the candle flickers
a last breath
on this long night
of empty glasses
and a restless cat
some truths
there are some truths
best left
to face
before the sun
rises
and the call
to prayer
reverberates
in the air
The Third Dimension by Denise Levertov
Who’d believe me if
I said, “They took and
split me open from
scalp to crotch, and
still I’m alive, and
walk around pleased with
the sun and all
the world’s bounty.” Honesty
isn’t so simple:
a simple honesty is
nothing but a lie.
Don’t the trees
hide the wind between
their leaves and
speak in whispers?
The third dimension
hides itself.
If the roadmen
crack stones, the
stones are stones;
but love
cracked me open
and I’m
alive
to tell the tale–but not
honestly:
the words
change it. Let it be–
here in the sweet sun
–a fiction, while I
breathe and
change pace.
The Five Feet by Ed Sanders
You can always fight the foulest grief
with drinks and thrills
You can channelize your septum
with thousand dollar bills
But you better get obsessed again
on the Change Wheel’s rungs
or they’ll let the tumors grow
in the hummingbird’s lungs
You’ve got to have five feet
to skitter down the road
One foot in the grave
One foot in the glitter
One foot in the gutter
One foot in the glory
One foot near the Grail
Lawrence said to build a Boat of Death
upon that main
Well, you’d better patch the leaky Boat of Life
call it Paradise Plain
There’s nothing wrong with writing lines of verse
on a foam-flecked oar
Even if we cannot join Matisse
through Plato’s door
You’ve got to have five feet
to skitter down the road
One foot in the grave
One foot in the glitter
One foot in the gutter
One foot in the glory
One foot near the Grail
There is nothing in a caterpillar that tells you it’s going to be a butterfly. ~ R. Buckminster Fuller
from the blog A Pondering Mind
Climbing by Tom Clark
My heart in pieces like the bits
Of trains lost in the blue
Rain confused I roar off into
To learn how to build a ladder
With air in my lungs again
To be with you in that region
Of speed and altitude where our bodies
Sail off to be kissed and changed
By light that behaves like a hand
Picking us up in one state and putting
Us down in a different one every time
even coffee
there are places
some mornings
where the mind
wanders off to
that even coffee
can’t bring it
back
