Idyll 5 (Moirae)
inevitable in all ways
To be born is the biggest gamble
We’re dealt our cards
We play
The deck is stacked
The dice are loaded
The game is fixed
They say
and the gods are betting three to one
That we’ll have cashed in all our chips
before the game is won
who plan our lives
map them out
from beginning to end
Decide the minute details
from words of oracles
and songs of bards
our sadness and content
spins a golden thread
and weaves a fabric flawlessly
on a loom of hope and dread
Lachesis from an o’erflowing pile
of straw and sticks and stones
Ponders over carefully
the stuff with which it’s sown
And Atropos wields leaden shears
with breathtaking accuracy
can cut a life line
just in time
to fulfill prophecy
the whims of gods
and flights of fancy
has outwardly stripped us of our dignity
our individual power
and responsibility
gave wisdom to the few who braved
a life of heroic deeds and tales
not meant for petty mortal knaves
A prophecy
once spoken and publicized
became the stuff of gossip
in the public eye
and daily
when the tallies were finally taken
careful watch was given to who they thought
would fit the bill
So many heroes taken by surprise
and in the mere act of throwing
Choices are made
A wish spoken
sets our minds pursuing
Coincidences we call fate
Every day a moment closer to a goal
Every moment brings days that hold
a quirk of foretold intimacy
that only gods should know
but within reach
there lies
a clever line of circumstances
strung together like a spider’s web
We, each, spinner,
weaver, maker
Master
of Destiny
in our lives
~89/92
The Poet’s Thoughts: Idyll 5, the Idyll that deals with the idea of Fate, was actually begun before Idyll 2, but it did not become fully clear to me until a few years later. The Idylls are an example of poems that I feel are discovered more than written. I am given them in an unworded form and then I gather the phrases from that other place, whatever and wherever it might be.
~~~
Drawing down the Demons
unbidden
as children
with tails and hooves
and sparklers
to destroy my sleep
And in my weakened state
they pounce
on my resistance
and squash it flat
until I can only lie
and pant
lightly smiling
A good romp always keeps me on my toes
Walking on a tightrope
above the beasts
that taunt and tattle
while throwing
empty cotton candy cones
quite a feat
to keep my feet
no less my toes
so high above
so close the fall
a perilous distance is all
that keeps me from their clutches
Hanging by my fingertips
and sitting in the living room
never safe from the dark corners
lurking in my mind
And when I look to see
head on
what stalks
and teases
whispering phrases
I never thought myself
I stand eye to eye
with a familiarity
almost frightening
what alter ego this
that haunts
from some other place
at home
as well here
and never sending thank you notes
after the visit’s done
Subtle overtones
in black and red
I’d always attributed
to checkerboard nuances
I
the pawn
and queen
and knight
in the complex set
of mate
check
mates
never doubting
the sure hand
that drove the white king
home
never questioning
not once
what it was I ran from
and I draw them down
and lead them to the fence
playing to let them in
and when the turn is done
I chase them out again.
~92
The Poet’s Thoughts: Sometimes, I see my muse as all-powerful and beneficent, an enormous river that I can tap into. Sometimes, it is more impish and this is the result. My late twenties was a time when I felt powerful. I had come back from the abusive relationship. I had a good job. I had bought a new car. I was working toward my degree and I felt like my life had real purpose. I wrote a lot of poetry during this time, which makes up for the dearth of poetry I wrote in the mid-eighties when I was just trying to survive.
~~~
House of the Dead
You are heavy in my arms
but I have the strength
I know
for this last journey
The door that holds my entry,
some ancient hewn oak,
is weatherworn and stained
with reminders of the fears I never spoke
The marble stairs
polished smooth and slick
beneath my wavering stance
leave no mark as I pass by
The walls—cold hard stone
against my cheek—
black obsidian
without seam or design
Ornamental brass adorns the door
like shimmering gold
and yet still cold
I am the only warmth
but it will not overflow
and take hold
in your small bones.
I enter slow and steady
greeted by the freshly washed ghosts
and some that had begun to mold
under the dust of time
whispering assurances
that ashes to ashes may be
but dust will settle
and leave only fingerprints
in the path of life.
Light falls in
through windows in the archway
stripped of heat
and warped by everchanging angles of the passing day
drawn into strange shapes on the floor
a pathway to the center canopy
I approach
the sacrifice is past
only this the final rite
remains
Kneeling gently
swaddling falls away
basin filled with water
carved into the stone
receives a life now past
linen stripped away reveals
the last memory I have
water cleanses even that
until it is all very far away
The face that I once caressed
is no longer a face
nothing exists behind a cold blank stare
The body I once held to me
is stiff and unyielding
softened only slightly by the wash of warm water
What I hold now
is only an object with the marks of a life I loved
The death scent gone
a mercy I carry with me through the halls
Wrapped again in cloth
the soft covering that hides
what I will never forget
A site is set aside
a hole dug into the very marrow of this place
to keep
to hold
to free
the ghost.
~92
The Poet’s Thoughts: My daughter died of SIDS, crib death as it is commonly called. She was almost six months old. She had slept through the night for the first time ever, I thought, but it turned out she had died during the night. I found her: a cold, stiff, miscolored doll in place of my warm and happy baby. When the ambulance came, they whisked her body out so that I would not see her. I have always regretted not being able to say good-bye. This poem is my way of going through the rituals that follow death, the ones I could not take part in.
~~~
She went insane by the dream
and when she woke up
nothing made sense anymore
He never realized
the woman who kissed him good-bye in the morning
was not the same lying with him the night before
All that day
she was alternately
startled and amused
The airtight monotone routine
took on a shadow of mystery
That by evening had dulled
to a shade of confusion
The dishes were still in the sink
from before when she was still sane
she stood in the kitchen alone
fingering the china, a pattern she hated,
from his mother long ago
and broke every one by the time he got home
His fury was more of an abject illusion
just another ripple
in a pattern she no longer shared
He wept in a way peculiar to both
because deep in his heart
she did not care
Yet her hands on his face
were gentle and warm
her passion heightened to art
he wasn’t aware of the state of her mind
but he sensed every inch of her skin
in the climax they shared in the shards
She laughed like a child
as he nursed her backside
a mandela of porcelain, dust and blood
in that laughter
he saw his role erased
and the years spent together annulled
She left the next morning
before he had awoke
he was more sad than surprised
she took her sturdiest shoes and left a brief note
“I’ve gone for a walk”, “good-bye”
the finality pierced like an arrow, but she was beyond lies
He sat in his nightclothes
at the edge of the bed
his face became pale and he faded away
every feature distinct for a moment
radiating a powerful light
until only an outline remained
It took two full hours
to walk out of town
away from all she had known
it blurred like the ink of a pen not quite dry
the commonplace now a kaleidoscope
she walked on, amazed at how absurd it had grown
A slow process
the eking away of a mind
begun as a trickle onto her pillow
into the vacuum her sanity left
into a pit of despair
behind the mask of genius
the rages flowed
She had answers
to questions she never would ask
answers at which her lover would scoff
but she had them
and with them she followed the road
to the end of the world and stepped off.
~92
The Poet’s Thoughts: I have always had very vivid dreams. They can stay with me for the whole day after I have them, until I can sleep and dream again. So the idea of a dream having such an effect as changing the whole world was intriguing to me.
~~~
Looking For Swans
in the curious places
I follow a feather
a footprint
to faces
that hold just a clue
to the complex
of mazes
I’ve destined myself
to run through.
with ethereal nets
my hand on a line
within sight
of my dread
dispelling the fear
holed up in my head
that the capture of one
would do.
through the deep underbrush
through the nettles
and puddles
when the forest is hushed
with nary a glimpse
or a sound
or a touch
of a prize that
might be an illusion.
in a yet steady hand
in lines not yet sure
and in colors unplanned
I fight the perspective
realism be damned
in an essence
I know will
dissolve the confusion.
~92
The Poet’s Thoughts: About a month after I wrote this poem I found this passage:
Brhad-aranyaka Upanisad IV.3.11
On this there are the following verses. Having struck down in sleep what belongs to the body, he himself sleepless looks down, on the sleeping (senses). Having taken to himself light he goes again to his place, the golden person, the lonely swan (the one spirit).
A swan, the symbol of the spirit of the universe.
Just another piece of evidence (to me) of the existence of Jung’s Cosmic Unconscious.
~~~
Gold Bear
Golden bear
walks among
the green ferns
sweet breezes
carry past
his muzzle
the scent of
mysteries
lying still
upon his
mountainside
Villages lie
in valleys
carved by drops
that ran through
granite rock
far below
guarded and
peacefully
sleeping in
his shadow
Travelers
Seekers worn
with eyes wide
pray and give
offerings
wait in awe
in timid
grace they hope
for knowledge
while they kneel
in temples
Villagers
shake their heads
laugh at men
who sit and
wait for quests
scoff at those
who ask the
golden bear
to come down
bearing gifts
They gather
at the doors
and whisper
the stories
of the last
visit by
golden bear
wanderers
eager ears
pause to hear
Quavering
voice pierces
the darkness
‘this old one
knows I saw
I saw him
ground shaking
fire falls all
around us
children cry
dead too soon
river dried
up fish gone
‘I have come’
say gold bear
‘What do I
take back to
the mountain?’
‘This man calls’
I say ‘This
man goes with
you back to
the mountain
Take him leave
us in peace
come no more
from your peak’
‘I will come
if they call’
‘No’ I say
to gold bear
‘you go back
to watching
living in
the cloudy
sunsets men
who seek you
climb the mount
men who call
you sit and
wait’
~93
The Poet’s Thoughts: Gold Bear has always brought to my mind images of Chinese art. I don’t know why. From what I understand there are certain rules that are to be followed when painting in that style; the rule I used for my poem is three syllables per line except for the last, obviously. In my lengthy (and still on-going) college career, I spent two years at UC Berkeley finishing my bachelor’s degree. People thought I wrote Gold Bear for that mascot, but I wrote this poem two years before I applied to Cal. Weird, but there you have it.
~~~
Rites of passage
i am walking on the bloody shore
moonlit autumn holds me near
to the journey
i have held in my gaze
the many ancestors i seek
wisdom i have only known in dreaming
passes through my heart
follows softly in the shadows
hides from the sun
i am witness to myself
an opening
a wound
that heals in rhythmic pulsing
warm flowing mysteries
will ever after encompass
all i will become
i have become the sword
a lock
a banshee howling in the night
i have become a moment
now eternal in my memory
the seeing eye that spans the breadth
of time
enigmatic flowering
a woman
~93
The Poet’s Thoughts: This is another poem in the line of exploring femininity. There is the question of ‘how are the physical (which is gendered) and the spiritual (which is not) related?’. I
certainly can’t answer that. But at the time I wrote the poem I was working out a lot, I was in the best shape of my life, and so a certain literal physicality crept into my poetry.
~~~
Image of the Cave
above my home
The earth turns dark
and cool
The wind grows cautious
trembling in the silver leaves
catching up the straying
tendrils
in my face
and in my eyes
of your fire
I have crept to the mouth
of the cave
and left the forest
far behind
the green and murky distance
fades into the still of night
cold
holds the starlight
breathless
back the moon
Under this sky
I seek the crystal warmth
lying deep within
thick stone walls
black and cool
from out the dark mother
this entrance into promise
gives me no guarantee
and watch them dance
Flint changes scene and scenery
in every breeze that passes
in every moment gone
Every time you stalk the doorway
I withdraw
I have strayed far
I flash quickly
across and
down from the sky
light with the stars
bright as day
You call the thunder
rumble back when it responds
and meekly, meekly
it falls away
to wait your next reply
you see a tangled forest
you have seen the path
wind steeply into nether green
my seeming tomb
quiet and still
belies the frenzy full moon
pull
night watcher hides inside
the sunset waiting for the clouds
to clear away
from the mount
following my fiery trail
into the mystic black laced night
to join me in the hunt
You have come
empowering a winter chill
emerging from the pliant ground
a numen wrapped in awesome shades of might
to lead me back again
halfway between
the trees
and the sky
I will give you passage
safety from the watchful eyes
that dwell so deeply in this place
they keenly pierce the careless
wanderer
and no stranger treads
without stirring
the myriad spirits
I will enfold you
intertwine and braid
around you
warming gently winter’s ice
to carve the niche that suits my form
You relent a soothing kiss
caresses seal the covenant
and bind us in a locked embrace
echo lightly dryad hymns
As voices reach up to the tree tops
you have razed a golden path
evidence in our designs
Lasting ever in this landscape
You and I
~93
The Poet’s Thoughts: I have an embarrassingly large amount of love poetry from failed relationships and unrequited infatuations. Someday, when I can get past the shame I attach to these failures I might collect them all and try to just see them as an expression of a feeling. This poem is one that doesn’t have as many associations and I can just enjoy it.