(A Set of poems)
Sense or Nonsense
Ten New Poems of: Sense or Nonsense
Introduction:
Sense or Nonsense
Making sense is the other side of making nonsense "What is what?" that is the question. (Moreover, who knows?) My advice to the reader of these poems is not to be too quick to label them either way, unless you can understand both sides of the coin without any preconceived notions...
How to Read a Poem
(If indeed, you care)
Now for a few principles: Read these poems attentively; read them several times slowly, and with an open mind. Gather interesting data, mark certain words, images, or lines you find interesting or suggestive with a pencil. Evaluate the big picture (zero in on the basic outline, the poem's meaning or purpose). It might be interesting to note, usually the imagery of the poem echoes the poem's theme, if indeed you miss the theme, look for the imagery, and the echo towards it.
By the Time
(Poem One)
By the time, you start thinking what have I to do. By the time, the children are old enough to drink booze. By the time, the naked old eye can no longer see the summer clouds. By the time the grapes in the cellar ferments to a rich elderly fine wine. By the time everything grows and dies around you...by this time, it is time you start to think about the dirt and the bugs in the ground, and if you are, heaven bound-!
The Old Trout
(Poem Two)
When I was full of life, the sun was full of sun, now I am old, getting older and I am full of dying near as much as the moon is full of no air...
I am like the tides of the ocean, once about a time I came in on one, I watched them from a distance come and go; now it's my time to ride them out I hope slow!
Yesterday's Rain
(Poem Three)
Yesterday, the rain was full of rain, a little gray, a little insane, which in a way was very pleasant, at 7:00 p.m.; and this is what the rain said:
"What is there to show if I do not rain all over the city and you?" Then the rain added, "I cover all around the sun, cover it up, and during this, you can sleep, otherwise get wet."
That was yesterday, it is different today. The rain is sleeping, thank God for that; now we get the sun back!
Alone in Paris
(Poem Four)
I traveled around the world, mostly alone for most of my life, and I never felt alone, although to others I am sure I looked alone, and I was alone, but was I lonesome (Feeling lost)? Never until I was alone in Paris for my first time, then I knew and felt alone, on my own, because now I was alone, and felt lonesome. I even swore never to return to Paris, unaccompanied, alone!
Then I left Paris, alone the same way I had come, feeling less lonesome-even though now I knew I still was alone even though people were all around me... and felt alone, but now being alone was okay...it was Paris!
Note: We become aware of things-once we climb the tree, and look down or perhaps above the trees and around.... On a second note, a tree to a tree is just another tree, put a hill or mountain beside it; it will love you evermore, because it is different. In addition, perhaps appreciation is what it is all about...
Learning
(Poem Five)
He would and he was-meaning, he did not and he tried. Nevertheless, he never would and he never did. Kids are like that you know, and yes, I know one, two, three, perhaps six, no, eight, no, ten (perhaps even more, but let us say ten... or more for the sake of argument).
Ten or more kids and no one learned a thing-sad but a fact. Nowadays, this would be considered the ordinary, for kids; that is to say, trying to learn more, or expecting to learn more, with a third of their capacity, effort, actions; everyday doing less, expecting to learn more.
The first kid that tried this-this new universal track of learning, he was the one that needed to learn the most. However, would he learn? Alternatively, was he learning? Who is to say? He thought tears would make him learn, but he was just the same-still the same inside..., which is not the same as learning.
The Have, Had, Halves
(Poem Six)
I had, and I have, and I have to keep the half now of what I have-call it halve-when all is said and done what will I have had to do to keep that half? In addition, get back what I had, had I not thought about this, I would not have had to write this, and I could have slept a while longer.
Denny and Diane
(Poem Seven)
Denny and Diane, Diane and Denny, both liked each other immortally. He said he loved her more than she loved him. She said '...nonsense! I love you more than you love me!'
He combed her hair, he shared his pear, he washed her feet, he never let go of her, even to sleep, and that was why Denny was Diane.
Diane walked by his side-side to side, like to like, like two peas in a pod. Why, nobody knew, but take my word, it is true, they did everything from there to there, not a hair's breath away and that was why Diane was Denny.
So was it Denny or was it Diane or was Denny just Diane? Then again, was Diane just Denny? It is better to leave this alone, the more you think of this the more you wonder, and let's say Denny is just Diane and Diane is just Denny and they both are through being the other.
Ballad of the Big
andLittle Pigs
(Poem Eight)
Abig pig running low
in the fields of snow
watching little pigs sitting by
learning that soon they could die.
It was in the fields and it was daylight,
and cows mooed,
and the little pigs could have care less.
The Big pig saw everything, everywhere
in the valley...
And the little pigs knew this, knew
the Big Pig, He could see right down
and throughout the fields-
and even see the other animals hidden
elsewhere...here and there.
Therefore, the cows and all the other
animals did not dare
to hurt the little pigs...
Seeing the big watching and staring
here and there, always aware.
And so, as you may have guessed
and as you may have read
when a big pig running low
loose in a field of snow
the little pigs know they will not
be captured, or hunted, or even
eaten alive, or have to die,
that they too, have time
to grow old...
(as long as the big pig is watching
that is...)
And so they know, and knew.
and yes, to be true
they wondered also:
"What's all the bother about?"
Then appeared a man
and he hit the big pig on the head
with a big iron hammer!
Hoping he would have killed him,
but he hadn't and the big pig
tried to get away
but there was no way.
The little pigs watching all this-said:
"If he gets away, we're safe today!"
But quickly, the big pig sunk
lower to the ground,
and the little pigs frowned
and they began to know
the big pig would soon be gone
dead, no longer their safety net.
What is more, all the little pigs started to runaway to tell the other little and big pigs in the valley of the danger. But the big pigs had learned what the little pigs were learning; there was no way to fight man, to protect them from him, but to run, run if indeed one can... and this is life, and when man comes around, it happens just like that.
Do we need?
(Poem Nine)
We need what we need which is air. You know it is more than a habit, to do a thing we call 'breath' and it only works one way, no matter what anyone may say. You do it in public; you will do it in private. You do it, whether you like or do not like to do it. Unbelievably, it is true: we all need what one another needs, which is blue looking air, from the atmosphere. Even if the wind blows it away, it stays. Thank God!
Note on the Poems: During the afternoon, of October 6, of 2009, the author sat down in his sofa chair, high up in the Andes of Peru and the poems you just read are the poems he wrote that afternoon; poems 1 thru 7 are poems 2637 through 2645. On October 13, in the morning the author wrote "The Ballad of the Big and Little Pigs" poem, 8 of this sequence, or 2645 in sum total; in addition, poem 9 "Do we need?" Written on the October 13, number 2646. Revised and reedited, 10-24-2011.
"A Wild Piece of Paper!"
((A Poetic Tale for the classroom) (1955, St. Paul, Minnesota))
(Poem Ten)
"What is a wild piece of paper?" asked one of the second graders in the classroom, at Ecole St. Louis, Catholic Elementary School, to a visiting professor... "And how wild can it get?"
"You see," said the professor, "a wild piece of paper is different from a tranquil one, and it is even more different than one with blots, or dots, or spots on it.
"A wild pieced of paper floats, like a boat-once in the air. That is what a wild piece of paper is.
"A wild piece of paper-is although, just that, a piece of paper, yet it can get wilder and wilder...and when it does get wilder, and wilder it gets, it says:
'Try and catch me-if you can!'
"A wild piece of paper will do most anything, and I mean anything-it will float, it will fly, if given the chance. It will even rip its way around and about furniture, or buildings and even a house-just to play, and to have its own way.
"You may have to learn the hard way, that a wild piece of paper is like, or can be like, a wild bat, wilder than a rat, nobody really knows, how wild a wild piece of paper can be, or get.
"That is why, when you put a piece of paper down to write on-make sure it is solid and unsoiled, always be bold, sit up right, hold the paper down-tight; for a child to have a wild piece of paper can be just awful.
Written at the Mia Mamma, Cafe, in Huancayo, Peru, after lunch, in the garden cafe area; October 13, 2009. Poem: 13/or 2647, reedited October 24, 2011.
Additional New Poems
Adventures with Bugs(Havana, 2002)
Luxemburg's Flight of Stairs (-Luxemburg, Luxemburg, October, 1976)
Remembering Hydra (1995-Greece)
The Lion and the Penguin(way of life/philosophy)
A Mile High Lie (-an admission)
Tears of a Mother(1962, St. Paul, Minnesota)
Above the Plane((-a Window opens) (Expressions & Discoveries))
Death-He Cometh (Lyric-elegy)
A Double-Haiku for God (Isaiah 49:15)
*Sister Kelley's Creek
(At a Restaurant in the Blue Valley of Peru) Expressions and Discoveries/Lyric
*Dayanne (About a young woman moving forward) Lyric
The Soothsayer: Nostradamus(1562) Ode
*The Noisy Corner(of El Tambo)Expressionand Discoveries
Bad Behavior (Lyric)
Snake Bite ((Spontaneity) (Dream Poetry)
**"Winter is nearing!"
((Remembering a Minnesota Winter) (Poem)) Expressions and Discoveries
House of the Falcon
((The Chanka inthe Valley of Canipaco) (Colca, Peru))?
The Old Bell Tower at Huertas ?
The Bag(Philosophical poetry)
James Wright (the Poet) Criticism
Donald Hall(the Poet) Criticism
Adventures with Bugs
I've enjoy my adventures
even Havana, Cuba, with those big
hotel cockroaches and those
buzzing flies that seem so
interesting in laying everywhere.
Spiders I did not see many of
them, in Cuba-2002. They mostly
corner me when I'm at my apartment
in El Tambo, Huancayo, Peru.
No: 3188 (11-7-2011)
Luxemburg's Flight of Stairs
(-Luxemburg, Luxemburg, October, 1976)
This morning after breakfast
we climbed that steep flight of Luxemburg's
stairs, that overlooks the roofs of
the city-Luxemburg...
Annoying, but somehow charming,
and my twin boys (four-years old)
welcomed the rest at the top.
As we walked back down they
looked disappointed,
almost snarled...
as if to say,
"Now what was this all about?"
No: 3189 (11-7-2011)
Remembering Hydra
(-Greece, 1995)
The sky is startling sunny-
Down a narrow cobblestone street
a gate opens to a courtyard
recess is over for the jumping
and dancing children-of Hydra,
getting their last shouts out,
with delight.
The harbor is astonishing,
uncluttered.
I wish I could stay, watch the
dawn over the Mediterranean rise,
but the ship won't wait!...
No: 3187 (11-7-2011)
Note: Hydra is an ancient island off the mainland of Greece, in the Ionian Sea.
James Wright (the Poet)
James Wright talked too much
about sorrow and sadness-
in his poetry, wish someone would
have told him to shut up!
James is dead, mewling, I suppose!
James is muck, in the ground, too.
One dead poet, out of gravity,
and out of sound and orbit.
He died alone, no one died with
him (in 1980). I try, and try to read
his poetry, and all I get is misery. It
seems he was never happy!
No: 3144 (10-26-2011)
Donald Hall (the Poet)
Donald Hall, poet, lost his
wife to cancer (eons ago)
and found his living grave early!
Rains falls straight down on
his forehead-like
granite...I love this poet,
too late to be damned.
Death beneath his right foot-
his toes pointing towards
his gravestone.
We talked, nearly holding hands-
Coiled with grief,
both looking for our loved ones-
now buried in their graves.
No: 3145 (10-26-2011)
The Lion and the Penguin
(Perhaps a tinge on the theoretical side of life)
The lion, will stay with its
cubs, from the day of birth to
her death!
The penguin, will stay with the
egg until it hatches into life
outside the casing, and thereafter
a limited time of learning, on
how to survive
on its own...
Then she'll leave her offspring
forevermore, in the
Antarctic cold...
And they may never meet again.
Who loves more?
the lion or the penguin...
My guess is they love
equally-
It's an environmental dilemma
for the penguin;
as it is not for the lion.
On the other hand-
the penguin is more willing to
take in an orphan,
than a lion...
Why?
My guess again is- dominance!
The lion must first
be sure-his position is secure...
forevermore!
The Penguin has no such
impending interests
thus, no such dilemma.
No: 3185 (11-6-2011)
Note: are we so sure of love, perhaps the person who cannot reach you loves you more than the person that has; perhaps that person by stepping back is more of an act of Love than that of the person that has stepped forward...; those who have within their reach the very thing they love, may not love as much as the person who has to let go-which in itself is an act of love or can be, and hope all will be well, with that loved one, while among the kingdoms of the earth.
A Mile High Lie
(-an admission)
I was like a piece of dust
under my bed-
My mother sat in a chair
in the adjoining room
(I must have been at least
eight or nine)
She was like a whale
a mile high-, said:
"You have a licking coming
for lying!"
And I knew she'd
wait until winter,
(in that chair)
It was now, mid-summer!
So I crawled out to
accept my punishment.
I figured, why wait it out
I was getting hungry...
No: 3187 (11-7-2011)
Tears of a Mother
(1962, St. Paul, Minnesota)
It is the sinking of the heart
to see your mother cry,
tears in her eyes-
my eyelids fell.
Her sad bones descended, nearly collapsed
like falling hard rocks-
when she heard me tell the judge
"Send me to boy's town
I want to be with
my brother...!"
No: 3179 (11-4-2011)
Above the Plane
(-a window opens)
Ilike living, thinking
I don't want to be a creature
on the moon-with no heaven or hell:
living on the dark-side.
I don't want to be
the lion beast, here on earth-
that lives by instinct alone;
or the atheist that can't feel
right or wrong, has no God,
nowhere to go beyond the grave.
(But I don't want to be deceived!)
•
I want to know, I really do.
How did I appear, where
I am now?
(I don't want to be left in the clouds.)
Am I no more than a thinking
grasshopper-,
from dust to dust-
after death a woodcut?
•
What window can I look through?
...out of, or above?
to see what is truth, real!
•
How different these bodies
are from our insides...
Understanding begins to throw
itself around
(as the brain thaws)
as belief and unbelief
become uneven...
Hence, a window opens!
No: 3186 (11-7-2011)
Dedicated to: Voltaire/Pope ?Benedict XIV (Two great apposing thinkers)
Death-
He Cometh
(-lyric/elegy)
Come when I am old
Come kindly death
Blessed be thee, I wait.
Come, take my life
My soul
(feed the ground my bones)
For I am weary
And too old
To do what I was born
To do...
Come soon, claim me!
Gently close my eyelids.
I have long prepared
Myself for you!
No: 3184 (11-6-2011)
The Bag
Think,
just take a minute and think...okay, ready or not:
How in the hell are you going to die?
Delete the words: when, never, eventually!
Now gather up your life
good or bad-bag it
(large or small it doesn't matter)
and love it, if you can!
Suppose now, this is it!
that this is all life wrote for you!
Whatever you did not do, say, or see-
you cannot now, it is too late;
it will not fit into the bag, period.
You say, "Wait a minute!"
Delete those worlds also-
No: 3181 (11-4-2011)
English Version
Philosophical Poetry
The Singing Waters of Nahuinpuquio
(or, Legend of the Little Goat with Seven Horns)
During the time of a full moon, the lake called Nahuinpuquio
(in the Mantaro Valley, high in Andes of Peru)
draws in its shadows
and waits on the village people for an offering.
If the offering
is not given or pleasing,
the feminine and invidious shadows
rising high up into the resonating night
blocking out even the moon's light: waits...
waits, just waits...
(as if wounded)!
Thereafter, the small islands stand about in a group
(within the center of the lake).
Each to its own thin opinions and darkness;
each, trying to agree upon what bleak
what final punishment
might be given
to the populace of Nahuinpuquio.
The female islands chant out far
on the water, grounded in the wings
of their shadows,
then, more often than not, they blacken
the sky,
with roaring thunder (distinct)-
hail and strong winds!
For they seek a male offering, complete!
Once the lake is satisfied, the dark comes down
slowly-and on June 23rd
at full moon, the lake sings
as her voice hits the water from its shadow wings;
hence, a golden goat with seven horns,ascends
as if fromunder the water's hidden door -
andappears for all to see!
Note: Drafted out on 10-13-2011, and reedited on the 14th; inspired by Engineer Felipe Zenteno (UNCP), during an afternoon conversation the University. No 3129
Spanish Version
La Leyenda de:
El Canto de la Laguna de Nahuinpuquio
(o, Leyenda del Cabrito con Siete Cuernos)
Durante las noches de luna llena, la laguna de Nahuinpuquio
(en el Valle del Mantaro, en Los Andes de Peru)
atrae en sus sombras
y espera que la gente del pueblo le haga una ofrenda.
Si la ofrenda,
no se da o no es satisfactoria,
las femeninas y envidiosas sombras
ascienden muy alto en la noche resonante
cubriendo incluso la luz de la luna, esperando...
esperando, solo esperando...
(?como si herida!)
Despues, las pequenas islas se reunen en grupo
(en medio del lago).
Cada una con su propia opinion insignificante de malicia;
cada una, tratando de acordar sobre quesombrio
que castigo final
podrian dar
a la gente de Nahuinpuquio.
Las islas femeninas cantan lejos
en las aguas, conectadas a las alas de
sus sombras,
entonces, frecuentemente oscurecen
el cielo,
con truenos estruendosos (distinto) -
?granizo y vientos fuertes!
Porque ellos buscan una ofrenda macho, ?completo!
Una vez que la laguna esta satisfecha, la oscuridad desaparece
lentamente-y en la noche del 23 de Junio
con luna llena, la laguna canta
mientras su voz golpea las aguas con las sombras de sus alas:
asi pues, un cabrito de oro con siete cuernos asciende
como si bajo el agua hubiera una puerta,
como si la hubiera atravesado-y luego aparece
?para que todos lo vean!
Nota: Borrador hecho el 13 de Octubre del 2011, luego editado el dia 14, inspirado por el Ingeniero Felipe Zenteno (UNCP), durante una conversacion en la tarde en la Universidad Nacional del Centro del Peru. No 3129
House of the Falcon
((The Chanka inthe Valley of Canipaco) (Colca, Peru))
Part One
House of the Falcon
Even the finest of the Chanka warriors, contained darkness
All their language, woven from fifteen hundred years packed
Together-as they grew larger in the Valley of Canipaco
The Hanan Chankas soaked up the stain of their enemy's blood
Drank it from their skull caps, hanging them upside down
These old thinkers, of the House of the Falcon,remind us
Battleand death to those throats open to invasion.
They built stone fortresses in the District of Colca-buried
Their kind, in caves, rock crevasses, mausoleums.
Part Two
Uscovilca and Ancovilca
CanipacoValley
The twin gods of the Chanka race, the founders, Uscovilca
And Ancovilca-: one inherited the teeth
Of the great lion, the other, the great thumbs of Goliath
And thereafter, the Chanka race never had had a whole
Day of peace, and thus built, Tamborhuanca (sanctuary)
Where one cry from the dying, contained a thousand more.
Part Three
House of Sorrows
Tamborhuanca-Colca
In time all things end, become shadows, hence, the
"House of the Falcon" became the "House of Sorrows"
The door that leads to Tamborhuanca, near Colca
Built eight-hundred years, now in the past-the sanctuary
Of the Chanka, now lies silent, with deadly gases...
A house roofed with stone and earth, caves and graves.
It's too late to move now; their bones (blunt like dull pencil lead)
Can be found in the dark crevasses of this fortress like
Mound-this monstrous sanctuary, with cave-eyes everywhere!
Part one of the poems written on 22nd of September, 2011. No: 3091; parts two and three (3092 and 3093,) written on 23rd of September).
The Noisy Corner
(of El Tambo; Huancayo, Peru)
Rain has fallen on rain (it is 7:00 p.m.)
I hear tires clatter over wet payment
see people across the street
clustered around a vender's outside
cafe table...as they chitchat.
The pancake and yucawomen, both
put a blue cover over their eatery-
I hear a mass of other weaving and
mixed sounds... (loud music from
the tiny grocery store, drunks at a table
drinking beer-next door) as clear as
raindrops on my apartment windows.
That is how it is in the rainy season,
on the corner streets, of Cultural Avenue
and Manuel Scorsa... in El Tambo, after sundown.
No: 3127 (Written 10-12-2011; Revised and reedited; 11-01-2011) renamed "The Noisy Corner," by my wife, Rosa.
Dayanne
(About a young woman, moving forward in life)
When you are young
things move fast.
It must be that you are
already dreaming ((Dayanne)
(I see that))...
Old people know how much time
can go by while dreaming.
It is all right.
We can stay dreaming-
but stand-up, and standout,
live your dreams.
No: 3167 (10-31-2011); for Dayanne Pareja
The Soothsayer:
Nostradamus (A.D., 1562)
Nostradamus,
who was he? Oh, yes
he was the hunter of Death!
(the soothsayer of Europe)
A master in uniting his Visions
with hopelessness-
It takes a long time to agree
to his 'dust to dust' the end
of the earth (concept).
Now great thinkers follow
in his every footstep
disappearing into the stars-
soaring...
I shall spread my new wings
-if his visions come true-and
fly to the moon.
No: 3168 (10-31-2011)
A Double-Haiku for God
(Isaiah 49:15)
Special Note: from the Old Testament Bible, the author/poet has translated the verse or stanza, Isaiah 49:15 into today's language.
You, to you out
Oh no, you will not find God
Sitting on your ass!...
Watching football games
Smoking and drinking Hamm's Beer
Get up off your chair!
No: 3156 (10-28-2011)
Sister Kelly's Creek
(At a Restaurant in the Blue Valley of Peru)
Sister Kelly today,
sat at a table, in the open
looked at the water of the Creek
listening to its flow-
lost in her self...
She must have looked a long while
down the gradating rows of water
beyond the waterfall itself, -
whatever she saw, she was lost
in it...
it is here we are filled from
the other world.
No: 3156 (10-30-2011)
Bad Behavior
("The Devil made me do it!")
The Devil has something
to do with our bad behavior
(and his horde of demonic beings);
so does original sin!
And let's not leave out
our own self-indulgences.
We cannot blame everything
on Old Nick, Satan-
now can we?
No: 3147 (10-27-2011)
Snake Bite (Dream Poetry)
I went up and down the truck
trying to avoid the snake from
biting me...!
I wanted to yell for help-
the savage little serpent
broke its jaws when it bit me,
then died; but cured me of my
most recent malady.
One I had gotten quite abruptly.
Funny to find in dreams
there is something inside you
that can discover-somewhere,
somehow, something
you can't find elsewhere!
No: 31412 (10-26-2011)
"Winter is nearing!"
Winter is Nearing in Minnesota
Now it's late fall, winter is nearing!
Eons ago
I would walk through a winter's wind
bowing my head
on the streets of St. Paul.
Black slush
like a strange snow creature would
draw out, everything!
restoring cold to the earth.
No: 3164 (10-30-2011)
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