Ode to Muezzins
Muezzins used to climb the minaret to make the call to prayer…
(after Stefan Kaegi)
Oh to be on call five times daily
and feat days
ready to roll
cocksure in your three-balled
alabaster minaret outpost
honeyed and hyssoped throat
nose to the windscreen
positioned just so
between your faith
and a vintage Shure 55SW anodyne mic
an array...
RIVERS
Should I multiply or divide my soul
in rivers under sheltering domes?
I have left bits of me
in the Elbe and the Rhine.
I have left liquid tears
in the lighted Seine.
Paris, Berlin, Dresden --
each city is an epic, a tome.
In rose gardens in the day
or beer-gardens at night
I have ranged and roamed.
The...
NOSTALGIA OF A WORKNIGHT
She’s weary as an unused toy—unwrapped,
not touched. She’s not hidden but by herself
in back of a toybox, under the snapped
off arm of her last doll. She thinks a shelf
might be nice. She’d like to hear the soft click
as her nightlight went dark and slipped
into a sleep...
Word…
Word is Brahman
It emerges from
Hiranyagarbh
And wanders in the ether
Man’s heart vibrates
He hears its rapturous melody
And sways in ecstasy
And is lost in the sacred silence.
The other day…
The predator pounces upon the word
And preserves the kill
A dictionary is compiled
It hardly objects
But, is it at ease?
Lexicons continue multiplying
And then, words…words…words…
Words sans soul
Across...