A poem inspired by my reading of the great Scottish poet Norman MacCaig
Ignorance
I remember standing quietly on winter rocks
looking out to the Pacific,
a child
in El Salvador
near La Libertad, the port of liberty,
where I was had sandy beaches in summer
but winter brought a stretch of rocks
and silence,
Standing there
that morning, watching birds
I couldn't name
playing and diving
Into the blue playground
I smiled at my ignorance.
OXFORD
Sitting on a bench
several leaves fall
one by one
expressing great disdain
for this cold Oxford summer’s day,
the smell of rain comes
and I write
between the taste of coffee
and the loneliness of trees.
THE SCARS OF POETRY
Empty shot glass left on the bar
whiskey gone
and now for the silence
that will walk me home,
maybe I’ll hum some old tune
or quote some poems,
perhaps it will be Edward Thomas
meeting his destiny at the “borders of sleep,”
or Stephen Spender will chat with me
about "The very great,”
I’m sure I’ll pause to ask the night questions
about the clouds above me, or memories of Frank O’Hara
may come as well, his parties and a New York City poetry long asleep,
maybe I’ll hear the sound of a pretty voice
coming down from an apartment high above,
filled with the cadence of love and beginnings,
or maybe an old line I’d forgotten
might remind me to collect my yesterdays,
regardless of all that I’ll have company
but not the kind that leaves lipstick on my cheek
and shirt but just scars across the heart.
Untitled
Morning hour
deepens the communion
with silence,
no raindrop
no wind
here,
no face
no voice
to chat with,
just clouds
and winter dreams.
FOR KIM
(After Frank O’Hara)
I would write you a letter, yes old school,
if
I knew your address
in the darkness of sadness,
but
You left only a date
in my journals, a wistful dismissive
ending
So, I’ll write that letter on this sidewalk,
among the dirt and grit of loneliness…
ABSTRACTION
I sit alone with the memory of love
and rain falling outside,
it could be an abstraction of something deeper
something that Camus might have written
reflections along the fences of memory
and suffering
on a page
on a word
on a face,
But that too is nothing, there’s just this silence
with a long line still unwritten
but thoughts try to find their moorings
without tears,
seconds passing
to more rain
to hot coffee.
STEVE
“Hello young man”
you would begin our conversations
sitting inside Caffe Trieste or outside,
under bright stars or spring sunsets,
then you would weave a story into our evenings
adding quips, jokes, observations, remembrances, and
reading “statements” kept in a small notepad, I believe
you had hundred of those filled with words describing
friends, talks, a meal, a book, walks, or thousands
of daily occurrences recorded in tiny, neat, precise handwriting.
A poet friend called our group the lost poets,
now you, Alan, and Perry have joined forces
in another dimension, one we all will cross in time
in time, this is where you would quote T.S. Eliot or
perhaps one of your heroes: James Joyce,
then I would counter with a thought or counter point,
maybe mention Spender, Auden, or MacNeice,
and the night would go back and forth
until we parted ways or Alan, Owen, Perry, Buford, and Mark came by
and poems were read round the table, laughing, listening,
and being lost poets again and again.
I know you would suggest I use another word than again
or, I imagine, you looking over this rushed poem, and asking
“Do you really want to use the word ‘dimension?’ is it necessary
for this poem to be so long?” I know you would hate this elegy
for you, my saying goodbye in the way we met and kept
a friendship over years…
maybe I will take out the word dimension.
”Good night young man, I will see you later.”
Good night Steve…
