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You're a great poet Sand. The internet is full of poets and would-be poets, but you are in a different class entirely. I rank you with the great classical poets who came from the era of writing on paper. Like Eliot. And I hope someday to have the skill you do.

Luna

we live
we live
who we're destined to be
just as sure as we can see
the sun inevitably sink beneath the waves
both the body and the soul
never quite right, never whole
from our birth, through our life, and to our graves

the moon
the moon
scrapes the tops of the trees
as we fall upon our knees
and she watches with a half-lidded eye
stars fall as she cries
trace her tears across the sky
yet we wonder how much she *really* sees

the trees
the trees
they know we'll never die
if they can just hold up the sky
without hiding the light of the moon
who drifts free across the night
as we pray in her silver light
for the magic to make us whole soon

and we gnash and we wail
when the cat of nine tails
keeps the beat of a punishment tune
all our prayers and our pleas
ask the moon how much she sees
as she watches with a half-lidded eye
she drifts free across the night
as we pray in her silver light
for the magic to make us whole soon

You have a lovely feeling for the world and the sad tragedy of humanity's disdain for its wonders. To be merely alive is so delicious I look forward in dark regret at my departure. Here is a small appreciation of what we could be.


THE LEGEND OF THE SUN

Some billion years from now
The Sun will speak of its blue jewel
That slid around its necklace out of gravity.
”Here,” it will reminisce, “arose a mystery
That named itself as life. And this life
Cast out a complicated spell
To enchant from fine ground rocks
And liquid water a sense
Which sensed itself so that they sang
Of beauty and of order and of love.
They wished upon my pearly Moon
And, in fleeting sidelong glance,
Admired my fire.
How they did divide and divide
To change and grow and then -
Like morning mist they rose
and moved off to the stars.
Their knowingness they took along,
But in gratitude to me they threw their spell
To lift me into love and care
To bless my planets into knowingness
With radiation, order,
And consciousness.”

My poetry comes very easily and so I am suspicious as to its quality. I have read of the great ones like Eliot, like Auden, like Dylan Thomas and Yeats who sweated over each comma for years and my poems spurt out in minutes and drift away amongst the hundreds to be inundated by others coming out. I am not published and, aside from a few people on the net like yourself who seem to like, it not much comment comes.

My wife died a few weeks ago and here are two I wrote about her.

AND

I dreamed last night
Of my wife, and we were young.
And the fury of love filled me.
And she felt distress I should look at her
With such immense passion and delight.
And she turned her face down and away.
And I took her shoulder and turned her to me.
And I drank her in as we walked the evening street
On cobblestones up a steep hill
In Paris or Grenoble or Helsinki.
And the world was wonderful.


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If you genuinely are interested I could mail you a disk of all of my poetry.

I'm very very sorry to hear that your wife has passed away.

I wrote a poem years ago dedicated to the author Frank Herbert, when I read that his wife, to whom he was devoted, had passed away. I want to give it to you.

You're such a part of me
The things we did together
Are the only things that I remember
Your laughter and your kiss
The sunshine in your eyes
That the glint of summer makes me miss
All the memories
Of starry nights
That gave way to morning mist
And the gentle perfume of woodsmoke
As we huddled by the fire
In the bleak December

I am interested in your offer of a disk of your poetry. If the offer is still open, I will privately message you with my address.

Thanks for the poem. I'll send off the disk in a day or two when I get your address. I've read a couple of Herbert's Dune books and found them impressive. I've been reading SF since I was a kid and got hooked on the H:G:Welles novels. I read the John Campbell issues of Astounding SFway back in the late '30s when he had all the great writers and still read the stuff when I can afford to buy the books.Real science fiction is not easy to find as it is mostly standard novels with some scientific element. Star Wars and Star Trek are amusing but not in any way real SF.

Here is one of my SF poems.

RETREAT

They spoke once of
The broken edge
Where world and sky
Made meeting
In catastrophe.
Where seas fell down
In steady roar
Into the sky,
Or pits of Hell.
What happened there
No one could tell.
No one had seen
Or cared to see
This horrific mystery.
When Magellan
Sought to find
This birthplace of infinity,
The Earth had sealed
Unto itself.
Grand horror fell
Back into the mind.

Once there were
Great man-shaped things
That lit the stars
And ate the moon
And rolled the Sun
Across the sky.
They shook the earth
And pissed the rain
And laughed with thunder
And disdain
At mankind’s loss
And silly gain.
They told when
To plant and sing
And fear and die
And everything.
But, somehow,
Upon looking close
They proved far
Too bellicose.
The rules are calmer now,
It seems.
They’ve tumbled back
Into our dreams.

One God, at times,
Is still up there
Behind the stars
Somehow, somewhere.
He fusses on morality
And fiddles with
Our destiny,
But seems, most times,
If will is free,
Existing inconsistently.
His eyes are red,
His thoughts are tired.
His beard as white as snow.
The ovens in his antique Hell
Are burning very low.
The World, I fear,
Will soon dismiss
This Father of
Immortal bliss.

There is no longer
Any spoor
Of Moon creatures
Of Cavour,
And Mars has turned
To rocky dust.
Barsoom, it seems,
Is a bust.
And so the monsters
File away.
Locally
They’ve had their day.

But out beyond
Centaurus lies
The monsters
With their death-ray eyes.
There, around alien fires,
The spooks and gods
And monsters stalk.
The gods strum softly
On their lyres
While things
With twisty pseudopods
Drip acid slime and talk
In garbled yowls,
Soprano howls,
Of starships come
All filled with men,
That monsters reign
Supreme again.

Herbert's Dune novels and Star Wars are both Aspie obsessions of mine.

I read Bradbury as a kid, when I wasn't reading Star Wars novels.

I was quite addicted to Heinlein for an entire year when I was 26.

I haven't read any Welles, simply because I don't like some things I've heard about him as a person.

I'm one of those who literally cannot tell when they've made a friend or how to make a friend in the first place. I'd like to consider you a friend. But I have to ask if it is okay for me to consider you a friend? Or is it too forward? Be honest.

Delighted. I have few friends as I tend to be rather acerbic and although I live in Helsinki (I was born and grew up in New York City) my Finnish,despite my best efforts, is quite primitive.

My favorite authors in SF aside from the standard Asimov,Heinlein,Padgett(aka Kuttner), Clarke, Sturgeon et al. are Hoyle, LeGuin, and Bear.

How forward can you get with an old man? H.G, Welles is still worth a read.

An acerbic old poet--just like my dad!

I had to look up acerbic. I'd say it describes me as well, when I'm overloaded. And other times as well, for instance I only really like cats when they shut up and fall asleep.

Speaking of my dad, he did give me a copy of Welles' collected works. Based on your recommendation, I will open the cover and try it.

Speaking of New York City, I got laughed at the other day because I referred to the Dodgers as the Brooklyn Dodgers, and apparently (I had no idea) they haven't resided in Brooklyn for some decades now.

Ergo Sum



I am the half-hidden tremble in the hand that crafted Hell
I am the tears upon the first human eye to witness war
I am the sixth point who, awkward
clings unwelcome on a five-point star
I am the unapologetic decadent who enspired an entire aristocracy to lisp
In birth I bruised my mother's hips
with raging fists
I am the castrato whose true name cannot be cut off
and the child who will never exist to inherit a name
I am the advocate of a more virulent form of justice
I am the lamb that bites the hand that shears
I am the lips of the sheep who recalls the taste
of blood
I am a she-wolf pup skinned alive, yet breathes and cries!
I am the half-hidden tremble in the hand that crafted hell

I am the leper's tailor
I bear the reek of boiling pitch and feathers
I am the green light
that crackles down the masts of sailing ships at night
and the one true God of Ahab
I am the survivor of abortifacts
I am she who's carried on her sister's back
I bear the straight and narrow tire tracks across my shins
I am the living she-wolf pup who breathes and cries, though I've been skinned!
I am the half-hidden tremble in the hand that crafted hell.

That's the best thing you've shown yet. Moving, powerful and mysterious as all hell. Lovely piece.

Here's another one of mine bent on scaring away readers.

DISGUSTIBUS

Beware of trolls in toilet bowls
And witches in the sink.
They make their spells
From cockroach shells
Overstuffed with stink.
With screeching cries they squint their eyes
In maniac frustration
When some poor soul sits on his bowl
With concrete constipation.
They slice up farts and take the parts
Which they roll out flat.
Then, folded queer, stuck in one ear,
They wear it for a hat.
With blood red eyes, they bake s**t pies
In searing white hot ovens.
While they scream, they spread whipped cream
And serve it to their covens.
With grunts and groans and drawn out moans
They compliment the cook
And vomit in each other=s laps
To take a second look.
Then with a "glup" they swallow up
The predigested feast
Washed down with foaming tankards
Of piss from some old beast.
Flashing grins they wipe their chins
And burp and sigh content.
The odor from this dining hall
Can forcefully dement
And crack the strongest household wall,
Dissolving the cement.

If you want I'll send my e-mail address to your inbox so you can communicate with me directly.

Okay.

Done.

THE JANITAUR
There came a time, at last, for the race of man
To pack itself into a huge tin can
And, puffing plasma, set out for the stars.
With a sidelong glance at Mars they fled
From off their planet, which they'd made dead.
For a million years they'd picnicked on those grounds,
Then left them, bleak with blacks and browns
Of ragged rocks and rotting wrecks of trees and stinks
And oozing slimes and burning fogs smoke out of chinks.
Off to find another place on which to plant the human race.
Three quarters of a century it took to far Centaurus.
A multitude of winking beer cans marked their daily trail,
And stubbed out butts and bottles; a cracked recording
Of the Anvil Chorus. They'd scribbled on the firmament
With several hundred million miles of toilet paper
In jagged lines across their spoor of ion vapour,
And tastefully distributed along their run
Were gobs of dog and cat s**t by the ton.
Four hundred trillion cockroach corpses
Tumbled in a cometary tail
To advertise man's glory
In departure from his sun.

On planet four, Centaurus Alpha, lived a race of crystals.
Pristine, cubic, pyramid, cylindrical, prismatic,
Airborne, groundbased, and aquatic. How they shone
And twinkled in the sun as they rolled across the stones
Of their tesselated highways, threaded
'Round their crystal flowers
Reflecting intersecting rays of light
Connecting glassy towers.
Catching, tossing, juggling light beams just for fun -
But then...their huge reflectors duly noted,
Since they had been vacuum coated,
The approaching garbage complex fleeing from Earth's sun.
Facets flashed with fright and horror
At this disgusting Earth explorer
Come to desecrate their purity,
Violate their clarity, security,
Rain detritus down on everyone.
So, with haste and hyperspacial radio
The crystals sent a frantic call to Scorpio,
To the Cosmic Cleaner Consultation Center
Complaining of the coming filth fomenter.
"Earth," they screamed, "has done a flit.
And now is wildly flinging s**t.
Frankly, we are in a snit.
By your oath, you must stop it!"

And the Center answered, "Cool it kid,
We'll make it quit."


In Scorpio there is a place between the stars,
Stuck out in space, a place with bars
Which tight entombs a monster out of death and doom.
When the center acted on the call to banish
Earth's star ship and make it vanish,
It initiated mechanisms to enforce the ostracism
By directing cataclysm of the very fabric
Of the geodesic of its trace.
One parsec tall colossal doors on this place
Parted to divide and free the thing they'd kept inside.
It took six months to open wide at speeds FTL
And wake the beast that snoozed inside this convoluted shell.
The Janitaur pricked up its ears,
Wiped sleep from off its sensors,
It yawned a yawn and belched a belch
That squelched three nearby suns
And turned then into meteors
The size of hot cross buns.

"Janitaur," the Center spoke to now evoke
An action in this thing it woke,
"You are assigned to launch yourself
And search and find, eliminate
A new distress. Sector five, quadrant eight
Is the place you must address.
A steel ship out of Sol contains
All that now remains of humanity.
And with pandemic, systematic
Quite erratic antisanity
They've trashed their Earth, despised its worth,
And now they've quit their native sun
To litter up another one.
So..sic 'em baby, bite their tails
And knock their blocks right off the rails!"

At this command, the Janitaur unrolled its lacy wings
Which spanned out to a million miles, composed of cosmic strings.
Its flashing eyes - two neutron stars,
Pulsed out with spinning beams
With evil glances, left and right, from out of horrid dreams.
Grinning wide gravitic tide, its mouth a large black hole,
Each wicked tooth, bereft of ruth, a pointed monopole.
On winds of stellar fields it soared in hyperspacial mode
And gathered speed in looping glides and gyrals, so it rode
Swooping down galactic spirals hewing to its plan
To intercept and countervail the garbage can of man.
It gobbled moons like salted nuts
And sailed through stellar clouds
As cosmic dust streamed off its wings
In trailing ragged shrouds.

At sector five, quadrant eight, the Janitaur soon sighted
Where Earth's ship had left its trail
And thoroughly had blighted
The calm sterility of space.
With its black hole, the Janitaur
Swept clean the dirty place.
But this act could not console
The fearful driving force
That held it to its destiny in its destructive role.
At once, the human ship appeared,
The monster twisted, swerved and veered
To watch in fascination
The Earth ship unfailingly perform its aberration.
Spewing out with gobbets, with gigatons of garbage:
Apple cores and orange peels and leaves of rotten cabbage,
Worn out scraps of rubber heels,
Corroded chunks of rusty steels,
Dented trays from TV meals
And mashed up cars with wiggly wheels.

It flapped its wings and moved in close.
So much garbage made it savage,
Lachrymose and bellicose.
Confused, bemused, enthused by so much mess
It all induced internal stress.
It curled, it twirled, it whirled, became delirious,
And swooped in flopping manic arcs
Exploding out in corruscate displays
Initiating strange atom decays.
Bright beams of ions, neutrons, quarks
Flashed and fizzled, squirting sparks.
The edge of its event horizon twitched.
The space around the Janitaur became bewitched
With garbage boundlessly enriched.
It rippled out gravitic tongues
To sweep debris at all degrees
And would have laughed if it had lungs.
But these wild enthusiasms
Convulsed in waves and jerks and spasms
Causing cracks, fissures, chasms
In its black collapsar core.
Into itself it deeply plunged
And was, peculiarly, expunged

From this known universe of time and space.
And so, garbage, all of it,
Dogshit, catshit, mainly BS,
As before, and ever more,
Was the savior of the human race.

Wandering Alone

There are beaches in the mind
where one may wander seeking solitude, yet find
the sun beating down with merciless tropic contempt
from which no weary traveller is exempt
Those beaches where the eye sees only glistening white sands
but the foot feels the jagged slivers of stone
and shards of shell will cut the digging hands
for beneath that perfect tawny skin of sand
hide broken glass and shattered bone
and one wonders what is the true nature of the beach
and must weigh callous foot's opinion, as one roams
against the idealism of the eyes, who have never had to walk home

There are forests in the heart
I often visit the forest inside of me
So thick and velvet lush with trees
that I'd love to climb in, and live in, and swing
from branches always somehow out of reach
A pity,
I want to take to the trees like a monkey!
and what a happy monkey I would be
But I just can't reach the branches
though I strain hard to grab them
and jump up and down
naked feet rasping on the prickly ground
'til they bleed
And the forest grows too thick to escape
the trees too close together between to squeeze
If only I'd been born a bird

There are deserts in the soul
Places where we thirst, almost to death,
to feel whole
There are dunes and scorpions
and -most deadly of all-
Tiresian snakes in pairs that form unbroken chains
The desert crackles and swelters all day long
and though the sand bleeds it can never sate its thirst
it consumes the very softest parts of us first
and hungers everlong for what remains

Sand, you may not hear from me for the next couple of days. Take care friend.

Great feeling for an inner topology with vivid images. Here's one of mine with the same thought.

SPELUNKING THE PSYCHE

All hard lines, strong shapes
Bright colors, make escapes
To leave remains behind closed lids.
Dark sparkles, vague circles, pyramids
And glaucus forms that shimmer, shake
To part and make the path to snake
In tempting curves that beckon in -
Into miasmas, rubbled trails, widdershin
In halls of bone where eyes, where touch,
Where sound and smell sum to not much
To orient direction. Palaces of psyche here
Erect their towers. Powers form and disappear.
We have arrived at the gates
Where mind mingles with the fates.

Threads of silver, threads of gold,
Threads of diamond strung to hold
Baskets of conception, full
Of dripping luscious fruits that pull
Forth visions ...blues and reds and greens,
Subtle shades, inbetweens
Encasing passions, joys and frights,
Sleepy loves, circus sights,
Twirling parasols and braying beasts,
Horrid things at nauseous feasts,
Dusty sawdust , acrid smells,
Crunchy berms of peanut shells.
Stacks of baskets packed with stones,
With crystal shapes, jagged bones,
Where shafts of light spear the air,
Ricochet in facet glare,
Speed away into sensation,
Pain diffused to adumbration,
Hints of chaos, hints of hell,
Cacophonic ringing bell
Tolling failure, soft confusion,
Flabby thoughts, odd illusion.
Sliding shapes, found or flat...
Not quite this, nor even that.
Susserations hiss the walls.
Spectral sounds, muffled calls
Echo in, echo out,
Boosting murmurs to a shout.
Away from sounds, around the bend,
Tentacles of stench extend
And split and subdivide
To where fragrances reside.
Filaments of succulence
Explode to flocculence
Which shock through inhibitions
To reminiscent exhibitions
Where shattered memories clatter to the floor.
Sludges of nostalgia to shuffle through, ignore.
The final destination disolves in fuzzy mist
For the locus of the self, a point, does not exist.
It's thoroughly distributed,
The sum of all contributed.
A holographic spatter
Of activated matter
That cannot be dissected
From the meat where it's erected.

So we tumble back out into the Sun
Not far from the point where we've begun.

that's an interesting technique. do you have any more work like that posted around the net?

-Luke.

Here's a piece I made of the Greek god Aeolus, god of the winds by applying india ink to a wet surface. I merely had to touch up the eye a bit. Everything else just appeared spontaneously.