HAROLD BLOOM'S CANNON

Is there any more room
in Harold Bloom's cannon
from a bold pantheon
of Milton, Dickens
and Dickinson
or having their own champion
like in a song of Campion
all sensing they are a conduit
for the divine as a poet
even if they do not believe
like Chesterton
in the Word's highest power,
they loose a partisan attitude
in their best invention's hour
being fit in their literary mode
of their wronged convention
sharing at least a Party's ode
on their own code's pretension
of an arbitrary mode
that would eventually flower
from their own sex or sects
by an arty sectarian guest
reading for a librarian's hour.

WHISPERS

Whispers cannot be heard
by those in authorities
who identify you
as biding like a song bird
in harbored secret words
hung on your cage
needing to be set free
at your young age
reassured only in shadows
to those who must murmur
by the emperor's clothes
and blinded by a lonely stare,
yet soon we will get our feet
wet in the afternoon rain
and able to laugh and sing
for it is only just and fair
to escape our nest, lair or bed
to rest under the sun
and share our bread.

NEPAL, April 26,2015

As if mountains fall
when the earth shakes
over Nepal
as one wakes again
and all life will stall
in the fountains of rain
and for a time breaks all.

MARIE PONSOT'S LECTURE

Unique understanding
of John Donne
where body,soul ,spirit
shares as one
with the metaphysical Word
as a bird watcher
catches the sun
leaning on an Elm
in the April's spring air.

ITALIAN LIBERATION DAY

Partisan resistance
realizing what fascism does
your small bands who fought
brought honor and buzz
from your hands and cause
and taught us
seventy five years ago
that one must disobey
all of racism's laws,
as you know.

WHERE THE LIVING ARE

Where the living are
in the death March
yet it is now April
and we choose life
at this moment
with love feeling fragile
and vulnerable
as stones tossed
into the Bay
from my outstretched hand
as a prayer
on days of gratitude
send us your rhythm
of a grateful beatitude
on mountains of transfiguration
renew our siren of creation
to the frenzied open heaven
of warring angels,
save us in song
on your Christ eyelids
hidden in the Word
from your world
of mercy.

YOU REVISIT

You revisit
your life
while you cling
to photos,
images
while spring cleaning
on edgy mornings
asking for a merciful sky
without forty years more
of rain or transferable darkness
whispering to yourself
hows many words
voices, shadows,
palms of snow flakes
are our unlocked thoughts
Freudian questions
Jungian answers
at the end of the age
time is always on the wind
no hour fails
at crucifixion at three O clock
your people still suffer
the arrows of St. Sebastian
feeling forsaken
with a strip of sun
to satisfy
your covenant with us.

TELLING YOU

you had to do your nails
and e mails

on the day you left
your lover

who kept
you in his novella

under cover.

NAMES

So many names of things
you'd think we were kings

or in a royal way
when we sing to a higher realm

we try to be loyal as any priest
that life not overwhelm,

constantly feeling as a foil
to others as in Chelm,

or a fool that barely survives
our days at school,

with lives running and rife
as the beast or wild child

yet knowing inside
that we are the least.

ANTONIO MACHADO'S EARTH


You return miles from home
quenched from thirst
dazzled by the landscape
traveling on unveiled roads
in a low village of bird calls
from swallows
carrying your rucksack
on your hurting back
loaded with fruit
for an insomniac
fearing tomorrow
yet with a pale embrace
in the wilderness
wanting to hold back at first
to a secret love yet say,"Yes."

CHAR'S LAST DAY

Spring becomes him,
not such a past winter
outdoors
sheltering a light
on a luminous poet
to hear birdsong on branches
the nuance of voices
with words to shape here,
by the Seine,
a hundred years
near the park
your words kept an existence
as illuminated manuscripts
signed on earth.

RAISSA MARITAIN TIME

Unveiled poet of mercy
lioness of Judea's soul
by the crossroads
of addressing the earth

needing rain
in a silent word

praying as sounds
of whispering winds
on terrible days and nights
over shameless broken glass
on 1945 nails on the tree
by the terror
between warring angels

you are a drop
of sunshine
Christ on eyelids
of ice angels
from wheel barrels
carried by millions
along Notre Dame.

PICASSO'S NIGHT

Dawn in your studio
one cannot believe
the late hour drawing near
what a tiny lily mistaken
in the white slate
of color chiaroscuro
that over shadowed you
all night,
you cannot get rid
of blood hiding guilt
from your own heart
when Max is nearby
who once welcomed you
to Paris,
and still calls on you
beyond the grave,
"Save me Pablo,"
now who are
the enemies of art
with new yellow parasols
made from slave labor
in reactionary horror
to unyielding freedom
are not embarrassed
to turn away to honor death,
all exclamations
reflected in the blood moon
outside your window
in the grey Occupation
magnified by the snow
where your friend
Max Jacob had no companions
covering his last Sunday walk
hovers to pray in a vision
to honor the Virgin
under his last train journey
except for an earth angel
waiting for him
all his life
in the azure sky
who is also cold
trembles by floodlights
behind iron gates
of warring eyelids of guards
inspired with hatred,
eternal horsemen
with whips devouring you
from a war machine
in a century's ashes
of murdered apocalypse
by fascism's motifs
and bas reliefs
auto da fes from human fires
and brown shirted shadows
where the innocent
still cry out
with scarred lips
thinking we have forgotten.

WATTEAU ETCHINGS

colors
     shaping as bone
      his red slate
  erased  brushed  stone
    dispersed green
     by an artist
who worked alone.

AN ELEGY FOR AUDEN
1907- 1973

Days of appeasement
and lamentation
understood
by Auden, a gent
etched in a conscience
of a silent modern
in a lament.

BONHOEFFER' S MEMORY

German chamber music
on an old wireless
culture and Vermeer
all was a loss
at a twentieth century
cross by a bier.

WHO KNEW

who knew
that love
was out there

a romantic
reading Che
and Nietzsche

his god
was
his best critic.

THE RUNAWAY

In the last analysis
a Beat poet tells me
we have learned alone
to dress,shave or kiss
trying to behave
outside bus stops
needing a good Samaritan
more than cops
to heal his wounds
from complacency
for any job
from Job's counselors
to hire for dollars
only in language
does he express desire,
every agency holding him
up for good behavior
a friend named Judas
hardly his savior
as the blood moon's eye
closes to inherit
a brief time on earth
in skinny darkness
needing more time
to commit an offense
called the crime of birth
or getting up by living high,
his black eye is circled
death has no formality
in a devil's trill
of a family or society
eating a French bread
with sunflower seeds
jumping between bicycles
in a no man's land
with No Parking signs
he steals at night
to each according
to his needs or condition
on route 66
of your apparition.

IN THE END
(For Saint  Edith Stein)
(Jerusalem 1992)

In the end
we lean out
of the window here
on the garden patch
to catch a bit
of a Carmelite sunshine
you cannot bottle in
a poet
by a thousand sands,

heaven forbid,
I cannot pretend
even eyeing the birds
at the Red Sea
love cannot commit
any curse under His creation
made in your imagery
as you may reverse us
only with holy spirit
illumination
in your Word's revelation,

O wondrous garden of Eden
you sentenced our first born
who were weak
when it is justice we seek
as we are forlorn
as the pagan
from the curse in the garden
seeking pardon
worn into penance robes
for repentance
during Holy Week,

we remember those souls
O Jacob, enlarge thy tents
you have heard the curse
in the desert, O my people
return to Me
and make water from wine
in pitchers in the Negev
by the carob
and juniper tree

dance before me,
dine on Kingly floors
sing psalms
of the divine prophets

Pray for those few souls
of the nations
who have cursed you
now hidden away
and yet choose prophets
like King David
to rhyme as a poet
with Mary in blue,

walk gently with the Lord,

in his station and manger
worship Him there
do not be a poor stranger,

O my nation,

send out the good light
and nurse Solomon's proverbs
say the healing words
over a herb's blessing
as unleavened bread
with yeast for guests
at the incoming Passover's feast
resting near the reed's river bed,

pray for a misunderstood
son or daughter
with their four questions

who are now dressing up
war wounds
received from the nations
the dead will rise
like Lazarus,

we know whom the just
and Righteous
speaks for, Father
so early in the day,

why do we stare so long
to bow at the wall
it takes only a second
to make amends
to put in a prayer
like a fallen leaf
of unbelief,
saying your amens,

even when a brief sin
takes in the in- laws side
we remember Ruth
in marrying from grace
not from family pride
truth will still pour through
the land you dwell in
onto your beautiful face
O Israel,


love cannot die
or pause for the bird song
to make due,

My people
only choose a shadow
in the sunshine for your city
ask the Holy One
to pardon this day
and my pity for the least,

O Daughter of Jerusalem
tarry into the light,
there is nothing wrong
with a brief stay
outside at dawn


there is a more above the sky
as we realize the canticles
in a mystical and musical
minor Hebrew key
as your cry is heard by me,


he wants to sanctify
a way to divine the chords
of His lyrical love

in a miracle of God's rewards
every eye will recognize,

O my generation,
remember your younger days
how the warring wind
from golden Jerusalem
would rescue the just
even by the sandy Jordan
or on a Galilean storm


all the sinned and repentant
wash like those of us
in the baptized
breeze of the river
who had forgotten to pray
as Moses will deliver,

we hold onto the hem
of His garment and sway,
tarrying with ease


and recite a bold prayer
after saying an amen,


there are other ways
his love will capture you
as His words come into view
in the valley of dry bones
no use to pretend
we are no longer in exile
whether Gentile or Jew
by the Jezreel mountain
only His love atones

hear O ISRAEL
for the new Jerusalem bells
sound the shofar
above the heather of earth

angels around Jerusalem
as laughter and mirth
are shooting from stars
with a rapture to pursue.

MIND RACING

When your mind races
and you want to change
places with anyone
in sight
and you cannot sleep
as images float on by
tonight
think that now
you can be whatever
thoughts make you clever
and closer to keep the light.

YOU ARE CONVINCED

You are convinced
that war hunted
and haunted
those who survive.

JOINED

Joined in a nascent spring
a crocus in my hand
by the country dark road
the wind whispers
by blocking first light
on my sunglasses
echoes of mourning doves
awaken me on my knapsack.

UNSURE APRIL

Dawn
is no longer dawn
the still breeze
no longer the breeze
a memory off shore
no longer
in an unsure April.

AT PLYMOUTH ROCK

There are few Puritans
here of any sort
under the flaring sun
round heads need not apply
or hidden royalty
of Cavaliers
in their collars
only tourist dollars
are their loyalty
at any last resort
yet there is a boy by the rocks
with his sports gear
by his backpack side
reading the Pensees of Pascal
in solitude, out of sight
and a bride of a few years
with long blonde locks
stretched out
on the white sand
with a seared copy
of the Magna Carta
and the Bill of Rights
in her strong hand.

HOLDING ON

A fragile flower
you hold on
here in the zen garden
so why fear
the early morning
when you dream
on the ineffable earth
of the last icy winter
at the early hour
love glances at your guest
changing the  first light
on your face
there is a limpid smile
you had in sleep.

WOLFGANG BORCHERT'S LIFE
(1921-1947)

"The Dandelion,"
your short story
we read in school
and unlike an April fool
we won't forget it
nor your work as a poet
you finally paid your dues
after hating the military
and refusing to go back
to the contrary beliefs
for peace
in the early sun
of your days and night
dying from a dirty fever
not reaching thirty
unwilling to put on
a German uniform
or serve the war machine
you finally received
your release.

THIS DAY TO REMEMBER

We do not forget
one soul or skeleton
from Adam's rib
caught in the sun
(1939-1945)
those whom man defiled
who needed
a prayer even in their crib
the body turned to smoke
on this day to remember:
God spoke.

THOMAS TRAHERNE:HEAR ME

No soul can live
by the law
yet feels
as an outcast
like Esau
who sold his birthright
for pottage
and a quick meal
on a blue plate special
as an exile
who chose to be fully fed
and ate from hunger
unlike John the Baptist
who died in faith
with a severed head,
O Thomas of doubt
promise me this
you will remember
a missing poet as well
on golden streets
where psalm writers,
young saints for God
and poets meet
recite and tell.

ANNE PORTER'S DAY
(1911-2011)

A mystical glow
on a long island wind
shadows the noonday sun
dripping windows
of its icicles

Friend to O'Hara
Schuyler, Ashbery
your artist husand
Fairfield,

My now unsealed
eulogy to you
who adored St. Francis
of Assisi
where a greater love
is revealed in this eulogy.

SATURDAYS

Suspending life
at matinees or laundromats
holding onto your friend's
seeing eye
where quiet dawns
speak to you.

JOHN WHEELWRIGHT'S DAY
(1897-1940)

Aware of the power
of water, sand ,tree
in the honeysuckle
by the Charles River
on revolutionary fields
at Boston Common
near lovers,grackles,graves
a poet's hushed light
of feathered warmth
from muddy streams
green moss,lichen,stone
to open the springs
by fountains
pruning lilacs
no song birds are missing.

INVITED

Invited to a choice
of castaway exile

or to live on the earth
as sacrificial citizen

others choose
imagination to ascertain

an illuminated nature
on tall greensward grass

live in memory of the river
or alone in the rain.

BOSTON

After twenty years
of laughter and pain

returning to you
with my shabby suitcase

in the hail and rain
at the airport lift

carrying my translations
from the last quatrain

sitting on patient stone
on the Common

in this weather beaten day
my memory unravels

by the train station
rails

in my diary
of travail and travel.

VALERY'S MEMORY

Arrows of consideration
pierce tomorrow's recollection

You follow your eyelids
under winds snapping snow on trees

how you compose and trace
the Parisian illuminating breeze

in a few words you aim for
beyond the past rondeau

as our renatured Rousseau
on an elysian rendezvous.

ALL WARS

All wars
and rumors there in

of Cain killing Abel
the honorable is slain

died from hiding
his original sin,

We need a miracle
in each life to begin again.

IDEAS

Ideas like words
click in our mind

like blackbirds
on the clothesline

who want to sing
but are content with bread

and rain water
like most of mankind

not aware of their voice
until they are dead.

LINCOLN
150 ANNIVERSARY TODAY

Your loss
was ours
in sorrow and joy
the earth reveals
its flower
from all the weeds
in Illinois.

GUNTER GRASS PASSES

I wrote to you,
not knowing all your past
but knowing your words
will last
after fascism
in all its forms is gone.

CHANGES

You ask for change
from strangers
outside the bank
but have no interest
except for words
then you try to exchange
a blank expression
from your newly bearded jaw
before a pocket mirror
by a lottery ticket
you pick up on the street
containing a lucky ten,
when your smiling face
begins to rhyme
knowing you will eat
after all,
yet losing out
from your birthright's call
it's still your time to be alive,
then why is an insightful poet
feeling guilty for no crime,
am I Dostoevsky in California
revived in the 1960's
being like Esau, a wanderer
as an outlaw survivor
fleeing under a curse tonight
not a member of the law
or clergy but loving God
and man like Whitman
in my own elegy
by standing up to read
on a blanket
our pocket verse
holding a cup for an offering
on the sand tearing up
over Ocean Beach
like a San Francisco Beat,
wanting others to recognize
my desperate plight
like a lost blackbird in April
always in stages of flight
over the motioning clouds
eyeing a wish to be wiser
saying thanks without ecstasy
to another passing angel dust soul
from Mexico City, named Jesus
who exchanges rings with me
in a poetry ceremony
of our own translation
this handsome Spanish beggar
wishes like me to be younger
yet shares his pottage with me
as we both blank out from hunger.

SPECULATION

What in the sunshine
reflects the ribs of God
in the city of my requiem
passing chimeras from bones
after war makes us strangers
to ourselves.

LIBERATION:70 YEARS TODAY

Outside Weimar

dreams of a Republic

fallen in the democratic ashes

of memories buried

in Buchenwald,

a pastor's words

remembered

prayers for the suffering

outside and inside these walls

and barbed wire,
you cannot fence out love.

THOSE STUDENTS

Those few students arrived
early among
the potted morning glory
making a film about Emily
Dickinson
by the gestured roses
of green arboretum gardens
capturing film highlights
by statues of the Esplanade
in black and white
the sun bleeding
under fallen trees
over a rudimentary way
a camera moves in
for an improper Bostonian
documentary
in a twilight
of callow street lamps
casting shade
from a recent dragnet
of a marathon suspect
in a massacre
to discover a paradise theme
from Puritan waterholes
and once bewitched shadows
of Ann Hibbins hangs over
Boston Common
where Crispus Attucks
gave his life also
shattering below Frog Pond
by Weeping Willows
lining by swan boats
for Leda's friends
by winged ducks and squirrels
capturing a blond fleeced Jason
wanted for heroism
in a hapless revolutionary city
where vagabonds take catnaps
next to lovers on blankets
cutting rye bread
for cucumber sandwiches.

JACQUELINE DU PREY

You lifted a soul
higher when the cello
played Bach
and Jacqueline du Prey
I heard your solo Kol Nidrei
after your departure.

BITON

Though blinded
yet through your vision
a world of letters
read backward is reborn.

JEAN-LOUIS CREMIEUX  BRILHAC
RESISTANCE FIGHTER LIVES ON:
April 10,2015


Your voice
your chance
your life
your stance
of resistance
now your death

NOT KNOWING

Not knowing
what awaits a Beat poet
and jazz violinist
on the city's street
surely BZ being reborn
and rediscovered now
in his ellipsis of a moment
of fifteen minutes
in the sunlight of his fame
now acknowledged by
his initials being written
on an Esplanade of trees
and an artist's graffiti
suddenly being recognized
by signing autographs
with photographs being taken
by those who never had
his back before.

A MONDRIAN MOMENT

A hundred shades of sunlight
on your Manhattan studio wall
orange,sky blue, red
a poet expects flying gulls
from islands
of phosphorescent waves
to reach the bronze Pacific
in a glimmer of first light
animating a festival of play
as an aspen of spring
enters the morning field
from a perfumed vision
at the level of green eyes.

EXPECTATIONS

You cannot expect
the awkwardness
of your adolescence
to make any sense
of your sudden
marathon victory
on these reproachable fields
of Central Park
the early spring passed me by
with a red apple in my mouth
writing odes like Walt
would have you be cool
in his dusty shadows
after a long night
wrapped day dreams
around us
waking me up
at seven in the morning
not wanting to go to school
on the west side of Manhattan
though competing
with Sappho,Virgil and Latin
here under hedges
where others make out
that they made out
behind an esplanade of trees
hidden by memories
of alternate road signs
affirming in their accents
that they found their partner
in their forays leaving packs
of protections
to witness a disappearing
once iced angel snowman
reminding me of Baudelaire
standing there on the grass
by a lost sneaker
from soccer practice,
a raincoat of satin
slips over the bench
from a soap opera star
jogging by me
her red hairpin boxes
here in my plumbline
without a care,
an accordion player
speaks to me in Armenian
of his boyhood in Yerevan.

DESPERATION

When a poet
needs the right word
in its own tense time
send out language
to express
every punctured line,
believe me
he's punch
drunk from the sun
perched like a songbird
by the clothes line
his cool searching movements
in April fool's light fragments
from every secret terrain,

direct the thought pattern
of this poet's brain
bring him back
to Manhattan
in the Sixties
on the underground train,
have him play sax again
take down his collar
set him up in the subway
beside a cup for dollars
get him a microphone
for his last subterranean quatrain
amid a world of brass rings
and pain,
his fingers rattle off notes
from a vagrant hand
needing the patience
of any prophet in the land,
give him drama and commas
as mirrors time
out of doors
to spring in the dust and sand
as a new green greets him
in this Beat's chanting creation
with aspiring echo's breath
defying death
sustain, sustain.

BELIEVE

Believe and live
as the bluebell flower
has an April cup of rain
at the last Passover hour
when we thought
all was lost
yet on a Roman cross
near the Red Sea
an unacknowledged yet
misunderstood drama rises up
from a death of memory
with a lasting breath
speaking of a king
from Nazareth
embedded on a dogwood tree.

THE YEAR ONE

Striving with a new season
rebels throwing stones

for their liberation
from Rome

On a hellish Styx of treason
by cursing earth and river,

near a candle,
an ancient prophecy

sparking
an enlightened rebirth

reporters covering a sacrifice
of a god king dying for a price

by offering his long suffering
in his shiver of bones

on an enlightening
day spring.

FEAR

Every intention resumes
after laughter's intervention

yet fear lingers on with an ale
drunk on a Chaucer morality tale

Worry gets us in a hurry
let's not fret for our regrets

Anxiety will not freeze us
hiding like Zacchaeus in the trees

Zeus has wonderfully spoken
from oak breeze and thunderbolt,

Love spurned marriage to Malatesta
turned off Paolo and Francesca,

God's wrath we learn to avoid
or we yearn behalf of Dr. Freud.

HOPE ON GOOD FRIDAY

Beloved Jehovah
of David,
or by Jove of Ovid

where are we
bid
after Nietzche,

the dead gods
are not livid
any more

at least no one can
appeal to them
in the call to war

now forgotten, riddled
of every laughter's myth
large or small fable,

we invite Esther or Mordechai
to recline in a fallen chair
at a Easter-Passover table

eggs filled with tasty goods
from our piecemeal yeast
of not risen unleavened bread

having eaten
a slice of our democratic
pi of pies

playing dumb
for a scientific
crumb,

in a settlement
or accident of history
wishing to be independent

not wanting to hear
of crowning newer Nero's
or heroes drowning in the Tiber

O Pound and Eliot
what have your critical
musical sounds wrought

as a new Cain sought Abel
has again been slaughtered
slain and quartered,

there is now no sacred wood
since the red fields, October 1973
in your own neighborhood

Rabbi Jesu remember us
in your freedom's
kingdom and government

Smile the sun on Gentile and Jew
the remnant of a few
out of the nations

who bow under star or cross
before more than 14 stations
in a ditch water fosse

the Franciscan daughters
from a convent on Mt. Zion
praying for us,

we who wish to
believe on you
with our revelation's lips

redeemed in the spring
from watery floods on branches
of a coming Apocalypse.

THROUGH HOOPS

Through hoops
is their hopes
for a future,

sounds of baskets
in verbal reaction
to their own nature,

Between a chance
in life
and opportunity.

BAUDELAIRE'S DAY
1821 -1867
April Nine birth

Today the spring wakes
to a poet passer-by
disbanded by fortune
and four love letters
in his back pocket
who watches the crowds
by the Parisian arcades,
it starts to rain on the Avenue
Champs-Elysees
by a children's noon day parade,
when suddenly in need
of a notebook and pen
to scribble out words
returns to a water hole den,
he quietly enters the door
at a cafe table and chair
wishing for a hot brioche
for his dining pleasure
and a cup of merciful wine
in no small measure,
his mind races again
immersed in the language
of a midnight quatrain
refusing to bet on life or horse
for a dubiously quoted dandy
has no money for the bourse,
who keeps alive
what only absolution will reap
from his fleeting curiosity
as a keep sake to survive
after nights without sleep,
not always forgiving himself
for being born a Baudelaire
on this wake of a cloudy day
yet thankful for a few francs
lodged in his suit jacket
on noon's absent minded April
to fill up his small tray.

With fears and long suffering
along dark corridors and hallways
the spark will return to sing
and he will work again
and thrive at this rebirth
at this season of the year
for every Gentile or Jew
there is still time to renew,
whose God of space and time
has forgiven all sin
on this enduring face of earth,
as spring has embraced
trembling branches of yew trees
from the April winds
in the watery air,
reminding you it is your birthday
poor Baudelaire,
here at the end of solitude's hours,
and after all the smoking mirrors
from carnival masks appear
in this devil make care world
of playing Tarot cards and solitaire,
you will achieve your goal
by composing "Flowers of Evil"
in fervor for every lapsed soul,
as you rise to leave
Bette Louise, the lovely server
with ringlets of brown hair
and laughter's red lips
thanks you Charles Pierre
for your generous quips
and past jokes
lacking much in tips,
yet it is after all at Easter Vigil
an hour to forgive and let live
as you try to believe
your poetry will still be alive
after the last apocalypse.