the door : a poem in three parts

Susanna and the Elders c. 1555
Jacopo Robusti aka Tintoretto

part one of the poem 
<conversation between poem and eye>

who needs heaven 
as a subscription time share trick 
when hell says come as you are 
right now and develop yourself 
in spite of you 

I am human 
I need light while living 
the pain of love to bear 
arms and alms 
I poorly set goals 
places to go 
when steadfast 
and walking back  
into the sea
I'd rather be poem 
at least home 
in a womb constancy 

now 
is all imaginative leaning 
what poem says 
have I for you today 
I do fear rejection 
for being a poet 
been told I am selfish 
for wanting expression 
as my path 

I am 
I am being 
is it not meant 
to grind one's self  
bone smooth ash 
compost-ed byproducts 
scraped cared for cave guano 
sacred scared 
reigned reins taken 
baked in pie November tills 
trill raw before 
the frosts come 

poem says 
it is a flower 
on the inside 
and that it
hopes to always be 
eternal Spring arriving 
a darling draped dying 
first quenched thirst 
with a poet's humanity 

poem says
it paints  
and re-paints 
itself eyeless patina 
with a lean of 
nose and ear 
in regard 
to how sweet 
and certain 
scent and sound 
could be 
recalling events 
in the near 
and far past 

of course I know life doth frames 
as it's want to do 
I've bled it from the canvas 
as words stained my shoe 

and this piece 
is important poem says 
your vignette-d happened upon 
gang membership ritual 
and what you said to yourself aloud :

" what cups with whose blood 
do I have to fill 
and drink until 
my marrow 
says no soul 
can consume 
this much ..."



la segunda parte del poema
<The Mezquita of Cördoba>

ancient Moors 
Mauritanians 

plied sky to ways and means 
following cloud to seafaring 
repeated interval-ian manuscript-ionists 
they kept themselves wild 
with a fierce held imaginative identity 

were the Moors 
only nomadic 
sons of Ishmael   
did they just pay 
the freight of conquer 
to keep their flocks  
tended along the sands 
south of the Mediterranean sea 
and when they built stone to sky 
how did they know 
a love of geometry 
could take one's mind 
into a deepening future 
spatial uncertainty 
has a certain charm 
it disarms you 
when you close your eyes 
here, then smell and listen 
you can be found 
wingless but fleet 
hermetically unsealed 
by partitions 
they ignite one  
switch at a time 
inside you 
what is halted 
then is vaulted 
inner eye's 
mindful mathematics 
a soul's limbs 
will reach with 

so did they 
just tend 
to their minds 
as desert wanderers 
did they just 
become Mauritanians 


la troisième partie du poème 
<un après-midi au musée Clark>

we've become more attain-ians too 

these days one cannot find 
a sacred place without an icon 
driving the sale's pitch 
frequency modulation 
fine garden and garb abound 
the hills and old homes 
laid out in dolloped dainty 
to jagged perfections 
with infinity pools 
strung to the sky 
above the grasses 
stone walls and walks 
pebble to pedagogic foot pressure 
all of Prado's nudes here are tuned in to
with the lilies and water-skinning insects 
that knew Debussy's 'La danse de Puck' 
from the first few notes playing slowly 
in the curious light of this poet's life 
through which death's open door 
the elders had come to notice 

EJR ©