Corona Senryu V

Alone, overweight:
computer yoga class fails
to quell her hunger.

Corona Haiku IX

Social distancing:
The misanthrope, stepping out,
Feels free in the streets.

Corona Haiku VIII

Hell is The Others.
Coughs heard at the house party -
Sartre's words ring true.

Corona Haiku IV

The Stay Home Order -
No one told the homeless man
Dozing at the park.

City Escape

City evening -

nightlife scents
in the summer wind:
cigarette smoke,
piss, sweat, and
garlic pizza.

The street lights
hide the stars.
Windows facing alleys
lined with bars
hide the silent little wars.

Revelers carousing,
crowds passing on the sidewalk -
their shouts drowned by the siren call -
while on the other side of the brick walls
shouts of another kind - 
disappointment finds
the tinder of alienation
and lights the fire of anger and regret.

We are a fretful nation
seeking always to forget
the home of broken dreams
in the safety of the city streets
where the heart ache always seems
to pass in a dance, a kiss.
A stranger's touch is easy bliss.

Sentence

You always remember
the night of your execution
better than any other night. 

It is only the freak accidents,
the arcane spinning of the stars,
that keeps you hidden
in broad daylight,

An accident that you escape
the scornful looks
that perch upon grand bank accounts,
that mask the domestic misery
of diminished ardor,
that pity your pathetic plight
less than a turkey in the hunter's sight.

In another world you wander
beneath the summer starlight
and thank your god for darkness,
the warm canopy, keeping at bay
lingering leers, lacerations,
the civilized protestation
that is the response
to the fact of your creation -

Who are you, the voices say,
that you should live another day?

Distance

Imaginary fingers
run gently through my hair
as I fix a lazy stare
at the table, once laden, now bare.
The heating pipes knock, hiss
and warm the silent air,
in the night beyond the only kiss
the wind upon the branches bare.  

Imaginary hands miss
my tight and aching back,
hardened by the days of quiet labor,
dragging the alienating sack;
hands instead that brush the sand
from a hardened pillow
on a warm night in an alien land.  

The soldier and I had parted
in the possible of an autumn evening,
one meal not sufficing, not enticing,
a gust of words to loosen
the silent weight that years create.

D.L.

The lone eye stared

Impassively in its deep blue silence

And the passengers passing

To and fro

Failed to notice;

Their pace failed to slow,

Hauling luggage

Across a hall they only know

As destination, arrival,

Another day of survival. 

The eye hung along the wall

With other drawings large and small,

Drawn by invisible children's hands,

Bearing names, first and last,

Destination and arrival. 

Below the eye, no name, only: 

D.L., 10th Grade

“Window to the Soul”

Incarcerated Youth Program 

Slowly, beyond the tall windows,

The line formed outside waiting for the next car.

 

 

Torn Veils

Winter takes the warmth from everything.
And the lush veils that hide
The eternal mysteries
Wither and fall.

The dark, jagged shape of the trees:
The monsters that walked before history.
The winter sky gray and wan:
The smoldering glow at time's dawn.

The people of the city, puppets of the stars:
Indifferent as the winds of Mars.
The people of the farm, keepers of the faith:
The lonely miles of outer space.

All the souls surrounding me await,
Like nurturing vultures,
My untimely death;
Every boon, every kind gesture,
A gentle prod on the plank at the chasm.
Your trouble does not concern us,
They imply, sly fangs dripping:
Not your aches, cares,
Fears or nightmares.

In the dream I am falling, hurling
Down the chasm filled with millions
Of falling souls, all wrapped
In a mantle of cold, and the voices
Whispering, shouting, calling:
Choices prisons make;
Memories shimmer and break;
Long days of brief sleep-
Fitful, ungrateful -
Your fury is silent and deep.

The eternal mysteries knocked and hissed:
As you failed to forgive, all those chances you missed;

As long as the days are the lines on that list,

Down the chasm of time as you tumble,

With the weight of the sadness you stumble,

As you fumble to shoulder the rock of regret –

The sentence of days that you cannot forget.

Laptop

The words appeared, noiseless, on the screen:

“We are witnessing transitions

from social-welfare states

to social-control states

around the world. 

“We are witnessing a global crisis,

unprecedented in its magnitude,

ecological degradation

and social deterioration. 

“Unprecedented

in the sheer scale

of violence.” 

The words waited, quietly,

while I drained a glass of pinot grigio. 

The hydrangea bushes

nodded softly in a late summer air,

a bee hovering without sound across petals. 

A long row

of men and women

walked past the sidewalk café

in sharp suits, carrying laptop cases. 

Unprecedented

in the sheer scale

of silence.

 

 

Windbreaks

Holiday weekend.

Everyone driving to the sea.

Long rows of cars.

Fashionable colors: red, white, blue.

Through small towns

where letters were sent, received.

Returned to sender.

Everyone driving out to sea.

Wheels carrying everything east.

Luggage full of fears.

Buckets of envy.

Sacks of indifference.

Everyone to the driving sea. 

Where the world meets the sand lie

the windbreaks.

Stretches of taut fabric.

In long rows red, white, blue.

Protecting everyone from the east.

And the driving wind.

The cleansing wind.

Everyone faces the sea.

For a moment or two.

Everyone driven from their cars.

And their fretful umbrellas.

And their fussing hats.

For a moment they almost hear

what the wind came to tell them. 

Then the windbreaks flap.

A sound like a slap.

Taut faces turn away.

Someone calls out.

Laughter from a bottle.

Chatter spreads.

Glasses are passed.

The wind blows past,

over the windbreaks,

into the sky.

 

 

Clown's Lament

When I was a child
The world did whisper:
You are just not fit to live -
Better yet that you should give
Your throat a good slash,
Your head a good smash,
And bid the clowns good-bye.
 
And I listened to it all,
Making mask and silken cloak,
Lined with mocking childish jokes,
For the eternal Devil’s Ball.
 
Within the clouds of acrid smoke
In that red-veined marble hall,
The mouths of other children spoke,
Whose heads hung all along the wall.
 
They laughed and jeered
And howled and cheered
To see me cloaked so like a fool.
Upon my head they spat and drooled!
 
And in the years since leaving school,
Under sway of fevered dream,
My heart’s desire has been to lure
Cruel children into hell’s ravine.
 
I lead them into little boats,
With clownish acts and silly jokes,
And send them gently down the stream,
With self-effacing sad routine.
 
And in their rush to mock and gloat,
The children strain their leaking boats.
They wail and flail in hell’s ravine,
Sinking deep and never seen.
 
Alone now in my dressing room,
I feel the sad impending doom
That condemned prisoners do fear.
My place in hell I will take soon,
Though death itself will feel a boon,
I cry at each child’s laugh I hear.

Impression at Dusk

The sun had set without notice.
The winter dusk wrapped the street corner in purple dust.
At the bus stop, four people stood, swayed, waited,
Different shapes and colors, all wrapped in long coats,
In the noise of passing blue sedans and brown taxis
Rushing past the green light.
At the red light, the thrum of tense engines,
Waiting 60 seconds, then rushing,
Transporting drivers away,
To torments and delights,
Real and imagined.
.
.
What can I know?
What ought I to do?
For what may I hope?
.
.
The patter of expensive leather shoes
On the leaf-strewn, dusty pavement
Is scarcely heard
Before the rumble, screech, and gasp of the city bus,
Full of torpid, wool-covered strangers.
The bus blasts off, like an ugly starship
Into the gathering darkness.
Destination: the muzzled, muffled
Thoughts of aliens.

When the dust cloud settles,
A thin plume of exhaust curls around the empty bus stop,
A brief moment of silence - the sweetest sound - unnoticed,
Like the sunset,
And the sinking moral ground,
And the sense that we are bound
To see meaning in sound and color,
And in human horror,
After the bus has gone around
The bend.

Toothbrush

In the dead of winter,
Time to change my toothbrush.
In the garish supermarket light,
The colors of the brushes chatter,

And the clatter of voices, pressed tight,
In the detergent isle burst in bright
Laughter, passing, white.

Pick a brush, any one.
You're not getting any younger.
The clock has nearly gone.
And the line is getting longer.

In the bathroom mirror, my skin too white;
The toothbrush, pale blue in its package,
I stow from sight - a guest might stay one night
And need a toothbrush.

Laughter again, this time mine.
Deep in the mirror lies the wreckage,
A graveyard of brushes scattered like mines.

No one will brave that terrain.
Before I see a new house guest
I'll change my toothbrush again.

Lost

We go on, we go on,
From darkness until dawn,
For an hour or two of bliss.
And is there more than this?

At last our eyes we close
And into dreams we doze:
The arms of the lover
That nobody knows.

We go on, we go on,
Until again we wake,
When to the road we take,
Past the refuse and debris,
Of the love we failed to see.

Nightfall

Walking home alone,
The people all around chatter
Like the birds in the trees at nightfall.
Faces I don't see
Cast shifting neon shadows.
Neon storefronts say the same things
At night as in the day, only louder.
And the mannequins’ outfits still don’t fit me.
I notice my tie, as if for the first time,
Black with white squares, too long,
Though it has hung round my neck all day long.
The moving escalator,
All night long, hums and clacks.
My shoes feel the hum - it is like the hum
Of passersby rushing down the moving steps.
I notice my shoes.
I need new shoes.
And then the escalator screeches,
The loudest noise in the world,
That empties out into the long, wide corridor.
Walking alone at first but soon
The big posters on the walls, they greet me;
They whisper movies, museums, perfumes,
Airlines, and police hot lines.
To respond is pointless, for they only hear
Money and fear.
When the train doors close, the sound comforts -
The humming and clacking of going home.
The faces I notice, as if for the first time,
Some quiet like mannequins,
Some chatter like birds.
Walking home alone,
Something pains my stomach.
But then I stare at the pavement in streetlight;
The cracks in the stone bring me home,
Safe, quiet.

Solitary Pine

With no one to befriend me,
With no one to know who I am,
A stranger I shall remain
On the day of my last stand.

So near me they pass –
Lovers who laugh, lovers who quarrel –
Yet my mirth I can only share
With the indifferent little squirrel.

Upon me the people confide
Their fragile human sorrows;
Today regale me with plans and pride,
But abandon me tomorrow.

No one has asked me the questions
One friend would ask another:
To what end do you grow?
How does it feel to be covered in snow?
Whatever became of your brothers?
When this forest is cleared like the others,
Which way will you go?

If my voice the wind through the miles could carry
To the people who live with their picnics and parties,
To them I’d declare all the wisdom of my days
Of a life spent on a cliff, above a windy, rocky bay.

Standing still, time slows its pace,
So I live longer, though we share the same small space.
Reflecting alone, my thoughts and world I own,
So I stand stronger, while others scatter, by the winds blown.
Dreaming alone, though I share not these dreams,
Makes life more joyful than my lonely days would seem.

And yet, like the air above the cliff always beyond grasp,
Lives the tender touch of friends, as they pass around a glass.
You, through your friends, will be remembered beyond your years,
While I, when I am gone, will have the winter rain for tears.

Moonwater

On the paths that you may take,
With no choices left to make,
You can always get water from the moon.
So said a father to his son
On a sunny afternoon
In the childhood day of life.

The years brought strife,
And paths to take,
And choices to make.
But still the skies refrained from rain
On the nights the moon hung bright.

Then the son turned man, one evening as he ran,
Turned a corner in the night
And the path became an alley,
A darkened, rustling end.

The rustling in the darkness
Made a sound, a weighing sadness:
You are alone,
Though still surrounded.
Your life is mean,
By lies all bounded.
You are the prey
By demons hounded.

And though the women come and go in the room,
Sipping softly, talking low,
Beneath the candelabra moon,
You cannot move, you are not seen,
Your life a demon’s passing dream.

There is water on the moon, said the son turned man.
This he repeated, like a prayer, like a talisman in sand.
Down fell the water from the moon
Like the rain of glassy night
That washed the sadness from the land.

Not far from the dead end alley,
Where the lamps had pierced the dark,
Lay a quiet, leafy park.
There a fountain played its music
While the birds slept on the branches,
With the water from the moon
Falling lightly on the benches.

And the son turned man that night
Beheld an extraordinary sight:
Figures on the benches sprang
From the bright moonwater rain.
To him they beckoned,
Sit and talk a while with us,
While in the night the fountain sang.

These are the people of the world:
Reading their papers,
Watching the birds,
Some appear dapper,
And others absurd.

In them all moonwaters run,
So the son turned man had learned.
In them all his father’s love,
Like the shining moon,
Had burned.

Missing

On that warm morning
No one noticed much.
But by the hot noontime,
Someone noticed:

The library was not there.
It had been moved.

By mid afternoon
It was discovered
That the park was gone.

The museum was missing,
And the meeting hall,
And the stadium.

Only the school remained.
But it was closed for renovation;
Its roof collapsed.

By sunset the townspeople
Had shuttered themselves
In their living rooms;
The week-long premier
Of reality shows was here.

By evening the blindness
Spread through the town.
Eyes would not meet each other
As heads hung, absently, down.

At night: the howls of dogs,
Louder than the squeals
Of children.

Overhead, the stars wheeled -
The only places left
For thieves to steal.

Locked in Time

To say I will not likely find
In the years ahead a being
That will appreciate my mind
Is to apply the prejudice of time.

In the present dwells a certain sadness,
The sense that joy will die in future darkness.

But if, from the far side of the earth,
Your life I fail to note,
Then, from a hundred years hence,
You remain just as remote.

Therein lies the trap of time,
Our minds prisoners of the present.
From day to day though I may fly,
Our meeting – miles, years away –
Stays locked beyond this moment.