Introduction
I hadn't realize how difficult it would be to bring poems to these web pages, but learning WordPress formatting for me is still time-consuming. Further, I regret to note that I am notorious for leaving a poem one or two revisions short of a final draft. (Oh. That's why there is no book yet.)
In any regard, I'm posting the beginning of a challenging poem here (02 Dec) - one (a) that is much longer than what's below, and (b) in which I am still making final, clarifying revisions. Try it. See if you like it or not. Importantly, it isn't to be read once, it isn't short, and it does require both reflection and re-reading. Perhaps even a small bit of research. What does that Greek word mean?" So this isn't a simple read; an impression and then you can move to something else. Much of what I write is designed to have layers of revelation or disclosure. Even the spacing is intentional and please work a bit outside of the conventional conceptual box when you read the poetry on this site. Please keep coming back as it unfolds. The poem is 9 pages long, so it will take me a while to write and edit the code for all of it.
Poem 04 January OR “ A Complaint by Kore
” Revised 06, 08, 11 Jan, Jun 02, 06, 07, 21, 27 Jun 11 13 July 2016, 30 Mar 2018, 02 Dec 2019
You you (you)
want to be found
in the poem,
you
observed,
or in some curled photograph
close to me,
some recognition
“I was here (before)”
“I mattered”
like the return of (green) leaves
yes
like the return of the kouria
impatient
with the cold
weather,
(there)
you are
[… in a nearly illegible script ]
in that photograph
[the blue ink ]
walking down
[faded / ]
Forbes Avenue
[on the back ]
yr hair a profusion /of waves
streaming /
brown & green
here and there
a wind-tossed juxtaposition /
one life, then another.
Someone / had
crawlt out
with newness, clinging
like a web /
life
pooling, in eddies
jarred back into being
the bright light of your eyes
flickering
I am here, I am awake
in a fine plume /in a mist
dark (born)
against the sky
jostled by crowds
in the street
there
rhythmically tossed
you are again
as you bump into strangers.
Isn’t that you as we rotated the photograph took it out of the frame there’s dust
gathered in the lower right corner and the glass catches too much reflected light so it
is hard to see /there I am you sd I’m sure that’s me
yet all images
of you, however
are obscured
in (en) chiaroscuro
your hands appear /in shadows,
like careless words /
pulled back /”not quite
yet” you murmured
against my shoulder /your breath still
a caress /upon
my neck
ii.
simply
to be born and re-born
is eternal
to walk down a broad street
in a borrowed scarf/
is nothing
enwrapt
my hair wind-swept/
I was /
the bough which /the wind
moves /scarring
a copse of small beech trees /
a bleached flesh /
worn pale by movement /
I stumbled
You stumbled / out / a
sound, a sonorous breath / resonating
off the pitted bark of black cherry,
you
drew in a ragged breath
in a light wind,
I sd /
it really hurts / I was
indeed shattered, and what little I had to cling to was the coarse wool of an old English university scarf that [ ... incomplete ... ]