Kathleen Norris, acedia, and uncorking the wine

On October 18, 2015 By robertalanrifeIn Life of Rob, Waxing PoeticLeave a comment

I suffer from an all too common writer’s ailment. It is an elusive demon, refusing easy corral, and lives on in spite of my best efforts to subdue it. Kathleen Norris, a favorite writer of mine, stakes a claim on this little inner hurricane of acedia, well-known to the 4th century desert monastics, and suffering from much needed exposé in books like her bestseller, “A Marriage, Monks, and a Writer’s Life: Acedia and me.”

This thing is attacking me where it hurts, writer’s blah. Frankly, there are times when writer’s block would be the better option. Better to write nothing than derivative bullshit, right? At least that’s what the self-pitying artist might be tempted to say.

Now, to be clear, I’m certainly not in a huge doldrum necessarily. I still love to write. I think I’m fairly good at it. But, at times, I wake up in a cold sweat and realize that I just read a collection of poetry by a 17 year old more intriguing, probing, and disturbing than anything I recall writing.

This poem is offered from such musings.

* * *

Uncorking the wine

Breathless like wine, still corked and waiting

in its darkness, sits that one, a one, this one.

Wheezing and sick, that soul, a soul, this soul,

like leaden clouds coaxing out un-fallen rain.

Sometimes bitter is a sky, unwilling to cough up

her best stories and wait for an audience.

What little disturbances, these sagging wits,

trying in vain to see into the sap of things.

What small crescendo to so great a symphony,

the song-less word, peals back upon itself,

just enough to pair with a mind in domino.

What a blunted song, gutted and safe,

lost in its own impotence, a flaccid regale.

What a forgetful space, its shape insufficient

to bear the weight of dents and denials.

What fraternity of the inconsistent, sparing nothing

in pursuit of everything, to gain nothing.

What a pale sentence, well-intentioned illness of

the crouched and waiting, waiting for anyone to come

and speak.

On the eve of memory

On October 8, 2015 By robertalanrifeIn Life of Rob, Waxing Poetic1 Comment

On the eve of a memory,

when the daylight streams through

old clouds, carried in the bucket

of yesterdays, there comes

a clarity. A bidding of dues

in clues from tiny feet,

now braking for beer and girls

and the particular geistlieb that

only says hello to newcomers.

Severed as one gets from

the possibility of possible, of eventual –

of always – it’s never really

too late to ensure what little time

remains to pour out the slop

from the bucket that once held

our best intentions.

These two, grasped from out of

hands held tighter still

to our deepest dreams.

Chasing fire, feeding smoke

On August 31, 2015 By robertalanrifeIn Waxing PoeticLeave a comment

First drops, like navy-seals, tease out of

their smoldering burden the wheezing

lungs of the forest, barely breathing.

Into the steaming chaos they fall,

teeth gnashing at carbon vomit, leftovers

from Lucifer’s meal.

Into the quiet orgasm of their poetry,

straight-shouldered, whispering

the old stories, not soon forgotten.

And the forest inhales again

her dawning frailty.

But, wait, there’s more –

From the attic

On August 25, 2015 By robertalanrifeIn Waxing PoeticLeave a comment

Forged in the the magma of numberless sunsets

they dance lightly with butterfly footprints.

There, after the moon rises and hangs loosely

in the boneless night, they shine like new, red

carbon, back-lit to the moisture of ruby lipstick.

Floral-patterned dresses and scent of lilac

perform their ritual of sensory recall. He still

remembers what she smelled like that first time

in the back of his 1941 Buick.

She glowed and he burst. Sixty years

and many grandchildren later,

and he still cries when he sees her picture.

Forget about the rippling gifts of

the chatty stones, bellies rubbed and flat

from so much time dancing with the river.

Just point me toward the places where

the wise ones still dance with the expectation

of getting lucky – lucky enough

to hold her hand just one more time.

Two poems from a day at the Grunewald Guild

On July 25, 2015 By robertalanrifeIn Life of Rob, Waxing PoeticLeave a comment

My family and I have lived in the Pacific Northwest for many years now. I maintain that it is readily the most beautiful part of the country, perhaps the world – well, the parts I’ve seen. The Grunewald Guild is a tiny oasis of assorted buildings, forest pathways, an old church converted to a library, and a whole lot of contemplative, liturgical artists. My peeps. After living in the Yakima Valley now for almost nine years, receiving their regular emails for that entire time, I finally decided that it was time for a visit. Of other poems to come, these are the first two.

Plain

The chuckachuck of sprinklers

slaking thirsty brown grass

drone me into an almost zombie-like peace –

a single note, unyielding, in its own

tonic harmony.

A thousand shades of green –

jade and emerald and pine –

line themselves up in the random scattershot

only found in perfection. Much too random

for the soldierish replants

of our brutish industry.

Even the highway wants a place

in this scene – wearing the yellow line

like a scarf around the neck

of its own movement and momentary digressions –

Like this.

The Smell of Grey

The smell of grey, old and musty

books holding ten thousand curious fingerprints.

The dog-eared tales of dog-eared folk,

standing together like square-jawed

colonels of mystery, harboring

citadel secrets.

For so silent a place, how loudly

they shout for my attention.

These Lutherans have it right.

There is no distance or

false pings of conscience that

“The Exorcist” shares a shelf with

“The History of Israel” and something else on liturgy.

Here, my dangerously haphazard

story fits. Suddenly, my impractical

arbitrariness feels intentional –

almost holy.

Thoughts in a driveway

On July 17, 2015 By robertalanrifeIn Waxing Poetic, Words...always wordsLeave a comment

It was about that time when

he knew it was about

the time.

Waves of heat wrapped

themselves around the throat

of a late morning.

He stretches out his arm to

catch some summer, letting the

hot breezes twist through his fingers.

Sometimes hearts rattle like

the car door that, offered

enough reprieve from the summer

heat, shuts itself outright in annoyance.

Distance, like an angry hornet,

intent on its aggressive intrusion

pushes against an unyielding window.

But, given the panic level, he relents

and opens up again to the outside

where it too was vulnerable,

like prey.

And once more

a day’s penumbral gifts,

restless like the dandelion fields

become like they were before –

and he starts the car.

A morning in Malibu

On July 9, 2015August 1, 2015 By robertalanrifeIn Life of Rob, Waxing Poetic, Words...always wordsLeave a comment

Day creeps in slowly

like a child, uncertain, demure.

The disheveled hillsides yawn

themselves back to thirst again

in the dry, January sun.

A nighthawk, warblers, and sparrows

choir themselves out of the quiet night –

a morning dissonance at war

with nothing but hunger.

Down the slow road into town

a woman pegs up laundry, old school,

to dry in the hot ocean winds.

Eucalyptus, snapdragons, and primrose compete

for what little water is left

after years of drought.

Shakes of uncommitted clouds

stoop to the margins of

warm sky. That’s where the colors are,

a shock of tapioca time in love

with the lilacs, blooming only

for themselves to be the judges.

The town at the bottom of the hill

smells of competing sea-salt

and cheap tourist breakfast.

Those ladies looked out of place

in their broqued jeans and high heels,

that push them up above the

flip-flop culture encroaching –

like the sea.

Runners, running, so many runners,

running apace and aloof as the uneven

shoreline. They are chased by

over-confident gulls and the sad

feeling they can’t outrun something.

But still the water dances with sun

and dreams and there is time.

modern poetry

On July 1, 2015 By robertalanrifeIn Waxing Poetic, Words...always words4 Comments

Every new generation of poets seeks to build on that which was before and push boundaries of language, metaphor and meaning. As a lover of more “classic” poets to whom we all look for guidance and inspiration, but who struggles to say things in new and fresh ways, I’ve had a love-hate affair with the beautiful pretentions of contemporary verse. Perhaps there is just too much genius for me to capture. Perhaps I am destined to speak in an older voice with newer words? Perhaps I need greater patience to see what is ever before me? I ask here some questions in verse.

a medicine cabinet

stuffed with placebo

a closet full of clever

a basket of plastic apples

half-eaten, half-observed

spit back out where they too

become poetry

Hermes has a message

but his feet are raw

from too much slogging

in circles through the plumage

of the self-engrossed

t.s. eliot squints from

the writing chair

he’s but the worn-out scrivener

too tired to interrupt

from his tidy perch

hidden beneath our dust

and pretention

dickinson donne blake and hopkins sprawl

themselves out prominently

under the african violet

on some coffee table

but with coffee-stained faces

that sag bored from hearing

glorified journal entries

too minute for verse

was it williams’ red wheelbarrow

or mary’s kingfisher

or a d. h. lawrence butterfly

or even the silence of e. e.

that first whispered

‘folly’?

was it too many commas

and too little rhyme

to make something live?

did the truth live among the

dreaming gemstones

where words give birth

to flight?

or maybe those words

were bled from the same

shaky pens

leaching the heart

of day-starved paper still

straining to see?

Stand still and come what may

On June 1, 2015 By robertalanrifeIn Waxing Poetic, Words...always words2 Comments

Stand still and

come what may, they tell me.

Perhaps then I will stand still,

with feet propped against

this little flock of earthen stones

and let the wind jig in my toes.

Here I will wither happily,

like the gathering ducks,

pooled and waiting.

I’ll whistle for the twisting

roots of soil

where hide promises of cradle and tomb.

I will vie for the sweeter attentions of

womb-sung songs with words,

cramped, waiting, unborn.

I think I’ll wait for their release

from promises

made for two

and let spring’s last push

seduce summer’s agenda.

The coughing day-brown hillside

counsels me

to be more than I was,

but less quick to

be more than what could be.

Leave that to the rest of us, they tell me.

I think I’ll just wait here.

Losing inhibition

On April 29, 2015April 29, 2015 By robertalanrifeIn Life of Rob, Waxing PoeticLeave a comment

Just about the time the afternoon had worn off its edges enough to let the daylight leave, there came to mind a certain wave of thought. Lovers made love. Haters made hate. The rest of us huddled in between where incoherence meets yearning and found each other’s company. It was first names only but, cheek to cheek meant mouth to ear, and tales got told before long. So, about the time the afternoon had frayed its fringes enough to wink at us in passing, we found ourselves left-foot dancing to right-foot music. It had a good beat but lost itself in too much s p a c e between notes. That’s where we met each other. Bump and shuffle. Step and slide. Groove and grunt. We moved in moments like hands looking for each other to clap along. Things only got weird once the music stopped and we were left with nowhere to hide our inhibitions. Funny how musical awkward silences can be. Maybe that’s when we really got to see something other than feet and our eyes told the better stories.