For the end of November

These early November hours
That crimson the creeper's leaf across
Like a splash of blood, intense, abrupt,
O'er a shield: else gold from rim to boss
And lay it for show on the fairy-cupped
Elf-needled mat of moss.
—Robert Browning

Bus/zen

40 minutes
(practicing) meditation.
To travel ten by car
I couldn't then practice
Buszen.

the sour seat smell
grooved in by ten
thousand bodies -
get past that.

the broken drift of conversation,
one-sided cell calls.
latch on to the sound -
let go.

The mind wanders
focuses
moves again to watching
who boards
who disembarks.

Diverge:
Read the poetry,
feel the wheels,
join hot humans standing

Converge:
Breathe,
Listen.

Don't waste your time
waiting for the bus
be the bus
driving to buszen.

Found poem

What vows did we intend
To weave each other strand by strand
Into anew.
Together.


This is what I have learned --
In no constant time
There is the constancy of your breath.
In no calm time
There is the steadfastness of you stance.
In no joyful time
There is the laughter of your eyes.

This is what I know
that I cannot know enough
To take blessings too much for granted.
Without gratitude
without wonder.
Even if I do on accident or in vague forgetfulness.

It is what I know
Even disregarded, it is in the lacing
Of our fingers.
It is in the promise of the new.

As the wind blows leaves about

Season of mists and mellow fruitfulness,
Close bosom-friend of the maturing sun;
Conspiring with him how to load and bless
With fruit the vines that round the thatch-eves run;
To bend with apples the moss'd cottage-trees,
And fill all fruit with ripeness to the core;
To swell the gourd, and plump the hazel shells
With a sweet kernel; to set budding more,
And still more, later flowers for the bees,
Until they think warm days will never cease,
For Summer has o'er-brimm'd their clammy cells.
- John Keats, To Autumn

A bad pun

I realized just now that this blog title is a big pun on the fact that I'm of Polish descent. Not only do I have a poetry pole, I am a poetry Pole.

A poem from John

A poem from my friend John, Poetry pole originator.


A Calling Card



arrives early

each morning,

disrupts my dreams,

requests an audience at this unseemly hour

when dogs quietly snore, thieves have called it a night, and

bread bakers switch on the bathroom light. My dutiful butler

never refuses this card, enters, presents it with a bow,

silently retreats and

leaves me

alone.



Heavy-eyed,

wrapped in my bed clothes,

I receive this caller, who recounts faces,

known and unknown; some cloaked in deception, others

contorted in fear. The caller inquires of me. Do I understand? No.

Do I feel pain? Yes. Do I suffer? No, I am awakened again.

The caller bids me good morrow, stands,

silently retreats and

leaves me

alone.



-j. milliken 10/06/07

An autumn poem

In honor of Samhain

I chant the letter-acy of death
The names of people I don't know
The ones I do.
The ones that touched the lives
of those I love:

Kate's parents
Robert's mother
Sarah
Laurie's friends
Nancy's father
My brother
Philip's parents
David's dad
Pat
Grey's father
Dick's daughter
Philip's wife
Graham
Baby Kara

down, down, into the yawn of earth
they've left behind the letters of their names,
cursive strands that once connected them;
now floating through the breath of life.
Clinging to my face
the torn webs of autumn.