Magnum Opus

Magnum Opus

 

If this turns into

Such a work let it be true;

It is a small thing.

 

Without Question

WITHOUT QUESTION

I lived,

         But you were the best

I loved;

        There is no Question;

You

        Bedewed with such sensuous luster

That  

       I became lost in your soft

Hair

        Glorious wreaths of luxuriant, silken pleasure,

Full

       Of the moisture of life

Soft

        Under the desert breeze

Midnight

        At the oasis, like that song, you touched my

Soul

        This I declare in the courts of deep thought

Sacred

       Memories of when we were lost, knee deep in

Green

       Grass and watery birth, among

Flowers

        And dreams:

Truth

       Only accessible in that flashing split-moment of

Bliss,

       When we vowed by groans and moans,

To increase,

       No words were necessary

        In that sea of haste

Our desire,

        Expressed in the poetry of sound

Without irony,

       Without question.

 

____________________________________________________

 

BOUND FEET

BOUND FEET

By jtbleu

 

Stride

On cobble stone

The dead

Road like snowflakes

Mingling

In gentle descent

There is no resurrection

These particles

Only fall

Even if one

Awaits human touch

Some imprimatur

Yet they will die

Upon the soil

On this sweet earth

Rocks are cold

Hibernating

Plants and microbes

So minute

The weight of

Iron wagons on

Flat trails 

Ride the piles

And the white leaves

Pale traces

Of congealing gray

Pure

In the gloaming

A mass

Most holy

Of pied porcelain

Pounded

Icy and cool

Cold

Freezing snow

Silent icicles

Crushed hard as

Tiny feet

Stir the sherbet

To taste

The just dessert

Of their labors

And many tongues

Devour the flakes

Unwittingly

Changing the shape

Of nature and

Arouse these

Mended beauties

Continually in motion

Dreaming of luscious

Respite

But like Roman

Legions

Advancing

On the frozen world

Tonight—and so long ago

Vanquishing empires

Wooing the male beast

All are ground under

The pressure of light

Impressions

And the quiet

Moon—goes by

And they go by

Bound feet

Wrapped or shorn

A poet’s sad

Plaint for form

And structure

Out of slush

And piles

About to melt

Forever gone

Using mere words

To sculpt

A salvation

For them

As they stride

Or slide

Tripping along

Or awaiting

The gentle

Spring

The lark’s song

To live

Again

 

 

*  *  *  *  *  *  *

SKETCH IN PASTEL 

 

 

 

 

     The everlasting cure is the purest medicine

  Some "experts" say

  Take it now Test it later Have a nice day      

L’ALLEGRO

ON

THE AGE OF ICE

 

THE PROCESS OF HARDENING

AND TRANSPARENCY

OR GOING OPAQUE

THE AWFUL CHILLS

JUST BEFORE THAT

SLICK SLIDE INTO

OBLIVION

 

TO UNDERSTAND

IS TO KNOW

HOPE

AS A FROZEN DREAM

COME FROM THE

STARS

 

IN SUSPENDED ANIMATION

OUR SILENCE FACES

OUR DREAD  

 

CRYOGENICS

A TERM SO ASTUTE

AS TO BE DESCRIPTIVE

RATHER THAN PRESCRIPTIVE

FOR ROCKY TEARS

DROP AND CRACK

THE HEART THAT

SHED THEM

THAT THE EARTH

MAY REVOLVE

AND TIME REMAIN

CONSTANT

 

 

NOTHING IS NEW

HERE IS ONLY ICE

 

WE RECREATE THE PAST

AFTER LOOKING

DEEP INTO THE FUTURE

WHERE OUR GARDENS

AND CREATIONS

AWAIT A NEW GOD

WORTHY OF OUR FORESIGHT

RESPECTFUL OF OUR

ANTECEDENT SELVES

THE FORMER DEAD WEIGHT

LACKS THE INSIGHT

OF ICE

 

WE ARE LEFT WITH

COMPARISONS TO WATER AND AIR

 

ASSOCIATIONS THAT REFUSE

TO SETTLE MEEKLY

INTO THE MISTS OF TIME

LIKE STEAMING VAPORS

FROM A KETTLE

THEY VANISH

 

THE LIGHT WEIGHT

BRINGS THE THINNEST EVAPORATION

GONE

 

ALONE

I STUDIED

DENSITY DOWN

TO THE SMALLEST

PARTICLE OF MATTER

 

AND THEN SOME SNOWFLAKE

DARED TO SLICE THE SWEET AIR

TO PIERCE MY HEART WITH YOUR MEMORY

 

OUR THOUGHTS NOW CRUMBLE IN SNOW DUST

THAT WE MAY BE HEALED

FROM DEATH

BUT IN THE ICICLED GRAVE

AS WE WAIT

THERE IS NO GUARANTEE OF  

NEW LIFE

COME THE DAY

WE MAY CONCLUDE AT LAST

THAT THIRTY-TWO DEGREES FARENHEIT

IS SALVATION

EVEN ZERO CENTRIGRADE

OFFERS TANGIBLE HOPE

HOPE WHICH EQUALS ZERO

nothing

AND IN THESE

DEGREES OF DECLENSION

WE SALIVATE

IN SPITE OF THE COLD

IN THIS THEATRE OF ICICLES

WITHIN OURSELVES

WE WONDER

 

IF WE WILL 

 

REMEMBER

THE

 

FREEZE

**********************

 NITE TIDES

-----------------------

I

Bring the ancient monster back.

Watch the leviathan

Rape a lamb

And birth a myth;

Or lie with a lion and

Mother a religion:

Teach us the logic

 In this monstrous

Promiscuity.

2

Godzilla will

When he comes and shakes

 The earth and topples

Our steeples. We never

Feared a nativity as much as

We loved your enormity;

So strong as to chide the ten million gods

In the unsounded deep, in the East, while you stir the water

And panic our shores.

 

This every wise man knows, and the brilliant women

 

Still laugh at us.

3

Modest Medea, just last week, heard some fool utter the following:

“Intent is motivated by the undercurrents of fascination.”

It’s not Greek nor was intended to be

 

 (it does not fit their idea of mind), and so, bemused,

She sat under a volcano waiting for sustenance,

And killed each child individually;

For supper

Had to be prepared.

But no one was hungry

 

Except Tamora,

 

who loved her two sons so much that it 

Made Medea mad with jealousy.

4

And there was Hedda

So angered at the substance within her that a new

Golem, kicking and screaming, was born by

Parthenogenesis from her head.

This new remnant, a table set for three, remember? 

 

 inspired many psalms about hypostasis and faith 

That are still being sung today.

 5

Yet it is a dark time

 

Words have been abbreviated to sustain

 

 The atomic weight of our guilt, which fits sweetly on the head of a pin

 

As it should, along with the dancing angels.

This is so as to not cause pain among the villagers

 

 who have suffered enough.

Silence is helpful, too, in covering bureaucratic stains

Because 

 

Less is more when counting lies.

Non nobis, Domine

 

Composed in solitude,

Now forms auditory spheres,

 

Where multitudes dance in the fire,

 

Until everything breaks forth in strange eruptions:

Passion

 

Distemper

This allows gracious idiots, like me,

 

To play the final note;

Which lingers from blood to blood

Successively,

Generation upon generation

Our birthright, Our empery

Our stardom assured…

Ode on the Infinite Whole

To John Keats with apologies

▒

 

I

 Twenty-four years your name writ in water,

While forty-eight years found me hard by shore;

Just a vagabond blown like a flower

Or seed: skimming waves, wind, poetic lore.

Go back sick tide rot yourself in motion,

For he was too young to go before me,

But how can I scope such an ebbing thought?

Alas, he from Charmian sails to sea,

His love to her pledged with one notion,

To render beauty words carefully wrought.

 

II

              Not drowsy perceptions in senseless inks,

Just watchfulness and sensation itself

Created and matured as one thinks

Of grapes turning wine, aging on the shelf:

As his Indian leaf bore the written child

Of his brain, his East Indian lover,

In leopardess stealth, held magnetism

And sensation’s imperial power

In check and command for the sacred wild

Journey into his romanticism.

 
III

Yes, I suffer migraines after high mirth,

They leave my senses numb, weak and distraught;

But there is solace found often on earth

At the feet of poets and all they taught:

A paradise beckoned all my dunce dreams,

Yet the heavenly guesses left me savage;

So I bade adieu in my journey east

Finding Pallas, Zen, him—not for an age,

Gave me access and cognizance in reams,

And time to change human from senseless beast.

 

IV

Your unfinished lifetime is complete

As all that is half remains infinite;

With double years I found you dead, yet sweet

Strains of your lyrics live as holy writ;

I am too old, too old to follow you,

Too soon to leave my house unfinished

And laurel bare, with but solitude’s O

In murky suburbs of hope diminished

Beyond thought’s beauty and what is my due:

Finding your truth in the infinite whole.

 ▒

By J.T. Bleu

Tokyo, Japan 2004-First Draft, Sapporo, 2006-2-25 Second Draft