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Zahhar

Erin Thomas

Last Updated: 11/17/2009

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January 27, 2009 - Tuesday

Rinse
Current mood:uneasy
Category: Writing and Poetry

Started school last week. My first time in college in over eight years. I've always wanted to shoot for a degree in something--hell anything--but overcoming a complete lack of education, and by extension a complete lack of emotional-intellectual confidence and cultural preparation, has been challenging.

But this poem has nothing to do with that. For class notes I'm using the same composition books I take out backpacking with me, and I discovered a fragment in one of them that I decided to finish.

The notes seem to have been taken at the end of my last Lost Coast Trail hike, which was a seven day walk. I'm pretty sure this was inspired by the beach at Bear Harbor, at the northern end of the Sinkyone Wilderness State Park:

Rinse

Waves crash across the coarse gray sands
                    rising washing
          sinking seeping
                                                  into night

Waves echo from tall silhouettes
                    ancient cliffs
          canyon bluffs
                                      carved from night

Waves beat my heavy thoughts to rest
                    ground to dreams that
          sparkle faintly
                                          within the night

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27 Kudos

January 9, 2009 - Friday

nose hairs
Current mood:buggered
Category: Writing and Poetry

"Just say what you feel, man! Just write what you feel! It's all about what you feel, man!!"

—Various articulate members of the Whitmanian lineage

Alright alright already! Here's what I feel, man!:

nose hairs

they stand in line
stiff and stark
rank and file
on the march

merciless soldiers
raised from hell
heft their siege
in endless swell

rifles raised
with bayonettes
they stab their way
with no regrets

shooting always
toward the brain
with deadly force
unfailing aim

for each one pulled
from out the race
a dozen rise
to fill their place

marching always
on the brain
marching till i
go insane

(Add Comment) |

26 Kudos

January 8, 2009 - Thursday

Walang Masabi
Category: Writing and Poetry

Think I have my final edits. A little more unity. A little less fragmentation:

Walang Masabi

I felt you breathing in my thoughts
a breath as subtle as the whisper of spring.
And though I couldn't begin to guess your name,
I sensed you were out there, somewhere.

For years I struggled with a sense of you.
I searched the eyes of every face for a clue,
but no-one looked at me the way I knew
would leave me lost for what to say.

chorus 1:

walang masabi
nothing than words can say
walang masabi
take my breath away
walang masabi
more than words can share
walang masabi
something's in the air
something's in the air
something's in the air
oh in the air
walang masabi

In time I courted solitude,
prepared to walk the long remainder of life
without the comfort of companionship,
and yet I felt strangely at ease.

Then like the rising of a tropical sun
you rose illuminating all of my dreams,
a gift beyond the spectrum of my hopes
that left me lost for what to say.

chorus 2:

walang masabi
more than words can share
walang masabi
something's in the air
walang masabi
nothing words can say
walang masabi
take my breath away
take my breath away
take my breath away
oh away
walang masabi

I saw the blank unwritten years
stretching white into a life alone,
meditating in the silence of
a still and unusual peace.

But now I'll journey through the days ahead
with promise written onto every page,
a sense of joy I never knew before
you left me lost for what to say.

chorus 3:

walang masabi
more than words can say
walang masabi
take my breath away
walang masabi
nothing words can share
walang masabi
something's in the air
something's in the air
something's in the air
oh in the air
walang masabi

Now let us join and fix our eyes
upon the blue horizon of our life
and venture all undaunted through the years
believing in our path together.

For you, mahal ko, are my utmost heart,
a mystery beyond imagination.
I never felt my spirit pulse before
you left me lost for what to say.

chorus 4:

walang masabi
nothing words can share
walang masabi
something's in the air
walang masabi
more than words can say
walang masabi
take my breath away
take my breath away
take my breath away
oh away
walang masabi

I started this November of 2007, and though I've spent the past year singing the first four stanzas and two choruses to myself at all hours, the rest just didn't come to me until recently.

Walang masabi is a Tagalog (Filipino) expression that means something along the lines of "beyond words" or "nothing", in the sense that it's nothing words can express. Mahal ko is Tagalog for "My Love".

This is for my fiancee, and I plan to sing it to her at both our weddings (in America and in the Philippines), and of course at random. When I get around to croaking out a half-decent recording of it (a capella) I'll link it up to this page somehow.

Currently reading:
FOLKLORE, MYTHS AND LEGENDS OF BRITAIN
By READERS DIGEST

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26 Kudos

December 31, 2008 - Wednesday

The Intertext
Category: Writing and Poetry

This one was tapped out in July of 2005. Been thinking about it recently for some reason. Thought I'd post it:

The Intertext

between the lines
   space expands
       and meaning
   collapses in a well
of spinning density

       between the words
   time contracts
and meaning
   explodes from a point
       of translucent light

signs aggregate
   from the void
       and meaning
   glows in the vacuum
of inspiration

       imagination
   flares like a beacon
and meaning
   erupts from the silence
       of unknown origins

Currently reading:
A HISTORY OF ENGLISH POETRY - VOLUME 1
By W. J. Courthope

(Add Comment) |

10 Kudos

December 17, 2008 - Wednesday

an inkling hope
Category: Writing and Poetry

I've been in Santa Cruz, California the past few days. Tomorrow morning I'll head back to Ukiah, about a four hour drive. Been nice to be out of town for a few days, and to enjoy the simple comforts of a cheap motel. Ahhh a bed! Almost makes me want to get one. But I'm used to sleeping on the floor. And it saves space.

The idea for this poem came to me a few months back, at which point I hurriedly tapped out the opening four lines—then nothing. So today after four or so months of checking in on it periodically, I've finally managed to sit down and finish this idea:

an inkling hope

for years he hoisted heavy pails
along a stony little path where
scrub oaks crowd and brambles tug
at every inch of skin and cloth to
where an inkling hope took root
amid an undergrowth of doubt

for years he struggled up this path
to quench those lightly hidden roots
clearing weeds that else would choke
the life from every oval leaf
until devoid of nutrient his
budding purpose dried away

for years he watched the sapling rise
branching slowly toward the skies
growing broader week by month
dreaming deep through rock and soil
until at last she drank the waters
pressed beneath the sleeping earth

until at last she blossomed forth
throughout her overarching crown
pastel blooms of every kind
a potpourri of fragrant hues
that drew the pollinating bee
from fields two dozen miles off

he watched the flowers go to seed
swelling in their quiet hearts
into a myriad of shapes
poignant fruit of every kind
from grapes to berries pears to figs
hanging to the topmost twig

he saw and marveled at the sight
and half afraid he merely dreamed
this miracle of cultivation
stood beneath a low-hung bough
reached and plucked one ripe idea
and nursed the tangs of inspiration

Published in University of Washington's 2009 edition of Clamor.

Currently listening:
Chinese Traditional Erhu Music Vol. 1
By Lei Qiang
Release date: 1999-12-08

(Add Comment) |

14 Kudos

December 14, 2008 - Sunday

Visions
Category: Writing and Poetry

Originally, this was going to be part I of "Transmogrification", but the energy and time investment involved in adhering to the strict prosodic scheme of the stanzas proved to be too much. So I saved the first fragmented stanzas to be finished later and restarted "Transmogrification" with a simpler scheme. As a synthetic ode, the prosody and length of this poem would have to have been mirrored exactly in an antithetical part II, which I knew would require more of an effort than I was ready to commit to at the time.

And yet, what I had already managed seemed worth saving and building upon later:

Visions

Earthen eyes gaze out on crescent dunes,
     there to ponder remnants
of cities melted ages past in doom,
         cultures from another time
         ground to rolling fields of sand,
no monument nor trace left moaning on the wind.

Sagebrush eyes peer off through scented timbers
     and sense within the green
an elven nation thriving, ever timid,
          past the reach of human menace,
          fortressed in their deep concealment,
a realm of sylvan magic lush with rare fulfillment

Lapis eyes take in a waste of waves
     and fancy far beneath them
a shimmered halflight rippling from the wake
          down on castles carved from myth,
          peopled by a watery race
who dream in coral homes and thrive without a trace.

Soft gray eyes look up to view a sky
     where nimbus clouds conceal
a wonder floating just beyond the sight,
          palaces of pastel color,
          built by beings half transparent,
forever held adrift on atmospheric currents.

Hazel eyes reflect on fields of light
     and find within the silence
a universe replete with distant lives
          strewn across the starry swell,
          spun throughout the depths of space
on worlds of every axis bound to planes of grace.

Imagination dares to dream a world
     alive with magic hues,
emergent shades of mystery at work,
          bearing gifts of subtle wisdom
          manifest from hidden sources
welled from deep beneath the realm of conscious forces.

(Add Comment) |

14 Kudos

December 13, 2008 - Saturday

A Christmas Poem
Category: Writing and Poetry

An older poem, written Christmas Eve 2004. I spent that Christmas Eve alone. And only a month before I had been direct witness to a tragic ringing loss that had eerie parallels to my own father's suicide when I was ten.

I was pensive, reflective, and melancholy:

A Christmas Poem

I want you to know that I heard your cry
    That night before you passed away
         Into darkness

It was much like a cry I heard before
    Long ago in the corridors of memory
        The night my father died

I want you to know that I somehow knew
    When the phone rang
        And her quiet voice answered beside me

The wind was blowing outside
    I felt it press against the windows
        It presses even now

I want you to know that I hear your sobs
    A sound like a leaking roof
        Collecting in plastic buckets

The buckets are long overflown
    The roof still leaks after all this time
        A door sways lightly on a creaking hinge

I want you to know that I would have done anything
    If I knew
        Your silence is like that wind outside

I can hear the house settling in the dark
    Weighed with the cold gray weight
        Of your swinging clay

Last Christmas I sought to offset the energy of this poem by writing another by the same title after engaging in some activities of great personal meaning and importance. It's the polar opposite of this poem, and is posted here: "A Christmas Poem"

Currently reading:
Ulysses Annotated: Notes for James Joyce’s Ulysses [Revised and Expanded Edition]
By James Joyce

(Add Comment) |

24 Kudos

December 7, 2008 - Sunday

Stardust
Category: Writing and Poetry

Just found myself all of the sudden thinking about this poem, written in July of 2005. For awhile I couldn't recall its title. Then it came to me, all at once, to my half closed eyes:

            Stardust

            what particle
    what measure of gravity
        never brillianced the heart
of suns long since extinguished
                or punched through the portal cores
            of ancient faded black holes

            what searing pains
    what morbid fetters of flesh
        will remember the cries
that bore them into the light
                or recall in terror
            malignant growths and broken bones

            sometimes i feel my life
    sucked out across the void
        and as i clutch my breath
shudder at the looming loss
                starscapes burn through the lids
            when i shut my eyes

Currently reading:
Ulysses Annotated: Notes for James Joyce’s Ulysses [Revised and Expanded Edition]
By James Joyce

(Add Comment) |

26 Kudos

December 1, 2008 - Monday

evaporation
Category: Writing and Poetry

Someone emailed me a Zen poem, and I found myself tapping out a small response:

evaporation

in an ocean of stars
a ballet sun pirouettes
alone in a glimmering sea
of waltzing partners

in an ocean of light
waves wash the empty shores
of a trillion winkling eyes
an island of contemplation

mass gave light to motion
birth gave life to mind
thought gave dream to atoms
form gave way to karma

by the river of no return
a solitary observer
breathes in the emptiness
steam rising to nowhere

Currently listening:
Chinese Traditional Erhu Music 2
By Lei Quiang
Release date: 1997-10-27

(Add Comment) |

14 Kudos

November 27, 2008 - Thursday

happy deathday
Current mood:perky
Category: Writing and Poetry

I guess my "holiday" poems tend not to be so festive. It was a phrase from Joyce's Ulysses that somehow got me going: "Must be his [Smith O'Brien's] deathday. For many happy returns." (pg. 93).

Thought this a curious twist on the phrase. And found myself jotting down a note in my composition book... which expanded into a quatrain... which expanded three more stanzas. At which point I looked at it and thought to myself, "Why am I writing something like this early Thanksgiving morning?"

Why indeed! But with a little reflection, it came to me.

It's the forth anniversary of a father's death--suicide--which I can't help but feel more than a little responsible for. Our most tragic mistakes shape us, hopefully into better beings. But they also scar us. And sometimes others.

I've been told again and again that I shouldn't accept responsibility for this suicide. But... leaving circumstances untold here ...It's difficult not to. I hope his ghost some semblance of peace there at the edge of Styx.

So, this realization in hand, I found myself focusing the last three stanzas more tightly:

happy deathday

happy deathday dear old dad
    happy deathday to you
it's been a number of broken years
    since the dark ran through you

the naked birch is a bony white
    a raven caws the morning
a storm front gathers against the west
    towers of nimbus scorning

the wind is cold as it's ever been
    an oak branch scrapes the rooftop
windows whine the mournful sound
    of memories haunting after

the life you left behind is choked
    by an ever present worry
sprouted from the seeds you sowed
    of sorrow dread and fury

the house you left behind is bare
    groaning each november
pains that though the world forget
    these old white walls remember

this is the day you passed away
    grey roots running through you
happy deathday father dear
    happy deathday to you

Currently reading:
Ulysses - The Complete And Unabridged Text as corrected and reset in 1961
By James; With a foreword by Enrst, Morris L. Joyce

(Add Comment) |

24 Kudos

November 24, 2008 - Monday

birch
Category: Writing and Poetry

A small set of haiku inspired by late autumn in Ukiah:

birch

i

one by four the breeze
loosens wings from tall white limbs
butterflies in flight

ii

five by ten the winds
scatter yellow shades of brown
silent through the air

iii

more by many gusts
flurry golden buri fans
lightly to the loam

Currently listening:
Mozart: Symphonies Nos. 41, 25 & 32
Release date: 1993-02-05

(Add Comment) |

16 Kudos

November 15, 2008 - Saturday

Transmogrification
Current mood:strained and drained
Category: Writing and Poetry

This, my second synthetic ode, finally came to a close last night. It might yet suffer just a few more minor adjustments, but it's also quite possibly entirely finished.

I won't give the substance of the poem away here, but will just point out that part I and II represent antithetical ideas, while part III represents some kind of synthesis of these ideas. Imagine, as you read, one voice--say a soft female voice--reading part I, and a second voice--say a harsher male voice--reading part II. Then, as you read part III, imagine the two voices reading blent in unison:

Transmogrification

        I

Hazel eyes absorb a world of wonder,
    cities floating through the sky
half concealed among the clouds,
    mermaids dancing in the sea
half revealed among the foam,
    and camouflaged away from human sight
        elven nations thriving all around the world.
            Nimble hands explore
    paper wood and plastic,
          creating new inventions week by day.
        Supersonic aircraft zoom through hallway canyons
          and out across imaginary bays;
        coffee table cities rise among the couches
          busy with the sounds of industry; and
        stellar ships and space ports emerge from bedroom closets—
          precursors of a future yet to be.

        II

Stormy eyes absorb a realm of slaughter,
    cities rotting with the dead
overrun by demon hordes,
    Gothic townships ever dim
overwhelmed by zombie mobs,
    and everywhere, apocalyptic doom
        drowns imagination with visions of the slain.
            Frantic hands control
    pixels bent on trauma,
          with implements of every kind of war
        wielded to the hymns of personal damnation,
          gentleness made mad for battle-scores,
        shooting hacking slaying, all discrimination
          lost amid a growing thirst for more. And
        steadily the will to think and learn is narrowed
          to morbid rivulets of combat lore.

        III

                Steel gray eyes survey
            silent flesh and burning bone,
        columns pluming black against the darkness,
            cities rubbled with dismay,
        broken homes where broken mothers moan,
    brick and mortar scattered through a halflight
fraught with holy terrors lurking deep in shadow
and sensor-tripped explosives stashed along the roadways.
        Steady hands take aim,
    crossing foes between the rigid hairs
        of righteousness and training,
    a firm belief that killing in the hallowed name is fair
        ingrained through years of subtle inculcation.
            Calloused fingers stroke the edge of death,
    forever tense, prepared to deal
            the fatal strike that leaves the twitching dead
        left glaring up one final supplication.

Currently listening:
The Memory of Trees
By Enya
Release date: 1995-12-05

(Add Comment) |

4 Kudos

November 14, 2008 - Friday

In the Shade of Suicide
Category: Writing and Poetry

As I look through past poems, I find that the villanelle written just before the last one I shared is related. In reality I'm not so preoccupied with death and dying. But when I am, a poem often manifests. Still, I try to keep them animistically focused.

This was written in September of 2004, and it reflects on the conditions and spiritual aftermath of my father's suicide. I wasn't there. My parents separated and divorced by the time I was born, and though I lived variously with both of them, at ten years old, when my father ended his life, I was living with my mother three hundred miles away.

Sometimes, as the years went on, I'd try to imagine the circumstances of his death. What he felt, saw, heard, and pondered. What crushed him? Was it truly just his alcoholism? Who knows. But it did end in the dark of the Monterey County Jail drunk tank, an old building used for the purpose since the days of the old west.

In adulthood I've visited the jail, just to see it. And I could swear I sensed his presence there, all unheeding. Lost in the abysmal trap of its own self-pity and sorrow:

In the Shade of Suicide

steel bars seal the concrete cell
dim lighting casts a haze on everything
suffocating hope until the pulse is still

here unheard there sobs a secret weeping soul
the air is weighed beyond all comforting
steel bars seal the concrete cell

some can sense a lost control
regrets cascade and crush in heavy throng
suffocating hope until the pulse is still

year by passing year brief glances rise and fall
a faded figure sometimes seen to hang
steel bars seal the concrete cell

wrenched within their drunken pall
detainees wake to hear a gasping lung
suffocating hope until the pulse is still

violence born of sorrow echoes through the hall
the final act of him who kicked and swung
steel bars seal the concrete cell
suffocating hope until the pulse is still

Currently reading:
Ulysses Annotated: Notes for James Joyce’s Ulysses [Revised and Expanded Edition]
By James Joyce

(Add Comment) |

10 Kudos

November 2, 2008 - Sunday

To the Parent Who Committed Suicide
Current mood:exasperated
Category: Writing and Poetry

As scary and abusive as my father was, I still think I eventually would have found a way to reconcile with him in adulthood, had he not killed himself when I was ten. Though I'm not the most successful of individuals financially, I still think he would have been proud of who I became as a person.

Like many who claw their way forth from disadvantaged backgrounds, I often felt the urge and impulse to throw it all away to drugs, thievery, and much worse… As a way of dealing with my feelings of impotence and inadequacy, as way of lashing out at myself and the world. But instead somehow I chose to self-cultivate, slowly but surely, over time. A never ending process of ever evolving fruition.

If I were my child, I'd be proud of him, knowing the impossibility of what he had to overcome both internally and circumstantially. And so sometimes I wish I could show myself to the father who left my world, who left life when I was ten, and enjoy even just a moment of his acknowledgment, his praise. The proud father of a survivor who learned to thrive in his own way.

With this in mind, in December of 2004, I wrote this villanelle as I pondered the loss of such parents who abandon their children thus. Who perhaps lose their children much more so than their children lose them:

To the Parent Who Committed Suicide

You'll never know what they will come to be,
The children of your heart who live without your love;
At best, you leave behind but stings of grief.

You'll never share their triumph or defeat
And smile when again they rise with new resolve;
You'll never know what they will come to be.

You'll never comfort them in times of need
Or feel the subtle joy that always comes thereof;
At best, you leave behind but stings of grief.

You'll never see them strive to meet their dreams,
The hopes within their soul they struggle to achieve;
You'll never know what they will come to be.

You'll never beam a parent's prideful glee,
To see them find their way and how they learn to live;
At best, you leave behind but stings of grief.

You lost them as you swung your failing feet,
And now you're just a void that they will always have;
You'll never know what they will come to be;
At best, you leave behind but stings of grief.

(Add Comment) |

21 Kudos

October 16, 2008 - Thursday

revelation
Current mood:wonky
Category: Writing and Poetry

Well I'm feeling just a bit... um ...experimental.

Yea... Just a touch:

revelation

perhaps it was he

                                        all this time

                    who was wrong

perhaps adventurous eve felt

                                        constrained

                    by the ignorance

imposed upon her

                                        and sought

                    enlightenment

there meditating in the shadow of

                                        mystery

                    on self and consciousness

and maybe it was no

                                        fault of hers that

                    monsters

were let to lurk by the broad brown

                                        base

                  of understanding

who in her wide-eyed innocence

                                        accepted

                    the poisoned doctrine of truth

who being told it was

                                        good

                    never having been told of lies

bit deep and tasted

                                        the bittersweet pangs

                    of revelation

Currently listening:
Celtic Dreams: Music Of Turlough O’Carolan (1670-1738) on the Hammered Dulcimer, Vol. III
By Joemy Wilson
Release date: 1993-11-23

(Add Comment) |

18 Kudos

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