by Lukman Clark $6.00 The Book of Adam & Other Poems by Lukman Clark Copyright 2010 by Lukman Clark All rights reserved. SECOND EDITION Originally published under the title The Life of Adam & Other Poems by Prima Luce Publications, 2004, in tradition chapbook paper format. To copy any of these poems individually or severally, permission must first be obtained from the author in writing. Brief passages may be quoted in reviews appearing in the media, including Internet e-zines and blogs, newspapers, magazines, radio, or television. House Humani Publishers Long Beach, CA househumani@verizon.net Cover Design by Lukman Clark ISBN: 978-0-9788752-1-3 ISBN 978-0-9788752-1-3 s b The Life of Adam & Other Poems by Lukman Clark Contents I. The Book of Adam 3 II. The Secret Motion of Things 24 These Elliptical Cadences 25 A Nights Watch 26 Personal Record 27 Enhancements 28 In Pursuit of a Bluish Butterfly 29 Inferred Singularity 30 Evidentiary 31 New Dimensions 32 Chronosphere 33 The Cuckoo 34 Synergetica 35 III. Beating Heart, Beating Drum 36 The Blue Shift of Paradise 37 Star Tar 38 Dolphin 39 Jungle Moment 40 Want Haiku 41 Point Six One Eight Harmony 42 Hearts Ease 43 Rose Fruit 44 Vintage Philly 45 1 III. Night Flight 46 Riff 47 Yes 48 Of Poetry & Things 49 De Botanica 50 Of Poetry Things 51 Mode Orient: Rare Bound Feet 52 Picasso Was A Minotaur, Too 54 Angels of Transit 55 Phoenix Crucifigirus 56 Metaphysicist 57 Not Even A Gold Watch 58 Eine Kleine Dichter 59 Other Voices 60 The Girl 61 Brubecks Rondo 62 Natures Call 63 This Is Not A Pipe In Lascaux, France 64 Bill In The Barrow 65 The Book 66 Un Prelude Du Printemps 67 John Berrymans Grave 68 Names 69 O Poet! 70 r 2 The Book of Adam 3 E Part I Creation
Chapter I: Prelude i. It is written, verily, How the Most Gracious fashioned, Using but bountiful Word A universe without end; Syntactical strings of worlds In numberless reams on reams, From illimitable wells Of illuminating inks Swirling over dark Nights hide. A glorious hymn of praise For Life! And, Lo! It was good! ii. Neither angels, men nor jinn Can recount in truth the facts Of this committus magnus; When within a vibration Were conceived as in a song The seven-fold mysteries Or levels of existence -- Each a sealed book, sprung out of The One Unfathomable -- Each in itself a story To which all who hear will lean. iii. Let me, the first True Human, Father to Seth, to Noah, To Abraham and all those Yet to be sent forth as guides, Tell you Creations story With corrective perspective. Let me, who has some knowledge Of worlds unseen by mortal Eyesight circumscribed by its 4 Natural modulations, Help to set the record straight. vi. Come! Now bear witness with me! Chapter 2: The Seven Days I. In principio, Deus. Et Deus perficiet. When the heavens and the earth first were made... These words are meant to convey the laying Of the material foundations of A magnificent cosmic pedestal: Atomic fires and molecular brews; Galactic oceans filled with solar fleets; Light and darkness in eternal embrace. ii. Such was the first day, if such a time may be so assigned. And let earth bring forth grass, serving its seed For yield of future generations in A perpetual round of greening life. In perfect physics, matter is conserved, Exchanging one face for visage newer; Should vegetative forces be granted Station less than material servants? iii. Such was day two, to further the conceit. Next, let the waters writhe and squirm, the air Whip and dart, and the continents teem with Beasts that burrow, climb, run and go a-wild, Excelling in the slaughter of plants, as Well the devouring of each the other. In rampant carnality, flesh and blood Shall be served while also giving service. 5 iv. So was the third mystery said and done. And God said, Let us begin mans making -- Balancing them on two legs and weaker By weight than most every animal; Yet, with hearts tuned wiser and minds greater, So that they too might have their place in life. No clock was given their reproduction, As a sign of Gods Mercy and Wisdom. v. The human life force thus crowned those lower. Four days signifying four folios: Each a distinct opus in its own right; With characteristic space-times, life spans In each having appropriate meter Marking the cadence of sundry creatures Alive to their own worlds, and seemingly Senseless, like empty words, to those above. vi. Nevertheless, each world intersects all; So, it must be noted here that human Hearts and minds are open doors to entry And domination by many creatures, Because all aspire to return to God. The unsuspecting humanoid therefore May have not only lice or rank fungus, But be host to myriad veiled beings vii. Who find in their human home a heaven. Following the fourth issue came three more Vibrations, each finer than those prior: The first alike water, but not water; Succeeded by two worlds of air and light, But not of air or light as we know them. That fifth band however, mystic hamza, Is my home of True Human consciousness. 6 vii. All praise belongs to the Lord of the Worlds! Chapter 3: The Birth of Adam i. From a drop of sperm In a place of rest Held fast to her wall, ii. I knew of my own Conception. they called, Invoking the One, iii. With the thirst upon My father, the way Opened wide for my iv. Commanded descent. v. Within her dark womb This body gathered The strength of the world: vi. From a clot of blood To a fetus lump; Then to bones, clothed in flesh -- vii. My form perfected In harmony with The gravid season. viii. Blessed be Allah! ix. But I grew fearful As my time approached, Aware of troubles x. To befall me yet In the world of flesh; My spirit cried out: 7 xi. Adonai! Forsake Me not! Restore me To my rightful realm! xii. The birth pains began. xiii. My good madam sang Loudly in labor, Sighing in between; xiv. I fought to tarry Until an envoy Dressed in brilliant light xv. Appeared to calm me And bid me recall The promise Id made xvi. To Messenger be. xvii. My mother he took When the birth was done, Her mission complete; xviii. I howled at my loss, Missing already Her bodys carnal heat; xix. And when they entered The birthing hut -- Lo! I spoke my name to xx. All there: Adama! 8 ADAMA! Part II Cultivation
Chapter I: A Small Sacrifice i. My mother left in Spring, Father followed n Fall. ii. It happened by the kraal That near the village lay;
iii. There a young girl did sing A childish song in play, iv. While lion stalked a-day Most unbeknownst to her. v. My father interposed, So people have concurred, vi. To spare young girls murder, Himself to leave instead. vii. They say he stood composed Before what they did dread; viii. As his hand touched deaths head, He whispered, For my son! ix. As to what happened then -- Some saw the lion run x. Dragging the man anon; While others this assert: xi. At the touch of a man Said lion did convert 9 xii. To golden steed alert Bounding up to heaven. Chapter 2: The Man of Clay i. God had me call myself Adama, Meaning of the soil. ii. Pluvial winds, bearing moisture from Glacial northern lands, Watered vast stretches of my birthplace, Swelling aquifers Flowing beneath the richly wooded, Grassy savanna. iii. As a small boy, I amused myself By the Great River. It was one of four deep, wide currents Blessing the whole of The lands that touch the south-side shoreline Of the Middle Sea; iv. These four brothers were born in mountains To the distant south; And all were alive with fish and birds Of multiform kinds; And all shared their great wealth with the tribes Of men near their banks. v. It was on the banks that clay I found, Good earth for making The likenesses of animals for Myself and other Village children, such that people said ` My birds might take flight 10 vi. And my horned gazelles might spring to life -- But inspiration Of this sort was not mine to impart, It being reserved For a later Prophet yet to come And highly revered. vii. At age ten, mutable clay I took, Shaping two figures In golden proportion to male and Female of this world, Thinking to fill the longings of an Orphan dispossessed. viii. A night-long tempest reverted both To riverine muck; Thereafter, I removed my spirit From such useless thoughts, Directing my efforts to helping Further Gods designs. ix. By silent discourse with the living World, my mind was moved Clay utensils to contrive, vessels Hardened in the fire, Things never seen before, to bring ease And cleaner habits. x. As signs of manhood began to show, My livelihood, too, Seemingly from nothing sprouted like A seed in the soil. Thereafter, my name corrupted was To the Man of Clay. 11 Chapter 3: The Man With The Tail The man with the tail Wandered the land From oceans east To western seas, Whispering Softly on his way while Caressing that sinuous Tail Long And lovely, so Smooth his Tail, like his Voice Entrancing So entirely Reasonable that he A tail should have His origins Were rumored His whereabouts Might be Anywhere The man With the Tail roamed and One day Adam having reached his full manhood The man heard of Adam and the man Found Adam and 12 c The man said to Adam Man of Clay Of you the people talk Your wares they talk of Used to carry water or The gifts of vegetation And for drinking too For drinking And no one had seen such things Until you Man of Clay Man of Clay From your hands Such simple things Simple things The people Tell me too They say When still a boy you You made figures human Like they say A man and a woman Perfect in form That you let slip Away into the slippery Mud Man of Mud Stroking his tail the man With the tail 13 Taught the people The baking of figures Things of clay And painting them To set in their Homes and winking to Them that these Might give Give protection Give Fertility Give Luck wealth conquest Give love From oceans east To western seas He wanders
Whispering
14 Chapter 4: Tender of the Garden i. There was not a man to till the ground, For the rich acres bordering and Most between the four great waterways Received abundant mineral means That in turn nurtured roots and reaching Stalks or trunks bearing good food to eat, Fattening both the animals on The plains and in the forests, and men Who plucked them easily for pleasure. ii. The world was grown indolent, cared for By the seasons alternating winds. The tribes knew neither want nor labor; Neither did they understand the source Of this beneficence; nor that One Who sustains all things was readying The rains to turn elsewhere and sweet loam To turn to blowing dust and sand heaps In favor of other lands afar. iii. Indifference to the worlds design Gradually brought with it slippage Into immoderate ways, whereby Despite a natural abundance, One coveted what another had And violence spread like a foul disease Among the people, between the tribes. Inequities bred like hornets, where Once had been peace and tranquility. iv. The seasons had circled the heavens Nearly thirty rounds when God brought sleep Deep, with dreams certain, upon my eyes; No more would Adamas hands mold clay, For enterprise more demanding called. Quitting my home, on foot I traveled Fearless to the place in dream revealed: 15 A dry, barren tract named Eden, where The ground was hard as the human heart. v. Seven years I worked the hardpan soil, Cracking its obdurate skin, breaking Stubborn slumps, sifting worthless rocks and Clearing vegetation coarse and sparse. At a distance I found clear water To which I dug a channel, stopping Short until Gods plan should be complete. More and more, people would come to stare, Derisive of the sweat on my face. vi. Seven years more I sought every Kind of fruiting tree with pleasing taste; Some, too, only for their shade and rest -- Taking them all to Eden to plant In collimated rows and groups, The better for channeling water According to each species root needs. From the ground the Lord God made them grow -- Trees! Olives, nuts, dates, figs and citrus! vii. Others were fruitful, multiplying, While I, Adama, Gods sharecropper, Tended to the garden in Eden, Content that some few would come to learn The gentle art of helping things grow. I tendered these as much as the trees, Then sent them out, learned women and Men, with seeds and some green shoots to take Over mountains and across the seas. 16 Part III Culture Chapter I: Adagio i. Hear, O Dreamer, of these my dreams Vividly come in deep of night, Softly come as the soothing rain That dampens the mountain forest ii. With scented drops from hanging leaves Dripping down to the muted floor, There to gather in swelling rills To hidden vale with golden soil. iii. Dreamer of dreams that clay transformed And barren plain restored to life, Hear me now when thus I tell you -- Giver of Life is how Im named, iv. After the Cherisher, Who life Gave me, first by my parents, then As a child whom fierce beast did spare. Given full life, now I am bid v. With open heart give to Eden, Fructifying further this field To which by dream I am guided. Your helpmate, True Man, I would be! vi. As you to your visions are true, True to my own must I be, too; We together will bring forth life, Children who might human nature 17 vii. Instruct and tame in gentleness -- To unbend the hand of brother Against brother in true human Charity and Godly Wisdom, viii. To teach them also the knowledge Of causes, the secret motions Of things and their rightful functions For helpful accommodations. ix. Great towers one day will be built; Wild streams and winds will ministrate For multiplying human strength In diverse motions and courses; x. And large, spacious houses to cure Diseases and preserve the health Will rise, including special baths And restoring herbal mixtures; xi. As for Eden, it shall become A place of great art, for mixing Earths and seeds to make new plants, Sweeter and having good fragrance,
xii. Both for pleasureful taste and use Medicinal. All this before The great dry spell is visited Upon this happy and blessed land. Chapter 2: Diminuendo. i. Our seasons changed. Rain-fat clouds grew Contemptuous Of the people The land carried, 18 As feverish winds wheezed fitfully Through days and nights of thirst and longing, Rattling sapless forests and rasping Like a spirit dispossessed across ii. Desiccated plains. Dry lightening charred Edens rows of trees In hecatomb fires And sickening smoke.
Of the four great rivers, one Alone retained its vigor; Far to the east, its waters Drew the people to its banks. iii. Of the soil -- Those few things That from me Sprouted up -- All are gone. Eden is dead. In its burned bounds Raven a murdered boy buried With his parents hearts afflicted. There is nothing to look back on. Chapter 3: Green Man, Green Song i. Sound the drum! What questions Nag your heart Dispossessed As the winds! How it howls! Hear its pain! 19 ii. Hear the drum! Which is it, Brother slain Or brother Who did slay Who did right? Who did wrong? iii. Sound the drum! The whole truth Folded up May not be In mans world -- Such is why Laws we give! iv. Adam dear Spin in dance To the beat Of the drum! Heart of man! Beating heart! Beating drum! Chapter 4: Opus Pergendo i. Standing upon the morning side of River Nile, I sing All praises to the Compassionate and Merciful God. Facing first light of a ferrous dawn while others slumber, In deep prayer I recount the eastward trek from Eden, Returned to its original desolation, or worse; And, like a foul stain it spread over the soul of the land, Seemingly in pursuit of human tribes in exodus.
20 ii. Upstream of the alluvial fan, the clan of Adam Upon good ground settled, never tilled by the hand of man. Gods living worlds spoke to me, giving helpful instruction On how best to order the tribes of plants, animals and Things according to their inner natures and deepest yearnings. Respect and gratitude in due time their rewards did reap, Drawing other humans into humble community. iii. According to their natures, obstinate and arrogant, People fell to squabbling and argued against each other, Turning to me for justice fair, I found every soul To harbor some talent true and so ordered each and all, But established, too, a compact of laws, with a council To promote consensus and a general harmony. By the Grace of God, our children grew, laughed and played again. iv. Over time, the adversities and trials of Eden Faded into idyllic memories of paradise And heavenly companionship free of regulation For restraining shameful passions impatient for trouble In lurking shadows of our townships moonlit alleys. Especially she who helped give new life to joint vision Is fond of warmly remembering the best of times past. v. In the meantime, on the west banks of the River of Life, A rival city grows strong, like a mirage mimicking An actual think, thus leading travelers to lose their way. Men and women are forced to labor in this citys fields, Neither for themselves nor for broader, common benefit -- But solely to serve the needs of one man whom they call god. And so it begins. Let Gods Will be done, for it is good. 21 Part IV Passage
Chapter 1: Pharaonic Elegy i. Man Of Clay Returned to Clay ii. No longer Do I dog Your tracks Taking iii. Scraps Now all You built Mine is iv. After your woman Died my daughters you Took to bear many More young v. Your city with mine Is melded like Our lines And men I plant vi. In straight rows To harvest In battles edacious Fruit of my conquests 22 Chapter 2: The Greening i. Adam set down A message writ In Chapter and Verse for this day ii. Now delivered Not on paper Nor papyrus But deeply etched iii. In DNA Entrusted to Protected by And hidden in iv. The ovums depths To gradually True humans shape So brother will v. And sister will Be just themselves Spirit in flesh Reverently! vi. Callooh! Callay! 23 The Secret Motion Of Things 24 These Elliptical Cadences Our local horologium Around a double-focused curve Conforms itself. Calendar time Gets traced by gravitys trammel Angling an otherwise constant beat Away from the rounding rhythms Of uniform, pendular swings. This dual solstitial system Shapes all sentient perceptions In polyrhythmical patterns: Wintry lamentations mix With estival dithyrambics, Each in the other embedded For a tai-ji apparatus. Given other geometry, Wed dance to different measures. 25 A NIGHTS WATCH Into dark, moist night The world turns Constellations rise Like clockwork New light revealing Inch by inch. 26 PERSONAL RECORD Muscular combustion Infrared signatures Burns in the gray fog On a cold moist morning. My bodily heat Smears a spectral spoor For those who would chase The suns chariot. 27 ENHANCEMENTS Machine colored photos Some new light have shed On silent storms And invisible fires In the deep night skies. X-rays are green; Red codes the optical; Blue the radio. The familiar May make known the unseen In the way feeling Makes tangible Thoughts that no words have found. In my hearts spectrum You are revealed. 28 IN PURSUIT OF A BLUISH BUTTERFLY Repeated often enough The turbulence is by now Taking predictable turns. Turn up the heat -- with money Or sexual competing -- And our system beats its wings! Out of our differences A strange love attractor grows Into a bounded chaos That like a gossamer net Or pheromone baited trap Captures our exotic selves, Together fused at our base But beating separately, Were each a wing, and when were Arhythmically flapping In our differences we sink, Prey to dark mistrustful birds; But when in full bodily harmony ` To one another we sweetly sing, We bask in intimate perfumed fields.
29 INFERRED SINGULARITY Shes arranged the two daughters Flowers of some foreigners travail, And a spouse, all stuffed and casual With sweet cavendished briar, Up close to the neutered cats On this light side of her horizon. 30 EVIDENTIARY The photographs display varieties Of polymorphic sexuality, Couples in multiples of shape-changing Mixed unions tasting forbidden fruitage. Gods breath arouses the golden leaves Of Lifes bawdy tree to a shimmery Excitation refracting Light into A spectrum of desires, from coarse to fine. To know the Many is to know the One, Or so this evidence would indicate. 31 NEW DIMENSIONS Like the red fly unbounded By bottles bluish, Of like a leopard changing Impeachable clothes For those less conspicuous, Ive found -- when I stop Demanding retributive Piece-for-piece justice -- Space and time confer a gift Of unexpected Degrees of freedom, as though Ive swallowed the world. 32 CHRONOSPHERE A. I spied her geometry moving Along with her to market, A triaxial conformation For all the world appearing To advance along a single line Of times n coordinates. To the howsoever blinder eye My peripatetic Patti Doe Travels in a greater company Of hidden intervals, revolving Vertices, braces, trusses Of time lines intersecting. B. The curve of time arcs unseen, Horizons misinforming, Over-reaching the anxious mind. What seems a dark ending edge Is only gentle bending. Not big bangs, not great crushes, To use measures different, The ways of time demarcate. C. Biting of the luminous apple, Fruit of the knowledge of time, We experience the shortest time Between times out of time lies. 33 THE CUCKOO Dropped into times nest And raised as her own; Hour after hour stuffed With ticking beetles (Little lives offered In blind devotion) This alien bird Makes timeless music. 34 SYNERGETICA Each poems a knot: Two circles that join Angled orbit planes. Images are made By way of pairings; Unities are twos -- Only and always Seven hundred and
Twenty degrees round; Only and always Ideas coiling In tight, new patterns. 35 Beating Heart, Beating Drum 36 THE BLUE SHIFT OF PARADISE As receding stars accelerate So might those which close appear to slow. As unfulfilled passions may be stretched In sudden red tantalization So might converging desires come in Pressing toward the blue spectral sea. Swelling beyond our shivering shores And our dunes of incredulity, The cool sea lifts us wide-eyed skyward To test the promise of ending time. 37 STAR TAR Come die with me And be made most beautiful again As this world and its time dissolves. Ill set my sails And catch the breath of the worlds One Lord As the galactic ocean calls. Deep into night, Deeper than astronomys fables, Well journey to my pulsing home. 38 DOLPHIN Ill follow wherever you come with me. Cartographers have captured the seashores, Have frozen the tides and shifting grains Of sand in timeless charted lines. As a general sort of guide, I suppose This is all well and good, especially For business, And it is even a sort of miracle, But nothing quite like That of the fish Who in touching every shore at once Became the sea and knew its shores And the wash of its living edge; The beaches glare Being muted In dampness. Ill follow the fish who is the sea, Lord of the swaying plants And sky reflected In the eyes of things marine. Ill ride the fish who is the sea Rolling slowly On your every shore. 39 JUNGLE MOMENT From between your legs The smell of the sacrifice Heavy bloodletting In red rivulets running Cleansing temple floors Veiled by dense, soft underbrush. Jaguar. Stopped in tracks. Lip curled in deep reverie Reading this fresh kill, Taking in your offering. 40 WANT HAIKU This aging Ninth Moon! Farmers read their almanacs; Withered stalks in hands. 41 POINT SIX ONE EIGHT HARMONY A measure of perfection The span from her feets flat soles To her navels invert node -- This golden scale making her A five-petal symphony. 42 HEARTS EASE This marriage, Dear Evelyn, has merged The wild skies and swelling deeps, Embracing a wide serenity Of sentient seas thick with Galaxies of luminous, scaled fish, Parsec-measured plankton fields And warm blooded mariners steering Smooth prows through gravitys tides. All far-flying and deep-diving things My unpartitioned heart receives. 43 ROSE FRUIT Always we hear of loves flower, Sweet smelling; or by contrast, the Sharp lacerations of its thorns. But if we let things take their course, Cultivate to the concluding Notes beyond reproductions score, A harvest of hardy pods holds Soothing tones for our evening tea. 44 VINTAGE PHILLY [Thoughts of Evelyn] The ladys got legs! Such structural hints Anticipate a Dark elegance like Waltzing silhouettes On ivory moon. Her attack is made By cats eye beryl With a slight coral blush Lending subtler shades To her charming glow. So captivating At an eyeballs glance! Heres a wine that looks Pointblank back at you! Then, to smell her hair! Its just so somewhat Vanillin beneath Musky mellowment Foretelling flavors Rich and warm to come. Toasty oakenness; Pepper and cigar -- Words alone wont snare, Nor divinations Bare, secrets she holds When loves fires ignite To a long finish. 45 NIGHT FLIGHT Ticketed and assigned To non-adjacent seats We stood in each others Way in the aisle before Finding unfilled spaces Together for talking Beneath the carry-ons In the overhead holds Just some necessities For starry night crossings. 46 RIFF Maybe it was Dolphin Street, Green With the color of others' money Where your soul eyes first found me Blue And within your gaze I saw myself Turning up the fruitful earth Brown Blessed by childrens joyful running feet. 47 YES Yes is an absolutely Positively no Quibbilivity sort of word That sparkles Her darkles Dancin like dimonds Or ebony emeralds For gourmands and for admirals Their smilin facets Make up refractions so massive With light uncontracted In her yes Yes so full 48 OF POETRY & THINGS 49 DE BOTANICA In matters of leaves As in mindless song, The structure is all And all is counting. The meter of leaves, Some petiolate, Some sessile or such On axial green, Repeats a pattern; Indispensable Regularity Their mad beauty bears In lines venacious. Ivys palmate nets Or jacaranda's Pinately compound Concern for detail Create a corpus, A rhythmic matrix, Repeating the stems And veins and other Foundational stuff With no questions asked Of form in motion. 50 DE BOTANICA (Continued) They stick to plans, yet Each songs starting seed Comes without bidding, Bursting time-driven From loves firm red fruit. 51 OF POETRY & THINGS One inevitable syllable calls another -- Theres no escaping this. Though time and meter push onward, The poem is not predestined; Nor once having been written Is it determined wholly. One mans dactyl, after all, Is anothers trochee With a dangling, diminished foot. 52 MODE ORIENT: RARE BOUND FEET Old Elizabeths foots reduced Edited down to basics Scanning ears likelyll miss Her stoical counting gait And her small-footed methode Rocking steadily along An imp on rhythms springboard 53 PICASSO WAS A MINOTAUR, TOO His gentle virgins hand guides the great white bull of the sea By the short neck-rope of frayed, plaited grasses Into the arenas high-edged frame. So sure, so serene in gentle gait Until the moment grows hugely tumescent And the artists maiden, taken, On gold horns surrenders. 54 ANGELS OF TRANSIT Passing angels part Great photonic seas, Their wide washing wakes Testing my minor passage On major waves of drama And eddies of compulsion. With calmer heart Im inclined to blame My more grievous sins on the weather -- the Suns balm erasing all traces. 55 PHOENIX CRUCIFIGIRUS Scorpio rising to a tesseract nest, There to lose both hands and feet Rounding my bodys four corners; Unsquared and eight by eight marching To inside-out perfection, This four-spaced soul kisses my body bleeding. 56 METAPHYSICIST A friend, having some months experience Accepting an angels awful aid, Related with annoyed acquiescence Toward the mouths simple-arted chords How the angel follows without motion, Really by not following at all, By the obvious trick of not being A part of all these things we measure In different rates Through Newtons time/space. 57 NOT EVEN A GOLD WATCH Manservant to my soul, I do these mundane chores, Like stringing Xmas lights, Painting out graffiti On our white picket fence, Making sure our mustache Is even on both sides, I fold our laundry, too, And choose our underwear -- Managing those little things Til he serves me notice. 58 EINE KLEINE DICHTER What is soul if not a light Harmony of notes spilling Forth in warm gratitude from Beneath the propped black cover Of a baby grand borne by The cold linoleum floor. 59 OTHER VOICES The raindrops are among the first to go Unheard as they fall behind a curtain Ringing louder than their quiet comfort. No more do I waken to night showers Softly scrubbing the floors of the city While pouring out their gentle lullabies. Over time, other sounds shall slip away... Yet, life is ripe with boundless poetry. Scattered by this same hissing mist, Van Goghs Crows take mute flight into rhythms of light. 60 THE GIRL From her dull grave dark Demeters daughter Dances bare and Springs Drizzling daylit rains From red poppies spill. 61 BRUBECKS RONDO Classic white Takes black rhythms In a blue round Even Chinese Clap both hands 62 NATURES CALL Jung lectured me forty years By day while I probed midnight Seas beneath barbed moons dreaming With Sirens singing softly On sinister, swaying tides Lifes rebus he propounded Speaks through four-square ciphony Quaternal completeness crossed An answer to his fathers Flawed Trinitarian rule Perhaps yet so right about The Unconscious mind being Excommunicant Nature Asserting her sacraments And so wrong as now I see About Nature favoring Four-fold formulizations Bumblebees and hovering Hummingbirds do marry with Their five or seven petaled Pollen partners numinous Mandalas of ecstasy Sailing her bicycle past Me with her smile she signals An ardor for adventure 63 THIS IS NOT A PIPE IN LASCAUX, FRANCE I paint to pass time No one hunts this day While rain batters beasts. It pleases me to draw Shapes of beasts and men Small but strong, killing. I am glad to make Dead the beasts down here On these cool flat walls. Here I strike truly The beasts I give life For my eyes to eat. 64 BILL IN THE BARROW The red wheelbarrow Void of all But carrying Capacity For white feathered Poems. 65 THE BOOK Syntactical strings Of worlds and of suns Bumpy braille patterns Invite my groping On the Face of God 66 UN PRELUDE DU PRINTEMPS Like the waking bird who greets the meager light At the edge of dawn, prepping upon A momentary branch, to begin His daily, trustful rounds (or perhaps today Is the day hell fly towards the sun, Never to be seen in time again), I no more question whose heart it is that sings So strangely within this cistal cage As I write greener drafts of myself. 67 JOHN BERRYMANS GRAVE Reading some snippets Of his life and stuff While my little girl Runs across the sand Making nonsense sounds Accompanying Awockatooty! Awockatooty! He jumped from a bridge Must been amnesia He forgot to pass Last several drinks Long dying, long cold His dreamsongs dream songs Awockatooty! 68 NAMES Do we give back our names when we die? Does the angel call the loan -- and when? When we first rise up dazed, befuddled? Or do our names fade slowly, losing Color and their old familiar shapes As our warm-hearted homes deliquesce? Setting aside names given by folks Star-struck, tradition-bound or just tired, Suppose we ancient names recollect Which, as crying babes we had disdained To use in our strange, newly found land; Or, heres one for you to think about -- Making our way through the processing At the Ellis Island of the soul, New names we take to better blend in. 69 O POET! Gods dancing top Dervish self-spun Tracing a path With pointed pen And ink of stars On sheets of night My time to dance Its now. Its now. 70 About the Poet Lukman Clark was born in Buffalo, NY. He served in the U.S. Navy, including a tour of duty in Morocco, which stimulated other travels in Asia, Australia, the Middle East and Europe. Lukman wrote his first poem when he was 17 years of age. A few of his favorite poets are William Carlos Williams, Emily Dickenson and Tuli Kupferberg.
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