IV. Each Word Weighs

 

Returning the Light to Poetry

                …response to “Poetry as Question” by J.E. Bennett

 

I shall not write, unless I say to you

the pain you feel is the light.

The sensitivity to deeper hurt

is what holds above the dirt.

is what rises—sipped surprises—

is your wisdom and defeat

is your sinking for a treat

is redemption—pain itself.

Isn’t it the one without feeling who can kill

—without conscience—without turning—

without empathy restraining will?

All the while, the substance, style

missed in poetry, reflects most notably

its cultureless world.

The pain you feel is the light.

                                                          —Ruth Hill

 

  

The Task

 

What makes me think that I

could cast a spell with this pen?

Should I even try

to give words wings

that they might fly

beyond the strictures

fusing purpose to plurals,

melding clarity to chaos,

infusing the menial with meaning,

yielding straight-arrow insights?

No—the task is too great,

The monolith, too immovable,

The heart, too cryptic.

No—my ink has run dry.

The world needs a stronger voice,

perhaps a few, who will

stitch wounds with stanzas,

mend souls with meter,

unite random factions with rhyme.

    

                                                                     —Connie S. Tettenborn

 

  

David

 

As to whether poetry

should mean a thing, or do,

as opposed to merely be,

David was a poet too:

 

As his stone was wound and hurled

and his psalms were sung

with an aim to save a world,

so can lines of verse be slung.

 

Talent’s like a flaccid sling

pocketed and pliant

till the poet loads the thing

and shoots down a giant.

                                                     —James B. Nicola

 


Terraces

 

Age old terraces hug the hills,

bushes thrive thick,

old fruit trees still bloom,

and striving, barely yield,

small fruit of old age.

 

The moment will come,

to face mind and mortality

 

When my body stops

and that fruit of mind,

those lessons lived

and learned are gone.

 

Will a space remain?

A gap? No! I think not.

So self-important I am not.

 

On the shelf

some books will stand,

orphaned.

                                                    —Michael E. Stone

                                                    June 2 2014

 

 

Transposings

 

 But poetic creation . . . implies the abolition of time—of the history concentrated in language—and tends towards the recovery of the paradisiac, the primordial situation.

                         Mircea Eliade, Myths, Dreams, and Mysteries 

 

The children enter the magic forest and become

the carriers of magic.

They write no poetry but live within its enchantments

long lost by earnest parents caught in the rubrics

of supply and demand.

 

They become the forest and the forest embraces

them in all its strangeness, dark shadows that

reel and writhe, that speak in tongues and

offer no alphabet.

 

Time changes its costume and makes of a stage

something new, something different.

It no longer obeys a straight line from past

to present to future as taught in schools

upright in sunshine.

 

The clocks fall apart and future and past

intermingle, join hands with whatever a

present is.

The children become travelers then,

moving back and forth as though

no barriers forbid.

They hear the music of stones

and streams, growls and bleatings

behind the shadows.

 

They taste unknown fruits and berries,

lie down to sleep the sleep of innocents.

They dream of the magic forest

where nothing is real

but is.

 

And the poet, the poet too ventures

into the strangeness far removed from

ready made texts and rules.

He seeks out the poem wherever it

waits, far ahead or near as the 

flame of a candle by which the

shadows grow and offer

their stories.

He listens for the time

before time.

His pen moves when

it moves.

                              —Doug Bolling

 

 

 

Between the Lines

 

In matters that relate to the material world, a person might consider the purpose a person of his actions, that it might deal with the Almighty and take us to the Divine” (Pele Yoetz, The Love of God)

 

Each word weighs, each world takes

a step in the right direction. Feet

follow, consider thoughts, concrete,

on after the other, each side breaks

 

a step in the right direction. Feet

follow the next space, a reason, a break

into another dimension.  Makes

a difference beyond, where I sit

 

Fill the next space, a reason, breaks

the mold and looks for the next,

a difference beyond, where I sit

and reveal what’s inside, make the tracks,

 

the mold, and look for to the meet

thoughts, consider, follow them, concrete,

and reveal the inside, make the tracks,

each word weighs, each word takes.

                                                                        —Zev Davis

 

 

The Black Writer

 

cold black words

corrupt the pale

virginity of paper

changing innocence

dark transforms it from

Eden, with tiny letters

that mean something,

with quick hands, you

peck the nothingness

because you are inclined to tell

the world what’s on your mind

ruining the blank chastity of

empty whiteness

                                       —Allison Whittenberg

 

 

OVID IN EXILE

 

I see him there on a night like this—

foggy, cool— the moon blowing

through black streets.

 

He sups and walks back to his room.

(O how slowly, how differently

one tells the time in Tomis!)

 

He sits down at the table.

(People in exile write so many letters.)

Now Ovid is weeping.

Each night about this hour he puts on

sadness like a garment, drinks

a cup of undiluted wine.

 

During the day he is teaching himself

the local language (Getic)

in order to compose in it

 

an epic poem no one will ever read.

                                                                      —Constance Rowell Mastores

Note: Ovid, in A.D. 8, on the order of Augustus Cesar, was banished to Tomis, on the western shore of the Black Sea.  He died there at age sixty in A.D. 18.

 

 

THE WHITE LABYRINTH

 

There is one waiting for you

on every blank sheet of paper.

So, beware of the monster

guarding it—invisible as he charges—

armed as you are with only a pen.

And watch out for that girl

who will come to your aid

with her quick mind and a ball of thread,

and lead you by the nose

out of one maze into another.

                                                   —Constance Rowell Mastores

 

 

BLACKBOARD & CHALK

 

I used to do drafts of poems on a blackboard.

I wrote in large loopy letters. I erased a lot. Which makes me think

of John Ashbery. I watch as he writes (brilliantly)

on a blackboard with his right hand, while his left, a line or two behind,

erases all that’s gone before. Reading him can seem like that.

 

Chalk is particular because it falls apart

as you are creating. With the chalk on your hand, the chalk

on your clothes, the chalk on your nose

you look like you’ve been in a mine digging something out.

 

Some of the first brilliant things I ever learned were from somebody

who had their back to me. They were writing

on a blackboard and chalk was flying everywhere. So the image

is precious to me of the board and the act

of giving yourself to that board  And then turning around.

                                                                                                                  —Constance Rowell Mastores

 

 

Riposte to the Illustrious

                   after A King and No King

 

If I took all that there was of me

and put it in a box of quiddity,

would my mirror draw a blank

and dearth of fame suggest I stank?

You, my liege, have known success

above what’s called eximious.

Your rank transcends all that I’ve reigned,

or ever will—that’s preordained.

Adulations won’t serve here;

from me they would seem petty, insincere.

Accomplishments like yours cannot be praised;

they’re too advanced, I’m too amazed.

And would you pity me, who’s fallen so far short,

that I might as well cashier my next effort?

No doubt you’d be magnanimous,

for who could not be covetous?

I read your works, preparing my dismay;

expecting Shakespeare, or perhaps Dante.

What I saw looked small, and wanted grace

which proves that I don’t know my place.

So, sirrah, while I can’t impugn

your résumé, I’d just as soon

retain what’s mine, and who I am,

than prize all yours, which seems a sham.

                                                                                    —Craig Kurtz

 

 

Cover Letter

 

Just in case you think I am not astute enough

to intuit why you return my poem/s—

I can see you sequestered behind (preprinted) rejection slip

like God behind columns of cloud—

here are five good reasons:

 

     1. I love the way God weaves in

and out of our affairs

leads me like a lover

longing for lost unity

to undreamed of boundaries

that break out of bounds

to discover fresh redemptive language

Your instructions to authors denounce religion

Does that include God?

 

    2. I am tired of

a. poems set in minutiae

   a subtext growing thinner

   the poem as direct access to banal reality

  washing a dish

  Chicago near the Lake

  steamy summer of 1989

  your hands in water 

  staring back at you like someone else’s hands

  slumped against sink

  memories of your mother’s

  remarks on your posture

  when you washed dishes in Hartford, Connecticut 1974

b. advice about writing a poem

  write in willingness to discard everything

     clean out the attic?

  add a quirky element

     an ontological room?

  No!  resist dogma

  at all times be free

  of the imprisoning self

     an attic with revolving door?

  you may be self-referential but only if you are mocking

  always demonstrate that poetry makes good politics

     recycle junk in attic?

  stay safe in endless duplication

                  

  3. I am a Jew prefer that to Jewess

I practice an ancient religion

don’t get me wrong I am American I munched popcorn

during the Ten Commandments

accepted the oddly believable idea that Charleton

Heston’s jaw controlled two nations

he controlled my breathing at twelve

I know self-deprecating Jewish fiction sells and sells but I am not that kind of Jew

WHAT OTHER KIND IS THERE? you ask.

your question consigns me to yet another margin:

with whom do I conduct literary dialogue?

the avant garde progress

but like stodgy pilgrims slowly slowly slowly

through miles of decon-

struc-

tion

their ritual stance:

snooty-slick-over-slouchy-doubtful

 

    4. I find that I can resist transitions

I cannot resist conclusion

endings are unfashionable

like Ecclesiastes

they suggest a map beneath the cosmos

destination and destiny  

sins of commission everybody knows

alienation is where it’s at   

                                                         Judy Belsky

 

 

My Best Friends Are Books: A LOVE LETTER TO LITERATURE

 

I’ve known a lot of people

but I like them best as books;

humanity dependable

and honest, scorning rooks.

‘Tis curious how ‘real people’

can shift and disconcert;

they’re indecisive, oft faithless—

suppositions controvert.

No sooner than I place my trust

in human nature, vows or oaths,

consistency and fealty

will  ‘evolve’ and don new clothes.

The people that I thought I knew

so often prove irregular;

when surety gets puts to trust

the denouement will fain demur.

Then is it not astonishing

how characters called ‘fictional’

can be relied upon to vaunt

relations more reliable.

Whenever people say one thing

then mean another (howe’er remote),

books will never counterfeit—

their word is bonded by a quote.

And, best of all, books do forbear

tergiversations and miscues;

when all confusions palliate,

they dote on you, and disabuse.

Friends are necessary

to make life more meaningful;

but people are perfidious

while books are sane and stable.

You can have your dramas,

inconsistencies and friends;

I’m content with mine—

the ones who live between bookends.

                                                                         —Craig Kurtz

 

 

My Robot Wrote This Poem

 

My robot had the audacity

to write this poem and then

sign my name to it!

Hey!

Who really wrote this poem anyway?

The person who built the robot?

The robot?

Or me the person who

owns the robot?

Or was it a shared enterprise?

 

 

If my robot itself wrote this

(some fried egg and coffee stains on the writing pad

leftover from his breakfast after he was upgraded to First Class

on the 7am shuttle)

then I state unequivocally that I did not share in it and

it doesn’t qualify

as a poem and has no genuine feelings:

A robot’s  feelings are not genuine because

a robot does not have an own self to generate or to respond with feelings

(maybe a pseudo self but not an actual human self)

Any “feelings” in its poem are

creations of an algorithmic thesaurus of human-like feelings—

not from real feelings 

 

 

My robot is not a twenty-first century slave:

I take care to offer him a plentiful, environmentally friendly diet—

I provide solar cells

and non-GPS manna fresh daily and according to his

flavor preference

He joins my family at all meals;

Upon Jubilee my robot will be

set free from robot status

unless he had his earlobe pierced and has opted to

serve as my robot for his lifetime

 

 

Each week’s winning poem is displayed for six days

(not on Shabbat)

on the outside skin of the fuselage just forward of

the right fin—

That is one hundred forty four revolutions—

after which another robot/owner’s poem gets a chance 

O.K.  Let’s say I don’t object to being a

conjoint poet-of-record;

So what did my bloody robot write?

Does it matter?

 

 

More fragile than Bach’s Brandenburg Concerto which was etched on the outside of

NASA Voyager

and now consigned to an infinity

of intergalactic wandering,

a winning poem would be erased

by the friction albeit minimal from space dust

and no chance for earth beings to reclaim

 

 

Then my robot proceeded to argue that the emotions he felt were just as real as my human

emotions;

Unlikely.

Unlikely that robot-feelings mature or change over its lifespan

in the same way that a person’s emotions mature or change

over time.

 

 

Now I took control:

“Write a poem about G-d,” I challenged

“Repeat command.”

“Yes, write a poem about G-d.”

“Advise other name.”

“G-d has seventy names—

“Which name do you want?”

“Advise  other name”

Stubborn sonofa…

 

 

“Ad-nai, Kadosh, Akatsh, E-l, Elokai, Yud Key Vav Key…” 

“Not know how to…”

“Just say it!”

“…pronounce letters”

“Recognize no feeling never feeling where feeling; feeling cold…”

(Circuit overload; pacemaker racing; puffs of smoke;

orange rays flashing

from robot’s head)

“No understand.”

Silence.

 

 

“Silence is the residue of fear”1

“Fear inspires awe”

“All”

(malfunction in Speech Recognition Directory:)

“Awe not all “

 

 

Maybe one day G-d will introduce a minor reorganization

within that which is unchanging—

to permit a better understanding—

until then my robot and I sit together

each pilloried in the stock

of his own consciousness

 

 

Please bring us each to his best

clarity

and closer to You 

 

 

“Join the ‘No Understand’ Club: 

“Nature

“Science

“Only questions…

“No last minute brain soldering

“No seven am space shuttle.

“No beginning without G-d

“No genuine feelings without G-d

“No self without G-d

“No poem without G-d

“No place except G-d

“No love without G-d

“Nothing at all

 without G-d.”

“Understand.”

My robot sinks down stiffly to pray on  bended aluminum knees…

 

 

“No, your robot brain lies to you—

“You will never be able to ‘understand’—to feel G-d’s presence,

never really pray to Him

 or believe in Him.

“You cannot fake belief

 (tho’ some try)

“Moreover you will never understand that you

will never understand—

“G-d as truth is

the forever enigma

 

 

“Twelve, thirteen or more dimensions 

of string theory compacted into super symmetry M-theory

or any new theory that comes along

will always conspire to

hide G-d’s force

(which is universal and subatomic at the same time)

or else falsely identify it

as science

theory or Nature;

catacombs of exploration—

“The very state of His hiddenness admits the cause and indeed possibility of

His everywhere power and existence:

 

 

“The drive to understand…”

No, neither robot nor emotions

neither poem nor science  can understand;

and neither do i.

                                                —Theone and Robot

                                                Jerusalem

1Clint  Smith,  Phrase from speech The danger of silence, TED@NYC transcript, July 2014.    

 

 

 

[birds of disparate feathers: a confucian call for commonwealth] 

 

Come, come, you peng

From the Zhuangzian northern darkness

You swan from the Horatian meadows

You pheasant from under Li Bo’s cold moon

You oriole from Dufu’s green willow

You dove from the Dantean inferno

You phoenix from Shakespeare’s urn

You swallow from the Goethe oak or

The Nerudan dense blue air, you cuckoo

From the Wordsworthian vale, you albatross

From the Coleridgean fog, you nightingale

From the Keatsian plum tree, you skylark

Form the Shelleyean heaven, you owl

From under the Baudelairean overhanging years

You unnamed creature from the Pushkinian alien lands

You raven from near Poe’s chamber door

You parrot from the Tagorean topmost twig

And you crows from among my cawing words

 

Come, all of you, more than 100 kinds of

Birds from every time spot or spot moment

Come, with your light but strong skeletons

Come, with your hard but toothless beaks

Come, with your colored feathers, and flap your wings

Against Su Dongpo’s painting brush strokes

 

Come, all you free spirits of nature

Let’s join one another and flock together

High, higher up towards mabakoola*

                                           —Changming Yuan

 

*the term ‘mabakoola’ is a word invented for the earthly paradise I have built for myself and those who would share with me in the world of poetry. (C.Y.)

 

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