The Brooklyn Rail

Poem for a poet

We began
as the evening
just lightly breathed
I was warmed
by an armed embrace
about my shoulders
joy, a friend’s touch
and grounding belief
shared
I’ve so missed all of our
blessed comradeship
so tonight
his story of
shading into being
(by hand, he said)
portraits of people
each poured over many hours
followed by a reaching
a looking
for another permission
for using more, something other
than the very
flattest of new things
images made without
the space of lenses
(they are everywhere)
But his retina theater
his pencil technique
cooks warmth
think of Walser
or Dickinson
were both saved by the soft grey point
tool for
impermanent language
now look
through a grid, like cloth
wefted through each
buffed paper
then placed gently
across the wall
to remember
every hour
of vibratory thought
focused on a face
and her ideas
the energy returns
to every one of them
in solidarity
and with each motion across the little plane
arrives as if in a projection from
his lens eye
like Aristotle saw
repairing
making light
exist

April 12, 2024 to Pamela

why do we write
why do i tell
of all the hurts
disasters
even murder
see i am telling you
now
it’s as if the
welling
nightmare
who wakes me
shaking
or screaming
only heard by who
as if it is not you or
anyone else lying
beside me in
a loft
close to the brick
concrete ceiling

April 28, 2024 to Pamela

change love
so many words or songs
charms of heartbreak
proclaiming longing
and causing
all our tears

scrunch the muscles of
our upper face like
blinking
and tears arrive even
when we have still have
love
that is secure
as some carefully packed
plywood shipping crate
with each piece each part
inside
caressed
floating in soft foam

our empathy
lies in loss
but what if you
have just arrived there now
at the end of possibility
needing to wind back
wind up
desire
like an anchor on a chain
pulled up
for fog horn’s
departure

the only prescription
they always say
is time, entropic
randomly breaking down
the metallic tingling
body’s memory
or to hear the songbird of forgetting
its symphonic soundtrack, so long
but i don’t have time
or think I don’t
think i can’t
wait

people talk of letting go
of freeing the other one
the one who’s traveling on
it comes to mind
you yourself are the jailer
with the hoop ring of keys
freeing the prison guards
can i instead
will the warmth
of feeling

….words announce
like a herald
for a queen
surreal
their many meanings

i understand so
little you see
i’m thinking how can
the “search” for food
for each family
in gaza
in a rope stretched
tent
where is their money for this
what does asking
for food
mean
for just today
they can only think to live
for these coming sun
and sundown hours

April 25, 2024 to Pamela

selections
yes it feels selective
not between gaza and israel
though selection is abundant
in that disaster’s ever lasting dust
no it’s the selection of only
one
suffering
as if we look for a hero genius
of hurt
and forget all others

injustice is not singular
wars abound even if
we keep insisting we’ve moved on
it’s as if
we could feel within
our viscera wet and mysterious
the changing of
our genes
and neurons
each night
until
we reached a moment where
we can claim
we will only make peace