Walt Whitman's Death Mask

WALT WHITMAN'S DEATH MASK

You started out superbly.
No one was more gifted or blessed.
You called yourself
a freakish character,
saying it was “damnable”
to be tailorized after a mode.
So, come on – admit it
you were a little Rabelaisian!


You were one of those big sprawlers –
your masterful words never touching
the lines of the white ruled paper
upon which you so liberally wrote.


You were a winger too -
an open-air man,
whose feet were
never really needed
for traveling.


Wasn’t it just yesterday that you
lolled in your high board bed,

over on Mickle Street -
eating pickled peaches
out of a blue glass jar,
while listening to sounds
from the street below?


And now your face
is all repose, and sweetly so,
with eyes closed and lips tight
and your splendid head
at its noblest and most serene.

LIKE, COOL MAN - HAPPY HALLOWEEN!

HAPPY HALLOWEEN ALL YOU CRAZY CATS!

HAVE A BOSS, CHROME-PLATED NIGHT!

WHO GOES HOWLING

Who goes howling without a key -
a plot, a scheme, a mystery?
Knots are tied and knots unraveled
along a road that’s highly traveled,
winding in some mysterious way,
puzzling pedestrians night and day,
while water cries and wind speaks
and frost makes roses of our cheeks.
And who’s the potter and who’s the pot?
And which is the vessel and which is not?
For these queries, avow – avow!
The answers are being written now
on onionskin paper, smooth and light -
on sleeveless arms, ghostly white -
on leaves rustling on far away trees -
on hills and in hollows, such as these.

PENDING

I can’t help thinking
that I would feel at home
in the closed off hives
under the pear trees,
in amber stillness,
in the warm wax cells -
there to live a life of
sweetness and daylight.
But – somehow, I survive
in a dim aging cellar,
where the spirits settle
among the oak barrels
that rise in the darkness
like communal hunchbacks,
awaiting clarification.

A LOVELY WHILING AWAY

Turning circles
and pocketing stones,
we were more astonished
than we had ever been
by the sweet leaves,
and dry golden corn,
and the flowers
offering up their seeds –
and the white horse,
standing motionless,
in the stark pasture,
a hawk’s reflection
appearing in his big old eye –
their precious spirits
merging interminably.


In the wind, we heard
the weeping and laughter
of the fiddles and banjos,
harmonicas and mandolins,
and we danced along
for a little while in the grass,
under yellow gingko leaves,
eating wild grapes and
hard, sweet apples.
Toward home, at dusk,
there was only the
low hum of our voices -
the intimate press of our hands.

DEAR EUGENE

Guest poet, Chloe Gilbert

Chloe rode on a train from Southern Virginia to Northern Pennsylvania, recently. One of the passengers, a kindly old gentleman sitting across the aisle, caught Chloe's imagination. She said he wore a bow tie and had the kindest face. They never spoke, but Chloe felt that he was someone special - she even felt a certain kinship toward him. Then, just as she garnered enough courage to make conversation at a stop in D.C., he stood up and departed the train.

We have all wondered about strangers that have traveled with us on trains, buses, planes....we come up with life scenarios for them. It is a poet's past time. Right?

This poem was churned from Chloe's thoughts, while traveling on the train.

DEAR EUGENE

I can’t help
but sneak a peak;
What spell have you
cast over me?

At a glace, to have felt so meek -

From your unintended presence,
I cannot break free.

Have you traveled far?
Could it be that you
are wondering as well,

If my story is just as spectacular

As your story in my mind dwells?


Inside, mindless masses hurry in a blunder,

As the world beside us both passes,

Creating even more magic and wonder -
Empowering my will to leap and ask.

Alas! You are now escaping this
Metal monster and leaving me behind.

Thank you sweet stranger
Whom I will never forget,
For leaving me soft and kind.

THIS VAGUE FEELING

A vague feeling
has arisen in me,
with no real meaning
that I can think of -
and apart from any idea
I might have had recently,
but truly affecting and moving,
as with any other vision in life.


It prompts my mind to toil -
all thoughts tendrilling upwards
and outwards, trying to catch
somewhere - and take hold.


My mind fills with
some moonlit view
of barefoot wanderings,
and a distribution of figs
to the sick and dying –
their sweet, sticky lips
encrusted and tasting
of nothing but blood.


An odor of turpentine emits
from some dark alleyway,
where doors are open to show
dimly lit rooms divided by
unfinished canvasses,
wet with paint and going
white with mildew.


And there is not
an infinite number
of stars in the sky,
only a few large ones,
spinning and shining -
like dying martyrs,
and like living lovers,
eking out their incredible
days of pleasure and pain.


This vague feeling…
This stab in my heart.