good-bye in the night who never were lovers
repeatedly saying good-bye in the night
who never were lovers repeatedly saying
good-bye in the present night who
never were tubercular contortions or squiggles
good-bye tubercular squiggles to lovers’ night
repeatedly saying never quite contortions
squiggles repeatedly saying good-bye
to lovers never quite tubercular night
~*~
Poem copyright 2016 by Jnana Hodson To see all 50 Preludes & Fugues, click here.
People typically listen with their heads, attentive to logic and thought, or with their hearts, to feeling and insinuation. But there is also a frequently untapped ability to listen with one’s hands, as I recognized at a Susan Stark concert in Brunswick, Maine. There, two Quaker pastors from Kenya (themselves excellent, forceful singers) sat with arms flexed out before them, as if each held an invisible beach ball squeezed slowly. They were appraising the vibration of the room, the presence of Holy Spirit moving. This time, the current was plentiful and active. Try it, in public – at a governmental hearing, a poetry reading, a concert or play, a sporting event – and you, too, may observe how the sense of each occasion may differ. Watch a master carpenter or a first-rate baker, as well, to see how hands ponder a task, running ahead of mental comprehension. A musician often seems to hear music through the fingers, as if playing, even when no instrument is present. Perhaps a surgeon does the same with medicine.
These poems celebrate the movement of Spirit perceived through a Third Ear, between the hands. The tactile response. Here’s one:
~*~
TO USE TOOLS
Connect
four fingers and thumb
sometimes, double
into the fire, and out
a pot, a pan, or a skillet
with or without a lid
and its handle
extending to a blade
or straw, depending:
All the wonder of the work at hand
cooking, keeping house,
gardening, splitting wood –
to say nothing of the factory,
farm, boat, or mine –
hunting or warring –
Even basic parts we touch
with each other
Poem copyright 2017 by Jnana Hodson For more, click here.
cruelty that arises from bitterness spanning a rocky streambed
* * *
the Japanese bow to India
with its dry ferns and maple
with its fronds becoming a cob of ribbon
in the dry fronds of Japanese
ferns and half-devoured cobs
the Indian maples bow and dry
cobs of corn and fronds
in Japan the Indian bows
as the ferns and maple
dry fronds of Japan maple
cobs of Indian corn from
stepping down to the streambed
a staircase cruelly arises
from rocky bitterness, yes, a staircase
cruelty that rocky that bitter
from that staircase cruel, yes,
arises rocky and bitter
~*~
Poem copyright 2016 by Jnana Hodson To see all 50 Preludes & Fugues, click here.
red maple on gray rock against
vertical tan stripes
the pooling and hill
* * *
blue-eyed moth on yellow chopstick folder
star lilies against horizontal green striation
Chinese river scene, the coin inscribed from a tickle-free zone of “Dried Dark Plums”
red maple on gray rock against vertical tan stripes
pooling under a blue-eyed hill of moths
over another yellow river, the Chinese “Dried Dark Plums”
held aloft on scenic chopsticks or inscribed coins
as folded red maple on gray rock against vertical tan
line up between the pooling and hill of star lilies
as horizontal green striation from a tickle-free zone the blue-eyed river inscribed with yellow moths
as “Dried Dark Plums” are maple red on gray rock
against vertical tan striped pooling water buffalo work
in a wet field of chopsticks between star lilies open
against the blue-eyed horizon with its variations
as coins and moths inscribed in yellow Chinese
calligraphy, the tickle-free zones become a river scene
for a “Dried Dark Plums” holder of chopsticks
made from red maple in their tan stripes
as the gray rock against vertical pooling
toward the hill of star lilies and their horizontal
green striation from a tickle-free zone water buffalo patiently work a field
~*~
Poem copyright 2016 by Jnana Hodson To see all 50 Preludes & Fugues, click here.
the angel Aquarius, with a bare foot pointed to the stars
reclines on a stone bench
in front of a domed courthouse
* * *
Vermont green in decline where money
was once transformed into Corinthian columns
and porticos overlooking lawns high over reflected
water as much as the Grand Hotel first-floor porch
the length of a building that would blast your yuppie façade
hidden opposite a kitchen under an atrium lined
with classical Greek busts inscribing some tryst
in Greek drama nightlife countered by the classical proportions
of a domed courthouse goddess in laurel and a red gown
far from the masted ships in a storm, her arms bared
her bare feet Vermont green, reclining where
once money was made carving Corinthian columns
uphold a portico on a Grand Hotel high over the water
with a first-floor porch the length of the lawn and your blasted yuppie façade hides a kitchen under an atrium
its shelf of classical Greek busts inscribed with dramatic
trysts countered by classically proportioned nightlife
behind a domed courthouse goddess in lilac and laurel
and a red gown mast stripped in a storm of Vermont green
to such bare arms, bare feet now in decline
there was once money to be made behind Corinthian column
porticos on lawns high over the waters of the Grand Hotel
porch the length of your yuppie façade kitchen
atrium with classical busts and dramatic trysts
countered by dome nightlife courting a Greek goddess
in laurel and red gown stained glass, a Greek revival mansion
with four pillars and broken colonnade dividing a green lawn
from a tall hedge statuary in a gray-headed cemetery
the angel Aquarius, with a bare foot pointed to the stars
now intertwined with tree
(Ursula, Arctos of bear legs and bear paws)
reclines on a stone bench in stained glass statuary
in a gray-headed cemetery (Ursula, Arctos of bear legs
and bear paws) revives four pillars as the angel
Aquarius, with a bare foot pointed to the stars reclines
on stone bench broken colonnade dividing a green lawn
from a tall hedge now intertwined with trees
in stained glass statuary in a gray-headed cemetery
(Ursula, Arctos of bear legs and bear paws)
reclines on a stone bench with no uprising of life within it this Greek revival mansion with four pillars
broken colonnade dividing a green lawn from a tall hedge
in stained glass the angel Aquarius, with a bare foot
pointed to stars now intertwined with trees
statuary in a gray-headed Greek revival mansion
with four pillars, the angel Aquarius now intertwined
with no uprising of life within it dividing a green lawn
~*~
Poem copyright 2016 by Jnana Hodson To see all 50 Preludes & Fugues, click here.
four pale sets of lips
rimmed in frost
prayer flags and the Potala
* * *
prayer flags and Potala of burning Buddhas
in rocky arena “251,” plus that Tibetan Red Tara’s
recipe for Himalayan incense prayer flags and
the Potala of burning Buddhas in rocky “251”
four burning bushes in the recipe for Himalayan incense
prayer flags plus Tibetan Red Tara recipe for incense
four burning bushes, four pale sets of lips
the Himalayan prayer flags and the Potala recipe
names “251,” plus the rimmed frost of burning
Buddhas in a rocky arena of four burning bushes
prayer flags and the four pale sets of lips
as recipe for Himalayan incense prayer flags
rimmed in frost of burning Buddhas, Hari Om Tat Sat: the hairy WHAT? pale sets of lips burning
Red Tara in a prayer flag recipe from the Potala
~*~
Poem copyright 2016 by Jnana Hodson To see all 50 Preludes & Fugues, click here.
in the dune of the black-eyed Susan a schedule diametrically opposed to my own
* * *
a stargazer adjusts a pile of broken
shell and black-eyed Susan polished by sea-spray
in the dune behind an urchin
adjusting broken shell, the black-eyed Susan
polished by mist, the blanched dune
kelp adjusting a pile of broken shell
and black-eyed Susan polished
by surf sweeping along the dune
an astronomer adjusts a schedule diametrically opposed to purple shoreline in the type case of shells and dull-edged
glass where my own pile of green stones in the box of shells
pile up a schedule diametrically opposed to dull-edged glass
the purple astronomer adjusts the typeface in case
shoreline shells pile his green-stone telescope somehow diametrically opposed to any heavenly schedule he attempts tuning the dull-edged glass of my own type case of shells
piles in a schedule diametrically opposed to dull-edged
green stones along shoreline where I’ve set my own telescope
~*~
Poem copyright 2016 by Jnana Hodson To see all 50 Preludes & Fugues, click here.
Jnana's Red Barn 