POEMS GROUP 24: SAMSARA

संसर (SAMSARA) - NEGATIONS I:

POIÊTES INTERRUPTUS

Ideally,
a poet creates poetry.

what though, if said poetry gets to be written much more sparsely
much less frequently
with much less of a perceived attempt at regularity

what is a poet
if a poet does not write?

what is a writer
that does not write?

does it at all matter
whether I intended to write?
have the mindset to write?
am poised over the keys?
plan to, waste time planning to, yet fail to execute?

I'd just be happy for the benefit of a doubt
yet otherwise, I'm drawing blanks
coating them in subpar words
communicating meaning, but not insight

How does this happen?

the poet acts? poiêsis is making? what am I making? how am I acting?

Maybe

If you have a poet with a proven track record of doing some poeting
and the stated intent of still doing that, in principle,
then a lack of production of actual poems - or their increased frequency of occurring -
should be seen as some form of artistic act in itself

can the absence of poetry can still be poetry?

a performance of nothingness, a nothingness that matters?
made possible
by the necessity
to feed and house said poet
by seeing said poet having a job

maybe a picture could be illustrative
showing an office
with a poet in it.

It reads:

"This here was once, and still is, or could be, a poet. Earning nothing but artistic nothingness."

Or:
"This here is now, and will be, or should be, a poet without poetry output. Earning a living."

Are you now,
or have you ever been,
oh well. I guess money trumps everything.

Poesia interrupta

Poetes interruptus?

Clearly, I don't know what to do here anymore, and this by all means should be declared a low point in this poet's little inconsequential artistic life. Best not to be read at all, and heck no, do not even think about it, no, shush, no. What are you looking at still?

January 1st, 2017 / December 29th, 2018

संसर (SAMSARA) - NEGATIONS II:

STRANGE ENCOUNTERS

You tend to

Meet

Strange people

On your journey

January 7th, 2017 / December 29th, 2018

संसर (SAMSARA) - NEGATIONS III:

LORD OF HOSTS

Let me praise the Lord of hosts in Rome
His stuff is sweeter
Than the rest
The original deal
I guess

March 26th, 2017 / December 29th, 2018

संसर (SAMSARA) - NEGATIONS IV:

WHAT WE CAN DO

we can only do
what we can do
in the time alotted

it is fleeting
should you use it?
should you waste it?

what is waste?
is time to be used
or just to be lived?

you can return home
for a limited time
but you cannot stay

everything else is just
nostalgia
everything changes

we are moving
in space
in time

going
nowhere
maybe that's just the point?

July 8th, 2017 / December 29th, 2018

संसर (SAMSARA) - NEGATIONS V:

SCREAM I MIGHT JUST

scream I might just
or I might not

In the right I am
or maybe not

but one thing's true
or maybe not

and yet, how do we now
or do we never

get going on
or no more going

maybe - not - and might
or might not

August 3rd, 2017 / December 29th, 2018

संसर (SAMSARA) - NEGATIONS VI:

LIFE AS WE KNOW IT

life as we know it
is not as we know it

for we know nothing
of it

September 2nd, 2017 / December 29th, 2018

संसर (SAMSARA) - NEGATIONS VII:

HOME, AGAIN

a notion of nostalgia
embedded
within a memory:

seeing a picture
of that familiar city
familiar and yet so different:

and yet,
the past
is past

but how I long
to walk these once familiar streets again
in regularity:

and yet I know
that what I used to call my home
is not that now, and maybe never shall be

what I retain
is a memory
in this far-away new place

farther
away
each year

September 3rd, 2017 / December 29th, 2018

संसर (SAMSARA) - NEGATIONS VIII:

MY VOICE

I'm trying to recover
what once I think I had
what once I think I could say
what once I think was important:

a voice of my own
not just a voice in a crowd

something I once aspired to
but somehow fear I have lost
needs to return
and wants to be heard

September 3rd, 2017 / December 29th, 2018

संसर (SAMSARA) - NEGATIONS IX:

HOTEL

there is a bed here
that is not mine
and beckons
yet I know it not:

and so I am torturing the empty page
to finally gain weakness
to have it
weigh me down

how spoiled to be able to travel
and not to appreciate a different space:
and yet, a home is a home,
and a hotel, just a necessity

September 3rd, 2017 / December 29th, 2018

संसर (SAMSARA) - NEGATIONS X:

I MEANT TO SAY SOMETHING

now it's gone
it was just here
I meant to say something
but suddenly, the mind is blank
I can still feel it
this elation
tied to an important thought
but the thought behind
is lost
may yet return
but not now, I feel
and yet
even in its absence
it has created a poem
out of nothingness
something
)that wasn't it(

September 8th, 2017 / December 29th, 2018

संसर (SAMSARA) - NEGATIONS XI:

ALL JUST NOISE

need to shut it off
the television in the background, off
the beeping nonsense notifications, off
the effing f*c*book,
all the whining, complaining, world-saving, world-ruining, off

it is a lie
that we live in a different world now
that you cannot undo
that you cannot switch off
switch it all off

except
music
real music
not kid music
give me classical, or at least electro (not house)
something with thought
where brain and mind matter more than balls and dicks and boobs and fun

celebrate
the brain
the feeling
over the arousal

the analysis
over the complacency

the work
over easily, ill gotten gains

the pain, and the dissonance
over happy happy joy joy oh how I fucking hate that fucking shit!

switch it off
the happy clapping

give space to the brain
and all those other-directed masses
the idiocy of crowds
the facebook lunancy
be gone

people matter
not bits on a newsfeed

discourse matters
exchange matters
humility matters

WE ARE ALL THE SAME
AND WE ARE ALL FUCKED UP

stop with the juvenilia
and be a real boy, or girl, or whatever, just grow up;
oh, how we've all become little Pinocchios
telling lies about our selves
these outrageous personae for public consumption
and yet inside
the human cries
as the brain withers
and true empathy is gone my dearest Walt,
"I celebrate myself
and I sing myself
and what I assume
you shalt assume"
that was very necessary then
now, it needs to be taken off
it's feeding the crowds
of the narcissists
and their enablers
and nothing anymore original gets done

good grief,
and it's all so predictable,
and all so corporate

manufactured dissent, yes, Dr. Chomsky, for once I agree with you

this is the Matrix now
I would like to unplug
but how to see then
how it goes on?

thus I'll stay a prisoner
of an insane system
and a feedback loop
bringing the worst out in people

and all I can do
is to defeat postmodern
identity masturbation

with truest admonishing modernism,
and yield I shall to Yeats:

"Turning and turning in the widening gyre
The falcon cannot hear the falconer;
Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;
Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,
The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere
The ceremony of innocence is drowned;
The best lack all conviction, while the worst
Are full of passionate intensity."

Oh geez, let's hope not

and personally, a second coming
would be quite disastrous for us all -
as we would possible not even notice it

time to unplug,
and finally,
to live

September 18th, 2017 / December 29th, 2018

संसर (SAMSARA) - NEGATIONS XII:

I SPLIT MY SELF IN TWO

I split my self in two
one, a ghost, over there
the other, a shadow of my self quite here

January 1st / December 29th, 2018

संसर (SAMSARA) - NEGATIONS XIII:

CLOSED-UP WORDS

I need to tell you something
with closed-up words
yet with open heart:
with an open mind
but a fear-tied tongue

you already have an advantage over those
speaking in open words
their open heart
with their closed-up mind
and youthful tongue

too much now, I fear
are we yearning for words
as if they were hearts
just quite like our minds
and true, open tongues:

and yet,
whatever has happened
will happen again
some bangs will be whispers,
some whispers become bangs

you see, we seem to believe
in the most arrogant of hopefulness
that the past is the past
and that we are the future
and the future is now:

yet in all this urgency,
in all this willing a future to be,
in all this - - - conjuring
the clearest result
will be self-inflicted wounds

for the past is prolog
the future uncertain
the present impatient
for the new age to be born
and yet, now is never future tense

we can well hope
we can well dare
we can well dream
we can well share

January 10th / December 29th, 2018

संसर (SAMSARA) - NEGATIONS XIV:

THE CITY

trains never sleep
as they wind themselves
in their glistening gray
their 11-ish wagons
thrown into the curve
with the occasional sparks
and ta-tam-ta-tamm of the wheels
lunging over the well-aged steel
supported by greatly aged wood
over the hustle
of trucks
and firetrucks
and big cars
and little cars
and taxi cabs
and the occasional audacious cyclist
and never-may-care pedestrian
all in the midst
no wonder
it's so difficult to sleep
in this city of cities
that is the world

March 27th / December 29th, 2018

संसर (SAMSARA) - NEGATIONS XV:

AUSTER-TRACING IN NEW YORK

I gave up after a few blocks

but I clearly can see the method
behind the madness

of course I traced the map in the book
makes no sense
apparent to me

but I do see
that you can see
the strangest patterns
strangest stories
strangest voices out of the voids behind these pitch black windows

who or what might we find
behind those windows hewn into the brownstone projects?
or the more delicate glass cathedrals of towers so high?
whose lives want we imagine? whose would we want live? whose quickly forget?

somebody may be watching me
I may well be watching somebody
both may be true
in this city,
you are always seen, and always will see

March 27th / December 29th, 2018

संसर (SAMSARA) - NEGATIONS XVI:

WELCOME BACK

welcome back
old friend
I've missed you kind of,
knew you were just around
the corner of
my eye:

always lurking
always a personified
question mark
a doubt
subliminal
yet manifest
in moments of these:

alone, in the house, in the home that should be home
but never can be:
for home can only be home if it is Heimat
this here, is exile, self-imposed:
a home away from home
a home competing with home

if the home
was populated at least
with my +1
it would seem my exile had a purpose

for it can never be just home

but let me tell you
aside from that,
it's great, even greater than back home -

oh, were it only so simple
ever

I scour the land
for remnants of mine
I scour the people
to see faces like I used to
I scour the places
that should worship like me, but don't

all my life here,

will it have been an experiment?
Forever a stranger in a strange land?

I say I want to be here
but do I really?

Without my +1,
I am lost,
I'm a babbling fool
In a country more strange
than she'd ever know

It is not getting any easier
but worse with age

Can you transplant the East German to America?

March 27rd / December 29th, 2018

संसर (SAMSARA) - NEGATIONS XVII:

IN FRONT OF MY HOUSE, 3:15 AM

standing
in the middle of the night
actually, 3:15 Ante Meridiem,
in front of my house

sleepless
sleepless I am
worrying
warring with my self

is this here
my life?
should it be
or is it illusion?

I am confused.
far away from home, I try to call home, for solace.

no answer on that.

July 18th / December 29th, 2018

संसर (SAMSARA) - NEGATIONS XVIII:

SADDEST DISTANCE

not everything
can be overcome
not every circumstance
avoided
not every separation
bridged

life is just moments
strung together
while all may matter
you may need to make some count
just a bit more
before you cannot
any longer

August 11th / December 29th, 2018

संसर (SAMSARA) - NEGATIONS XIX:

HAPPY TIMES

what a sacrilege.
the world is dying.
politics is revolting.
ideologies proliferate.
civility, freedom, and niceness are gone.

and yet.

I feel so guilty.

I'm happy.

These are the happiest years of my life.

I dare not say it, dare not speak it,
yet I'm happy beyond belief,
and while my love is sleeping in the bed behind me,
while I'm typing up these lines,
I will write to her now:

you are without doubt
the light of my life
and anything in the world
does matter not
and where, how we live and work,
does matter not

to be this happy is almost criminal in these times,
but it is a crime I happily commit,
knowing you're sleeping
right there,

and I will be joining you
momentarily,
my love

November 14th / December 29th, 2018

संसर (SAMSARA) - NEGATIONS XX:

HELLO AND GOODBYE

Every Hello

Will become a goodbye

Eventually

December 16th / 29th, 2018

संसर (SAMSARA) - NEGATIONS XXI:

THE SEA AT NIGHT

waves breaking in the darkness
of night
no moonlight
in sight
just some flashlight
illuminating
the approaching
sea
that is not at all
pacific
(what a misnomer
that is)

Have to step back
time and again
the sea's coming closer
it seems
than when watched by the sun

I guess the moon is stronger
than I'd thought
through the dark clouds
and the mist of the sea
pulling at the sea
in hiding

The gulls are nervous
cannot sleep
always evading
the sea

I see the waves
with the little light I have

tiny me
facing this force

always coming
always going

semper crescis
aut decrescis

we really have no clue
no clue at all
how small we really are

the gulls are grinning at me in the dark
they know

nature always knows

December 12th / December 29th, 2018

संसर (SAMSARA) - NEGATIONS XXII:

I

I am sensing a certain sense of a sense that something is off
a sense of foreboding
a sense of alienation
a sense that something is not quite right here
and the overwhelming desire to undo something
that simply
is wrong

the world is wrong
we know what it is
but only in feeling
we can only allude to it

the world is not a good place
we were told, in recent years of affluence, relatively,
that this was the best of all possible worlds

it is not
or maybe it is
yes, it was
but only
when compared
to ages past filled with horrors we've managed to push to the side.

outmaneuvered, not defeated -
the old demons
are just waiting in the wings
inside ourselves

only a matter of time

II

maybe though
it's not the world
but us that are wrong

badly fitting in
not doing as told
not doing the right things

not doing them the way they are
supposed
to be done

we've outgrown the garden
and left
out of our own volition:

ain't we to blame then?
ain't we defective?
ain't it us, after all?

III

yet no matter what you believe
whether you see that the universe made us
or whether you need a god in the middle:

this is
what we are
supposed to be

these are our genes
setting us off
into the world biologically

this is our history
setting us off
into the world contextually

these are our
parents neighbors teachers peers students kids strangers
all in the world with us

to blame us ourselves
for all of it
that ain't quite right

the world is wrong
it always was
it always will be:

because that is the only way it works
it is always wrong
because it has to be wrong

so that we
can use our chance
to make it right

just bit
by
bit

December 29th, 2018