Topic: nichi poems

[Nichi]

1975

The Masque
 
Invisibly,
You send me to my tomb.
My bow long-bent,
I thank the phantom audience.
The performance is over again.
Recounting the lines,
I whisper in Solitude's ear
Confessions of error ---
The imperfections
Wringing displeasure
From your crooked brow.

I finger through the photos of the wake.

 
~VL

[Ke-ke wan]

Wow. 

[runningstream]

yes that s great

flicking through the photos i remembered how to

make a bon fire with movement

thanks

[Firestarter]

Excellent!

[Nichi]

Old, old, old~


Withdrawal

The lulls and empty sheets beg for the scrawl
Of any cryptic pen-tirade
Or any lilting quill's cascade,
To stave a sorry, throbbing space's spall.

Sometimes words' quarry voids that golden call
Who bade sweet reason from backstage
And raved love's verses to the page --
But yet through rubble glows the paper's awl.

Amok, ink's curse and comfort thinly runs,
Communion's wine slow-slovened by dry drunks...

VLambert

[Nichi]

Old, old, old...

Trenchcoat Trickster

A rogue?
I am a rogue.
Steal into night,
Peer at traffic,
Slap my sides,
Cough some smoke,
Tilt my hat,
Feel morose
About the act
While the man
Pulls past and waves.
Oh yes. Goodbye!
Goodbye.
So glad to see
You go ... er ...
This pocket watch
Is right again,
Though I don't know
What time it is.
Hmmm ... did I forget ...
There's something,
I can't remember
What habit beckons,
But it is calling
Loudly, somewhere.
This shallow curb
Won't trip me,
And the sewage-stream
Won't take me.
In beer joints
They avoid me --
Thank God I have
This trenchcoat!
(Keeps me stealthy.)
Play detective --
Make the clients
Tell me what
The mystery
Is.

VLambert

[Nichi]

Old, old, old


Winds own the man-made mussels hanging black
And idly dangling on your porched mobile.
The afternooon sun's castanets and heels
Danced cancrizans, atop the windblown clacks
Our laughter floated o'er --- a spirit soared
Unto the shell-strung marionette ballet.
(Heart's effort aired and clicked in finger-play.)

We marvelled at the sandcrab's easy bore,
So quick to dart when intermission fell
Upon us -- baffled by a blundering knot,
Who tangled more than intertwined the plot.
Creation's climax washed to ocean swells ...
Since then these ebon hands, rehearsing still,
Are fossils, captured on your sea-door's sill.

VLambert

[Nichi]

Old, old, old

Tea and Ashes

My thousand-lines are stuffed
Aside, scratched and scrawny;
Again I bid adieu,
Perfection.
Better now, to absorb water-stains
Collected, as
Waste-free coasters,
Holders for the tea and ashes.
Lucille, you inspired
Me madly.
I burned and wept in whiteness,
But not for you,
Sisterpoet.
You sing, and grow, and make.
I am lost, in Western verbage--
Trash of the architects,
Who chiseled stone,
Sepulchre-castles,
Way-lays for moat men,
Who murkily inscribed
Their ominous manuscript,
Everywhere.
These measurements our gods,
The Form our Kali --
They bring to us the nonlife,
Good-words, scrolled.
(Priests roll up the traps.)
This ink is my blood;
My daughters ... are photos.
And me...
Bones of stone,
Heavy and dense,
Overgrown by a well-read mother ---
Who chose from some
Thousand lines,
The right way to cause
The wanted
Effect.

VLambert 

[Michael]

Yes, evocative images. Enjoyed the reading.

[Firestarter]

Way awesome!

[Nichi]

Old poem.

Time

Time by me keeps still, by a smouldering fire
Whose hearth stares stone-faced at its faithful patron --
Dream-raker rolling chilling coals' desire
To ashen smut. Rubbed embers glare in chafed
Discomfort, sorer than the wintered thighs
Of hunters shovelling snow.  It seems unfair
To force each glow to bare its frenzied eyes,
When centuries of cold long-snuffed the flare
Love's warmth wants to survive. The freeze revives
In me with each hushed ember turned to dust,
These polar nights: the chamber's iron thrives
Without my need ... so stoke this fire I must.

VLambert

[Nichi]

Too Emily Dickinson/Gerard Manley Hopkins. My muse in those days had a germanic, guttural quality.

[Nichi]

Old, old, old


Winds own the man-made mussels hanging black
And idly dangling on your porched mobile.
The afternooon sun's castanets and heels
Danced cancrizans, atop the windblown clacks
Our laughter floated o'er --- a spirit soared
Unto the shell-strung marionette ballet.
(Heart's effort aired and clicked in finger-play.)

We marvelled at the sandcrab's easy bore,
So quick to dart when intermission fell
Upon us -- baffled by a blundering knot,
Who tangled more than intertwined the plot.
Creation's climax washed to ocean swells ...
Since then these ebon hands, rehearsing still,
Are fossils, captured on your sea-door's sill.

VLambert

Don't mean to quote myself - such a height of arrogance and conceitedness.

But I was reminded of this one today as I stumbled on one by Rilke. There's something at the core which is similar (though I know for sure that I hadn't read him when I wrote mine).

Do you remember still the falling stars
that like swift horses through the heavens raced
and suddenly leaped across the hurdles
of our wishes--do you recall? And we
did make so many! For there were countless numbers
of stars: each time we looked above we were
astounded by the swiftness of their daring play,
while in our hearts we felt safe and secure
watching these brilliant bodies disintegrate,
knowing somehow we had survived their fall.

Rainer Maria Rilke

[Michael]

Too Emily Dickinson/Gerard Manley Hopkins. My muse in those days had a germanic, guttural quality.

You certainly have a the flavour of Hopkins in your style, which is quite pleasant.

[Nichi]

Thanks, Michael. xo