Volme Seven: Ancient Planets

Avebury Stones	Carve A Space
Crossword Puzzle	December Rain
Granted Love	Hold
I’d Be a Child Again	Jericho
Map to Neverland	Mother’s Nature
My Secret Power	On My Street
Owed to Jerome	Pater Et Mater Noster
Privatories	Profiler
Stumblebum	Subtraction
Thirty	Tornado Alley
Twins Remember the Womb

The talk is always Stonehenge
But the only vantage point
Without busloads around you
Is on the ground above the ring.
The first timers will always wonder
Where those Salisbury Plains are.
Apparently the English had never seen
Nebraska nor Iowa nor Kansas.

But go north a bit. Wiltshire is full
Of ancient things: You can’t throw a rock
Unless you hit another neolithic wonder.
The bus will take you from Chippenham
Or Swindon, nose pressed to the glass,
Watching the hedgerows and prehistory
Unaware that modern thoughts intermingle
With ancient, unfathomable aspirations.

And then, with neither preamble
Nor presumption, you are in Avebury.
The village, unassuming as it is,
Is still the anomaly: the stone ring runs
Around the whole. Giant stones, faces
And images, cut and carried and placed
For reasons that no living mind may ken.
A quiet few walk the circle, absorbing
Whatever power or wisdom or awe
The stones care to impart.

The luminous clouds of English summer
Float overhead, and in a nearby field
A crop circle naturally has appeared.
Mounds and stones dot the countryside
And southward, Stonehenge draws the crowds.
But the solitude of Avebury imbues its
Hidden meaning with unsullied validation.

Blissfully Crisp

Blissfully crisp and sharper than glass

Torn from the trunk of a ancient tall tree

Live in the present and draw from the past

Make all the journeys that lead to the sea

Autumn in glory, all colors and cold

Walk on the leaves that are memories of death

Walk into winter, older than old

Sing one last chorus and take one last breath

Crisp is the wind that blows on the hill

Cast down the monuments, high in a gale

Speak with a voice that will not be still

But marries the future to the oldest tale

Mournfully crying with tears still unshed

Morning and evening, alive in the sky

Bring down the waters upon this old head

Cleanse me with tears that I wish I could cry

Seek what tomorrow will never reveal

Search for the sorrow that yesterday hides

Turn on the moment and turn on your heel

March for the morning that rises inside

Blissful and tranquil and washed in the blood

Blood that remembers each wound that life gave

Dirty but trying to live for the good

That seems out of reach just beyond the grave

Blissfully crisper than morning can be

Wakened to whatever new days will bring

Rise on a wave that is rising in me

Watch while I wonder what song I must sing

Blissfully crisp and sharper than time

Cutting a line in the shape of my heart

Spoken in words that are echoed in mine

Sung in a tune that will never depart

Sung in a tune that is sung from the heart

Carve A Space

Carve a space inside your heart
Make the flower live and bloom
Wander in the fields apart
From death and pain and endless gloom

Sing before the throne of God
In harmony with blessed tones
Beware the fire and mighty rod
And dance between the falling stones

Pray for lives that mean so much
That nothing for them would you take
Desire once more the maker’s touch
And from the endless sleep awake.

Hope tomorrow will not come
Until the last drop has been wrung
From this day and forever from
The hope on which all future’s hung.

Cry no tears unless they fall
Inside the well of newborn souls
And there they join the one and all
And fill up all its empty holes.

© 2000 Chuck Puckett

Crossword Puzzle

I said it.
There was anger in it.
You said it back.
There was anger in that.
Purposes crossed,
Arrows tossed,
Words crossed,
Meaning lost.
The lamp of the mind
Is dimly lit in this gale.
Our clues run up and down,
Hiding in hurtful puns.

Language may have given us science,
But it often crosses us up
And the gift has a price
Measured in misgivings.

December Rain

The rain blew down in vertical sheets
The eaves of the house forced it into curtains
Whose folds fell just beyond the porch.
In the near distance, the winter wind
Blew the sky water in horizontal panes.
This is not December.
December is cold and Yuletide logs
Burning against the long night.
This is time out of joint
Springtides rising and raging against the darkness
But holding their own against the solstice.
My cigar has smoke that is sucked
Into the void of winter’s ill-named night.
My mind has words that shout
Before the ill-timed wind, and lose their
Meaning.
Is this curiosity, or rather the speech
Of worlds who do not know their orbits?
The rain is punctuation,
Driving torrents before winds that have no name
And thus are speechless before
Their own self-appointed glory.

Granted Love

What I’ve taken, I have taken without asking.
What I’ve given, I gave with some reserve.
Hard work to achieve this unmasking,
A winding road with many thoughtless curves.

What you’ve given, you have given without waiting,
No thought of any debt of mine was due.
I’ve a history of constant understating
Exactly how and what I owe to you.

Now, here at last, I offer up a token,
Much too small in measure, but clearly true.
At least you’ll know the words are clearly spoken
And the speaker knows exactly what is due.

For a love that has been taken long for granted
Marks a person who has not truly granted love.
In my life your life has permanently planted
The bed that every life should grow above.

That I love you takes no genius to discover,
I love you deeply for all the things you’ve done:
As mother, and as thinker, and as lover
You have made the two of us forever One.

Thus, from this moment on, I hope to gather
More of joy and more of life and more of you,
So, granted, that we live our lives together,
The One is made more perfect from the Two.

Hold

Hold what you've got as tightly as you can
Burn the memories deep into your mind
What seems so firm and sure is only sand
Tomorrow blurs each and every line
Time tries its best to to darken every sign

I’d Be a Child Again

I’d be a child again

If I could again I’d be a little child

I’d taste it all brand new again

When every sense was undefiled

Oh, God, why did the world grow dim

And pagan joys turn into hymns

Once it all was sink or swim

I’d be a child again

I’d wake up fresh and clean

If I knew the way to back things up

Nothing that I knew would be obscene

I’d never drink that bitter cup

Oh, please, there has to be a way

To turn the nights back into days

And once there, I’d forever stay

I’d be a child again

But children try so hard to learn the world

They run so fast to try and catch the train

They never see the door close tight behind

They never feel the moment when they change

I’d be a child again

If sand could flow back up inside the glass

The world would glow like new again

And every future wouldn’t have a past

Oh, tell me why the waters flow

And never stop, but no one knows,

But if they did, they’d let me go

And be a child again

Jericho

I do not wish a wall,
Since God hides behind one,
Or else I do, the same
Wall that first was small
Then finally thick was done
And no God left to blame.

Behind me, Jericho,
With horns and gates to fall,
Held up by endless will,
Held up by ones who know,
Who want to hold it all
But nothing can distill.

Those Jerichoan walls
Were doomed right from the start
By being built so high
That when it finally falls
Each piece was torn apart
And then one empty sigh.

Since walls are ever breached
By some small thrusting crack
Then best to never build
Where God’s hand may have reached
And reaching, was pushed back
By wills that won’t be killed.

The same for passioned love.
Each tendril, ivy-grown
That closes space between
Below and what’s above
Is not a thing to own,
But something best unseen.

Map to Neverland

Second star on the right.

But from what, Peter?

Oh dear.

My left brain has already

Lost the way, hasn’t it?

If I don’t know where to start,

Then straight on ‘til morning

Won’t bring me to a snug harbor.

I’ll probably end up a deck hand

On the Jolly Roger or even

Become a clocking crocodile.

Should have set out younger:

The lack of cartographic specification

Would not occur to a child.

Mother’s Nature

Is Mother angry?

She rages and quakes

And burns earthly blood.

Is she righteously mad

Or merely bent by thoughtless force?

She screams her windy keen,

She weeps her drowning rivers.

She births her monstrous bastards,

Sweeps away with salty shivers.

To believe she does not hate us is so hard.

Does Mother love us?

Why these fevered shakes?

As if she could, she would

Be done with us, and glad,

And infinite justice would enforce.

She waves her wild baton,

She calls in fearsome voices.

She writhes in weary labors,

Now abandoned by her choices.

To believe she does not hate us is absurd.

My Secret Power

The was a spring storm in Tuscaloosa,

The kind that may or may not bring tornados

But always carries the threat they will.

Upper air violence descending on Alabama,

And I was leaving for home.

It was ’73 (or ’74, so much of those years blur

Around the edges, and it was not important then

To correlate dates to events. Events contained

Their own inherent power and clarity, every thing

Then was etched with youthful acid and seemed to

Guarantee its foreverness in the brain.

How could one conceivably forget the earth moving

Or the clouds pouring open their revelations)?

I was leaving for home in a spring storm

With lots of baggage but no clothes to speak of.

South of Birmingham, as I reached Bessemer,

The storm, with me, reached its full fury.

It was ’73 (or ’74), and the interstate was lined

With intense mercury vapor to dispel the night.

As I reached Bessemer, the lights on their poles,

Reached out to me to become an illuminated oasis,

I came in from the dark between cities,

With lightning and thunders on either side,

Full of fury and I was filled with awe and fear,

And reaching the interstate lights of Bessemer…

And then the lights winked out.

A clap of thunder, a streaking bolt cleaved

The spring storm air, and the interstate lights

Blinked and died.

I drove on, and entered another patch of well-lit road

Lamps connected to another circuit,

Saved from the electrical excess

That had destroyed the previous bank of lights.

And, just as I entered this new place of light,

It too dashed into darkness.

And so I drove past Bessemer into Birmingham,

And as I drove, each new pool of light vanished

Just as my car and I entered the new haven.

Each new oasis of light dried up

Just as I put my lips to the light of its water,

A fresh lightning stroke struck all into darkness,

As I drove for home.

I realized my power then.

“I am become Shiva”, scaled down to the destruction

Of mercury vapor lighting, but still directing the storm,

Unconsciously causing catastrophe in a minor key.

The focus I had always feared was finally found,

All those times I had spoken to the Gemini winds

And implored them this way or that, they had finally heard.

I turned north onto Interstate 65, turning for home

In a spring storm. The lighting continued to die

As I entered each new pool, but I was content

And unafraid now. Now it was only a matter

Of choosing good or ill, and that choice, for power,

Has always been the same.

On My Street

On my street there are three twins
And each twin has a twin, as twins must do.
And each twin is different, and each the same.

On my street, there is a church,
That has grown, from what it was,
To something large and grand,
Mortar and brick, encapsulating souls.

On my street, there are children and the twins.
They grow and reach, and the old ones watch.
The children hold within themselves
The flowers of their own ecstasy
And thus the seeds of their own anguish.

The old ones know, but do not speak:
There is no point, which age and wisdom know.
It’s learned and never told.
It’s learned and cannot be spoken.

On my street, there lives an undertaker.
Does he wait? Or know that waiting lies,
Like seeds and flowers and knowledge,
Helpless by the road?

On my street, there are orange lamps.
Their glow is strong defense.
It unspells and repels the midnight places.

The children and the twins grow daily,
The church adamant stands,
The old keep silent knowledge,
The undertaker waits patient,
The lights like oranges bloom.

Is there no tomorrow? Or is tomorrow,
Like the child within each bloom,
A thing that hopes,
And then must slumber.

Tomorrow never waits,
My street will never end.

© 2008 Chuck Puckett

Owed to Jerome

On the album’s obverse, a single disembodied hand rises,

A mudra of poker chance. The queen of diamonds,

By the way she shines in a cup of coffee.

The middle finger is mainly missing,

Shorn at the knuckle.

“Careful with that axe, Eugene”,

Or was it some Faustian deal gone down?

Momentary agony exchanged at the crossroads

For a lifetime of sly grins at the audience

And beautiful strings dusted off one more time.

Pick up a guitar and play:

The pick is grasped tightly, the fingers splayed,

So that precision is mainly accidental.

But that missing digit changes everything:

Nothing so focuses the fingers as their

Imminent separation from the body.

And so the music never stopped.

Even if the band did, he would be soloing

On through intermission, following the notes,

Turning on appoggiatura, giving them grace.

Others played with gritted teeth

And superhuman, machine-like speed,

Filling the void with a hatred of silence.

He smiled and wove an unrepeatable and unrepeating

Tapestry of the void imbued with pregnant meaning.

If something were missing, it was made missing with intent:

The spaces between the notes signified every bit

As much as the notes themselves.

When they laid him down, we all wept.

Then formed a second line, Aiko,

And danced in the streets all night, gazing up at dark stars.

Later, they brought in two guitars,

Twice as many note-makers, in some weird attempt

To fill the firmament and deny the Void.

But now there truly is something missing.

All we can do is gaze for a while

Listen for that double-E waterfall,

And always know a little something

We won’t ever know.

Nothing’s gonna bring him back.

Pater Et Mater Noster

Our Father and Mother, who art in heaven

And yet here among us, and in us,

Between us and around us,

Separating us, uniting us,

Give us this day our daily peace,

A place of peace, a heart of peace

A piece of bread to sustain a peace of mind.

Leave us not at temptation’s door,

But invite us in to sit and dine and drink

With you and each other in mind.

Deliver us from evil thoughts,

From fears that quench the joys we know.

Outside the door, stand guard again:

When we were children, you held

The nighttime dark at bay, and kept our souls

To sleep, in blankets made of care and love.

For yours is a kingdom raised surely in glory

But powered more by boundless love

Than bound by power and might.

Privatories

The SkyEye sees her clearly
Intently striding down a busy street.
It knows her goodnees by her actions.
It infers her badness
By the negative spaces between her actions.

The SkyEye is dilated, eager.
Photons are hard-nosing their way
Toward sensors, electronic rods and cones.
They are consumed detecting
Edges and movement and intent,
All in the same digital breath.
Nothing is hidden from the SkyEye,
All is reveal—

<beep>
<signal lost>

[She’s disappeared down the subway steps
Her inner life is suddenly, safely locked away again.
Her destination is impossibly ambiguous.
Her subterranean dreams
Are hers and hers alone.]

Profiler

This one is no problemo.

Bearded, turbaned, dark-complected.

Koran in hand, nervous in line, muttering.

Eyes deep-set and no sleep in days.

C’mon, give me a challenge here.

Oh, and this is a challenge?

She has no makeup, drab clothing, short-cropped hair

That is an Army-surplus shirt she’s wearing, right?

Reading some manifesto, oh: The Fran Liebowitz Reader.

This is difficult, this is a test?

Oh, really, come on, man.

Brown-skinned, five children all less than six years old,

Gets out of a car that had Mary and Jesus dashboard figures

Waits on the corner for white men to hire him today.

Oh, sure, he’s legal, no doubt about it.

Hmm. This one’s multiple choice.

The white shirt and black tie, shoes shiny polished

Toting a copy of the King James, horn-rimmed glasses:

Mormon or Seventh Day Adventist? Wait a minute-

That’s a copy of Watchtower in his backup.

Case closed, what’s next?

I don’t understand why they call them stereotypes

What, I’m supposed to see more than one image?

It is all very clear to me, watching these monitors:

The lessons I learned at home were not lost on me,

Nosirree, bob! I can pick ‘em out irregardless.

Stumblebum

It must be one of those days:

You open the fridge,

The butter falls on the floor.

A glass is barely nudged into the sink

And shatters of course.

You stumble on the steps.

You turn too quick

And elbow jab an innocent lady

At the coffee pot, and now

She bears a stain to display all day.

You reach to change the station and

The burger falls behind the steering wheel

And mayo is somehow on your shirt.

Non-grace incarnate, a walking oops,

Small disasters eddying in your wake

Like trash dropped from a ferry.

Surely the cycle will turn tomorrow

And your usual ballet of life will be back.

Today, it’s a ballet of dodged bullets,

As the paper slips from your hand…

Subtraction

Hit the snooze, sleep ten more

Stretch the limbs, hit the floor

Eliminate, a bathroom chore.

Check my pulse, check my weight

Check blood pressure, record my state.

Take my pills, they alleviate.

Do the puzzle in the New York Times

Record how long it took this time

Write down a number: 7229

One less today than yester’s date

Tomorrow write: 7228,

Number the days left on my plate.

Promise myself: I’ll do more

More than I’ve done before.

And not forget what I’m living for

I won’t forget to look around

Give some back of what I’ve found

The numbered days keeps dwindling down.

Thirty

Thirty years we’ve been together
Half your life, most half of mine.
Thirty years we wrote a history
Forged in fire and intertwined.
Mistakes I made can’t be undone
And I will never not regret.
But one regret I’ll never have
Are the two times we first met.
If other paths had intervened
And if ours had never crossed
There’d be heights we’d never seen,
There’d be wonders we’d have lost.
Thirty years we’ve stayed together.
Against all odds, see what we’ve done:
Love poured in our deep divisions,
Sealed us solid, ever one.

Tornado Alley

Swirly, swirly, twisting, roaring
Dorothy and Toto flying
Trailers smashing, tree trunks crashing
Rooftops all go up sky-highing.

Springtime in the South is glory.
Dogwoods, daffodils and deadly
Winds and rains and floods the story,
In a rebirthed killing medley.

“Sounded like a locomotive”:
Common comment in the valley.
Springtime has a darker motive
For people in Tornado Alley.

Twins Remember the Womb

Twins remember the womb, I think.
Proximate, parallel travelers,
Rocking in the coach,
Sharing anecdotes about what’s to come
And looking at the countryside pass by.

They hear the leaky plumbing
And the muffled conversations
(“They’re talking about us again”)
And they compare notes
On who looks more like the other.

They kick each other when they sleep
And complain about whose cord
Is longer, or what she had for lunch
And who is upside down, but mainly
They wonder who will come out first.

Twins remember the womb because
They had another there to know.
The rest of us swam in introspection,
Counting our fingers and toes,
Curled in fetal solitude.

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Puckett Publishing

Publishing the works of Chuck Puckett since 1999...

Volme Seven: Ancient Planets

Avebury Stones

Blissfully Crisp

Carve A Space

Crossword Puzzle

December Rain

Granted Love

Hold

I’d Be a Child Again

Jericho

Map to Neverland

Mother’s Nature

My Secret Power

On My Street

Owed to Jerome

Pater Et Mater Noster

Privatories

Profiler

Stumblebum

Subtraction

Thirty

Twins Remember the Womb

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