Touching the Moon

author’s note:

From watching the moon
       I turned
       and my friend old
shadow led me home
       -- Shiki (trans. Beilenson/Behn)


TOUCHING THE MOON

I hate the moon tonight because
my stunted arms can’t grant
the wish of my starved hands
to touch the moon I love:
I love

the deep feelings
that orb provokes.

So despite the torture
I continue to gaze
into its inscrutable face

until my desire
finally seems unbearable.
Then I turn away

and weave my way
back through
this midnight wood.

But the moon follows me--
paints milk on leaves
beside the trail--
the shadows deepen in response
to this illumination.

I lay my hand on a stone
softened by moonglow
and touch the moon by touching that stone.

And again I realize:
though our gods and goddesses
seem so distant
we can still feel them
through all those things
that shine with their light.

What I Learned While Alone: poetry ebook
© 2021, Michael R. Patton

Her

author’s note:

I often end up cutting my favorites lines:

She will sew me back up
but I must first guide the thread
through the eye of the needle


HER

I write to honor a woman
who hides in full view.

Though I learned of her years ago
and know the value
I often ignore her--so easy to do--
after all, she’s so commonplace.

Whenever I lose her
she merely watches and waits
as the sand leaks from my sack:
she will mend me
but only when
I open to her again.

Some will laugh
at my rhapsody
and claim
they don't need her.
But I’m not fooled--
I’ve known their poverty:

I once tried
to leave her behind
because I thought
I needed to be tough
in order to make this trek
across the desert...

but finally I felt so empty
I had to stop.
Then in desperation
I recognized her again--

I saw her sailing
in a flotilla of clouds
luminous in the sun

then in the cloud shadows flowing
across the brown plain

and as I witnessed
those glorious sights
I felt her strength
surge back into my heart.

At night
she beams down upon me
from the eye of the moon

as I nestle into a boulder
shaped like her hand.

Some meet her by blessed accident:
a burglar opens a window to steal a jewel
but finds a star in a clay jar instead

then allows himself
to experience a perfection
forgotten for too long.

Poet, Heal Thyself: poetry ebook
© 2021, Michael R. Patton

Digging Up Her Arms

author’s note:

As stated in the poem, I did indeed dig by a stump as a boy...

During one of these excavations, I found a small diamond.  Naturally, that clear stone slipped from my hands.  Though I searched and searched, I could not find it.  But because I could not find it, that diamond has remained a diamond.


DIGGING UP HER ARMS

As a boy when I saw
that naked statute in the book
I wished to be a hero
and return those arms to her--

I dreamt she’d repay me
by stroking my hair
with the hands I’d found.
She’d touch my lips.

How I wanted
her nurturing arms!

What I sought then
I still seek now
but I no longer dig in the dirt
by the stump with a stick.

No--
after digging many
people, places, things
I finally found ways
to mine my own self--

ways to recover what I’d lost.

I no longer look for
one big bonanza strike--
as an archaeologist, I must uncover
the hands, the arms
piece by small piece.

A tedious excavation.
However, I grow stronger
with the labor required

and I wouldn’t want
the child to lose hope
that one day
the wounded woman
will again be whole.

Glorious Tedious Transformation: poetry ebook
© 2021, Michael R. Patton

Contemplating the Face of Nefertiti

author's note:

I’ve only seen the famous sculpture of Nefertiti in a picture book.

But I don’t think that makes my response any less authentic.

CONTEMPLATING THE FACE OF NEFERTITI

The moment I saw that face
it seemed quite alien to me.

So of course
I wished to peer into its mystery

but could not penetrate.

However, as I tried
I began to sense
my own depths again:

as I felt her silence, I felt my silence
and found a palatial dark elegance
below the junkyard of my thoughts.

Her enigma was the enigma
of this strange life of ours.

Since then
I’ve returned again and again
to that opaque face--
a face that refuses to tell me
its secrets

while boldly proclaiming
a truth deeper
than any I’ve expressed
with these words I’ve stitched together.

33 1/3 New Fables & Myth: ebook
© 2021, Michael R. Patton

The Rose & The Boil

author’s note:

Gertrude Stein said:
“A rose is a rose is a rose.”

I say:
Don’t be so sure.


THE ROSE & THE BOIL

When by chance I saw my reflection...

the shock caused me to wonder
if I might be beautiful--
after all, I’d often been shocked
by beauty.

But as I examined the mirror
I noticed a red boil festering
on my chin.

Shocked again!
Repulsed!

Yet curious
about that hideous thing
simply because it seemed
so hideous.

But viewed at close range
the protuberance reminded me
of a red rose in bloom.

And why not?
Both red boils and red roses
seem so vibrant with life.

But in short time, I felt I’d seen enough
so I stepped back
and the sudden shift caused me
to see myself with new eyes:
my face now seemed strange
and a little grotesque
due to its strangeness.
Ugly as a boil.

But now you know a boil is rose
I told myself.

However
I did not really believe me.

So I satisfied myself with a truth
clear to see:

whether rose or boil
or a combination of both
that face of mine
was vibrant with life.

Soultime: a novel
© 2021, Michael R. Patton

A Japanese Print

author’s note:

Japanese prints are a good way to travel when you can’t get out of the house.


A JAPANESE PRINT

Sometimes I meditate
on this Japanese landscape print...

I follow the leaves down
to the river winding its way
to distant mountains tufted with pine.
Their peaks lost in cloud.

But rather than wonder
about the secrets
of places I can’t see
I return to the peasant
in the foreground:

bent forward with the weight
of the sack of rice on his back
he trudges through slanting rain
on a road that follows the river.

Imagining his life, I ask myself:
all that work and for what?

To feed his poor family?
But why have a family
if the family will only be poor?

Nonetheless
such beauty in that print.
Made more beautiful
by my empathy for that man.

Neither he nor we knew
he could be beautiful.
And so, we needed the artist.

What I Learned While Alone: poetry ebook
© 2021, Michael R. Patton

The Man Who Secretly Searches for Sophie

author's note:

Who is the man in this poem?

To answer that question would require a list so long it’d stretch all the way around the world.


THE MAN WHO SECRETLY SEARCHES FOR SOPHIE

The man of this story
lost Sophie so long ago
he doesn’t know he lost her

nor does he realize
how he searches for her

or how he sees her everywhere:

in the glowing pearl earring
found suddenly in a dark theater

in a soft hand print
on a frosted window
highlighted by the moon.

But also in vistas grand:

in a smokey orange sunrise cloud
building high above
a sea of shadowy pink.

So much of life echoes “Sophie”
to this searcher

including the way
the peasant woman in the photo
kneels at the creek as she scrubs
that pile of clothes
--he likes how her long black hair
   hangs down, touching
   the silver rippling water.

Fool that he is
he imagines himself standing near--
hands behind his back--
as he tries to say in broken language
how hot the sun feels.

She then lifts her gentle eyes to him--
a silent knowing gaze
that brings to mind
the monolithic goddess
that appeared in the darkness of a dream
when he felt so helpless.

Absorbed in that second image
our hero suddenly feels
a foundation of love within
the creaky hardwood of his chest:

a stone foundation resolute--immovable.

But in the next moment he turns the page--
though a dreamer, his tolerance for depth
has its limits.

Oh, but I haven’t given up on him:
I believe in time he’ll feel so desperate
He won’t flee
but stay there in his heart

and when he touches that stone
he’ll hear an inner voice--
(strange yet recognized as his own)
and he’ll sense
how those dark hushed tones
joyfully incessantly repeat this name
as a holy incantation:

Sophie…Sophie…Sophie…

Soultime: a novel
© 2021, Michael R. Patton

Fable of the Human Who Sometimes Regresses

author's note:

He who makes a beast of himself gets rid of the pain of being a man.
                    -- Dr. Johnson


FABLE OF THE HUMAN WHO SOMETIMES REGRESSES

When I lived
as a wild hirsute beast
I moved toward pleasure
and moved away from pain

until the night I could not move
after an injury from a falling stone.

As I felt the life within began to ebb
I suddenly desired to see the world
I’d ignored--the world I was losing

and found, to my surprise
a living mystery
of moonlight and shadow
captured by this jungle
in its cage
of barbs and tangles.

But I awoke the next morning, alive--
yes, alive and beginning to heal--
given strength by the desire
to again witness beauty--
to experience
the grand inexpressible feelings
such witnessing brings.

But inexpressible feelings
demand expression
and so, in desperation
I discovered the faulty machine
known as “language”--

a tool some believe makes us human.

Maybe so, but maybe
we begin the process
when we first witness beauty.
In any case, I sometimes regress:
some animal in me still wants
to move away from the pain
of being human
and seek only numbing pleasure.

But oh--
so many stones
and even boulders
fall into my life (as with any life)--
sometimes, I can not escape
the pain of injury--

pain that may remind me
of the pain of that night.

But if it does, I then remember
how to soothe the wound
by opening to
this beautiful mystery.

33 1/3 New Fables & Myth: ebook
© 2021, Michael R. Patton

The Lovers' Stone Quarry

author's note:

Why do old abandoned places have such mystery?

Maybe the mystery was always there.  We just didn’t feel it until all went quiet.


THE LOVERS' STONE QUARRY

After the machines
abandoned this quarry
the gray rains of winter
filled the granite pit
with cloudy-white water.

Now, near twilight
on an August day
a solitary couple
sneaks down the hill
to swim--to splash--to yell
in the sun’s splintered rays.

But in time the two
arrive at their quiet
and shyly open
to a deep embrace

then as cool wet skin
meets cool wet skin
both discover warmth
in the anxious heart of the other.

Discretion prohibits me
from finishing this scene
but before I endv I want to share a question:

if the massive complex
we humans have created
eventually collapses
under all its heady weight
what might life be like in the ruins?

My hope is:

those who remain
will find a new way of life
in the jagged pit we blasted.

Soultime: a novel
© 2021, Michael R. Patton

Beautiful Nest

author’s note:

I think we can learn a lot by listening to birds.


BEAUTIFUL NEST

Watching the bird weave
shredded plastic
through the twigs and grass
of its nest
I again began to believe
I could realize my aspirations.

What can you do
in a junk culture that seems to want
only more junk?

Well, the bird says:
a few flashy threads
won’t ruin the design
of work made with
basic earth material.

33 1/3 New Fables & Myth: ebook
© 2021, Michael R. Patton

Heroic Birds

author’s note:

For all the heroic birds out there.


HEROIC BIRDS

Such fierce resiliency--
witness
how those wrens hold out
in the awning of a gas station

or peck at the fallen fries
on a greasy fast-food drive-thru lane.

Why would they choose this mess
instead of the open sky?

Maybe those peasants understand
how survival in a shabby wasteland
elevates them to heroic status.

One summer day I marveled
at the easy glide of two eagles
circling high over a valley

but I see as much beauty
in the way those wrens flurry
their little brown wings.

© 2021, Michael R. Patton

Singing in the Sun

author's note:

People once believed our souls went into birds after we died.

But why would they need our souls?  They have souls of their own.


SINGING IN THE SUN

Despite the danger
the bird built its nest
so high and open to the storm--
obviously it wants the sun.

That bird knows me:
its fretful notes sing of my worry.

Yet even in fear the bird sounds so strong.

The bird tells me:
yes, the cold wind
that shakes these limbs
also makes me shake
but I’ll be damn if I let
those blows stop me
from singing in the sun.

33 1/3 New Fables & Myth: ebook
© 2021, Michael R. Patton

The Opera of Life

author’s note:

Full disclosure: I don’t know opera.

But I do like the idea of opera--life amplified to its true grandness.


THE OPERA OF LIFE

Beginning at dawn
I can feel a song rising

if I stop to listen.

If I stop
I can feel
all those songs around me:
the song of the blue flames on the stove--
the song of the empty white cup--
the song of torn brown dish towel:

the room booms with a chorus.

If I stop to listen
to the opera of life
I feel prompted
to sing in response.

But many days I don’t want to stop:

what a pain to try to sing
when what I feel can’t possibly be sung--
even by a bird
much rarer than I

and besides
the opera of life
doesn’t seem to need my song.

But
I feel I’m a participant
when I sing in response
and an alien
when I shut down.

So I persuade myself
to accept the pain
then open my big ears
to the opera of life
then open my big mouth
and join that grand chorus.

33 1/3 New Fables & Myth: ebook
© 2021, Michael R. Patton

My Quest for Gold

author’s note:

If a quest didn’t present us with one frustration after another…

…would the quest really be worth our time and effort?


MY QUEST FOR GOLD

Years ago
someone said:
look--
can you see the gold
in this piece?

Well, yes--
when I stopped, I could--
though only dimly at first

yet enough to wake in me
the desire to see
the gold of this world

because when I saw, I felt
the gold within me

then saw more clearly
then felt more.

Such pursuits qualify as quests.

But alas
to search for the ideal
creates frustration:

what I was told was gold
often didn’t touch me

and what had once touched me
might later feel like silver
or sometimes even lead
when I returned
hoping for a repeat
of the first feeling.

But then someone said:
if open your eyes more fully--
focus yourself completely--
you can find gold
in any ordinary thing.

What a joy to realize
the truth of that beautiful sentiment
(even if the vision lasted
  for only a few touching moments).

Following that discovery
I could have led
the blissful existence of the aesthete.
But no

I felt driven to respond
to all the gold I found
by trying to create
some gold of my own.

A quest with even more frustration.

My hope is:
maybe occasionally my failures
will come close enough
to the sublime reality
to touch a memory
and in that way, help you locate
some gold you’ve misplaced.

What I Learned While Alone: poetry ebook
© 2021, Michael R. Patton