INTIMACIES OF SOUND Poems David Jaffin Intimacies of Sound INTIMACIES OF SOUND Poems David Jaffin First published in Great Britain in 2005 by Shearsman Books, 58 Velwell Road, Exeter EX4 4LD and in Germany by St.-Johannis-Druckerei, Lahr/Schwarzwald www.shearsman.com she3rsman@macunlimited.net Distributed for Shearsman Books in the U.S.A. by Small Press Distribution, 1341 Seventh Avenue, Berkeley, CA 94710 Email: orders@spdbooks.org Website: http://www.spdbooks.org ISBN 0-907562-78-7 (Shearsman Books, UK) ISBN 3-501-01517-8 (St.-Johannis-Druckerei, Germany) Copyright © David Jaffin, September 2005. The right of David Jaffin to be identified as the author of his work has been asserted by him in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act of 1988. All rights reserved. Gesamtherstellung: St.-Johannis-Druckerei, Lahr/Schwarzwald Printed in Germany 35423/2005 Contents Hearing aid’s 11 After the necessary time 11 Reinforcement 12 Mountained cemetery 12 Silver distel’s 13 The one that got away 13 Scarecrow 14 Hard-cut 15 The ripeness of fruit 15 Love poem 16 Changing colors 16 Resembles 17 Morning moon 17 Time-tabled 17 Children on display 18 Braunschweig: 4 paintings 18 Leaves 21 Milkweed’s 21 Could mean 21 Blown free 21 A good try 22 Poems in print 22 Fall of man II Parma da Vecchio Braunschweig 22 Bird’s ascending 23 Minnowing 23 Medieval symbols 24 Theme and Variations 24 Quiet late summer days 25 Withholding 25 Aristophanes: the birds (7) 26 The idol 26 A long time to thaw 28 A dialogue of aging lovers 30 Im-itating 31 Roads 31 Sermoned 31 Wall-papered 32 Joseph in the pit 32 Achat 33 Hurrying too quick 33 Of motionless longings 34 Too pretty 34 Edgy feelings 35 Out-placed 35 By saying less 36 Hypo Bank Expo/ Munich Sept. 04 (5) 36 This long line of books 38 When she stopped being 39 Without a cross in a Calvinistic church 39 Why God chose 40 Camus: L’etranger (5) 40 For my father 42 Motives 43 Gieseking concert New York in the 50s 43 “Let’s put it all behind us” 44 Late September 44 Of knowing where 45 A room at the top of the stairs 45 A quiet Sunday 46 Donatello’s David 46 These houses 47 First warnings 47 Used up 48 So slowly 48 Train conductor to Auschwitz 49 Fulfilling 50 Its own time 50 Climbing 51 In Plochingen 51 With toy guns 52 Open sounds 52 Yellow jacket’s needled 52 Landscaped tragedy 53 Karlsbad 53 Sinking shadows 54 Opened out 54 Distinct as a bird 55 That house 55 To the bottomlessness 56 The romantic concerto’s 56 Mozart K. 397 57 Encore as the balding 57 Her gentleness of voice 58 Sabbath 58 2 lithe squirrels 59 Massively woodened-in 59 Blood-levelled 60 Choral night 60 Sienese early 14th c. 61 Rosemarie 61 Room of hats 61 “St. George and the dragon” 62 Fredricke 62 Berries 63 Rooftops 63 Those Duccio saints 64 At 67 64 At the zoo (9) 65 Being hurt 69 More resplendent 69 This blurred vision 70 The mouse wiesel 70 Like 71 Formed 71 Sun-bleached colors 72 Looking back’s 72 The warning signs 73 Otherwise 73 For security sake 74 Seeing for sky’s 74 Numbers 75 Evergreens 75 To be certain ot 75 Consensus 76 Singing itself in light 76 So distinctly hard 76 Young women sewing 77 Street lights 77 Invisibly awake 77 Lowering the shades 78 Animals 78 Love-making 79 2nd commandment (Moses) 79 Elegiacally rehearsing 80 Animal imitations 80 That slenderness 81 As a used coin 81 Undoing history 82 The grey of wanting color 82 Abandoned houses 83 Love is 83 Those hills the war left behind 84 Wolfgang 84 The house by the stream 85 Slowed down 86 Scarecrow 86 All over again 87 Blackbird 87 The dark 88 The rains 88 Truths 88 Beethoven 7th: 3rd mvt. 89 H. G. 89 Hartmut 90 Too many times 91 Thinning down 91 Blank face 92 Even keeled 92 A room without windows 93 “Eve been working on the railroad” 93 Of where we didn’t start 94 Snake-eyed 94 Some masterpieces in the Kassel museum (5) 95 Marla 97 City/sounds 97 A science to man 98 To Chopin me 98 Nathaniel Pink at the piano 99 The closed box 99 These dark 100 Pictures from the past 101 Worn thin 101 Rain-drop window 101 Of marbled purity 102 Clavigo (5) (Goethe) 102 For Rosemarie 104 This mist 104 Deborah 105 Depressively bared 105 Suspendingly alive 106 In Madeira 106 A glazed bowl 107 Presidential politics ’04 107 Craftmanship 107 “A minor paradise” 108 Bald-eyed practitioner 108 A sadness 109 Sunflower’s lights 109 The worm 110 Nathaniel Pink 110 Spaciously releasing 111 At the end of the line 111 Ponderously self-assuring 112 These gathering shells 112 A Message 113 A loneliness 113 Thereabouts 114 Owl-like 114 Mozart at Herrnchiemsee 115 Automatic doors 115 Birth-winds 116 Laurendus 116 A little man 117 With moralizing eyes 117 To feel pity 118 Indone 118 Tooth-paste smile 118 Horses 119 Haloed 119 Jerusalem coming down 120 Buttoned up 121 Time-lengths 121 Open-eyed 122 A land divided 122 Rules of the game’s 123 Just aired in 123 Doctor’s visit 124 Mildly autumn 124 For Gerlinde’s 125 Prayer place 125 That droopy look 125 The stunning effect 126 If 126 First snow 127 Chimney smoke 127 A vacancy of sky 127 Slow movements 128 Accepting age 128 In Dance 128 Emptied heart’s 129 Wheel-chaired rest 129 Pedalled herself 130 “Put on your Easter bonnet” 130 Les Adieux (Beethoven, slow parts) 131 “Getting to the bottom of things” 131 Too quick 131 “Getting right to the point” 132 Mr. Everyday 132 Brueghel: Return of the herd 133 Rebecca 133 In-realizing 134 Mussorgsky/Janacek’s 134 Out-lined 135 The birth of a leaf (Mordecai Ardon) 135 Taking a stand’s 136 Women enjoy 136 Through 137 Keeping up with the time’s 137 A look around the corner 137 Head-lined 138 Small creatures 138 Graveyard 139 Poisoned seed 139 The train’s 140 Tailored from taste 140 Of untenable growth 141 Alsfeld " 141 A glimpse only 142 Mirroring 142 A calling out for 143 This shell’s outsung 143 Thorned-rose 143 Her nose 144 Something pained there 144 In a caged security 145 Light flooding 145 The ineffable’s 145 Eyes 146 Rounded 146 Sadness (after hearing Schubert’s A Minor Quartet) 146 Stilled from voice 147 Schubertian 147 Nathaniel Pink 148 Cake-maker 149 The Rhine’s 149 Facts and figures 150 Waiting 150 Off-set 151 Roomed-in 151 The Fall 152 His time 152 Elsbeth 153 Word-finds 154 What lost horizons 154 Sensing in Lights 155 Tunneled enclosures 155 Dummy 156 Out-of touch 156 Van Goyen 157 “Sadistic” 157 So many sides 158 That house 158 Dead bird 159 That paleness 159 Hand shake 160 Medieval attributes 160 “He’s gone” 161 Why 161 Blank page 162 Routine 162 Meeting face to face 162 Seeing through 163 That urge 163 If Nietzsche 163 Help worker killed in Iraq 164 Sign of 164 Cubby-holed 165 Political poems 165 Atlantis found? 165 Sensed-in sounds 166 Talk-shows and the like 167 Kletzmer 167 The dilemma 168 Van Gogh 169 Night animals 169 “Taking stock of oneself ’ 170 Rembrandt-surfaced 170 Pontius Pilate’s 171 A more 172 Hommage a Willa Cather 173 Names lost 174 This wind-driven snow 174 A small motion 174 That night-like fox 175 Down to 175 “All spruced up” 176 Sun-shine alley 176 Karlsruhe Art Gallery 6 masterpieces 177 Strange characters 179 Cold winds 180 After Matisse 180 “The road not taken” 180 Sharper than the sword 181 At the cross roads 181 Unfelt 181 Secret histories 182 Her canary 182 A plant 183 Why 183 Falluja 184 Desert flowers 184 This wintered sun’s 185 Impulsing 185 So bright 186 Pre-fabricated 186 No looking back for Lot 187 Compromise 187 Tolerance 188 Wellness 188 Collecting stamps 188 With bud-like pearls 189 Getting bad feelings 189 Tiny insects 190 Sanibel’s down 190 Haydn: Baryton trios 191 From lost causes 191 Damascus 192 Homilius: the motets 192 Seemed through 192 Statue in the park 193 In need of himself 193 The worm’s 194 The ladder 194 Do animals know 195 Remote castle’s 195 Biographies 196 Images 196 Transparently awake 197 Softness of wind 198 Love 198 On and off 198 A display piece 199 Ive’s marching bands 199 Words that fail 200 Ballroom scene (Guardi) 200 Over-stepped 201 Spelled-in meanings 201 Eyes 202 Twelfth-night (Shakespeare) (5) 202 Alien to its own message 205 As well 205 Pfungstadt 206 INRI 207 The “Cherry Orchard’s” 207 Are you better David 208 Patience 208 Israel 209 Looking yourself young 209 Nathaniel Pink’s desirability routes 210 Cold way in for late 210 “Women in a green jacket” (Macke) 211 “Women in a green jacket” 11 212 Ageless memories 212 Unanswering questions (Ives) 213 His “laugh” 213 Whispered through Grass 214 All look alike 214 So refined 215 Hearing aid' s a symbol of the times Most every thing without brought into focus And what’s near and intimate scarcely audible. After the necessary time the police brought them back Her blood-ridden cloth es The ski-sticks that couldn’t hold her back Her shoes that left the ground behind them And the skis that had their own story to tell All in a bundle of death for the parents a 2nd burial but un placed bodi less. Reinforcement If they only hear what they want to Then they’ve been listen ing to their own echoing- frorn voice. Mountained cemetery Do these flowers celc brate such dancing colors where these trees have been stumped to a mute awareness in unsensed being. Silver distel’s rough- edged thoughts chalked a shiny sense of moon-spo ken light. The one that got away Eye to slippery eye Nose to the nose of sensing death That strawberry bass on Lake Champlain that got away into its darkening realms And left me without a net and with those barren thought s of an em ptied hook. Scarecrow I don’t know who'll be afraid of this one if we aren’t Dressed down to the appear ance ofa policing stance He pro tects what shouldn't be stolen from the fruits of the fields as ifhe didn’t have an appe tite for them himself stuck into the shal low earth of such menacing attitudes. Hard-cut She was hard-cut Features an- gled-in Bomb ed out of her past She strode not with the fine and plea sing steps most women pre fer But with the certainty of a manly self-declining assurance. The ripeness of fruit and the year ning thirst to flow it in to the taste of sucli consuming colors. Love poem When I curve the roundness of your face into the mould ing hands of love’s implor ing desires Your eyes in askance the way children who want to know and your hair brighten ed because 1’ m telling it so. Changing colors These leaves keep changing the colors of my eyes falling through the light of autumn’s early glow. Resembles The dark resembles roses It grows out of a sense ofbeing seen. Morning moon and the day bright cned in for forge tlu 1 ness These trees spoken through their shadow less awaken ings. Time-tabled We’ ve often been time-tabled into trains that didn’t connect be yond where that reading-off blackboard would check us in for being there. Children on display their clever nesses and specially tai lored talent s as a form of designing oneself for the guarantee of others. Braunschweig: 4 paintings a) The sacrifice (Lievens) knife at hand the sacrifi cial animal- ed Burning fires God’s in sistent wrath for the love of Abraham and his son Embra cing the Lord’ s beneficent being. b) The Seduction (Vermeer) All was said with these two lit tie lemons The one as whole as that darken ing pictured face above her And the o ther cut the sperm enters its spiny way through the threads of her not-so-re- sistent flesh. c) The Fall (Parma da Vecchio) Adam too much in love Posed for the beauty of his bodied claims Eve sure-minded fruit of her insistent telling eye s. d) Adoration of the Shepherds (Jordaens) crowded into the crudeness ot their features Humbled as they were even more by the smallness of the child But why that fashionably hatted woman Staring intent ly for an ap propriate dis tanced from view. Leaves wind-mo ving sha dows. Milkweed’ s that tiny seed’s sensing with so much of the wing’s whiteness. Could mean This sky more of the blue than our seeing eyes could mean. Blown free Flowers blown free from their coloring-in flections. A good try He had a good try at life It was like that old tree in the back yard The higher those branches became the lesser his hands could hold. Poems in print black for white as those pianoed scale s keep es caping. Fall of man II Parma da Vecchio Braunschweig Declaring fruit for the touch of tin folding hand s and rea- firming eye s of the poisoned na ture of death’ s call naked ly espoused. Bird’s ascending crops ot cherries sha dowing in the ripeness of their fu gitive taste. Minnowing The glance d off of pearl-like inflections Silver- streams minnowing. Medieval symbols out-told from meaning Golden flaked with heaven ly assumption s Like find ing back to the where of where one wasn’t. Theme and Variations Mozart' s coquette childly chas ing in butter flies post humously change from direction s. Quiet late summer days a mildness of less spo ken light and receiving shades that voice a per spective peace fully composed that even these random clouds rounding out in pillow ed leisure. Withholding She lowered her voice to the sub tie shades of her hair And the wind par ting in lip s increasing ly withhold ing. Aristophanes: the birds (7) a) flying away I would fea ther myself too If only we could fly a way from our blood-stain ed instinct s. The idol all of flaked gold Peeling at the edges of its Pre-Colum bian habitat. b) Sacred and profane If they left that High ty poet to the heights of his bird-like fh.it terings not even the laws could suit such sights to their down-to-earth paragraph mgs- c) The sacrifice to hungry gods or the unfathomed needs of man or birds tran scending the flightly vir tues of this earthy realm. d) The heroic past and those broken times broken shells Calling us back to the myths of the sea and its time less urging s. A long time to thaw Some per sons need a long time to thaw As the fro zen rivers of the taiga they lie low in their wintered crest of silence until touch ed with the warmth of streaming through desires. e) Unfeathered? You can’t unfeather me from the higher flight of poetic sen sibilitics or with tar and feather ed features keeping me close to the reign of your own pre-form ing and post-Persianed in sistencies. f) The wall Can we wall our selves in from a world deep within the boundaries of our own self-compla cencies Higher than we can conceive the shadowing depths per soiling our own every day searching sense from self. g) Flight LH 1900 These sheets of: sound strea king colors of steel illuminat ing self- en closing tran scient worlds below. A dialogue oj aging loners is like mostly co lored birds whispering the leaves anew from their fading sense in grceness. I m-i fating what you aren’t is like selling your shadow ing promises at reduced rates. Roads are more like distan cing thought’ s smooth-sur facing the whereabout s of their finding from. Sermoned You could have amened those flour ishing selfpersuasions of his drafty sermon at least 3 times be fore he came down to the length of his eye-browing that least sanctified of all-end ing words. Wall-papered most of her transient thoughts to those off- coloring de signs of distant ap predation. Joseph in the pit at the depth of fear And his brothers showing off their who’ll bend for whom attitudes of wild am mal’s blood of that innocent sacrificial foreboding in the redenip don of Christ. Achat cut to the heart of its flowing center’s an ocean form ing through soundless expansing waves. Hurrying too quick to conclu sions with the haste of grasp ing for shadow less perspec tives. Of motionless longings These rains have dampened me down as these leaves- hanging bran ches heavy with the weight of mo tionless longings. Too pretty Some times you’ re too pretty to be touch ed just right in that dress ed-like ap pearance more to be framed in painted culti vations. Edgy feelings as off-tim cd conclu sions The ten sions of not so certain colors or Ce zanne’s bowl of out-balan cing fruits. Out-placed The cross in that Cal vinistic church be gan to sway uneasily out placed front its theolog ical attune ments. By saying less He told more by saying less Some thing of those di minishing eyes that held as hand s asking- in touch. Hypo Bank Expo/Munich Sept. 04 (5) a) Magritte: Sleep walker from the out side of that lanterned light to the inside of his morning chair s approach ing some phan tom image of where dark’s revealing. b) Klee: “Premonition" 1939 Those men oraed eyes tear-burning the synagogue’ s ash of Is rael’s wanting flesh. c) Letnbruck: “Standing woman” 1910 Can such a sensitive face attuned to the direc tions offine- feelinged thought be felt from that largeness of such a bodied pose. d)Jawlensky: Last Light 1925 of where you couldn’ t tell for more of hoi ding that brush paralyzed formed its finalized light-needs coming through. c) Ancestor cult Papua-New Guinea If fear has eyes then only there spacing the dead past’s listening now. emptying my shelves with les sons that have been row ed to the dust of such gleaning-m post scripts. When she stopped being what she was but more of those shadow s clothed in the depth s ofuntouch ing forgetful ness. Without a cross in a Cahinistic church He prayed to a wall of closing-in stone’s e choing back what death’ s meant for. Why God chose David the adulterer and killer of his finer in stincts Instead ofjonathan that primed- for favorite as eldest son full of com passion even against the tides for his own self-se lection Only God knows why. Camus: L’etranger (5) (The stranger) a) The sand can keep slipping from under your feet with out the im pressions left of who or where or any place from not be ing there. b) The sun tells me more of my self by sha dowing what can’t be held into that i mageless void. c) The rape He didn’ t do it But that over whelming caused in sun. d) The dog So often beating that selved- in fear to its over coming accept ance. c) The prison Securing those step s to a mind self-itnprison ed the length of where co tiling's a going to(o). For my father He being more of himself than anyone I’d ever known Died in the shadows of where he wasn’t from being. Motives Those most suspicious of other’ s motives Have a right ofbecoming more aware of their own. Gieseking concert New York in the 50s Can those almost magi cal musical tones Even of Mendelssohn’s Songs without Words trans form into a forgetful ness of what’s so blood-ap parently present. “Let’s put it all behind us” as if sha dows could be dulled from their darken ing presence. Late September the dark months are co ming the nights get ting cooler the shadows deepening into an un certain fear of these time s No where to know as the rivers clashing the light of their sharp-protru ding rocksurfaced. Of knowing where The passing of time The slowness of these clouds These shifting meanings of words extend ing far be yond the reach ofknowing where. A room at the top of the stairs As if these winding step s echoing in circling thoughts that find me back again to the where’s of becoming. A quiet Sunday beyond the reach of these deepening shadows where words as the touch of silk seemed more sensed than spoken through the falling of leaves to after thoughts. Donatello’s David He would have wanted to wear down to those smooth surfa cings of an almost per fectly polish ed being. These houses seem cutout from card-board perspective s Roof-lin ed to the cold vistas in windowframed light. First learnings and these flags search ed through from color The land bar ed down from its breath Even these houses seem dulled in to emptied reflection s. Used up His time was used up Even that clock in the living room stopped tell ing him So he stared in to those em ptied space s that once his past could have been telling. So slowly The heavens moving him so slowly in to that vast awareness of self-re deeming light. Train conductor to Auschwitz I didn’t set those dogs on them Or close the doors of those cattle-wagon s tight be hind 1 didn’t hear their des parate cries or line them up for those prisoner’s showers 1 didn’t see but heard a bout later I simply took them there Daily trails port as any other train would have done. Fulfilling If this tree could be hung with apples again It wouldn’t look as sad ly as now For the fruit would be round and steady to be taken in glance. Its own time Is this train telling its own time Continuous ly there along those straighten ing lines of tracks in its more of be coming. Climbing T rees consuming space breath lessly climbing. In Plochingeti Hundert wasser’s jin-gle-jangle house as a half-horned castrated calf s not quite belong ing. With toy guns Shooting with toy guns at papered faces may be ripping bloodlines through your finger’ s assuming-in flesh. Open sounds like early Haydn spac ing for wind. Yellow jacket’s needl ed feet sharp incisive sting’ s — in blood’ s prettied colorness. Landscaped tragedy Little boy playing the big maim ed tractor releasing control’s over-running his infant brother and mother’s helpless cries Bigger even than all those o ther’s tear s could re deem back to life. Karlsbad ’s over towered com mittment to lasting facade’s that old world forget fulness from now. Sinking shadows as a ship lost from its whcrea bouts and the waves calling it down from the deep. Opened out He felt as if open ed out As a house where the hollowing winds and those broken-time windows wordless prevail. Distinct as a bird winged with rest less color mgs. That house was where she wasn’t Left behind that fear of her father And yet it drew her near er for being where she wasn’t As if his death was still spea king aloud from those vacant walls of his. To the bottomlessness Chasms of windswept depth s their hun gried fear s Discolor ing sound- beats to the bottomless ness of where’ s diminish ing self. The romantic concerto ’ s more like an overly dressed-from woman with more than those perfumed colors about her than She could bring back to size again. Mozart K. 397 as it in the inner flow ot an unspeakable sadness barely touch ed to the surface of where sound s revealing. Encore as the bald ing conductor wringled him self danced-in snake for nring an appre ciation ot in-bodied sound. Her gentleness of voice as the gui ding of wave s over the surface of where sound s diminish through their star-like presence. Sabbath and your hands lit from the light of those candle’ s voiced- through in still ness. 2 lithe squirrels the other side of where the other wasn’t Cha sing in up telling cars that hidden sleekness of warming fur’s distri butive mea nings. Massively woodened-in Those rooms darkened and massive ly woodened-in with chests of drawers neither o pened nor closed from a time-stan ding walled imperman cncy of their daily and most-las ting concern s. Blood-levelled All those clocks contra punctally Distancing the blood- levelled A rising tide s. Choral night s sounding in darkness as through the rush of moon’s watering times and those distantly in-proclaim ing stars. Sienese early 14,h c. That slen der glance ofhand- touched co lorings inperceiving the what of isn’t there indistinct iy- Rosemarie in the sleep of starlit imagin ings. Room of hatS Ambrogio Lorenzetti’s “Investiture of St. Louis of Toulouse” A room of hats speaking over the per sons they represent ed there Sleekly in vested in a dignity be yond reproach able aside s. “St. George and the dragon ” (Altdorfer, Munich) with those shimmering woods All dressed through trails cending light ness of more than that knight or any such armour could be re telling. Fredricke Her teeth tight-talk ing impress ively projec ting a tensed- in smiled un seen pleasure- like flowers for their late autumn sun-ta kings. Berries those rain-jewell ed remembran ces of why touch must be seen from/ first. Rooftops Spanish re miniscent of why those rough and a bandoned hills have been spaced down to an evenness from view. Those Duccio saints As iflif ted in light Those Duccio saints angeli cally calling the names of their choir ed assenibl mgs. At 67 am I not the same even more intensely see ing in this outer shell pre-witness ing for death' s finalized stigma. At the zoo (9) a) Alena was swinging like an angel And with the monkies doing likewise 1 felt my hand’s rhythmic urge holding her through for a 3 year old’s semi- heightening bliss. b) The penguins hadn’t quite made the grade Proudly bal ancing as Prussian officers between a benign selfcertainty and the swimming effects of glass imagin ings. c) We missed the snakes this time with their self-entwining venomous ton-gued-in accen tuaries And that slippery glance that had me toe- lightening it the night after. d) Some of those tropical birds elongating even my sense for poetic grace a thin ness of footfinding Airily and pleasur ably self- at taining. e) Wild-eyed animals I wonder what those wild-eyed animals see ing me through to their caged-in praries Pressing from paws to imprint their trying instinct’ s flesh-for ming. f) Oh for the ease of those giraff s lined- through a leaf iness of lip- ascending and presuming ce lestial plea sures. g) Below the surface of their sound-measur ing depths The swollen features of shadow-a bandonimj fish. It) At the bird’s place All those slight-color ing bird' s choral en chantment of time-effusing sounds Winged to the height of their own foot-lengthen ed personal persua sions. i) The kangaroo with its un deciding jumps gave me the im pression of some-time politician s neither co rning nor go ing either way. Being hurt was her way for fee ling more from herself As a doll dressed out brightly for conceal ing in tears. More resplendent That all color ing-over-in green frog seeming ly more re splendent by just con templating itself for sitting there. This blurred vision of trees going faster than form can think. The mouse wiescl with its pungent smile might be stealing some of the encores minor actors take from unguard ed chicken coops. Like This slight ness of cloud s like young girls through their self-appearing coloring from dress. Formed As if hills could be told through their self- assurance of space- en closing formed. Sun-bleached colors as the after smiles of ask ing from too much apparent use. Looking back ’ s like tur ning around one’s sense in direction The fear of what wasn’t so present ly there As if time itself had stopped painfully aware. The warning sigtis were there He didn’t stop to see as a yellow light turning for red He went through at the risk of o pening roads and wide see ing through vistas. Otherwise Was he otherwise than being now On the wrong track Time-tabell ed for where he wasn’t in that train not taken didn’t stop. For security sake It all came down to where a stran ded beach with a few despai ring trees for security sake oflone ly shipless harbors. Seeing for sky ’ s a way of looking those hill s up to where they’ re forming impersoned below. Numbers engraved in stone As if they could outlast the memories of those per sons buried to the depth of such intelling si lenccs. Evergreens as if persuading for a con tinning re birth. To be certain of False teeth hearing aids In-lensed eyes What’ s left of me to be ccr tain of. Consensus These hills rowed in to a consen sus of where houses square-deep climbing in tentional ly from. Singing itself in light For where the voice like a stream’ s singing it self in light. So distinctly hard Her fea tures so distinctly hard the impressed clarity of a freshly minted coin. Young women sewing (Georg Fredrick Kerstingj The space and darkness was more of your seeing there in to the light that fin ger’s touch to breath. Street lights proclaim ing their si lent reach a darkness of glassed- in fear. Invisibly awake Windows at night seeing in visibly a wake As spirit s haunted for their sound less past. Lowering the shades with a quie tude ofhand s in to those distancing realms for dream. Animals wake me active Their quick sense in sensing As if color was interned self- finding. Love-making That heavy ground based turtle caught her posily dust treading up for love nia king If she could bear the weight of such heigh tened passion ed inertia. 2nd commandment (Moses) If man created God in his own image How godless can God become by not be ing created imageless. Elegiacally rehearsing Those stub- bled fields with the few despairing trees leafless from regrets And the wind s plaintive ly in annointed hymns elegia cally rehears ing. Animal imitations that exoti cally dressed up house with the nrut ed cries of their stone-stilled inhabi dons. That slenderness (from the Chinese) ofbranch budding to the fingertips of its increasing expectat ions. As a used coin He was as a used coin with its image fading from the hand s that touch ed it down until at the end with only that dulled-from glance hardly de cipherable for continu ing use. Undoing history You can’t undo history even your own by thinking it otherwise Because it’ll catch up with you in the end Nor can you paper it o ver with good intentions as Christmas packages with added frills and ribbons for delight- occasioning eyes. The grey of wanting color This sky impassive ly stilled The grey of wanting co lor as some middle-aged ladies rehears mg routines of staid-in wintered clothes. Abandoned houses remind me oflonely faces with eyes dulled in to the solitudes of too much loss. Love is because you’ re always there in be ing more for being mine. Those hills the war left behind Outside the cities Those hills the war left behind Buried deeper those fragments of houses and the last screams of the dying without sense of the why or wherefore from. Wolfgang He never came back As if flee ing from him self Mostly hunched over in diminish ing height self-depreci ating because He failed and They all knew it with eyes that kept tell ing him further away from the coming back to. The house by the stream Her husband left her children too And she was left with a house e choing in the memories as that stream that ran be side it of passed but self-sustain ing silence s. Slowed down They slow ed him down to a finish ing glaze cer amically turned for re peating appre ciations. Scarecrow She was meant to frighten off those fluttering a bout birds for an e qualizing taste without the temptat ions of ri sing above her statued- in form. All over again If we had to do it all over a gain It would still be de ciding us those same ways Choice only seems so after having ful filled the length of its predeter mining ends. Blackbird messaging in branch Why its claws have attained to such in- penetrating means. The dark is where touch can’t be seen with words melting for sound. The rains as if in whisper ing for the dark’s eva sively un touched. Truths too often told have out done the meaning of their cause. Beethoven 7th: 3ni mvt. As far off as it can be Rhythmically pulsed my riad of stone-stars Singing to some unheard awakening s from the soundless deep. H. G. In time they got used to each other though difficult at first Like that problem for some with foreign way s and means But they e veil became self consol ing I mean she and those varieties of pain-problem s that kept them mostly for their home-sharing benefits. Hartmut took rather late in life to flying Some felt it was his musi cal instinct s That lyri cal beyond the what’s-left- below Where Ins prettied wife a singer her self couched- down with a nothcr felt— for lover. Too many times If you’ve seen the same things too many times They might e veil stop loo king back from you. Thinning down Au tumn’s thin ning down for more exposure Spaced-through the light of interchang ing mood-find s. Blank face blue eyes And I’m not certain if her feature s have mould cd-in to what charac ter means in looking out. Even keeled as that ship needed a steadied hand and those hardened fa dally cut-from features fixed into the winds of their expression less void. A room without windows only the sounds of what can’t be seen pass ing me by as of shadows impersoned distantly aware. “I’ve been working on the railroad” in that same ness of non place Only the distances between and those spokes that keep tell ing my hand s awake. Of where we didn ’t start We were born in to the be ginning of where we weren' t Who chooses their parents and those de ciding birthrights And yet I am in the otherness of not being so chosen. Snake-eyed he brother ed with a re coiling hate And those smiles snakeeyed invisi bly poison ed. Some masterpieces in the Kassel museum (5) a) Asnath (from “Jacob’s blessing” Rembrandt) almost sub missively thoughtful Ringed in the circling pen siveness where all those je wels seemed so subdued from touch. b) “Man with a hat” (Hals, 1660) Rough- edged hand s slouched hat Angled face between pose and a certitude in-glanced. c) Italian aristocrat (Titian, 1550) The dignity of man’s triumph over primieval forces Straight enedto a height of self-satisfying stance with an almost cosmic assurance Costumed thor ougly through m red. d) Jacob and the blessing (Rembrandt) The aged ness of Is rael’s suffer ing selection And the bless ed youth al most angeli eally curled in to a bright ness for futur ing hopes. e) Elsbeth Tucker (Diirer, 1499) There were more pattern s about her than that boned-in Eye-search ing view could possibly be signifying. Marla She was so afraid of herself That she kept her prettied yellow bird caged-in for fear that she herself might be fly ing out. City/sounds Lights punctuating in-glowed reflection s city/ sounds. A science to man If there’ s a science to man it’ s because we haven’t found him out Yet the genes en liven that search Jugg ling for a human nature that nature can’t claim for herself alone. To Chopin me They’re still trying to Chopin me right back to my mother’s flowering mis takes hearing through what ever bliss those sensiti vities could cling on in virtuostic rumblings. Nathaniel Pink at the piano tuning up to his fin ger’s hear ing aid s him for those fines ses of specia lizing intona tions. The closed box Those littleness es ofbird s swirling in hungering palpatation s air-lifting what they couldn’t quite come down for. These dark October rain s And the night’s grow ing deeper in to the realms for sleep As if from some dis taut shore Calling in tides through the eclip sing glow of lost and abandoning stars. Pictures from the past recalling as if from a lost sense for self. Worn thin to the touch of where hands reveal ing that instinct for boneless smiles. Rain-drop window these tiny- touched-sounds of that slight edged-in percept- mg. Of marbled purity The reach of the vine’ s grasp in-to the touch and shine as of marbled purity. Clavigo (5) (Goethe) a) Himilet and Clavigo Hamlet couldn’t de cide But Cla vigo did at both ends for him Conscience and fame fa ted to cancel out in a dy ing weakness from self. b) Time will catch up with our being caught in its net for future concerns. c) This early Faust so certain of his mark ed the other side of that other self Centered to the fruit s of its over-ripe fallings. d) Vengeance can seem just ly imperson ed in another Even if Hamlet refrained from such self-defying uncertain ties. e) Marie as Orphelia sensiti sed to where love and pain tear apart those last threads from self. For Rosemarie You’ re the cir cling of my closing sense in be mg. This mist as a veil absorbing cooled a wareness of where sound’s in creasingly heard. Deborah A nervous ripple of laugh- ter striped her dress from its chinboned smile. Depressively bared These au tumn trees depressive ly bared of all their pro tective co verings. Suspending alive That sophis ticated nod implying a correctness of dress with a gold ened chain for the length of your see ing him or it suspending ly alive. In Madeira at the bottom of the sea those black phan tomed fish sha dowed in the motionless ness of their own increas ingly pre sencc. A glazed bowl circling the color of what your hands felt from telling. Presidential politics ’04 Ambition or calling Whatever’ s more of their ever-present ly self. Craftsmanship (for Charles Seliger) It’s the means exacting ly precise that keeps telling us so increasing “A minor paradise” He called it “a minor paradise” As if such seclusion wasn’t worthy of some dis tant island’ s whisper mg shores. Bald-eyed practitioner out-selling from that last swell of promoting hair-smile s. A sadness There’ s a sadness about these late-color ed leaves falling through a softness of flight En circling now as children cast off from their mother’ s womb. Sunflower’s lights gone out from its hid den source Bending now in self-depre dating pre sence. The worm pulled at its bodied length As if hearing was only in those sounds mov ing in a way from. Nathaniel Pink duly astride and account ably self- as sured for his morning’s equivalent-paced column ed increasing ly higher in such skysearching out amenable in-fnding thoughts. Spaciously releasing This dark’ s following me through moon-eclip sing Clouds spacious ly rehear sing. At the end of the line He found himself at the end of the line Train-stationed as if that could house his emptied feelings No where in sight except the hollow ed wood of this long-left house’ s echoing. Ponderously self-assuring The way that huge turtle climb ed upon his passively pre paring mate as if such instincts were so ponderous ly self-assur ing. These gathering shells Where these gather ing shells coloring in stinctual touch of the ocean’s left over pre miscs. A Message That candle bur ning in its residual light a mess age but only vaguely to be heard in decipher ing. A loneliness as if the heart was out of place Only that o pened space and the wind s singing through for voice. Thereabouts His cane told him There was still life in his heart’ s thumping through step- in stepped thereabout Oud-like His eyes owllike that I feared for their midnight glar ing me down from his height of branched- in persua sions. Mozart at Herrnchiemsee She’ s calming her piano’ s visibly a wareness Like a cat curling in for the soun dings of where soul’ s touching there for finger ing want s. Automatic doors quietly secretly go ing out lea ding back in the pacing lengths of no where to go from now. Birth-winds waves of spreading whiteness fine-lit leaf-sens ed. Laurent ins He was so de scendingly long and thin ned from a smile that could have ta ken his hat offbrimm-ing with po litc over tones. A little man with a big briefcase Heavier than the weight of his thought s could be carrying a bout. With moralizing eyes and a cream cheese smile She took him not so daint ily in the hands ofher bettering and guiding through way s. To feel pity is like of a last leaf that keeps holding on sapless ly cling ing. Indone She bore the weight of pain darkly smil ed Until it told her more than she could fath om of. Tooth-paste smile cherry lip s and those asking-on eyes Adverti sing why I’ m no buy for timing me out. Horses pastur ing these fields for their grass-down cropp ings Bald-face from the weight of time-consu ming need s. Haloed He couldn’ t take his words back Hanging so long there as smoke for a head- from view ed angeli cally eir ling. Jerusalem coming down I can’t imagine Jeru Salem coming down again All bedecked with scarf-descending transpar encies It’s more like some of these church-plac ed towns too settled to be moving from. Buttoned up Nathaniel Pink importan ed himself in to a self-gratifying assureness ofbeing buttoned up for all and possible concerns. Time-lengths These hills fol ding in phrases of out lasting time-length s. Open-eyed This city’ s open-eyed Watch mg through starless nights A vast ness of inbreathing silence s. A land divided if America’ s oceaned from its mid die as a tree cut-off from the limb s of its ask ing St. Paul where or if its head could stand verifying ly there. Rules of the game’ s another one than they play And even the field’s drawn out so different ly Why chalk it in white when it’s black-board ing us Inscribed in their hastening blood for danger. Just aired in poney-tail ed a refresh ingly there ness Where she was it became it’ s becoming. Doctor’s visit and the hospital floors seem ed just clean ed up for his whiteness of papered- in question ing a dis cerning if whiskety look. Mildly autumn and the lights still ed the ease ot these faint ly falling leaves could be touched descending soundless ly there. For Gerlinde’ s no one’s quite as an gelled as their winged descending impress ions of a spaceless flight. Prayer place and the room’s empt ied of all but in space less silence That droopy look She had that droopy look about her sullen-downcd dog’ s curling darkening indecision The stunning effect ofher be mg so care fully groom ed with those eye-shades of lesser fee lings artifi cially-in cloning sounds. If you’re too honest You may be less loved for it And if you’ re too lov ing you may not be hon est enough. First snow and these winds relea sing touch ing sadness. Chimney smoke out last ing the length of its see ing from. A vacancy of sky mourning from where these leave s have gone. Slow movements the intima cy of Haydn’ s piano con ccrti as it keyed to where he was hearing him self aloud. Accepting age is more like listen ing to what it’s telling you. In Dance Leaf less branch ed hands despairing ly crying out in dance. Emptied heart’ s only the sounding out of vacant ly spaced distance s. Wheel-chaired rest though the wheels seem ed rounded highly for such solemn ed meditat ions She felt that leaf less day fall ing through afar of it’s asking. Pedalled herself in to a pro foundly tur ning ness sense of why sitting still’ s recreate s that other wise of gravi tational spheres. “Put on your Easter bonnet” is like the upstairs of his out-death ed climbing feature s a parade or those tra ditional flag s for such an ascend ing view. Les Adieux (Beethoven, slow parts) Holding back deepening down where the water’s calmed to a tidcless in-spoken pur ity of sound. “Getting to the bottom of things” asjoseph in that dried-down well e choing in stone-surroun ding’s fear s. Too quick is like a dart that meets the mark by missing the rest. “Getting right to the point ” as she said after 20 minutes of getting there As a car off- driven from distances that weren’t mapp ed in to that other-find of looking-out destination s. Mr. Everyday was more an at titude the appearance of what he wasn’t if he was any thing other than that pee ring out for others to Brueghel: Return of the herd Swelling clouds thrca tening cold immensing fear those blacken ed birds sit claw-front im-press mg. Rebecca was listen ing more with her dark intelling eye s All of 9 but as a but terfly scarce ly netted for its elusive sensibili tie’s Color ing. In-realizing These white fine ly-sensed curtains And the dark of this con suming day As of con trusting per sons look ing out or in-realiz ing. Mussorgsky/Janacek’ s rough- hued called-out music Veined from running stone’s light-celebrating. Out-lined Whisper ing in glass faintly touched as if out—li ned for word. The birth of a leaf (Mordecai Ardon) like a hand’s in-veined fine- feelings for the light of where time’s al ways change able. Taking a stand’ s often a gainst one self Mount ing convic tions as a soul-render ing'preacher too high for his lowering down to the eye-length of his aband oning parish ioners. Women enjoy in the selfembracing shine of ac cessorics as if person ed in that adding touch for need. Through He smi led his tele phone through where you couldn’t look for seeing him out. Keeping up with the time’s the best way for out- timing your self. A look around the corner He had a look a round the cor ner about him That I didn’t know which way he was go ing side- streets in eluded And e ven his eye s didn’t quite come to center upon my own. Head-lined Rows of reading pa pers sitting them selves upright headlined. Small creatures instinctively a live Nighteyed glow. Graveyard buried voices en cased in stone whatever thoughts left flowering for caring hands and decided then in-script cd. Poisoned seed dead co lored flower s blossom ing in a scent disturbingly ficti cious. The train s a symbol of where you aren’t Focu sing for now before it’ s gone past your reali zing where you’re co ming out from. Tailored from taste This a partmenf s so new Tai lored from taste that e veil the wall s seem like suits put on just to be tried out. Of untenable growth The sha dows of these vines cling ing to a wall of untena ble growth. A Isfeld Timber wood house s that seem unvoiced from their present needs Staring a past through these quiet ed streets as persons sensed but not seen echoing only imagin ing. A glimpse only sclf-rcflcc ting of a rich Polish Jew at that ghettoed restaur ant Eating himself fine first course before his in-preparing first-class death. Mirroring Trying to convince some one He’s the way you are Is like mirror ing a world that hasn’t quite become your own. A calling out for The word’ s a calling out for As an open field windless ly unfound. This shell’s outsung its voice Dried from the sea’s out-telling imagining s. Thorned-rose clasped- in tensed from cold Her nose kept get ting in the way of see ing her to(o) prominent ly frontable as one of those old southern por ches but still not detach able as Gogol' s for freed breakfast findings. Something pained there where Christ touched me deeper than I could be forgiving forgetting. In a caged security Birds in a caged security of embrac ing colored finds. Light flooding as if the heavens were ages full of more than these time s could hold. The ineffable’ s what can’t be said even whis pered for a flame of dis enchanting Eyes were like cross-fires they un ease in line s of straight-seeing. Rounded She was rounded to an all- enconipass ing smiled through. Sadness (after hearing Schubert’s A Minor Quartet) is where the leaves falling emp tied sound s spaced in the depths of a hollo \v cd moon. Stilled from voice It’s not what words mean but why they’re meant to mean What’s un spoken ly stilled from voice. Schubertian Time se quences as plrases of the moon light-shift ing where sha dows trans parcntly shine. Nathaniel Pink and the mod ern way for simplifying life’s not finding what one needs — All those knob s in the car turning the wrong things on and offed where they should be going Read ing all those instruction s backwards forwards — maybe 1 got the Greek instead ’til my eyes start blinking and some things break ing when I need them mostly This modern way of life simpli lying for my every day comforts. Cake-maker His cheeks puffed out with creamy self-express ions And smile s that sugar ed the fancie s atop for delicate ly placed candle-ligh tings. The Rhine’ s flowing through those mem ories washed away from their uneven ed source into a myriad of celebra ting lights. Facts andfi gures were the face of her papering over redefin ing thought s. Waiting for the man who didn’t come She cour sed her life as a boat steering but without a certainty from cause. Off-set It’s those poems that defy the correct ing words As a glance slightly offset from its in-tending mark. Roomed-in He was roomed in to a short ness of view where even his dreams seemed cutoff from their intend ed flow Wall ed in as he was from a comforting feel for rest. The Fall His world tripped o ver his fal tering feet Down the stair s of continu ing business gains to where It stopped He and the blood that en circled from conscious ness. His time was up but that clock of his kept ticking a contin ual need for more. Elsbeth wasn’t born with such therapeu tic eyes But they kept growing out Bulging be yond that main tabling rim glassed-in for clearer considera tions of why she kept a pencilled hand for sta bilizing re lationship s. Word-finds as this shell shaped through my hands Why it keeps sing mg for re lease. What lost horizons If the clock’ s turning backwards but couldn’t stop for finding where 1 wasn’t What lost horizon s might be outgrowing in stinct ual lights. Sensing in Lights Slowing the night’s sen sing in As these boats harboured for the where of retelling waves. Tunneled enclosures of light glimmering that stoned-in listening the weight of muted time. Dummy And if you’re dress ed for a differing person All clothed in those uncer titudcs of why you weren’ t more of be ing other wise. Out-of touch She got out-of-touch from those things that once told her for fin ding Now blind as a cane punctuating unrhymed steps-to-mea ning. Van Goyen If your world’s more clouds than peopled be low the hon zon’s stretch ing out those other waves telling of sea and imag ined distan cings. "Sadistic” Could you call that sa distic His way of dang ling bait for a fish He knew would bite and be caught for his own en meshed netting plans. So many sides He saw the same pro blem from so many sides that It be came many pro bleins growing always bigger from bigger. That house They lived that they could outlive the other’s claims on that house that died almost si multaneous ly for both their wood ened house in their wood ened-in coffins. Dead bird black and out-winged Glutting the pavement with the spoils of its ravenous appetites. That paleness 1 was afraid of that paleness She spoke out as a ghost Sheeted in the fear that morning could dissolve in her claims for such phantomed uncertain tics. Hand shake with one finger cutoff grasping intently for a smile that could re gain the cer tainty for that loss. Medieval attributes when birds and flowers became symbol s so realiz mg a world view ed in vanish ing detail. “He’s gone” he said as if death was simply an outside of Like leaving one’s house with the never to re turn of be ing there. Why does age child-like its sense in me That the moon wind-bound’ s risen first time out as a kite caught into branch cd fears of some extend ing needs my fingers can’t quite tell for in touch. Blank page writing the night in to those lost distan ces where only stars could define. Routine is where these wall s stop think ing their lessened coloring s aloud. Meetingface to face may mean facing up to where your down ness of heart’ s just set ting in. Seeing through the dark is more of my heart than its own. That urge for a voice that only your finger s can find. If Nietzsche created God in his own image How could there be any hea veils left for seeing him through. Help worker killed in Iraq She was nothing but helpful Ta king their needs in to a meaning for her own Married to one of their kind They kill ed her with out the pity that unleash ed the sudden ness of their wrath. Sign of If the wind’s the sign of the Holy Spirit baring these trees of all their leafy protective ness. Cubby-lwled They cubby-hol ed me in-to a space that even cut my dream s off. Political poems shouldn’t take sides Or they'll be side-lined with a chang ing of the guards. Atlantis found? at the bot tom of the ocean Platon ically sur veyed for un discovered depths How dry can we keep our land from becoming a down-street for depths in newly discover mg destruct ions. Sensed-in sounds Listening to the wind’ s dried skeletal leaves these ghost ly sensed-in sounds as the rattling from lung’s breaking off That snap to re lease. Talk-shows and the like After they’ve ar gued all that self-reali sing substan ce away No thing’s left except that dried Hemingway- like fish Bo-ned-in to its skeletal glare. Kletzmer in falter ing lines almost walz ed in to the sweet and wa vy tones of the clarinet dog-watched death-march ed Now Kletz mer’s in and Wagner’s out as those Jew s faintly missed but somehow be mg kept a live in tones soft and sweet ly reminis cent. The dilemma of ocean’s a part drift ing away from traditions that couldn’ keep their hold As a boat unanchored from past sur viving claim s May be we’ 11 soon Madagas car our own animal types Staring out such strange enveloping eyes a desert less self-con templation. Van Gogh s thirst for colors as leaf- driven depth s eclips ing. Night animals looming in fear Eye-staring sounds of the moon’ s watch-sen sing. “Taking stock of oneself” is like investing when the mar ket’s keeping you so low- down that there must be some rising-ups in co ming. Rembrandt-surfaced Color’ s fading out here Washed down in these late autum nal rains Rem brandt-sur faced. Pontius Pilate’ s “what is the truth” as if it’s only in varying per spectives Time condensed to what isn’ t because it’ s now But man’ s simply an overseer of what he’s gi ven The crea tion of what he’s partaking The love he can’t explain or create And the finality of death final izes all those Pilatian rela tivisms. A more If there isn’t a more Why have we become so much less in our self-pro claiming free dom from that spaced out transcend ental possibil ity of unknown worlds but di minishing in man’s for lorn stature as if statued into his own stone-bearing image. Hommage a Willa Cather All those frontiers were not so much of knowledge But of un discovered plains and those dry desert lands fast adhering to stone’ s far reach ing out as yet untold land whisper ing the way Indians heard it afoot E choing now plaintive ly recept ive. Names lost some where in the aging pro cess buried deeper than the mind can reveal Those blank moment s. This wind-driven snow as some without a where of be coming re lentless ly unfind mg. A small motion less cat in a bigger than wide field’s thin king me in to an exposure of all but possible un realized as sumptions. That night-like fox trailed to a streak ing unreflec ted redness the sideward lights of glanced- through ap parition s. Down to the raw bone of these out-wintered trees gasping in for their voic ed soundless ness. “All spruced up” as if such sclf- accomplish ing trees would lower their branch ed awareness to such ex ercises in self-appreci ation. Sun-shine alley of this skybluing after noon’s out do ing even that left over wintered bird ply ing in time- sequenced colors. Karlsruhe Art Gallery 6 masterpieces a) Godfather and Son (Rottweiler Master 1440) The Father paternally concerned in the blood-wounds of his son Holding a view of more than those re ceiving pains could be tell ing. b) Crucifixion (Griinewald) It was more of Mary’ s in-folding ofhands and loss than John’ s masculine straight-fin ding assert ions that took us in to the depths of His out-lasting pains. c) Self-portrait (Rembrandt, 1645) Those eyes may be watching us through all the side s of his and our light- darkening inflection s. d) Landscape (Jakob van Ruisdael) as if trees and clouds could be moulded in to that brooding depth of out-timed si lences. e) Adoration of the Kings (Master of Messkirch) Jesus may have been tou thing to the gold But His eyes were mo ving through that old man’ s so long a waiting bless edness. j) DeHooch’s out- view of a scene that couldn’t be kept for fee ling there Only light and spaced be yondness. Strange characters as that one in Pforzheim hobbling through a pro fusion of tied- in identitie s that he seemed more like a redun dant self-sell ing salesman. Cold winds chilled sounds nakedly re hearsed. A fter Matisse Branch ed winds en circling what was called-for in dance. “The road not taken” is that one of Gau guin’s ascend ing to beyond the height of where see ing’s there. Sharper than the sword If the pen’s sharper than the sword’s blee ding me through indelible ink. At the cross roads If words can cut both ways at the crossroads of in- tensed thereness. Unfelt He saw more of me blind-touch ing eyes than I could in answer ing back. Secret histones Their liking for secret histor ies Some where in the back yard whispering s where their neighbours might suspie iously be o ver hearing. Her canary She kept her canary coloring at its dis tant span ned to her caged-m a wareness from voice A plant just placed indiffer ently color ed for gather ing this room about extend ing in leave s. Why is this soften ing chair so comfort ably astute as my Uncle Irving look ing for why I should be seated in. Falluja Those streets si lent desolate ly winding the insides of my approac hing fears the dark uncertainty And that flash of pain sounding me right through to where these stone’s blee ding aloud. Desert flowers interned in sun-glow stone- sensed a wil derness of night’s star-crea tmg. This wintered sun’ s cold breath after shine’s fin ishing glance touched through as of stone’s a-lighting. Impulsing Listen ing in the silence of where breath’ s wave-tell ing impulsing those un touched dark nesses through. So bright That winter sun’s so bright even in its dis tant calling s That how ever much you might try in hearing nothing else. Pre-fabricated Houses pre-fabrica ted as if living in was in alway s a being there. No looking back for Lot If there’ s no look ing back for Lot Can we turn the o ther way round from a past that’s no longer pass ing us through. Compromise If we compromise too often They’ll be little left of giving oursclve s away from. Tolerance is what we expect from others Even decided ly more so. Wellness is like bathing in the warm th of self-wishings. Collecting stamps as if other part s of the world could be visuali zing his sense in touch. With bud-like pearls These tiny branch es with bud-like pearls Je welled as a woman to the light of her asking. Getting badfeelings is often because the other has felt you in to lhs own needs for not caring why. Tiny insects dancing to the last sun beam’ s trans pinng flames. Sanibel’s down The unleash ing of these restless tides primie vally awake as phantoms of unfound ing caverns desparately in deep. Haydn: Baryton trios Through this fullness at the center brush-lines ot in-sweep ing ever-glows. From lost causes A house that’s lived out its time repainted As if make-up could rede fine from lost cause s. Damascus A sudden ed light Dark switch ed out to where it can’ t find back redee tiling from self. Homilius: the motets Where words sur rounding them selves from their inner meanings. Seemed through The night seemed-through with snow’s in-distant sensed from bright ness. Statue iu the park nameless dateless But poised on a horse that keeps getting him there. In need of himself Man in need of himself as if blind beyond such touched assur ances It's the poverty of what isn’ t there for being him. The worm ’ s in consu ming the length of it. body’s pull mg for for wards. The ladder The two upstairs at the cross But a ladde extending down for u only where the 2nd on spaced lor a breath less climb ing. Do animals know more than we can tell The raven that fed Elijah’ s hunger ed wants Or Jonah’s whale of a household inhabiting a depth of some other and deeper under standing. Remote castle’s a far off world that once replen tished it self Moat with out and a castled si lence so deep ly withdrawn into those solid inter iors of dccip hering stone. Biographies It we can live our selves through the deeds and thoughts of their becorn ing What o ther self could they i magine of our through- reading them. Images arising out of the sea Or blown with your kite’s ten tired hands And if the moon shal lowed to that pebbled rush of tide s through the flow of your mind’ s wanting in. Transparently awake This moon- shifting light and the shades of lost re membrance s What the wind knows and seeing through transpar ently a wake. Softness of wind This dark's impen ctrable soft ness of wind easing my mind to those rare glimpse s of star-revealing times. Lone is where I know You’re the more of me encircl mg. On and off The house at the o ther side win dowed-in-vievv switches per sons on and off shadow ing from ap pearance. A display piece as if there wasn ’ t enough to touch for in eluding eye s and so per sonally per forming space d He sat the witness ing of why they were called in from view. he’s marching bands may have Dan buried from place in those clashing promti tudes of challcn-gmg-in dis parate co lors. Words that fail me now spaced oft as a gaping hole Emptied of all those crying need s for these desolate winds. Ballroom scene (Guardi) The light s diffuse ly person ed a room imagined through glassed ap pearance Over-stepped He ran until the finishing line overstepped his own percei ving inclina tions. Spelled-in meanings Wood that’s intricate ly adhering the hardened outline s of its spelled-in meanings. Eyes that were more asking the sadness of their fin ding-in ex pression s. Twelfth-night (Shakespeare) (5) a) Islands apart Islands a part from our selves As it man could be dressed in to new mea nings to re discover what he wasn’ t by playing that role out instead. b) The Epiphany These Magi have brought other gifts of dissimula tion As if they were king s instead and island to a world that wasn’t theirs in the strangeness of its be coining. c) The anatomy of love as an incur able sick ness That can only be over come in those new and dis tant realm’s self fulfill ing. d) And the Emtnaus disciples unreali sing the what and who of person and place But acting out such self- certaintie s in a dia logue of cau sal misunder standings. e) Afree-forall of un inhibited ob livious ness As if man could only recognize himself by acting it all out. Alien to its own message When the church becomes a lien to its own message More the To mas of Christ- doubting Or the Pilate of other more timely truths. As well if children are cried out of their lifeholding sup port Why dis pense with child-soldier s killing a dream of life which can’ t be dreamed out as well. Pfungstadt where Chaim Weizman once lived the Jewish house s left empty as if soul ed for some kind of remem brance after their stores had been plun dered by friend ly neighbor s Emptied to the bone As if dry skull s somewhere unfound voic ed to harsh winds of re tribution. INRI They put it hesitant ly aware at first on the cross in yellow of all tilings As a star that hill-sur rounding Beth lehem had left so awk wardly be hind. The “Cherry Orchard’s” s growing it self back here Emptied house s dug down to the pits of their founda tion's left behind “Mod ern villas” furnished with all the comforts of monied acces sories. “Are you better David” (for w w.) the tur ning point where he tur ned my stop to where that untarred road direc tioned it self far off still wood ed in that density from view. Patience is only when we’ve no other choice by teaching us the length of its own diminish ing virtue s. Israel condemn ed to soli tary confinement as Jeremia feeding these vacant stone s from the grip of his own voice less tears. Looking yourself young She looked her self young’ s a way of thinking out loud color ed to cloth es that appre ciate such a self-appear ance. Nathaniel Pink’s desirability routes Even though his green ish sweater ed color-blind ness wasn’t so certain ly proudly worn in side out as his thought s kept get ting the out side in to wards his digesting di rectionless self-appreci ations. Cold way in for late November’ s bowing its balding head Trees trimmed short from their lessen ing summer ed memories And only blackening birds circ ling from this vacantness of sky. “Woman in a green Jacket” (Macke) Face less as the lake she’s reflecting in Her body as the tree s formed to a searching inner view of why she’ s so alone from her self. “Woman in a green Jacket” II or it’s these sha dows darken ing her in to hands and hat as ob jects holding on to why she’s becom ing so still ed through. Ageless memories She remem bers her fa ther now So distinct ly while she’ s the age he died from Ageless mem ories of life’ s passing herself through. Unanswering questions (Ives) Lights glimmering this dark- bound city’ s through of unanswer mg question s. His “laugh” was more like a chuck led hen re hearsing for keeping its feet so finely close-kept in. Whispered through grass seeded with the touch- buds ot frost The delicate feet of this solitary bird’s imprint in re train whis pered through with wind. All look alike if buildings all look a like Maybe they’ll be personed that way too Block houses block faces parcelled off from ex pression. So refined If light could be so refined transpar ently touch ed to the intimacy of these leaves. 1) Conformed to Stone, Abelard-Schuman, New York, 1968, London 1970. 2) Emptied Spaces, with an illustration byjacques Lipschitz, Abelard-Schuman, London 1972. 3) In the Glass of Winter, Abelard-Schuman, London 1975, with an illustration by Mordechai Ardon. 4) As One, The Elizabeth Press, New Rochelle, N. Y. 1975. 5) The Half of a Circle, The Elizabeth Press, New Rochelle, N. Y. 1977. 6) Space of, The Elizabeth Press, New Rochelle, N. Y. 1978. 7) Preceptions, The Elizabeth Press, New Rochelle, N. Y. 1979. 8) For the Finger’s Want of Sound, Shearsman Plymouth, England, 1982. 9) The Density for Color, Shearsman Plymouth, England, 1982. 10) Selected Poems, English/Hebrew, Massada Publishers, Givatyim, Israel, 1982. 11) The Telling of Time, Shearsman, Kentisbeare, England, 2000 +Johannis, Lahr, Germany. 12) That Sense for Meaning, Shearsman, Kentisbeare, England, 2001 + Johannis, Lahr, Germany. 13) Into the timeless Deep, Shearsman, Kentisbeare, England, 2002 + Johannis, Lahr, Germany. 14) A Birth in Seeing, Shearsman, Exeter, England, 2003 + Johannis, Lahr, Germany. 15) Through Lost Silences, Shearsman, Exeter, England, 2003 + Johannis, Lahr, Germany. 16) A voiced Awakening, Shearsman, Exeter, England, 2004 + Johannis, Lahr, Germany. 17) These Time-Shifting Thoughts Shearsman, Exeter, England, 2005 - Johannis, Lahr, Germany. David Jaffin is a poet with his own particular manner of sensibility and with a method of construction issuing from his idiosyncratic preferences for manner of expression. This rightly implies that he is serious, inventive and independent, a poet given to quality and genuineness. If you add playfulness and profundity to the foregoing traits, you may have a good sense of his work. The poems visited in this article are largely from his most recent Iwo books, "These Time-Shifting Thoughts" and "A Voiced Awakening," in which his spare and simply elegant style is brought to a consistently high level. Most of his poems hang with charming mystery at that line between realization and "the not yet arisen." The realization itself is at the moment of clarity and the turning into the unexpected sense of it - like a near silent and enlightening epiphany with poetic surprise in the realm of intuition. r Neil A. Chassman in Pulse April '05, Poughkeepsie, New York. Jaffin's Through Lost Silences offers a rare display of manifold poetic variety. Succinct and challenging enforcers of new insights and deeper understanding, his poems soar in far higher realms than those of prosaic description and rational analysis. Their hall-mark, the unexpected, unnatural and natural sentence-, line- and word-breaks, disrupts habitual ways of thought, catches in the act of thinking as in the act of breathing, envisioning the variegated immediacies of higher meaning. There is sincerity and conviction in Jaffin's crisp, multi-sensory poeticisation of ideas. Existential and philosophical shapings of language, simple and complex at the same time, draw out the true nature and significance of his chosen subjects in an original way, overwhelming the faint echoes of older poetic traditions and leaving behind a profound aftertaste of experiences lived through for the first time. ' Edward Batley (University of London)