somewhere in the chaos and the calm, may you find your Self in all of your splendor
something intimate
about time in a cafe
when I am quiet inside
when the music, the books
speak to me
she told me in a dream
decades ago
"you can come here
any time you want"
it's no mistake
when I am here
plotting my life's course
or resting by the side of its stream
we were in the Red Star Cafe
on that street beneath waking
her feet bare on the wood floor
she put an aura around the place
a protection, a blessing
for the perpetual possibility of that closeness
that intimacy
with her
I
with Arlo Guthrie on one side
Pete Seeger on the other
a cassette I picked up for a buck
at a library book sale in the 90's
some songs became favorites --
"Quite Early Morning", "Presidential Rag"
"Stealin'" -- "Pretty momma don't tell on me..."
II
today, at a vintage clothing store at Mahall's lanes
found a folk collection on compact disc
Dave Grisman, Bonnie Raitt, and, bless my heart
Jerry Garcia
not looking at the song list too closely
I spin it --
you might guess the rest
"Wrap your arms around me
like a circle round the sun..."
who is that singing "Stealin'"?
ah, brash rooster of delight
it's Jerry himself!
what more
what more is there?
“Solsbury Hill” at the cafe
Peter Gabriel's disavowed uber-hit
funny how we will always be known
for how we once were
in everyone else's eyes but our own
for them, that fierce passion of youth
produced the epitome of our soul's reflection
for us, our best is always yet to come
my best, an egg in the shell of the moment
yes, I wait anxiously for the hatching
but what more?
what more is there
than where you happen
to find yourself?
Cruising down Wooster Road,
headed home
10,000 Maniacs best of
+ rarities, oddities on my CD player
Natalie belting out To
Sir With Love
Chord changes that are
impossible to follow
The flight pattern of
an elusive bird
So beautiful, the
voice, the words, the puzzle of tune
Second verse, a guest
singer
Oh God, it’s Michael
Stipe, frickin perfect!
A big, fat sax break in
the middle
The two join each other
for the final chorus
I am singing along,
screeching, unable to reach
That high, a few tears
gather at the corners of my eyes
Aloft on this song
Lights of Lakewood loom
ahead
I want to hold this
feeling in a frame
Instead, it is slowly
escaping
My blissful, broken
heart
down into Silence
a ladle into the saucepan
a boy down the well
in search of his dog
you cannot tell
who you are
in the absence
vital systems, pumps
and pistons, soaring
into dysfunction
but this is different
raises rather than slams
listens rather than fixes
your best pitch
and the ditch has risen
to lift the ball
over the heads in the outfield
your last meal
and you eat to fill
your good karmas
your paltry inaction
gorge to gross completion
immense satisfaction
Mustafa, my one-time neighbor
tall, thin, acutely handsome
I used to apologize to him
for screaming in my apartment
I ran into him and his wife
one Thanksgiving at Starbucks
greeted them, both nurses, I think
she, wearing hijab, silent but smiling
he nodding, a little hesitantly
to this fat little man
alone on an American holiday
who yells at God
--
yellow leaves, cigarette butts
on the inside edge of the flower beds
a tree, chockful of bitter red berries
four dirty, beige columns,
holding up the patio roof
a line of dead mosquitos stuck to/ climbing
each pillar
Starbucks Rocky River
a single bee in early evening
perusing the flowers
anonymous alcoholics, high school kids
troupe through this outdoor stage
Eastern European buddies
friends sitting to chat
at this sober, pale tavern
this three-story corporate behemoth
where more people enter
than arrive
plagiarize the gods
their gestures, their words
enter from within
spittle becomes thought
then literature
"Expired. A word used for
library cards, for magazine subscriptions."
-- Ashima, from The Namesake
the world goes on
life proceeds
why?
we die. we expire, folks.
can't you understand?
sweet Ashima's husband
the dull and extraordinary Ashoke
Ganguli
has passed on, in a hospital
in CLEVELAND of all places
stop making your Frappuccino’s
stop dancing to that inane music
stop! stop the world!
we will all someday
know what this life was
what it truly meant
in retrospect
oh, how we will weep
for what we will have lost
what we never gave its due
what we sped through pick-up windows
to gloss over, to rush toward its
end
this precious existence
as plain as the gift of Earth’s support
under our feet
"I wanted to
write a pome..." he began
and listed nearly 50
things
he would like to
accomplish
with said “pome”
I’d never heard a line
poem before
around the 10th line, didn't
know
what to make of it
at the same time
was aware of a hush in
the Red Star Cafe
gravity drawing jaws
to fall open
shut, nevertheless, to
appear cool and aloof
this led me to feel
something vital was
going on
the man, no more than
25, had
as I see it now, done
all the wonder he wished
with his lengthy pome
a fortress built
against the decay of the world
a flower, trampled by
life's elephant fiend
smelling sweetly
when crushed
p
oh poor sod of a fly
dead on the window
sill
I pick you up, disturb
your slumber
incorrigible me, I go
now to wash my hands
why? I will be dead
one day, too
you lived your life,
stamping in the dirtiest places
yet I am full of the
filth you have touched
"a bag of shit
and piss" Zipruanna used to say
I share with you a
wish
may your time in
insect afterlife
be joyous, full of
dust and mud and mucus and crap
may you return soon,
to find your next rebirth
an improvement on the
last - a squirrel, a salmon, a bluejay
but promise me, you
will not come back as one of us
such a mess, such an
awful wretched mistake
we have inflicted on
this sacred world
