Change
Just yesterday my poem lamenting the power
Of time to sweep away all trace of the beautiful
Seemed done at last, but the light this morning
Shows it to be a sketch, evidence that my vision
Cleared as I slumbered, that my sense of beauty
Grows in the night like corn or bamboo.
Maybe a poem in praise of time
Ought to be next on my agenda,
The time required for seeds to open,
For leaves to push out on tender stems.
Yesterday, the teacher didn't believe the excuse
Her student offered for missing his appointment—
A tire gone flat on the Thruway—but today
His story seems almost convincing,
Suggesting how quickly the bruise to her ego
Has begun to heal, the first small step
From the tiresome realm of insult and umbrage.
Yesterday the lover couldn't commit himself.
Today he wants to write his beloved
A check for a million dollars,
Though the time hasn't come, he admits,
For her to cash it.
Meanwhile, though he has nothing,
Whatever he has is hers.
(2012)
Almost A Haiku
But even then
I've got one more question
Are we there yet?
© 2012 Rob Schackne
Roadside Attractions with the Dogs of America
It's a day when all the dogs of all
the borrowed houses are angel footing
down the hard hardwood of middle-America's
newly loaned-up renovated kitchen floors,
and the world's nicest pie I know
is somewhere waiting for the right
time to offer itself to the wayward
and the word-weary. How come the road
goes coast to coast and never just
dumps us in the water, clean and
come clean, like a fish slipped out
of the national net of "longing for joy."
How come it doesn't? Once, on a road trip
through the country, a waitress walked
in the train's diner car and swished
her non-aproned end and said,
"Hot stuff and food too." My family
still says it, when the food is hot,
and the mood is good inside the open windows.
I'd like to wear an apron for you
and come over with non-church sanctioned
knee-highs and the prettiest pie of birds
and ocean water and grief. I'd like
to be younger when I do this, like the country
before Mr. Meriwether rowed the river
and then let the country fill him up
till it killed him hard by his own hand.
I'd like to be that dog they took with them,
large and dark and silent and un-blamable.
Or I'd like to be Emily Dickinson's dog, Carlo,
and go on loving the rare un-loveable puzzle
of woman and human and mind. But, I bet I'm more
the house beagle and the howl and the obedient
eyes of everyone wanting to make their own kind
of America, but still be America, too. The road
is long and all the dogs don't care too much about
roadside concrete history and postcards of state
treasures, they just want their head out the window,
and the speeding air to make them feel faster
and younger, and newer than all the dogs
that went before them, they want to be your only dog,
your best-loved dog, for this good dog of today
to be the only beast that matters.
(2012)
So What
I.M. Miles Davis
The so what starts slowly
whether new-born fan or me
after 50 years of listening
to hope sunk down deep still
I can’t describe the entire song
maybe the so whats are just bookends
& if between swings a chorus
of what actually matters
then so what if it matters?
© 2012 Rob Schackne
The Answer
Debasement is the password of the base,
Nobility the epitaph of the noble.
See how the gilded sky is covered
With the drifting twisted shadows of the dead.
The Ice Age is over now,
Why is there ice everywhere?
The Cape of Good Hope has been discovered,
Why do a thousand sails contest the Dead Sea?
I came into this world
Bringing only paper, rope, a shadow,
To proclaim before the judgment
The voice that has been judged:
Let me tell you, world,
I—do—not—believe!
If a thousand challengers lie beneath your feet,
Count me as number thousand and one.
I don't believe the sky is blue;
I don't believe in thunder's echoes;
I don't believe that dreams are false;
I don't believe that death has no revenge.
If the sea is destined to breach the dikes
Let all the brackish water pour into my heart;
If the land is destined to rise
Let humanity choose a peak for existence again.
A new conjunction and glimmering stars
Adorn the unobstructed sky now;
They are the pictographs from five thousand years.
They are the watchful eyes of future generations.
(1988) tr. Bonnie S. McDougall (1990)
Hills
On the moment of hillside
greeting insects trudging up
the footsteps are breathless
you say I climb to get away
frosted rockets and motor
summit or summon heights
on a hill of a million hills
a billion bumps upon our lives
blue skies or the dark skies
in different suspension
feet never touching home
the easy path to the edge
a ridge after water butterflies
finally ended here are crows.
© 2012 Rob Schackne
Mars & You
for Toru Takemitsu
Launched from a million miles away
landing as if it was in your backyard
information always sent from love
from me flows what you call time
like your curiosity lands on schedule
your hair smells as sweet tomorrow
& everything you ask has no answer.
© 2012 Rob Schackne
Pomegranate
You tell me I am wrong.
Who are you, who is anybody to tell me I am wrong?
I am not wrong.
In Syracuse, rock left bare by the viciousness of Greek
women.
No doubt you have forgotten the pomegranate-trees in
flower,
Oh so red, and such a lot of them.
Whereas at Venice
Abhorrent, green, slippery city
Whose Doges were old, and had ancient eyes.
In the dense foliage of the inner garden
Pomegranates like bright green stone,
And barbed, barbed with a crown.
Oh, crown of spiked green metal
Actually growing!
Now in Tuscany,
Pomegranates to warm, your hands at;
And crowns, kingly, generous, tilting crowns
Over the left eyebrow.
And, if you dare, the fissure!
Do you mean to tell me you will see no fissure?
Do you prefer to look on the plain side?
For all that, the setting suns are open.
The end cracks open with the beginning:
Rosy, tender, glittering within the fissure.
Do you mean to tell me there should be no fissure?
No glittering, compact drops of dawn?
Do you mean it is wrong, the gold-filmed skin, integument,
shown ruptured?
For my part, I prefer my heart to be broken.
It is so lovely, dawn-kaleidoscopic within the crack.
(1923)
The Visit
One day in July
three men came
in the same suit
they were polite
we need ya to stay
on the other side
I asked them where
the other side was
see that corner well
don’t go there anymore
© 2012 Rob Schackne
Morning Antlers
Redwinged blackbirds in the cattail pond—
today I kicked and flipped a wing
in the sand and saw it was a sheared
off flicker's. Yesterday's rain has left
snow on Tesuque Peak, and the river
will widen then dwindle. We step
into a house and notice antlers mounted
on the wall behind us; a ten-day-old child
looks, nurses, and sleeps; his mother
smiles but says she cries then cries
as emptiness brims up and over.
And as actions are rooted in feelings,
I see how picking spinach in a field
blossoms the picker, how a thoughtless act
shears a wing. As we walk out
to the car, the daylight is brighter
than we knew. We do not believe
flames shoot out of a cauldron of days
but, looking at the horizon, see
flames leap and crown from tree to tree.
(2012)
At the Beach This Morning
There we were, Penelope,
my Border Collie mix, and I,
one godless the other faithful,
observing the fiery orange
at the left side of the horizon,
no bigger than my thumb, say,
shy in profile, exhausting another
of its ration of daybreaks,
while off to the far right
the ghostly white spider moon,
dangling by its dreamy thread.
That's when Lady P barked
at the blind man measuring
each step slowly emerging
out of the shadows, a duel
of balance and resolve. Indeed,
miles from town, how had he
gotten here? Head tilted toward
the waves, as if listening
to their instruction, his own
intuition. That's when, out
of the dunes, the deer came,
a buck, doe and three yearlings,
frozen in a jittery vigilance,
the wonder of their long elegance
turning to find us, Penelope,
obeying my call of silence, bursting
with an excitement the blind man
sensed, turning toward them,
their poise, their keenness,
each of us suddenly an industry
of looking, of not breathing,
a tiny fragile presence, colliding
scraps of discernment, each
suddenly vanishing back
into the bright vagueness
from which we came.
(2011)
As kingfishers catch fire, dragonflies dráw fláme
As kingfishers catch fire, dragonflies dráw fláme;
As tumbled over rim in roundy wells
Stones ring; like each tucked string tells, each hung bell's
Bow swung finds tongue to fling out broad its name;
Each mortal thing does one thing and the same:
Deals out that being indoors each one dwells;
Selves—goes itself; myself it speaks and spells,
Crying Whát I do is me: for that I came.
Í say móre: the just man justices;
Kéeps gráce: thát keeps all his goings graces;
Acts in God's eye what in God's eye he is—
Chríst—for Christ plays in ten thousand places,
Lovely in limbs, and lovely in eyes not his
To the Father through the features of men's faces.
(ca. 1880)
Seppuku (1962)
for Kobayashi Masaki
An infant lies sleeping upon a mat
Father to grandson, father’s daughter
The son-in-law’s a Confucian scholar
Or is it a thousand Tokugawa tales
Refuse promotion higher than private
Etched hard in deserving face, have it
Unfold according to plot, maybe not
Not least because black & white days
Hide luxuries like festival kimonos
On a night when the moon is full of blood
One revenge for a love we understand—
Right now the cicadas are very loud.
© 2012 Rob Schackne
Summer Note To Self
The little one is burnt and black
Motionless in a tree looks back
Rest on the cicada barrier
Arm cast lackadaisically over
The unnamed it didn’t matter
Wait a minute what’s she wearing
Why cast that way why is she there?
Bend time curl everything you know
Penetrate it like a remote cave
Save bats save yourself save light
Introduce yourself to Tommy Tomorrow
Say goodbye we were leaving anyway
Where music comes out so sweetly
Where summer comes from so loud
Rubbing rubbing the terms of reality.
© 2012 Rob Schackne
Degrees of Gray in Philipsburg
You might come here Sunday on a whim.
Say your life broke down. The last good kiss
you had was years ago. You walk these streets
laid out by the insane, past hotels
that didn’t last, bars that did, the tortured try
of local drivers to accelerate their lives.
Only churches are kept up. The jail
turned 70 this year. The only prisoner
is always in, not knowing what he’s done.
The principal supporting business now
is rage. Hatred of the various grays
the mountain sends, hatred of the mill,
The Silver Bill repeal, the best liked girls
who leave each year for Butte. One good
restaurant and bars can’t wipe the boredom out.
The 1907 boom, eight going silver mines,
a dance floor built on springs—
all memory resolves itself in gaze,
in panoramic green you know the cattle eat
or two stacks high above the town,
two dead kilns, the huge mill in collapse
for fifty years that won’t fall finally down.
Isn’t this your life? That ancient kiss
still burning out your eyes? Isn’t this defeat
so accurate, the church bell simply seems
a pure announcement: ring and no one comes?
Don’t empty houses ring? Are magnesium
and scorn sufficient to support a town,
not just Philipsburg, but towns
of towering blondes, good jazz and booze
the world will never let you have
until the town you came from dies inside?
Say no to yourself. The old man, twenty
when the jail was built, still laughs
although his lips collapse. Someday soon,
he says, I’ll go to sleep and not wake up.
You tell him no. You’re talking to yourself.
The car that brought you here still runs.
The money you buy lunch with,
no matter where it’s mined, is silver
and the girl who serves your food
is slender and her red hair lights the wall.
(1973)
Glen Uig
Believe in this couple this day who come
to picnic in the Faery Glen. They pay rain
no matter, or wind. They spread their picnic
under a gale-stunted rowan. Believe they grew tired
of giants and heroes and know they believe
in wise tiny creatures who live under the rocks.
Believe these odd mounds, the geologic joke
played by those wise tiny creatures far from
the world's pitiful demands: make money, stay sane.
Believe the couple, by now soaked to the skin,
sing their day as if dry, as if sheltered inside
Castle Ewen. Be glad Castle Ewen's only a rock
that looks like a castle. Be glad for no real king.
These wise tiny creatures, you'd better believe,
have lived through it all: the Viking occupation,
clan torturing clan, the Clearances, the World War
II bomber gone down, a fiery boom
on Beinn Edra. They saw it from here. They heard
the sobs of last century's crofters trail off below
where every day the Conon sets out determined for Uig.
They remember the Viking who wandered off course,
under the hazelnut tree hating aloud all he'd done.
Some days dance in the bracken. Some days go out
wide and warm on bad roads to collect the dispossessed
and offer them homes. Some days celebrate addicts
sweet in their dreams and hope to share with them
a personal spectrum. The loch here's only a pond,
the monster is in it small as a wren.
Believe the couple who have finished their picnic
and make wet love in the grass, the tiny wise creatures
cheering them on. Believe in milestones, the day
you left home forever and the cold open way
a world wouldn't let you come in. Believe you
and I are that couple. Believe you and I sing tiny
and wise and could if we had to eat stone and go on.
(1980)
Cutting Loose
for James Dickey
Sometimes from sorrow, for no reason,
you sing. For no reason, you accept
the way of being lost, cutting loose
from all else and electing a world
where you go where you want to.
Arbitrary, a sound comes, a reminder
that a steady center is holding
all else. If you listen, that sound
will tell you where it is and you
can slide your way past trouble.
Certain twisted monsters
always bar the path - but that's when
you get going best, glad to be lost,
learning how real it is
here on earth, again and again.
(1983)
Of A Saturday Arvo
Raindrops don’t regret slow passage
Down windowpanes inconsolable rain
Today we spoke of the late Ching dynasty
The early Edo and of curiosity
How explorers do not extend their lives
How culture can look like an enemy
When junction boxes lie as buried
As Amelia’s silver bracelet in the sand
Li Bai too watches raindrops racing
Weaving the odds he survived the boat
Honoring glass compass and credulity
Till the storm was over it was dry again
There’s no telling where this tale is ending
Another glass is raised the nerve is steady
I wonder how we make things important.
© 2012 Rob Schackne
The Earhart Light
He said he could see it bumping
Against the sea of lost aircraft
At one place on a coral atoll, adrift
Imagined Amelia's body recomposed
In the fish and sand and small breezes
That play about the edges of howland
But like the zephyr we never feel
The eyes and heart strain to know
That we who are left searching
Take deep breaths looking for buttons
Find an old regulator & come up for air
Our rescues from ourselves, I think
That rescue was always on the way
We had nothing more to do but wait.
© 2012 Rob Schackne
Desert Sounds
The iguana is still under the rock.
Blossoms unfurl scents over coiled snakes.
Saguaros arm their shadows
With the long legs of daylight.
And whose limbs got buried where
The grand inquisitor unearths deeply.
So it goes in the Sonoran desert.
Sky shows its teeth with cacti.
The mouth of civilization spits out sand.
Who are we, who are we?
The heart of the blue-throated hummingbird beats
Up to twelve hundred times a minute.
The palm-sized bird can play its hand backward too.
With good reason metaphors stay open past midnight.
When desert sounds coax silence into submission.
When darkness branches off.
O the miss in mystery; the hiss in history.
The tap in a child’s tapping: wake up, wake up.
(2012)
