From yesterday:

Because even
chicken farmer's
daughters get married

Hope, hope, hope, hope.

1. The Power and the King

In the bazaar of life
the tiger is a beast
whose pelt is traded like flowers


2. Common Wonders for 4.50€

Like stars on my windowsill
the daffodils orient
my snow blind heart to spring

Before they come
I whisper truths
to get them out
of my system.

I must be cold,
pale as my neighbor,
tall as the pines
& meaningless
as the wind in
their crooked limbs.

There seems to be a Sunday theme of lousy poems. It was the case last week, too. Too much time? (Not today... We had the Sipoo friends contingent over today...)

I am absolutely devoid of ideas today. I have scratched and scratched and there is nothing. You'd think it would not be this hard...

I go to the well
& the bucket comes up dry

Sipping the dust,
I write you this...

Last night I answered Samppa's one word summons ("Out?") and we ended up crashing a chicken farmer's daughter's bachelorette party. You'd think a poem would be in there somewhere. The party was dull, dull, dull, but just saying it is fun.

Yet another slow spring themed poem. I can't help it. I draw poems from experience and when this is what I see everyday, then I must deal with it.

The earth is a blank page
waiting for spring
to write the season on it.

It's happening now.
Water splashes on everything
like ink from the sky.

Soon the pages will fill
with grass strokes & leafy paragraphs,
worm letters will wriggle in the mud
& mushrooms punctuate everything.

I have nothing to say
that can compare with this.
So I watch & am filled, too.

Sitting on our south-facing balcony, I wrote this in the full sun, soaking in the warmth. I can't describe how wonderful it feels to be outside without a coat, even if the shadow were still frozen. The sun filled me...

When they packed up & left
it was as if (overnight)
the whole sea had been drained.
& though the rivers we cried
flowed like the Amazon,
our tears dried in the dust.

In the end, we had nothing
left to give & our sobs
became sighs, became thoughts
that danced on the edge of the flames
of our waking minds & ran
wild in the gloom of our sleep.

They rose like swallows on
an August evening.
They went in search of a last
& final forever,
while we did dishes, took
out trash & watched reruns.

I'll follow them someday,
slough these chores like a snake
from its skin, rising at dusk
as a swift shadow against
the blue night, a rocket
to an undiscovered star.

Like little flags
fluttering in the wind,
ice fishermen
dot the sea.

If ever Jesus
was the ice
fisher of men,
maybe he'd catch me.

The first stanza is really all I had to say, but I wanted to say more. So I go for cutesy cleverness.

At Owen's daycare today the children's families came to play, make bookmarks, eat and relax together. Not one parent said anything to another. I do not understand how people can be in the same room, doing the same things, and not even say "hello". It did not surprise me, but it always amazes me. It's as if the cold has frozen the tongues of these insular folk.

Our car rolled down the Helsinki streets, temporary tags on the windows. It's almost over.

Beholden

Like pilgrims plying priests with bits
of tacky paper, we offer
documents, praying they're enough.

Ker-thunk, ker-thunk. The decision
is stamped on each official form.

What thinks the beast on meeting man?
What hope has he man before the machine?

[EDIT 11:55pm 24 March 2006]

So you know, Karjala is a brand of beer.

A Bridge Beyond

The boys are waiting in the bar
while we walk to join them (for a night
of booze) across a snowy bridge.
The water below is frozen;
The wind above, frozen too;
The harbor cranes are motionless.
I sip a Karjala & think
(before the night erases thought):

Bridges are always refusals
to let reality divide
two points. They span what is to create
an imaginary whole that's
as real as any natural state.
Likewise beer all night (while stars spin
& children sleep) brings together
lives in common dissipation,
builds bonds that outlast morning's fire.

I am trying to develop a poetry of everyday. I am not sure I am succeeding, or whether this stuff is just my everyday poetry. It's hard to tell, and without time impossible for me to judge how well I'm doing. I could use any help I can get!!!

Our car is now in Helsinki, but a bridge across the customs bureaucracy has yet to be found. I will keep looking, though I image we will succeed there tomorrow. Liberate the Matrix!

The harbor buildings smelt like sweat and salami. I imagined a parade of drivers eating quick sandwiches while they waited for legalities to be resolved. Ahead, the road to St. Petersburg (and beyond) beckoned. Behind, all the regrets of a fully lived life. Now, only the salty goodness of salami and the dull hours of stamps and paperwork.

To the tsk-ers of the world, this was written word for word yesterday, but went unposted. Partly because it is only a rough start to an idea I'd like to flesh out. Maybe today?

The jackdaw gets
into the trash
& eats roadkill
& cackles all day

It never leaves
into some
imaginary
geography

Coco Crisp cares about the team.
Snowballs make lousy baseballs.

New snow has replaced what the warm sun of the last two days melted. Winter clings on, though it cannot last forever. In less than two months the trees will have leaves.

The Gatherer

His cool blue eyes (in a baby face)
took in the crowd like rain on a lake.
One look joined each of them (in him)
with new histories, loves & griefs.
He never knew (but guessed) if they,
too, felt the change, or whether, like
rain spread within a lake, they remained
the same collection of atoms
indifferent to the splendid shores
that shaped them into something with
a meaning more than mere moisture,
that held them in community
with all the other beating hearts
his cool blue eyes had gathered in.

I wanted to revisit yesterday's poem. There were many things I did not like about it, but some things I liked a lot. So, here is another go:

Marian Sairaala

The drunks are in room four:
Let them have light & time
on the bare beds, then send
them parched into the streets.

Some withered women lie
on beds along the wall.
Breathing in masks, they rasp
a dirge that lasts all day.
Dead without death, they are
their own decayed tombstones.

Outside the sun's come out,
the streets shine with run off,
another spring begun,
while winter clings on in
the green hospital halls.

Mainly I thought I made myself too much the story. An un-centered poetry is a better poetry. I'm not sure if I killed the optimistic ending, but I think the realization that spring comes and the weak linger in winter is not inapproriate.

My ankle, by the way, is much better today. I can actually walk on it, taking care that I don't bend it. Luckily nothing was broken.

Yes, it's all based on a true story. Squash is a great game, but I wish I weren't so clumsy.

Marian Sairaala

The drunks are in room four,
blank faces stare at me
each time their door opens.

Let them have light & time,
then send them back out parched.

Some withered women lie
on beds along the wall.
They are dead without death,
they are their own tombstones.

My ankle isn't much.
It throbs, but I'm still young,
an accident among
these hospital dwellers.

Outside the sun's come out,
the streets shine with run off.
Soon I will hobble out,
aware at last of how
many springs I've got left.

So many beginnings,
so many sunny days.

burn

This is getting harder. Feeling enough everyday to write anything worthwhile is very difficult. I need to exercise that poetic muscle.

Fat moon rising in mist,
return on a gray day,
I place too many hopes
on your white pocked surface.

Finally, the sun brings some warming power with it. I say "finally" even though I've spent less than a month in this weather. My attitude is wound too tightly.

Snow Melt

Puddles never
looked so wonderful
oozing in the sun

Life wins again

Works

How many hours did the carpenter spend
building this table, turning wood into
a useful thing, a new object for the world?
I picture him, cigarette perched in his lips,

matching walnut grains through a veil of smoke.
Now his work mingles with mine, he becomes
a silent partner to the evening meal.
What do I do that others can build on?

My lonely broodings are selfish dead-ends.
I sprinkle words to the soil & hope they take,
because I'm not a farmer, nursing the land,
& what I sow grows wild like wind blown grass.

The first two parts were written as calendar notes on my cell phone, since I had no pen.

Three Poems of Everyday

1. Shoe Salesman

Without a pen, I write
my poems on the soles of people's feet.

2. Builder

I build to someone else's plan,
but how many poets measure
their verse to meter long since sung?

A plan is empty space until
I raise the beams of reality.

3. Baker

I've never tasted words
written on a white page,
or smelled a description
early in the morning.

You can hold my work in
your hand, taste it, smell it...

Or would you rather read
about those in a book?

Hummingbird & lizard,
hail! Fellow worshippers!
Like brothers long parted
let us sing our joyous reunion.

Let us bask beneath these warm rays,
hearing the fountains
like the dream of lovers.

There is a place,
white walls & palms,
where the mind floats
in a sea of light.

Yes, hail! My Brothers!
Linger with me
now the sun is gone,
remind me of those
white walls.

I am about to go to a school meeting regarding Matilda's language options for next year. Quite possibly I'll join some guys for sauna after that, so today this will have to suffice:

Wild as the grain of this table,
gnarled as pine branches by the sea

I've grown more like the things around me,
became a thing among things

I played squash today for the first time in years. The feeling of exertion is wonderful. It is remarkably tiring. I still feel the glow of moving my body.

I have busted out the bike, though snow falls daily and 20F is the best we get so far. It feels good to ride into town. I look forward to that ride when the sea is not frozen and the air warm.

Will

The beer is bitter in the Lauttapub,
as bitter as the faces sipping in
silence. There're other bars with better beer,
but they come here because the stagnant air
keeps time to the beat of their daily lives,
their minds are as dusty as the curtains
& bodies faded as the walls. Besides,
two eighty's cheap for a half liter beer.

Samppa says Finns alone deserve this fate,
wallowing in so much useless sorrow.
But I can't help hope when that gray woman
sets down her glass & steps into the street,
she'll burst onto the day like a butterfly
emerging from a cocoon, her dazzling
spirit lifting our eyes to the clear sky.

When the Aliens Came

Dum-dee-dum, here we come
with roses on our sleeves.
We hold our hands above
our heads & wave them in
the wind to mimic leaves.

Dum-dee-dum, here they come
descending from the sky.
We understand the lights,
the sounds, the story's clear,
but wonder if we'll die.

Another Year

I don't know how much more snow I can take,
it falls & I sip tea, watching the pines
grow heavy white. It's a new beginning
every day, clean slate for the wayward world.

But then the noisy plows scrape it aside,
the buses run on time, nothing is closed.
The snow is not magic. It's just weather.

Three hundred years ago (or even more)
what did they hope from spring? That their bare barns
would have enough rye seed to sow a crop?
Could they imagine the languid south, the trees
as heavy with fruit as the pines were with snow?

If they could not, what sweet mercy spared them.
Just knowing beaches bake beneath the sun
is burden enough for me. What softness!
with my cupboards full, my rooms well heated,
& only my soul unable to bear
day after day (months) of new beginnings.

No matter how hard I try, today I'm coming up dry. This ditty might have to do:

Yeah, toes are cool. I've got
ten myself & they're great.
Always down there, never
asking for thanks, never
demanding anything.

You got toes? How many?

I really wanted to write a poem about a man, a young son, a snow covered ice rink, a sled and a patient desire to play hockey. Somehow, nothing came of my thoughts, though I watched this guy use a sled to clear a wide patch of snow on the ice. Each stroke was measured and unhurried, it almost seemed like clear ice was beside the point by the time he got going. I skated through the snow.

I read this explanation for my troubles today. I'll share it here and hopefully won't fall prey to the phenomenon:

It should be clear that in dealing with the choice of subject we are dealing with one of the vital factors in poetry or in any art. Great numbers of poets come and go who have never had a subject at all.

-Wallace Stevens

I'll slip this one in under the wire, though I wrote it earlier today. Between cleaning, shopping, partying, I have had almost no time to take care of business!

Ari has plied me with too many beers and whiskeys. I hope this comes off...

What should I hope for now
I've grown too old to think
the world was made for me?
Should I march forth to war?
Should I crush the kiddies
with dull expectation?
Should I recruit them to
the gray ranks, the living
who breathe out of habit
& eat without pleasure,
& work because they must?

I could. I could lecture,
instruct them in wisdom.
I could fit them with chains
& throw away the key.

Instead, I watch the snow
fall outside my window.
Softness is always sweet.
Snowflakes fall where ever
they may go, and I ask
for nothing more. It is
beautiful; it's enough.

Greetings. Quickly before I go skating, I will post my poem.

They Are Out There

Turn every stone you see
& when it seems you've found
what you thought it was you
were looking for, turn more.

Kill what you have to kill,
then fill your mind with sand
& let your belly breed
snakes & salamanders.

Them gods have left us now.
They've gone away in their
shiny ships & left us
only the twinkling stars.

The second poem, written today, is slightly different in form. For a while now I've been writing predominately in trimeter and I wanted to try something else. Once, this was my preferred form. (Yes, I guess this is an admission that I find form necessary for my poems.)

Ribbon Road

There is nothing reminding me of who
I am, no pictures frame my memories.
There is just this road cutting between two
points, both unreal. One is the frozen sea,
the other graves piled on a snowy hill.
Somewhere between this beginning & end
I'll find myself, if I look hard enough.

Well, As I typed the poem in I dropped the last two lines I have in my notebook and replaced them with the final line you see above. As a curiosity I give you the previous ending:

I'll make my mark, before time takes away
this haphazard collection I call "me".

I think my revised ending is better, though the meaning is slightly changed. I think the new ending is closer to my original intention.

Today's first poem is actually a multi-day production. I started it on Sunday, reordered it yesterday and finished it today.

Patience

There was a time when storms
darkened daily the sky.
Mere thunder proved too weak
to break the granite cliffs,
but time & slow seasons
combined with the soft rain
to wear those cliffs away.
to carry them away.

[Edit: 3 Mar 2006 12:31]

This was originally the second verse to another poem. But I lost the thread of the poem before I'd finished it and decided both were better on their own.

I considered every combination for the second line, but still don't know which is best:

daily darkened the sky.

or

darkened the sky daily.

Maybe none really work and that is what I'm noticing. The inspiration for the lines is not hard to guess: Outside my bedroom/office window is Kotkakallio (Eagle Cliffs), snow covered granite cliffs. There is a massive mushroom shaped water tower at the top. It is lit a deep blue at night.

Here is the one-time first verse, almost as it was written on Sunday:

Silence

You say nothing, & I
accept your silence as
the snow accepts sunlight:
melting as it reflects
the invisible rays.

There is a certain mood here that appeals to me. Maybe it's just knowing that comfortable silence is something I aspired toward. Too often I fill the empty air with pointless jabber instead of listening, accepting.

And so begins, begins our odyssey:

Into the Forest

Deep in the dark forest
the fearsome tiger lurks.

Not some caged cat in a zoo,
seen napping by children
snacking in strollers,
but the authentic beast
with every lethal trick
that trickled down the chain
of terror at his command.

If I enter this wood,
& walk its secret ways,
will I come out unchanged?

Everywhere Uncertainty

I'm not 100% sure of the best way to do this, but I think comments are the way to go when I expand on a particular poem. This way each poem can have its own posting and discussion.

Another uncertainty is how much I should discuss each poem. I am not a fan of explaining poems, since the beautiful thing about them is how they interact with us subjectively. But I think I will at least throw light on what I was thinking, since this is an exercise in poetry writing and getting at how poems "come to me" is partly the point.

So, in that light, I begin.


Snip, Snip, Sew, Sew

One slight alteration I am considering since posting the original is:

Not some caged cat in a zoo,
seen napping by children
(snacking in strollers),
but the authentic beast

I feel the clause after children needs something to separate it from the main narrative. But I tend to over punctuate, so I hesitate.


The Misfit

I had trouble cutting the following line out of the poem following "the authentic beast":

the past coursing his veins

or what I originally wrote:

the past flows through his veins

I could not get it to play nice with the stanza's last line. But I also thought that perhaps the "trickled down the chain" bit conveyed a sense of past. I really wanted to contrast a human present with the savage past embodied in the tiger's terror.


Blake, Blake Everywhere

William Blake's The Tyger is loudly echoed in this poem.



I only realized late in the poem how closely they run. Both poems address the terror of the tiger, and peek at its origin. Is it too much like it? Or does the reference enrich my own? (I am definitely not equating the two in quality!!!) I don't know. You tell me.

My original idea was to compare the stark clean lines of a forest in winter to the teeming vegetation of summer. Immediately before the poem above I'd written:

Afraid the stark winter
lines will reveal monsters
I wish to keep hidden.

This was the tiger, lurking in the tangle of summer, revealed by frozen introspection. I still want the poem to reflect the idea that the tiger is withing me. Did it?