ALL RESPONSES |
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I thought I handed off the torch to the next runner
but somewhere along the way it must have fallen from
her hands and attached itself to the wall where moss runs rampant. |
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Now that another unstructured, unmarried,
unfinished summer slips its unclenched weather,
cheating time and blood of their timelessness
I open my arms to your castle thick walls
still learning to lock and unlock your mind
that has weathered books of love.
You are all I have gathered to me of otherness.
The year itself is a door resting on purple blood.
The angel-doorkeeper pulls out with her bread
the weightless keys that let us and the year move on.
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1.
One of the last times I saw you
your hands were waving wildly
above; your hair was messed
your left shoe was halfway off
your foot, tipping almost to the floor
you were talking to someone; you were
seeing and hearing no one; you were
going where nobody knows; you were
talking loudly to the empty air, you were
2.
Between then and now, you were
a state of mind for me, a habit
from my heart
I, your son, you, my father; two people
having known each other for fifty-one
years: it took two years for me
to relearn all my lessons |
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The door to the past
is a mirror.
As I attempt to lift the rusty hardware,
someone is on the other side,
trying to turn
a gleaming chrome doorknob,
wrestling with me for
a view of the future.
Both see only darkly.
Eyes meet, settle it with a glance.
Today we allow today.
Tomorrow we click
for a larger image. |
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This door you’re talking about.
Why is it caked with moss and rust?
I open a door to the past everyday,
letting my mind rove. Or, reading,
eyeing life in different, past rooms.
No moss or rust on those times.
Not even in Thracians tombs
have I seen moss or rust. And they
are old, pre-dating Greek epics.
So this door you’re talking about,
what you’ve seen must be an old handle
to a Trichter, a grinder, in which ideas
once were ground like sausage, grand
ideals like peace, love, compassion,
made every day bite-size.
Then that, too, went lost. Or bust.
Unused, the iron reduced to rust
and moss, and, very small, forgotten.
Maybe you could lead us back to it.
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Escape or break-in, rusty latch – no problem,
sledge hammer will take care of it
Break open this steel door to secrets,
buried in a vault beneath perception,
in a hill dominated by dolmen;
tomb or trove
crypt of knowledge,
weapon cache, full
of nasty traps and cobwebs,
snakes and rats
musty mold, skulls
of knights, pirates
buried in their own treasure,
retired soldiers
with their war stories,
medals, uniforms and pensions,
iron winged helmets,
swords inscribed in Welsh,
Arac drws porth vffern llugyrn lloscit.
And before the door of hell lamps burned
for the king, master of the island,
queen, source of sovereignty,
Avalon, where apples stay fresh forever,
the cauldron full of cider,
cool and sour, her eyes blue, her brow shining. |
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there is at once, both an open window
and a closed door;
charged with writing art
within the art she’s already seen—
vision within vision
it was easy the first time,
finding ardor
in the engineer’s mind
man-made metal in a
bunker of the war that never came to
the shores of the Strait of Juan de Fuca
door meets the parallel rhythm
and meter of God’s rain
long-since fallen on Puget Sound
purple rust, chipping teal paint
and sprawling lichens—
a convergence
of time and cool welcomings
of aged soldiers
in a nearly forgotten place.
what remains—
a poem within a poem,
perfect purple patina,
and moss the color of love.
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sometimes, a door is just a door,
a lock just a lock--
metal, just electrons forged in fire,
moss, just socially acceptable mold--
the end of the rainbow is just the place
where the light gets tired
of shining. |
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Not the rushing cars, but passersby on foot
can see the pioneer cemetery, 1857.
Six graves on a hill hidden under
a thicket, stones grey-green but robust.
Five stones are clustered on one side
while a sixth stands alone on the west,
as if its tenant had been banished once ─
and still is, even in death.
So close are the circling homes one knows
they’d be nearer still save the trees ─
they’re shoved clear up to the fallow,
with fast-growing shrubs at its knees.
Developers chafe at the profitless land
those pioneers claimed on this hill,
but though some fear the sanctity of life
has been licked pure clean at its ribs
such is the spell death has on us still
those slabs remain inviolate. |
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I'd been painting the house,
I remember that.
Just finishing the trim, the
last brush in the water for cleaning,
then, I don't know.
I thought it was Menard's again,
but that didn't seem right.
So much didn't seem right.
It was October, for one, but 80 degrees.
I'd been sweating like midsummer lemonade
all day long. Brush, sweat, brush.
There in the back was what I wanted.
Behind that mossy gate, the rusty iron latch.
Titania told me that the past was back there
but it didn't sound right.
It was the past, she said again.
But I wanted whatever was there.
Also, I wanted to see my house
shining new-paint under
golden oak leaf shelter.
Oberon said go through.
It didn't sound right to me.
So I waited, and wait still. |
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you knew my past
i have no problems
with those dark
secret years
the door is closed
and locked for you
i feel
if not for those days
i wouldn't be who
i am
i survived
so
what are you afraid of
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the blade warm in my hand skids from elbow across the soft white underbelly of forearm
opening a smile
the door the infinite locking mechanism
one step from psychotropic quicksand
askew as your mouth warm with my blood
tightens around the past not as participle
I do not remember my birth or death
the door knows not why it is beautiful
under its sodden face jeweled emeralds beckoning
my lips moisten with lust for the secrets it keeps safe
it does not matter I lay in an empty field
early autumn the monolith beside me |
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Closed, we are all adrip with life,
at one moment becoming molten -
small moons of metal and soggy, green life.
Look at these welds, closed with little roots,
addressed with a dimness known to solitary doors.
We are no longer simply a door,
but a recess from all that moves
to quickly, and at all.
We are simply ourselves, marrying into each other,
creating a peace, still and solitary. |
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the metal crystal
moved back and forth ‘til brittle
the arm the worm
the petrificial flow
two feet further and chill liquid is held
off in hell the devils whine
inside the cell the waves are still
and there is no room for an echo |
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You don't play it for a while,
ol' guitar gets mossy, grows mold
and the water grows real still. |
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I on my way
wrote this poem
yesterday
during the longest
red light
stopped
like a sleeping bird
on the sidewalk curb
and
breathed
deeper than
usual
let my lungs
sit plump
like a dove
on the
power line
of
autumn air
for a while
longer than a moment
sat there
there
words filling
my chest
the verses of
my ribs distending
like a poem holding
its
breath
sat there
there
moved when cars were clear
but as slow as
a cirrus cloud
a falling moon
to remember this
breathing
past. |
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He said to me with the most
ridiculous attempt at sincerity
(and no originality at all):
Eyes are the window to the soul.
What he meant was:
Your pussy is the door
to another dinner like this one.
It was a really nice restaurant.
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Reading the warning was easy
even though no sign was telling us
what to do or not to do.
The rust on the door,
the moss growing on it,
the size and conditions of the handle
says it all, but difficult is to obey
such a tempting sight.
What's hidden behind maybe be squalor,
or a secret garden.
A monster, or desolation,
silence, or music.
So many different possibilities hidden
behind heavy hinges, a frozen-in-time lock,
where the colors gained patina
and rusted time has taken domain.
Reality may not be as satisfying as imagination
nor the past as real as we remember it...
Do not open.
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