Silence. Repetition. Rhythm.: May 2012

Monday, May 21, 2012

I
I have discovered finally to-day
This home that I have called my own
Is built of straw and clay,
Not, as I thought, of stone.
I wonder who the architect could be,
What builder made it of that stuff;
When it was left to me
The house seemed good enough.
Yet, slowly, as its roof began to sink,
And as its walls began to split,
And I began to think,
Then I suspected it;
But did not clearly know until today
That it was only built of straw and clay.
II
Now I will go about on my affairs
As though I had no cares,
Nor ever think at all
How one day soon that house is bound to fall,
So when I'm told the wind has blown it down
I may have something else to call my own.
I have enquired who was the architect,
What builder did erect.
I'm told they did design
Million and million others all like mine,
And argument with all men ends the same:--
It is impossible to fix the blame.
I am so glad that underneath our talk
Our minds together walk.
We argue all the while,
But down below our argument we smile,
We have our houses, but we understand
That our real property is common land.
III
At night we often go
With happy comrades to that real estate,
Where dreams in beauty grow,
And every man enjoys a common fate.
At night in sleep one flows
Below the surface of all argument;
The brain, with all it knows,
Is covered by the waters of content.
But when the dawn appears
Brain rises to the surface with a start,
And, waking, quickly sneers
At the old natural brightness of the heart.
Oh, that a man might choose
To live unconsciously like beast or bird,
And our clear thought not lose
Its beauty when we turn it into word.
IV
Those quarrelings between my brain and heart
(In which I'd take no part)
Pursue their violent course
Corrupting my most vital force
So that my natural property is spent
In fees to keep alive their argument.
V
Look downward in the silent pool:
The weeds cling to the ground they love;
They live so quietly, are so cool;
They do not need to think, or move.
Look down in the unconscious mind:
There everything is quiet too
And deep and cool, and you will find
Calm growth and nothing hard to do,
And nothing that need trouble you.

- Harold Monro

Monday, May 7, 2012

Smoke

God, it is good to wake
in the middle of the night
and smoke a cigarette
with You,
while outside, the buildings sleep
in geometric clumps,
the factories rest – replenishing
themselves, not so unlike
the rosebushes or
eucalyptus groves,
gathering power
for one more thrust tomorrow.
For now,
the streetlights blossom
   above the boulevard,
a lone truck on the darkened bridge
transports its spark across the gap,
   the way your fingertip
ignited Michaelangelo to think,
long ago,
   that You were there.
One does so much
building up, so much feverish
   acquiring,
but really, it is all aimed
at a condition of exhausted
   simplicity, isn't it?
We don't love things.

So this hour of the night
is precious,
   when the curtains swell like lungs
and the world is full of bodies
falling from the precipice
   of sleep.
For seven hours,
maybe eight, they don't
   remember how to suffer
or how to run from it.
They are like the stars,
   or potted plants, or salty oceanic waves.
And do You like this brand of cigarette?
And are You comfortable?
   It is so quiet now,
The streetlights shine.
And I have noticed
   how the strands of smoke,
even in no hint of wind,
still decorate the air
   in cursive braided loops and swirls.
No, it is not a signature.
But it is beautiful,
   and it is inexplicable,
and it is good.

- Tony Hoagland

Sunday, May 6, 2012

The Hum.

A sequestered frenzy
Makes it hard to feel
The hum of silence.

Thank you
For reminding me
To let it in.

Mire.

The Song of the Drunkard

It was not in me. It moved in and out.
When I dared to stop it, the wine won out.
(What it was, I no longer remember.)
The wine then offered this and offered that,
till I became dependent upon him,
I, fool!

Now I am part of his game, as he throws me
around in utter contempt, and surely he will
lose me this day to that scavenger: death.
When death wins me, soiled card that I am,
he will use me only to scratch his sordid scabs
and toss me away into the mire.

- Rainer Maria Rilke