scriblerus-tertius

[scriblerus-tertius]

Thanks to @finelivescollective for publishing my submission!

Homage to Li Bai

Though older, you’re the moon who heard him sing: the poet Li. You moved his mind to bring a cup of wine to his lips, though all alone. You watched him toast you, heard the verses ring. Hoary hermit, tonight you seem to be yellow as a halved squash. I think of Li. His song and I, plus you, watching above– tonight we make another group of three.

- scriblerus-tertius 

[scriblerus-tertius]

Standing like a Tree

The trees are old. Rooted, they stand, and grow, and watch the seasons come, and watch them go. And I would stand and watch till I beheld the secrets trees behold and mountains know.

[scriblerus-tertius]

Scene at Dawn

Through the morning cloud, the moon shone, blurred but bright, a beautiful stone; a crystal sliced in a slim curve. On the ground, fog: clouds of our own.

[scriblerus-tertius]

The Curtain

The curtain (diaphanous thing, fragile as a dragonfly's wing) shivers in the faint breeze that the air conditioners bring.

[scriblerus-tertius]

Le Livre Perdu

Where has my copy of Flowers of Evil   flitted away to, now that I look for it? Did it wriggle and run, like a worm or a weevil,  and nestle itself in some shadowy nook? (For it     surely would do so, if any book could.     It would love the mystique of old, rotten wood.) Whatever the means, it escaped me. Reclining,  I call off the search. It occurs that to slouch would better befit my Aestheticist pining--  or to languidly lean on the limb of a couch.     (Some velvety fabric, richly displayed.)     Hélas! For now, The Book of Jade.

[scriblerus-tertius]

I think you should be aware that the author Russell Newquist has taken your idea about the staircases and is making into an anthology, which is so unfair. You should tell him that you're thinking of publishing the idea yourself and he can't use it.

Thank you for letting me know. I’m sending this to my agent so that he can address it.

[scriblerus-tertius]

Red Spiders

In the sun's heat, bright embers             dart across the ashcolor stone.

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A Venus Figurine

When I think long on the other planets in the universe, it is you, Mother, which I find the most loving. If another long chain of descent had borne me-- another group of molecules in another sea--    I am sure my choice would be different. But my ancient ancestors floated in your own oceans, so you, Mother, I find the most loving.

[scriblerus-tertius]

Starbuck’s Pebbles

If I go dragging my religion behind me, like a bridal train or an ermine gown, will they say: "Here are the heresies he commits; here is the Taoist in the Buddhist garb; here is the Buddhist in the Hindu garb; here is the Hindu in the Taoist garb; (And he thinks too much of Heraclitus and Whitehead to really be any of the three)"? When they brought the baby to Hakuin             and claimed it was his, he replied:                         "Is that so?" and took it. When the girl, wracked with regret,             admitted her lie, he replied:                         "Is that so?" and returned it. Does a vein of water flowing in a valley care if it's called a river or a stream? The worry leaves softly and swiftly, on the same feet that carried it in.

[scriblerus-tertius]

Lines on a Gray Hair

            My back pains me. A formerly fractured rib             is wracked, twinging when I chance to lie on my side. I sit cautiously, careful of the backs of chairs, bent like an elder.             A single hair on the right side of my head             is a strand of silver like a wire. I welcome it warmly: Of elderly traits to possess while young, I prefer the purely cosmetic.

[scriblerus-tertius]

Short Poems Written During Car Rides

I.

Between the churches, a group of trees, winter-weathered, grows by a pond. They huddle by the water, hushed, unmoving, like old priests in silent prayer.

II.

In the noon sun, the lake glitters: metal foil, crinkled and creased.

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Monologue: Demeter

Now it begins again, the day dreaded all year:   My daughter's face is pale at the thought of those cold, dark corridors, those dismal, sunless rivers,   the great, gray, mute mass of perished souls. And their ruler...I can't utter his name   for the knot of grief rising in my throat; for the look in my daughter's eyes, for the gloom in her face, the heaviness. She'll return when half the year has dwindled and drifted away,   I tell myself, I repeat to myself. The emptiness, the silence her voice used to fill, will be full again,   I repeat to myself, I tell myself. But for now--Freeze, branches. Freeze, seeds in the ground.   (Seeds condemned her--a small handful,   but enough to condemn her half the year.) She'll return in half a year, I repeat and repeat to myself--   But now--now it begins again.

[scriblerus-tertius]

‘Do you not know that a man is not dead while his name is still spoken?’

Sir Terry Pratchett, 28.04.1948 - 12.03.2015

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Paean After a Long Absence

Rise, Muse. Where your thoughts drift, let them linger, and observe:   Let your ear listen, and your voice sing the music that it hears. Record the ruckus of the birds   babbling in the tree, the trickle of water dripping from icicles, the sloshing of slush stamped   by the soles of heavy boots. Paint patches of snow, model the white mottling   on the green, muddy grass. Attune your ear to the voice of the hills again, to the singing   of old and moss-conquered rocks, to the slow creaking of ice, to the wasting away of leaves--   their decaying and transformation. Far too long we've gone without song, or the music of pipes,   or the plucking of a zither's strings. Rise, then! Rise and rejoice! Rise and ring with music!

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I believe that the Universe is one being, all its parts are different expressions of the same energy, and they are all in communication with each other, therefore parts of one organic whole. This whole is in all its parts so beautiful, and is felt by me to be so intensely in earnest, that I am compelled to love it and to think of it as divine.

Robinson Jeffers (via observando)

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Lhude Sing Cucu

The thaw came, and the moon melted with the snow; the moon hollowed itself, slowly, with a scoop,   till only a sliver remained. On the ground, the grass, ragged but still green, raises its wrinkly heads warily, and marks   that the trees are still standing, stained.

[scriblerus-tertius]

To a Fruit Fly

Sister, come to me, stuck in my mood's despairing. I was fraught, distraught, then you drifted bý, flying, drunkenly dancing past where I was lying. And my heart soared, sister, to see you not caring for this clumsy giant's room looming around you, and this clumsy, moody giant himself who found you.

Shine, tiny and black as an inverse star! For surely you are Brahman, as the very air you float on is Brahman; as every hovering mote, each proton, each star burning, each crystal's sparkling spar   is Brahman. Thís you are.