ANDREW SCHELLING, LINGUISTICS ~

 

Linguistics

Into the language we come

into the world

to depart by the same path we

arrived

the most hidden gulches hold petroglyphs

caves unvisited thirty thousand years contain ideograms

the tundra's littered with

calendar bones

a rustle, a swift breath of dialect

larynx, nostril & lip

certain archaic forms change hardly at all

though tools and food get reshaped

The word Ma

the number three

and for some hidden reason obscure to

linguistics

the term for

ashes

__________________

Andrew Schelling

Forests, Temples, Glacial Rivers

Empty Bowl 2024

JOHN BRANDI ~

Winter sunrise —

summer mountains turn gold

on the hanging scroll

Who are you?

the mirror

            never stops

Eight a.m.

the eyes of the housefly

already on me

You lead

I'll follow

            butterfly

Turning the compost

and into it

my shadow

No wine

I let the moon

fill my glass

A bath under the stars

all burdens

             to the breeze

New robe

way too large

for these bones

Pink sunrise

—bush cherry

in full bloom

All morning

wander the cosmos

without leaving the garden

Endless ambition

the petals

scatter

Inflation

too poor to leave

too poor to stay

__________________

John Brandi

from The Rain Sweeps Through

Empty Bowl, 2023

MIKE O'CONNOR ~

 

MILDEW & HENRY DAVID THOREAU

During the Plum Blossom Monsoon

in the mountains

of southern China,

you just start throwing

more and more stuff

away, more and more,

and pretty soon

you're at Walden Pond.

CANYON CREEK

It seems colder than it is outside. I

should go look at the moon ripening

in a thicket of stars, but I wanted

to talk a little of creek water,

how the stones in the shallow bed

up Canyon Creek are as round and vivid

as the eyes of deer . . .

No, I meant rather to speak of the stillness

under moss-laden old growth:

bark on one fir so thick

seeds take root in it and soar,

"thinking" as a young tree thinks,

it's the earth.

No, that's not it exactly. I believe

it was simpler, not even the surprise of so many waterfalls

nor the chattering companionship of squirrels

and the stellar jay,

as I stumbled through brush,

worked through devil's club,

jumped skipped from rock to rock.

I think it was when I was

standing under those ancient trees,

wringing out the bottoms of my jeans,

beginning to think some thought

that had come with me from town,

growing a little melancholy in the shade,

that I looked down from the green bank

and could see    yes    the creek,

the creek in the sunlight,

and it was just the creek in the sunlight,

and it made me happy that it made me happy.

____________

Mike O'Connor

Old Growth

New & Selected Poems

foreword by Red Pine

Empty Bowl, 2023

AWAKENING IN 5 IRISH TOWNS ~

Awakening in 5 Irish Towns


                                                                             "Appalled: I see

                                                           the true shape of my hand"

                                                                            — Robert Sund



Cork


This morning, like other mornings,

one hand tucked into the other,

I watch tap water fill

the bowl they form,

but on its way to wash my eyes,

lifelines in the palm

foretell my heart's climate

and I spill cold water

in a puddle at my foot,

the bowl of fingers as gone

as all that was real when I dreamed.


________________

GO    FIND    THE    POET    IN    4    OTHER    IRISH    TOWNS

Michael Daly
Awakening in 5 Irish Towns
Empty Bowl

CLEMENS STARCK ~

Regarding the Eclipse

Chances are I’ll never tell

the story of how I found myself

adrift at sea

in a twelve-foot dinghy with a single oar;

or how, once, in the mountains

called Sierra Nevada,

trapped on a snowbound freight train,

my intrepid companions and I

existed for several days

on a fifty-pound sack of frozen marshmallows.

In retrospect

you could call it adventure, but at the time

it was nothing special.  Anyway,

some events—like cloud formations

or teenage children—

are completely inexplicable.

My ambitions were nebulous at best.

All I ever wanted to be was a glass blower

or a wood carver

or failing that, a utility infielder.

A career in the Foreign Service

looked promising once, but I couldn’t feature myself

in formal attire

on a balcony overlooking the capital . . .

What would I be doing there?

Serving cocktails

to the Peruvian attaché’s voluptuous wife?

And so it is that I stand

on the sagging porch of a tumbledown house

regarding the lunar eclipse

through binoculars held steady by my stalwart left hand.

With the other I gesticulate wildly,

but fail to observe

any change

in the shadow cast by this earth on the moon.

____________________

Cathedrals & Parking Lots

Clemens Starck

Collected Poems

Empty Bowl, 2019

FINN WILCOX ~

Women




I'm doing the dishes.

It's summer.

My wife and my mother

are outside

sitting by the fire

laughing so hard

I have to set the pans aside

and watch.



It's important to

pay attention to joy.

To love that is serious.



Now they are showing

each other earrings,

mom's silver bracelet,

Pat's jade teardrops

looped around her neck.

The night sky

bringing its own

slow jewelry to bear.



It hasn't always been like this.

I wasn't an easy son.



To those who say

redemption

dwells only in the house

of the Lord:

I say

you haven't met these women.







Outdoor Work




The one time

I experienced what my Buddhist friends

call enlightenment,

that recognition, sharp and clear

as a shot of cheap whiskey,

was packing my tree bag

on a landing pooled in drained skidder oil

in a clear-cut

big as the town I lived in,

understanding

finally and fully,

the rotting extravagance of greed.







Hard To Believe




Hard to believe only

yesterday

we stood on the cliffs

of Cold Mountain



watching swallows

    sweep and skip

across a drifting

cloudless

sky.



Sat in the mouth

of old Han Shan's cave —

smoked our last sticky ball

of Hong Kong hash —



and watched in silence

    the billowing dust

rise behind farmers

in the valley below.



Tonight though —

from the roof of

the Friendship Hotel —

the wet streets of Ningpo

shine with city lights

and are filed with Russian sailors

so drunk

they couldn't hit the ground

with their hats.



Sure, it's not Cold Mountain.

But from here —

above the fray

and narrow lanes —

you see

where this harbor town ends



and the East China Sea

begins.





——————————————

FINN WILCOX
Too Late To Turn Back Now
EMPTY BOWL, 2018