POEMS OF THE WEEK ~ MEN'S VOICES

This week, we will hear three more of the men's eloquent voices. Michael Phan, who writes at  grapeling: it could be that, Eric Erb of erbiage, and Scott Hastie of his blog of the same name, are sharing a poem each that we know you will enjoy. Let's dive in!

(Motion)

give me the far winds that feather heaven,
that twist and tumble and clutch
autumn’s last leaf to earth’s hearth.

give me ice, and rest
and the earth chilled to silence
only seeds hear.

give me tendrils. give me a cherry’s flirty first blossoms
, emerald hills spiced with orange and mauve,
a double-winged dragonfly patient as water.

give me skies paling pink, trilling crickets,
light high as the north star,
cool red watermelon with plenty of seeds;

give me your eyes’ fire, the thump in your breast,
the wisp of your bangs,
your forefinger’s crook motion

– your vermillion lips
– your heart sharp as words

for if you give me your days

you will have mine 

Sherry: Your imagery is so rich in this poem, Michael. Just lovely.

Michael: Just a poem about seasons, and maybe keeping an eye open to details...

Sherry: And beautifully done. Eric's poem employs wonderful imagery, too. Let's take a peek.

TREETIME

I’ll try to write this in your terse speech
Upon the skin of my kin you call paper
Such a small word for the crushed pulp
Of my people. There is nothing in that word
Of the books you make of it, nor
How it is the vessel of your moments.
Nor the majesty that stood centuries
Rooted like we are in the sky,
Nose to the ground.

But these small words of yours are upside down
And backwards. It’s our branches that hold
Us fast in spirit. The matted whiskerbeard
Is what keeps us kissing the earth. The
Parts and the meaning are entwined.
The same, and not. But where was I?

In this poem of a time that ticks
In trees long perception.
What persists, what appears
In one moment, gone the next
Like deer

Most of us sleep all winter
A trick we taught the bear-clan people
Winter is as night in treetime

And the thing you call summer
We call day, in our language.
We hardly notice the strobe
Of that thing you use that word for…

If you want to see the world
As we see it, sit. Be still.
Stop tricking yourselves
With your movie-reel motion.

Though in this too, like poems
Is a truth that is not present.
Moments, when strung together
Never become water.
I know that river
It licked my toes once
Egged on by angry thunderheads

There are some poems that
Can only be discerned at night
Then their words swell and ripen
Their bitter meaning sound sweet.
This I hear in the sigh and creak of branches

Sit in darkened rooms
Run the wheels at breakneck pace
Love the lie of video.

Or if you dare, and can find out how,
Slow the footage and you’ll come to know
Each moment is its own now.

Sherry: I love this poem, which reflects upon trees - and us - so wonderfully. "Each moment is its own now" is a great closing line.

Eric: We take so much from trees, and they just keep giving.  It doesn’t seem like we take the most valuable thing they offer though.  I’ve been trying to be still, and pay more attention to things I take for granted.

There have always been trees near my home, and at this house there are two big venerable pines, and a river.  Their presence I often notice even when I can’t see them.  So our disrespect of them was prominent, and how could we ever understand a life that seems so different from ours.  It was written in springtime, when the trees were just waking up from winter, so that got in there too.  This was a gift from the trees to the humans, I’m grateful that I was able to get out of the way and let it flow.

Sherry: me, too. How lovely, to live near ancient trees and a river. Thanks, Eric. Let's see what Scott has for us today.

Sherry:

See How…

See how,

Around

The stream’s

Silvery edge,

Reflected light

Dances on the surface

Of rushing water.

Becoming

The very essence

Of life

And motion itself,

Effortlessly tapping

Into timeless truths

That, once absorbed,

Echo right back

At you

More than ever before.

And with a peerless

Reminder

That’s both soothing

And humbling

Of how,

In a single lifetime,

One could never oneself

Accumulate

Such knowing grace,

Gather up such melody,

Nor offer such endless

Nourishment.

Still here

With the chance

Of some

Sweet release though.

And, for so many

Amongst us,

Would that it were so!

To dream

That one day,

Within,

Such a river might flow. 

Sherry: I love those closing lines!

Scott: I regard the over-arching theme of my work to be a personal investigation into the positive potential of the human spirit. This I think is clearly evident, running through most of my poems. Not that I believe my work can ever be said to be some sweet pastoral panacea, because it never shies away from pain or suffering – and is prepared to also explore the darkness, as well as the light and, crucially, the fundamental significance of their inter reaction. This being, to me, the absolute axis (the truly dynamic and crucial interdependence of the light and dark, of joy and sorrow, of love and loss, in the grand Romantic tradition) and that key notion of duality which I hope still lies solidly at the heart of my work and my approach.

I remain determined always to be challenging enough to try and reach deep into the core of the meaning of the human experience - although I do readily accept that, as my work has developed, then my voice has also become more reflective and spiritual in its emphasis.

I have aimed, at any time in my career, to always be as simply expressed and as readily accessible as possible – For me, this is a vital component of all my work to date. And it is here that you can also hopefully see how simple often short line length structures also play their part – though still carefully shaped for emphasis, controlled rhythm and musicality that lifts key passages, enhances meaning and always looks to carefully and lyrically draw the reader towards the concluding climax of any piece. The success of which for me is always a critical consideration and the key litmus test of success of any particular poem. Hope you enjoyed See How!

Sherry: I did indeed, as well as your process for writing it. Thanks for sharing, Scott.

Well, my friends, wasn't this a treat? Thank you, gentlemen, for sharing your fine poems and thoughts with us. Do come back and see who we talk to next. Who knows? It might be you!

MEN'S VOICES: THE STATE OF THE WORLD AND THE STATE OF OUR HEARTS

Today we are listening to the men in our community, as they share their poems and thoughts on the state of the world, how it weighs on our hearts, and what keeps us going in spite of it all. Definitely topics we can relate to; as poets, we seem keenly aware of, not just the beauty of the world, but its darkness. Perhaps our poems can shed a little light into the dark corners and lighten the way just a little. We can hope. Let's listen to Bjorn Rudberg, Ollie the Tired Monk, Michael (grapeling), and Marcoantonio, whose words run in counterpoint to the daily news.

ONLY THE LIVING CAN FEAR

The taste of fear is open, pure and red —

a lump of meat, its poppies lost and flown

from cries in mud, in trenches darkly bled.

We harvested our fear from fields we’d sown

with honey dripping from our leaders’ tongue.

The scent of fear is blood and broken bones.

We fought with tears and cried with broken lungs,

we bulwarked, starved, believed it’s more than right,

to maim our foes, the newborns and their young.

The sound of fear is sweat of starlit nights,

we waited as the forest grew inside,

it spread with rotting hands and ropes wound tight

   around our necks the night we lost our pride

   when life was soiled and all we knew had died.

This sonnet is one that I have been working with through several different versions. The original version was written for Real Toads as a sonnet challenge, and when we started our form project at dVerse. In this particular one, I worked with Terza Rima rhyme scheme inside a Shakespearean sonnet. The idea on the poem is a subject on the evil in every one of us; lately I have watched many documentaries about the big wars in Europe and I fear that war will come back one day. I think the war itself is less interesting but more how human being changes, how ordinary men can do the most horrific things, and how war, fear and hatred will make humans do things we would not be capable of during peace.

Sherry: I suppose if soldiers thought of the other side as being human, they could not fight at all. I am most struck by the lines "when life was soiled and all we knew had died." It is no wonder soldiers come home with inner wounds. They have experienced hell. Thank you for this thoughtful poem, Bjorn.

Michael recently wrote a poem that offers us a positive reflection, amidst all the gloom of wars, climate change, crazed leaders, and despairing refugees. We need his words of hope!

The World Is Not Going

the world is not going
to hell anymore
than the sun is burning
out: tomorrow
will burn just the same as today.

I’ve neglected the garden;
it hasn’t missed me. Dirt accepts
wet or dry equally, it’s only living
things that notice the difference
but still, I noticed today’s rain

continually high-fiving the Meyer lemon
which bowed in return, as though smiling,
yellow rind glistening like an old man’s stained teeth
or mine in the window.
What is a half century

if fifty revolutions is a myth:
the entire solar system swirling
in spirals around a star racing through space
so maybe the world is going
after all

Sherry: We live in hope! Mother Earth tries her best, in spite of our mistreatment, to carry out her cycles. What gives me comfort is that she can heal, if we give her half a chance. Where did this poem come from, Michael?

Michael: My impending half century at the time was the foundation. 

This poem was posted in reply to Grace's prompt at toads about David Huerta, and having now revisited it, I see that in the poems she highlighted he wrote of fruit. I suspect his lemon, coupled with the scrawny Meyer bush outside my then-bedroom window, inspired the one here. Perhaps I had witnessed a then-rare rain buffet the winter rind.

Rereading Grace's notes, she observed that Huerta's poetry invites the reader to participate in constructing the meaning of the poem, a precept I admire - after all, it could be that. 

I've always been curious about the concept of time, relativity, space, and how we feeble humans so often insist there are great cycles, but how cosmology shows us we spin through space and time without ever really tracing the same path again.

Or maybe it was none of that, just idle musings. Spinning into another year older makes the mind wander, doesn't it?

Sherry: It certainly does. Thank you so much, Michael.

I always love it when Ollie, the Tired Monk (and one of our first members at Poets United) pops up on the blogroll. No matter what is happening on earth, the Tired Monk can be seen in his tattered robes, sweeping, shoveling, chopping wood, with his temple dog beside him. That gives me great comfort.

scattered bits n'fragments

i)

tired
deep temple dog tired
tired of wars
...words
n' wars on words

tired of fighting
pushing on the last few
fading monks
to move
just move

ii)

coffee pot
bottom burned black
       needs scrubbing
morning of wet monk
sleeves

iii)

energy drink cans
scattered up the ditches
or squashed flat
and paved over
in the pre-frost rush

iii)

this violin
is a fiddle in these hands
sawing  - mingling
with Americana chords
lifting n'healing
yer broken heart

         *****     *****

Sherry: I, too, feel that bone-deep weariness. Regular people are so tired of all the sparring, the rhetoric, the damage that is being done. I love the tune you play to help heal all the broken hearts, my friend. Heaven knows we can use a good tune!

     *****    *****

A Question  

you really the tired monk?

yeah
bone weary tired

beat burdened
but still ready
to serve

propped up
by temple dog walks
a few warm holy songs
maybe a slug of highland healing
bit of Drambuie warding
off this winter cough

yep
held up by these monk robes

...just

source

Sherry: This strikes a chord, as I see hard-won gains being stripped away, injustice everywhere, climate change melting the planet....I try to hang on to optimism and hope. But some days ... just.

Ollie: Being a monk these days is such a blessing.  There is much work to be done, and many to serve.  Some days my more human parts break down.  This piece is a meditation on what keeps me moving forward in this world: a little music, my temple dogs, and maybe a nip of single malt.  Today I felt like the only thing holding me up were my old battered monk robes.  

Sherry: I have those days, too, without the support of monk robes. But my cane helps! Thank you for this poem, Ollie. Your poems always make me smile. I can see the Tired Monk, bravely battling the snowdrifts in eastern Canada.

Marcoantonio, another early member at Poets United, wrote a very perceptive poem on these topics, which I am happy he agreed to share with us. Let's take a look:

Fire and Storms

devastation of storms and floods appear 
then come the hell of fires and words are
said from a tongue of sharpen blades not for 
the sake of pain for loss or sorrow but for the sake
of their own tomorrow 

the flower does not blame the wind
for its loss of petals, the rain for
their wilting, the sun for being parched
with too much heat or for the night
stealing the day

in selfishness and greed there is
no good that comes but a sadness
and lament avails for the souls departed
and all who is left are the lonely and  
the cold hearted

source

Marco: My piece reflects the present conditions of how our country, the U.S.A., is being devastated by Hurricanes and Forest fires, and how our present resident of the White House has little empathy for the specific states affected - either because one is basically 'brown' people, and the other, because it was and is a state that is not supportive of his continued 'megalomania', narcissistic, racist, xenophobic, self-serving ego.

Sherry: Plain words, Marco, and I share your frustration at the widespread social injustices that are occurring. In your poem, I am most struck by the line "the flower does not blame the wind for its loss of petals." That is very beautiful.

Thank you so much, gentlemen, for your poems, which illuminate so well the state of our hearts at the present state of the world. Shall we overcome? I hope so, for the sake of the young.

Do come back, my friends, and see who we talk to next. Who knows? It might be you!

POEMS OF THE WEEK ~ GRAPELING AND HIS BOYS, JOHNNIE AND SCHOONER

This feature will touch your hearts, my friends, especially those of you who love dogs.  It began as a poem of the week with other poets, but over the course of putting it together, events conspired which told me to honour it with its own feature. We have three heart-catching poems for you today, penned by Michael Phan, whom we know as grapeling, who writes at his blog of the same name. 

They are tear-jerkers, especially for we dog lovers. Keep some Kleenex handy, and let's take a look at Michael's moving poems about his dogs, Johnnie and Schooner. I always say dogs are Love Buddhas, and these two certainly prove that theory.

Patricia O'Driscoll Photography

Johnnie on the left, Schooner on the right

Michael Phan photo

LOVE DOG

I carried him, black hairs furring my white shirt, into the back yard and sat him down on the grass between the Meyer lemon tree, redolent, and the red delicious apple tree now busting out a hundred pippins, and together in the dark we surveyed his domain.

Over there behind the prickly bush he used to spirit plastic bags, until we finally (large brains and all) figured out where all the bread was going: he was stealing it from high off the counter and sneaking it to gingerly devour in his private dining room, hidden from view, until the detritus of perhaps 40 bags (we’re slow learners) leaked out from behind the bushes and his secret was revealed.

Heads together, we looked at the blackberry brambles now filling the blank spaces between the black fence bars, the slender blueberry stems straining for fall, the tall but not yet productive pear tree. We looked at the bits of birch cones that always found their way onto his fur and into the house. This was his yard, and he sagged into my arms.

Where did those seven years go? Eight nearly, in people years, so for this sweetest black lab, was it fifty? It was a life lived at breakneck speed and long, lounging sleeps on the couch or bed, happily resting his jaw on the sofa arm, or especially as he lay down on his green checked dog bed, he moved his paw and arm over mine while I scratched his chest, and sighed that doggy sigh, heavy enough to flap his lips and make that whinny.

He struggled up, not making it, so I propped his haunches and he stuttered a step, two, resting again until I swept his old bones and blood dotted with something else and tuna-smelling breath and that curly black fur into my arms that can’t hold him enough, and held him, not enough, back inside to his bed, leaving his darkened yard behind.

He won’t be greeting me in the driveway, tearing from lawn to lawn and spinning like a dervish in love and devotion, and I won’t be chasing him back and forth like a six year old, and it’s too much for him to sneak a loaf from the table, he wouldn’t eat the pesto, even, offered like to a gouty Roman senator.

The chemo ended Friday and he was spry, Saturday he aged like clay in the oven, Sunday his right leg stopped working and his eyes sank, and Monday his rear haunches announced they no longer cared to walk. Last week he was sliding up onto the couch like old times, if no longer chasing to meet the neighbor dog at least he’d saunter.

Time is leaking out of his life faster than a bee swarm. The yellow flowers from the pepper tree out front litter the driveway, those bees are relentless, they smile their secrets into the pepper and bring forth pungent and color and a brown stain on the concrete and those yellow florets dropped onto his fur and into the house, and soon there won’t be any more spins of a dog on his lawn or on the brick living room floor and I’ll have to lay down to gather those bee’s lunch remains and pretend Johnnie will be sniffling up to lick my chin and ask for a scratch behind his ears, and these years and moments that swim before us like silvery minnows as we drink up, drink up, drink in the water of our days in the heartbeat of an old black dog.
                                          …..

[Originally posted on my first grapeling blog in February 2012, during Johnnie’s last days. Now it’s Schooner’s turn.]

Sherry: I am awash in tears at your loving and tender description of your boy Johnnie's final days. It is so sad that Schooner will soon be following his brother; heartbreaking that dogs do not live long enough. But such joy they bring us while they are here. Such devoted, unswerving love.

I would love to include the moving poem you wrote two years back about Schooner, if I may. 

Schooner

JANUARY 31, 2014 ~ M

He curls, furry, unfurls
his longest spine
like a sickle, a cup, a busker’s hat
throat rumbling for stretched fingers
stepping with strong claws
on your foot until you scratch.

His black eyes are the last
two leaves on the birch
waiting for winter to end.

Blood, bark, steady heartbeat
are yours
no matter what.

Sherry: Oh, my goodness, Michael, those two last leaves on the tree, waiting for winter! Their hearts are ours, no matter what, as no other being's is, so unconditionally. Thank you for your beautiful, moving poems, with which every dog lover can relate. 

Michael: Maybe it's because they're the better us: love without limits, eyes with no deception, and perfectly ok with eating shit and smiling about it. 

I, or my ex and sons, have had black labs for 20 years - first Bumper, then Johnnie Be Goode, then Schooner - and each of them is, of course, the best boy ever. 

Yours is too, right? 

Maybe I hedge. Maybe I say 'there's no better dog than you.' 

That way, they can all be the best, and I'm not lying. Who could lie to a dog? And if you could - well, I don't want to know you.

Somehow, Schooner has hung on, but this time, it really is the end days. So, as with Bumps and Johnnie, I hold him as tight as he lets me, and scratch his chest, and let him stand on my feet.

I think he's telling me 'Hineni'*. 

Dog speed, Schooner, and every dog I've ever loved.

(*Hineni: "Here I am, I'm ready, my Lord.")

[Note: As I was  putting this feature together, in mid-November, Michael emailed me that dear Schooner was making his way across the Rainbow Bridge to join Johnnie Be Goode.]

A boy and his dog

Schooner, on his last day

Sherry: Oh, Michael, my heart hurts for you. It is so hard to lose these beautiful souls. I found a poem written a while back for Schooner that I would love to include here, if I might.

you, love

you, love

SEPTEMBER 9, 2015 ~ M

Kobe

Schooner

all of us are dogs
even when we forget
to bark.

you, love
with your bright black coat
shedding in my fingers,
your rapid, shallow breathing,
stuttering, betraying legs,
furred head that smells like grape candy,
how you pin my foot with your paw
so I can’t move when I stroke your ears,
your voice a throaty, laughing growl;

how your steps are numbered;
how I will carry you to your final embrace
tomorrow, or the next.

and you, love
who stepped away yesterday
with golden-white fur long as love,
candled eyes, a voice that rarely spoke
except when I came to the door
even after years distant
to rumble greeting,
your snout nosing my knees
and your chuff a purr, as it were,
as much as a dog might;

I will forget our slow walks
when I am dirt.

        *****         *****

Sherry: Oh, my. "With golden-white fur as long as love...." Dog-love, and our love for them, is one of the purest loves around. Thank you for sharing your boys with us, Michael. Such devoted, loving beings, and too soon gone.

I hope you had your hankies handy for this one, kids. Sigh. Do come back to see who we talk to next. Who knows? It might be you!