Sunday, March 13, 2016

Weeding


Weeding

I disinter roots & branches of 
trees sawed & stumps ground last autumn
rotting at their slow pace.

Weeding is a constant path.
Between stones grow blanched stems,
under them, blanched roots with no stems.

I pitchfork weeds into toppling cones —
nutrient steam flecked with yellow flowers —
stack & restack pyres to stall growth.

By now I know each type of weed
including one I pardoned — its velvet leaf —
like as not, not what I wish for,

no more than sounds at my door at night,
not rain or wind, not possum or fox.
What pitchfork might rout this dark?

Sunday, March 6, 2016

Bankei via Stephen Berg


First Song
by Stephen Berg

never was    always will be
mind before mind
earth water fire wind
sleep there tonight

you you on fire
burning yourself
attached
to this burning house

search
all the way back
to the womb
can’t remember a thing

good bad
ideas
self self
which

winter’s wonderful
bonfire’s
ridiculous
in summer

summer breezes
irritate
even before autumn’s
over

rich now
you hate the poor
and forget when you
had nothing

you saved every dollar
a fiend
watched by the famished
wraiths of your self

your whole life
making money
could not pay off
death

clinging wanting
nothing on my mind
that’s why I can say
it’s all mine

you want someone you love
now
only because
you never knew her

you can’t forget
not to remember
someone you never forgot
who?

looking back
you see it one brief evening
realize    see
everything’s a lie

bitter? does this
incredible world of grief
hurt? why wound yourself
brooding on dreams?

no hands    no eyes
nothing exists
touch see
that’s it

all this
in unreal
instead of clutching your head
go and sing

your mind
yours
torments you
because you need it

hating hell
loving heaven
torture yourself
in this joyous world

the hating mind
itself is not bad
not not hating
what’s bad

good    bad
crumple into a ball
of trash
for the gutter

ideas about
what you should do
never existed
I    I    I

finished
with Buddhism
nothing’s new

enlightenment really?
“mine”
keep wrestling with yourself
idiot

these days enlightenment
means nothing to me
so I wake up
feeling fine

tired of praying
for salvation    look
at those poor beautiful flowers
withering

saunter
along the river
breathe
in    out

die    live
day and night here
listen    the world’s
your hand

Buddhas
are pitiful
all dressed up    dazzled
by brocade robes

enemies
come from your mind
right wrong right wrong
never were

call it this    that
it doesn’t exist
except this page
except these wavering phrases

praised abused
like a block of wood straight through
my head’s the universe
can’t hide my ugliness my clumsiness

so I just go along
with what is
without anger
without happiness

nothing to see    nothing to know
before after now
call and you’ll hear
its heartbreaking silence

[from Stephen Berg's The Steel Cricket: Versions 1958-1997]

Saturday, March 5, 2016

A Quilt of Wings


A Quilt of Wings

A red bicycle rumbles
the gravel parking apron,
rosemary hedge a blue tangle.

The body crouched above a sprocket
pedals beside a dog on leash
block after sea level block.

Succulents skirt a patio.
An orb weaver hangs flies
above a planter where collards grow.

Fur webbed with splints of bone —
owl-cast on asphalt —
how tongue eats tongue.

Duck bills worry clover,
squirrels tightrope jacaranda,
a quilt of wings squareknots the river.

At the beach the dog’s set free to run.
Chase stick. Chase ball. Chew wave.
Genuflect to pelicans.