I will not turn on the light
as beside me she sleeps still.
Unstill I lie, reading lines
written onto the pages of night.
Projected there is darkness spelled in verse
lit from within by the light of memory.
I read, from a continuous scroll of poetic refrains,
a story of life without rhyme or form
flickering as if it were something old
unknown, without meter, beginning or end –
edited solely for the life of dreams.
Portland, Oregon – June 4, 2019
I wake in the night as a dream
ghostlike slithers into darkness.
A quivering lattice of silence reaches
out in fluttering waves through the room
into the fully awakened night.
From within the fluid dark feminine flow
come resonant echoes wave after wave
sounding as alarms on ships at sea
caught in opaque swirls, spiraling eddies
churning in a storms wake – tossed
taunted, haunted and lost.
My night voyage on high seas
without guidance of moon or stars
under a blanket of deepening mystery
woven by sinewy hands, thread by thread,
out of the deep warm wool of night.
Portland, Oregon – January 31, 2018
“Yin is feminine, black, dark, north, water (transformation), passive, moon (weakness and the goddess Changxi), earth, cold, old, even numbers, valleys, poor, soft, and provides spirit to all things. Yin reaches it’s height of influence with the winter solstice. Yin may also be represented by the tiger, the colour orange and a broken line in the trigrams of the I Ching (or Book of Changes). (https://www.ancient.eu/Yin_and_Yang/)
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“Now I lay me down to sleep…”
I recited as prayer, imploring the night.
Sixty years have passed in cool water
slow movement beneath the River Bridge
as now I turn out my bedside lamp
no longer reciting my plea of childhood faith
asking God to take my soul in its nights death.
Still, I then slept through the dark hours
waking with the morning light, undisturbed
despite wind shaking the tall cedars,
creaking in the walls or even the calls
of monsters under my bed patiently waiting.
Perhaps if I say this child’s prayer tonight
as I lay me down to sleep
I’ll sleep his sleep until morning light
awakens me and not open my eyes
to darkness and still silent hours.
Portland, Oregon – March 14, 2017
This is “inspired” by a common prayer for children: “Now I lay me down to sleep, I pray the Lord my soul to keep. If I should die before I wake, I pray the Lord my soul to take.” It the version I said with my mother.
The day stands unashamed
naked in bright daylight
exposed before a glance
in color desiring
to be enjoyed, ravished
by a mad lovers gaze
her ecstatic flora.
In the night she is gone
hidden by azure black
window opening on
perpetual being.
For all her loveliness
day makes fun of my need
so flailing arms at me
whispering like the wind
in the tall grass bending
flowing river of lights
all romance and excess.
So obvious, giving all unaware
without sweet enticement
or secret desire held by another.
The night entices by a glance;
cool, posing dark questions:
Who are you darling dear,
Where are you going love?
Such is night’s sinuous hand
on my shoulder sudden
unbidden from behind
when I am all alone
after the day is done,
whispering in my ear.
Began in Menlo Park, California, April 2, 1984. I reworked this significantly, but the gist remains after more than 30 years.
sleep without limit
reason fact conclusion
iambic pentameter rhyme
existence unexplained
abandoned by comma period
exclamation point ellipsis
lost in the chaos of dream
until we wake late in the night
open our eyes in a dark room
faint glow from the shaded window
partner turning breathing
is she sleeping
mad dream illusions
dissolve in the cool dark
under the covers shifting
uneven weight breathing slow
letting sleep return if it will
Portland, Oregon – March 23, 2016
Ghosts of night share my room.
Forms without shapes
wander through this liminal space
that not even my loved ones can enter –
veiled, shrouded, encumbered.
I carry this place with me in the dark,
a ghost room filled with silent shadows
fluttering image remnants
straying fragments of auroral light –
desire, memory, prayer and
sometimes,
wraithlike breaths of cold fear,
I can almost hear as I lay awake
in the dead calm of night.
Portland, Oregon – January 2016
In Cascadia 