This Goes out to the Dead Poets Society Hunter '09

When We Were In Tandem

Night
the last night.
closure presses against us
the heavy humidity moves moments
forward in endless
intangible wheels
3rd wheel, 6th wheel, 6 wheels round
with bond and brew

The moon draws its own clouds – the dark smog of the Hudson presses on
the edge of the Island,
amber dots melt onto the silent black tar of liquid
A gull and the soft distant caucus of the Phoenix,
echoes

The light of young breath streams
through the once still night
Hope, the frayed feather we harbor
brings life
full again

Sweet Pinot quenches our arid lips,
appeasing the notion that we die
before the dawn of summer
and yet we know that we travel together more new,
more whole, seeping into the pathways

The pillowed abyss, the praise and prey
tremulous talent
Hope’s hope- recorded

A lost Mother, Father a child, every twitch of DNA, lonely discovered
A Binding
- Everything happened poetry-
Pages surround the whirling sun, the sudden salience of life
– there! there! it happened
Ahab’s stabbing heart
we hold together
terror
this watery world

A Gap, A gap between
the burgs mossed with discontent
A sudden flower of conscience
fills the crevice
with fertile fields
And yet we wait
Wait for a disconnect from the trite,
the multitudes who etch their names on oak
in hopes, to achieve rings of passing years
but the trees vanish
into the endlessness of burnt forests

So still we wait,
connected only by this the murky remembrance of six faces
trembling in the grain of oak
our voices caught onto
the umber glow of our glass
as we raise this
our bittersweet toast

©Goldberg,Pestana,Michailov,Collazo,Mendoza, Gerard

An Oldie But Goodie

You are like a bottle, useful and delicious, what you hold, you rarely share it. You leave drops on my pallet. You come in the spring, tracing steps around the same horse, while I ride up and on, further away. You keep tiptoeing through and I see you when each new song begins. Your in the eyes of a man on the subway. Your in the laugh lines around his face, hes holding you there for me to see. Once I was close enough to see past your iris, past the heat and over the engine block that crumpled with the weight of fear. I can not remember how it happened. I only remember the rush of sparks as your mouth moved with mine, the moon and how bright it was. How shocking the night.

Yellow

It's been quite the long while since I have written in here. I'm just getting back on the poetry wagon, so to speak and its proven difficult this semester. The intensely comforting vibe of last semesters class, despite petty differences among classmates, is gone and in its place is a somewhat strained atmosphere this semester due to the attitude of the professor. Relationships aren't as organic and its definitely affecting my creative flow. That aside there is still plenty I have written that I will attempt to post soon and some free verse that I will put down now....


Everything is different and yet the same
I still call you yellow
because in my mind I know you to be no other color
you step in and out of my life in no exciting way
its as if you are the cat
that only if fed will return for the food
and not the affection

I have many of you yellow
and each of you
I have loved

I see you and I am taken back to thirteen
or was it twenty?
It has been both yellow
For you always look the same in every year
in every shape you take
sometimes you are a lover
a friend
mostly you have been nothing at all

its one am and you leave a message
fighting the duality in your mind
yellow you speak of her
always her
the irrevocable
that has done you harm
the one that will do you harm
if given the chance
the one that has cornered you into
being so very fragile

and yet you crave
just for a moment yellow
to remember
to taste
to deliver what you know is truth

The message you leave is short
"um its me, where are you, call me back"
you never leave messages
and this one is your form of urgency
and I don't respond anymore yellow

Sometimes I listen though
sometimes I see you
sometimes I remember and mouth the words
its only a habit
something I have yet to grow out of
yellow grew in me
and when I see you
I am yellow
because I know no other color
I am present
like the paint on the wall.

work in progress

Clogged up with ash and soot
no room for smoke to blow
all fires burning
rage and ash
that spews onto the hearth
and what stokes this fire?
What starts it at its core?
Below the simple kindling sparked
now is blazing outward


The floor beneath the brick facade
once a pale ecru
tarred and blackened from neglect
of this chimney's flue
and creeping farther and further now
along these empty halls
a heavy sense in heart and chest
lingering to smolder

Two New Poems

I very reluctantly had to write a Villanelle and a Sonnet. Both are not at my usual level of writing ability but it is the first time I have ever written anything in a structured form. Here you are First is the Villanelle and then the sonnet. pardon my humor in the sonnet.


The Tracks

I once did have a secret dream
to live where no one else might go
to travel down the tracks unseen

To walk a steady line on the beam
and to button up my woes
I once did have a secret dream

How should I tip toe through the steam
shall I tread down low?
to travel down the tracks unseen

therein lies the trouble with my scheme
now it is you who know
I once did have a secret dream

How do you hold me in your esteem?
shall you come with me friend or foe?
to travel down the tracks unseen

how does the idea now seem?
shall anyone tell us no?
I once did have a secret dream
to travel down the tracks unseen





and

The Salty Dog

For years I craved for just a taste
Of the seaman's salty mouth
that on a blustery day of haste
I ferried to the south
I sent word for us to meet
At the river tavern
I asked for him to take a seat
he requested I not to speak his taborn
He slipped a finger my way
And gave his signature smile
And on the floor of the tavern we lay
Not for a very long while
A seaman makes a better life while the waves are rocking
Please sir forgive me I shall never again come knocking

Here (New Song)

how long does it take to wash away
the memory of your face
your hands in mine
as we slipped through the night

how long does it take
to wash away age
the minds little way of reminding
the thoughts of you that run me through
and for no reason I am still buying
time

and I see you here
fine except the beer
that lingers in your beard
and its good to know
time hasn't changed you
though
and that is what I fear

how long does it take to wash away
the memory of your face
when I still
see you here
here here

fine except the fear
that traps your very legs
wrapped up in past mistakes
your fatherless face
that in the night seems so at rest
except inside your chest
you wonder

How long it takes
to wash away
the memory of her face
as she laid on your pillow
your hands together tight
as you lay side by side
as you slipped through the night

......................

Don't think it will be ready by October 3rd but It's the first slow one in awhile...Fingerpicking style.

Vivir con la incertidumbre

"To live with uncertainty"
.................................................


Thats the theme I am going with for this writing exercise I am about to participate in.

It says :

read the Haiku "Touch" by Jim Moore...

easily done.

Do not feel Lonely.
The Disappearing world longs
for you to touch it.

Now I am suppose to take a few minutes and use "all of my five senses" and write a poem called "the Disappearing world" using at least one concrete image in every line. I am suppose to make it vivid even as it disappears.

Here goes.

..........................................

"The Disappearing World" (more aptly named... "The Disappearing Man")

once a stout and sturdy man
with thick nubby whiskers said to me,
"the world is disappearing"
My cloudy mind did not believe him.
I watched this man walk on egg shells,
white and fine beneath his feet;
the slightest crack
and he was toppling.
To try to see his view more clearly,
I pressed hard the cloth into my glasses
hoping to make crisp the edges of our sing song distant melody,
the drone of a chords sweet passing.
All I saw was a bright young man, weak in the knees and wobbling,
with the intent
of the very first steps
of a colt.
The gray blonde strands in his beard, however, made it clear
he has many times attempted this walk.
To try and see his view more clearly
I joined in the muddy brown haze of sweet toasted lager
and hopped up we went skipping down the coal black lane.
I rubbed my eyes and unfastened them from the rim of the milky moon.
I was beginning to believe we would both dissolve
caught between two black lagoons.
His voice began again, sharp and withdrawn.
"The disappearing world is just a song on the breeze
and I'm trying to keep up, with tortured objectives
and a mind to collect it,
the end result is a mouth full of bitter apples
and a sour ripe cut. "
The closer I became dear the clearer it got,
the man was fading from the world; the world disappear? It did not.
his red stamped tail lights in the pitch
grew smaller and smaller
with the span of earth beneath the trucks hitch
In the faint splash of sweet sweet dawn
I laid flat on the pavement
a head full and heavy with new reservations.



................................

well then. I can't seem to get out of one fudging writing pattern... but at least stuff is coming out.

Not my favorite poem but ah... I'm not good with all the "concrete images."

........................

Second Part of the assignment.... Describe something... an object... a person, something in your dresser a stranger standing still... in as much detail as possible. Where is that damn poem I wrote about the guitar when I was "hanging out" with joe dejesu. Damn It I am not looking for it that was years ago. I am so tempted to pretend I have a vibrator in my dresser... and describe that. Nope can't do it.



ukulele uku uku

four little strings
a smooth mahogony smell
17 frets
five opalescent white dots
six blacks dots along the neck
cold silver tuners
two little yellow circles around the sound hole
sing: "my dog has fleas" to tune it
a few less fingers to hold down the strings
about two feet long
no strap necessary
strum it with your thumb
pick it with your fingers
sounds slightly out of tune almost always
dark brown bridge



.......
Ok I admit I can do better.

So tired I cant think. Soft bed needed now.