Poetry
Letter from
Friends, let us wake with disbelief,
bare our souls, tell our stories, lose our eyes,
become vagrants of the Sea.
Let us seek the heat
of the kernel that feeds in the dark
and step aside of men whose twisted lips
pretend to lead, but are not real
in their pursuit of war.
I’ve already seen years
of massacre, hydrogen light the night,
children with mined eyes, tortured by what
no one should ever see.
Let us leave our security,
open our memory, bring flowers
from the storm, write letters that become
sanctuaries, so that we ourselves
may become sanctuaries.
Friends, a dream
runs up to me smiling. I call on you
to see in the dark, to finish
the song inside you.
No Superlatives Please
There’s really not much to it.
If you’re a poet, sire delight through what you write.
If a vagabond, fry the fish with its eye pointed up.
And if in Chang Mai, drink heavily of unidentified tea.
I’ve placed a white hibiscus in your hair
over breakfast and helped tie a filigree amulet
around the smooth blue throat under your face.
Today I won’t go for my mail. No news from the outside, please.
You’ve got my shoes, I’ve got your socks, and together
we’re barefoot in Li Po’s moonflower shop,
these names and incidents all true.
“And I am glad for everything beyond
the normal and how we choose it” you write, as I feel
the back of your leg swollen with a tropical bite.
Call it chance, coincidence, synchronicity. Or what was it
you said about the note Coltrane hit,
Today I’ll caress endlessly
every square centimeter of light rippling
through the air, and not call it something, or look for it
over there, or eat from it in my lap, but forsake the superlative,
be faithful to the shared fidelity of mistaken identities
within the engaged obsession of the moment.
Coomaraswamy called it perpetual
uncalculated life in the present, and Alan Watts,
he wanted to know, does the light in the refrigerator
really go off when you shut the door?
Let’s walk to the Alligator Cafe,
catch up on the world’s latest evil doings, order wine,
raise our good cholesterol level, sit back and unpsychoanalyze
those rare blossoms stuck to our heels.
After all, every straight line can be bent
into a circle, a bridge, a rainbow. There is light inside the pockets,
the window of darkness holds a balcony of flowers.
These words let us see out
and in. These stories put us together again.
Pun Lumbung, Bali
What Dagger, What Thirst?
“What is meant by happiness? To live
every
unhappiness. What is meant by light? To gaze
with
undimmed eyes on all darknesses.”
—Nikos Kazantzakis
What histories lie hidden
in these veins and wings, these roamers
walking, peddling and circumcising their
young?
What sunrise
through the stink of charm, what
beaker of foam, whose flag, what
bloodhounds
at the foot of the rainbow?
Where’s this kid
who comes up to me in a Jakarta alley
with a fetus floating in bottle for sale
from,
what’s his life?
What that guy with no arms tying ribbons
around the sky, singing a song of secret
beauty
in the middle of day all about?
Where’s this woman in lowcut red on the
bus
whose thigh wets mine in equatorial heat
going?
What bruised arms and walnut skin
darkened
with rain eats gravel for a living in the
while milk leaks from her left breast?
Who? This Laxmi, this Magdalene, this
child
in the back room sewing costumes
for the living?
What secret grip undid the knot?
what loosened atrium brought from egg and
seed
these coughing sisters of unwed mothers?
Rain fills the vacuum of nirvana
I am going to the same place as you
on your anonymous bicycle, as you
in your trick of mystery
The earth is peopled with us
The dogpack derelict in high towers of glass
I think a thought in a mirror
of canceled evidence, let you suck out my eyes
so I can feel my way through oblivion
Whose leg under mine
understands the world is a cataract over a perfect eye?
We are clownfish in a reef
while shepherds of crime go about their trade
This skin inside yours, this sultan’s
pavilion, these sweepers of dark streets...
I hear them as we scream, hear the fingers
at the window and my voice like sand
What is it we call it when we finally remember?
What steeple, what canyon, what lifetime,
whose cry broke the waist of the hourglass?
Jalan Jaksa,
Perhaps
Perhaps it’s the bomb craters
filled with stars after the rain, the raw fix
in the nostrils of tilled fields and wet thatch.
Perhaps it’s the bed of the rusted war truck
where the farmer begins his rice seedlings.
Or the television back home
showing war like a movie, but never the widow’s
broken teapot painted with falling blossoms.
Perhaps it’s the eggplants in the wicker basket
holding dawn through the heat of day,
The carpenter napping under Buddha.
a street vendor offering a persimmon in the mist,
or the baker’s lamp flickering before dawn.
Perhaps the mountain path never led
to the bombed temple or the burned clinic,
but to hills of moonlit bamboo where the poet sat.
Perhaps the typhoon washed old battlefields
to sea, and the ancestors’ graves bloomed
sky blue with morning glories.
Perhaps it’s your eyes, the short dusk, fine rain
turning sidewalk carnations silver, or your hand in mine
on the
Perhaps it was you I was trying to find,
talking to the cyclo driver in the wrong tones.
Perhaps it was the thunderhead
over the ancient script on the red gate
that said “Long Life” —or the wisteria scent
Under the window of the inn
where you shut your eyes, and wanted to sleep
after you told me your name.
I Saw the World Floating By
Lovers moaned while the movie rolled.
Silence bled from a knocked-out loser in the ring.
A cat in heat jumped the steps of an old church in sleep.
The human crossed looked sad
inside its splintered glass. Under a passing comet
a beggar’s violin opened its wings.
Morning brought flowers from the sun
while people stood in line for gas, butter and psychotherapy.
Newspapers declared the price of meat had risen,
but the price of skin remained the same.
Torture went by the same old name,
dressed to kill in suit and tie.
In a park, between waving trees
not one sneeze undid the tai-chi masters
from their calculated frieze.
A gorgeous lady flashed her thighs
speaking aerobic rhythm from 22 showroom tvs
while speed bumps shook assorted rumps
and chess players timed clockwise moves.
Around a corner, came a guy like me
talking to himself under a perfect sky
as Dow Jones took a dive.
For a fact the world was fiction—
Some thought black holes had another side.
Others bragged of their computer’s memory
never considering how many songs Lightning Hopkins
stored beneath his tongue.
Everywhere, successful people applauded careers.
Personalities born from relentless clones peddled themselves
while the rings of Saturn groaned.
Clearly I was alive
in a time when nothing came to an end.
Under the bright, round moon I wiped my eyes.
All of this came to me
in the streets, looking for a friend
while the earth propped its feet on the table
and the lining of my shoes wore thin.
125th & Broadway, NYC / 1997
Late Afternoon
Over a Bottle of
Sake
Blue clouds float
backwards in autumn sky.
Cottonwoods twirl in leaf song.
You open a bottle
of the finest sake. We scan the trees.
“Year after year, the same leaves
Over and over again.”
Your hair is white, life is full.
Bodhidharma, Buddy Holly
now silent in the meditation hall.
Sun stands on its legs,
The broken hoe
has become a morning glory.
You, a funny old guy with lots to say.
Buddha was born from Mara’s side.
Christ from a virgin.
Lao Tzu, barefoot, in a falling star.
What do you mean by miracle
I ask. You tell me your roshi told you
“Stand, now sit
You have just seen a miracle.”
No Ship Will Ever Take You
Away from Yourself
—Cavafy
Abyss washed clean by fathoms of mist.
Hallway around the world I wake
under a cover too thin, finish a poem, fill the pen.
Teapot nods its lid.
High crags shine in warm breeze.
Who is this man working through words
to find stance in the journey?
A foot taps up and down under the table.
A sudden gust turns the page.
Empty, it holds spring
sunlight.
I Am Not I but Everyone
Madness overpowers the world.
Reins slip from the horse and drag across the field.
Laundry flaps under the stars like dangling handcuffs.
I hear the bucket crack with ice,
see lights of distant towns on cloud bottoms;
follow dark shadows in a dry river course.
Too soon, what is seen becomes memory.
Our insistence on violence overpowers
the soft-beating vows of nuptial circles. What hope
without an anguished sideglance into today?
What music without silence,
what sleeper rising from the grave without
questions, revolt, solidarity, exchange—
A heart beats in the baboon
A heart beats in the eucalyptus
A heart beats underground in a cocoon,
on the 70th floor in
Someone sleeps in stone, someone
lights a grenade in the mouth of a prisoner.
Someone jumps from a flaming tower.
We own nothing.
We are but a spark, the possibility
of rivers shaking hands. We are animals
almost extinct at the water hole.
We can raise the cup, pass the key,
unlock the door. We can yield to one another,
untie the knot that tightens our countries,
our bodies, our limitless possibility.
For portfolio of current work, please send inquiries to johnbrandi@cybermesa.com