what language did

 

what language did

  
 
one day life came into our earth.  how it was
before nobody knows.  no one spoke and for
all we know, for all we don’t know, it was dark.
no water moved.
 
 
because of life, smoke began to weave.  it spun
itself into twine, twisting silent thought.  flames
arose upon new feet, began to dance.  moon
observed a waking wind, spoke, said to sun,
let them see!  so brightness rained from the sky.
life inhaled.
 
 
yet no stories were being told.  nothing really
made any sense at all.  so then language
decided to take on life.  dust began to whisper
shadows, then seek the spaces between all
things such that connections might embrace.
awareness took root.
 
 
rocks joined in, became a chorus.  clouds
began to sing about the sky the water the land.
water pronounced a willingness to fall, so faith
began.  then worms and leaves.  then limbs
and four-legged beasts with mouths to eat,
growing and falling apart.  words piled up
like crisp autumn leaves close underfoot.
words began to move.
 
 
then men, then women, so that all those
stories might be harvested and given birth
and given death.  like all real stories must.
appreciation became a smile upon the lips
of men.  every story mattered, no matter
the voice.  so quite unexpectedly thus did
 
listening come into the world.

 

neil reid © may 2012

 
comments:
A lovely clumsy draft? But I don’t care. (guilty pleasure?) Since first reading Stephen Mitchell’s translation of Gilgamesh, a desire began. Then more recently, the amazing work of Eduardo Galeano and his Genesis, Memory of Fire Trilogy. (clearly I’m way beyond my depth, splashing as best as I can)

While I’m rather lack “classic” leanings, something about these lyric mythic voices sounded and tasted right to me. So something to play with here; a stumbling step, but how else to begin?

And how dare one of casual accord approach such myth? I’m no student that way. Yet too, where do any myths begin? They represent our understanding of experience, so we, any of us, do qualify. Nothing carved in rock. Mostly I just wanted to approach that lyric voice, so this result. Worth more more engaging with I think.

And credit due, I love and borrowed Galeano’s phrase, language decided to take on life. Wonderful.

PS. REVISION, replaced “gathered” with “harvested” in the last stanza. Re-reading it was just obviously better, so much better. 05-12 neil

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No poet here

No poet here

I am a man who writes poems.
That’s fair to say, but not much more.
I am a man who wakes, goes to work
four or five days a week. Usually.
Usually Sunday to church. I do chairs.
I eat my dinner at my desk. I like
eating but it don’t much come first.
I sleep Japanese on the floor most
of the time. Nothing political or otherwise,
just a little long habit of choice.
Mostly a good back. You could say that.
I don’t keep house so good alone.
I do everything better when you’re around.
That explains a lot.

Do you know what I did in “the war”?
The one that was mine to do or not.
Or how awkward was that first late kiss,
then everything, then everything lost.
I might say sometime. If you ask.
Or the girl with a grafted patch on her thigh?
I danced brief with Buddha because of her
although she didn’t care. How many
pebbles on the beach? About that much
narrative along the way, and matters
about that much and little,
as they do and don’t say.

Did you know I spent days on skid road
or counted a sea lions whiskers or failed
to see the omens about my marriage?
More often wrong that right side up.
Guessed homeplate by a dancers thighs.
Only fully figured love when the bacon
was long past crisp. Gave it up.
Like one good book says, those who surrender
love will find it again, and finally ripe.

I scribble, I scrawl, write poems maybe
five minutes or two hours a day, maybe
in my car at lunch. Like calm to write
but sometimes no choice. They all see
the light of day but only your eyes once
in a while. Always best when thoughtlessly,
but I do that too anyway. Like foolhardy
companions try vainly to remain.
Sometimes I’m honest enough.

So don’t call me poet please. Too grand for
my shoes, uncomfortable on the tongue and
seems a pretense to suggest that poet is
what I am.

I’m just a man who was asked to write.
And I do. Just a whisper on the lips.

neil reid © july 2010

neil reid © july 2010

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Untitled

U n t i t l e d

Untitled, that’s how all these poems begin

an empty old battered pot. (Says so

right here in soot and thumb.)

Will I ever love you rightly or enough,

lingers in thought past when eyes close to sleep.

And do you wonder who? I mean you.

I look for a word. I look for a life.

Some feathers fallen onto this path.

But not really only of mine. Something from

this spiral arching net, a thousand thousand

seaward fish. Some omen I might translate.

Make invisible into soup, some flavor

we’ll both understand. Some language

we both enunciate.

Is that your Spanish or Chinese tongue?

Or just an old English psalm? Honestly,

all more than easy-as-butter led-astray.

It comes to what a heart is willing to reveal,

willing to give away before some last breath

claims me back again.

I’m not afraid of going home,

but empty-handed, of that, yes.

It would just be a shame not to appreciate.

A shame to pretend I didn’t care, didn’t see

what’s feral turned friend.

And I do understand. Just as is a rose,

untitled or named. Like you.

Neil Reid © March 2010

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Some hints toward happiness

Some hints toward happiness

Open your arms to a dawn

Cast your heart into a night

See what grows

See what follows

Spread a few wild seeds

Wild knows what to do, You observe

Take a breath

Now let go, everything dances on fingertips

Eat some cake

Pleasure is good for you

Butter too, cook some fish

Lick your fingers during meals

Go fishing with your heart

Harvest what is bright

Beauty is inside every shell

Also outside, right to horizon’s bow

Dare to see with generous eyes

Gently stir the soup

Appreciate every bowl you meet

Allow friends beneath what you fear

Be of good heart and understand

Who you will become, is enough

Eat dark like chocolate

Understand matter is a choice of life

When you’re in bed in night and

her breath is just that close beside and

you’re feeling all is lost from you and

no matter what you wish you seem to be

getting less and less of what you thought

was right to you, now instead awake

Awake from what you thought was awake

Remember that very first best desire

why you held her hand (or held his)

You listening, listen now to a rhythm’d heart

that is kin to the pulse of unlabored wind

It has never been about you

It is about what you’re beside

It’s about what love says it is, allow and

Open your arms to a dawn

Cast your heart into a night

Love reaches meaning only outside a box

And heals everything broken, even

what was never broken at all

Eat your vegetables and some fruit

Share a spoon and some soup

Break bread because it’s meant to be

Recognize a hand that speaks in light

Meditate   then   act

Move in right directions you see

Use fewer periods when you write and

breath, and oh yea,

Dare to write bad poems too

Maybe a friend is looking for you

Neil Reid © March 2010

with thanks to Sean for the idea and being a friend

Sean Fraser’s blog, The Dolls Point Blogger

and posting: Time Always Runs Out

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Writing you

read write prompt #113, the therapeutic cleanse – a spa for your writerly being
by mary biddinger

Getting stuck in a poetic writing rut? That’s the question, then response for this week’s prompt.

(Read the RWP prompt for full descriptive details.)
(Read other participants responses to this prompt.)

Read my second poem prompt response here.

Writing you

Maybe if I write one good poem

that will satisfy my life!

Maybe life don’t care about poetry.

Maybe, just me.

Maybe that’s what’s meant to be.

Here, take this spoon. Tell me.

Tell me when you think it’s full.

Take salt & pepper from the table.

Bare plate. Two chairs.

Your choice. Throw something over

your shoulder. Salt? Pepper? Me?

Keep the others for your pocket.

I’ll try to fit. Am I in your palm?

But it’s all up to you.

And all down to me.

Maybe if I love one woman, one friend,

with all heart unbleached, that will be

a life!

Maybe that’s what poem means?

Neil Reid © February 2010

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Nothing much

Nothing much

About some light

poem group index

Nothing has ever been lost, only moved.

One life will scatter on wind, far of flight

away, yet remains like a thread and knit.

Fog may narrow a distant mountain eye

so then our hands and feet become the sky.

One breath, even one that’s last is only

more wind somewhere else than here.

Outside the window, another world we think,

but walls are only sand and wood.

Memories like leaves adrift, out of touch?

Yet observe, all express a singular self.

(And this don’t mean you, any you.)

Step by step, seems some distant reach,

yet you remain, just inside each stride.

Nothing has been broken yet, that wasn’t

as mosaic, meant to be gathered whole.

Nothing has ever been lost, only given

into other hands.

Neil Reid © January 2010

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Faucet

Not like a stone, I change when I wanna.  Italics perhaps makes more clear.

Faucet

 

And then someone says no you won’t listen

it’s your day your hour your time no it isn’t.

You resist, a matter of principle no it’s not

any excuse for a port, brave new waves.

Barely through the door side door like

grandmother did she waved me away.

Love flew from that hand.

 

Thought then only safe not safe at all.

She died.  Great uncle did.  Not me not yet.

But then someone says not listening

not listening it’s your day your time not yet.

 

Maybe I don’t feel so well bright sun

but not me her instead, although not yet.

But close enough to point oh there you see.

She told me her name.

Hands touched.

 

Hadn’t even told her yet every word

were they only shy so tender passion

holds its breath.  Come more close

wasn’t said.

 

Only a few minutes now not yet.

Please not yet I race ahead

where only water remains.

 

Waste not one drop.

 

 

Neil Reid © October 2009

 

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