63515815U

A VOICED AWAKENING
A VOICED AWAKENING
Poems
David Jaffin
First published in Great Britain in 2004 by Shearsman Books,
58 Velwell Road, Exeter EX4 4LD and in Germany by
St.-Johannis-Druckerei, Lahr/Schwarzwald
www.shearsman.com
shearsman@macunlimited.net
Distributed for Shearsman Books in the U.S.A. by Small Press Distribution, 1341 Seventh Avenue, Berkeley, CA 94710 Email: orders@spdbooks.org Website: http://www.spdbooks.org
ISBN 0-907562-57-4 (Shearsman Books, UK)
ISBN 3-501-01499-6 (St.-Johannis-Druckerei, Germany)
Copyright © David Jaffin, 2004.
The right of David Jaffin to be identified as the author of his work has been asserted by him in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act of 1988.
All rights reserved
Gesamtherstellung: St.-Johannis-Druckerei, Lahr/Schwarzwald Printed in Germany 34847/2004
Contents
That first snow	11
Of unspoken touch	11
Holy Communion	11
At the Window’s edge	12
The Season for War	12
Planning	13
Paradox	13
Preemptive Strike	14
Hot days, cold nights	15
Flemmish, 15th century 16 Blow fish	16
Strange birds	17
Mother Goose rhymes (5)	17
A lightness	20
Pretty	20
Kayaks	21
Making person	21
With the deaf
congregation I	22
Hardened	22
“The way I see it’’	23
With the deaf
Congregation II	23
Cadences of sound	23
Small talk	24
Poems about poem (2)	24
Late-down flowers	25
Learning	26
Pawed	26
Realizing	26
In the quiet	27
Awakening	27
Subtractions	28
For heavenly recline	28
Hardy - Return of the native (4)	28
Card Players	31
The poem, the way it is 31 Listening	32
Lessened	33
Non-Heritage	33
Borderline	34
For Ernst	34
Viktor Frankl	35
Isaac	35
Recognition	36
Night’s voices	36
Arm chairs	36
Snails and others	37
Inspoken	37
Incessantly so	38
Dream-for songs	38
Concealing in	39
Nathaniel Pink: in retrospect	39
Thaw	40
Just for a moment	41
Brueghel: 2 Paintings 41 Concert goers	42
Such Witnesses	43
Whiteness of	43
Surprised awakenings 44 Workman	44
A logic to faith?	45
The Liberal creed	45
On the Alert	46
This last berried touch 46 A Door	47
This ground’s	47
A rabbit’s Softness	48
Innocent continuity	48
Opened Piano	49
Emptied waiting room 49
“Giving in to oneself’	50
“Don’t trouble trouble unless trouble troubles you”	50
“Scatter-brained”	51
That “stiff upper lip”	52
“Finding oneself’	52
Jungle-jim	53
Making meanings	53
Two ways	54
A tree without leaves	54
Fossils	55
Carpet	55
Night-time shadows	56
In losing scent	56
Advent: wisemen from afar	56
Of false expectations	57
If Croce	58
Outgrown	58
Chest of drawers ca. 1900	59
Preparing for	59
Killing Christ	60
Washed out	61
Floly night	62
Israel	63
The Shepherds	63
The Manger	64
Sectarian	64
Sectarian II	65
Shyness	65
That sofa	66
Getting down to business	66
Who’s measuring who?	67
That static landscape	68
Colored rolling	68
Aron at age three	68
Shutter’s	69
Conceit	69
Self importance	7 0
Airport	70
Downed	71
Nathaniel Pink’s midmorning	71
Waking from snow	72
Snow melting this hill down	72
If that’s progress	73
We never know	73
For Rosemarie	74
Unleft	74
21 Oak Lane	75
Early morning swim	75
The sleepless winds	76
Those palms	76
Of lasting time	76
Out at sea	77
Living up your faith alone	77
Have you ever asked	78
Hunger’s	78
For our children’s sake	79
Freed	80
Jonah and the Storm	80
“He’s not quite himself’ 81 Holbein the Younger’s “Last Supper”	81
Country dining with Ingo and Solvay	82
Of re-seeming eyes	83
Romanesque	83
Up stream	84
Low tide	85
Sea-side houses	85
Train stops	86
Outlasted	86
Can you familiarize stone	87
Moving on	88
At 65	88
Ice-cream man	89
Than this	89
Dolphins	90
Blue Marlin’	90
Pre-established presence 90 Osprey	91
Can we tame the sea	92
Sand Piper’s	92
Australian pines	93
Dead pelican	93
What man means by freedom	94
Curls	94
When her grandmother died	95
Writing myself wake	95
Seeing it straight	96
Starting a poem’	96
“Felt it that way”	96
Criminals	96
A strange bird	97
Because he wasn't flying	97
What secrets	97
Morning streetlights	98
The slightness of this pen	98
This blue shell	99
Helen’s romantic urge 99 Border states	99
Self-imaged	100
Horseshoes	100
Mr. Wilcocks	101
Handyman	101
The Basses	102
Phil	102
Tempting a smile	103
Falling with Snow	103
Taking a Measure by myself	104
Becoming aware	105
Melting down	105
Spitzweg: Hunter in the Woods	106
Spitzweg: The Butterfly Chaser	106
“Pouring one’s heart out”	107
Your collared suit	108
Narrowed	108
Through emptied branches	108
Perspectived	109
Dream-felt	109
Soundless voice	109
Only the outside now 110
This wording of	111
Borderline	111
Winding a clock	112
Would/would??	112
Murky persons	113
Of secret, untold meanings	113
Enthroned Madonna and Saints	114
Afterall	114
Like other ships	115
Too white	116
Broken out nut-shell	116
Listening	116
Taking leave	117
A thirst for words	117
Rowers	118
Unquiets	118
Strung	119
Displayed-in item	119
Nathaniel Pink on the world situation	120
Dresden: 5 paintings	121
Child’s eyes	124
Wheel-chaired	124
Angelic	125
Our background	125
After glow	125
“Thinking positively” 126 Free	126
Over voiced	126
Unsettled	127
Passah Haggadah	128
Plain talk’s	129
Obscuring	130
At the Psychoanalysts 130 Self-defining	131
Caroline	131
“Baldung Grien’s Crucifixion”	132
Awakening	133
Cross-word puzzles	133
Illmensee’s	133
Rembrandt’s
“Resurrection”	134
On the Way to
Emmaus	135
Painting over	135
Waking through dream 136 Of promising colors	136
Of untold meaning	137
In colored	137
“Justitia”	138
Neil	138
Piano Lesson’s	139
Nathaniel Pink unearthed	139
Overwording	140
Prettiness	140
Sleep	141
Beautifying	141
The example	142
For my dead father, in dialogue	142
Something to hide	143
The Holy of holies	144
Trying to be humane’s 144 Saddam’s palaces	145
Making us mild	146
Roller-Coaster	146
Mozart’s Flute	147
Figurative houses	147
Iraq or that Humpty- Dumpty syndrom	147
For the ordering of things	148
Schwabian Alb	149
Isaac	149
Meditations on Vermeer	150
22 Oak Lane	150
That bird	151
Birch-felt	152
These bells	152
Samuel	152
Grammar	153
Outgrown	153
Until the Fox came	153
Milkweed	155
Field fast	155
If	155
Rivered	156
Self-Protective	156
Rained away	157
Directionless	157
Dart game	158
So many doors	158
No one to know	158
The Trenches	159
“To make the most of it”	159
That piano	160
Candles	160
A part of her	160
Adam stripe bass fishing	161
So lived in	161
Aloneness	161
Lesser Mark	162
Sylvia’s way	162
Leafed	162
Of darkening	163
Scented	163
Out blossomed	164
Bigger	164
After rain	164
5 Masterpieces in the Alte Pinakothek	165
A Pastel Afternoon	167
At the Proms	168
Of marbled stone	168
Historical length	169
Could mean	169
Black Cat	169
Its sense from darkness 170 A quiet place	170
With Corot	170
Mass graves	171
Hate	171
Out spreading	172
Swing	172
Cocktail Party	172
Dream conscious	173
Chagalls “The desparate Job”	173
Nathaniel Pink untangled	174
Van der Weyden’s
“Annunciation”	175
After rain	175
On Shostakovich Preludes and Fugues	176
Tolerance	177
If	177
A Form of presence	177
Muted now	178
Flowered	178
Familiarity	179
Bach dancing	179
Master of himself	180
Bach	180
To be pleased’s	181
Through never more	181
Nathaniel Pink’s exposures	182
4 Squared	182
Revolving doors	183
Solemned	183
After taste	184
Because	184
A white horse in a green field	185
Seamed	185
Macbeth — Anatomy of a happy marriage	186
Macbeth at Burnham Woods	187
Hamlet Stagefright	187
Erasing memories	188
Of what isn’t mine	188
Colored carpets	189
Lee’s house	189
An awayness	190
Horse and Rider	190
With the speed of listening by	191
Aged with the faith	191
In rhythmic variations	192
Beethoven Quartet op 59 No. 2	192
Mendelssohn Quartet op 12	193
A fly	193
Insisting	194
Thoughts On Sophocle’s Oedipus Rex (6)	195
5 Masterpieces in Berlin	197
Numbered	200
Quieted down	200
Baldung’s Grien’s Crucifixion	201
Cynthia	201
Chagall’s Crucifixions 202 “Fated”?	202
Chagall’sjeremia	203
Words	203
Diplomatically cool	204
Where/who	204
Continuing on	205
Rising above	205
For Rosemarie in Dallas, Texas	206
Looking old’s	206
So hard	207
Trusting	207
Open Spaces	208
“Reality therapy”	208
Two persons?	209
On his high horse again	210
Chassid	210
Such stability	211
Unlit candle’	211
“Carrying your heart on your shirt sleeve”	212
Too large	212
Are these plants	213
Over-punctuated	213
Scholared	213
Cooled ott	214
That first snow
is more in the tensions
releasing now that
depth front sky.
Of unspoken touch
That
no where time of
now in the fragrance
of flower’ s unspoken
touch.
Holy Communion
if
it was only the knees
that bent their will
under the weight of
being too much in
self.
At the Window’s edge
Flowers
at the window’s edge
Being clo
sed in to a room of
self-told
thoughts.
The Season for War
September
not the song of a last-
felt longing But the season
for war That need for
blood ri sing to its
own account s as these
leaves turn for color and
the nights take in their cold breath strange
ly apparent.
Planning
What
we’ve plann ed isn’t
what’s plan ning us
The general’ s astute
eyed-in
time-less
glanced of the where death’
s where he isn’t Fields
of blood at tuned from
his paper less smile.
Paradox
if
war doesn’ t solve
but create s new field
s in uncer tainty There
may still be a time
when to re treat simply
postpones the date of
that encounter Man’s at
war with him self and can’
t solve what he can’t create
even in the undoing of
himself.
Preemptive Strike
if
we attack the danger
before It endanger
s us as in the writhing
of a snake’ s coiled stance
We may cut it through to
the steeled edge of
our own ex pectation
s by doubling the strength
of its re coiled attack.
Hot days, cold nights
and it’s hard to keep
the balance intact Where
the moon’s decisive
glow appro priates more
of my person than fears
can speak a loud And the
afternoon’ s sun Hour
ishes an a bundance
of superflu
ous light.
Flemmish, 15 th century
The pur
ity of these Marian hymns
The clear lines of ex
pressing the unity of
phrasing What we aren’t
she became
for us.
Blow fish
bigger than he felt he
could possi bly be In
flated as Balloon’s
rounding
readi
ness.
Strange birds
winged with imagined
colors Staring out silent
repeating wa ters.
Mother Goose rhymes (5)
a)		“Diddle, diddle dumpling My son John’...”
s an on and off sort of
poem The way we tend to
be As if moods could
be interchange able with those
shoes and day dreams
were kept for night’s sleep
ing in.
b)		“There was a little girl, she had a little curl...”
1 don’t know at the middle
of what For she was either
/or ing it As the blink
ing of an eye’s nasty/
prettied look.
c)		“O, the grand old Duke of York ...”
We’re still
marching our soldiers a
round Even if practice
can still make Perfect
ly disconten ed.
d)		“Little Miss Muffit sat on a puffit...”
Sofas can still
sink us in to those twi
light zones of tasty
unease.
e)		“The king was in his parlour counting out his money ...”
A plea
surable pur suit for those
who can af ford it And
the honey might taste
even sweeter than her all-
presuming
smiles.
A lightness
These
sands co lor the light
ness of the sky’s trans
parently
blue.
Pretty
a word for a woman dressed
in a light- defining
blue Rimmed in the white
ness of where scarcely
clouds almost touched to
the horizon ed edge.
Kayaks
parting the water’s edge
with a re dining ease
for touching those proba
bilities of distancing
in spaced.
Making person
if
making mon ey’s making
person Why haven’t we ac
quired a pa pered face
then.
With the deaf congregation I
All those waving wild
ness of hand ssig
nailed- in
sense and attributes of mind Taking on
the meaning of what
words have fin ally come to
imply.
Hardened
bone-felt
hand
speaks
of a life
without e
ven an eye-
touched
glimmer.
“The way I see it”
If it’s
the way I see it What hap
pens when I can’t see
anything
anymore.
With the deaf Congregation II
For
words were for them as
the soundless speakings ot
the ocean’s depths They
heard that they knew.
Cadences of sound
like the fal ling of wa
ter’s light impression
ably still ed.
Small talk
Talking
about What one talks a
bout
Like the chatter of bird s activa
ting with out bringing
those leave s back to
life.
Poems about poem (2)
a)		A single word
may cleanse the meaning
of that phrased-in
sense.
b)		To reclaim language
is like weeding a
garden from its over
grown usage.
Late-doum flowers
and their color’s fray
ed like the cloth of
to(o)-seen
clothes
worn for ap pearance
of that daily smile
one’s be come too
accustomed
to(o).
Learning
One
doesn’t learn to
write One writes by
learning
how.
Pawed
That
cat pawed its secre
tive in stincts to
those step s of see
ing eyes.
Realizing
if
children’s
thoughts
seem bigger than they can
see It’s be cause they’
re/bigger
than they them selves
Realizing.
In the quiet
It’s only
in the quiet of where
we come back to ourselve
s that this room’s be
coming per soned.
Awakening
Leaves
folding m the wind a
voiced a
wakening.
Subtractions
He
denied more of himself
than he could find back
to.
For heavenly recline
Clouds
continuing their own
way Shadow ing the earth’
s moments for heavenly re
dine.
Hardy - Return of the native (4)
a)		Eustasia Vye
She was some thing more
than person A beauty be
yond the claim
s of what
beauty can mean
to the heath’ s ever present
thereness being more
than what She was or even
of that where that couldn’
t hold her.
b) Rcddleimii The
eyes that watch over us
can be per soned as well
Not from a bove or even
within But at a distance Claim
ing that near ness for.
c)		Heath people A
part of that whereness
superstitious ly alive to
truths beyond the mind’s
seeing Timeless as
the heath’ s Breeding
in that al ways there
ness of.
d)		Clym’s mother and that closed door
Why
that door was closed
Because we can’t see be
yond what has happened A
finality of sense A brood
mg truth as the heath it
self Closing us out by
Taking us in.
Card Players (Cezanne)
These
cards have touched them
selves to their fingered needs that complete
in eyed- from certain
ties.
The poem, the way it is
Some thing gro
wing within myself May be
the way the earth in
spring feels itself coming
through to bloom in flowered color s.
Listening
to the move
ments of his thoughts
on this stone- felt sur
face Upset
him as colors
didn’t quite match this
sense of seeing A
slight uneasiness
crept
through his untried veins.
Lessened
Saying
it less is meaning it
more And what’s un
said con tinues to
think.
Non-Heritage
Jesus
couldn’t prove that
he wasn’t Jewish
But the church has
often given proof of
its nonheritage.
Borderline
She
crouched in defiance
of herself The lioness
defending what She
could only
devour.
For Ernst
Listening
may be a part of
why the poem’ s the way
It is.
Viktor Frnnkl April 1945
To
lose all is to know
all We need to know.
Isaac
He
knew His father knew
the cause the love
the where ness of
his being
Bound/
there to the fear in
his help less cries
at the stake the fire of
God’s burning justness.
Recognition
Looking
through glass May be the
same person If he sees
the way I’m seeing
him in.
Night’s voices
To
the whisper
ing of moon’ s lighted
thoughts And those voice
s through unanswer
ing stars.
Arm chairs
in a certitude of
self-assur ance Cir
cling last night’s con
versations Holding in/
there
for voice.
Snails and others
maintain
a household in self-
protective
seclusion
But man walls himself in
to systems of self-de
termina
tion.
Inspoken
Looking
herself down to
her son’s telling eye
s may have spoken her
years younger.
Incessantly so
Chatter ed on incessant ly so Like
birds cheating for
the crumbs of lesser
pleasure
s.
Dream-for songs
My
father sang his dream-
for-songs Trai ling his fee
lings to
beyond
long-lost
desires.
Concealing in
Night
came
through the
slow wind s of con
cealing in depths of
hidden
darkness.
Nathaniel Pink: in retrospect
He was
so exact in precising
his culti vated ends
Taking the meanings to
the length of their long-
desired-in tendons That
his world seemed made-
over
for the glit—
tering win ding paths
of where those stars
could be turned in or
out at the
ease of his
elongated
whispering
s.
Thaw
One
can only really know
what that soft ness
means After the hard-
cold of contracting
to the muscles and
bones of our restrained desires Melting.
Just for a moment
the buds
of touch ing his finger’s wants for light.
Brueghel: 2 Paintings
a)		The Blindfollowing the blind I’m
not certain If there
may be a cliff hanging
down some where that
empty feeling in
the depths of my hollow
ed in thoughts.
b)		The Tower of Babel
Such
heights may blind us
to a view of ourselves
Taking stone instead of
the pulse of where
flesh speak s aloud
that stone- touched
in death.
Concert goers
Most
were listen ing to what
They were told to listen for
Like catch ing an undis
covered mouse because the
traps were set- in their cor
rectly baited fashion.
Such Witnesses
All these windows loo
king out through their
glass-reflecting eyes
Witnesses to this speech
less void of our blinding
times.
Whiteness of
As swans shadow their
whiteness in the cool
awareness of their
passing through these
upturned
waves.
Surprised awakenings
in
those sur prised awaken
ings as flo wers un
earthed from being
kept cold and dark so
long.
Workman
His
hands rough ed to the
numbness in this wintered cold Spading
this half- frozen earth
to an indelible warmth
his hands had long since
been telling.
A logic to faith?
if
there’s a logic to faith
it’s because what I think
can’t think me beyond the
bounds of my pre-detcrmin
ed person Love less as such
and in the eyes of death
helpless
as well.
The Liberal creed
believes in a man better
ed than I’ve come to know
And the pro
gress of a
progressive ly dismal
world I’d be a liberal
If I didn’t know myself
Better than
that!
On the Alert
alarming colors melting into a flow
of imagined thoughts
Upsetting
whatever ba lance I
could ease out from there.
This last berried touch
to its hardened colored sense of There-I-
am regained for this mea
ning to tell.
A Door
could go ei ther way
But if you’ re alone
That touch of its used-
in presence is like Asking your self Why you’
re coming back to what
isn’t there.
This ground’s
frozen into its times of
forgetful ness Like some
animals who take their winter sleep in those urging
s for a depth of silence
quiet- held in
that
overfelt flow for stars.
A rabbit’s Softness
i felt
into a flow
ing warmness of why It
needed to jump As a poem
that couldn’ t stay still
in its accept ance of be
ing there.
Innocent continuity
This
snow’s in nocent contin
uity As if All the world
could be told through the
whiteness of its alway
s coming
times.
Opened Piano
o
pened The
keys in black for
white
running their length to a
presuppos ed sense for
sound.
Emptied waiting room
Rows
of seat less person
s having been where
they aren’t now A lone
liness of watching spo
ken shadow s emptied
of their
voices
through.
“Giving iti to oneself’’
but who’s giving and
what’s re ceiving And
are we two selves in a
dialogue between the
one as o ther Or would
giving out from be a better method for pleasing,
so to say, the “real
self’.
“Don’t trouble trouble unless trouble troubles you
but some people seek
trouble by not troubling a
bout what could possi
bly be Unpre pared in their
defense of Habitual mid-
streamers without know
mg where the other side
might bring them in for.
“Scatter-brained”
because she scatter ed her
thoughts and
doings out beyond the
range of bringing them
back in
again.
That “stiff upper lip”
might harden even those
sensitive realms of where
a kiss could How into real
izing unend ing streams
those melting
winds
through desire.
“Finding oneself”
is like a game of
hide and seek Wherever you
are isn’t what you’re
looking for And where
you aren’t is still to
be found
out.
Jungle-jim
But
in a jungle You can’t
get to the heights of
Entangled in the over
growth of finding your
self in
for out.
Making meanings
One
word may make the mea
ning of a poem As
a bird tentatively grasped-in
branch even more than it
could conceive then.
Two ways
a)		what is isn’t what
it seems to be be
cause I tell it in
my way And it implie
s that other
wise sense
for being.
b)		It
may not be the way
We see things But
how They’ re seeing
us.
A tree without leaves
naked to the outlines of its being
seen through.
Fossils
are
where me mories can
only be touched
from.
Carpet
woven in
to its pre determined
design Colors itself
as a man readied in
smiles that speak increa
singly a-
loud.
Night-time shadows
less dark as the shade
s of previous thoughts But
only slight ly touched-
Awakened
in view.
In losing scent
Roses
withered to their
dryness in losing
scent.
Advent: unsemen from afar
What
they saw in that felt-
distance from a cer-
taint’d star through the
longings of those fol
ding field’ s increa
sing hopes to that moment-felt in the nearing
light of an eternal
truth.
Of false expectations
Some
threads can take the
fabric out of its intended designs discolored from misuse And
worn down as the range
of these pro mising hill
s from the breadth of
such false expectat
ions.
If Croce
was fat dictatorial
and distaste ful for all
that’s seen and heard Where
does his History of Freedom
bring him
in.
Outgrown
my
high school
days Though the weeds
of then en during sense
Would have choked this
pre-intended
bloom.
Chest of drawers ca. 1900
Wood carved in a glass-
telling view of a world
long since deciphered
As words written to be
privately kept through
those touchtelling mo
ments of a vanishing
time.
what we don’t know
will be
That tense pres-
sured blood Tight-clas-
ped-in Timed of not
yet where.
Killing Christ
They
tried to kill him
then to(o) That time
in the blood of infant’s
cries But now through the
dissimula ting word that
created Him in the revela
tion of the
Holy Spirit.
Washed out
This
land’s wash ed out
of whatever meaning It
could have held through
that bloodletting time
Soaked in the depths of
where con science lost
its feeling for
in the trivi allties of
Changing
truths
shifting mea nings And the
High priest of Baal’s
rhythmic urge for a
lesser self.
Holy night
it
was so quiet in that
night That he could almost
hear it thin king out
through space to where A
choir of star s singing
in their brightness
enchanted his mind with
some thing like a peace
Angelically
distanced
but yet ra diantly
near.
Israel
Being
chosen
selected
specially from all the
peoples of the earth
to deny their own heritage
that the hea then might be
told-in the truth of that
ever-lasting
love.
The Shepherds
the chosen
are the least apparent
not in their Way But in
His desire s to touch
them in the truth of His
explicit ly near.
The Manger
no place to be for one
of human-kind They eyed His
presence An intruder or
their creator As humankind would eye him a bit
later.
Sectarian
Only
they seemed to know
but exactly the meaning of
God’s will and word
Dressed in the piety of
their thor oughly self-
satisfy ing instinct
s.
Sectarian II
That
room had too many closed-
in window s about it
and their fa
ding but still angelic
apprecia tive smiles
As of the childlike in their
early 80s Ex peering the
wings of their own saving-
through
Grace.
may be a tenta
tive uncer tainty of fee
ling in to the where
of your own imagining
self.
That sofa
display
ing the ernbro deries of its newly dressed pre
sence As a middle- aged woman
eymg-in the wherea bouts for her self-seem
ed sense.
“Getting down to business’’
may imply that you’re
up somewhere else and per
haps need those circui
tous stairs to wind your
selfback down again Or
is chat laz iness biding
your time a way from the
busi ness of where You
should be down to(o).
Who’s measuring who?
if
the times are the measure of God’s word
Why did He measure us
out through the timeless
ness of His knowing
wisdom.
That static landscape
standing up to itself
as far as the
seeing its flat-length
ed coldness
in view.
Colored rolling
Ball's colored roll ing through
the hands of its round
edness
from.
Aron at age three
activa
ting more than he can
keep from quieting his
thoughts
back to.
Shutter’s
closed from
their seeing out to a
world of darkness
prevading eye’s view.
Conceit
may lower the estimate
to your stuck-up
self
Where comb
ing it back down may
not please the delicacy
for your finger’s
grace.
Self-importance
implies that there’s a
self to be important a
bout But he judged other
s with the standards
He’d set for himself As if
those other s were there
to answer for what He hadn’t
made known of their un
tried wan-
tings.
A irport
Lights
set up to stand
witness ing in dark
The nowhere out of here
that wasn’t there Barbed-
wired.
Downed
It rained
my memories down Like
leaves fall ing through
those overcrowding nights.
Nathaniel Pink’s mid-morning
Those
beauties smi ling back at
him to clean his teeth
a bit harder Shining up
for that mid- morning’s inquis
itively mirrored glance
for the assur ance that
He’s coming well along for
a belated stroll with his ne
glecting dog.
Waking from snow
its cool light increa
sing aware ness in that
feeling- through- dark
of why those stars have
out told their last glimmer
mg sensed for night.
Snow melting this hill down
in the phrase s of refunding
curves and shapes of its
shaped for.
If hat’s progress
we learn by losing what
we learned by using
But not for an out las
ting sense.
V\e never know
if it’s the last time
A call that left her dy
ing beside that unused
bed. A house lived in
through us But not re
turned to But what we
never know may be know
ing us now.
For Rosemarie
It’s
because you’ re always
there That I can find my
way back to what I’ve
always want ed to be -
You make the most of me.
Unleft
The
birds have taken all
their colors away And left
me to the bareness of
these wintering wants.
21 Oik Lane
'"he
vhiteness if that castle-
ike-house eemed less so
fter this ight powder
d snow had re Iressed its
ause for stan ling still
o long.
Early morning swim
de
teeded the ool of tou
hing through he feel
)f his bo- lied claims
\nd that fresh- tess of think
ng tliose :arly morning
houghts a-
live.
These sleepless winds
restless with un
dreamed
thoughts
and of the waves sear
ching for morning’
s light.
Those palms
in the soft ness of
their flow ing winds
have swayed my thought
s in sleep.
Of lasting time
Morning
and these wave s have been
calmed coming in as
the woven thoughts of
lasting time.
Out at sea
Ships
far out at sea dis
tancing me
from myself.
Living up your faith alone
may be more yours than His
who created you and Not
you Him in the image of your
own devotion.
Have you ever asked
why these roads extend
two direc tions by claim
ing the one or even the
other It’s like Christ’
s spreading out His arms
so far as that un
foreseen He knew but
these roads seem at time
s motionless in their
just being
passed by.
Hunger’s
the rage of these cliff
s torn from every self-
satisfying view these
tourists have tucked in their
hand- guides Steeped down
to that finalized fear
ed-in depth
s.
For our children’s sake
What
ever our parents made
of us
may have out
lasted its meaning
for our children’
s sake.
Freed
She smiled her wrinkles free to a childlike meaning an eager
ness for eyes speaking
loud again.
Jonah and the Storm
Jonah
couldn’t sleep his
conscience clean as
Jesus’ dis ciples in
the garden of His fear
s We often deny Him by
just being the way we
are.
“He's not quite himself ”
implies that that “he’s”
and that “self” complement
each other as one But what
ot that o ther self that
seems like whis pering from
the shadowed realms of other
wiseness Or those in-bal
anced sensiti vines that
hold to their own way of
finding from self out.
Holbein the Younger’s “Last Supper” (Basel)
Nothing
on that table was the way
It was meant to be — Pass
over seemed here to be
passed over from its sym
bolic intent Andjudas slouch
cd into an ever-prcsence
otherwise ness of
“Judaic
cunning”.
Country dining with Ingo and Solvay
Somewhere
from that near ness of Ven
etian overpresent price
s And those refuged shadow
s that still plague from its
past Here in the country side
where breathing really takes
the air in And taste is
opulently
enchanced
from view.
Of re-seeming eyes
Watching
little crca turcs in the
wood with the respecta
bility of re- seeming eye
s our own inner notion
s of word
in sense.
Romanesque
Thicken
ed protective walls Assn in
mg a lesser height for closed- in prayers
to the dark of an in-
revealing God surrounding
himself with penitant de
votions.
Up stream
As
fish swee ping the currents with their flash-
for-scaling fins He tried
to force him self against
those inner tides to his
improbably
found-for
self.
Low tide
That
long flat tcned line
ofbeached- in steps Calm
ing the wave s in to that
smoothed sur
face
evening out the length to
my own clear ing through
thought
s.
Seaside houses
These
houses framed to
the voice of the sea’s
listening to their loo
king out Con stantly ap
pearing.
Train stops
starting
again after the signals
have changed As if that
train hadn’t all along
been taking its stations
in Albany New York in
that night- glassed image
of seeing my child’s eye
s through the windows of that
unseen dark’ s not reali
zing myself
from where.
Outlasted
That
house out lasted its time Where others moved
wc stayed When others
would have built anew
That house re peated its wan
ting claims on becoming
through us Am I (then)
that house that didn’t re
main?
Can you familiarize stone
by looking a cross the lake
to those distance-seen
cities Where the hills glad
ly take them up embracing
time in place.
Moving on
This
lake’s moving on as a guide
book for kno wing where But
with the wind’ s transparent
meanings and where swans re
creating through their whiteness
that silent flow from be
ing there.
At 65
there’s more of sleep
becoming of me Cocooned
in a closcd- in-silence
ofbuttcr
fly’s
dreams.
Ice-cream man
changed song But not fla
vours Always the same re
peating them that he sleep
s to the taste of the sound’
s flavour.
Than this
it
can’t get much colder
than this down here
where Florida’ s buried in
the heat of warmed up de
sires And winds chilled
by evening
thoughts.
Dolphins
presuming another sense
of world Between sea
and air see king out
that language for words.
Blue Marlin’
s sanctity in color
Only the sea can tell
the streaming length of its
callings and the plungings
of its deepen ing finds.
Pre-established presence
At the top
of these pole’ s pre-estab
lishcd prc scncc ofbirds
staring out their unseen
in-knowing
stillness.
Osprey
Too big fish might weigh
them down So they must
choose their appetites
for somewhat smaller ta
kings Asa modest poet’
s for just the righdy
weighted
words.
Can we tame the sea
manicured in that touch
of shell with domesti
eating sails Whitening
its expanse with our own
pleasuring needs Fished
down to the bottom of where
these appetite s dwell.
Sand Piper’s
smallness in quickening feet’s touching
the surfac ed imprinting moment’ s needs.
Australian pines
rising
me up to their shaded
height’s growth from
silenced
sway.
Dead pelican
head
buried in the sand from
the heights of his climb
ing wings and gliding sha
dows surveying for fish tee
ming in their surfaced glance
Now head’s turned in
that shallow reach for
sand.
IWhat man means by freedom
as the square ness of that
pool defining in the even-
armed of those stroking
lengths a cer tained and
guaranteed course of
self- dir ection.
(Cmrls
The
curls of his hair indis
tinguished from less-
oriented
thought
s Hanging loose sun-glassed
pcrspec
tives.
When her grandmother died
the otic whose heart was
bigger than the place where
It was meant to be The flo
wers were crying And
that little girl almost
6 or 7 lost more of her
self than any little ness
could pos sibly have
known.
Writing myself wake
in the in delible
ink of person and
page.
Seeing it straight
as an arrow Quivered
in its mark.
Starting a poem ’
s like beginn ing yourself
All over a gain.
“Felt it that way”
You may have felt it
that way But
does the
page reveal the same.
Criminals
if
you don’t let them be punished They’
11 punish
you more with their unrc
solved guilt.
A strange bird
not yet map ped out to
my sense of name Appearing
to a nearness of finding
me something
more.
Because he wasn ’tflying
that small blue heron’s
thinness in feet Angled
an uncertain impression
from place.
What secrets
have these sands buried
deeper than the knowing it
can tell These broken hopes
as shells wash ed up from
their dried- down claim
s.
Moming streetlights
as it the dark was still
turned on Breeding an
unseen fear Reaching
through those silent depth
s tor night.
The slightness of this pen
can only touch the out lines ot what I’m meaning
tor.
This blue shell
ringed with the circles It
couldn’t con tain A round
ness that told for the sea’
s voice per fectly still
ed.
Helen’s romantic urge (in Howards End)
to fulfill
her self- deny
ing self The way flower
s deem their light for a
desert
setting.
Border states
All
states border on others or a state of mind that
can’t quite place its
whereabouts
from.
Self-imaged
To believe
in God’s be lieving in
you isn’t al ways the
same.
Horseshoes
aimed
with the eye or hands
tightly taught to
find in spaced between.
Mr. Wilcocks (in Howards End) To
own up to what will find
you out The hide and
seek of life’ s perform
mg game.
Handyman
Whatever
went wrong He fixed it
back to place Agile with
hands eye- minded/de-
tailed But his life was
out of
place Couldn’
t come to grip s to where
His
eyes seemed
helpless ly insecure.
The Basses (in Howards End) She
caged him in As a parrot
celebrating colors She
fed with her eyes and bo
died kept in.
Phil
He had a
trucker’s strength but
mild hands toned down
voice quick to a
word glimmering his eyes
into eager- ed presence.
Tempting a smile
in that shy
ness of an
incomplet ed selfsense As if touch could
(
signify its own rights
Brighten ing you in
to that mir rored glance.
Falling with Snow
These
mountains falling with
snow the last impres
sions from their winter’
s weighted
silence.
Taking a Measure by myself (Hommagea Wordsworth)
I’ve sat
under this same
tree 30 odd years now
with much of myselfbe
tween As this lake measur
ing out the distance to
where these trees comb the
otherside in And the same
birds or re lated off
spring retell ing their mea
ning for con tinuing song
That time melt s rather than
measuring in to my sitting
myself out
once again.
Becoming aware
is like
those colors
coloring me Or the hesitant pull of shadows
inside/from.
Melting down
This
snow’s fa ding out
Melting sha dows down
to those deep treelines dark ly exposed con
tinuing growth.
Spitzweg: Hunter in the Woods
Why
did that deer happen to
happen Right there with
his al
most smiling ar
ticulation When the hun
ter’s mouth stuffed with
the sausaged taste of wood
ly enclosure s And the nec
essary wine to finish off
the length of such pro
ceedings.
Spitzweg: The Butterfly Chaser
It couldn’
t possibly be that big
His eyes bul ging with wing
ed intent But this net
smaller than the confines
of his irretrie able hopes
That the butter fly stood con
templadng for a long while
the indigenous designs of
his own secur ing leisure.
“Pouring one’s heart out”
The problem
with pouring one’s heart
out is that even those reinforced damns might breakthrough with too much
flooding.
Your collared suit
but
newly starched in with
reinforced
conclusions.
Narrowed
That squirrel
the one in black
narrowing the branch
to his slender ness of feet-
finding.
Through emptied branches
a bird sings flowing songs
Awakening
greeness through those
unfolding
leaves.
Perspectived
He
was told from various
sides As a tailor pinning down for performance.
Dream-felt
Houses
passing through me
nrories of having been
trans
parencies
in thought
dream-felt.
Soundless voice
Crystall
ed sha dows snow-
flaked sound less voice.
Only the outside now
You’re
only the out side now for
my having been there White co
lumned to those pre-establish
ed heights in holding me
up from the red brick bright
ening my return s into those
interior claims drawing me
through a close ness ot that
familiarly known’s only
the outside now passing me by
unredeemed hope s of your long
forgotten claims on my
having been there in leav
ing you now as in then.
This wording of
Have
the times changed this
wording of Or do we
sense and feel the same
but need fresh claims in the
retelling for.
Borderline
He was
there for Be wildering
the inside out of others
Until that car hit him down
to those be wildering
pains through his self’s
meaning.
Winding a clock
up to impulsing his
hands with life-like.
Would/would??
If
she stood up to his taking her down Fist-minded
pains Would he be smaller
still Backing off frightened through her woman’s deter
mining stance Or would he
hit her down again through
those freely- found instinct
s from the strength of
prisoning
walls.
Murky persons
inhabiting the lower le
vels as in the sea depth’s
dark of where light’s re
fracted from its clarify
ing/glan
ced.
Of secret, untold meanings
Carrying
down to the sea The
gleam of these Venetian
palaces’
unspoken
truths
cleansed of
fears and Their secret
untold mean
mgs.
Enthroned Madonna and Saints
(Bellini, 1505, S. Zaccaria)
As if
there’s nothing left
to be said m this im
movable
perfection
of person and place
The harmonies of color
and sound a- live to that
stillness of always be
ing there.
Afterall
Spring
may afterall only be
flowered
because
there’s more lightness
of mind.
Like other ships
Friend
ship’s like other
ships Sail mg an uncertain course Some
times quickened for
wind or les sened in
that lei sured
for seeking more If there’
s a harbour here then
Why are the anchors so
short to
reach.
Too white
These walls too white
to be tell ing anything
new.
Broken out nut-shell
as if
words could
only live when not
fully ex
posed.
Listening
for the sounds of
flowers
growing.
Taking leave
Funerals’ a ta
king leave
not of the dead But of
our living memories
of where He could be
told back
from.
A thirst for words
There’s
a thirst for words
Like
the need for
splitting wood to that
coldness of foretelling hands.
Rowers for Ingo
The roughness of that
wood could only be measured to their ensuring hands- of Boats gli
ding past all expecta
dons.
Unquiets
We are
all those who read us
in differ ing ways
The poem un quiets
m its
stilled-from
presence.
Strung
Those
rain-beads
budding in their last-
told message as the purity of pearl strung
from its self-enclos
ed meaning.
He
was so fastidious
ly groomed to a cele
brated appear ance That
it was like china not
to be touch ed or even
turned a bout
those phases illumina
ting light Butjust
there to be seen as a
permanent ly display
ed-in item.
Nathaniel Pink on the world situation
This
world may be turning a
bout in its pre-described
fashions unsettling all
that ease of my warm-
bathed inclusions — Did
you hear it then, there,
or any where Now
Coloring my semantic
thoughts That little
ness of bird just fit
for its discerning
moment.
Dresden: 5paintings
a)		Cranach: Paradise What
God created for man
took his own way out
leaving those animals all
alone to people his
forelorn
hopes.
b)		Cranach: Fall of Man
Equal
rights for Adam
His own fruit ed touch
ed the naked ness of
death’s loom ing call.
c)		Titian: Paying taxes to Caesar You
can divide a coin
that way The Emperor’
s godly per manence
more than touching the
surface to Jesus’
undivided re ply.
d/e) Rembrandt’s Saskia and Rubens Portrait of a lady There’s
a beauty of the flesh
so sensu ously recrea
ting in that deepening
temt for color And the
glowing-gold of her hair’
s spelled- in promise
But there’s also a beauty
beyond defin ing itself
in her lighted eyes
to some thing more
than just seeing there.
Child’s eyes
He
sees me bigger than
I am
What I know
he knows more by not
knowing yet the open
color of his
eyes re
colors my sense for see
ing so.
Wheel-chaired
to her help less fin
ding feet’ s Eyes rest
lessly a
bandoned their
permanent ly ground-
place.
Angelic
“Getting out ofhand”
may imply that your
feet aren' t always on
the ground.
Our background
keeps get ting to the
forefront of our reali
zing in now.
Afterglow
When
color melts in
to sound And the stone’
s bright with moon’
s after
glow.
“Thinking positively”
may negate more of
what thin king’s
all about.
Free
to do and saying entangled with in his sha
dowed-for
self.
Over voiced
That
music over voiced his
trying to listen
in.
Unsettled
It’s be
cause of these small
changes that often unsettle us The older we
become The more aware of
our body’s need s It’s like
noticing a bird for the
first time Exactly where
it sits E ven the ex
tent of its song The co
loring of its being
there And when it starts
to fly That’ s where
We’re most uncertain for
our own balancing measure of things.
Passah Haggadah (Passover) It
may be that This day is
like any o ther day
But asking it anew may
change the certitude of
its being there
It’s the
asking it that matters Not
that day at all Freedom’
s the aware ness of time’
s changing And that’s
where God fulfills the
meaning of
himself.
Plain talk's
the mid- western e
vener Not where moun
tains or even hills acquire
a beyond-it
of a certain sameness
where even these flowing
fields wind- bound to the
breadth of un defined
spaced one ness
that plain
ness
for speech.
Obscuring
These
nights ob souring
where I can find my
self
back to.
At the Psychoanalysts
Dr. W.
sat listen ing.
Dr. W. longer than his look could appear sedately self- encompassing sat listen ing.
Dr. W. attempting a smile that could quite break out from the ser iousness of the situation
arose The way Gluck’s heroes do in a semi- operatic sit uation.
Self-defining
She
cut out the odds and
ends of making those
flowers look pretty
again.
Caroline
Face
puppet-round voice a shal
lowed sweet ness She wore
half-bright ened color s and fear ed the depth
s in dark ness Childlike or child ish her 46
year old worn-from
keeping
smile.
“Baldunug Grien’s Crucifixion” (Basel)
As if
Jesus’ side was only
pierced through for
Thomas to feel to the
wounds of his own self-
wanting
spirit.
Awakening
Spring
may have brightened
his voice from a sha
dowless
dream.
Cross-word puzzles
may have crossed his
mind’s sha dowing con
templa
tions.
Illmensee’s
combed through the
wave-length of her re ticent ducks And a slight
wind sur-
facing the anxieties of these uncertain
times Wind en closed Woods
beheld The Easter time’s
blessing
from light.
Rembrandt’s “Resurrection” (Munich)
Jesus
sitting off the sleep
He knew was more than
death And the Angel of the
Lord light- bound that emp
tiness of those rock’s
encompassing
claims.
On the Way to Emmaus
Have we
taken that road to(o)
Telling the Lord what He
didn’t know of His own
salvation Roads can be
dark and un certain And
we enlighten ed with the
certainties of our own
self-justi fled meaning
s.
Painting over
gave her a feeling of
freshened
cleanness
as of clothes hanging dry
in the indelible sun.
Waking through dream
as if the sea’s envel
oping a tide less forget
fulness sur
rounded in self as a
forelorn boat without a
guiding star
to find.
Ofpromising colors
it
rained All my ex
pectation s away And
those fears that tension
s find And left a rain-
bowed ring a bout of pro
mising co
lors.
Of untold meanings
The
way you look ed beyond
yourself as
waves shifting through the
tides of un told mea
nings.
In colored
it
rained so slightly
that you could still
hear the in tendons of
butterfly wings and that
after-view in
colored.
“Justitia ”
She
claimed a self-assur
ance
High to its
non-beautified final callings
She taught bound through
the stature of selfcertainty.
Neil
I found you back a
gain Where ever you
were is be ing retold
for now.
Piano Lesson’s
a French im provising
theme for those
eyed-in
touching
where
sounds.
Nathaniel Pink unearthed
That ripened smell of some
what cloister ed flowers un
earthed some of his Finest
feelings so much that his
Finger’s branched out
to that ne cessity
oF performing in leafless
dance.
Overwording
if
it can’t be put down to
to where down is Then
over wording’ s like an
gelic a
floats.
Prettiness
may pretend to decorate
what shouldn’ t be touch
ed dee per As a
woman orna mented in the
cold stones of their na
tural light.
Sleep
wakes me a light Candles
of impercep tible quie
tilde as waves woven in
to a time less shore.
Beautifying
Flowers
may attract bees to their
love-find nectar Just by
beautifying in their pre-
established
presence.
The example
believers should set is
of our lost soul The wan
derings of a vacant mind
As of Abraham through
those desert s of yet
unreclaimed
land.
For my dead father, in dialogue
1 knew
you knew the stirring
of our blood’ s needs for
an indetermin ed there
Was it that driving unease
front our ghet toed past
or The Lord’s unrelinguished
ed claims for finding us
home.
Something to hide
We
all have some thing to hide
Most always from our
self and if the Neighbour
s know it’s coming closer
edging in on us Hide and
seek’s life’ s game of un
founded mea nings.
The Holy of holies
or that fruit beyond man’s
reach which we took for death’
s pleading call’s God’s
way of telling us the un
told mysteries He’s reclaim
ed for our beyond reach.
Trying to be humane’s
a pulling a gainst man’
s evil nature And if he
pulls too fast too far
there may be little of
himself left for helping.
Saddam’s palaces
gleamed in the gold of
his sunset smiles
And the dark of those torture chamber’ s deep in the
depth of his unfathomed
will for power in ruins now
Classically-
cat-oriented
that ancient culture robbed
of the artifacts of
what’s past
passed.
Making us mild
Some
days make us mild Like
that innocent look of childlike uncer tainty whether
it’s I or it’s breezy
light’s
prevading.
Roller-Coaster
Even
if its lan guage may
slip from our grasp to
those rising stars over
heard in plun ging feeling
s of where we aren’t
returning round for.
Mozart’s Flute
running through where
birds disperse in awareness
azur the
of contem plating in
water’s
stillness.
Figurative houses
climbing from pre-estab
lished hills to a finished
stance of gathering-in
familiar
lty.
Iraq or that Humpty-Dumpty syndrom
Taking
the language a part’s only
a part of put ting it back
together a gain It’s that
Humpty-Dumpty syndrom that
poets can per form While mili
tary means have mostly
foiled.
If
The Lord ere ated chaos
for the order ing of thing
s to becom ing They’re
might be a slight glimpse
of that left for my teen
age daughter.
Schwabian Alb for h. e.
What
kind of massive sleep
have you a toned-through
This waiting brooding si
lence Rock- held Trees-
thought in Climbing the
reverence of what’s past
by being
overheard.
Isaac
Son
of your father Father of
your son That transitional
nature of man’s non-
selective
meaning.
Meditations on Vermeer
She
may have pla ced the ob
jects of her world in just
the way She saw and touch
ed them But if o
thers did like wise It may
not have been her world
anymore.
22 Oak Lane
No go
ing back The
house of those first
seeings out and knowings
somewhere
deep
Sold to stran
gers as if It could be
taken away from my gar
dened hopes and where the
sky still re mains in sum
rnered view.
That bird
would have died in the
thicket of its hopeless
pleading cries If its
voice wasn’t lifted through
those saving hands to the
in-felt warm th of re
gaining flight.
Birch-felt
The fineness of these
leaves birch- felt in moun
tain’s protec tive shadow
mgs.
These bells
through
solemned
clouds
shining out sun-told.
Samuel
quickfaced child Explicit
ly blond As the sharpened contours of refining rock’ s certain
ed edge.
Grammar
is mine to express
not its laws But in the
expressive ness of i-
mage crea tings.
Outgrown
She out
grew herself into the
shadows of seclu
ded silence.
Until the Fox came
She was
as helpless as that muchloved furried rabbit Caged
in the satis factions
of an ordinary life His mun-
chings on car rots and salads
much as her distribution
of finding friends to keep
her in from finding out her
helpless lone liness Until
one night The
Fox came His
eyes staring as the moon’s
brightening glow His jewell-
in-teeth Broke the wirings
that held her in that help
lessness She couldn’t get
out from.
Milkweed
floating an occas ional sound- lift.
Held fast
It’s
your beauty that holds
me fast Despite wea
kenings in an aging
heart.
a butterfly could straigh
ten its
thoughts out
It wouldn’t be as humane
as we are.
R i vc red
He read
himself through the
river’s tee ming chances
of stone- bred lightning caused.
Self-Protective
Most
women want to be cloth
ed to a na kedness from
themselves The liturgi
cal church wrapped in its
own self-pro tective
tradition
s.
Rained away
it
rained that heat away
to a cool ness of
somewhat
self-content
ment.
Directionless
These
tracks may be running
still But the trains don’
t come direct ionless like
intently wait ing for news
that’s already past happen
ing.
Dart game
He
threw dart s to count
his points to their
needled insistent hand
s quivering in length.
So many doors
that he couldn’t find
the where of finding out
the coming back in
to.
No one to know
living in that room
where the clock never
theless tur ning its
time around in visibly de
ciphered.
The Trenches (World War i)
Dug
in to the depths of
time-number ed deaths
unperson ally await
mg.
“To make the most of it”
implies that the most
isn’t most ly what we’re
making it for.
That piano
reverent ly polished
to those in
toned en closures of
self-suffi
cient
stillness.
Candles
burned down to their co
loring length Renewing in
formed-re
flection.
A part of her
He
was a part of her
being her self As an
outer face from being
confined
within.
Adam stripe bass fishing
This
mid-night flood of
tide’s moon- eclipsing
their striped through run-
gleaming-
fast.
So lined in
That room
was so lived in That it
stopped spea king for
itself.
Aloneness
He
inhabited
himself
in that room of still ed but dis tant
houses.
Lesser Mark
Trying
to impress o thers may
have left a lesser mark
on himself.
Sylvia’s way
Butter
flies flut tering in
their ribbon ed estua
ries Landing in on
sounds.
Leafed
This
green of having been
finally form ed for wind’ s chanced- through
pleasures.
Of darkening
Pulling
the shade s down’
s another way of darken
ing your own sense for
night’s self enclosing
claims.
Scented
Rose
s darken ing in the
rain Leaves spreading
out that scent of fal
len shadow s.
Out blossomed
That
tree out blossomed
itself to a fragrance
in being
heard.
Bigger
That
car was bigger than
she could find of her
self sit
ting in.
After rain
there’s a fragrance
to touch and the quiet
of moon- spell time.
5 Masterpieces in the Alte Pinakothek,
Munich
a) Resurrected Christ (Rembrandt)
Lonely
sitting
through that
waiting corner of death’
s reviving to the light
of the Lord’ s angelic
callings.
b)		Wedding Portrait (Rubens) You
dressed her all up to
that shining splendour
of a pose Your poetic
love-felt de sires could
only secni- in telling as
Her touching hand from
yours.
c)		Annunciation (Bouts)
That do
sed book kept more of
my eyes than what that annunci
ating angel and Mary could
commune of an unopened my
stery together ed in- told.
d)		Vanity (Titian) Her
beauty held- in more
of your selfadmiration
than even those jewels
could mirror through a
timeless
truth.
e)		Self-Portrait (Diirer as Christ) Those
Four Apostels e pically I
talianite a cross the way
from your intense longing
to face into Christ’s fea
tures of timeless
beauty.
Pastel Afternoon
with fee lings muted
in the soft ness of not
even thinking the why or wherefore of.
At the Proms
two dogs
Boston bull black flee
ked in- stepped a
wareness
Sequenced
their approa ching feet.
Of marbled stone
The
cold touch of this marbled stone perinea
ting sight through
transpar ent vein
s Awaken ingjoy!
Historical length
These
times over reaching
themselves into a now
of only just realizing
that then.
Could mean
Thinking
flowers smaller than
the speaking of touch
could mean.
Black Cat
in garden’ s staring
my eyes in to its strange
ness seeing
through.
Its sense from darkness
Bird’s co lored song
in-tuned from the wood’
s awaken ing through
its sense for dark
ness.
A quiet place
where wa ters reflec
ting in the stillness
of trans parent
thoughts.
With Corot
This in
tending blue cloud-
touched the nearness of
distance s time
lessly ap
parent.
Mass graves
That un
seen hate Wild fears
shot into the blood
realizing death’s un
buried from their time
less grave
s.
Hate
screams
impassion
ed shadow
s.
Out spreading
Sha
dows spread ing this
summer gar den’s depth
in silenced
through.
Swing
suspend ed to the
height of ba lancing-
in timed aware
ness.
Cocktail Party
if
everyone’ s out to
impress
the impress ion that’s
left —
Floating
shadows.
Dream conscious
if
this climate changes our
attitudes That heat and
sun perpetu ate their las
ting caused shadow less
dream
conscious.
Chagalls “The desparateJob”
He’s
bigger than his problems
could make him out to
be Self-im posed The
weight of relentless
ly untold.
Nathaniel Pink untangled
You
were more than what was sit
ting there Fashioned in
that pliant chair of self-as
suming comfort s Nat, let’s
up it with me as butterfly’s
secret ways in changing color
s You might have been caught
through a tangle of less-
prescribing
nets.
Van der Weyden’s “Annunciation” (Munich)
Her
fear from hand withheld
But the way she said yes
as the cloth of her fine
ly-told dress touched to
that of the angel’s where
her purity- white in the
lily enclos sed seemedjust
quite right.
After rain
and we sensed our
selves nearer to where
touch could mean the sha
dow of a glance and
that cool light reflec
ting in-jewell cd through.
On Shostakovich Preludes and Fugues op 87
if
there’s a range to be
ing left a lone to intone your own whereabout
s through No public
No protests but only the
keys of dif ferenti
ated in-touch ed dwelling
there Soun ded out by
hearing in.
Tolerance
is because However much
I know to believe
knows more than my
knowing it.
there’s no longing left
That need to be more
of what one wasn’t
The world’ s lost its
shadowing
s in.
A Form of presence
Light’
s a form of presence
Performing these trees
into a spo ken awareness
of being formed from
leafed-in’ s awaiting.
Muted now
Don’t
speak too loud now of
the dead Because their
presence’ s muted now
through lifeless a
wareness.
Flowered
Have
you been flowered by
being dress ed Awaken
ing through in scent
for color.
Familiarity
The older
one is The more familiar
ity recognize s our aging-
through need s. It might
be the lesser self that
deeds it so Or because
our times are failing out.
Bach dancing
to the tune s of his rhy
thrnic free-spell ing Impulsed that slender ness of less
weighted thoughts for
merly column ed in the
strength of when The Lord
might defend His chosen
in need.
Master of himself
if
man’s the master of him
self Why isn’ t he more
of what he isn’t.
Bach
may have built on pre-
establish ed forms
to hold their meanings in
Castled
thorough
ly equipped a gainst those
winds in wea thering
times.
To be pleased’s
the way lips assume in
smile And eye s have told
through in finishing
form.
Through never more (variations on a Coethian theme)
Butter
flies over water’s reflec
ting glance d them in
to that tide less sway
ed through never
more.
Nathaniel Pink’s exposures
if
you can’t button your
shirt in ei ther direction
And those co lors may not
even match to correct
able proce dures Why
bring your sensibili
ties into play like Hilary Clin
ton’s autobio graphing her
make-for
tears.
4 Squared
My glass-framed desk
adhering its cut-from spaced defining.
Revolving doors
While
the going in s a going
out And he couldn’t cen
ter himself to a balanced
thereness As if the
world was rounded to
circling spheres cosmi
cally rede
fining.
Solemned
This
heat weighs heavy upon
my thought s The clouds
closing in to a timeless ly now Even the trees
breathing down immovably
solemned.
After taste
Has
this grass been cut to
my instinct for light and
left a refresh ingly after
taste as that lightness
ofbutter fly’s random
ly rehears
mgs.
Because
if
there’s a weight to
shadow It’ s because 1'
m sitting so heavily
now.
A white horse in a green field
flowing through the
grace of where He’s
standing to the beauty of
his timely
statured.
Seamed
Moun
tains skirting their rimm-
ed-find dis tances as the
seam of a dressed- in
awareness This immobil
ity for place.
Macbeth — Anatomy of a happy marriage
One heart one soul
one hand Their works fur
thered by a common goal
What marriage could equal this
for such a u nity of purpose
They strived be yond their weak
ness to that daring goal In
life as in death a oneness
our Stratfordian bard has told
so picturesque ly unfolding
the details of their common
mould.
Macbeth at Burnham Woods
These
woods closing in on me En
compassing the depths of
such a telling darkness The
fears of a death I told to un
certain hands and heart coming
back at me to the beats of
their drums sa tisfying in
claims against my failing
works.
Hamlet’s Stagefright
was that common cause that kept
him from doing the works his
father’s death demanded of
his tenderness of mind and
mostly frigh tened soul
That fear of standing to
the facts Out right upon a
stage higher than his fear
ing feet would climb.
Erasing memories
is like walking on
sand in the falling
of rain’s
telling.
Of what isn’t mine
Living
the room of what isn't
mine left at lei death in being Dia logued be
yond my sense for seeing
speaks imperson ally untold.
Colored carpets
uplifting why the loo
king down’ s can’t re
main
for place.
Lee’s house
An
aesthetic of light
in glassed- through spacedefining that outer glance
in garden.
A n awayness
There
was an a wayness of
his trying to tell me
for true
Hand-look somewhere a
side from his glanced-
inward tell
ing eyes.
Horse and Rider
The
horse Carr ying his pride
upon a hand- topped hat
And the trott ing echo of
feet assem bling the thum
ping sounds of pre-estab lished heart beats.
With the speed of listening by
This
train with the speed of
listening by as stars
flourishing to the timeturning of heaven’s in
volving
heights.
Aged with the faith
tiredly worn from
fingered- down prayer
books The pulse in an
other life vaguely
touched through in
meaning.
In rhythmic variations
This
bird’s song repeated in
rhythmic var iations
might be a way of re
minding him self of what
he’s remind ing him
self for.
Beethoven Quartet op 59 No. 2
Was it that tension Or space-
creating form Or a Shakespear
ian self-told dialogue But
controlled to where mea
nings stand straight to
their being permanent
ly upheld.
Mendelssohn Quartet op 12
(1st Mut.first and recurring theme)
An inner
sadness trans parently
withheld but repeating
in almost whis pering need
s As if tou ching through
to that some where from
your distan cing self.
It
isn’t what it is But
what we’ve ta ken it to
mean to be It sits there
windowed for a light
exposing my view of where
I see it less than what
it’s sensing
out.
Insisting
These
rains keep coming down
Insisting on whatever
they keep tell ing for Like
some persons getting more
out of them selves than we
would want to be taking
in.
Thoughts On Sophocle’s Oedipus Rex (6)
a) If the blind know
because we’re blind in
our own see ing out See
ing is the be lieving in
what we can only know
less of.
b) Seeing-eye dog
Can I (then) scent his
world for the length of
my own.
c)		If the God’s
have pre-conceiv ed And I
am only what they knew more
ot Then why
have these Greeks made
their own un fathomed Gods
into what is so humanly
formed.
d)		The Greek “fates” a Christian answer Faith
love and hope
have outgather cd All the pre
conceiveness of my not be
ing more than the I
I was told to mean.
e)		If Christ’s
the before knowing of All
that’s Follow ing Fhm is
the where F m not for mine
lessening
in step.
f)		Too long ending
Why not
end it where it should
without such pathos
Pain speak s more in its
saying less.
5 Masterpieces in Berlin
a) Guardi
That al
most unreal faceless
world where only light
consumes the image of its
coming through Waves rest
lessly uncer tained/Sensed.
b) Canaletto As if
Venice wasn’t floating upon
the waves of a dreamed-
through sur
face You established co lumns of self-
assuring heights and the
respect in mean ingful archi
tectural claim
s.
c)		Cranach’s Fall of man
Who wasn’ t was it the
snake’s whis per or that
overbrooding height of his
cosmic urge for 2 fruits
2 deaths through the
taste of their wanting for
more.
d)		e) Vermeer and DeHooch
facing each other though
Telling in op posite direc
tions The one clarifying in
light the ob jects for
touching her personed-
through The o ther where
door and win dows leading
out to a space lessness in
All consuming light-timed.
Numbered
His
house num bered to his
seeing in there As if
such a sign could relate
to where Steps irrever
sibly stand.
Quieted down
Age
should have quieted him
down to that pillowed clo
sure in rest Or where bird
s circling in winds of
timeless ly passed.
Baldung Grien’s Crucifixion
You always
had another way with lt/Cross-
barked to where It split at His
imploring
feet’s e
longating the weeping Maria’
s sense of our timeless
ly told-for
sadness.
She
never grew out of her
little girl’ s tears Self-
pitying why she hadn’t been
loved for more of her own
forsaken
self.
C/1aga IVs Crucifixions
As if
It was only we He died
for Flesh of His flesh
Bone of his not being
able to be broken through
Paschal Lamb’ s freeing
in-pained.
“Fated”?
He
couldn’t help being what
lie was helplessly
more ot.
Chagall’s Jeremia
Clothed
for those blacked-in
tears Stone formed to re
place that broken-down
temple He sat the ageless
ness of Israel’ s suffering
calls.
Words
are too many of them
selves Like these plural
ities of fish Minnowing
to surface claims Silver-
sensed.
Diplomatically cool
the clothes for indecis
ive words Those doublemeanings in stinctive
ly formed to that lipped-
in presence of implied com
munication
s.
Where/who
Do
I sleep in the night
Or does that night sleep
through me in the darken
ing waves en compassing
And silence that keeps
speaking back into sound
less words
of dream.
Continuing on
Period
s may seek out their
own ending s But the
sense of this continu
ing on.
Rising above
But
there would be a voice
Rising above that other
wise oflis tening down
Where shells out
spoken now Conformed to
sand And those gulls repea
ting their sha dows of lost
moments in the returning
seas but Now shallowed for
touch.
For Rosemarie in Dallas, Texas
When
you aren’t there 1 can’t
fill that space
with poem.
Looking old’s
a question of attitude
Time takes its full if we
let it wrinkle us in to
a submission of You take
I’m taken as flowers
withered from being
looked at to(o) much.
5a hard
He
pressed the point so
hard ’til it broke
off.
Trusting
Why
we trust o thers is
because We can’t quite
find the same in our
selves.
Open Spaces after a 14th century Chinese master
etched-
m to that fineness
of detailed design
What could n’t be answer
ed Listening
out.
“Reality therapy”
He detailed his own sense for that
being here for now in the lis
ting of those warnings and
weakening s diminish
ing to where He sat and some
where outside a bird as yet
indecipher able as to form
and color sang.
Two persons? forO. b.
Have you made two per
sons of me: poet and priest
Can the word be divided
then as word and (or)
word But through the word was
the flesh of His being
And the word (the other or samed)
creates a lan
guage of its own smaller
yet but as I try in the
love of His creating
hand.
On his high horse again
the sky’s
the route Claim
ing his heroic stance Saddl
ed in self- important bus
iness closing s And I
felt myself littler than
that looking up for.
Chassid
His
beard's rhetor ically gathering
us in for the flow of ri
vering sounds through the
clear wants of his brood
ing eyes to be boating us
somewhere in the distant
realms of a dreamed for
past.
Such stability
Those
heavy wooded chest of dra
wers Inherited to be kept a
live by loo king at Such
stability as if the past
couldn’t be re moved from
now.
Unlit candle’
s proper
sense for propriety
slender ly waxed
as these lif ting cheru
bic voices to a light
that’s angel ically im
plied.
“Carrying your heart on your shirt sleeve”
may seem too heavy there
weighed down in so much
self-content
ment.
Too large
That
space was too large to
belong them selves in
Only possible with an in
crease of self- meaning.
Are these plants
but dan cing figura
tively in twining a
space-loved
looked.
Over-punctuated
He
over-puncu ated his
life More stop s and halffelt starts That he began
stuttering- in truths
Moses-like.
Scholared
He scholar ed himself
into a carefully kept
(Almost meticu loulsy-
mindedway of self-pro
tective
efficiency.)
Cooled off
for a
plastic sense
reshaping the depth
in shadow.
Poetry books by David Jaffin
1)		Conformed to Stone, Abelard-Schuman,
New York, 1968, London 1970.
2)		Emptied Spaces, with an illustration by Jacques Lipschitz, Abelard-Schuman, London 1972.
3)		In the Glass of Winter, Abelard-Schuman,
London 1975, with an illustration by Mordechai Ardon.
4)		As One, The Elizabeth Press, New Rochelle, N. Y. 1975.
5)		The Half of a Circle, The Elizabeth Press,
New Rochelle, N. Y. 1977.
6)		Space of, The Elizabeth Press, New Rochelle, N. Y. 1978.
7)		Preceptions, The Elizabeth Press, New Rochelle,
N. Y. 1979.
8)		For the Finger’s Want of Sound, Shearsman Plymouth, England, 1982.
9)		The Density for Color, Shearsman Plymouth,
England, 1982.
10)		Selected Poems, English/Hebrew,
Massada Publishers, Givatyim, Israel, 1982.
11)		The Telling of Time, Shearsman, Kentisbeare,
England, 2000 +Johannis, Lahr, Germany.
12)		That Sense for Meaning, Shearsman, Kentisbeare, England, 2001 +Johannis, Lahr, Germany.
13)		Into the timeless Deep, Shearsman, Kentisbeare, England, 2002 +Johannis, Lahr, Germany.
14)		A Birth in Seeing, Shearsman, Exeter,
England, 2003 +Johannis, Lahr, Germany.
15)		Through Lost Silences, Shearsman, Exeter,
England, 2004 + Johannis, Lahr, Germany.
David Jaffin
Poems
David Jaffin is a scrupulous weigher and weighter of words, by which I mean that a poem is, for him, always a matter of collaboration with the true spirit of the language. Every word is given its value, neither more nor less.
Edward Lucie Smith, on Emptied Spaces
David Jaffin's poems are very impressive; there is a real economy of language combined with a subtle evocativeness.
David Marshall, Yale University
>
Jaffin's poetry is as "modernist" as abstract painting while still poetry in the traditional sense, whose purpose is the verbalization of basic human experience and whose form derives from a serious exploration of language ... it is remarkable what depth of experience Jaffin manages to relate through his severely limited vocabulary and imagery.
Victor Terras, Brown University
Everything about these books underlines the classical nature of Jaffin's art. Language is here refined, pared down an irreducible minimum; each word carries its precise weight in the line ... This is not easy poetry: it is the product of American energy and a Judaic sensibility, it is intelligent and demanding, and it deserves to be read.
Michael Butler (University of Birmingham) in Samphire on In the Glass of Winter and As One
BK17708854