Other Poems are tricky, but as with any thing I see in this world or feel - there is a need, perhaps compulsion, to document: to write it out, to photograph, to take note, even if it hurts like hell.
For me, an archivist, a documentarian, I find that Other Poems holds the work that does not slip easily into other categories, which means that it holds a lot of work, since life, does not stay within the simple confines and structures we would like it to.
Life can be surprising.
s. h. r. p.
updated | spring 2008 | 7:26 p.m.
photo: trinite, rue st. lazare, paris. fr - "sept heures au matin"
s.r.p.
Tuesday, September 18, 2007 at 07:21PM The last of summer’s persimmon hangs tentatively on the ocean tree.
When last heard your voice echoed through my tears,
soon turned to laughter, this before the heart’s slaughter.
The geese have nosed the fruit about the once-warm grass.
The day I told you about the ocean grey, thick with current,
yet smooth as glass.
Tuesday, May 9, 2006 at 05:37PM You tell me, These are dreams and I know that you are right
and I know that you are wrong. In them, I see great holocausts.
If bird in the hand is worth two in the bush, how much then is the worth
of great fires seen only in the palm? Visions of the damned as they rush
Friday, August 11, 2006 at 06:29PM The waters are murky. A green pond, pollen-cloaked rich.
Through it all, I seek some clarity.
Some mathematical equation that will dole out the variables –
cut knife-like through the thickness of this moment,
the blade sharp and precise. No such luck.
Friday, June 23, 2006 at 01:36PM So you want this to end and you do your bit.
So I know this must end and I likewise do my bit.
It is like coming down from some heroin or opiod high
so sweet and soporific – so how to give up such that crosses the brain
Thursday, October 26, 2006 at 06:55PM Everyday, I see without seeing –
more or less – more
These days, less.
It's not the less you fear,
Wednesday, October 18, 2006 at 07:12PM It is raining of course and Wednesday and the sky looms,
Monson slate it drops its heaviness as my car sucks, splashes
through new puddles as I spin fast a route to help.
Help, after all, is what I need.
Thursday, October 12, 2006 at 03:23PM les mains – simply hands. a purpose. they hold up the roof. wipe away a tear. this is all.
miel – honey, you can find it anywhere.
soupir – a sigh. I can’t define. who could? only now it is less quiet – stuck in sorrow.
muette – tongue-tied. yes, this I remain. different now.
Friday, November 10, 2006 at 03:15PM Almost; one is not satisfied with this.
Almost is perhaps a near miss. Too distant.
It is a word favored by the unsuccessful.
Used by those lacking reasons.
Sunday, December 2, 2007 at 05:35PM These traintrack abandoned buildings
vacant yards. Only the ailanthus grows.
I remember their fecund, earthy summer scent.
Things change.
Tuesday, July 4, 2006 at 01:56PM You tell me you know what it means.
I am one French word up. I, at last, with upper-hand.
A real tease, taquine.
Tuesday, July 18, 2006 at 11:40AM Do you remember those fields, how I moved, no -
undulated - beneath you and how the tall reed grass crackled dry beneath our kisses,
how you told me all of my worry, This could never be a sin
Sunday, October 15, 2006 at 04:46PM How that glass façade has served me well!
I painted it black, hid in the corner behind my dark glasses.
Me – the wise-owl in the corner, observing all.
That is what you saw, then you saw…
I let you in. I removed the black-shades,
Saturday, June 3, 2006 at 12:13PM I always wanted to be Amish.
To wear the black with the blue.
To over-clean the wood with Murphy’s oil-soap;
a house that shone bright and a white chin-tie cap
Wednesday, January 30, 2008 at 10:11PM The day is vacant;
Where you ought be there is only emptiness
this and the howling pain of a sharp stone driven in again and again.
I stumble, I fall, I trip.
Friday, May 9, 2008 at 05:56PM The day is vacant;
Where you ought be there is only emptiness
this and the howling pain of a sharp stone driven in again and again.
I stumble, I fall, I trip.
No matter how hard I try to stay steady
I find the feat impossible,
Wednesday, March 7, 2007 at 05:34PM It’s a blue note: a one-two on the trip-slip of the lip
that glides a smooth, silver-flash harmonica–
It is an embellishment. A melisma unnecessary,
Wednesday, March 7, 2007 at 05:31PM It is your two-step slip-slide trick of the tongue: an almost kiss, not quite.
One accepts the conjoined syllables ~ they melt soft as communion in the mouth;
Absolution in your simple, not so simple, words.
I catch on the hooks of each –
Sunday, October 15, 2006 at 08:08PM I keep wanting to somehow bridge a gap.
wanting to accept some olive branch,
yet see none forthcoming.
What I see is this: a blank, a continuation, but of what?
Thursday, October 19, 2006 at 03:45PM She asks, Are you Amish?
It’s funny this.
My mother told me I was ‘plain.’
In Amish terms though, this entirely different
Saturday, June 24, 2006 at 11:23AM How I can see us, you slipping off of swings while I swung so high,
feet scuffing the ground while you worried & worried & worried
as I arced higher and higher as the summer sky dimmed
and the lights of city shone across town