The Tao Rhymes
I watch the trees at midnight, brushing back the silence from the stars. Tiny animals with yellow eyes scratch amongst the fallen leaves, a distant music weaving dreams in calico. The shadows are penniless. The iron gates are locked. The spears above the graveyard gleam like heroes in retreat. The wind cries, and one by one the hours glide by and gild the palace in her mind with mothballs made of sand. A sad clown’s wrinkled rapture beguiles the new moon’s toothless grin. And then we know the time has come. A future borrowed from coincidence beckons the ferry of stone. The absurdity of language looks chaos in the face, and the Tao rhymes.
windmills
the perfect argument
in reverse
leaving home
how water flows
through a fisherman’s net
alone on a quay
did I miss the boat
or did the boat miss me
rain through city lights
wet stars
winking at my feet
springtime
whistling out of tune
as loudly as I can
cloud poem
a mountain lake
the mapmaker missed
a bird
sipping rain
from a worn-out shoe
summertime
a duck floating backwards
under drowsy willows
stray cat
yawning in the sun
a busker’s slide trombone
perfectly useless
a leaf falls
on a sunny day
summer ends
a smooth pebble
in a child’s hand
the right time
to settle down
autumn leaves
firewood
the promise
of a long night
snow falls
an old monk
sets aside his beads
drinking with Li Po
red-faced moonflowers
blowing trumpets at the setting sun
an old fisherman
untangles his net
one by one the stars
a knowing wink
from the old man
in the mirror
dust to dust
the fuzzy logic
of dandelions
rain lifts my little boat
I trail the oars and let
the waters let me go
A Winter’s Tale
winter sun
her shadow follows her
onto the train
an angel
knitting lace
snowflakes
a snowflake falls
on a snowman
faces in a crowd
snowflakes dance
around the hungry sparrows
no two the same
horses steaming
in a field of snow, one by one
the stars
winter night
an old pair of gloves
on the woodpile
a glass of milk
in her unsteady hand
moonlight on a frozen lake
snow flurries
a flutter in the heart
of the waiting room
a tuneless whistling
frets the old man’s lips
winter wind
so help me nothing above starlight on snow
starless night
a snow man
with eyes of coal
snow falls
on evergreens
boxes in the attic
friends pass away
snowflakes
melting against the window
winter stars
close enough to touch
her cold hands
epitaph
the stone
beneath the snow
winter rain
the three snow men
kneel as one
late winter
an icicle drips
on an empty mailbox
sunlight on snow
a rabbit sleeps
in the magician’s hat
spring snow melts . . .
far from the sea
a marmot sings
Untitled
Who are you? A mirror’s question never means the same thing twice; no two you’s use that reflection. You too. Two u’s in ululate sing the same one’s gone.
Finger-prince
Unravel the mysteries, Ariadne.
Ariadne, the thread is fine.
It is dark on the way to the lava,
A mountain coming with wine.
Ariadne, the thread is broken.
Ariadne, the thread is fine.
A light still turns in the lava,
The labyrinth of time.
Through the eye of a needle
Pull the thread, Ariadne.
Unravel these mysteries of mine.
The 18th Arrondissement
Slowly the French penetrated my understanding, or perhaps it was the loud voice of the gendarme, whose face was about six inches from my ear. “Go back, or go to jail.” My eyes were fixed on the thin stream of blood, trickling between my legs, from the forehead of the dead robber. What struck me most was the perfect circle of the bullet hole, centered, also perfectly, between his eyes.
I had been swept across the street with the crowd as I exited the Metro at Marx Dormoy. When we arrived in front of Le Grand Magasin the gunfire had stopped and a getaway car was speeding away, pursued by the police. Everyone saw the dead man. The others, fluent in French, soon moved back across the street. I was transfixed.
Once I became aware of the angry gendarme at my side, I too moved away, and continued along the street to the apartment where I lived with friends. I bought a bottle of wine on my way home. As we ate dinner that night, I told the story, as I tell it here. A remarkable experience.
Experience is defined as the impression left by contact with an event or occurrence, which serves as a basis of knowledge. It is said that experiences play a crucial role in shaping our lives and influencing our perspectives, that they contribute to personal growth, empathy, and understanding of the world around us. Experience includes episodic memory – reliving a past event that can be explicitly stated, which I have done with this piece of writing and on countless occasions in conversation. Psychologists and cognitive scientists believe that emotion tends to increase the likelihood that an event will be remembered later. Some experiences are transformative, being so powerful that they leave one a different person from who they were before.
All this assumes that an experience has meaning, which begs the question: What was or is the meaning of my experience on that evening in Paris? I don’t know. Which is a strange answer since I began this rather prolix discussion of experience by defining it in connection with knowledge.
In writing this piece, I faced a problem of the difference between knowledge and expression, which is a problem of relationship and difference. Although I learned nothing in the immediacy of my experience seeing the dead robber, facing the need to give my account of that experience an appropriate ending (a well-written story, unlike life, requires some sense of closure), I discovered something important. The 18th arrondissement, known as Butte-Montmartre, is mostly known for hosting the large hill of Montmartre known for its artistic history, the Moulin Rouge cabaret, and the prominent Sacré-Coeur Basilica which sits atop the hill. The 18th arrondissement also contains the Goutte d'Or district, designated a Sensitive Urban Zone, an area defined by the authorities to be a high-priority target for city policy, taking into consideration local circumstances related to the problems of its residents.
In the end (to the extent that there is one), one must make a choice about whether what happens stands in relation to one’s own existence or whether it is something alien, incommensurably apart from the concerns and considerations of one’s own life.
a street light flickers
blurry eyes
count the coins again
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