under a Cloud

256

Stingray’s

284

c) Prom the Williamsburg Bridge

256

Roll-scalled

284

d) Lighthouse

257

Tense

285

Up for show

257

When to stop

285

The blind

257

The wandering star

285

Low Tide

258

The train’s

286

For Rosemarie

258

Backwater

286

Unsaid

258

Eyes

286

Seadown

259

Life-span

287

Little-girl-look

259

1 Peter 3:18-12

287

A stilled

260

Prisoner

288

A 2nd chance

260

Overheard

288

Free-flowing

261

Sundown

289

Mistaken identity

261

From waking back

289

Circe

261

Old Man and the Sea

290

The fan

262

a) Do we “kill

290

Sand-sifting

262

b) Was that

290

Origins

263

c) Sharks

291

The pelican

263

d) Was it

291

A prison

263

Time sharing

292

His older

264

Corridor’

292

Little boy

264

Transforming

293

Known

265

The golden age

293

Seeing eye

265

At sunset

294

Moved

265

At night

294

Heavy

266

His prayer

295

Inswelling

266

Only then

295

Hard-of-reading

266

Little Sammy

296

Two songs of my youth

267

Some

296

a) September song

267

Cain

297

b) I’m as restless

267

That bridge

297

At my age

268

Surprised

298

This night

268

Toddler

298

Bottomed out

269

Our Town

299

Star-down

269

a) They didn 't

299

Shaded in

270

b) Thorton Wilder

299

Facades of houses

270

The seagull

3(H)

Guardi’s Venice

271

Bodied

300

Pconese

271

A vacancy

301

Lessens

272

Mothered

301

The lizard

272

Pink

302

Soft wave

273

The shadow

302

Shadows

273

Backwater

303

Gambling ship

273

Doppelganger

303

To make known

274

The walls

304

A mind for money

274

The soprano's

304

At the other side

275

A bouquet

304

Outfindings

275

Do the dead

305

Of ages gone

276

Hearing through

305

Being watched

276

If

306

For Rosemarie

277

Tolstoy

306

At face value

277

Sentinels

307

Thinking back’s

307

Parole

337

307

Witches

338

308

For Helmut

338

308

He accorded

339

309

Overshadowed

339

309

Sistine Madonna

340

310

Griinewald Crucifixion

341

310

Whiteness (2)

341

310

a) The swam

341

311

h) The storks

342

311

The train

342

312

Hard choices

343

312

Voice-receding

343

313

At 60

344

313

For Rosemarie

344

314

Palm

345

314

Poker

345

315

Approaching

345

315

Flushed

346

316

"Not yourself’

346

316

Forebodings

347

317

A white ship

347

317

Cold spell

347

318

Waiting

348

318

Self-protective

348

318

That walk

349

319

Next door neighbor

349

319

A weakness

350

319

Why-

350

320

Time

351

320

The plumage of

351

320

A quiet part

352

321

History

352

321

Of lost membrance

353

322

Southern days

353

322

Parachute

354

323

Pull of

354

323

The older

354

324

A black snake

355

324

Of silent renewal

355

325

A spider

356

325

The bridge

356

326

A no way out

357

326

For more

357

327

A false start

358

327

Therapied

358

328

Each day

359

328

A ghostly image

359

329

The day

360

329

The 7,h son

360

330

Undereyed

361

330

Blood stains

361

331

American gothic

362

332

Tatooe

362

332

There before

363

332

Than that

363

333

Time telling

364

333

Children’s

364

333

"You guys’’

365

334

Time-eclipsing

365

334

Earth needs

366

335

Quartet 4

366

335

Violin Sonata

367

336

Op. 96 Violin Sonata

367

336

337

So deep

367

Moralizing’s

Tolstoy’s

Captiva Bay

Overnight

Levelling

Dolphins

Horse shoes

Sailings

Scarcely finding

Kept pace

Parrot

Catching up

Self-becoming

Diagnosed

Outsider

Orthodoxy

The poet’s

Diaried

Tolstoy

Money’s

Shiva

Disoriented

Very moment

Hypnotic

Light-street’s

He knew

Lot’s wife’s

Skywards

Racoon

Flowers

Echoing

Reflections

Forgotten memories

Rejected

This Indian

Inspiration

World-findings

King Charles I. of England

Lizard

Transparencies

Sit-down

The great blue heron

Death-shining

No time

Sameness

Learning to see

Left behind

Shoe shine

Unbelievable

Barbed-wired

Just for two

Always beings

Tropical night

From an unseen source

The dried

Make-shift

Black-eyed

Really dead?

Abraham’s For my mother Her meticulous way The fisher Are the clothes When does Imprisoned

Those fail

ed moment s recurr

mg as dark dreams what

one said or didn't say too

much of self intruding

shadows o ver others

now speech lessly left a

lone to that dire empti

ness.

Ghostly envisioned

Are we all

(then) plag ucd with shad

ows of the past old men

ghostly en visioned left voice lessly a

lone.

The antagonist

Is life it

self the anta gonist call

ing us through its beauties

and needs to realize that

more of self that death its

half-brother will claim at

the end for its own sake.

The final atiswey (for Rosemarie and for Christ)

Is love (then)

the final ans wer redeem

ing self from its own sake

as this late fallen snow

through the night cleans

ing those raw wounds that time has ta ken of us.

That hidden voice

not heard but known-conceal

ing invisib ly clothed

calling us out to that naked

self of death’ s lasting

imperium.

Is evil

the with

out of God as empty as

long-time ser mons Or is it

because it' s created yet

self-creat ing intensity

of dire con sequenc

es.

Freed

Man freed him

self from all that would

have kept him within to pro

tect to guide and sense a

loneliness as vast as

these star less heaven

s.

No turning back

If there’

s no turn ing back Why

have we come this far to

the cliffs of the blind

follow

ing the blind

ly rhythmed for the depth

s of a blind less deep.

Time’s up

the motion

less silence of what wasn’

t turning a round breath

lessly.

“No words for it”

If there

are “no word s for it"

may be archa ically self-

resounding as those bare-

blank wind s shoreless

ly confin ing.

As those old men

dead branch

ed articul ately veined

routes of their sapless

ly withhold ing desire

s.

Euripides

other than

Sophocles couldn’t find

that tensed closure of

meaning only in the word

s the inter play of act

ing itself out.

Autumn’

s left be

hind a feel ing of fa

ding scent touching be

yond our knowing the

where or why of.

The choice

He had the

choice but he chose what

he would have done again

as those bird s instinct

ively prepar ing for the

same flight same route mini

bered to that very date.

“Nothing left to be said”

If “there’s no

thing left to be said” why

have words reached so dee

ply in to those failing

realms of no where no now.

“The end of the line” (Celan)

and the more

he looked a loned to a

trackless world away

s behind in leaving.

For Rosemarie

dressed to

a lightness of phrase

that even her eyes wind-

confiding.

The aftermath

I've been wit

nessing the af termath after

the blood and ash resolved

for earth’s re claiming need

s Where spring flowers unasham

ed for their prettied re

hearsings of what’s still

being told dee per down unre

conciling.

Answering Celan

Docs life

owe us any thing except

its being there to de

cide our own claims no

where but now.

Poems from Aue (Saxony)

a) The night through

It rained

the night through his

dream’s awaken ing sadness

as if dark ness itself

listening

aloud.

b) Cooling phrases

When that

wall distant ly touched

through the

sense in

stone’s cool ing phrases.

c) Auc Some

thing remote about this

town as if seeking be

yond the li mits of its

knowing it self where.

d) Sight-taken

A slight in

different colored bird

took my sight to its

momentar

ily-touch

ed.

e) These stones

have their

muted way of recalling

thoughts still touch

ing aloud for being heard.

J) Rembrandt’s Saskia (Kassel)

held to an

infolding moment of

where cloth becomes cyc-

sensings.

g)    This room ’

s becoming

my untouch able shadow

ing what I sense though

without find ing itself

through.

h)    Obscured

Faced be

hind those dark reflect

ions of glass as a voice fa

ding wordless ly obscured.

i)    After

the words

have been told a sense

of empti ness as leave

s fallen from their

wind-trans

forming

lightness.

j) The apples

cluster

ed to their over-weight

ed branch ed down a

depth of un telling ripe

ness.

h) The smoke

left a vague

image of having been

scarce ly touch

ed.

I) Hommage a Hopper

Alone

the table sat with the

diminish ing light of

her fading thoughts

faceless ly conceal

ing.

Portrait ofHedwig Berend in a pink morning gown (Corinth, Chemnitz 1916) Some eye

s have seen too much to

bear in their express

ivcly sad ness.

Self portrait with fur coat and hat (Corinth Chemnitz 1916) an introspec

tive compos urc imply

ing more than could be self-

certained.

Darkness

drawn down

that we could feel those numbed stone s sensing

from night.

Rained out

It rained

the day out

as some per

sons with lost-from-finding

identit

ies.

Quasthoff’s bodiless

voice as a bird more

branched from the sky’

s free-flow ing cloud

s than where its claws

could take fast resound

ing.

The turtle

slow and ap

preciativc of why time

keeps increa sing in foot-

steadied and

less than cer ebral pro

cession

s.

Testament

She’s left

with the dog the house he

built of

glass images

that keep look ing back an

emptiness of view.

After A uschwitz/Israel

“nothing

changed” for those face-

value Christ ians a static

god as those of ancient Egypt

staring out a phantom

world time lessly inert.

Crete

fished down

to its bare ness of ston

cd fiction ing a recre

ated world lost from the

depth of its harbour

ing colour s.

When you ’re slow

in dying-

times rest ing those

cool sheets of your touch

ing each day back to a

life of its own voicing.

In the God

we trust

will fashion more bills

that we can believe once

again in the immensity

of his bank ing value

s.

Poems from Crete ’08

a) Clouds

shadow

ing the sea in to is

lands of dee pening

thought.

b) Tawed

thicket

s and coarse-sounding

woods as if tamed with

nothing wild to fear its

night-sens ing eyes.

c) These leaves

calming

through un told remem brances still reminding

the vastness of their dis

tantly vacant shores.

d) This dead sea

fished out

of life shellless

ly bared shores inhab

iting only an echoing

resolve.

c) Lifelessly imitating

These stone-

embedded shore s lifeless

ly imitat ing what once

was created for the breath

of shell-dc signings.

J) Bearing witness Uninhabit

cd mount ain’s stonefacing climb s bearing wit

ness to cen turies of un

used voiced-recalling

s.

g) The origins

of culture

left behind here to the

haunting re mains of in

decipher ing footstep

s soundless ly unheard.

Ii) Riders on the beach (after Gauguin)

impress

ing in rhythm ic repetit

ions ofwavc-like counter-

currents.

i) Culture shock

on the Illin ois river

those robust high-flying

Chinese carp left

the lesser Am erican ones

to suck for a bottom

less growth.

j) The lifeguard

almost as

a god-like figure perch

ed on a chair highly above

his duly-mark ed pre-estab

lishing posi tioned a

watch out o ver a motion

less sound-im mousing sea.

k) A Jew

among Christ

ians a Christ ian among

Jews as if that choice

wasn't God’ s and not

only his heart of the

other side.

I) Mountain divide

That mount

ain divide left this is

land as two persons down

the middle of not realis

ing the o ther side of

self.

tn) In silent resolve

The bird’

s shadow crossing the

mountain’ s winds e

choing in si lent resolve.

n) Colored stones

spawned

from the rest less sea of

where touch meets a glad

ness in sight.

o) Left cruelly behind

This sparse

ly-felt is land inhabi

ted wi th the remains of

what history barren-

faced had left so cruel

lv behind.

p) Swinging

A child

swinging

through

dreams space lessly up

lifting.

q) Etching out

These mount

ains however indecisive

ly etching out route

s of unex plored remem

branccs.

r) Touristic shirts

Trying to de

cipher to de code tile

hyroglyph ics of tour

istic shirt s where lang

uage has be come inexpli

citly self-de luding.

s) Chicken

s on the

feed scratch ing the numb

ed-through

earth of its

in-grained

promising

s.

t) Rock-sourced

Dead for

ests wit nessing what

isn’t there not even the

touch of stran gely remote

eyes secret ly aware of

man’s clean sing the creat

ion to its sterile rock-

source.

u) Toplitz Gorge dropp

ed me down to the unin

habited depth of where

fear takes this bottom

ness out of me.

v) On the way

to Paleochora

centuries of coast-

swelling lines these a

bandoned shores with

not even a bare smile to

brighten them up.

ii’) Soft sand

beaches

when time e ases in to

those wave s of unremein

bered summer winds bare

ly touched and scarce

ly listen ing from view.

x) Remembrance

of person

s no longer there as if

time could be retell

ing itself and there’s

a pain at the loss of

not know ing where.

y) Up to the caves (St. Sophia)

The repeat

ing sameness of these

steps worn thin with

man’s need for those high

er realms of being far be

yond where he could find

himself from coming back.

z) men

do thought

s merge in to dream

and dream in to those

first claim s of death

as clouds coalesing

through their tran

sient one ness.

ait) This island'

s interior

speaking a sameness ot

language scrubbed and

coarse-ston ed through

its sky-sour cing strength.

bh) Chappeled

Crete

chappel ed with a

faith that hill-topp

ed over all those centur

ies of downswelling blood-

occupation

s.

cc) The Roman emperors

headless

lv (though proudly) pre

senting their short-term

ed godliness.

dd) Gorty’s

ancient law

inscribed in a stoned-

permanency that not e

ven the wind s and brazen

weather would wash a

way their in ternalized

meanings.

ee) Faistos’

many door

s opening to the wind

s of cool ed sound-

sensing

s.

(f) Faistos ’

labyrinth

a no where of what'

s forming within sun-

searching

stoned-down

affinitie

s.

gg) Discus

The round

ness of Faist os’ famed dis

cus musical ly surround

ing a choric tragical

ly insensed.

hh) Stella

She knew

all the an swers she’d

been taught at school

which didn' t answer

her beyond an assurance

of lesser meanings she

clutched onto with the

persisten ce of a dog-

leashed in supremely

tighten

ed.

ii) Caves at Matalla

stone-ag

ed darkness es of the

kind Saul slept by David’s temp

tations Armed to the blood

of the German occupation

Flowered with the hippie’s

life-perfuming denials Stone-

aged readied for repeating

use.

jj) Colored stones

claim

ing their birth from

the sunless depth of this

unerring sea where only

dark distin guishes its

timeless ness of hold.

kk) Half-crippled Her son half-crippl ed to her

needs for holding on

not letting go ot her

other half from self.

II) Dried-out

She’d been

dried out of the co

lors that kept her a

live to that instill

nun) Sun-lningried These bareboned mount ains sun-bun

gried to their taste for ri

sing a depth of sea to

the height of their Ion

ed empti ness birth

cd.

mi) Phrasings

If you

phrase it his way (e

ven now that he’s dead)

a part of his living-

you remind ing.

oo) Lonesome sea as a

mother lost in the si

lent rever ies of what

she didn’t bring to

life.

pp) At dusk

this beach a

bandoned to an after

math of tree s the spell

of increas ing darkness

listening

out.

qq) Adrift

He lost

his soul in the far out

sea of wan dering mind

s that left him shore

lessly a drift.

rr) The wanderingjew

One couldn’

t quite place his sorrow-

shifting eye s of being

nowhere at home of the

many places that couldn’

t hold him.

ss) No cause left

except liv

ing life as if life wasn’

t living us out to the

last breath of its selfabandon ing cause.

tt) A colorless flag

They hoist

ed a color less flag un

marked though wind-deciph

ering its direction

less course.

mi) As the winds

Let the dead

sleep their times have

passed as the winds that

know no o thcr place

than inhabit ing a far

off from.

w) Enveloping

Even if

these mount ains could

speak their voice would

echo in the winds and the

tides of night’ s darkness

es’ envelop ing.

ww) Argus-eyed

he envision

cd the all at once light—

frighten ing as a my

riad of rest less star

s.

xx) Ash

He’s ash

now some where spread

ing liis meti culously

kept garden s with noth

ing more than that.

yy) Voicelessly exposing

What he’

s seeing staring out

a distance of time

voiceless ly expos

ing.

zz) Lutliergot it wrong

the image is primary

to the word God first i

magined then spoke.

aaa) That snail

efficient

ly housed without the

5 % credit clause

d him to be kept down

closer to that dearly

ground-base.

bbb) When the words

start com

ing in as waves incess

antly there I’ll shore my

self thought-down listen

ing.

ccc) “Sentimental journey” (for Rebecca)

“Gonna take

the sentimen tal journey”

slow-train ed around the

bends of what’ s been leav

ing one be hind to a

feeling so filled with

loss that e ven that stat

ion’s become nameless

ly passed.

ddd) Pidgeon-holed

Even pidg

eons here cubby-holed

to an umbrell aed top

ped ice-cream ed all com

plete with those sun-ab

sorbing smile s.

eee) Too much

He'd seen

too much to see at all

His eyes weren’t

thinking how ever dreamlike they may have

seemed dull ed and cur

tained down.

fff) Child-eyed

It I could

be childeyed to the

first touch of shell and

sea’s instin ct for a vvi

der and yet finely appar

ent-world.

Economic crises ’08

Nothing’

s the way it was as if

our planet' s circling

through tin known sphere

s of spacial darkness

es.

To be trusted

Who's to be

trusted if one can’t trust

oneself a world phantomed

even beyond those tenta

tivc realms of disbelief.

When the fogs

lifted after

days of not knowing the

where of be ing now It

wasn’t e ven the same

likeness mirr ored to a

mute strange ness from

self.

Hommage a Chirico

When the clock s stopped as

time began shifting back

wards through strangely

unknown re solves field

s of inert likeness of

the dead ris ing as the

brush of wind’ s transpar

ent shadow ings.

These October

nights so

dark and fear ed that not

even words could touch to

a semblence of the moon’

s recurring needs for

light.

In living truth

Theolog

ians however astute can’

t word them selves back

to where Christ invisible

but known through in

living truth

s.

Awakenings

When it

rained through the

night the i mage of dawn

awakening the touch

of its ap parent sha

dowings.

Apples

heavy with

the thirst of their un

wanting claims now

fallen even beyond the

touch of Eve’ s self-aspir

ing hopes.

For knowing why

He listen

ed so inex plicitly

near to where he

toned his eye s in to an

unmistake able need

for knowing why.

Childless women

reclaiming

the ripe ness of those

low-hanging apples from

the weight of their in

tending

fall.

A face

Even if

the sky’ s called mir

roring this lake’s still

aface from its own

pensively

timc-rehear

sing.

The white

of the birch

so lithe and grace

fully refill ing its deccpt

ively stead fist near

ness.

A lone fisher

on the lake

plying its cold and dar

kening deep with those 1110

mentary

windless

thoughts of his.

What’s said

keeps remind

ing me a slightness

of pain deep cuing the

way dream s over How

mg our pro tective

nakedness.

These mild

October day

s faint ly remind

ing as a moon fading

to its less ap parent light.

The late Corot

so still

ed poetical ly recall

ing a word less sense im

mutably trails forming.

Rosemarie’

s quiet ways

that hold me almost tenta

tively in need for find

ing the more of.

Talking to one’s puppet

Ifas 1 read

talking to one’ s puppet’s a

sign of men tal liability

I’ll inform A lena’s to whis

per back only when the night’

s too dark to hear.

Blood stains

Leaf stain

s blood-mark ing the quiet

descent of what was dried

to the edge of its sap

less being.

The way we do it

That’s the

way we do it First as with

Jonah the ball ast until we

find ourselve s so naked

ly alone death-present.

Don’t look

a dog to its

dead-dumb e yes at that

dream-place a lert to the

dangered

inself.

These wind-

open field s of my mind’

s land-search mgs.

Fading out

This fa

ding out green as promis

es worn from their oft-re

peating.

Hand-enclosing

These fog

s have short ened my mind’

s length as if time was

being held here hand-en

closing.

Self-entrancing

Critics

may conform to their rules-

of-thumb but my fingers

spreading out the fine

ness of a spi der’s web

self-entranc

ing.

The voice

unknown or

seen risen from the dark-

depths of the sea as a bird’

s unfolding to wings.

Shamed

If naked

ness no long er shames us

Death naked beyond all re

call should prettify

our sense-in-bcauty.

Precision ’

s as e

lusive as holding a

bird tight to the vein

s of its in-trembling

wings.

Pumpkin-time

as if fear

could be cutout with the

eyes ot flam ing candle

The remains

Once they’

d buried the remains

of those bombed-down

cities in to hills of

sufficient

forgetful

ness.

Those voiceless

houses the

Jews left be hind a fear

of their be ing secret

ly retold.

The burial preacher

with his

100 merci fully descend

ing down-to-earth life’s

summary for its non-

renewable

claims.

For Rosemarie ’

s more of

the bright side of my o

ther-moon’ s night-shini

ness.

He dreamed

oflcaves

falling the night through

to where they found him at

the very bott om of his en

raptur ed being.

Your ring

clasping

to the red of its tiny

celebrat ing stone

s.

Mild autumn days

These mild

autumn day s as if there

could be a

sweetness

to why death’ s reaching

through its bareness

of sound-sending.

Holding on

she was noth

ing more than that tilt

ing of a boat that

couldn’t come to even

keel.

Can

the dead

still be lis tening in

the ash and dust of their

futile remem brances.

When he died

that house

of glass he built for a

transpar ency of view

and the room s that could

only speak of their intima

cy of voice left her lone

ly through.

Feared

She fear

ed for her self not quite

certain ot that imbalan

ce for be ing the more

uneased they tried to con

sole.

Wild strawberries (Ingmar Bergmann) through

woods upon woods of selfshadow ing’s

incoming of his through-

finding

ness.

Closer in

Room

s echoing his thought

s closer in soundless

ly resonant.

“Forgotten ”

If what he

forgot didn’ t forget him

but kept re turning its

voiceless

presence.

A flat Sonata (Haydn slow mvt.)

as if space

increasing ly more than

even sound could be sens

ing through.

Slightly touched

Was it the

flicker ing of leave

s slight ly touched

or of a tiny restless

bird’s color ing sound

s.

Sound-awakenings

The breath

of color’ s so trans

parently touched as

the feel of silk’s soundawakening s.

Gretchen ’s (Goethe Faust) innocent

child-like

ness of

a fairy-tale womanly

espoused to the dark-inrc

vealings of sin.

Who ’ve known it all

That down

bearing look of aging

women who’ve known it all

but still cur iously heavy

as wine un spokenly

full.

Wind-dried

leaves as scarce

ly heard as the whimper

ot when death" s ever-so

slightly a live.

The dark voice

s of late

autumn mut ed from all

their color s washed down

soundless ly inert.

Giidrun

though less

blessed with the gifts of

the mind held on fast with

all she knew how claim

ing tighten ing securing

as a preda tor instinct

ive for prey.

Her house

once trails

parently

glass-bright

now buried in the dark

ot her nonreclaiming

loss.

Revealing loss

Do these

leafless branches feel

ing a sense of shame

the naked ness of time’

s reveal ing loss.

Seen before

He looked

like I’d seen him before

he came clos er to a mindscanning want for per

son.

Moods

as the troub

led seas tin earthing

the depth less wave’s

sound-cur

rents.

The swings

opened her a

light to the colors of

her dress flowing even

beyond where thoughts

wingedly es caping.

Late autumn nights

These late

autumn night s deeper and

darker even beyond the

unheard depth s of my surr

ounding fear s.

Dreamed

The night

darkly trans parent dream

cd me beyond those time

less wind s ofknow

ingly where.

Heard

That house lit the

night through

the vacant in tensity of

its unfind ing loneli

ness heard.

In the train

with the

togs fathom ed far off

from house s passing

themselve s by as of

ghost’s self-concealing.

Poems from Alsfeld

a) Early Saturday morning

Alsfeld’

s medieval streets a

lone and a bandoned

to its past as if now

was the then awakening

through the muted phase

s of dawn.

b) They mourn

the Jews with

that distant regret they

sent off pack aged for an

emptied-handed no return

of what they’ve so self-satis

fyingly sit uated them

selves in.

c) Dead-growth

Time to for

get as if these silent

streets weren’ t watching a

loud witness ing a rebirth

of that oft-forgotten

dead-growth.

d) Faith streets

historic

town’s dm ber-worked

inscript ions of a re

deeming be lief indeci

pherably

rain-warp

ed.

e) Empty-street feeling

A sadly tun

ed violin ist evoking

that empty-street feel

ing of what wasn’t for

being now.

j) Wind-vacancies

Glass-reflec

ting silen ccs mirror

ing (how ever remote

ly) those in touched va

cancies of wind.

g) City of darkness

windows

that can’t see beyond

themselve s as if some

one was list ening here

breathing in centurie

s of forget fulness.

Ii) Lost imaginings

This winter

sun’s light so distantly

cold that freezes the

woods deep-down to their

lost imagin ings.

- Spirits

- Equally

- If

Spirits

Emptied

streets the moon-down dark

ness of dried leaves hush

ed through what won’t

be listen ing as spirit

s of a night-world inhab

iting itself anew.

Young Russian Jews

holocaust’

s untouch ed memorie

s for a new start even

without a reverence

for the old as if time.

stopped tell ing them so.

Wiud-sourced

If the more

isn't here we seek as the

birds for the instinct

nal flight to the other

realms that touch us down

again wind-sourced.

Those dark voice

s of late au

tumn’s solemn dirge for the

naked remain s of all the

summer’s adorn ing beauty

now rain-bared barren and

only in e choing voic

cd.

Listening

to the rain’

s repeat ing that in

ner voice of time’s alway

s being as the sound of

the sea’s desolate

ly abandon cd shores.

Not quite right

If it wasn’

t just quite right as Pink

with his per forming flower

s off-color ed from the

flush of his rosey-red

smilings.

A no -get t ing - a wa y -fro m

Times there

are ot a no-getting-away-

from as a loss that

keeps repeat ing its al

ways being there Or when

disease awak ens so bright

ly fluent with the first

pains of mor ning’s fresh

ness.

That never came through

Children

sailing

their self-em

ulating flag-aspiring

boats under those dark ly rounding-down bridge

s of first one out that

never came through.

Full meaning

One only

knows the full meaning

of love when it’s be

come a lost vacancy

from self.

Only in

Christ can one find a

bottom ness to

fear’s hold on our un

relinquish ing time-

grasp.

This room’

s larger than

its sound s could pro

vail as if words were as

cending stair s of unseen

thoughts to the height

s of their in dwelling dis

tancing

s.

Piano Concerto no. 4 (Beethoven slow mvt.)

a quiet re

treat from the always

threaten ing world to

that self-en closing inner

pulsed voice-source.

La Chasse (Haydn sym. 73 last mvt.)

Horses

horns and all those activa

ting dogs chanting ac

cords for wild gain in the

theatre-wood s of their

make-for cos tumes.

Mozart in a minor key

so implor

ingly sad that even the

fountain s of spring

tear-flower ing through

those last ing moment

s of regret.

First

on the train

first off hurried as

those back-timing wind

s drawing him ever near

er to what had become

inexpli citly there.

Shore-bound

Holding on

grasp ing the

shadows of these wind

less ctirr ents helpless

lv shore-bound.

when the Russ

ians came blood-hound

s wanting for a woman’s

taste help lessly breath

ed cellar-down depthed-

fears.

“She’s Olily Cisleep” (Jesus said of a dead girl)

Sleeping’

s that under water sense

of not find ing back imm

ersed in the overcoming

of self s bottomness

down to the deep of not-

for-surfac

ing.

Reformation day

now that

Luther’s word s have less

ened their grasp on our

needs for an swering what

we’ve long stopp ed question

ing for know ing why.

Dark times

behind that

cross-way window when

the night turns on in

light of a single voice

feared for listening.

Untouched silences

The glimmer

of candles on stone re

fleeting in that cold

light the un touched si

lcnces of faith.

Argus-eyed

He saw e

verything at once

that he could n’t see at

all escaping ly adrift a

midst a my riad of stars

increasing ly lost.

Burnt offerings

as if man

himself fir ed through

stone to that bitter

taste of re morse.

The dark side

of the moon’

s those un reachable

truths we’d rather have

left behind still shadow

ing even when the moon’

s at its brightest.

Home

I’m home

wherever you are

Home’s not a place for me

but a per son And if

she should die I’d be

come as home less as those

who’ve left their past

and place far behind

them.

As a Turk

he felt him

self here in Germany

And in the Turkey of his

childhood also self-ex iled Two per sons but di

vided while crossing

through those interior line

s of self.

Last stop

he knew

it by name even after

years in a foreign land

Last stop he heard

that distant echoing

through the time-sequen

ccs of his voiced instill

cts Last stop but the train

(despite him self) con

tinuing on.

Too late

after the

killers bur ied peace

fully in the violent earth

of their bloodlettings Too

late to con front them

to let just ice reign as

those dead-born statue

s Too late too late as

if theree ver was a

too late.

A privileged life at almost 12

I’ve led a priv

ileged life the silver spoon

the fair maid the gifted pen

the Lord’s call ing but at the

root of it all the bitter

finds of what wasn’t mine to

know Guilty of not being

plagued as those buried

deeper than blood and ash

could conceal.

Resolved

The fear

of what doesn’t happ

en only re solves when

the doesn’t happen’s fear

ed long e nough.

Isiah 43 A

Wily it was

that we’ve be come from ei

tlier side or those who

stamped their own image u

pon the reti cent needs

of our still unforming

self Or was it a voice

some

where with

in or even without call

ing us to be unchange

ably His.

Of equalled response

Reading be

tween the lines (as

finding a tain ilarity of

face) only al lows for a

space of e quailed re

spouse.

On some early Elizabethan poets

Love

may pain to

the bottom of their soul

But self-pity’ s too lowly to

reach even be yond the cause

of their un requiting de

sirings.

A tension

However

quiet the world with

out even in the midst of

summer’s

free-floating

dreams A ten sion took

hold of him that wouldn’

t release but kept to its

prey as a fish tighten

ed to the pull of that

ever-shorten ing line.

A blemish

he couldn’

t rub out however

hard he’d thought it

away as those leaf-stain

s discolor ing the depth

of autumn’ s loss.

Forgiving

She could

only forgive not because

ofhim (the still linger

ing pains he left her from

that void of promise) be

cause she could only then

become really whole.

The unspoken

what’s im

plied though never said

becomes a voice of its

own silent ly protect

ive as a backstore

room alway s closed but

without a key to meet

that rustied lock.

Why

God dreams

some of us through that

there’s no choice but

His only there while others

never so va candy ex

posed.

Returning home

to an empt

ied house with the ash

ofher hus band garden

ing the win tered flower

beds worn down from ageless

use to a glass view of

nothing but Now.

Facelessly reflecting

1 never saw

them only the turning

of lights on and off

the voice s of wind be

tween our wind ows face

lessly re fleeting.

Death and the Maiden (Schubert P'nwt.) Even if

the other move ments more

perfect ly time-un

isoned This one as strange

voices of un known person

s kept repeat

ing myster iously awaken

ed.

For Israel’s detractors (1948)

If they re

write a his tory of what

didn’t happen (only in their

fleshless mind’s view)

as a bird of prey intent

ly circling his appetite

s repeated ly wanting for

the cause of what couldn’t

be found.

Bottom-ground

They shovel 1

ed their own grave deeper

than they c ver realized

it could be taking them

down No one to shoot this

time not even watching until

they finally touched bottom-

ground.

Ill

The flush

of lighting

this late au tu mil expanse

when even the blacken

ing birds can’t reign

through their cstran

ged moment s of fear.

Cooled

The touch of

those pre cious stone

s cooled in to the co

lors of her reticently

retain ing hand

s.

Of the clarinet’

s sweet and

consoling tones as

gulls in their swaygliding dis tancing

ashores.

Dead fox

all that

redness

a-glowcd

streaking

in-glanced

now staid and steadied

for its ly ing stillness

es there.

A single boat

white-sail

cd a small ness of its

lake’s lone ly-through

timed-soli

tildes.

Skipping the water’s edge

These

fine-sens cd sound

s of tinied fish skipp

ing the wa ter’s edge

as young girls light-

dressed

through

spring-ti med breeze

s.

Iii the 1950s

with grand

ma's of their ghettoed past

rowed in time less attune

rnents those park bench

es deaf and numbed sit

ting in the Central Park

of their melting-

through sha dows.

Land-locked horse’

s suddene ruption

s hoof-teU ing rhythmi

cally the why of where

they can’t be getting out.

Lute Sonatas (Weiss)

reflec

ting in the quietude

s of rain those inner

solitude s spaceless

in-percei

ving.

For Rosemarie

Soft days

mild wind s and the

touch of your face cir

cling my stream’s a

waken

ings.

His aim with me

He had his

aims with me Faced to sooth

ing express ions ofan un

touched smile that only came

to word when he said what

he’d always set to mean.

No more

only now

Time’s stopp ed breath

ing beyond those moment

s only real izing.

Unsaid

It’s what

we didn’t say that un

quiets us now that un

easy feel ing for more

than those words could

have said a void at the

center as waves ever-

reaching to the depth of

a foundless shore.

Alfred Adler

so small as

he seemed stood stead

ily to the height of his

inferior ity feeling’

s psycholog ically better

armoured than those

troops mass ed for the

depths of their name

less grave

C. G.Jutig

mystical

ly alive to a god he

didn’t be lieve in di

versified

cultures

timeless ly sourced

to his own sub-conscious

imagining

s.

At 8

he saw his

own image less death

mirrored in the fear

s ofnot seeing out

from.

Parable of the rich fool (Lukas 12:13-21)

Self-satis

faction seat ed on those

higher cushion s of a deser

ving repose as a king with

out a kingdom though crown

ed with the ease of an tin

timely fall.

How much

of ourselvc

s can we leave behind irre

trievably lost and yet

retrace those steps snowmelting through.

A state of mind

isn't a king

sitting in counsel but

why so oft these winds

unchange ably lost

from view.

Video

Hearing him

self speak ing back he

wanted to answer what

should have been said No

playbacks though life’

s answer ing himself

through all that time.

Of its all prevailing night

If he could

only lessen his blood-

pulsed in stincts

as Munch’ s “Cry” re

sounding the empti

ness of its all prevail

ing night.

More colored than real

A single

vase in an emptied room

more color ed than real

as if Ho wers could

find here their instin

ct for light.

The fogs

listening

aloud for why he could

n’t find him self through.

For standing there

The stage

lights and that room so

thorough ly peopled

left him a lone for

standing

there.

Denials

Age has stiff

ened my sin ewed flesh’ s word-har dening den

ials.

Voicing higher

The mind of

a child is where the co

lorings of its self-fash

ioned kite voicing high

er than e veil his fin

gers could hold.

For Rosemarie

Love is be

cause I sense the distan

ces of your dreamy-eyed

wandering s through

those ripen ing fields

of finding me in to

the more of mine.

Sky-surfacing

cloud-field

s spaceless ly trans

cending where the

winds search ing through

from birth.

This small lake

the reverie

s of circl ing sound-en

closures until our

thoughts settled down

instinct ively still

ed.

Watch-claims

That trails

forming source of a

bird high-held to his

darkly trans piring watch-

claims.

At dusk

these hills

swollen down receding to

their prehis toric density

in looming a wareness.

A procession

of swans

illustri ously cele

brating their inborne gra

ciousness of wave-flow.

Night-sensed

Street

lights arti ficially a

wake as glass-illumina

tings eyes night-sensed.

Mind-eclipse

A black

out of sound cncapsul

ed in those subterran

can region s of mind-e

elipse.

La Valse (Ravel 1920)

Ghostly sha

dows the death-sceptre of

a time that had danced

itself out.

Faintly forgotten

This small

lake obscur ed through

shifting shadows sur

facing the lesser sense

of faint ly forgott

en remembr ances.

Leaf-bared

Lithe bran

ches leaf-bared shadow

s lighter e ven than

sound could reveal.

Gothic’

s light-as

piring prayer-visions ...

Cologne’s

cathedral’

s massive ly proclaim

ing a solemn God’s majes

tic forebod ings.

Dying

She knows

she’s dy ing but can’

t believe what she’s

never known or realiz

ing.

Madonna with the violet (Stefan Lochner Cologne)

A thin-

lip refine ment of

invoiced

humility

phrased to where that

violet could be heard

through its symbolic

meanings.

Breezed through

The night

breezed through its

solitary dawn the

sounds of in dwelling si

lences.

QuititCtI quartet (Haydti Op. 76,2 minuet) Crosssound’s pained-closc

ness if dan ced then

death-tim

ed.

Op 10 qUCirtet (Debussy slow mvt.)

placid

while undu lating waved-

subduely en tranced.

Piano quintet (Dvorak)

where

moods swell into flower

s sudden ly blooming-

restrain

ed.

At the concert

couldn’t

read the too-agedness

of his face crouched

as it was open-eared

attending.

Ray Poggenburg

No I wasn’t

asleep (age 8 or 9) (Schroon

Lake Camp) 1945 “Should you keep

it secret or tell your girl

friend you’ rejewish”

Night never could have been

deeper then at that moment/

time where it in becoming

my blood through and ash.

Awoke

as a child

on the way to camp

when night surround

ing my dream s to a

dead-felt city star

ing through that child

less of having been.

Dark rains

It couldn’

t be said be cause words

can only trails late when it’

s deeper sens ed as these

dark rains and forests

of a no where out.

Light rains

These light

rains stead ily remind

ing of what always was in

creasing ly now.

Looking through

The emp

tied morning of this late

autumn day looking

through a

spaceless

ness for not finding

where.

Debussy (to Chausson)

realiz

ing that music’s its

own source as these rain

s loosed from the height

s of their invisibly

creating

clouds.

For Rosemarie

And if you

weren’t there in that room

at that mo ment of not

knowing you were waiting

for me How could 1 have

known through those emptied

silences of having been

always then.

So little left

With little

in the back-storage and

time running him down to a

thin-haired aged dry-felt

his oncoming for taking

the more of what was litt

le left.

Close-mindedness

Rubbed-in

wood Hand-veins of in

decipher ing close-

minded

ness.

Smoke-sensings

Wistful song

s that remem ber you from

that faint distant glow

of autumn’s smoke-sens

ings.

Coloring-self

That art mu

seum left him rooms of

coloring-self spacious

ly alive.

Recalling

Lights on

a vacant room recall

ing why wait ing’s as

soundless as those wall

s can con fine.

Drifting apart

They drift

ed apart tin spoken at

first as boats told-

through with the tides

ot their own forsaken long

ings.

Hurt-self

She follow

ed her hurt-self in to

the pride-tear s of mirror

ed shadow ings.

Time-shadows

No place

could have kept him for

long He was always the

there of mo ving on as if

such time-shadows could

be hurting still.

Only

a single

bird on a va cant branch

could know why the far-

reaching moon’ s still so

solitary for light.

For why

He couldn"

t realize the color

for white un til the dark

overcame his looking

tor why.

Phantomed

Those night-

lost clouds phantomed

in moon-i magery

wondrous be yond belief.

Chosen

The Lord

may have chos en beyond our

meaning for knowing why

He still hold s (however re

motcly intend ing) to His

darkening

resolve.

Night-time

poems tense

ly lit into their glass-

imaged break able sound.

Differently

Birds co

lor differ cntly in the

winter of cooled-space

involving.

Breath-touch

Emptied

sounds the winds cool

ed down to their trans

piring breath-touch.

SelJ-finding

Why was he

called and not the o

ther around the corner

of finding himself

there.

A chair (van Gogh)

square-mind

ed angled-off tension

ed unease.

Tennis

with those

rounding balls return

ed in tens ed-rhythmic

phrasing the pulse-

sounds in wardly re

calling.

Matisse’

s decora

tive art phrasing the

surface of why color’s so

persuasive ly self-sat

isfying.

When November

s at its

birth-down

bareness

of out-color ed stillness

es.

Op 1 no. 3 (Beethoven trio)

Beethoven

realiz ing early

his intensi ty-drive pul

sing a tragic a

loneness.

Columned

That angel

ically smil ing cellist

should better have been co

lumned for the churches’

future refer ences.

Wintering in dawn

The stone-

cold height s of this

looming city’ s winter

ing in dawn.

Snow tension

s the not

yet coming of those bare-

blank moment

s.

Off-timed

Slate-sound

ing cities ob liquely off-

timed from their pre-des

tined sclf-en closure

s.

Biblical heroes (6) The fall

a) King David

wanted more than he was

given all those gift

s that tarnish cd at the

scope of his grasping Bath

seba-hand

b) King Salomon

the wise

divided his own kingdom

not only that tenuously

whore-held child with the

cults of their strangely de

meaning o ther gods.

c) Moses

only distant

ly espied the land of his

calling at that barren

length devoid of the milk

and honey that could

have satiated his spirit

ual longing s.

d) Abraham sister

ed his beaut eous wife to

protect un touched his

own blemish ed safety-need

s.

e) Jacob

mother

ed by her un seemly mean

s blinded his own fa

tlier from the truth of his

godly bless mgs.

g) Peter

back at the

lake caught no thing but a

fishless net ted in his

own subordin ate concerns

for being what he shouldn’t

have been not even

recogniz mg the Christ

of his call ing.

So vividly alive

My parent

s never spoke aloud of death

but inaudible whispers that

touched even closer than

those claim ing sounds of

words I fear ed what I

didn't (could n’t know)

so vivid ly alive.

Oniinously

Dark cloud

s ominous ly encompass

ing those lost voices

of the wood’ s interior

exposure

s.

Dark-down

city artifi

dally lit in the secret

spell of dream-evok

ing silence s.

Windows

as emptied

voices con stantly va

cant from views.

Self-enclosing

Abandon

ed houses a live to what

wasn’t there interning

self-enclos

ures.

Reassuring smile

Her reassur

ing smile d the round

ness of a cake sweet

fully embra cing.

Seeing in

to faces for

eign unknown left him but

a blank sense of his own

darkly mirr oring.

Fashioned

for thought

like a wo man dressed

to the co lors that sensed her just right.

The ease of

clouds summer-dayed to

their remote stillness

es.

Frost-winter day

has chang

ed the co lor of my

mind's awaken mg the wind

s tighter than even

touch

could form.

Voiced-remembrance

The snow’

s a voiced-remembran

ce of time s increasing

ly lost.

A some-time thing

Aging’s a some-time

thing like pressing your

feet to the depth of snow’

s revealing only a faint

image of what’ s been left.

Masterpieces in Karlsruhe (5)

a) Persons a t the blue Like (Macke ’13)

faceless

as if co lor could re

place those unseen

thought s of their

b) Rembrandt Self-Portrait ca. 1650

all side

s of search ing me out

self-find

mg.

c) DeHooch In the bedroom

Roomed be

yond where light and

space person ing unspoken

silences.

d) Manet Le petite Lange

more pose

than person ed instead-

finding com posu re.

e) Cranach

Mother and child 1518

If only

the winds could be as

delicate ly touch

ed transpar ently veil

ing the fine ness of your

tree-flow ing hair and

the soft child-embracing

J) 3 Kings

Master of Sigtnarittgett

That old

man bend ing centur

ies of wait ing for those

child’s eye s search

ing beyond his fingertouching gold.

The cold

as of want

ing stone hardens us

down to our resolute

ly boned-in denials.

A softness

The snow

left a soft ness as when

the mind’s feeling for

soundless

words.

Reminding

The worn

wrinkles ofher ag

ing skin re minded of

dried leave s winter

ed through.

So free

as the wind

s to find all those

time-search ing shores

left her to a lonely va

cantness at heart.

Settling down

The snow

softly felt settling

his mind down to where

white’s cho sen for bright

ness.

Sight-seeing

3 little girls

singing so

heaven ly intoned

that even the angels with

their brighteyed smiles

coming down sight-see

ing.

Snow-night

shadow

ing in sc eluded bright

ness.

Standing up to

He couldn’

t stand up to his shad ows so dark ly self-in

volving.

For my own

Too much of

my father’ s shadow

ing over what little

space I could have called

for my own.

Waiting

for what did

n’t come as those spaced-

silences so long window

ed from view.

Yardsticks

Why measure

yourself on others when

it’s the length of

your yard stick not

theirs.

Pink

with his

flowering urge for arti

culate pre sentation

s so fastid iously manner

ed that even his nails

toed to their resilent

claims for soft-shine after

thoughts.

O f unseen depths

My eyes

see what o thers see of

me as a pond light-reflect

ing the dark of unseen

depths.

2 sides to Brahms

a) Quartet op 613nl mvt.

under

surfacing

current

s of light-fields hesi

tantly sclf-finding.

b) Opus 61 Quartet last mvt.

When wa

ters run low a sweetness

blooms flow ers more

scent than light.

Dvorak: Quartet op 51 slow mvt.

A time

beyond where time flow

ing its un seen stead

ily light.

If dinosaurs

could awaken

again man’s prehistor

ic instinct s roaming

millions of years before

the beast in him timeless

ly evolving.

Seen-revealing

Can these arti

ficial concert halls so eye-

impending ab sorb the beauty

of their sound’ s seen-reveal

mg.

Baal

when woman

ceases to be person but

only allur ing object to

heat the blood' s pulsing

claims of those stone-built

self-shadow ing temple

s of theirs.

Rat-nest

They found

that rat-nest with their

dead-born

children

deeply clos ed in the

cellars of our once un

touchable

walled-con

fines.

A minor quartet (Schubert minuet)

The call

as with Gau guin “L’appel”

a distant call almost an e

cho’s fate ful-finding

what’s only to be found

out.

Advent

This land’

s tensed and waiting the

trees bran ched to their

leafless

grasp The sun

distancing a reclaiming

truth the ad vent of the

2nd coming of Christ.

Master of Ceremony

When the min

ister’s becom ing a ceremon

ial master of smiled-christen

ings with the camera’s blink

ing their flash ed-for appro

val while Christ’s hidden

somewhere in one of

those abandon ed side-street

s out ofbound s for such

dressed-down ap pearances.

He came be

cause we did n’t want Him

that way All prepared and

yet denied a suffering

we shared with out knowing

why He came even for us.

Air on the G string (Bach)

Is it time

that’s strok ing the wheel

s of fate’s an swering that

void of space turn

ing itself round-stop

s.

Too elusive

She was too

elusive to be smiled

back to place.

Snow-shadowing

A pure white

cat snow-sha dowing its

own stealthy image.

Houses

left be

hind squatt ing from sea

sonal change their sit-

down posit ion’s stoic

ally self-en hancing.

Self-defeating

They gave

more of them selves a

way compro mising at

their very substance

of being a nation ur

ging for peace fully self-

defeating.

Snowed-through

A snowcd-

through land scape neither

purified for pre-angelic

minds nor the naked terrify

ing Melville-white But al

most self-e hiding immat

erial beyond ness.

Didn’t open

It didn’

t open the door latch

ed-closed him in a

world of self-find

ing fear s.

Invisibly heard

The snow be

gan with out knowing

where it be came invis

ibly heard.

Abyss

Looking

down in to the heart

of nothing where eye

s penetrate their liv

ing-death of rock

unsourccd

barren-tim

ed.

As secret voices

Car light

s in the dar kening snow

slowly niov

ing as se

cret voices impenetra

bly unfind ing.

Wind-voicing

The tree

s sway ing so soft

ly felt the way a mother

cradles her child wind-

voicing.

How deep

can one bury

blood and ash They keep

surfacing back as wound

s timeless ly expos

ing.

Time’s

the contin uous rain

scarcely felt its al

ways oncom ing same

ness.

Outspreading

The expanse

of sky word lessly out

spreading

distance

s of even more than

time can re call.

Her garden

so care fully kept

finger ed to phrase

each flower a touched-

moment of her in-reveal

ing life.

Bright-light

snow shin

ing up Pink’ s shoe-time

smile’s pos itively per

forming de meanor.

Surfacing claims

No one

knows what he doesn’t

know about himself mir

roritig only touches for

surfacing

claims.

Graveyard

in snow

with its freshened

memory of flower s reclaim ing in life

less scent.

Ice-skaters

so smooth

ly grace fully sur

facing a hove the

invisible dark of its

penetrat ing deep.

Fear-sounds

Boston bull

chained tight to the

subway of his unrelent

ing fear-sounds.

Smallfeed

for little

minds peer ing intent

ly with their dulled-in

sense-for-view rimmed

glass reading s of life’

s other wise futile

tragedie s from their

own home-page daily ex

posures.

Train-stop

s flow of si

lent voice s in to the

stream of time’s self-

abandon ing cause

s.

“Everything’s

up to date

in (the) Kan sas City” of

sky-scraping Babylon to

wers majesti cally unfold

ing the less er instinct

s of what’ s so low-down-

to-earth hu man.

No one

lasted long

by him They came and went

as a door con tinuously

revolving from his high-

level of selfcompetence.

Forgetting out

He took her

down to the lowering voice

of his conde scending tone

that she be gan to flutt

er as birds caged in their

needs for gett ing out.

Wintered city

soundless

ly abstract ed in the

cold of its face-finding

facades and windows va

candy una ware of the

why of look ing out.

Feared death

My father

feared death' s otherwise

strangeness because life

was so much filled with

his being more of it

than anyone I’d ever

known.

Closed off

The window

shades went down through

the unseen hands of

night be ing closed

off from their realiz

ing why.

What is left

ifthere’

s nothing more than that

No one to bring it all in A

harvester of what life’

s left behind An answer be

yond death’ s final word

lessness.

Dream-world

My father’

s dream-world beyond the mon

ied flavour of his insis

ting daily claims the al

ways more of what it really

wasn’t untouch ably purer.

Angel holding a bough of an olive-tree

(Mewling, Paris)

Some eyes

have seen what’s only to

be touch ed to the

heart of be ing where the

bough of an Olive-tree’

s prayer-a wakening.

Hurt

She was so

hurt at the loved-center

that the blee ding paled

her down ghostlike after-

timed.

Train-sensed

speed-light’

s sounds evening dark

nesses approa ching.

Ulm cathedral

spired a

slender height of

clouds trans cending.

A land-lost

seagull

surfacing the flowing

fields as if waves of its

self-find ing instinct

Hard bent

When it

came to mon ey she was

hard bent a look that

took the length of

you right down to the

corner’s

edge.

Penelope’

s weaving and unwea

ving the time s ofher

waiting as it the pre

sent was al ways there

fingering tor its mo

ments of thread.

That owl

with the

sunken eye s cerami

cally lower ing the

woods to its moonlit glance.

That horse

staring a

motionless

distance

statued in his numbed-

through

stance.

Cots

cause me

suspicion sly aware

d eyes looming

brighter

secretly

intent.

Getting too close

the voice

raised a pitch too

high the hand’ s pressing

closer than its revealing cause as a bird

ruffled by the wind's

so seeking there inten-

sed from view.

The Black Forest

urged her

fears in-to a tightness

of a no where s out She

took it never theless found

dead wi th all those darkness es of trees mourning her

down.

This dry

season cold-

down to its thirsting

needs shall owed from

touch.

So soiled deep

Some lost me

mories can be come so soil

ed deep that not even the

sharpen cd spade can

loosen their withhold

ing self-de ception

s.

This winter

blue so cold

and clear na kedly appear

mg beyond man’s shadowsensing de sires.

The day

the water

s ran dry without

source of meaning

and left him as a car

cass boned from its

very being.

Dead-down

winter e

veil the streams dried

to a breath less silence

the birds cir cling for the

winds of sound.

For Rosemarie

Love is

where you’ ve center

ed me calm ed and smooth

ly to the touch of why

you’re becom ing so.

Ode a Keats

These time

s when the truth ofbeau

ty's no long er seen felt

or known hidden se

cretly in waiting for

the few who may not e

veil find it there.

Somalia’s

outmapped

no longer land-locked

fallen in to a sea of

pirates infest ing the rest

less waves with their

homeless

longing

s for moil ied tens

ed-treasu red ashore

A quiet voice

Snow sound

s the air brighter

a quiet voice eluding e

ven the wind s of its very

source.

Ingrown

She grew in

to herself scarcely a

ware as if by an tin

seen hand formed-

being.

A Jewess

with German

her mother-tongue kept

close when she fled for

her life left her now simply

space-star ing words

that couldn' t come to

sense a world she’d left a

bandonly be hind.

To start again

as Ernest

so cultur ally German

even deep ly accented

to the depth of his be

ing a newborn Ameri

can.

Her complaint

reaching

through to the crescendo

ed heights of self-pity

that not e veil the stead

iest of ladd ers hand-intouch could possibly

have taken her down to the

ground-bottom reality of hu

man abberat ion.

Too good

she was al

ways think ing of o

thers as the more of

white she felt that

across-the-vvay house dis

cerning through her

own self-apparent

blemish

es.

Brahms

taken down

by death to the depths of

where tonal ity ranged it

self deep be low his hori

zoned voice.

Pre-voiced

Awaken

ing to where the snow

had pre-voic ed a world

serene ly beauti

Tied.

A sculpture

should be

touched ’round its

many-sided

inclusive

sameness.

Simply there

As we a

woke the snow simply there

as if arri ving to an

unknown

sense-in-be

mg.

Ourfavorite teacher (in memory c. R.)

When our fav

orite teacher always so

there for us weighted him

self down with the stones

of a depth-finding guilt.

So right

she was

that she wronged her

self with the weight of

his still-find ing failure.

Indecipherably there

The snow’

s fading from mind

as when word s melting in

decipher ably there.

Fallen snow’

s a form of

meditat ing why dark

ness (how ever deeply

drawn) remain s incomplete.

That room

died with

his va cantness

haunted her not being

there as if personed

by his voice less pre

sence.

Confessed

As a minis

ter 1 must confess I

never served the church

but only Christ’s choice

of what I can’ t deny.

To the where

Seeing to

the where of a whiteness

beginning inaudibly as

a dream time lessly ex

panding.

Fading image

She lost

that surety of self touch

ing for stone to be certain

of its cool ed-shapeness.

A signet ring

that indeli

ble you of what you a

ren’t worn down from gen

erations of other’s use

now declaring it’s mine.

If death was

Mozart's “great cst friend”

or Christ’ s last enemy

of man’s life less search

for meaning.

Viktor Frankl

mourned by

treating those who cn

emied him be fore I became

a Christian I couldn’t

forgive Now I can’t for

give my sell for being o

therwise than him.

If

I’m a

Christian Why is the

Jew in me so passionate

ly blood-con suming a his

tory that’ s even more

than faith can reveal

And if I’

m a Jew why

have Christ ians become

so much a part of that un

known where of self.

Those who didu ’t hear

And for

those sheph crds who didn’

t hear the harsh winds

sounding through that

coarse barr en grass a

vacantness to their lone

ly distant and silenc

ing stars.

Light-beam

s fly-danc

ing instill ctually-

sensed.

Of waiting-silence

Candles

burnt down as the blood

of their dy ing hopes

but a breath of waiting-

silence now.

From marriage therapy

a) He

complain

ed of other s because

at the heart of it (no

one else’s)

He couldn’

t forgive him self We seld

om mirror what’s really

seeing us back.

b) Self-pity’

s that in

toxicating drink right

down to the perilous

bottom for self-escap

ing minds.

c) Imaged

If you don’

t always say what you

think Your thinking may

(in its own disguised

manner) be claiming

it back for you.

d) Outfathomed

Love can

take almost so much hurt

(the density of a woman’

s response) Until it out

fathoms the more of her

than even pain can bear.

e) Empathy’

s listen

ing to o thers’ grie

vances not as if but be

cause they inhabit per

haps some lesser known

source of our own.

I) Forgiveness

We can only

forgive o thcrs once

wc realize our own need

for self-for giveness.

g) In becoming

Where the

past become s more pre

sent than its needs

should just ly require a

fearless turn about Now’s

the only now of one’s fu

ture in be corning.

No escape

caught as

a fly in the nets of

his own self-revealing

s The walls without high

er even than his dead-down

fears No ans wer that does

n't answer it self echo

ing back word lessly im

mune.

On Donne’s Holy Sonnets

As those

cactus Ho wering

from the thorns that

kept them so tightly

held so Donne’ s passion

nurtured from sin as

if the devil himself had

become God' s helpless a

gent.

fear’s the

fear of one self That

dead image in the mirr

or’s not find ing out for

more.

Release

It wc could

only see with the eyes of

others and pulse their

heart be yond our wan

ting needs But then there’

s too much of us to let

that release as birds be

yond the climb ing mountain’

s hold.

Tommy

Living for o

tilers who can’t live

for them selves Some

thing out dated unmodern

not to be touched with

words but rarely gen

uine true.

Stone-shadowings

The mount

ains we’d left behind

as if pass ing through

the depth s and wind

ings of an un relinquish

ing time But they still stood out o ver the lake

withdraw ing in to

their pri mieval stoneshadowing s.

A silent

sadness

not to be touched or even seen the

way flower s may feel

while clos ing from

the sun' s declin

ing light.

In-resonance

As a pian

ist seal ing her fin

gers for the fluency of

touch

ing over that

in-resonan ce of selffindings.

Ancient instruments

with their

scarce-away sounds inre

vealing a time fleeting so

unheard in likeness

from view.

The where of

The more

the snow in settling

down to the where of my

not being without.

No where’s now

Was he inhab

iting the depths of a

boundless sea dreamflowing the reveries

of a time less no where’

s now.

Unharboured

No where

s safe from self he al

ways return cd to being

where it was as a boat

unharbour ed those

dream-night s through.

Whispered alive

This world’

s whisper ed alive in

night’s star-revealing

spaceless

source.

In sense-from-self

He held

tight to each step he

knew certain ly impress

ing in sense-from-self.

Before Genesis

a no place

world of His being prevad

ing of all that wasn’

t.

The Baal’

s stone-

temple pass ionately

blood-aris mg that

hollow ed naked

ness

from self.

For Rosemarie

You’ve kept

my world in place No where

else but you' re the light

s of harbour ing in this

restless be ing ot mine.

See-saw (forM. s.)

It’s the

down-swing of this world’

s darken ing days that

could only en lighten us

to that breath of light that

Christ has brought to re

deem the depth of our lost-

finding soul

s.

Readings

No more book

s now enough of them back-

shelved I read people place

s the signs of nature called to be ing here-

voiced.

Why he left

lie didn’t

know his way back to

the world a bout him an

ocean of chang ing tides

carrying him out driftwood

lapped at the moon’s ex

pause.

5 % credit

Dried leave

s crumb ling his hand

s the re

mains of those

clients at 5 % credit home

lessly en dowed.

Taken in

They took

her in and left her there

with vague pro mising phras

es roomed for a call

that never came hope

fully await

mg.

The chronic

broke off

no one know s why as that

boat with the black plague

d rat-infest ed drifting

for a harbour less found.

In print

Poems in

print left their indel

lblc mark of what was

once a scarce lv decipher

able windbreathing.

Snow-night

the wind

s invisib ly voiced

a dark ness blown

through a bandoning

shadow s of no

where there but now.

Subway

tunnell

ed in its e choing fear

of unseen for sakening dis

tances.

Timeless distances

Her eyes

thinking a loud of where

I could only imagine time

less distan ces ...

City pidgeon’

s feeds in creasing

ly shadow s their rest

less taken-from over

s.

The pose

of a per

son’s more why lie’s look

ing at for finding him

selt consider ably more

so.

Snow-fields

as finely

alight as the touch of

those sun-sensed trails

cending mo ments.

Pastel

winter sky

as fine ly unheard

as when the pale moon'

s seldom ed from

light.

If there is Love

then

death has given up

its final claims of

knowing

Celebrating Life

To

celebrate life is to

see what one hasn’t

seen before becoming.

Of soundless light

Where

there are no more

questions by not be

ing answer ed And the

sky resound s into a

void of sound less light.

Synagogue/Ecclesia (Strassburg) if

the Lord lives in dark

ness And Israel’s eyes

are bound

to the same

truth perhap s they see

more by knowing less.

TIlC IHC’CUIS of evil (in memory of Wallace Stevens)

against

the white of snow-appar

ent fields Black birds

moon-intens ed their

feather ed sleek

ness.

8 masterpieces seen in Frankfurt Dec. 18/08

a) Vermeer Astronomer

Arc those

stars so ex actly plac

ed for his eye-touch

ing assuran ces.

b) Corot

Portrait of an Italian lady 1870

That still

inward ex pression

ed more of the artist

than of his model.

c) Spitzweg Ilose-cnthusiast

Those rose

s have en thused his

nose to a bee touch-down

fragrance.

d) Van dcr Weyden Annunciation (Paris)

Angel and

Mary grac iously almost

dance-like

through-flow

ing heaven ly design

s.

e) Courbet

View of Frankfurt 1858

Has the ri

ver itself flowed trails

parently in to a city-

stilled ap preciat

ion.

f) Master o/Flemalle

Fat man’ s burgeon

ing out mill ti-cheeked

revealing

eyes.

g) Pontormo Portrait of lady with dog

Never has a

chair been so proud-fac

ed as this one Only the

lap dog’s humanely

touched.

It) Master of Flemalle

The bad thief so aloned

that not e ven those pit

iless on-view ers could be

thinking them selves so far

down as this.

Waiting rooms

The unquiet

of waiting rooms as if

those vague ly placid

walls list ening back

to fear' s undaunt

ingly there.

The mystery

There may

be laws to this or that

He created because He

wanted some thing more un

revealing se cretly with

holding and yet more than

all we’ve e ver known or

could possi bly in reali

zing.

But just then

Some

times the tone soften

s as if a calm at the

center of where we’re

not being for more But

just then.

Why

do birds

die shamed and alone

because life has left them

to the thic kets of their

haunting mem ones.

Pre-mating calls

She put on

the depth-tones of

her most sub duing sweet-

warmth eye’ s coo-coo

ing the dove’ pre-mating

calls.

High life

more those

low-down in stincts

for the less ened identity

of a fail ing person.

Frighten

cd at what

he saw of him self in o

thers that he took to

his room a loned from

such self-disturb

ing insight s.

“Accept yourself

as you are we all aren’

t perfect” So he did with

an almost Calvinistic

intent wine women and song

ing his way through a

life ot god-given debauch

cry-

Asylums

We all have

our own litt

le refuges

as some shopp ing with wide-

open eyes and a small tight

ly—held purse Those private

asylums we need if

only to es cape from our

own less er self-de

meaning in stinets.

The glass house

When life be

came too much for her be

ing weighed down to its tin

touchable a bandoning

depths She took to her glass

house shut-up in a silent

world of no findings out.

Tracing

If you can

trace the last patches

of this fail ing snow to

the times of its encompass

ing complete ness.

Melting time

Dark-snow’

s prevail ing sadness

through these melt

ing times of ours.

DeHooch

Rooms re

ceding through columns of

light as if spoken sha

dows of wind s increas

ing.

3nl mvt./Beethoven’s 7lh

Ifdanced

then pulsing for a light

ness of dense ly timed

awakening

s.

Equally

If you read

yourself in to what you

see it’s only if that paint

ing’s looking back equally

self-finding.

Allegretto Beethoven’s 7,h

They’re be

ing called hesistant

ly at first though voice

less in to the How of

time’s impend ing oneness.

Slow mvt.

Mozart Clarinet concerto

When inti

macy become s as a stream’

s transpar ency.

Of not knowing

With that

clear con science of not

knowing what one didn’t

want to know those Jew-train

s moving slow ly to the east

or that per petual 10 % of

cash-flow ing to those

hole-bottom trousers of

theirs.

In the Niirnberg zoo

the mother

polar bear who ate its

own failing child up to

protect it from a world it wouldn’t suffer for be

mg permanent ly closed in

or let defense lessly out

We do much the same in bath

tubs of dead children’

s lifeless blood.

Identities

If they were

wise men who became king

s to cele brate The One

of their own with gifts

that symboliz cd His very

being that childlike pur

ity in bending down to where

they could re find that small

ness from self.

End of the line

called out

to an emp tied train

Only that barr en voice scar

cely decipher ing though dis

tantly ech ing as the

sounds of the sea repeating

what was al ways known

though never really under

stood.

Darwin

knew little

of why love s the creat

ing source of life’s e

solving be yond all those animal instincts

inhabiting more of us

than they really should.

Perhaps

only an

gels know why the fish

seek for the darker depth

s when the sun’s too

bright for their knowing

where.

That faceless smile

He knew money

but he didn’t know people

Their faces took the form

of dollars and cents He

sold out to one that left

him with emp tied hands

and the o ther with a

vanishing

faceless

smile.

That change

What marked

the change in Corot’s stonelike firmness to his later

untouched

transpar

encies Or of Bellini’

s hard and pa thetie Manteg

nian pietas to that soft

and still classic-poet

ic complete ness of his

later work.

Down-talked

He talked

himself down to a self-

righteous ness where it

hurt most a loned from all

but that ghost ly-shadowing

imageless.

The mind

can be as

resolute ly cold as

this vacant winter day

untouched from the

wandering shadows of

voice-dark ened decipher

ing birds.

Watching (for Chung)

as through

a dimly receding candle

glow the little life

that’s left ofher adher

ing more to the skin and

bone of that only remain

s of an un seen soul and

a distant God though closer

now than e ver before.

So alive

Picture

s so alive of those

since dead still defy

ing the mute claims of death’s final izing.

Paling

Snow however

softly felt at the first

paling through time’s reflec

ting mirror.

Sky-becoming

Where do

voices dis appear as

smoke’s skybecoming.

Listening back

Housc-fram

edwooden coldness star

ing beyond where even hu

man eyes could be lis

tening back.

Even at

dawn’s in

tending space lessness to

why she could n’t see what

the winds brought to

mind.

Her

elusive

touched vaguely un

spoken word s.

Pastry-girl

smiles sugar

ed the trails parency from

lip-stick ing appreci

ations.

The image

of an in

spoken leaf s hand indel

iably yours of having been

sensing-it-

through.

created for

its becoming now neither

past nor prc sent but as

a bridge at the middle

staring out the length of

its unknown distance

Shadows

of a house

heavy with a depth of

time’s increa sing sorrow

s awaken ing now its

moon-bespok en silences.

45 Popham ’

s my day and

night watch man window

ed even be yond where

time could be seeing us

through.

So voicelessly alive

What are

these artifi cial night-

lights try ing to tell

us so voice lessly a

live.

For Charles and Leonore

Words

create them selves the

way shadow s deepen

through real izing.

Snow-fields

oflight

wind-creat ing a vast

ness of un told distan

cings.

“Cry wolf ’

We Jews

cry wolf all the time

he’s insid iously climb

ing the back yard of our

front-view fears.

Tiny birds

caged in a

brightness of color

ing sound s impulsing

momentary

flight-ap

praisal

Offormed-presence

This wind-

quiet snow keeps us

closer down in to an in

timacy of formcd-pre

sence.

Cleansed

If a poem

can cleanse a moment

from time’ s creating

a lesser world of its

own.

Flowered

Can one tern

per color to its pristine

chastity of scent.

Titled

Should a

poem title its defin

ing sense creating

through mean ings of its

own or be left speech

lessly void.

January ’09

So desperate

ly cold that his shadow

froze down to an uninhab

ited there ness.

E. C.

Her eyes

came in to the room

underhand dis cerning the

way hands grasp express

ively seen.

Mourning

A depress

ive house mourning

the loss through a

vacant still ness.

New York’

s a city of

bridges spann ing high o

ver phantom ed fears

tightly clos ed ghetto

ed.

Close-downed

The cold

kept him closedown to that

numbed touch of a life

less response.

The Ferris Wheel

turned me slow

ly around self revolving

stars until the night im

mersed in to the windless

reaches of time.

Uncaged

One can’t

cage man in from his de

vouring in stincts

will get you out at ven

geance’s call.

4 American masterpieces (NYC)

a) Pcacli blossoms (Cliilde Hassan)

subtle

ly touch ing the grass-

scent of mo ment’s evas

ivelv.

b) Under a Cloud (Ryder)

where the

winds sail ing sun-vis

ions beyond.

c) Prom the Williamsburg Bridge (Hopper)

Window

s as alon ed as the

persons room ed in to

looming

shadow

s.

d) Lighthouse (Hopper)

climb

ing where spacial

ly leaving us behind.

Up for show

She put her

feelings up for show that

they rarely came down per

sonallv warm th.

The blind

seeing

through the touch of space-

moving in to their way

s of being heard.

Low tide

s vacancy

of place an unreveal

ing world now nakedly poss

essed shame less.

For Rosemarie (from Genesis 2)

That rib

He took out of me to im

prison in softness

of heart.

Unsaid

What’s un

said often feels a way

as the re ceding step

s in snow.

Seadown

evening

tides wash ing the moon

ashore in pa led remem

brances.

Little-girl-look

That innocent

little-girl-look with self-

protective smiled an i

mage of what wasn’t any

more.

A stilled

subduing

quiet as this sea listen

ing aloud to its voice

less becom ings.

A 2 nd chance

too deep

ly hurt for more of that

blood-lett

ing her never again tree-

findings.

Free-flowing

The gull’

s free-flow ing a height

of image less re

spouse.

Mistaken identity

If it’s

always the o ther’s mis

take You may be living with

mistaken i dentity.

Circe

the temptress’

voice call ing out of

those sea-depth in

stincts at the bottom-

ground of man’ s earthy pass

ions.

The fan

circling

its own sound less wind-

creating con tinuous

ly shadow ing reflect

ions.

Sand-sifting

Little child

sand-sift ing as if

time was only that touch of

not quite be ing brought

to mind.

Origins

Was the

moon listen ing aloud

to create the tide

s voice lessly trans

scending.

The pelican

ascend

ing to where only the wind

s and his wings space

lessly in volving.

A prison

locked-mind

kept in to where’s no

way out from self.

His older

brother had become more of

him than he could call his

own death a 2nd dying even the

stone a re plica of that.

Little boy

found keep

ing up with his feet

stepping quicker than

his wind-blown shirt could be

coloring for.

Known

She knew

her man and kept him there

shadowing the lesser

whims of her own self-re

flection

s.

Seeing eye (for Trim)

dogs may

know more of the darkness

es than man can realize.

Moved

He was so

moved by be ing moved

that there was no where else from going there.

Heavy

tropic

leaves fall ing the

weight of their color

ings down.

Inswelling

clouds as

vastly

threaten

ing time s slow-mov

ings through.

Hard-of-reading

The paper

s he quoted glass-eyed

approving ly more than

those hard-of-reading.

Two songs of my youth

a) September song

keeps repeat

ing in the faint elus

ive imagin ings of word

less phras ings as those

tracks in snow indeci

pherably from becoming.

b) “I 'm as restless

as a willow”

in the wind storms of

these leaf less mourn

ings that touch and bend

whereever I’ m not for

findings.

At my age

one lives

with a sense of loss

that isn’t now but could

be soon a bandoned

as a house outused only

that emptied sense of what

once was.

This night

waking me

through the strange and

distant sound s of its in

coming moon.

Bottomed out

They took

the bottom out ofhim

the gravity of person

until he float ed Orphelia-

like on the waves of sub

duing flower s.

Star-down

winds palmsensing grow th of these

immensing

night-vis

ions.

Shaded in

to where

the sounds ofsuch

inner thought

s seem so

transient ly still

ed.

Facades of houses

concealing

the true fa ccs of why

they’re watch mg out

steadfast ly unconcern

ed as it such appear

ances could deceive

from view.

Guardi’s Venice

floating

on water a phantom

world of un realizing

shadows Houses mel

ting in to shim

mering echoes light-touch

ed.

Peouese

If a flo

wer’s intui lively there

its color meets mine

the eyes of process

ional thought

s.

Lessens

As my

strength

lessens

perhaps my shadows too

Thinned to the trails

parent voice of where the

rain's e choing faint

ly from.

The lizard

eye-tongu

ed slither ing linear

apprehen sions grass

in-sensed.

Soft wave

s and smooth

ed sands as it life were

folding him through to

such quiet sol itudes.

Shadows

on sand as

a pale moon without depth

of forming its elusive

surfacing

claims.

Gambling ship

adrift upon

the unstead ied waters of loose ly holding

fortunes.

To make known

A poet wants to

make known what he does

n’t know him self reali

zing.

A mindfor money

Those poss

essed with a mind for mon

ey have learn ed to live

their accum ulating fort

une’s paper ing over

souls.

At the other side

Beyond where

one can’t see the ship

s over the horizon'

s edge as at the other

side of self.

Outfindings

If we

fish the sea out of its

ominous deep we ll soon be

emptied out land-found

without a scope for fer

tile recover ings.

Of ages gone

The bottom

of the sea these grain

shells sand-refined to

the harmless death of age

s gone.

Being watched

He knew

he was be mg watched

with selfclosing eye

s that took him down to

that certain ty of mo

ment.

For Rosemarie

The hidden

face of where she reced

ed in to those content

plative si lences of

hers.

At face value

They took

hint at face value with

that monied smile of his

securely self-sufficient.

Uuremembered

If you can’

t remember it didn’t

really happ en as tracks

in snow melt ing time a

way.

Bi

cycles turn

ing the sand-down sounds

of the sea to those sootli

ing voices in wardly calm

ed.

Pelicans

raising

the sky to a height

of sound less imag

inings.

Ice cream

man comb

ing the beach with his pov

erty-stricken smiled the

bells to their creamy

taste choco late coated.

Restlessly

The light

s luridly asking no

answers only the dark inhab

iting its rest lessly a

live.

Unrevealing

It rain

ed that un seen night

through and left shadow

s behind un revealing.

To remind

Who's left

to remind when the dead

become speech lcssly remote

and only that unknown

silence with holding its

lost secret s.

Lift-behind

These cloud

ed sand-step s only sur

facing their mysterious

left-behind

sense.

Having been there

That strange

feeling of having been

there be fore as per

sons we’ve never met for

the first time.

L ’appel (Gauguin)

She kept

calling back even from the

dead so faint lv unreveal

ing.

Low-keyed

A low-key

cd voice a bout bis pa

ling fac ial concern

s almost whisper

ingthe un real sense of

his being there.

The more of

Night be

came the more of his dark

nesses sett] ing in as

waves over coming the

source of his very being.

Failed

Her marr

iage fail ed her sense

of self he left her

pride couldn’ t find itself

back from place.

Too close to himself

He lived

too close to himself that

even his shad ow tightly

pressed e choing his

very step.

Stingray ’

s peaceable

intention s modest

ly securing the bottom-

down of these sandied shore

lines obscure ly self-eff

acing.

Roll-called

Age is a

sitting kind of thing not

taking place but only be

ing there the way birds

appear lin ed up for

their invis ible roll-

call.

Tense

without

cause scent-down in

stinct for stone.

When to stop

knowing he

did and left scarcely

touched im pression

s in snow.

The wandering star (Lc Clczio)

Even snake

s with their cold skin

s and shadow ing eyes ent

wined in tens ed reveries

of love.

The train ’

s life’s sym

bol of the no where of on

coming.

Backwater

places where

these secret ly closing

doors open an untouch

ed fear hold ing us back

from know ing why.

Eyes

that saw

more than they appear

cd mirror ing those un

known depth-silences.

Life-span

houses up

for sale Those empt

tied at mem ories now

spaceless ly unfind

ing.

1 Peter 3:18-22

When the

whale swall owedJonah

down to the primieval

darkness of his soul

less wander mgs.

Prisoner gin Mnlmcl)

That prison

became a 2nd home for him

keyed to his lock-down

thoughts and a world

without that could

barely sur vive beyond

him.

Overheard

Some walk

the sea a long their own

inward fear ful voice

could be o verheard

from listen ing outloud.

Sundown

moment

s touch mg for the

shells you haven’t found

before an al most glimmer

of what the sea’s been

asking it self for.

He paint

ed his house extreme

ly white to give him a

cleansed sense of clo

sing down his past from wa

king back.

Old Man and the Sea (Hemingway) (4)

a) Do we “kill

those we love the most”

(Strindberg)

That fish

bigger than life or e

veil that pri mieval source

at the ocean-bottom of

self.

b) Was lliat

fish the urge within that

pulls us be yond all poss

ible bound s of return.

c) Sharks

devour

ing at the blood-eyed

scent of man’s need

s for more.

d) Was it

Hemingway’

s muscular strength of

language that helped control

that vengeful sea within.

Timesharing

If all the

rooms look the same that’

s why their speech has

been levell ed to a same

ness of per son.

Corridor’

s narrow

long-sight ed view of

walls that keep closing

us in to the shadows of

having been passed.

Transforming

These soft

spoken tree s spread

ing the wind s through the

touch of their transform

ing moment s.

The golden age

was alway

s what isn’t now liv

ing through until it’s

the loss that golden be

comes.

At sunset

when the wind

s rise from the fall

ing sun’s o vercoming

shadow

s.

At night

when one

stops hear ing oneself

and your breath e

ases in to a stillness

beyond that last need

for touch.

His prayer (for Ed)

s rose and

fell as the tides of the

sea into the unspoken

meanings of God.

Only then

One can’t

be prepared for what will

only happen after it’

s known E ven dream so

intangibly

leaves

us from its ways out.

Little Sammy

too weak

to defend a gainst his

instinct s for the

big man that took him down

to his last dollars of

self-import

ance.

Some

are built

as this solid-down palm to

earth out a watchman’

s focus of life’s immov

able gravity.

Cain

the mark

ed man as modern as

man ever could endure castoff from the soil that

couldn’t grow th his broth

er’s rest less blood-

crying voice.

That bridge

they built

far out o ver the con

tinuing voice of the sea

he follow ed his red

cent steps touching on

wood couldn’ t hold the

sounds of his self-search

ing self.

Surprised

to see as

a bird color ing bright

before its eyes could

be telling you so.

Toddler

trying at life fall

ing more than

he could stumble back

his go-sig nals improvis

ing for win.

011Y Town (Thorton Wilder) (2)

a) They didn'

t see her though she was

living-dead a floating i

mage of why time couldn’

t be other wise than it

really was.

b) Thorton Wil

der’s town’

s something special be

cause it was like all the

others by be ing itself.

The seagull

common as

they are sat sad-eyed

in the sand couldn’t

fly not e ven a breath

of his wait ing for an un

seen in the darkness

es of night.

Bodied

She bodied

her unful filled being

the ripened fruit of wo

manly guile.

A vacancy

When word

s ran out with the tide

s and left a vacancy at

that unspok en center

from self.

Mothered

The autumn

trees releas ed all those

leaves and the fruit

that weight ed them down

to a naked ness from

self.

Pink

bi-cycl

ing the sea with his own

self-propell ing turn-o

ver-smile d in wind

less length for seeing.

The shadow

s ot the

birds cross ed over his

mind’s view and left a

vague but touching fear

behind.

Backwater

places re elusive

where the wa

ters run shy and there’

s an ease of soft-remem

bered bree zes.

Doppelgdnger

Same size

same weight same way of

telling me back imitat

ing what I feared of

knowing my selfso.

The walls

talking

back their self-enclos

ing shadow s secret

ly confin ing.

The soprano’

s vibrato

wavering

quiver

ing in the emptied air

of seldom bird-finds.

A bouquet

of flower

s tabled his thoughts

down to where stand

ing became a coloring

sense.

Do the dead

keep ask

ing us more alive still in

to the image of their

soundless

voice.

Hearing through

Do each of

us listen to the sea with

the lone voice of only

ours Or is it always

in hearing us through.

If

I’m alway

s the being of becoming

now Can these shadows as

the color ing autumn

leaves fall ing through.

Tolstoy

Life over

whelmed his being more of

it than even in telling

could poss ibly deny.

Sentinels

Ships at the

edge of the horizon sen

duels of not knowing what’

s in coming beyond.

Thinking back’

s not what

was but where you are from

time’s re tracing.

Moralizing’

s more of

the dog on the leash that

you keep hold ing back

tightly self-justifying.

Tolstoy’

s “confess

ions” releas ed him more

from the dark urgings of

his past than his un

attuned virgin “child-wife”.

Captiva Bay

The winds

have spaced this island

where only si lence could

be heard se clusively

inholding.

Overnight

the sea

calmed down like holding

its breath while the

stars began silently

in fad ing.

Levelling

the sand

s to their flat-told

surfacing these once-

thought steps vanish

ing from sound.

Dolphins

with their

wave-like form slop

ing in the wind’s musi

cal accord s.

Horse shoes

The numb

ed-clash sound of

horse shoes evoking me

tallic in stincts.

Sailings

The open-

waking sea sailing with

the white of its wind-

touched re veries.

Scarcely finding

The wavy

shadows of these primie

val palms on stone

as the tender nesses that

cool to but a scarcely

finding i mage of it

self.

Kept pace

His shadow

dark and un observed kept

pace with his every thought

secretly con fiding.

Parrot

colored

she was with a streak of

elongat ing feather

s a plummage of rarified i

dentities

imitating

whereever she might be fly

ing off.

Catching up

Slight

ly fat squat low-levelled

jaunty gait as if the fin

ishing process was catching

up on him.

Self-becoming

If it vvasn’

t the first time he’d

seen it a gain spring

flowers

breathless

ly self-bc coming.

Diagnosed

They diagno

sed him in a processing

machine that came out

(though slight ly starched)

almost human ed.

Outsider

When you’

re an out sider the

circles close and leave

you voice lessly shad

owed in a lone liness that

can’t be spok en aloud.

Orthodoxy (for Helen)

For her ap

pearance once dress

ed in the beauty of

what is cere monious and

sanctified became cloth

ed in the my stery of

Christ.

The poet’

s word an im

mensity of finely mesh

ed phrases spider-webb

ed to the sting of se

cretly hidd en design

s.

Diaried

Tolstoy

kept his diary to daily

plague his sufficient

ly innocent wife with his

own self-re penting soul.

Tolstoy

preached

sexual ab stinence

even in wed lock open

ed with the key of year

ly recurr ing off-spring

Money’

s the name

of those in-God-we-trust

bills hold ing command o

ver his in folding pocket

ed-assur ing smiles.

Shim

They sat

those barren wooded ben

ches dying the dead to

the depth of their own

living be yond.

Disoriented

Where it was

he wasn’t wandering

through a maze of dis

connected

sound-sens

ings vague ly shadow

ing.

Very moment

The tree saw

its time less self

less eyes of the living-

dead’s very moment.

Hypnotic

the snake’

s cold il licit barefaced rais cd to its

vipered

poisoning

glare.

Light-street

s’ call that

held him un seen hand’

s intensity of nothing

ness finds.

He knew

no step fur

ther if he didn’t stop

it would stop him through

with down-breathed chas

tened cold.

Lot’s wife’

s look-back

because she knew she must

Fired cold-through to

salt.

Skywards

When word

s brighten colored-sound

s balloon ed a solemn

skywards.

Racoon

clawed the

night-glar ing tree-

watch eye s.

Flowers

wither

ed because they’d been

written through liv

ing words.

Echoing

inaudible

sound's stair way round

ing out a nowhere

s in com ing.

Reflections

Night-glass

ed reflect ing dark i

mages of what was once

brighten ing/sti 11

ed.

Forgotten memories

His grain

ed fields of forgotten

memories cut down an

emptied vast ness for the

unerring timedissolving

winds.

Rejected (for Michael)

because

you’re too good remind

ing of Christ and the petty

servants of The Law per

forming the rites of their

own lesser per sons.

This Indian

land rich in

unharvest ed mysterie

s and secret backtime wa

ters owns less of itself

than those flat-down foreign

tongues inhab iting its

sovereign re mains.

Inspiration (for Warren)

Where it be

gan he only knew when

it started telling him

attuned to personed-

from being s.

World-findings

We fish the

seas to real ize the under

ground depth of our own

invisible

world-find

ings.

King Charles I. o/Englatid

(in memory Harold Hulme)

sat majesti

cally on a throne of di

vine-right im portance reign

cd over an Eng land peopled

with a lesser breed of being

His England his person un

til they took the head off

of his lone ly kingdom.

Lizard

cold-blood

ed stone-sur vivor.

Transparencies

The wind

left an in complete sense

of sadness be hind trans

parencies of cloud’s lightexposing.

Sit-down

times reminis

cent of why you’re hold

ing a balanc ed view of

time’s reced ing.

The great blue heron

as tall and

majestic as the fin

est speciman of man and

just as proud he stood stat

uesque in full-plummed ele

gance.

Death-shining

Looking

into the eye s of fear’

s staring him back

a cold si lence of fro

zen-light

death-shin

ing.

No time

left to find

time keeps running un

seen unheard though as the

sea continu ally incom

ing.

Sameness

Man’s all

starting to look the same

no race no tradition

s as a snow ed-down land

scape levell ed as far as

the eye can’ t see.

Learning to see

If you’re

learning to see it’

s because eye s can only

find their sound-awaken

ings.

Left behind

Looking the

outside of where he was

n’t seeing beyond that

enclosing circle as if

time had been left lasting

ly behind.

Shoe shine

boy blacken

ing the shoe s with an

ageless ex pression of

facial infer iority to

that high-stand ing white

man express ively self

compos

ing.

Unbeliev

able Allan

with his my opic overtoothed pre sently stead

fast self-con sciously as

suming.

Barbed-wired

If man

can’t civilize himself Why

not cage him in the an

imal instinct s glaring

out barbed-wired inhabi

dons.

Just for two

If there’

s little left of this

spaced-out world with its

dried desert-down sensibil

ities Why not make one o

ver of our own just for two

an island pro tected again

st the teem ing sea and

whatever could harm

the intimacy of our touch-

finding love-spells.

Always beings

He said “keep

your eyes on the common

man”I keep mine on those

uncommon mo ments that

transpire life’s subtle

ties a world of creative

always-be

ings.

Tropical night

so dark

that only

the waves

voiced through un

seen silen ces.

From an unseen source

Listen

ing to si lence he heard

in intense a wareness

as when the stars ris

ing from their un

seen source.

The dried

touch ofar

tificial flowers rare

ly sensed for birth.

Makeshift

moments as

when the touch for

cloth’s time-sensing.

Black-eyed

susans color

ing their own sense of time

less await mgs.

Really dead?

Are the dead

really dead only in their shutdown graves I see them

as near as the image of

these out lasting

thoughts.

Abraham’ (for Daryl)

s half-

and-half-sister

almost com pletely up

set the whole ness of God’

s self-comman ding plan-

view.

For my mother (at age too)

She came out

of the shadow s ofher hus

band conceal ing most of her

own person un til at age 90

she grew in to those unknown

shadows of her own.

Her meticulous way

(without need of word or

sense) in stinctive

ly defining objects by

touching their color

ing form through.

The fisher

man’s boat

became in time an i

mage of his worn-down

rough and barr en sea-re

claiming per son.

A re the clothes

women wear a 2nd person

ing of self (the one

they would have wanted

but never real ized) or more

an enhancing adornment

ot their own i dealizing.

When does

thought-i

mage re cede in to

the lower depth of

dream-imag

inings.

Imprisoned (for Michael)

Each cell a

closed world of unresolv

ing fear and hate of o

thers with in one self

s no where of getting

out from.

Parole (for Rebecca)

as a dog

leashed to a running-

out-freedom

ofbeing

called back tight-hold

ing’s lett ing loose.

Witches

may not have

been real but we thought

them so vi vidly a

live they be came until

we burned them out of

our mind’ s sake.

For Helmut

Even a child

hood myth lived the

wrong way out came to haunt

his aging years with

what wasn’t by being the

more of him.

He accorded

his small stature and

depth such a prominence

that his ach ievements

grew in to a monument

of self-deny ing approval

Overshadowed

Though you’

ve been call ed out for

dead You con tinue to shad

ow over me a length of

time that can’t be call

ed back in creasing

ly awaken ing.

Sistine Madonna (Raphael, Dresden)

Such a beau

tifying posed-harmony with

those send mental angel

s stealing the down-to-

earth heaven ly show and

the I’m-part-of-it-all wit

nesses placed for their just

right balanc ing accords

with Mary and Jesus topping

it all off as a cake can

died with their eyelighting fes dvides.

Grunewald Crucifixion (Karlsruhe)

passion

ed with co lor and faith

canvassed the enipti

ness of a dead-darken

ed world to the blood-in

tensed redemp don of Christ’

s longing ly-pained.

Whiteness (2)

a) The swans

discover

ing the white ness of sound

by floating upon their

unresol v ing cause

s.

b) The storks opened

winds of white ness and the

width of their indwell

ing sound s.

The train

Joseph Roth

never saw or knew still

running track s elusive

ly through the numbed re

membrance of his lost

father’s no return.

Hard choices

as if time

itself press ing you down

to an inevit able no where

out but now.

Voice-receding

Summer

waves a lei sure of those

smoothed

voice-reced

ing moment s.

At 60

she dress

ed the c vocative

way of a teenager

so allur ingly self-

desiring.

For Rosemarie

too good

to laugh at the flaw

s of other s without e

ven a hint of self-jus

tifying need

s.

Palm

shadow s as light

as the wind s blown

through self-apparence

s.

Poker

faced star

ing through those con

cealing card s of his in

telling hand

S.

His shadow

dark and sol emn kept ap

proaching the where of

his being at one from him

self.

Flushed

His face

flushed streams of

self-con cealing blood

darken ing as a

moon from its clouded

course.

“Not yourself”

today as if he had found

a new iden tity than all

those day s of self-re

calling.

Forebodings

The sea

dark with un seen fore

bodings re lentless

ly shore-in tensing.

A white ship

sailing the

horizon a way quiet

ly myster iously selfbecoming.

Cold spell

down south

moon-chill ed moment

s tighten ing closer.

Waiting

They’re

waiting for death as if

death wasn’ t waiting

for him clockwise circling

a time that would become

timeless ly apparent.

Self-protective

Some wo

men need a kind of prett

iness to pro tect their

child-like

longings

from an in timacy of

self.

That walk

along a beach

of recurr ing thought

s that kept the waves

rhymically

self-defin

ing.

Next door neighbor

Death was

his next door neighbor

most ahvay s near but

discreet ly distant

from where its presence

could be thought of

as intrud ing upon a

respect able priv

acy.

A weakness

He sensed

a weakness in her an untouch

able place a wound that

might never heal so in

wardly bleed ing that he

often turned his face a

way from the pains of what

might become self-reveal

ing.

Why

are the fish

so silent when the sea

colors them with the

speed of trail sient voi

ces.

Time

ran out on

him the way the tide

s do to an emptiness

of vast stret ches of sound

less meaning s.

The plumage of

His self-

satisfying walked as the

plumage of an indigenous

peacock’s at tending fea

thered assem blage.

A quiet part

of the beach

where each palm seemed

to be climb ing its lone

ly voice to a wind-soft

exposure of leaves.

History

rewrite

s itself as a field grow

ing beyond the length

from its en visioning

where.

Of lost remembrance (for Rebecca)

She posed

so many quest ions that

their answer s piled up

for her as sounds of

lost remem brance.

Southern days (for Warren)

create

their own timeless

shadows a land more of

remembran ce heavy with

those nos talgic wind

s of regret.

Parachute

holding on

to that some where bet

ween space and sound

lessly reassur ing.

Pull of

That unseen

fish tensed the pull of

his face’ s depth-ga

zing.

Tlw older

lie grew the

younger his thoughts

became flash-images of an

unreconcil ed time that uneased his sleep time

lessly awake.

A black snake

told in

stone’s re calling its

cold-down in stinctual

light.

Of silent renewal

as slight

as the bird could be touch

ing the sur faces of sand

with its scarce moments of

silent renew al.

A spider

webs the in

tricatc fa brie of his

deadly in stincts to

the venom ous final

ity of sting.

The bridge

air-tight

wind-envel oping con

Crete pliras ings of the

river’s per petual need

s for its light-rehear

sings.

A no way out

The door

closed be hind heard

the key al most inaudi

bly turn a

no way out

only darkness speaking

through the confines of

his inten sing fear.

For more (for George)

The Safeway

s may be as fluent as the

mind’s smoothfinding shore

s But that glimpse of

what could have been o

therwise though rough

ly attained and hard to

scale down may lead e

ven beyond the cliffs of

man’s peri lous needs

for more.

A false start

that began

before he realized

why it left him there

staring out a vacancy

of place.

Therapied

Those who

tell them selves out

have little left to find

except voice less self-appear

ances.

Each day

a turn o

ver page of poems the

way Pink dis guised him

self with flower

ing present ations.

A ghostly image

The tides are

out the fog s in this

beach trans forming in

to a ghost lv image of

persons c merging from

their unseen shadows.

The day

that time

stopped and touch became

numbed to the vacan

cies of those cities

of silent stone.

The 7th SOU (forJuergen)

Blood-moon

time the syn agogues

charred to ash the a

bandoned rabbi’s house

songedloud for war and

he the 7th son Der Fiihrer

as godfather of that god

less forsak en time.

Undcreyed

He under

eyed my stand ing there with

an estrang ed looked-

through mo ment that dar

kened my sense from view.

Blood stains (for Helmut)

The bloodstains of his

Nazi youth paled now

rubbed down from that worn

instinct ual hate hung

away into the closet far

from sight a badge some

how still per iliously

near.

American gothic

with a glimpse

ot Hawthorne circular

ly stair-cas ing a gable-

topped view ot looking

out for no thing’s there.

Tatooe

s blent

ish more than the sur

face skin’s self-defin

ing.

There before

He’d been

there before that strange

feeling when a dream be

comes truer than he could

sense its meaning only

then only now.

Than that

When days

pass in to the silent stream

s of night be coming star

s and that vague a

wareness of something

more.

Time-telling

The hall e

choing sound less feet’

s imagin ing response

time-tell

ing.

Children’

s eyes wondr

oils roman tically

but more furtive e

lusively

self-asking

without real izing the

question s of why.

“You guys”

insults the

language and why I'

m me per soiled in that

mysterious unknown of

being self.

Time-eclipsing

It became an

after time of his life as

those dried fruitless

seasons of the mind’s

waiting to get back time-

eclipsing.

Earth-needs

Could you still read in her ladd er-day eye

s subduing an unused

shame lowering down to

those earth-needs of for

liter times.

Quartet 4 (Bartok)

Quick

speed of tension

ed-light.

Op. 96 Violin Sonata (Beethoven)

So fine

idyllic that Beethoven

must have shed his tough her

oic skin to the quieter

pulse ot'na tured in.

Violin Sonata (janacek) Those dreamrepeating in terludes as i

mages that weren’t for

saken.

It snow

ed so deep that he

couldn’t track the

paths of his voicing

through.

Poetry books by DavidJaffin

1.    Conformed to Stone, Abelard-Schuman,

New York 1968, London 1970.

2.    Emptied Spaces, with an illustration by Jacques Lipschitz, Abelard-Schuman, London 1972.

3.    In the Glass of Winter, Abelard-Schuman, London 1975, with an illustration by Mordechai Ardon.

4.    As One, The Elizabeth Press, New Rochelle, N. Y. 1975.

5.    The Half of a Circle, The Elizabeth Press, New Rochelle, N. Y. 1977.

6.    Space of, The Elizabeth Press, New Rochelle, N. Y. 1978.

7.    Preceptions, The Elizabeth Press, New Rochelle, N. Y. 1979.

8.    For the Finger’s Want of Sound, Shearsman Plymouth, England 1982.

9. The Density for Color, Shearsman Plymouth, England 1982.

10.    Selected Poems with an illustration by Mordechai Ardon, English/Hebrew, Massada

Publishers, Givatyim, Israel 1982.

11.    The Telling of Time, Shearsman, Kentisbeare, England 2000 andjohannis, Lahr, Germany.

12.    That Sense for Meaning, Shearsman, Kentisbeare, England 2001 andjohannis, Lahr, Germany.

13.    Into the timeless Deep, Shearsman, Kentisbeare, England, 2002 andjohannis, Lahr, Germany.

14.    A Birth in Seeing, Shearsman, Exeter, England

2003    andjohannis, Lahr, Germany.

15.    Through Lost Silences, Shearsman, Exeter, England 2003 andjohannis, Lahr, Germany.

16.    A voiced Awakening, Shearsman, Exeter, England

2004    andjohannis, Lahr, Germany.

17.    These Time-Shifting Thoughts, Shearman, Exeter, England 2005 andjohannis, Lahr, Germany.

18.    Intimacies of Sound, Shearsman, Exeter,

England, 2005 andjohannis, Lahr, Germany.

19.    Dream Flow with an illustration by Charles Seliger, Shearsman, Exeter, England 2006 andjohannis, Lahr, Germany.

20.    Sunstreams with an illustration by Charles Seliger, Shearsman, Exeter, England 2007 andjohannis, Lahr, Germany.

21.    Thought Colors, with an illustration by Charles Se-ligcr, Shearsman, Exeter, England 2008 andjohannis, Lahr, Germany

22.    Eye-Sensing, ahadada, Tokyo. Japan and Toronto, Canada 2008

23.    Wind phrasings, with an illustration by Charles Seliger, Shearsman, Exeter, England 2009 andjohannis, Lahr, Germany

“David JafTfin is a scrupulous weigher and weigh ter of words - by which I mean that a poem is, for him, always a matter of collaboration with the true spirit of the language. Every word is given its value, neither more nor less.”

Edward Lucie-Smith

“David Jaffin’s ^receptions is a fine book. Jaffin’s poems, slight on-the page, entice, engage, amuse. Yet their brief touchings often reach wholeness, and they are poems of philosophical consequence out of keeping with much of modern poetics. The poems catch perceptions in the act of happening, to be, the short-line verse appropriate to what becomes.” Paul Ramsey, The Sewanee Review

“Jaffin’s poetry is as “modernist” as abstract painting while still poetry in the traditional sense, whose purpose is the verbalization of basic human experience and whose form derives from a serious exploration of language ... it is remarkable what depth of experience Jaffin manages to relate through his severely limited vocabulary and imagery.”    Victor Terras (Broum University)

“Mr. Jaffin uses words with a real fineness of diction which emphasizes a characteristic understatement of emotion. One recognizes a cultivated sensibility. He adopts a theme and mode which one cannot help but admire. He writes very well indeed.”    the late Norman Holmes Pearson (Yale University)

“Jaffin’s Through Lost Silences offers a rare display of manifold poetic variety. Succinct and challenging enforcers of new insights and deeper understanding, his poems soar in tar higher realms than those of prosaic description and rational analysis ... There is sincerity and conviction in Jaffin’s crisp, multi-sensory poeticisation of ideas. Existential and philosophical shapings of language, simple and complex at the same time, draw out the true nature of his chosen subjects in an original way overwhelming the faint echoes of older poetic traditions and leaving behind a profound aftertaste of experiences lived through for the first time.”    Edward Batley (University of London)

“David Jaffin is a master of the restrained but purposeful statement. Ifhis poems do not have quite the briefness of the haiku, they have a good deal of its light-dark inflection and rounded perfection of form ... Jaffin’s poems almost always give an impression of “light reflecting light”. The fact is, that it one ( wants restraint and elegance, he will find it in abundance here. Jaffin’s subtleties are, in short, dazzling.”    The Library Journal on Conformed to Stone

www.bogpriser.dk/Denmark Denmark:

Om Dream Flow

“David Jaffin is a prolific American poet whose work uses the minimum possible means of expression in order to reach for the essentials in his subject matter ... The limpid texture of his work resists quotation or excerption; his deceptively simple surfaces use the tensions inherent in the vocabulary to open up new horizons. Delicate creations, his poems tend to be wonderfully light lyrics.”