POETRY PAGE 5
ALL MATERIAL COPYRIGHTED: ROY EISENSTEIN.
THE ARC
We are faded parchment
Disappearing ink
Photographs left in sunlight
We are beaches eroding
Washed away with each tide
Grains of sand leaving the shore
We are constellations
Distant in the sky
Long gone
But our light still flickers
We are old records
Scratchy and worn
But the melod's still coming through
Radio signals
Time worn broadcasts
Static to new ears
Pages of calendars torn off
Fallen leaves
Dry and finished
Yesterday’s news
History in flesh
Stories of a time
Once young
The up and coming
The promises unlimited
Now
The rearview mirror holds more than the windshield
The road ahead grows shorter
The road behind so much longer
This is how it is
How it’s always been
How it will be for everyone
The arc
GRAY
The marine layer remains
Lying about a storm that won’t be
Holding back that great release
So that just the gray hulk of sky bears down
I can feel it in me
Like an idea wanting to be born
But locked in some tight grip
Unexpressed and repressed
If the ceiling would only open
Give loose with the deluge and set free the winds
If that downpour would come
So we could dance in that shower and feel clean again
But the clouds just hang
No rain
Just the shadow of what could be
WRITER
A writer needs the cool fever of solitude where he can run with shadows of his black dogs
Where he can excavate the shards of ancient human truth that strip naked all his emotions so he can retrieve them and drag them to the surface for all to see
His life must be a perpetual confession
Time on the witness stand or in under the hot lights of self-interrogation
To have the courage or the indifference to lay himself bare to the opinions of others
With their small jealousies and ego competitions
To rise from the canvas like a prize fighter who gets knocked down to try again and again
There is no choice to this lifestyle
You do not elect to live this struggle
You do not enlist, you are drafted into service by your muse
By your wounds
And all your dissapointments and failures are the fecund fields you cultivate and harvest along with your joyous victories and great loves
You’re not a god or an angel, special from others
You’re a warrior, words as your armament, and the blank page as your battlefield
AFTER
The city tamed by experience
Smaller to the returning eyes
Still quite young but older yet
A map of invisible scars and silent echoes no one will understand
Readjustment impossible now that the peg and the hole have changed shapes
Now that the crayon drawings are ink tattoos deep beneath the flesh
In the places where questions live
Where dreams have gone to hide
Old friends seem familiar strangers
The girlfriend can’t see who you are and you can’t see her
So the kiss gets lost in the noise of it
The heart so wounded and confused
Nothing here to salute
Home is no longer home
A trust has been broken
A myth destroyed
A religion of lies stand naked
We probably weren’t supposed to come back at all
SAFETY FIRST
The poetic lies
Writing of flowers instead feelings
Nothing revealed of self other than the need for what’s pretty
Merely décor
Inoffensive wallpaper
Like a hotel room seascape painting over the sofa
Safe pastels
Muted nothingness
Bland food
Spiceless and forgettable
No heat
No passion
Why bother to pen at all if there is no confession?
No x-ray of being human
No distinguishing scars or birthmarks
Just the dull hum white noise
SOMETIMES
I am sometimes empty
Except for memories
Where lovers and friends drank and laughed together
Stories flew from fertile minds
And the road ahead seemed endless
When we still believed in magic
And passion was all the fuel we needed
Some days I feel empty
And then a song recalls faint kisses from the shadows of time
When I can almost smell your flesh
And I forget that you are gone
In that sea of tenderness we shared
Almost innocent
There are moments when I am empty
And all I have are photographs
And all they bring are tears
WORDS
I’m awash in a vast ocean of words
They intoxicate me
They are my dream hallucinations
My medication
My devotion and frustrations
I’m nourished by them
By their sounds and meanings
Their often obedience to my desires
Their loyalty and their treachery
Words that can caress or snap
Like some deep water carnivores
They are the currents of air that either lift my wings
Or slam me in powerful torrents
And turbulent ire
I am lost in this tundra of thought
To be rescued by a phrase
By a concert of language
Daily I wrestle with these words
I dance with them
We make love
We make war
We come to terms and sign truces
Words
My addiction
My slaves
And my masters
THAT TRAIN
Time seems to rattle down the track towards the mystery
The terrain is a landscape of memories
Ghosts appear and then they’re gone
Old songs come to mind
Photographs of thought
Names and faces whiz by
First kisses
First glances
Fears and heartaches
Moments of courage
Old friends are precious stones we’ve gathered
They are markers on our living maps
Laughter and tears are the thunder and rain
The percussion of the pulse
The rhythm of this racing train
Picking up speed it all rushes past
Nothing really lasts
Anything we try to hold onto turns to sand running through our fingers
We are old pocket watches running down
A drift into that long winter
We are flicks of light and long shadows
We are remembered and then forgotten
Here once and forever
And yet
Never
I KNOW
You burn with happiness
That smile that flames a room
Illuminates shadows
Gets hearts to up tempo a notch or two
Around you males prance like ponies
Or like show dogs eager to impress at some kennel club competition
Your affection or at least attention the blue ribbon they seek
You move to music like some divine feminine mystery
A rhythmic seduction so innocent and yet so sexual
Easy laughter erupts from you unrestrained
Unrehearsed
A dam break of joyous pleasure
Everyone’s candle in the darkness
Yet
Beneath the glow
Under all that poise and presentation
Behind the mask of social décor
Is a well
Deep water
A sorrow
A lament that escapes language
Beyond definition
A hushed sadness
Not the super heroine who all rely on
Lean on
Seek out for support and strength
But a tender wound
An almost child
Fatigue of spirit needing
Wanting
Almost invisible to the naked eye
But very much there
An ancient song not understood
And I long to gather you up
Envelop you in the blanket of my maleness
To be the wall around you so you can rest
Stand guard as the soldier of your gentle sleep
Your warrior
Your poet
Your lover
The one who knows
And is both strong and weak for you
I take my post
CEMETERY WALTZ
I was once killed by a man with a library card
Then buried in a mound of distractions and insignificant conversations
Lost to all memory because dust blows away
No footprints left on the ground
No voice or remaining sound
Just a slight scar on the face of indifference
All the wounded gathered around
The ancient lament of keening women
Waiting for their Emmys
Admiring each other’s shoes
I hovered for a bit because I had nowhere to go
And my ghost was preoccupied with the myth of my ego
It only took a breeze to make me forget
And me owing money on my parking meter
L.A.
It’s L.A.
A desert slamming into the beach
All stitched together with freeways
It’s a heat wave in the Valley
A strip mall hopscotch across what used be farms
It’s an open wound of promises sold repeatedly in the ads between the local news breaks
L.A.
You can see the mountains ringing us
The palm trees reaching for something
Like the rest of us
It’s a high low-pressure front with chances of a brainstorm by morning
Very expensive cars and cardboard boxes
Deals over meals and drinks
Handshake venom and invisible ink
L.A.
Skate and surf and buy my oranges at the off ramp
Dreams and nightmares
Anything is possible
It’s L.A.
ALL MATERIAL COPYRIGHTED: ROY EISENSTEIN.
THE ARC
We are faded parchment
Disappearing ink
Photographs left in sunlight
We are beaches eroding
Washed away with each tide
Grains of sand leaving the shore
We are constellations
Distant in the sky
Long gone
But our light still flickers
We are old records
Scratchy and worn
But the melod's still coming through
Radio signals
Time worn broadcasts
Static to new ears
Pages of calendars torn off
Fallen leaves
Dry and finished
Yesterday’s news
History in flesh
Stories of a time
Once young
The up and coming
The promises unlimited
Now
The rearview mirror holds more than the windshield
The road ahead grows shorter
The road behind so much longer
This is how it is
How it’s always been
How it will be for everyone
The arc
GRAY
The marine layer remains
Lying about a storm that won’t be
Holding back that great release
So that just the gray hulk of sky bears down
I can feel it in me
Like an idea wanting to be born
But locked in some tight grip
Unexpressed and repressed
If the ceiling would only open
Give loose with the deluge and set free the winds
If that downpour would come
So we could dance in that shower and feel clean again
But the clouds just hang
No rain
Just the shadow of what could be
WRITER
A writer needs the cool fever of solitude where he can run with shadows of his black dogs
Where he can excavate the shards of ancient human truth that strip naked all his emotions so he can retrieve them and drag them to the surface for all to see
His life must be a perpetual confession
Time on the witness stand or in under the hot lights of self-interrogation
To have the courage or the indifference to lay himself bare to the opinions of others
With their small jealousies and ego competitions
To rise from the canvas like a prize fighter who gets knocked down to try again and again
There is no choice to this lifestyle
You do not elect to live this struggle
You do not enlist, you are drafted into service by your muse
By your wounds
And all your dissapointments and failures are the fecund fields you cultivate and harvest along with your joyous victories and great loves
You’re not a god or an angel, special from others
You’re a warrior, words as your armament, and the blank page as your battlefield
AFTER
The city tamed by experience
Smaller to the returning eyes
Still quite young but older yet
A map of invisible scars and silent echoes no one will understand
Readjustment impossible now that the peg and the hole have changed shapes
Now that the crayon drawings are ink tattoos deep beneath the flesh
In the places where questions live
Where dreams have gone to hide
Old friends seem familiar strangers
The girlfriend can’t see who you are and you can’t see her
So the kiss gets lost in the noise of it
The heart so wounded and confused
Nothing here to salute
Home is no longer home
A trust has been broken
A myth destroyed
A religion of lies stand naked
We probably weren’t supposed to come back at all
SAFETY FIRST
The poetic lies
Writing of flowers instead feelings
Nothing revealed of self other than the need for what’s pretty
Merely décor
Inoffensive wallpaper
Like a hotel room seascape painting over the sofa
Safe pastels
Muted nothingness
Bland food
Spiceless and forgettable
No heat
No passion
Why bother to pen at all if there is no confession?
No x-ray of being human
No distinguishing scars or birthmarks
Just the dull hum white noise
SOMETIMES
I am sometimes empty
Except for memories
Where lovers and friends drank and laughed together
Stories flew from fertile minds
And the road ahead seemed endless
When we still believed in magic
And passion was all the fuel we needed
Some days I feel empty
And then a song recalls faint kisses from the shadows of time
When I can almost smell your flesh
And I forget that you are gone
In that sea of tenderness we shared
Almost innocent
There are moments when I am empty
And all I have are photographs
And all they bring are tears
WORDS
I’m awash in a vast ocean of words
They intoxicate me
They are my dream hallucinations
My medication
My devotion and frustrations
I’m nourished by them
By their sounds and meanings
Their often obedience to my desires
Their loyalty and their treachery
Words that can caress or snap
Like some deep water carnivores
They are the currents of air that either lift my wings
Or slam me in powerful torrents
And turbulent ire
I am lost in this tundra of thought
To be rescued by a phrase
By a concert of language
Daily I wrestle with these words
I dance with them
We make love
We make war
We come to terms and sign truces
Words
My addiction
My slaves
And my masters
THAT TRAIN
Time seems to rattle down the track towards the mystery
The terrain is a landscape of memories
Ghosts appear and then they’re gone
Old songs come to mind
Photographs of thought
Names and faces whiz by
First kisses
First glances
Fears and heartaches
Moments of courage
Old friends are precious stones we’ve gathered
They are markers on our living maps
Laughter and tears are the thunder and rain
The percussion of the pulse
The rhythm of this racing train
Picking up speed it all rushes past
Nothing really lasts
Anything we try to hold onto turns to sand running through our fingers
We are old pocket watches running down
A drift into that long winter
We are flicks of light and long shadows
We are remembered and then forgotten
Here once and forever
And yet
Never
I KNOW
You burn with happiness
That smile that flames a room
Illuminates shadows
Gets hearts to up tempo a notch or two
Around you males prance like ponies
Or like show dogs eager to impress at some kennel club competition
Your affection or at least attention the blue ribbon they seek
You move to music like some divine feminine mystery
A rhythmic seduction so innocent and yet so sexual
Easy laughter erupts from you unrestrained
Unrehearsed
A dam break of joyous pleasure
Everyone’s candle in the darkness
Yet
Beneath the glow
Under all that poise and presentation
Behind the mask of social décor
Is a well
Deep water
A sorrow
A lament that escapes language
Beyond definition
A hushed sadness
Not the super heroine who all rely on
Lean on
Seek out for support and strength
But a tender wound
An almost child
Fatigue of spirit needing
Wanting
Almost invisible to the naked eye
But very much there
An ancient song not understood
And I long to gather you up
Envelop you in the blanket of my maleness
To be the wall around you so you can rest
Stand guard as the soldier of your gentle sleep
Your warrior
Your poet
Your lover
The one who knows
And is both strong and weak for you
I take my post
CEMETERY WALTZ
I was once killed by a man with a library card
Then buried in a mound of distractions and insignificant conversations
Lost to all memory because dust blows away
No footprints left on the ground
No voice or remaining sound
Just a slight scar on the face of indifference
All the wounded gathered around
The ancient lament of keening women
Waiting for their Emmys
Admiring each other’s shoes
I hovered for a bit because I had nowhere to go
And my ghost was preoccupied with the myth of my ego
It only took a breeze to make me forget
And me owing money on my parking meter
L.A.
It’s L.A.
A desert slamming into the beach
All stitched together with freeways
It’s a heat wave in the Valley
A strip mall hopscotch across what used be farms
It’s an open wound of promises sold repeatedly in the ads between the local news breaks
L.A.
You can see the mountains ringing us
The palm trees reaching for something
Like the rest of us
It’s a high low-pressure front with chances of a brainstorm by morning
Very expensive cars and cardboard boxes
Deals over meals and drinks
Handshake venom and invisible ink
L.A.
Skate and surf and buy my oranges at the off ramp
Dreams and nightmares
Anything is possible
It’s L.A.