Category Archives: POETRY

From an Image of Dunbeath

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ROCK POOLS AT DUNBEATH, By Jean Horseman

 

Impended by November’s damp,
I would brace against a rocky shelf.
In oilcloth, beneath an old sowester–
my back to the wind to guard the ember
of a good cigar; a flask of Highland Park
in a felt pouch hanging from my neck;
a surveyor’s notebook in my left hand
and a stub of a pencil in my right–
I would ask no more from the storm
than synaptic sparks to connect
my words and sensibilities,
perhaps mistaking how what rules the
firmament above writes dreams below.

                 G W Sisk
                 Nov. 2012

 

Spring Planner

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I believe all the frogs that survived beaks and teeth and the long dry summer are now safely ensconced wherever it is frogs ensconce safely.  Here’s to hoping enough of them got laid that we’ll hear much about it next summer.

The Moon

Too soon the moon
reflects a dappled gleam
on clambered hump
of grumping green
declined on lily bed of
sparked genetic dream.
Too soon, too late,
or misdirected swoon?
Shallow noiseless wakes
of willow legs impugn
the creeping grumbling
belly of a patient loon.

               
               Oct. 2012

 

Sleeping Moon

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rush rush run
howl the wind
the moon the mooon
howl the wolves
the wolf the wooolf
howl the moon
but you dont hear
her casting song
what with your deceiving ears
casting her hook
at twinkling eyes
fishing for the sun
for her the stars put on a guise.
I am the sun I am the sun!
Foolish moon
moon mooon!
Rush rush run
the sun he runs too soon
he twirls his curls down to the
wolves and warms the wind
and the stars all wallow
in their shame
so do the wolves and wind
and other things,
the moon and sun are of the same.

Hana Kurahara Sisk
Sept. 2012

Hana is my young daughter, though her age belies the truth about her old soul.  We both enjoy writing and often send extemporaneous poetry to each other via text messaging.  For both of us it’s a way of avoiding the mundane: homework, chores, paying bills.
There is a notable difference between her poetry and mine.  I put a great deal of effort into my poetry; for the same results, she writes with ease.  Though she reads my poetry and feels free to comment and ask questions, I never worry about her emulating me.  She already has a voice that goes with that old soul.

Sept. 23, 2012

Athena Winced

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If you’ve been around cattle, you already know what comes out the end opposite the nose. You also know that in politics, as in the barnyard, what goes around comes around.
Socrates, democracy’s supreme rabble-rousing patriot, could have escaped his legal predicament simply by leaving Athens.  History says he surrendered because of his sense of obligation to Athens’ judicial system, flawed as it was.  I think he was also so sickened by the decline of Athenian democracy that he couldn’t bare to watch its death from any distance.  For Socrates a cup of Hemlock was certainly sweeter than witnessing the birth of history’s first democratically elected totalitarian government.

     Whither

Our withers weather
the whether or nots
of knots of withering
hails of shot from
distempered hells we’ve
tempered and wrought
from our dithering withers
which darkness would blot–
but cannot.

Gavin W Sisk
Sept. 2012

 

Recess

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I’d bind these shattered, scattered pieces with
ribbons from a maypole–or memories of maypoles,
which we never really had, which instead of we had

a deflated leather ball that no one really liked,
and swung from a chain, rebounding off our fists.
Our red fists: at the bell they had rebounded from

the old black chalkboard and Big Chief tablets,
from endless long divisions, which we deserted like
a mob of happy crows. That seems so long ago,

and so much simpler than this division of memories:
our promises sparked red, faith pulsing in each kiss,
all our knotted fears unwound beneath the moon’s caress;

unwound like ribbons loosed to end a maypole dance,
which we no longer dance because all we have left
are deflated leather souls and flailing, angry hands.

Big Chief tablets wait blank on ink-stained desks,
and the chalkboard asks what we don’t want told.
The bell is ringing, calling us in from recess.


August 2012 (revised Jan. 2013)

 

BLOG #50!

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I’m dedicating my 50th blog to my wonderful daughter, Hanae Rose. Here is a poem I wrote for her 13th birthday. And while you’re reading it, I’m going to be busy deleting all the really lousy posts I’ve written the last two years.

Icarus at Night

I held a thought,
then lost it.
Among the flecks
on deck of night,
I lost the speck–
impractical
and wordless–
killed by blots
of sweet dreams
blown aloft.
Enjambed
by failing lunar flight,
I rose again
from canyons cleaned
of rotted dreams;
fell into folded furrows
sown
with memories of a
sun-washed face
resembling my own.

For my daughter

June 2012

Time and Time Again

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When you look back on your life, do you wonder if you were different persons during successive life passages?  While recalling your addled adolescence, can you recite your name without feeling surprised at how ill fitted it is to your history?  Are sepia-toned memories all you keep of learning to ride a bike, understanding fractions, arguments with your parents, your first kiss?  Does your present feel as far removed from your past as it once was from your future?  Have you left behind a light, immortal avatar of yourself perched on a thin branch at the top of a tall tree? 

 
       Then

days i breathed from the treetop
                                    swinging deaf to gravity and
                                  singing slights to minor keys
                        i cared not what i couldn’t do
           and didn’t know how to stop.

                                               
                                               June 2012