Twins Are Birds

iamdan — Wed, 24 Mar 2021 11:35:45 +0000

Twins Are Birds iamdan Wed, 03/24/2021 - 12:35

Twins are birds,
Or so they say,
In words not yet polluted
By Cartesian sway.
We’re pulled apart
At birth. We stray
From Mother,
Sisterbrother,
Father.
Sun.

The God terms gone.

But still
There’s warmth
That shows
Through windows,
Hitting skin,
Yet heating body
From within.
It warms the core
But shines
From without.
I feel an outside world
So distant its heat
Is light years old,
Yet still brand new.

Both and.

The sun’s in me.
The past is now.
That twins are birds
Makes sense somehow.

Poetry

Meaning

iamdan — Wed, 03 Mar 2021 00:53:27 +0000

Meaning iamdan Wed, 03/03/2021 - 01:53

The pencil marks and
the utterance scatters
like crickets or bats,
subject to skip and
flights of sound
rounding a corner.

Poetry

The Organic Mechanic

iamdan — Wed, 03 Mar 2021 00:35:36 +0000

The Organic Mechanic iamdan Wed, 03/03/2021 - 01:35

The organic mechanic
sets his ring tone,
choosing bird chirps:
the peep in the poplar or,
sometime later,
in the inking evening
the distant owl
yopping its wahoo!

The organic mechanic
runs his dog
down to the trail
in the truck
and then runs
his dog
down the trail
to the forking
paths,
the bend
in the road,
the tiny squares
of the lilac
blossoms,
thin
as paper
tissues
wrinkled
and round,
hole punched
and strewn
for confetti
to celebrate
the scented hues.
Lungs sucking,
twin hearts pacing,
animating
feet pushing gravel,
pads wrapped in rubber
soul synthetic
upper and
leather
skin around
eyelets,
riveted
eyelets.

The organic mechanic
Thinks the space shuttle's
A chiasmic message
Rising from the earth
Like a stalk of corn

Poetry

Wheels

iamdan — Sun, 31 Jan 2021 18:13:18 +0000

Wheels iamdan Sun, 01/31/2021 - 19:13

Muses nine, line up
Like highway song
Memories,
Mashing gas
And passing cars:
Microbus
Cadillac
Corolla
Diesel Truck
After truck
After truck.

Wheels whirl
Into view as
In a movie,
Shot low
From the curb,
Gearlike in convex,
Consciousness,
Mind’s eye,
Spinning round
Like worlds hurled
Into expansion by
That primal, eternal,
Personal big bang.

Music takes its name
From the nine,
Dancing like fire
In the eye,
Flickering
Through the
Corpuscle soul,
Oddly felt
And felt
In waves,
In muscle,
In bone,
Blasting
Open
Windows
And floating home
With throaty notes
Of exhaust.

Wheels whirl like worlds
Collapsed with words
When blowing flow rises
Over landscape, panning
Hills and lakes and trees,
Smearing past beneath
Vision field, fixated
On the passing
And becoming
Of the moment,
This invention
Of the now.

Poetry

Portfolio information

Genre -- poem

Materials -- words

Three Days Dead

iamdan — Sun, 31 Jan 2021 17:53:19 +0000

Three Days Dead iamdan Sun, 01/31/2021 - 18:53

This is a repost of a playlist composition I want to share with some classes. I'm posting here an audio mix of the playlist and the textual mix below. Prompted by the phrase "was dead three days," the story is about missing time.

Three Days Dead

" One Tree Hill " U2 ( lyrics )
The story begins today, steeped in references to our shared memories. The black center of The Heart of Darkness and the songs of folk found in Jara’s music trick us into thinking these are only our struggles. But the tale leans back, archetypal, toward the symbolic scene.

" Babylon " David Gray ( lyrics )
Three days bind the story. Its deeper movement starts with anticipation.
An eager descent softened by hope:

Friday night I'm going nowhere / All the lights are changing green to red

A blessed mistake.

Only wish that you were here

You know I'm seeing it so clear
I've been afraid

To tell you how I really feel

Admit to some of those bad mistakes I've made

The long passage back.

Turning back for home

You know I'm feeling so alone

I can't believe

Climbing on the stair

I turn around to see you smiling there

In front of me

" Sympathy For The Devil " The Rolling Stones ( lyrics ; Salon piece )
This big picture plays out in close up, the curtains rich burgundy, velvet and deep as blood. Not fabric, but membrane screen image flickering as grey light comes up from the back of a stage. The lit grey screen contracts into a tight circle and swings off stage to the woman, wracked. The light swings back, center stage. The dead.

So if you meet me
Have some courtesy
Have some sympathy, and some taste
(woo woo)
Use all your well-learned politesse
Or I'll lay your soul to waste, um yeah
(woo woo, woo woo)

The dead shimmer as the man extends his arms and gathers them, shapelike, collecting them like clouds dissipating in summer sun. He breathes deep. Looks off stage. The light dilates, brightens, and swings with his gaze, highlighting the woman. Her face is framed at the bottom by fingers, steepled over lips. Eyes closed with thought. Brow set, wrinkled. He looks to the light. Turns.

" In The Garden " Van Morrison ( lyrics )

The streets are always wet with rain
After a summer shower when I saw you standin'
In the garden in the garden wet with rain

You wiped the teardrops from your eye in sorrow
As we watched the petals fall down to the ground
And as I sat beside you I felt the
Great sadness that day in the garden

His fingers curl over the back of her hand. Nerves race up his side and fire up his face. He radiates. She breathes, opens her eyes. He’s fixed. She too.

And as it touched your cheeks so lightly
Born again you were and blushed and we touched each other lightly
And we felt the presence of the Christ

And I turned to you and I said
No Guru, no method, no teacher
Just you and I and nature
And the father in the garden

The man awakens. He stretches, expectant. Remembering the garden. Sunday. Ascendance. The morning light warms the side of his face. Questions. The circle of light surrounding him on the empty stage expands and all around him the dead. He squints toward the sky. The morning sun makes no sense. Three days and still he sits among bankers, butchers, mothers, fathers, sisters, sons, the lost souls of the darkened world. Sunday’s past and something’s wrong: “They call it stormy Monday but Tuesday’s just as bad.”

" Stormy Monday " Eva Cassidy ( lyrics )

" Black " Pearl Jam ( lyrics )
The sadness smacks personal and profound. Lured by pain and beauty to betray the world, he feels now the loss and fingers at his own soul like a sore, remembering. That joining. That giving, that, allowed just an instant, instantly changed forever.

And now my bitter hands shake beneath the clouds
of what was everything?
Oh, the pictures have all been washed in black--
tattooed everything.

" Pacing the Cage " Bruce Cockburn ( lyrics )
Reflection comes much later and brings with it nothing more than the slow turn of the proverbial screw. The unjust judge and the pearl of great price. He wanders the timescapes of the past, stepping into this very present. The rusted ships, scuttled on distant shores and waiting to turn to scrap. The lights of cities, biting and empty in their brilliance. The thrum of the engine soundtracked beneath the song of the lark. He wonders aloud, how is it that you’re just now “finding yourself in a place that you've willingly waltzed into. Suddenly, you realize it's not such a good place to be, and it's hard to find your way out, hard to know where the next step is supposed to go.”

" All Along The Watchtower " Bob Dylan ( lyrics )
Swiveling days compile their despondencies and urgent little victories. An adoption in Armenia. Plundering in Mertz. A library in Egypt. A Caldera vaporizes a village. A man has a dream. Resigned, he turns toward each event, draping shawls over corpse and cold soul alike. Lowering and lifting to the timeless rhythm of the rise and fall. More, he finally cries. I now need nothing more.

Outside in the distance a wildcat did growl,
Two riders were approaching, the wind began to howl.

" Across The Universe " The Beatles ( lyrics )
The sound of horse’s hooves rises from the edge of the stage in clops like gentle rain. The ebbing and flowing circle of light that baths the man swells to full brightness and the two riders join the scene—the woman and the father, smiling. Musical feet fill the gaps as the horses stop, and with each beat figures step on the stage. Teachers. Farmers. Runners. Writers. Young and old, they step forward like members of a choir and mouth the sounds that change the world.

Jai guru deva om
Nothing's gonna change my world,
Nothing's gonna change my world.
Nothing's gonna change my world.
Nothing's gonna change my world.

" With or Without You " (live) U2 ( lyrics )
As the crowd gathers on stage, another sound swells from behind. A whistle. Clap. Clap. Whistle. Clap. Looking out he sees more souls pouring in from doorways and climbing down from the rafters. The days, he understands, have nothing to do with the scattered sequences of noon and night. The days instead have played out over these millennia in each ragged cough and lover’s cry. Three days dead, he understands he’s not alone and he “give[s himself] away”

My hands are tied
My body bruised, she's got me with
Nothing to win and
Nothing left to lose

And you give yourself away
And you give yourself away
And you give
And you give
And you give yourself away

She takes his hand. The sound turns smoky and swirls over the scene. It surrounds the man and the woman and slowly lifts them, as if on filaments of thought, invisible and rising skyward.

We'll shine like stars in the silver light
We'll shine like stars in the Christmas night
One heart. One home. One love.

Prose

Poetry

Portfolio information

Genre -- Playlist

Materials -- mixed

Willow

admin — Wed, 21 Dec 2016 04:25:09 +0000

Willow admin Wed, 12/21/2016 - 05:25

On rainy days I sit beneath the willow.

Leafmulch and sowbugs bring to mind the moisture of it all.

My thoughts decompose.

The long, green leaves parachute down to the ground,

And I'm lost to all those passing by.

There's a serenity and sadness here that sometimes goes unnoticed.

I breathe the melancholy and write poetry

When I catch the tree weeping.

Poetry

Portfolio information

Composed at -- Albuquerque NM

White Folds

admin — Wed, 21 Dec 2016 04:25:04 +0000

White Folds admin Wed, 12/21/2016 - 05:25

A remaking of Wallace Stevens's poem "Thirteen Ways of Looking at a Blackbird."

Poetry

Portfolio information

Poetry Remix -- Layers