6
The Muse has left the building
and I am alone in Helicon
to drink the solitary spring
that gushes forth against the barren rock
and echoes my lone figure
standing in the edge of paradise
to endure the memory of you
who pushed my frail heart to bravado
and endure these smallish things.
You are, and now you were. No more.
If it is me then it is not you, you who disdain it
but it is not me or you
It is not us
there is no us. We are not, not yet
not ever. But did we become what we never were?
Was it what it was then
and when was it where it is now?
Memory, your mother still, betrays you.
The Muse has left the building
and I contemplate in Helicon.
Is it real, really there?
Like places on a map I can trace
with my fingers your neck
and ideas spring like lilacs from your footsteps
where ideals are crushed by pragmatic heels.
I had lost her.
She by whose invocation I started
who drew the tips of my unruly tongue
to forge out the splendor of the world
in the intricacy of the word
and we were felled by them as, laden with meaning
they capsized our Titanic.
Her meaning was my meaning
her life my life
her departure my end.
The Muse has left the building
and I wonder in Helicon.
Is it belief that closes one to wonder
or wonder that springs from belief?
It is what you do, what you show
a cycle, an embrace
the hands that grasp each other in pleasant quarrel
the lips
are they enough?
The answer is in the wind
where the breeze carries your smell
when I do not look
cannot look
pain is in the eye of the beholden
It, is in the blood that fuels the gaze.
You have always wondered what was your scent
and when I wore an old shirt I understood
It, is the scent of the past
old and static, coldly dynamic
grappling at the ropes of reminiscing.
The Muse has left the building
and all is quiet in Helicon.
Did it sing to you like it sang to me
when it sang like the starry night
when the heavenly bodies swung in symphony
and it twinkled lullabies?
Did it fly from you like it fled to me
when it fled like the feather flung free
when the papers scattered in a gust of wind
and they floated down in perfect chaos?
Did it cry from you like it cried in me
when it cried; the widow, the orphan, the dead
when the night came in so the sunlight fled
and by your goodbye it died and bled?
It is not an answer.
It is a question I never had
because I asked you of it
and the reply was no.
Sunday, June 6, 2010
Tuesday, June 1, 2010
A Rediscovery of Lightness: May endings
Pink petal blossoms
strewn on the ground come autumn
They are pretty still.
Billowing waves by the beach
A summer morning.
strewn on the ground come autumn
They are pretty still.
~o~
Billowing waves by the beach
A summer morning.
Thursday, May 27, 2010
A Rediscovery of Lightness: Drops of water
A drop of water
falls mute in the vast ocean–
ripples disappear.
falls mute in the vast ocean–
crescent waves appear.
falls mute in the vast ocean–
ripples disappear.
~o~
falls mute in the vast ocean–
crescent waves appear.
A Rediscovery of Lightness: TOC and Bibliography
A Rediscovery of Lightness
by J.L.L.M., Jr.
by J.L.L.M., Jr.
"Drops of water", (written May 27, 2010)
"May endings", (written May 31, 2010)
Wednesday, May 26, 2010
Nosidam Elegies: The Fifth Elegy
5
The saline rivulets of sorrow
run their course across the cheek
where lingered your caress
pathways sourly retracing
the sweetness of memory
and the bitterness of loss.
I am a jeweler
and these are my beads. Colorless
they shine the loneliness of passion
and the sparkle of yearning's crudeness.
I make a necklace of regrets
and hang that noose around my neck.
Beads, a stream. They never stop
time never stops. We fool ourselves
into thinking time is infinite, time is
always there
as if the stars we saw before
were still alive today.
A streaking wishing
star
in the dead
of night.
Ten months, nine days and three hours
(we can never tell)
I last cried.
Streaks were meant to end
Streaks are all that are left.
The saline rivulets of sorrow
run their course across the cheek
where lingered your caress
pathways sourly retracing
the sweetness of memory
and the bitterness of loss.
I am a jeweler
and these are my beads. Colorless
they shine the loneliness of passion
and the sparkle of yearning's crudeness.
I make a necklace of regrets
and hang that noose around my neck.
Beads, a stream. They never stop
time never stops. We fool ourselves
into thinking time is infinite, time is
always there
as if the stars we saw before
were still alive today.
A streaking wishing
star
in the dead
of night.
Ten months, nine days and three hours
(we can never tell)
I last cried.
Streaks were meant to end
Streaks are all that are left.
Tuesday, May 18, 2010
Nosidam Elegies: The Fourth Elegy
4
Love is not love but love is
Love itself
Love is not love but loving
Love is becoming, love is not yet
not yet, not ever.
Love is forever and never.
You are and I am.
You are, apart from me
Another apart, an other, a part
of me. And I am not
You, for I am, but I am if not you
Nothing.
So we speak the breath of windmills
and the labored exhalations
of the ground after a sudden summer rain.
We do not touch, like sitting in separate seats
brings you closest to me
wafting scents of the familiar
that knew you like the palm of my hand
where the back of your head used to lie
and I lied, my goodbye. Who can part
the sea with his hands
just as we cannot part
the earth and the sky, if only for the horizon
I never reach.
I am nothing, and love is nothing.
Love never was, never will.
It cannot be
Love is the tremor of the unbidden quake
the wind in passing brushed your face
the hands that clasped and intertwined
the lips an instant removed from the second kiss
Love is. It cannot be. We cannot be.
Can we?
Love is not love but love is
Love itself
Love is not love but loving
Love is becoming, love is not yet
not yet, not ever.
Love is forever and never.
You are and I am.
You are, apart from me
Another apart, an other, a part
of me. And I am not
You, for I am, but I am if not you
Nothing.
So we speak the breath of windmills
and the labored exhalations
of the ground after a sudden summer rain.
We do not touch, like sitting in separate seats
brings you closest to me
wafting scents of the familiar
that knew you like the palm of my hand
where the back of your head used to lie
and I lied, my goodbye. Who can part
the sea with his hands
just as we cannot part
the earth and the sky, if only for the horizon
I never reach.
I am nothing, and love is nothing.
Love never was, never will.
It cannot be
Love is the tremor of the unbidden quake
the wind in passing brushed your face
the hands that clasped and intertwined
the lips an instant removed from the second kiss
Love is. It cannot be. We cannot be.
Can we?
Sunday, May 9, 2010
Nosidam Elegies: The Third Elegy
3
It is night
and I look up at the night sky.
I was not supposed to be here
just like we were not supposed
to be
not to be. And we are not
the clouds shifting
and the moon is watching from above
as below the world sleeps.
Except for me
or you, slumped in the swing
now up now down
the sinusoidal wave of hearts beating
I will push you in the swing.
Momentum, momentous
The force of the moment weighs heavily on
me
like gravity pulls us down
to reality.
Clouds overcast, and the stars do not twinkle
The sky is too gray for hopes
or desire too ambiguous to grasp.
Maybe the venue was right
a playground in the city
not the Arcadian countryside
the rustic meadow, or a peaceful valley
but only of children struggling
for grounded happiness against the high rise.
Our rationality defines us,
and we know definitions are walls
if only words were drills
maybe I can reach you.
The wind moves. The cloud canopy
shifts and I feel cold.
The stars are dull but gleam slyly
as if to dare me to cope.
If, by Pascal's estimate
that men are farther from
themselves
than distant planets
I must be Mercury and you must be Pluto
I am spinning fast across the hot splendid sun
and you are not even sure
if you are a planet anymore.
The time between midnight and dawn.
Conversations get nowhere
the babbling distractions
the bubbling emotions.
If clouds were covers and the night was naked
What is never said is what always matters
words create and make concrete
just like the way you close your eyes
to make the kiss less real.
The dawn is breaking
The sky turns from black and blue to blue and white
And sunlight bleeds into the backdrop
Nothing and everything has been said
Can't I just enjoy the view?
Why must I force it out of you?
If I sleep, I die. If I wake, I lie.
If it is the truth
we are both dead.
It is night
and I look up at the night sky.
I was not supposed to be here
just like we were not supposed
to be
not to be. And we are not
the clouds shifting
and the moon is watching from above
as below the world sleeps.
Except for me
or you, slumped in the swing
now up now down
the sinusoidal wave of hearts beating
I will push you in the swing.
Momentum, momentous
The force of the moment weighs heavily on
me
like gravity pulls us down
to reality.
Clouds overcast, and the stars do not twinkle
The sky is too gray for hopes
or desire too ambiguous to grasp.
Maybe the venue was right
a playground in the city
not the Arcadian countryside
the rustic meadow, or a peaceful valley
but only of children struggling
for grounded happiness against the high rise.
Our rationality defines us,
and we know definitions are walls
if only words were drills
maybe I can reach you.
The wind moves. The cloud canopy
shifts and I feel cold.
The stars are dull but gleam slyly
as if to dare me to cope.
If, by Pascal's estimate
that men are farther from
themselves
than distant planets
I must be Mercury and you must be Pluto
I am spinning fast across the hot splendid sun
and you are not even sure
if you are a planet anymore.
The time between midnight and dawn.
Conversations get nowhere
the babbling distractions
the bubbling emotions.
If clouds were covers and the night was naked
What is never said is what always matters
words create and make concrete
just like the way you close your eyes
to make the kiss less real.
The dawn is breaking
The sky turns from black and blue to blue and white
And sunlight bleeds into the backdrop
Nothing and everything has been said
Can't I just enjoy the view?
Why must I force it out of you?
If I sleep, I die. If I wake, I lie.
If it is the truth
we are both dead.
Monday, May 3, 2010
Nosidam Elegies: The First Elegy
1
Let us talk, you and I.
Commuting is the most intimate loneliness
and every step invites you to step down.
I enter, he enters, another enters
Where are we going?
The landscape I am chasing
pans beside my window
and the cars chase their headlights
as if lights know the way
like shooting stars know desire.
I read the signposts that thought
they knew me, and said
I am heading anywhere now
to which they replied,
anywhere is nowhere, and you could do better.
I checked my ticket and
surprise, surprise
I did not know the rules anymore.
I looked inside
and saw passengers, like me
some were new, some were old
and the ghosts of those who had rode
and failed
sat at the back, laughing merrily
as their lives drove past us in their Ferraris.
Maybe I will become a ghost too
and sit there with them
No. I grip the seat in front
and grasped empty air.
When I look out
the pedestrians
are few and far between
Few and far,
between
the stops are
few, far,
between
the steps I take
are few and far between
just like that I am walking.
Did I give up?
We are all going nowhere
and you will say nowhere is somewhere
and I agreed.
Why am I still moving then?
I should have died.
Death is the grandest existence.
Would you let me die then? Or
will I
keep
riding,
Let us talk, you and I.
Commuting is the most intimate loneliness
and every step invites you to step down.
I enter, he enters, another enters
Where are we going?
The landscape I am chasing
pans beside my window
and the cars chase their headlights
as if lights know the way
like shooting stars know desire.
I read the signposts that thought
they knew me, and said
I am heading anywhere now
to which they replied,
anywhere is nowhere, and you could do better.
I checked my ticket and
surprise, surprise
I did not know the rules anymore.
I looked inside
and saw passengers, like me
some were new, some were old
and the ghosts of those who had rode
and failed
sat at the back, laughing merrily
as their lives drove past us in their Ferraris.
Maybe I will become a ghost too
and sit there with them
No. I grip the seat in front
and grasped empty air.
When I look out
the pedestrians
are few and far between
Few and far,
between
the stops are
few, far,
between
the steps I take
are few and far between
just like that I am walking.
Did I give up?
We are all going nowhere
and you will say nowhere is somewhere
and I agreed.
Why am I still moving then?
I should have died.
Death is the grandest existence.
Would you let me die then? Or
will I
keep
riding,
Sunday, May 2, 2010
Nosidam Elegies: The Second Elegy
2
The head on my lap did not stir
your eyes were closed in death
as you breathed my life away
your hands were curled, limp
fists readying to reassert their might
this is not us. No
we are not
a thing. But things we became
like the upholstery of the coffee shop
sagged and reeled and pounded
black as dark, shadows that flit, never met
the table, what scattered thereabouts
mathematics and literature
abstract and abstract
obtuse and abstruse
abstruse not obtuse
that we are.
I hate boredom. It creeps into the flesh
and eats your marrow
to hallow out the halls of nihility in your femur
stagger, blunder, bluster
the knees are weak, empty columns
as I watch you sleep.
The head on my lap did not stir
your eyes were closed to life
and that, unspeakable, that yearned to take
life into life, entwine the two against the yoke
of memory and reason that declined
not so, cannot be, impossibility
so I watched you sleep.
Dreams never come.
The eyes closed, never flickered.
Paths were narrow, and straight, and brook no distinction
no intersection
how then when I walk
the path disappears, incoherent
the babble of Babel
rejected the heavens, to reach the heavens.
No
we will not be.
Things are, they seem. But beneath
it’s true, my rivers of blood
flow you. Out the heart through the body into the heart
the heart, what heart, oh that heart
pump pump pump.
A slump, a shrug. Sigh.
Your mouth is half-open
and I can see your teeth.
The head on my lap did not stir
your eyes were closed to life and death
yearn to break we bridged the gap
I crossed and got thrown back
maybe once I could come in, but not now
not ever. Not ever?
Then why is the upholstery here?
Lies or truth.
Do I lie because it kept
or is it truth that lied to be there?
Do you lie because it felt
or is it truth that confused?
And my eyes are open
and your eyes are closed
yet we are both seeing eye to eye
yet we are both blind.
The head on my lap did not stir
your eyes were closed in death
as you breathed my life away
your hands were curled, limp
fists readying to reassert their might
this is not us. No
we are not
a thing. But things we became
like the upholstery of the coffee shop
sagged and reeled and pounded
black as dark, shadows that flit, never met
the table, what scattered thereabouts
mathematics and literature
abstract and abstract
obtuse and abstruse
abstruse not obtuse
that we are.
I hate boredom. It creeps into the flesh
and eats your marrow
to hallow out the halls of nihility in your femur
stagger, blunder, bluster
the knees are weak, empty columns
as I watch you sleep.
The head on my lap did not stir
your eyes were closed to life
and that, unspeakable, that yearned to take
life into life, entwine the two against the yoke
of memory and reason that declined
not so, cannot be, impossibility
so I watched you sleep.
Dreams never come.
The eyes closed, never flickered.
Paths were narrow, and straight, and brook no distinction
no intersection
how then when I walk
the path disappears, incoherent
the babble of Babel
rejected the heavens, to reach the heavens.
No
we will not be.
Things are, they seem. But beneath
it’s true, my rivers of blood
flow you. Out the heart through the body into the heart
the heart, what heart, oh that heart
pump pump pump.
A slump, a shrug. Sigh.
Your mouth is half-open
and I can see your teeth.
The head on my lap did not stir
your eyes were closed to life and death
yearn to break we bridged the gap
I crossed and got thrown back
maybe once I could come in, but not now
not ever. Not ever?
Then why is the upholstery here?
Lies or truth.
Do I lie because it kept
or is it truth that lied to be there?
Do you lie because it felt
or is it truth that confused?
And my eyes are open
and your eyes are closed
yet we are both seeing eye to eye
yet we are both blind.
Nosidam Elegies: TOC and Bibliography
Nosidam Elegies
by J.L.L.M., Jr.
by J.L.L.M., Jr.
Table of Contents
Part I:
Individual poems:
“The First Elegy”, (written May 3, 2010)**
Part I:
- The First Elegy
- The Second Elegy
- The Third Elegy
- The Fourth Elegy
- The Fifth Elegy
- The Sixth Elegy
- The Seventh Elegy
- The Final Elegy (A Dream)
Individual poems:
“The First Elegy”, (written May 3, 2010)**
“The Second Elegy”, (written May 2, 2010)**
“The Third Elegy”, (written May 9, 2010) “The Fourth Elegy”, (written May 18, 2010)
"The Fifth Elegy”, (written May 26, 2010)
“The Sixth Elegy”, (written June 6, 2010)
"The Seventh Elegy", (written April 4, 2012)
"The Final Elegy (A Dream)" (written April 14, 2012)
"The Seventh Elegy", (written April 4, 2012)
"The Final Elegy (A Dream)" (written April 14, 2012)
** Each poem was originally posted in Facebook prefaced with an excerpt from Letters to a Young Poet by Rainer Maria Rilke, as translated by Stephen Mitchell.
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