POEMS FROM

POEMS FROM “CHALK DOME,” AN ABANDONED NOVEL, WITH FICTIONAL AUTHORS

WHOLENESS BEGINS WHEN YOU FINISH- Lantu

Building the city gives way to being the city. You expand.
Walking on the Earth gives way to being the Earth. You expand.
And standing in the wind gives way to being the wind,
As watching the bird fly flies us away with the bird.
So open experience of anything gives way to being that thing
And, though in life, the giving way is brief
And we always return to ourselves and our lot
Yet, every little escape of private self back beyond to the world
Cheats death of ultimately catching and extinguishing
The creature that the world sent into life

LEARNING BY CONTRAST- Lantu

Sweetness comes in episodes between unsweet times
Times we are dry, or sad, injured, frustrated, numb, or dutiful
And there is, too, a dry sweetness, a sad sweetness, others perhaps
We are here to learn, but the spirits who sent us here to learn
Have other feelings for us as well, and let us glimpse them in moments
Every moment is mortal, though we endeavor not to lose
The moments that are no longer here
And the fact we haven't lost them, after all, becomes clear
By the way we understand the moment we are in
Silently, the contrast to other moments informs our whole understanding
And every past moment is reborn, however weakly, in every one that follows

UNCERTAIN OF THE RESULT- Lantu

When the river runs smoothly, timelessly
When the children play games in the field
When the sun shows eight perfect rays
It is hard to perceive error
And if a voice inside bothers you about error
It is easy to believe that the error is in yourself
But, when the same world advises you to "trust your inner voice"
And does not seem to see a contradiction
Away you trend, obeying the call of self-entrustment
And wondering all the while what result can come
True to your thought, out of step, you feel you malign the whole
With each questioning, each act of analysis, each willingness to judge
And, if you too are of nature, and in the balanced scheme
You feel that, perhaps, you are of a less affirming, satisfying class
A thing like a forest fire, an overflood, a shaking of the earth
Taking the green that is growing, singeing it, drowning it, tearing its roots
All this you feel is within your potential
Although, today, you can wreak no more than a seed can on a valley
And though wreaking is not in your will, you feel that it could grow to be
That it may exist in you already, in seed; you resent the role you have stumbled into
Though against your will today, you could become a storm that destroys
For you push a contrary way, and you do not know how hard your blow will fall
If your "no" works, you cannot picture what will result
Perhaps a shattering of people's happiness, schisms, discord, tribulations
Perhaps simply yourself more alone, more hungry, more distant from humankind
And you accept this as being perhaps the better possibility, this holding yourself away
For there is a hardness in yourself that you do not know how to handle

My conclusions now seem to me theatrical, exaggerated like sunset shadows
Not many people are so fully satisfied with their time and place
That they would not welcome a small earthquake, to wrench things to their liking
And perhaps even seek these upheavals, and would feel triumph in them
As to those of us whose pretensions are more toward the universe than the home ground
We have bad conscience both toward our disruptiveness and our ineffectuality
The ultimate things, so easy to picture, are so far beyond our reach
Creature of our minds, really, a dance of abstractions, no true arena
One does not gain "the truth," nor reach "mastery"
There is no breakthrough to the "all," or to any completely unmixed quality
Yet, large changes do happen; the age of empires ended
Its cruelties deglorified and dissipated, replaced by understandings of human worth
Before that, empires crushed much of the ways we knew and lived
And we had to rebuild a more human way to live; and we did
An achievement of which we have been rightly proud for centuries
And in our placid age, the dissidents rumble like I do, with new ideas of destination
Premonitions false? Aims overpretentious? Results disappointingly gray?
They could be so. They often have been when people have pursued that "inner voice"
And all this effort, all this playing with alienation and alternative
Sacrificing participation in the good, diverting our talents into contrary paths
On a gamble to find out something new about truth, something less smooth
All this is a gamble that may fail, to the misery of the brave
And to the greater cost of the people from which they sprang
We risk a spoiling of goods conserved by our kindred, a harm to those closest to us
No wonder we look about suspiciously to see whether we'll be driven out
But so far, it is our bad conscience, mostly, that speaks against us
And, supposing we return good, after all; our original aim was for the better
Do you still have faith we might, friend? Or, after so may twists of course
Would a truly healthy result finally appear- ironic?

Untitled- Nyan Tei Ti

Spark in the darkness
Your color can't be missed
Or mistaken, or other than have impact
Then, the gray smoke puffs
From where you once happened
The first awe deepened by the awe
Of your swift obliteration

But, spark in the daytime
We wonder what you were
And if you were
And if we ever knew your color
Pale commentary will vainly follow
What you sought to show
And suborn the event to gamesmen's rooted intentions
The only truth of your spark left speaking
In the faint smell of the smoke
That had been visible only for a moment
And then, only to those to whom it occurred to look

Spark in the daytime
And the world of the daytime
Will dilute with light and objects
Your try at self-creation
The language of mystery
Loses all bearing here
Where the mighty sun proclaims
Its undeniable display
Of each thing physically surrounding
Uncomposed of mind, unresounding
Detailed further the further you inspect
Yet, with reality flat and flattening
Beyond imagination

Spark in the nighttime
And the daytime is forgotten
The restoration of depth is at hand
And the false definition
That silently claimed to exhaust truth
Flees with the all-light which alone sustained it
We are released from the spell of accuracy
And can see for ourselves who you mean to be

EMPEROR: UNFAVORABLE TIMES SHOULD HAVE ENLIGHTENED YOU- Nechel

His method could not give him his breakthrough to destiny
No triumph of power could push him beyond man's lot into invulnerability
No matter whether his arrogance was for himself, his family, his priesthood, or his nation
His will could never really be fulfilled, but only grow more unsatisfied
As each victory failed to be the final, permanent one
As he burned each year's harvest to the gods, but the gods no longer returned windfall
But perhaps gave him back a little, or allowed him not to lose very much
To the other empires who sought triumph by the very same methods
Force no longer paid such handsome rewards; the age of easy winning was over
And the unredeemed human costs threatened to give imperial goals the lie
Costs that were exacted further, for the mere maintenance of the overreaching
Soon, the Ruler felt the unexpressed backpressure against his commands
And the unvanquished antagonism of those who had abided his tyranny
Partly because of compulsion, the rest by contracting with the imperial myth
Because, though the masses were at the disadvantage in the bargain
There was no reason to believe that empire would not control all in the end
So that the destruction of the cultures, lives and freedoms of the conquered
Would be transformed for mankind into the greater strength of empire
And that acquiescence to being commanded and kept at bare subsistence
Would at least pay off in success for the goals of those who commanded
But when the imperial promises were shown the most clearly beyond human grasp
The Ruler proved ever more unwilling to tolerate any suggestion
Of not being a seer, a prophet, a knower and guaranteer of the result
Of not being a being of a different art than those he ruled
Of not knowing how the future must turn out
Of not being, ultimately, beyond fallibility
And so, he pressed his now mad demands even harder on the people
And acted the part of the universal mouthpiece of the "Must"
Masquerading as the legitimacy of unyielding law
Using a theater voice of rage from beyond the mortal realm
Was his unsocialized anger at the prospect of being questioned
And of the imperial, compulsive arrangement no longer being held in awe
Through his thundering voice the Ruler sought to demand, reprove, intimidate
And put the imperial project back beyond question
But when the people saw that the iron law was not part of the inevitable
They were free to see that it was also ultimately not workable, nor bearable
The unyieldingness no longer looked like superworldly sanction
But a will run mad, that tried to command all, even reality, even when it didn't work
In fact, even harder then, even when disaster loomed instead; the propaganda lost its spell
Thus to the people, and thus more disturbingly to the class that commanded
And took imperial destiny daily as the foundation of their right to expect to be obeyed
Where humility might have let them understand their common situation with the ruled
And allowed them to perceive honestly the collapse of empire's false claim to glory
Humility itself was impossible for them; such was the age; the cruel division played out
And the elite wanted to be justified; but it was obvious to them that, yes, somehow
Lies had entered the logic of their arrogance, and the lies were now starting to snap
And the fact could not be hidden from the people, nor conceded to them
Desperation pushed the agents of empire toward severity
And indignation ruled the mind of their very leader
Before the future could be separated from the empire
The hand came pounding down

OUR YOUNG ANCESTORS- Lantu

Under compulsion, under direction of empires
They were slaves of Generals, slaves of cutting stone
Slaves of the fields, slaves of the weapons furnaces
Slaves of the times into which they were born
Slaves of minds, minds that bore
The confident pretense of destiny
Which only human blood
Which only the pressing of human souls
In overdriven defiance of mercy
Could sate
But we actually sought to appease in those days
Was untamed tyrannical will
One that our old arrangements in tribes
Could never have given scope
And only civilization could allow to rule
The first unique illness of our civilization
Was authority that was based
On people's inability to escape

GLORY- Nyan Tei Ti

They admired the predator
The tiger, the eagle, the wolf
They made for themselves gods of war
Metal helmets, metal weapons
They claimed the sun blessed their way
With assurance, they awoke to the warrior's morning
They admired the predator
And sought to wear the predator's mantle

They took note of respected men
Took note of the obedience they drew
Took note of the credence given their wisdom
Their reputations for feeling out the future
They could not be less than the respected men
And sought their own sight of the future
They took note of respected men
And they wanted to be respected yet higher

They admired the soldier's heart
His skill in succeeding in battle
His lack of half-heartedness on the field
His competitive show of his mettle
His way was clean and uncitylike
The frontier, he pushed on or pushed back
They admired the soldier's heart
Directed his wars, and joined in his glories

The predator had the right to torch the villages
On the rand, too poorly protected
The predator had the right to conscript able men
Who were living in unexalted villages and clans
The predator had the right to seek the glory
At the expense of any resource he could lay to hand
The predator had the right to declare he had the right
To overpower the weaker, and to seek to be stronger than all

They called on the image of the predator
And recast themselves by its model
So, too, did others joining their cause
Who saw the open path for ambition
Unsatisfied in administering what they already had
They found in war a new way to the open
They felt out their powers in new campaigns
Which, drawn to end, would close the last open

JAHLCAN OF THE UPLANDS- Nyan Tei Ti

Jahlcan of the Uplands
It is said he died in rapture
Was something opened to his understanding?
Were they pictures? Were they true?
The dream world is so convincing
But, if dreaming of the sunlight
We waken back up surely
Else, the sunlight is really
Of that world, and not of this

Once the sunlight is established
Do we continue to feel the rapture
As we did when we felt it opening to us?
Oh, world of episode
Episode me unto
The non-episodic center

Episode me unto
The non-episodic center
And I will gladly spill from there
Spill forward, and yet not leave
Is he there?

The stuff of wonder in high concentration
In living intercourse with the humble world
Of creaturely existence
Showing its overlap with us
By displaying its connection to the universe
Without exception, even with our
As, outside this center, one moment
Trips unto the next
In this world I am in, this world with you
Episode me unto
The non-episodic center
With every good thing I've encountered
Collected, never lost to me

Jahlcan of the Uplands
It is said he found the center
But seeking it through his success
Leads back to his place and his time
Something of the temporal embedded
In something much more timeless
A fragment of the star, perhaps
Pleased to have found an earthly pace

The stuff of wonder, in high concentration
In living intercourse with the humble world
Showing overlap with us
By displaying its connection with the universe
Without exception, even regarding our occluded ground
Shimmers that reach our minds, past our unperception

In my crazed speculations
I claim as the exemplar
A man named Jahlcan, teacher, whom others
Have studied a thousand times better than me
Any, many, could tell me how
Each line of my poem has it wrong
Yet, not a thought I express here
Would have existed, had I never learned of him

From what I have learned, I can only picture
He lives in that trans-episodic space
He died rightly, and he is there
And therefore, in portion, so are all
Who listen to the story, and gain that connection
It called always, but we know it better
Because he heard it, and it calls through him
A specific, a tie, and yet
Trans-specific, an untying, once gained

We are poor in our attempts at understanding
Once the message transmits itself
Will its flashes lead us truly?
Or will the new hope lead us again in missteps?
Our minds oft seem so different to
The language of the truth
We lack, and we reach upward
And downward, and across
And in ourselves seek to encompass
A content without bound

Despairing of that, then a key
From which the rest must follow
Trying to see past our own reductions
Reaching toward truths we can't define
But, why do we want everything?
Lacking it, we do not know
In that which we don't yet see
Might lie some unimagined answer

Jahlcan of the Uplands
It is said he died in rapture
But, if the driving questions stop
Will consciousness continue?
And, would it not be unanchored?
What would be its value?
Not that I want eternal hunger
But, with consciousness born of the unease
With the unease answered, would it decay?

You cannot answer my poem
And, whatever of you I may feel
Proceeds as likely from my longings
As from your self
The earthly day is dawning
The green fields smile away my nighttime quivers
In the cycle of this soulful world
Com both health and its riddling
I have before me what I take to be true
For the moment, I want nothing more
But ultimately, ultimately
I want to be as sunshine on the fields
And, without worry, trip through time
Knowing good, good unto good
One moment tripping to the next
And every good thing I have ever encountered
Never lost to me