Four New Poems by Pat Nolan
ANY DAY NOW
In the binary month of a binary year
the anxiety of one day seeps into the next
each little disappointment kills a larger
hope bad news in the mail
complication of fears exacerbates
all the aches and pains fastened
to worry by the glue of gloom and woe
“his bitterness survived him
and tainted future generations
a strange and foolish galoot”
there is always a price to pay
for being different
in need of that newfangled awe
befitting the god of love
but with age comes a certain responsibility
to act my age
jar of another speed bump
what it does to forward determination
how genius can be stuffed
in the pursuit of stubborn resistance
a density poignantly rejected
to possess authority known as author
effacements self-reliant calm
in the commonality of all
distracted by needless worry
heedless I bump into myself
a case of nerves and tiny ailments
the entire underpinning
questionable shaky prone to collapse
self-torture’s miserable state of being
or ponder the difference
between a kaon produced
in high energy collision
with electrically charged forms
being about a thousand
times more massive than
its electron and a koan
as a paradoxical form used
to abandon ultimate dependence
on reason and enter into
sudden intuitive enlightenment
robins keep their appointment
with the freshly mowed roadside
at this particular edge of dusk
not quite dark a rain squall
whitens the air as a damp filter
there are words I should define
but faced with the dictionary
I can’t remember what they are
I don’t want to map my thinking
I just want to leave footprints
standing in line the woman behind me
thought it funny to unlock my knees
her name spelled with a secret vowel
only revealed once you speak it
my dreams parallel my waking life where
nothing much gets accomplished either
I can’t believe I said “doodle bug”
not “you cry baby middle class snot”
ant navigates a vast listless sea of shag
persistent irony of daily life
sweep paper floor made to look like wood
swift moving clouds leave sunshine in their wake
does not my aura contain as well as emanate
a pure spectral body of surrounding light
as if I could actually see the strings and
strands connected to the physics of being
steady rain streams down a pale transparent code
evening imposes a kind of silence
a stillness of the moment
joined as it were to the mood of transition
I step out of myself
sometimes I’m my mother
sometimes I’m my father
sometimes I’m just me waiting to be
desire happiness mindful of all
the suffering it will cause
treasure the inconsequential
for more momentous matters
omens read into the unexpected
to explain a failure
in predicting the future
garden of purple and white
asters wag in the wind
edge of fog sieves the light
to understand those wavelengths
demark a cold neutral cast
neither inviting or terrifying
but pressing with its stillness
a cocoon-like transcendence
it’s what I expect and accept
an abeyance in the ripening
buffeted by a hardening breeze
thump the remote
wake up the battery
how I drag my weeping carcass
across the landscape and sing
in a tongue yet to be understood
connect the dots the dots the dots
alone the empty house inhabited by shadows
and excuses for not getting out of bed
the older I get the better
feel I get for the inevitable
waiting to turn the ignition off
so I can listen to the last of Lady
Day’s breathy lilt on the radio
in what sounds like an intimate
nightclub atmosphere and reflect on
the incredible richness and bounty
of the moment and what a beggar
I am to appreciate it so little
yet morning’s roar of machine shattered
stillness projections of ego reconfirm
my status as the center of attention
where surface frivolity hides a deeper demon
quaint perceptions lead to unusual conclusions
rain wet streets mark a change of season
low spots along the road as puddles resume
birds gather in joyful congregations
the air streaked with delicate splash
transition from one moment to the next
full of holes gaps light year spans
the pace of eons with each breath
conscious of the unconscious
unconsciously
a snarl of hair triggers
vague giants march out of morning mist
silhouettes edged in softness
a day of no sun and pale spumes
the trees shedding a steady fine glaze
as awakening color adds its transparency
you never step into the same stream
twice Heraclitus was fond of saying
what he didn’t say
you still get wet
LYRE LIAR
Awakened by ache
most of day expired
illness while more often than not
uncomfortable
also a monumental waste of time
bathed in the cold light of calculation
a world of computational excess
I could die tomorrow
and that would sum it all up
long for enlightenment of early sun
as it lays orange marks
across frosty blades
this my own personal Daoism
a principle of purity
in essence
non-action
as the application of spontaneity
ebb and flow of mist at ridge top
raises and lowers a curtain on
the saga of ancient trees
ranks of giants stand shoulder
to shoulder in drifting vapor
testifying as a chorus of beauty
the archetypes of centuries
reenact their drama awesome
in their stature and stillness
the slow bleed of smoke from
a chimney feeble before the white
cast of billowing atmosphere
overpowering the wash of its grace
a squall’s sudden intermission
thoughts and ruminations evaporate
before the vast emptiness of the page
pearls of wisdom go unstrung
brilliant insights go unset
just the topmost
tips of trees bathed in gold
still in shadows
rank upon rank belong to cold
tangled up in the ropes of dysfunction
head held under the waters of regret
an accomplished sadness bereaving the unknown
puzzle of relationships further unsolved
so it is that I cling to life like lint
that blur at the periphery
what’s always passing me by
failure at the things I wish to accomplish
successful at things I could care less about
lost in movement the acrobatics of language
finally settle down
sparks whose glimmer
fade in memory
how long have I been
walking around
with my fly
at half mast
(the poet captivates his audiences
by turning them into accomplices)
as I know emotion deserted by reason
can be flushed out in laughter
yet I’m reminded daily
the brain fails to understand itself
over the phone
“no brain is an island”
my brother informs me to which I reply
“no brain is a salad”
we speak in code he and I
a redundancy of childhood
when the world was light
and we chased our shadows
instead of now
the other way around
take comfort in music each note information
played in sequence
instructing wonder
just as when writing if by chance
I use a word
incorrectly
in time it will
align itself
with meaning
compelled to ask
am I really
as irredeemable
as I feel
or
if dogs are considered domesticated
why not men
I see it even in
the kitchen drawer
telltale signs of entropy
how order gives way
to chaos
I’m still working on
a unified theory of furniture
(cat underfoot
squawks
chalk it up to just another
misstep in the delicate
dance of
interspecies
relations)
in my fugitive life
I fly from the inevitable
my radical beliefs make room for moderation
“in search of equilibrium
the biosphere evolves
around us
its many grains of sand
we will be left behind
soon enough
consumed by a soup
toxic and single-minded”
against deepening shadows of a forested
hillside translucent trees gather
the last of the lingering light
aesthetics knows of a sentiment
of culpability
of unease in the face
of the finished product
the incomparable erudite polyglot
George Steiner has written
being is
inescapably
compromise
and naming isolates
disrupts unity
even more than in philosophy
it is through poetry
human consciousness experiences free time
Law #1: at the edge of chaos
act without trembling hands
time change
mind change
spare change
Law #2: be alert for the door ajar
onto the adjacent possible
as space tends to be flat
in the absence of matter
so speak the mute soliloquies