The Selected and Contemporary Poetry of: Dennis L. Siluk

2007-11-12T08:51:00.000-08:00

The Mother Grotto (Gruta de Huagapo, Peru)

By D. L. Siluk

Massive walls of stone left beautifully from a past age.
Images appear over the slim river, images with a thousand
shadows.

Pivoting, rushing sounds of water, a million gallons
sweep through this endless dirt, rock floor.

One can feel a new unease, deep in the pits of this grotto.

Granite images flutter overhead, death
shadows are coming, hanging
like long knots of wild energy,
they twist in triumph.

Now the time comes to look into the dark-tunnels,
the long past, it scuffles my brain;
I leap down into its nostril,
now, now I climb up with a rope on the other side
to the mouth of the dead,

look inside this dying hollow, my guide holds my hand,(to keep my balance) there is little time for talk,
my wife, and two other companions, wait across the empty pit,
I am, now…inside of its mouth, thinking:
‘…why did God created this?’

In here seasons never change, the pillars of stone,
shapeup like trees,
and the domes overhead, drip ice water, like
leaky teeth…!

Down in the pools of water, fish heads splash,
then jump deeper, their tails swirl, and they hide
in the shallow reeds, foliage, and rocks….

Old Man I say: ‘Grab the moment!’

No: 2045 11-8-07 ((Partly written 3-hours (5:00 PM, in a car) after visiting the largest grotto in South America, Huagapo; the rest of this poem was written when I got home to my apartment, about 7:00 PM, in Huancayo, Peru; the grotto being about 150-miles away.))

((Gruta de Huagapo (Peru))

La Madre Gruta

Enormes paredes de piedra legadas perfectamente de una edad pasada.
Imágenes aparecen sobre el río delgado, imágenes con unas mil
sombras.

Arrollando, sonidos de torrentes de agua, un millón de galones
barre a través de este interminable piso de tierra y rocas.

Se puede sentir una nueva inquietud, honda en los hoyos de esta gruta.

Imágenes de granito se agitan por encima, las sombras
de muerte están viniendo, colgadas
como nudos largos de energía desenfrenada,
ellas se retuercen en triunfo.

Ahora el tiempo viene para examinar los túneles oscuros,
el pasado largo, esto ataca mi cerebro;
salto abajo en las ventanas de su nariz,
ahora, ahora subo arriba con una soga al otro lado
a la boca de los muertos,
miro dentro de este hoyo agonizante, mi guía sostiene mi mano,
(para mantener mi equilibrio) hay poco tiempo para hablar,
mi esposa, y otros dos compañeros, esperan al otro lado del hueco vacío,
estoy, ahora...dentro de su boca, pensando:
“... ¿porqué Dios creó esto?”

¡Aquí las estaciones nunca cambian, los pilares de piedras,
en forma de árboles,
y de los domos por encima, gotean agua helada, como
dientes goteando...!

Abajo en las pozas de agua, cabezas de pescado chapotean,
luego saltan más profundo, sus colas se arremolinan, y ellos se esconden
en las aguas poco profundas, en los follaje, y rocas...

Viejo, digo: “¡Aprovecha el momento!”

# 2045 (8-Noviembre-2007 (Escrito en parte--3 horas—5:00 de la tarde, en un carro) después de visitar la gruta más grande en Sudamérica, Huagapo; el resto de este poema fue escrito cuando llegué a casa a eso de las 7:00 de la noche, en Huancayo, Perú; la gruta estaba aproximadamente a 150 millas de distancia.))

2007-10-22T11:30:00.000-07:00

“In the Nick of Time” By Cindy White

I met Dennis at B&N
Café—a decent place to
write and draw. To
set one’s creative juices
among the crowd. Among
the roar of the blender that
would wind up words for
a poet—any poet.

Dennis is an inspiration,
for this lowly poet, as
I sit in the same B/N
café without him, thinking
of his new life in Peru.
Thinking I might catch
his spirit, his muse and
sprout my words.

It was an honor; still
Is an honor to sit
in this space, where
one poet met another poet
in the nick of time.

Note: to be published in the forth coming book, "Silence in a Restless Valley," in July of 2008

2007-10-12T12:41:00.000-07:00

Ode:
To Opening of a
Chicharron Sandwich

Memo: for those who do not know, Chicharron is pork at its best in Peru; it is cooked in hot oils, and often put in-between two pieces bread and this, called a Chicharron Sandwich.

We think of Alexander the Great
As we open up a Chicharron Sandwich
Looking down, we see
Two bodies slapped on top of something
In-between— chicharron;
A brainstorm begins
(still looking down)
Miles of thoughts pass us
Like a roadrunner…!
What is in-between—peeks at us
(like a mouse to a nearby cat).
Your eyes go around the sandwich,
as if you are spying:
Likened to a mammoth toad;
Then they melt into the entire sandwich
(drowning your previous brainstorm).
Toads, mice and brainstorms
everything drowning…!
In the attic of our minds
We murder the sandwich now,
Like a great prince, at a feast!...

No: 2013 (10-10-207)

Disappearing Life

When will you speak up?
When images of death appear?
When your grave is filled
(when it is too late, that is)?
When you look back in life
do you say:
“A worn-out life?”
“A life misplaced?”
“A life ruined?”
When it is too late, it is too late:
it will be the time for silence
(no escape)!

Note: We have a right to die, but not simple because our life is worn-out, in saying that I mean, we do not have a right to take this life, this is different. Suffering is part of life. Life is sacred and given to us by God. He did not give it to the angels, or to other beings, not like he gave it to us, for that reason alone, life should be sustained by medical measures if possible. We need to remember there is a difference between the postponement of life, to death and prolongation of life. My mother was dying in the hospital, a normal old aged death, and a death inevitable: we allowed the natural process to run its course. No: 2014 (10-10-2007)

2007-06-02T09:29:00.001-07:00

Decomposed Peace (The Seeds of War and Peace with Death)

They bill it peace, in the process destroy,
That natural fiber is declining, now cursed;
They quay the secret seeds that decompose;
The barriers no longer provide peace:
Nor the mountains nor the seas, the stars;
Now tantrums dictate who will be harmed.
Satan built our peace, planted it with wars,
The little peace we had flew off like a fawn:
Before dawn, before light was set in motion.
Now we lay in our cold and worm-like tombs,
As it has been, so it will end for man,
Where under life, families reep ardent wounds;
Sterilize the cities, too many mouths to feed,
No more babies, no more life, no more crying.

They bill it peace, lies can burn, long and hot
They come like eggs, hard and soft, in frost;
A suffering pot of crickets, are they not?
You can ease their plotted minds, with ecstasy
Providing you have breasts and simplicity,
But they will swallow you like a pig in mud,
Cut you up, peer you, suck out all your blood.
There is no glory in peace or war, only trinkets
Solitude is in God, as is time and truth…
So we buy peace, with war, a childhood toy—
And one hundred million lives destroyed:
In less than a century; wars live on, not man
Beauty resides always, in the Creator’s hand.
No more babies, no more life, no more crying.

# W1864 6-2-2007

Note: Around the world everyday we see war, and people trying to make peace, a silly combination. Take any day, and look at its contradictions of peace for war, or war if not peace, watch the hypocrites in motion, in Iraq, we fight for peace with war, in Germany today, the G8 says they want to make a better world with Globalism, and 30,000-hypocrits fight with war, and hurt policemen, because they see things differently. And the police want peace, everyone wants peace, with a gun in their hands, or a bomb, or a stick. Lebanon, rages with war again today when the UN is there trying to make peace. NATO is at war in how many countries? Trying to make peace with guns; Nigerian rebels have just decided to have peace for a while, instead of attacks on the oil wells of that country. Tomorrow things will change, but only the face, not the guts and the hormones, they remain the same, war or peace, and peace cannot be without war. And we continue to dance in the circle.

2007-05-12T14:55:00.000-07:00

Friday Haikus: Over Fish and Onion

[At El Parquettos, Miraflores, Lima Perú]

Part Three (5-11-2007)
Youth

Lovely young girls walking by
Along the park sidewalks
With tight pants on

#1831

Osama

Osama bin Laden
Looks fiercely west
Hungering for inter vengeance

#1832

Lima Ball Game

Looking forward to tomorrow
Feeling great!
Ballgame, I’m Godfather

#1833

A May Afternoon
(at the park by Miraflores)

May, afternoon
Can’t find the sun
Must be in the rest room

#1834

Autumn’s Chill

No rush, but its coming
Winter’s chill on my
Autumn’s table

#1835

Comments: For some poets in the early 50s, writing Haikus was a study in nature, and speculation on the form of the Haikus, a practice you could say, thus, perhaps losing some of the essence, the fresh lake aroma they usually have, for the reeking sweat of mountain climbing, turning the diamond shaped Haikus into rhinestones. Many tried to produce a fancy free expression in them, not sue if this was good or bad, just new. Not sure if I can call those Haikus’ either. The Japanese artists of course do the best job for the Haikus, but somehow one can also lose the affect in being too rigid. Sometimes it is a compromise. In ‘Fish and Onions’ we drop the normal 17- syllables, for affect.

Fish and Onions

I felt like a cat today—
Eating fish and onions
Almost licking my saucer

#1836

Saturday Haikus: At the Game

(5-21-2007)

At the barbershop

For an once of fame
The youth of today
Will do almost anything

Even part the waters of heaven
To swim in hell—!

#1837

Comment: Watching T.V., while my wife is getting a haircut, brought some deep thinking to my head, it is 11:52 AM, and the ballgame just got over, about twenty-minutes ago. (5-12-2007)
The Toilet

Ballplayers are still arriving
—wonder where the toilet is
I’ll wait.

#1838

We Won 5 to 1

Howl like a hoot owl
The ballgame goes on
Like a dust storm

#1839 (4:53 PM)

2007-05-10T15:39:00.000-07:00

Thursday Haikus: Lunch at the Café
[At El Parquettos, Miraflores, Lima Perú]

Lima Sun

They say, sun until June
—In Lima, Peru
What if they’re wrong?

#1823 (5-10-2007)) When we count on something or one too much, we normally get disappointed somewhere down the road; expectations unmet I call them, and sorry to say, we become disappointed in others and suffer for that, perhaps we need to look at things and people as less than perfect.))

Lunch at the Café

Worthless! Worthless!
— Spaghetti today
Like a lake full of rain

#1824

Silverware

Silverware clashing!
Behind my back
Like birds out of tune…!

#1825
(at El Parquettos)

Commentary on From: Here we see the use of Haikus as (almost) epigrams, yet within keeping the grace of the haiku, and close to its form (the three lines, syllables are relatively close, if not 17-sylables, but the stress is not in keeping it uniform with the Japanese style Haikus, it is in keeping with the simplicity of the glorious day God has given, just one Thursday in so many.

Time Travel

Well, here I am again,
Its 2:35 PM (at the Café);
What month is it?

#1827

Sleep

One of the greatest gifts
God has given me—!
Is sleep! Beautiful sleep!

#1828

Rotten Poets

The minds of Ginsberg and Burroughs
Was full of nasty thrills
With young boys

#1829

Café Blues

Soupy Skies—
Crossing over the open café
Becoming too pale to write

#1830

Allen Ginsberg spoke of Kerouac as the master of the Haiku, I now care to refute this; first of all Ginsberg was perhaps the worse and most unclassy poet that has ever lived, and Kerouac, although good with spontaneous prose, was far from a master of the Haiku; the best I can say is he was the master of his own style of Haiku, and that alone. If he did anything, he lowered the Haiku to a windmill, where at once it was a skyscraper.

2007-02-18T21:04:00.000-08:00

Poetic Tender Riffs (three poems)

Here are a few poems I wrote today, in the process of writing them, I wanted to give them all one common name, because it all came out in one long afternoon chain of thoughts (so I named them: “Tender Riffs”), as I sat under the sun, my coffee in hand, and eggs and steak nearby, at my favorite outdoor restaurant, in Lima, and the waitress (Sarah, brought my food, said “Mr. Siluk…” meaning stop whatever you are doing and let me put your food on the plate, that is what she was thinking, not saying, and what I was reading, eyes tell a lot. Her hands patiently hoping I’ll finish my stanza quick so she doesn’t have to hold the tray much longer. I have to always finish the sentence you know, or the stanza. My wife, Rosa, is under the big yellow umbrella, I sit under the sun—she likes the shade. Then after I eat, finish eating that is, back I go again to see if …whatever is needed gets it (2-18-2007):

1) Angel or White Shadow (Surr’el)

My guardian Angel—
I’ve named you—Surr’el
I hope you don’t mind

I’ve never heard your voice
But I’ve seen you—
At least one time.

I’m the one you’ve protected
For so many years,
You stood, beside my bed once…

(when I was dying, almost gone…
and I got a glimpse of you—
tall and white and broad:)

You are my white shadow
Who I wish to meet someday,
I have thought of you often…!

#1696

2) Flyover

An F16 Jet, flew over our heads
(on my way to the café, today))
Several times, like a Roaring lion))
The earth moaned under my feet,
As I walked the neighborhood,
Lima, streets…folks were outside
Sitting, watching, listening…numb,
Women, with hands over their mouths,
Absorbing the terrifying sound…!
After the flyover (a military air show I hear),
The jet now out of sight, I look back at the
Two women, still they remain in fright…
And the others, speechless…!

#1697

3) Rosa’s Newspaper

She tucks the newspaper—tightly
against itself,
Taps it on the table, to insure one section
Is even with the others—as if she’s going
To give it a rest (and drink her coke,
Perhaps talk); then she—Rosa, my wife,
Opens it a second time, and reads it
Again (not sure what the tucking
And the tapping was for) but now she
Adjusts her eyes to the small print,
With her new glasses—‘Guess’ (squints)
And grips it as if the wind may move it
(what wind, I ask…myself); She’s firm
in her posture,
Glances onto the next page (doesn’t notice,
I notice her)) I think…?). I ask,
“Anything interesting?”
“No,” she comments, and then adds:
“There is a man in Pakistan he blew
himself up….”
She glances at me now (as I write
this down (stoned faced) unaware;
Then she shifts her eyes back to the paper
and continues to read again….

#1693Three Poems) "Angel...." & "Flyover" & "Rosa's Newspaper"

2007-01-12T08:43:00.000-08:00

“Death of the Maya”

The animals watched and listened
When the Maya appeared (1000 BC)
In the jungles of the Southern Hemisphere:

“I am
I want
And I will take…”
Said the Maya to the earth.

Fear took away peace
And then came forth war
(and battles)
And death prevailed
(it was a way of life—
in the forest))
as it is today in the world)).

And then came shame
And then came cowards
And then came rape,
And Civilization
Became torn…!

And then the Maya
Disappeared—leaving
Tajin as a remembrance.

#1595 (1/2/2007)

Note: The Author visited Tajin (Mexican archeological site) in 2002, a great location to visit and perhaps meditate while visiting, on its huge grounds. Its location is in the area of Vera Cruz (Veracruz), Mexico; which is in itself a great city to visit. Actually the area between Tajin and Veracruz, perhaps a hundred miles or so, many sites within that radius; the pyramid is most unusual, in that it looks as if it has coffins, one on top of the other (or perhaps we can call them imbedded steps), that reach to an enormous heights, if climbed to the top; as big—if not bigger than, the pyramid in the Yucatan.

As one travels from the Northern Hemisphere, to the Southern, we see civilizations that can blind the mind, unquoted from the European heritage we have been force feed for 200-years. We could start at Serpent Mound, in Ohio; it dates back to 3000 BC, even the Native Americans (or Indians of that area don’t even know who built the snake like mound, built it long before they arrived). Then we go to Mexico, and from all corners of Mexico we see the Maya, extend into Central America, leaving the Aztecs to their own world, and on to the Wanka and Inca world of Peru, and South America in general: from Bolivia to Ecuador. In Peru we can name several civilizations dating back to 3000 BC (before Stonehenge in England; before the Great Pyramids of Egypt were build), especially the one that took place at Caral, about 125-miles from Lima; here are several pyramids.(I’ve been to all locations, the Americas are just being discovered, this is the time of a life time, or those looking to see history uncovered on this side of the world).

2007-01-05T10:26:00.000-08:00

Ode to: La Dama De Cao
(The Lady of Cao))Peru))

The sun no longer strikes down on me
How close I was to life, how hard life was
How false ones gaiety can be.

Lonely at times:
Not in the soul
But in the sky of the mind!

My whole horizon ringed
With the morning birds;
I had a collection of things and people.

I have been a Queen, ruled the village of Cao
That was my love you see
Yet I did not live long—, twenty-five years is all.

Queen-chief they called me—,
My body tattooed to show such;
Bound in ceremonial wrappings…

Like a cocoon (a mummy)
Hence,
I was found in such garb.

Sorry to say, but I will:
I died from childbirth—
Buried in Trujillo—a thousand years ago!.

When I died…, then awake
It was like daybreak—I seemed to have
Had a sad feeling upon arrival.

Now harshly, all the sounds and voices
Of one moment to the next
Is simply fleeting.

Yet, up there I will never be again:
Still I hear my child’s voice
From time to time..!

Note: No: 1596 (1-4-2007): a most recent finding in Peru (that is, perhaps less than a year old) is the Mummified body of “La Dama de Cao, (The Lady of Cao)”; whom was really more than a lady, but a queen. As I have said often, and will again, Peru is the land of discover, perhaps the last of the main Ancient lands to have been only half discovered. It is the Egypt of South America you could say. I was in Trujillo, some three years ago, a northern costal region of Peru, where they have funny looking boats called Canotaje´s. I don’t know of any another land that bares so much fruit in Ancient discovers today, other than Peru.

2006-12-30T14:21:00.000-08:00

Hanged In Baghdad

Poem written thirty-minutes after Saddam Hussein was hanged in Baghdad, or approximately 10:30 PM, Lima, Peru time (Written in Huancayo, Peru); Baghdad time 6:30 AM. No: 1593 (12-29-2006)

An animal likeness, a root of evil
A soul badly situated—he was the upheaval.

The morning sun, striking down on Baghdad
How close was he to life, a moment ago?
Before the hangman’s noose tightened around his neck?
How close was he to life a moment ago?
Now ready to be wrapped in a shroud (dead)?
His whole sky must cascaded around
His fearful face, it sagged with dread;
His lost Horizon now but a dung-heap!
A heart full of rubbish—here and there,
Now finally aired…! Now finally dead!

A strange collection of people we have here on earth…
One crude piece of wallpaper, now roughly torn off—
Plaster and all, no longer clinging to the wall:
A sadness—but not for the world at large;
Sadness—for a soul lost, going to another.

Note: he (Saddam) will now be buried (in the same cemetery where his two sons were); his last words were “Muqtada al-Sadr,” His body taken to Tikrit. He was defiant to the end, refused to wear a hood. I lived his tyrant life, seemingly step by step, from the 1980´s onward; it is nice to see justice prevail in such cases. Sad his soul will be in Hell, but where else would it be happy? Like to like, for his kind, and so a chapter in history is recorded, and he most likely be forgotten in the annuals of written history in a few decades. They all think they will live on forever. When in reality, most are forgotten quickly after their death, and most of the world is happy to forget he ever existed.

2006-12-27T09:09:00.000-08:00

Three Obscure Poems: on--War, Death and Hope

“Deeper Than Thunder”
(a Poem on the Sounds of War)

(Rockets) Each blast—a deep concussion, soundless waves felt under my feet, up and down m spine. My whole body absorbed the deep-thunder; the wheels in my mind, creak, shaken by debris flying about; charged air fills my chest, muscles are trembling. The sound of the air-blasts rolls over the landscape.

Note: Vietnam (1971), was my war you could say is no different than any other war, the sounds of bombs, rockets, guns, whatever; they carry a distinct “ka-phoom! (occurrence!),” to say the least. So to all the soldiers out there, the sounds of war will stay with you forever. No: 1587 12-26-2006

“If Death Had Wings”
(A poem on Death)

If I saw death, and death had wings
I know where I would go—
Someplace between Heaven and Hell,--
In the form of an eternal soul:
Where Peace and hunger was no more—;
If only death had wings
That is where I’d go—!
Yes, that is where I’d go!
If only dearth had wings!
Wins, wings, wings—
I’d put them on my soul.

Note: No: 1562 12-10-2006

“Gray Oblivion”
(the Root of Hope)

In the sunlight
Hope thrives best—
In the fog, it
Does not at all—.
Self-interest and
Self- preservation
Is stronger than hope,
And once it takes root,
Hope opens its jaws.
Thus, one can say,
Hope and Reality
Thrives on nothing,
And nothing blossoms
In the jaws of death.

No: 1567 12-11-2006

2006-11-19T20:06:00.000-08:00

"Divine Sunlight"
1
Scars and Wings
I will sleep beneath my scars, and they above me,Somewhere in-between we shall touch:Oh, God, oh, God, who knows our minds And hearts—our thoughts, our damaged brows,Our-sour mouths, troubled stomachs—Where is the sound body? You once gave me—Give it back please, it had wings you see,And now I have only scars…scars, scarsScars to offer Thee.
Oh, God, oh, God, how I love Thee—I would take death tomorrow, to have them back,To wear a crown of victory, on my head.
#1549 11//19/2006 {Written in Lima, Peru, Café EP]
2
Old Jealousy
When I was a kid, I asked my Grandpa, “What is old jealousy?” because once I had heard him mention it, in passing—“You’d not understand, go about your way, and play….” He told me in no kind way. Later on that very same day, I heard he say to my mother, “When I was young, I had not the courage to ask such questions (to grownup), as does your son, and now I’m too old and feeble I suppose, nor the opportunity have I, to accomplish the power to do whatever.” I remembered that clearly now, now that I’m close to sixty, perhaps because I’ve lived a full life, and somehow along the way, I buried all those old jealousy’s, that might pop up in old age.
#1552 11/19/2006 Two poems given by "Divine Sunlight"
Note: Here are two new poems Dennis wrote during lunch at El Parquetito's, Cafe in Miraflores, Lima, Peru, while the sun was upon him. He seems to think deeper at certain places, as in St. Paul, Minnesota, he has selected the Coffee House, in Har Mar Mall, it is not called that, but it is that. A poet needs a place that he feels comfortable in, and quiet. I often just leave him wherever for hours while he does his thing; he reads and writes some five to ten hours a day (between 300 and 3000 words a day, he reads and writes). These two poems, I kind of think they are somewhat divinely inspired, or as he called them, "Divine Sunlight." It can't hurt I suppose. Rosa

2006-11-01T09:06:00.000-08:00

Dorland’s Ghosts

The road separated when
I found my appointed way:
”Your poems shall ring as chimes
In ancient ruins…” a covert
Storm from an irretrievable island
Carried this Echo: Dorland’s Ghosts!
“There is a hexed bounty
On love and peace,” they inserted
Into my dreams: perhaps (thinking,
Someday I’d be one of them) entrenched,
Long ago in those rose-colored marble stones,
Vine-vindictive pillars that cling like
Phantom cords: these dreams and
Echoes are flowers that never can be,
Laughter that never will be: from
These ardent, amorous Ghosts
(The penitence ghosts)) That knows me.
They cling to the earth’s tumult
To women, or men, with lutes and
Songs, and play fountains of affection
Until they fall—and fall they shall
These seedless Beings exhume and faint:
Long-dead, now wanting lovers;
I say: cast them to the winds, and flee
Or thou shall know their greed—
Pale and sweet they can be...!
Their muzzling pleasures never glow:
These irrelevant ghouls, play
Tyrant, blushing as if the breasts
Of lovers are Satisfying….
Forfeit, they did—such colored grapes;
They are caught in-between,
Neutralized and scattered

Notes 1: Written 11/1/2006 [Lima, Peru]; a dedication poem to Clark A. Smith, and inspired by him.

Note 2: Dennis has written something like 10-volumes of books on poetry, one and only one on Macabre Poems, Volume III. This is an area he has explored, and according to The Mango Tree Magazine, in India, and other magazines in Australia, and Internet magazines, he again does well according to them. But he doesn’t write exclusively this genre. There have been editors whom wished he had. So here’s a selected poem, he just did he considers Macabre, to a certain degree; you may not see many of them from him in the future so this is a treat. Rosa Penaloza de Siluk

2006-10-22T09:04:00.000-07:00

The Thought of Dying

Winter of Death (an: Article Poem and Body)

(Introduction) This article is in three parts: introduction, poem, and the body. And I know I don’t need to say that, but I want to clarify it for the reader so you kind of know where I’m headed.
Has the thought of dying ever occurred to you? Is there emotional pain with this issue? That being, are we looking at the end of the road, kind of speaking?
When we roll over and get out of bed, most of us will see things around them as normal, ordinary, unrelated to death: you will not say: “Is my last day on earth.”
Every two seconds someone dies someplace on earth; to a city the size of Lima, Peru, perhaps it is as high as 80 to 100-deaths a day; or to a smaller size city like St. Paul, 10 or 20.
In my 20-years of counseling, I’ve seen many folks suffering, the loss, the grief; it is perhaps why I got out of the business.
Many folks go to drinking, or depression, or other stages of emotional illness: all this to deal with death, to find comfort. We even seek out psychologists and the clergy.

(The Poem)

Winter of Death

In the winter of doubt
Death swims—engulfs
Like a hurricane—like
A ship sinking; thus,
Pitilessly with tons of
Crushing sea!

Here I stand on the lofty
Poop, above the angry
Waves—, as it waits
For Me!...

#943 [12/7/05]

(The Body) We fear the unknown—the big secret in counseling, and in religion, perhaps. Death can simply mean, or be in one man’s mind, the closing of his eyes as he opens up the eye of the soul for new sight.
What is true to the body, should it not be true to the mind (?) If we can reason it, it most likely is. Death can be no less than becoming a completion of a part of something. If one is to become complete, on his deathbed, he sure has no gender left in him or her, just completeness, I’d think.
What wise words can a person say to another while dying? I thought about that when my mother died and I could not find any wise words to say, but she did, She said;
“I’m fine with it… I’m ready… I don’t want to live like this…. I’m ok with it,” and she enjoyed the guests and folks stopping by to greet her in the hospital. Towards the end of her 30-days in the hospital, let’s say about six-days before she died, she knew they could not help her. And thus, those words came out.

—But what really was she saying, or do I interpret her words to mean to me, just this: ‘…the here, the right now, this moment is real, and this is where it all takes place, the present holds the proof, transformation is about to take place.’ She was not worried about bills, and dinner, and so for the and so on, she was involved with the transformation process. That I believe is what she was telling me.
Just simply arithmetic that adds up to: believe in God and yourself; for the final moment has come; grab the moment, and dwell in its wine, and you will be victorious. My mother was, for you’re on the stage, and today is the day to die.

2006-10-16T16:54:00.000-07:00

Poets & Poems [Part II/10-16-2006] Three Biographical Poems

1) Saved: at St. Joseph’s Hospital
2) War: and self-defense
3) Last Day in Vietnam

1) Saved: at St. Joseph’s Hospital

I was born downtown, on an autumn day
Under the roof of St. Joseph’s Hospital;
Tended by nuns—they took me away
Until my (unwed) mother—screamed!
To the doctors…
Thus, under the crucifix, I was saved.

# 1506 (10/16/2006; written at El Parquetito’s, in Lima, Peru, during lunch)

2) War, and Self-defense

A war we waged:
For a cause, we cried,
The glory of it all
Resides in the Halls
Of some public domain.

Freedom was the reason,
It’s said, for the blood:
The sacrifice—the dead;
No matter how indignant!
It’s all self-defense.

Dedicated to the American soldiers found in: Vietnam and Iraq; #1509 (10/16/2006)

3) Last Day in Vietnam

Two men, and I stand at attention in Vietnam, then we jump up on the back of the five-ton truck (it will take us to Saigon) we give a last salute. The square I stood on so many times, fade…its now difficult to find; here youth dominates, with young and sparkling eyes.

The dusty clouds of dirt from the tires of the five-ton, covers the war I leave behind, soon my mother will touch my hands (so I think and almost I feel); twenty-four hours have passed, I’m now within reach. And upon arrival home, never once does she speak about the poor victorious logic of the war.

10/16/2006, #1510

2006-10-16T16:21:00.000-07:00

Poets & Poems (By Dennis L. Siluk)) Part I))[10/16/2006]

1) Anne Sexton: poems come from the abyss, painfully, and a life obviously as scornful; literary they could use some substance other than nakedness.

2) Howard Nemerov: good lyricism, one of the poets I ran after in my early days in college to read and try to understand. He writes well, yet I find there is usually something missing, perhaps they need to march to the end of the road (His poems).

3) Allen Ginsberg: when he was in his 20s, he wrote his best works, thereafter, he lost it to good taste, and good sense, which he had none of, and traded it for pleasure, and a warped mind, God help the reader.

4) E.E. Commings: Cummings poetry is Cummings! That is, more so than most poets; if you have read one of his poems, you’ve read most of them; a good and genuine poet indeed, perhaps uncompromising, but I get bored after a few of his poems, unfortunately.

5) Gary Snyder: Academic poetry, but in the middle (the beatnikism era): he hugs Zen as so many did back then; I was at the end of that era. He used his techniques correctly, for who he is (or was): sharp, clear and detached poetry.

Commentary on Poetry:
“Blessing of the Poem”:

There is nothing on earth that can equal the hard scraping profound labor and stirring of ones blood, and sense of sanctification that a good poem can offer.
That new promising poem, felt in the middle of silence, in the corner of the night, sticking to your mind and ribs until it finds its way out of your box and into the literature world; faint at first, then like the radiation of an atomic bomb.
The question asked: “Why indeed do people write poetry?”
A good question, and hard to answer, more subjective than otherwise, but let me give it a try, how I see it: imagines (dreams, seeing in your mind's eye, envisage), it is all under the same umbrella; such things come out of the unconscious, the mind, convicted, until written, then emancipated (and never to be lost in the vaults of humanity).

2006-10-03T14:21:00.000-07:00

Three Commentaries on Poetry (in English and Spanish) by: Dennis L. Siluk

The Poet’s Shoes

(Nowadays :)

—To understand some poetry, or poets, one must have experienced what the poet has—identical experiences; or you must be shaped like the poet—, the exceptions are from the old school of poetry—one shoe fits all (thus, understanding the theme, plot and insight of poetry becomes much easier); from the contemporary scene, you must have the same shoe size of the poet to understand where the poet is leading you, and in poetry the poet should have a destination for the reader—lest he doesn’t care (and he should).
—The poet survives perhaps because he or she is oblivious (or not connected so much) to the world, and all its compulsions (suicide is often on the other side of this coin, if not drugs and alcohol).
—Poetry has accomplished something if it causes one to mull over it…; stretching this a little further, there is (it seems) coming a day (not so far off in the future), when poets will not even need to know a thing about literature (most don’t today); yet poetry is (or should be) considered the highest form of literature.
—Most poets write about love and death—which perhaps are the two main ingredients (or themes) to poetry; some write on social issues, which make for bad poetry; but it is “Beauty” that shines above everything, and that is often, too often over looked in place of self-interest, or a combination of negative delirious confusing thoughts put into writing by a poet under the influence of some kind of chemical. One can get a high off the beauty that surrounds them.

Last words: we as poets should not forget, we influence people, young people in particular, and owe an obligation to (if not duty to), set a good example by the way we live and write.

Written in the Plaza de Armas, Huancayo, Peru, 10:00 AM, Wednesday, 9-19-2006

Note: Read by Eduardo Cardenas Jr. on the Radio Universitaria (UNCP-Universidad Nacional del Centro del Peru) Huancayo, Peru; also Publisher in the “Primicia”, issue dated 1 October, 2006

Versión en español

Un Comentario sobre Poesía por: Dennis L. Siluk

Los Zapatos del Poeta

( Hoy en día:)

—Para entender algo de poesía, o a los poetas, hay que haber experimentado lo que el poeta ha pasado—experiencias idénticas; o haber sido formado como poeta—, las excepciones son de la vieja escuela de poesía—de que un zapato encaja a todos (así, entendiendo el tema, el argumento y la perspicacia de poesía se hace mucho más fácil). En la escena contemporánea, debes tener el mismo número de zapato del poeta para entender dónde el poeta te conduce, y en la poesía el poeta debería tener una destinación para el lector—a no ser que él no se preocupe (pero él debería).

—El poeta sobrevive quizás porque él o ella están inconscientes (o no están unidos tanto) al mundo, y a todas sus compulsiones (el suicidio está a menudo al otro lado de esta moneda, o las droga y el alcohol).

—La poesía ha logrado algo si ésta causa que uno reflexione sobre ésta…; exagerando esto un poco diría que, habrá (parece) un día que vendrá (no muy lejos en el futuro), cuando los poetas no tendrán que conocer algo sobre literatura (la mayoría no lo sabe hoy); aunque la poesía es (o debería ser) considerada la forma más alta de literatura.

—La mayoría de los poetas escriben sobre amor y muerte—que quizás son los dos ingredientes (o temas) principales en la poesía; algunos escriben sobre cuestiones sociales, lo que hace que la poesía no sea buena; pero es "La Belleza" la que brilla sobre todo, y a menudo, o muchas veces, es ignorada a cambio de intereses propios, o por una combinación de pensamientos negativos delirantes confusos puestos en la escritura por un poeta bajo la influencia de una especie de sustancia química. Uno puede inspirarse en la belleza que a uno lo rodea.

Palabras Finales: nosotros como poetas no deberíamos olvidar, que nosotros influenciamos en la gente, en los jóvenes en particular, y tenemos una obligación con ellos (o un deber con ellos), demos un buen ejemplo por la forma en que vivimos y escribimos.

Escrito en Plaza de Armas de Huancayo, Perú, a las 10:00 AM, miércoles, 20-septiembre-2006.

Nota: Leído por Eduardo Cárdenas en Radio Universitaria (UNCP-Universidad Nacional del Centro del Perú) Huancayo, Perú.

A Commentary on Poetry by: Dennis L. Siluk

Substance of the Poem
(Part II)

Some folks have said—substance in the poem does not matter—? I question that (even though, seldom do we know poets who know the reason for their poetry. Often when they reread their own poetry, they have forgotten what reason he might have originally had (had he any at all)), no substance for recollections.
—Curious speculation tells me, a poem has to have substance to survive…!
—Perhaps there is too much fumbling around by too many poets—using modern verse (for an excuse) to escape a theme or insight for a poem.
—In writing a poem, like anything in life, one must have a plan, destination (where do you want to take your reader?).
—A poem perhaps is the secret life of the poet; his black twin, his detached self—this is too often the case. Thus, the poet and poem become more of a riddle of despair than a work of art. You either sink or rise with the poet and his poem. That is, sink into dark perversion, or rise into a beautiful fire of emotion.
—Healthy poetry is almost unseen, and becoming unnatural nowadays, but it will uplift you, make you re-read it, and the best critic in reading poetry is the reader—and the best evaluator is the poet.

Versión en español

Un Comentario sobre Poesía por: Dennis L. Siluk

Sustancia del Poema
(Parte II)

Algunas personas han dicho—que la sustancia en el poema no importa— ¿? Yo discuto esto (aun cuando, raras veces conocemos a poetas que saben la razón de su poesía. A menudo cuando ellos releen su propia poesía, han olvidado que razón pudieron tener al principio (si es que tuvieron alguna en absoluto)), ningún fundamento para recuerdos.
— ¡La especulación curiosa me dice que, un poema tiene que tener sustancia para sobrevivir…!
— Quizás hay mucha hurga alrededor por muchos poetas—usando verso moderno (como una excusa) para escapar de un tema o conocimiento de un poema.
— Al escribir un poema, como todo en la vida, uno tiene que tener un plan, una destinación (¿a dónde quieres llevar a tu lector?).
— Un poema quizás es la vida secreta del poeta; su gemelo negro, su yo separado—esto es muy a menudo el caso. Así, el poeta y el poema se vuelven más un enigma de desesperación que una obra de arte. Tú, te hundes o te elevas con el poeta y su poema. Es decir, te hundes en la perversión oscura, o te elevas en un fuego hermoso de emoción.
— Casi no se ve poesía sana hoy en día, y se hace un poco anormal, pero esta te elevará, hará que lo releas, y el mejor crítico en la lectura de poesía es el lector—y el mejor evaluador es el poeta.

The Poet’s: “harawi!” (Part III)

We are a people of personality, appealing or not, it is who we are; we can be mystic, skeptical, a fugitive deeply in love, an isolated person—whom it beocmes painful to socialize with others. We express in tones of maculinity, or otherwise—; there is something ancient, to this: a voice of force—but seldom does it comfort....
There is a tone in the Andes (also)—old poets often have used it in the past—(“harawi”),a mystical inward compulsion, or complait. Call it folk-form, of the Andes (Vallejo knew it well); it is an echo for modern surrealism—. Poetry in this form can make deperate things alive, like God pointing his finger; or Sastan whispering to Judas....
In Poetry, metaphore is matched by skill or talent, the poet—the poor man with his verse and voice sees through himself: the ruminates, the unimaginable—that is his “harawi”.

Written 10-3-2006, in the Plaza de Arms, Huancayo, Peru, 12:30 PM, #1489

—From the Periódico (9-18-2006): “Primicia”

“…Dennis Siluk, North American poet…fell in love with the Mantaro Valley (of Peru)… (so) he writes in his works…. The landscape, the customs of the city (of Huancayo), the food of the city (which all seems to come from an inspiration he draws out of the, and is captivate by, this region).
‘Huancayo is a modern city that keeps its traditions (alive) and its colorful fair (Sunday market))…I hope it does not change…’ (He says).”’

—(Editor: Mr. Nilo Calero Perez)

Mr. Siluk was awarded the title of Poet Laureaate of San Jeronimo, Peru (2005), and awarded the Cross of the City, in 2006. Also, Los Andes University acknowledged Dennis’ contribution to the culture of the Mantaro Valley. In addition, the Mayor of Concepcion has asked Dennis to write a poem for the Inauguration of the seventy-five foot statue of the Virgin Mary.

In 1982, Dennis’ 2nd book, was considered for a Pultzer Prize.

“The Road to Unishcoto,” is about a Wanka warrior (his last battle along the Rio Mantaro, near the city of San Jeronimo). Also there are poems on Huancayo, Sapallanga, and Concepcion, all Andean cities of the Mantaro Vallley. Here again we see the culture, beauty and customs of the region florish in Dennis’ poetry; along with two commentaries on poety.

Dennis Siluk (and wife Rosa) live in St. Paul, Minnesota; also in Lima, Peru; but have chosen Huancayo, and its beautiful Mantaro Valley to call their permanent residence. This is Dennis’ 35th book, his 11th in poetry, and his 5th on Peru.

Mr. Siluk is the winner of two columnist awards (in 2004 and 2005).

2006-09-16T18:16:00.000-07:00

Four Deep Thoughts (& Poetry)

1) Vindication
(Deep Thoughts)

Here at the death level I stood, seeing nothing, save a gray to charcoal mist lapping its way towards me, it filled everything, like a hawks settling wings. Life was a vague thing, a thing felt, a moment ago, rather than now. I swam in the air, circling the place where I was slowly, steadily, observing this new immensity, limitless vagueness, and I discovered the center was I.

It was on my right, I told myself “Over there!” I had a faint uneasiness, an exasperation you could say: I reassured myself, and went in that direction; the mist remained as it was—.

As I looked closer, I saw an eye, and relief came over me—I found what I had almost lost—life (I got my wind back).

#1463 9-14-2006

2) The Art of Life
(Deep Thoughts)

The art of life is to live life in the moment—a wonderful complete existence involves the soul. It involves putting pretense aside so you can really be alive, before you die (for normally on the death bed is when we put pretence where it belongs)) and it is not under the pillow)).

This is perhaps the greatest function of art: to do the best one can, with what one has, now (in the moment). The scent of bewilderment resides in the idea: art is only a picture, a landscape.

Art is (or can be) a garden, now you need to plant, thus, you need the seeds; gardens are or can be any old place, throughout the world, it is the seeds, the damn seeds that make the difference, and what you planet, will grow.

Hence, when the soul gets hungry is when true art finds its purpose to exist.

9-15-2006 #1464

3) An Old Mans Lightness
(Deep Thoughts: a poem)

She sat close to him, and as she did—
As young girls can,
She became utterly stagnant beside him
As if a burning fire was seeping
(Likened to osmoses) out of her thighs—.
Lightness moved to and fro
Among his members (unbearable):
To his hand, feet, then he fled.

#1465 9-16-2006

4) The Humble Giver
(Deep Thoughts)

With dolce malice from the black poised and tense above seeps down to earth? Breathe—; thus, only a few will make it.

Some people put a lot of effort into life—keeping them from becoming involved in it; thus, gathering little inspiration for working in it. The creators are the artists, the others, perhaps they can share by furnishing the inspiration needed. The humble givers or giver has his or her plan in the scheme of things.

Giving something to the world, this is the road of the Gods, the one they have cultivated (the voyage of voyages)—complete!

You say “For what?” Perhaps for being taken away from starring to sharing; from snapping a cigarette outward, and into the dark night to respecting the puppet show. Who knows, but pride and arrogance become marble in the tower of loneliness; in a quiet fathomless mist one must remember it is the balanced dark that seeps down upon us.

#1461 9-13-2006

2006-09-14T13:05:00.000-07:00

Two Poems: Let it Rain & Youth's Short Duration

Let it Rain

Death, comith,
thus, we must march on;
if barefoot so be it—
we are of the tribe
of three layers (humans),
hence,
a drop of water
continues to erode
our surface
to its bones
(there we will find):
barbarism,
immortality
and bread—.

We are the horde
(you know)
of materialism—.

This grand annoyance—
only the little ones
the shortest of us all—
are immune to the
tensions in the air—
(under the clouds).
Thus, we learn, man
From their tribes—thirst,
As melancholy fills our eyes!

Note: written 9-4-2006, #1458

4)

“Youth’s Short Duration”
(A Poetic Epigram)

In the spring of life one loses all innocence. It is but one season youth has before it fades; thus, the maturing summer: the season one must stop being an observer and experience, arrives. Then fall, innocence has no playmates, and sorrow is on the plate. It is youth’s short duration.

Note: The author feels this period hi is talking about, in his poem, “Youth’s Short Duration,” is but four years, between 12 to 16 years old, (take or give a year).

2006-08-05T20:22:00.000-07:00

War Poems on Iraqi
[And Three Epigrams]

Section three

24.

1) The Color of War I
[Iraqi: war poem]

I saw the other day—
A little boy coloring away
(With crayons) in a sketch book;
With every colored pencil
Under the rainbow—
And then some…

And when I took a second look
I thought of the Iraqi war
(American and Allied soldiers)
And all the colors it stood for:

Red was for the blood they’ve shed;
Gray, for depression of their families
Far away…
Blue was for sad skies;
Black and white, for death and life;
Green, for the spoils we’ve not seen;
Brown, for the dry and dusty nights
All the soldiers had to fight—on
Foreign ground.

I pleaded, for the boy to stop,
Surprised, he looked up at me—
With his deep blue eyes, haunting
‘Me,’ he said, with a tear on his cheek:
“I wanted to color the soldier’s feet!”
I looked and there it read: ‘Peace’
Already colored-in, with gray:
Said the boy still looking at me:
“That’s the way it came.”

#1371 6/16/06

Here is an unusual war poem Dennis has written today, on the Iraqi war. He said after following it for four years, “…it is getting old; yet it sells papers doesn’t it?” He was for the war when it was a war, so he told me, but now it is not, it is more a police action, he explains to me, and feels perhaps we have overstayed our welcome. “And what are the motivating factors now?” he asks. He adds, “When we get into questioning the motives, after a war, when they are not clear, it is perhaps time to leave…” Dennis being a Vietnam Veteran knows a little bit about how it all works; and here in this poem, he paints his picture of war, the Iraqi war, and how he sees the colors of war through color crayons of a little boy. Rosa Penaloza

Commentary on War: I’m fifty-eight years old, and I can’t remember a time when the United States was not at war, preparing for another war, or just getting over a war (not to include WWI and WWII); thus, we’ve had a busy half-century. I was but three years old when the Korean War broke out, in l950, and in 1953, when it was tranquilized. Then again in 1964, my friends went to Vietnam, and I in 1971, that war ended in 1975, an eleven year war. I thought we’d have peace but we got a few more wars in-between (we always do); such as, in the 80s Haiti involvement, Granada, and some secret Central American things; nothing real big. And then we got Bosnia in the 90s, and a few other little East Europe wars to attend to (mixed with these wars we had Granada and a few African uprisings); always helping out Europe with their little squats, which they feel are important, and when it comes to American made squats, of course they are less important to them. Also in the 90s we got Iraqi I, and in the now 21st Century, we’ve had to contend with Afghanistan and Iraqi II. We are a country full of warlords to be sure. What will be next, between 2007 and 2016, as I had predicted in 1984, we will be in line with the onset of WWIII. We have been fighting it since l950, with Korea, now it is set in motion: the war on terror is part of it of course. When I say set in motion, I mean, things are going to fly. We already got Iran and Korea on the hot list; Syria is bordering it; and we are going to have to contend with the Arabs sneaking through South America to North America and lighting up a path once they got on solid ground. Russia and China are becoming economies with highbrow ideas; we may have ruled the 90s, but I fear, things will change, as often they do. Dlsiluk

Spanish Version

El Color de la Guerra
[Iraquí: poema de guerra]

Ví el otro día—
A un niño coloreando lejos
(Con crayones) en un libro de dibujo;
Con cada lápiz de color
Bajo el arco iris—
Y luego unos …

Y cuando miré de nuevo
Pensé en la guerra iraquí
(Soldados americanos y aliados)
Y todos los colores que esto significó:

Rojo era por la sangre que ellos vertieron;
Gris, por la depresión de sus familias
A lo lejos …
Azul era por el cielo triste;
Blanco y negro, por muerte y vida;
Verde, por el despojo no hemos visto;
Marrón, por las oscuras y polvorientas noches
Todos los soldados tuvieron que luchar—sobre
Tierra extranjera.

Supliqué, para que el muchacho se detuviera,
Sorprendido, él me miró alzando su vista—
Con sus profundos ojos azules, atormentándome,
él dijo, con una lágrima sobre su mejilla:
“¡Quise colorear los pies del soldado!”
Miré y allí éste decía: “Paz”
Ya coloreado en éste, con color gris:
Dijo el muchacho todavía mirándome:
“Esta es la forma en que vino”.

# 1371 16/Junio/2006

Aquí está un poema insólito sobre guerra que Dennis ha escrito hoy, sobre la guerra iraquí. Él dijo después de haberla seguido durante cuatro años, “...se esta volviendo vieja; pero aún está en los periódicos, ¿no?” Él estuvo de acuerdo con la guerra cuando era una guerra, eso él me dijo; pero ahora no lo es, esta es más una acción policial, él me explica, y siente quizás que hemos abusado de nuestra bienvenida. “¿Y cuales son los factores de motivación ahora?” él pregunta. Él añade, “Cuando entramos a preguntarnos los motivos, después de una guerra, cuando estos no son claros, éste es quizás tiempo para marcharse…” Dennis siendo un Veterano de Vietnam conoce un poquito sobre cómo esto funciona; y aquí en este poema, él pinta su cuadro de guerra, la guerra iraquí, y cómo él ve los colores de guerra a traves de los lápices de colores de un niño. Rosa Peñaloza.

Comentario sobre la Guerra: Tengo cincuentiocho años, y no puedo recordar un tiempo cuando los Estados Unidos no estaban en guerra, preparándose para otra guerra, o justo saliendo de una guerra (sin incluir la Primera y Segunda Guerra Mundial); así, hemos tenido un medio siglo ocupado. Tenía tan sólo tres años cuando la Guerra coreana estalló en 1950, y en 1953 cuando fue tranquilizada. Entonces otra vez en 1964, mis amigos fueron a Vietnam, y yo en 1971, aquella guerra terminó en 1975, una guerra de once años. Pensé que tendríamos paz pero tuvimos más guerras en el intermedio (siempre lo hacemos); como las de, en la participación de Haití en los años 80, Granada, y algunas cosas secretas centroamericanas; nada verdadero grande. Y luego tuvimos Bosnia en los años 90, y otras pequeñas guerras que asistir en el Este de Europa (mezcladas con estas guerras tuvimos Granada y algunos levantamientos africanos); siempre ayudando a Europa en sus pequeñas ocupaciones, que ellos sienten son importante, y pasa que cuando America hace ocupaciones, desde luego estos son menos importantes para ellos. También en los años 90 tuvimos la Guerra Iraquí I, y en el ahora siglo XXI, hemos tenido que competir con Afganistán y la Guerra Iraquí II. Somos un país lleno de jefes militares para estar seguros. Qué será el siguiente periodo, entre 2007 y 2016, como lo había predicho en 1984, estaremos en fila con el comienzo de WWIII. Hemos estado luchándolo desde 1950, con Corea, ahora esta puesto en movimiento: la guerra de terror es parte de ello desde luego. Cuando digo puesto en movimiento, quiero decir, las cosas van a volar. Ya conseguimos Irán y Corea en la lista caliente; Siria colinda con éste; y vamos a tener que competir con los árabes que se mueven a Norteamérica a traves de Sudamérica y encendiendo un camino una vez que ellos se pongan en terreno firme. Rusia y China se estan volviendo economías con ideas intelectuales; podemos haber gobernado los años 90, pero me temo, que las cosas cambiarán, como a menudo lo hacen. Dlsiluk

25.

2) After the Dawn of War II
[Iraqi 2006]

I looked over the shoulder of the world
Through its crawling fog
And heard the cold cries
Seen the stir in the eyes
Heard the trumpets of war
Breaking the silence of dawn
(Heard somebody say):
“Soldiers will die today
For Iraqi Liberty—
That thou endure.”

#1371 6/16/2006

Spanish Version

Después del Alba de Guerra
[Iraquí 2006]

Miré sobre el hombro del mundo
A traves de su niebla que avanza lentamente
Y oí los gritos del frío
Ví el movimiento en los ojos
Oí las trompetas de guerra
Rompiendo el silencio del alba
(Oí alguien que dice):
“Los soldados morirán hoy
Por la Libertad Iraquí—
Que tú soportas”.

# 1371 16/Junio/2006

26.

3) War Flag III
(Post Iraqi)

Lone are the days and short
Before the next cruel war—
What spirit then shall fill a sweet despair?
To wave the flag of war…and say:
“I’m ready and here!

#1372 6/16/2006

Spanish Version

Bandera de Guerra
(Puesto Iraquí)

Solitario son los días y cortos
Antes de la siguiente guerra cruel—
¿Qué espíritu entonces llenará una desesperación dulce?
Para agitar la bandera de guerra...y decir:
“¡Aquí estoy y Listo!”

# 1372 16/Junio/2006

War Epigrams

“Someone said on TV, America Loves war, I say, America loves peace, and to have peace, you better be ready to fight a war.” #1401

“In the real world, every terrorist group, every and dictator knows, should you show your weak spot (like in boxing or Karate), expect a blow right there—a knockout punch or kick. If you have no weak spots, you best guard everything, because they’ll be trying to make one.” #1402

“The loser in war can never complain he got a raw deal,
lest he want his head cut off; so you best win.” #1403

2006-08-05T15:59:00.000-07:00

Three Motif poems

A Cage With no Top

I desire a topless cage—,
Trivial as it may seem;
I need it for my compulsions,
To let my winged spirit, fly away
On short excursions, to the blue!

Barring from me this freedom,
Fall as I may, unto my doom.

#1409 [1/5/2006] Dedicated to and inspired by Johannes S., W. Faulkner, Ben S.; written at El Parquetito (Miraflores), Café, Lima, Peru

Note: Small and to the point is the poem, “A Cage with no To,” a cage is where you bar someone from freedom, put more controls, rules on them, in this complex world, and perhaps we need one big cage, people are becoming more predatory, so it seems from forty years ago. Thus, we seek prediction, unchanging days, or days that may change, but slowly does it. A serene life we all seem to seek, or prefer, with small intervals with blemishes not too hard to adjust to; adjustable to Quietude that is; I could name it I suppose. I see my life as a cage I guess, no top to it, and a house with no windows, so no one can look in, in a day and age when everyone wants to.

Clarity for Peace: in War

Peace the world cries, as the two warriors stand behind brush and tree, watching two horses pull a single cannon along a rough empty road, ready and waiting to go, to go find disaster down the road, and bleed.

Note: Dedicated to the Israel and all its soldiers, in this trying war with Lebanon, Iran, and Syria 8/5/2006]

Curtains and Shapes
[Evening shapes]

(Once upon a time:) once untroubled as cows, squirrels, or birds, man had found himself cursed, ignored, reduced to chaos, with boxes of possessions, heavy bags; buildings, now all surrounding him (his once peaceful life)--; once untarnished by grief, he now spends afternoons bellowing about the grave. These men stood quietly looking out their widows, curtain strings by their side—waiting for twilight, looking beyond dissolving evening shapes…! Ready to shut the curtains and try to go to sleep.

#1410 8/5/2006 at EP Café, Peru

2006-07-30T14:30:00.000-07:00

Two Poems: One More Day and She Grew Old

One More Day

It left her young,
For her old age—
As she would say:
‘I’m looking at another day.’

All her hours
Were butterfly songs
Warmly fashioned
Through her hum…!

Shiny days, and nights:
At the end of her life,
She had a rainbow
Kind of sight…!

Note: #1406 written at El Parquetito, café, Miraflores, Lima Peru. 7/28/2006; my mother’s last years of life, w ere calm, refreshing, peaceful, but of course, she made it that way.

She Grew Old

I, whose longing never dies,
Things I will never know or tell
Often wondered, how she’d die.
As I traveled around the world

Under fairer skies than mine,
Peaceful valley’s did she find;
She did not seek a richer part
Where she travels, goes her heat!

In the winter, she knitted and sowed,
With wonder and desire, she grew old.

#1407 written: 7/30/06 at ‘La Perla Piurana,’ Lima, Peru. My mother tried to live a simple life, not sure if that looks good in the eyes of the world, but it fascinated me, perhaps because I wanted touch the stars, and she was so content, on earth.

2006-07-29T22:17:00.000-07:00

The Meat Packers Son
[A poetic Lament: in prose]

You are like a sparrow that is not here:

The fat guy with the white mustache—The Asian lady nearby, smiling, listening to a bronze skinned guy –(next table over) under the umbrella of the café, next to mine: We’re all just people going to die, under the naked sky, some stuck in beehives. —We’re all thinking it’s far off, thinking it will never come to that, but death comes, we see it all around, it just isn’t our time, and I’m just a meat packer’s son, making a rhyme.

‘Old man,’ they call me now, capped with a receding hairline, a few white hairs, here and there, a drought, rising inside my brain, knotted muscles everywhere; once unimaginable, like vapor clouds in my eyes. I see my Mother in that old sofa chair, she’s saying, “I never expected to live so long,” how strange it seemed back then, now, I got one upstairs.

My saga is hammering, I live in a labyrinthine circle, with root deep bones, knuckles, shoulder, chromosomes, breaking down; dreams not worth much anymore: they come during darkness and vanish before dawn. I have a grimace on my face, like the cool breeze from the ocean, which moistens my eyes; winter in Lima is always too unruffled, upon the topsoil of my face.

The old fat man’s gone to the can; to my left, the new breed, he sits at the table, computer above his knees, a cup of coffee, by his elbow, nothing else, he’s got the world by the tail, but it looks to me like a lonely table.

The fat man now is standing, looking for change; I’ll never see him again! He got his camera in hand; I wonder if he’ll live to see the pictures, I hope he so. But I suppose I really don’t care, out of sight, out of mind, I’m just a meat packers son, one with a soft face, crab-claws who fought in Vietnam.

Mother, Mother, what ill-bred son have you so wisely kept, if you could see me again? I’m mouth less, eyeless, bald and fat, it would have killed you instead. Mother, you praised my poetry once, un-teachable I was, but I learned, I learned dear mother—and now you are somewhere floating above me, listening. Like bluebirds that never were, life has come and left her. And left me in the kingdom you bore me to, you even had to help me tie my shoes, so helpless I must have been, way back when. My eyes nowadays, seem as if they are in milk-covered glasses; I was proud to be a meat packer’s son, I still am, I told everyone, under this now, flat dull sun.

I wonder where the old fat man went—? Like life to death, he came and diminished—; wonder if he was a hell of an old warrior, like my mother and I: lifting the delicate hammers in life, catgut stitches on our hearts. Peaceable she died, with the Lord, Jesus Christ by her side.

I wander if they have bald angels up above, insane world down here: like entering a nightmare; waiting for death, for the wood and stones over our heads.

[End]

Images of light are flimsy, I have leaf-size veins, that seem to have a lack of action, filled with something; I used to call my mother “The Queen bee,” she used to smile when I said that, like sugar roses; I’m on my second cup of coffee, a heat lamp over my head, the night market of Miraflores, is being set up, over in the park, everyone’s looking to me, to be, camouflaged, conspicuous.

I’m looking about, tables, tables, heads and bodies, I think a meat packers son, how she’d love to come home and tell me of all the gossip going on, down at the stockyards, like snowflakes, in Minnesota, falling down over head, and we laughed; I wonder how many boxes of bacon, she had to pack?

#1405 7/29/2006; written at El Parquetito, Miraflores, Lima, Peru

2006-07-29T17:49:00.000-07:00

Elsie's Christmas (Back in '32)

A note about the poem: Elsie is my mother. She loved Christmas Trees; decorating them. She is today 81-years old (written four years ago). She doesn’t decorate them any more, but Christmas time, the buying of gifts, the Cards and all seem always to be the best of the year for her; and of course Christ’s birth. I wrote this poem in December, l982, and it was published on December 16, l982. Now, almost 20-years later, I re-discover it, and share her memories with you. I remember talking to her just prior to creating the poem. I asked her what came to mind. And when I gave it to her, she care for well, keeping a copy in her bedroom drawer.

Part I

It was back in ‘32
When a paper-doll would do--
Icicles, wooden shoes.

And just about Christmas

Time--I remember--
I’d be huddled
With a brother, sister

Friend…
On a street corner
Watching fire-engines,
Street--cars, --Racing

Through town--
On cobblestone streets,
Where children sang songs.

And not far away

Was an orphanage
--I recall--
St. Joseph’s (in St. Paul):
I spent some time there

After Ma died;
But it never got me down--
Remembering how she loved

Christmas year-round.

O! how I love Christmas time--
With all its beauty and rimes;

With the horse drawn sleighs
And old street lamps,
The Salvation Army
Ringing their chants.

And each Christmas

I’d walk with dad
To the market place--
Hauling a Christmas tree

Home that same day;
Dressing it with tinsel,
Bulbs of all kinds.
Listening to the radio,

Playing Christmas chimes.

Part II Elsie’s Christmas [l982]

It’s now ‘82
Times have changed;
More Santa’s
Are doing their thing.

Artificial Christmas trees
Year round Christmas socks;
More children on skies,
Snowmobiles in the parks;
More toys, TV’s--

Parking lots;
Christmas cards that seem

To talk.

Festivals of merriment,
Ice-fishing on lake

McCarran’s;
Ice Castles, Parades --

Not quite the same,
Not --

Quite like ‘32

But it’ll do.

But the church bells

Haven’t changed;
The white snow-flakes

Still remain; and
The North Wind -- still howls

With a whispering chant.

O! how I love Christmas time --
With all its beauty and rimes;
Like back in ‘32
When a paper-doll would do.

Part III

Some things will never change
Like back in ‘32 -- we all knew:

In a stall in Bethlehem,
In a land called Judea

2000-years ago--
A baby child was born, called,
Jesus Christ our Savior.

Word count: # 989/re-edited 2001

Added new version: Part IV

Elsie’s Christmas--2001

O! the fun has never stopped even at 81

I watched her as she watched me
Open my gifts a few days ago, as if

She was but ten

Still the love for Christmas lays

Deep within her heart
Like back in ‘32,

When a paper doll would do.

And although she can’t reach or walk

Like she use to way back then
She still can wrap them gifts

And so this is my story to you,
A Christmas at 81, for my mother,
the whole

Year through…

2006-07-29T17:41:00.000-07:00

Rogue Poetry

[Commentary] —I’m not so young anymore, I seem to think I’ve recognized something that has escaped most of the modern age that perhaps most of us are people lost inside our own heads.

When I look at my past, it now seems to be akin to roads unprepared, rivers still with old levees, and fields full of weeds, and unplowed. I suppose you can say that of any new generation coming onto the scene—one feels they have not enough time to finish what they started before the new one takes over. It is indeed a pilgrimage to write about it, in plain terms.

Few people recognize the poets and writers I quote today, a few select perhaps do—here I shall lay bare the sleeping world, and bare my soul, perhaps the rogue in me will come out:

1) Tired Rogue Poet

I feel we are being closed in!
from all that I have seen—.
I’m tired, otherwise I’d find
some hope I suppose: finished.

I am fifty-eight years of age;

year of the water-downed bird.
I am ill a lot of the time, my
mind is severed from my head…

i noticed this a few nights ago— when I tired to go to bed.

#1021 12/23/2005

2) Eccentric Poet

Flesh and bone—a
haunted mind;
i change with my moods,
my moods are my
weather—.
I do not blame my mind
for my hallucinations
it’s all gossip that descends
on eccentric’s
descends from the heavens—
or seeps up from hell…!

#1022 12/05

3) The Butterfly and Me

When I’m walking,
whomever I’m talking to
(and it could be myself),
in the mist of madness
walking with, or at a
café reading a book,
newspaper, poetry—etc:
it can appear, the moment
when the poem itself manifests—
like a butterfly, stretching
its wings for the first time—
it can appear, so I speak out!...

#1023 12/24/05

4) Christmas Madness

How many people stare into space,
contemplate their faith, or capture
a moment of indignity—?

Christmas is two days away; no—,
23-hours and thirty-five minutes.
Woops…! Not too far off…

—and we’re all standing in front of
department stores; walking down
malls: what a crazy faith!

#1027 12/24/05

5) Lost Worlds

There are other worlds out there to live on
i’m sure—but someone doesn’t want us to know—;
thus, making this one, the only one, the absolute one,
in place of the lost one—, the one—only they know.

#1024 12/23/2005

6) The Nature of Time

One time, is all time—
and time you cannot change;
barer, it can be stretched
or frozen—but the nature of
time remains—; a passage
to eternity.

#1025 12/23/2005

7) This is About Life

Poetry recalls the memory
of a past experience (existence)
to whoever has forgotten—
that life is the one thing
that makes the universe
shine and ring..!

#1026 12/24/05

8) The Squirrel Cage

They do not change in
The squirrel cage—
Man’s old single compulsions!

#1029 12/23/2005

8) Abhorred Old Drunk

The pall old drunk stood in the street, —
abhorred he stood looking at me,
his severed thumb hanging by a thread,
he shit in his pants, a car almost killed him;
his rainbow of life, like a candle put out—
I could see it in his eyes; a blank stare,
not knowing what happened, hanging on
to his thumb—in mid air: hanging on, on
standing there, there in the street…
(back in ‘88)…; why do I think of it now (?)
it’s much too late: it’s Christmas Time: 2005.

#1032 12/24/05; note: sobriety is a way of life, and I can only say for those who have tasted the bitterness of the drink, I will tell you now, get out of hell’s grip, before it’s too late; I’m recovering, had I not started 22-years ago, I’d never had made it to fifty-eight years old (I would have died back before my 40th birthday). Merry Christmas to you; and Happy Birthday Lord. Dlsiluk

2006-07-29T17:39:00.000-07:00

Attitude and Meaning in Poetry

I know I keep saying I don’t like to do articles on poetry, but I do, maybe because of all the writing in the world out there, I respect poetry above all the rest.

My wife was looking over a poem of mine today, translating it actually into Spanish, and she said, “You put a noun where a verb belongs, and if you put another verb in, it will be two in the same sentence. And I said, it is not a sentence, it is a line within a stanza, and it compliments the direct object. To be honest with myself, I really couldn’t find the word I wanted so I made up the word to be presented as a plural adjective so I could push in what I wanted to end the line.

Then I said to myself: she is trying to help, and it makes more sense to her (not to me), so I looked at the whole poem, and figured if I had to change that one word, I’d have to change the whole poem, the whole two stanzas, 10-lines. You can’t write a poem, no more than you can order creativeness, it doesn’t happen that way. So I said, let me look, and see if there is something in this poem beyond the word that can save the day. And I restructured the whole poem, and created a deeper meaning than what I wanted—but was happier with it, and left the word completely out, and my wife fell to sleep in the chair. I wanted to show her my accomplishment; I mean I had to stop everything in my life to ponder on this, to see if I really wanted to change it. I think I did it for her.

Right or wrong, it doesn’t matter, what does, is approach, or attitude; now let me start all over again.

I have four corners to my world, north, south, east and west, better put, God, myself, my wife and poetry.

First thing I’ve realized long ago in poetry was this—you take out of poets or poetry what you like, throwing the rest away. Good or bad, if it’s not for you, then why force-feed yourself. Thus, if you like what someone teaches you, it is good for you, if not, why argue about something or someone who is not for you. If you don’t like what I say, don’t read me. If you do, then fine; don’t conform to music that sickens you; that way you can keep a good attitude. When Elvis was making a record, if someone was in the area that bothered him, he’d stop the production and leave. It makes good sense, you cannot be creative with a bug in the nose, and that is why he was good, or perhaps one reason.

I was going to give a long example of an event that took place back in l985, when the Ronald McDonald House of St. Paul, invited me to a presentation, but I will make it shorter than what I intended to. Anyhow, in the process of me attending the presentation, they had asked me to do a small story, as the one I had done, “The Tale of: Willie the Humpback Whale,” back in l981. Well I did, but it wasn’t finished, yet I brought it along, was going to give it to the officials, for review. During the presentation, one of the officials looked it over, said something like this: if only you could take the rhyme schema out, and change the subject from turtle to a human being, and so for the and so on.

He was rude and demanding and I could go on, but I said: “You know what you want, go get it,” and I got up and walked out. They didn’t need me or want me as far as my creativeness went, and had told me over the phone, they didn’t know what they wanted, but I guess found out what they didn’t want. So instead of me trying to pretend, and fit in, I didn’t want to waste my time or theirs. If I lost anything, it was perhaps a potential future with an ongoing who knows what: I mean I was volunteering my services.

Anyhow, the one book I had done on the whale went up for a Pulitzer Prize, and I got a nice letter back, but not the Prize.

[Meaning of a Poem] Sometimes the poet gets lost and doesn’t’ even know his subject himself, or so I’ve noticed in much poetry I’ve read. Most of us think it is in the title of the poem, but could be to the contrary.

The problem comes not when he finishes up on a subject per se, but when he hobbles on, when he has already named it. It’s kind of like sitting down with an old friend and running out of things to say, thus, you grab whatever pops up in your mind: this creates in the reader confusion. If it is said, leave it alone, we don’t need to pound a person with it. Faulkner does that sometimes, and it irritates me, but he does it for his own reasons: he gets lost also, so do not stop writing if you are…just slow down.

—I hate to say this, but I will: arrogance is good, a little good in poetry—in a poem, if done right, just so you don’t take it to heart, and display it outside of the stanzas. What I write, I write because I want it there, usually, and I like a lot of imagination tucked in the corners. And thus, attitude and meaning are important ingredients in a poem; the reader can see it, feel it. The reader is no dummy, they may not write it, but they know it. Sometimes they are the better poets, not because they wish to write it, but because they love it, and those are often the ones who appreciate it more, and don’t like it mopped around on the floor; they have a good inner eye; we poets, are perhaps the ones with the eccentric eye, somewhere in the back of our minds trying to unveil the monster.

—Let’s see if I can say this right: never write a poem that should have been written because someone told you they wanted to hear it, write it because it should be, perhaps, and it is something you overlooked, and would have done, but not directed to do in particular, you lose the creative touch; or at least I do, and the meaning of the poem becomes stale.

2006-07-29T17:36:00.000-07:00

African American Poetry [By a white man]

1

Woman from Alabam'

I once known a woman from Alabam’
Who would kiss with a slam and a bang!
And-all I could smell, when we made love,

so well,
Was cabbage, snuff and chicken-wings.

#1196 2/10/06

2

The He-bee

The He-bee
Said to the she-bee
“Stand still a while,
I’m going to make you smile;
Give you some honey~!”

#1195 2/10/06

3

The Nut in the Rut

Here’s to you ‘Nut!’
Who’s stuck in a rut—,
With slimy hips and all;
I’d rather die, in some
Pumpkin pie, than kiss

Those drippin’ lips!

#1197 2/10/06

Flat on her Back

Flat on her back she
Called to me—
Said she had something
And it was free… —
But something for nothin’
Didn’t include pussy…!

#1198 1/10/06

Note: you see in Siluk’s poetry a zest for life, with some sparks; he lives in a world that is his own, for the most part, most of the time, and has lived in most places he’s written about. He lived in Alabama for 2 1/2 years in the late ‘60s and again in the late 70’s. His German poems, take the road he traveled in Germany, as well as his time in Seattle, San Francisco, Minnesota and Peru. Some with humor like the ones on African American Poetry, and some on tradition which deal with Peru; and some on the winters of Minnesota. Thus, he seems to reach to whatever his mood is for the places he’s been to. Rosa

2006-07-29T17:27:00.000-07:00

On Poetry/In-between

I’m not sure how to present this or say this, it seems more subjective then mainstream, but it has been used by poets, I’ve used it, and at times not knowingly, and at times knowingly. It’s not prose, and it is not an ode, or an epic, or even lyric in the form of what a lyric should be, yet it is personal or can be. No I’m not double talking, It’s poetry for the most part that is in-between the stream. It is a more natural poetry I do believe, and often a more descriptive form of poetry. Robert Frost has used it, as well as Robinson Jeffers, to pull two poets out of the hat, who has used it well.

It is like a wave of warm air reoccurring and you feel it, quantity or accent, or both, or by way of syllables attached to a rhyme schema, however you got it, it is there. And it should have this or it is not what I am describing. It is real poetry, and perhaps at its best because it has all the ingredients, perhaps not a perfect beat, but the understanding is usually better.

I think the warm wave, or recurrence, a regular enough one to be embedded with a mixed but soft rhyme schema is the quality of poetic life, in this and in most any poem: if it is pronounced moreso, it rings high tone; I prefer the low tone. If you don’t have it I’m not sure if you can call it a poem, it is why out of 1200-poems, I’ve only translated perhaps 250, from English to Spanish, you lose sometimes that wave of warm air.

I do believe in this kind of poetry, the poem remembers the turning or waves of life and its death. Let me rephrase this. A poem to me has a heart and soul, it belongs to you, but it has your residue, thus, it has you in it. It knows it has waves, and if that is what you are looking for, and lacking, it knows it has death, because you don’t have what you want for it. If that makes sense, and everyone who reads it knows it. It is kind of like having a bad day, and you try to hide it, and you can’t, you might just as well say, I’m trying to smile, but it’s hard today; something like that.

I am not giving advice on poetry, that’s a job for the professor at the University, although I’ve been offered such a position, I’ve declined it, I am giving my opinion, and that makes it all right. I may say strong or soft form of rhythmic poetry is the best, but then read something to the contrary, and have to take it back. My poem called: “The Fifth Moon,” lacks rhythmic form—it does have a shallow and soft wave to it, as it was planted into it but it is more on the prose and meant to be, and does not really deal with permanent things, and doesn’t avoid exaggeration. It may be original and rare though, I don’t see much of that prose kind of poetry nowadays, and so I think it is good. It has its own beauty. But when we shift to the poem “Passing by the Cathedral,” we find a different kind of poetry, almost in-between. But it has a regular movement, but meter is not tidy, but the warm air is there. And in the recent poem, “Grandpa’s Cellar Ghosts,” we see even a moreso, in-between poem, as I call them: with waves of life not death, not for the poem anyways.

2006-07-29T11:16:00.000-07:00

Jerusalem Weeps
[Judas Iscariot] Poetic Prose

JUDAS: what luck have I, a fisherman, to save the world through me, oh, I must be the prophet of doom, for doom is what will save the world, through my secret knowledge which will be light onto the world. A small gift for honest and one eyes. I heard the voice, it sounds cruel I know, I am Judas Iscariot, who shall take my place! There is no one willing to. My father as you know was and is a simple storekeeper, he will be proud once he knows the reasoning. [Says Judas, enthusiastically to Peter, by the temple in Jerusalem, in an alley.]

PETER:
friend: do you think misfortune will bring your salvation? Is it not love he reached, and now you tell me, your love for the world, and willingness to sell Jesus to the murderers will produce an escape for man’s sin, you are the goat, the sacrifice, and the prophet.

JUDAS TO PETER:
to see me joyful is hard I suppose for you, I am only the one to balance things out, I am not the sacrifice, although I am sacrificing myself in a way, for I know people will not be merciful, to me, in future time, and now I can see the laughing of many at me for selling out my master. But I did much more than that. I did not, like you, deny my master three times [Peter trembling] I will not hide from the glory I’ve sorrowfully produced, I did what man was meant to do, yes, it is a mystery, hidden knowledge I have, what you do not understand. When I kissed Him, I felt a burning fire, and I remembered the prophecies, I heard them in my heart, Jesus even told me: the world did not hear him, at the table, I but I heard Him.

PETER:
no, Judas, those that see and hear God clearly, do not place their sins on the alter and forgive them themselves…say they are Jerusalem’s hope; you are a criminal to God’s court, you have sentenced his Son to death!

2006-07-29T11:15:00.000-07:00

Elements of Poetry:

there are many elements in poetry, I’ve written on a few before, I normally do not make it a habit to do so, I’d rather swim in with the piranhas, and let the skeletons do the narrating on what is and is not poetry. But here is how I see a few things, take it with a altering view please, nothing is written in stone here:

Free Verse without fixed meter or rhyme but using formal elements of pattern verse (e.g. assonance, alliteration); it is a popular way to write poetry, everyone who has published contemporary poetry seems to have used it in one way or another.

Suspense in poetry can be created by what is called lines enjambed; that is, a clause or sentence can run over into the following line (I have used it many of times). Thus a kind of mystery is forced, or expressed, emphasized: as used here in the first sentence of my poem, “To Death”.

2006-07-29T11:08:00.000-07:00

Chachapoya Countryside [Peru]

As one rides by in a car, visits a house or two on foot, a few shops in the villages and towns of the Amazonas, whole families walk by with mules and cows, along the roads to these locations: farmers on battered dusty carts, wagons with wooden wheels; no clocks in the city squares, some houses have no glass windows, nor screens: everything’s bare; some horses with no saddles, just a blanket; ploughs-gear old as the houses, a century or two. You can tell by their faces: their ancestors lived here for a thousand years, perhaps still walk the ground far and near. At the end of the road, or the road leading in (at the other end) of each town it seems to have chickens and dogs running around, laying down in the dust for coolness; mules stray.

Here in the Amazonas you wear long rubber boots for mud is unavoidable; women wear derby hats; landslides are like muck pies, thick and troublesome: everywhere, gangs of workmen cut through them: shovel-by-shovel: it’s another world.

Note: #1328 [4/23/06], Lima, Peru, Written at the Author’s home in the evening.

2006-07-28T20:14:00.000-07:00

Kuelap’s Spirit, Impenetrable Darkness

Kuelap’s Spirit,
Impenetrable Darkness

It would be likened to a disembodied
Blind spirit—
Wandering through unlit space!

If not for the swish of winds
Around my—
Soft, warm naked face…!

Silent sounds roars from the dead
Embodied in stone-darkness—
Inside Kuelap’s Fortress

Here lost souls, wail for peace
Ripping and sweeping in madness
With fitful gusts

As I regained my frozen feet
Felt the pounding of his heart beat
It halted…

Shuffled was their sacred ground
Of which they laid
From Horizons Dawn

I assured them from whence we came
We would not disturb them
Ever again…

Thus, he abruptly left back into his
Abode, stoned-darkness
(This Roaring dead soul)!…

#1300 7/28/2006; written at El Parquetito, Miraflores, Lima, Peru, during lunch. If you happen to stop by, ask for Dennis, he'll be glad to say hello. Rosa

Note: When I was in the Chachapoyas (Northern Peru), on the mountaintop in April of 2006, I visited the grand fortress of Kuelap, next to Machu Picchu, it is the grandest site in Peru, here I was with an archeologist friend, and a few others. Thus, the spirits are alive here, and are mad of the disturbance being caused them, so they told me, and so I told my team. The site is a pre-Inca site, that overlooks a valley, and river, most beautiful, not too easy to get to. A car can make it most of the way, providing there are not a lot of floods along the dirty dirt and clay roads, and there are many, many of them. And once at the site, you will have a small walk to its location, a guard, and tour guides are there, usually.

2006-07-28T19:16:00.000-07:00

The House of Early Horizon [The Cultures of Ancient Peru; The House of Blue]

In the House of Early Horizon
Is where the Chavin, Recuay,
Nazca, and Moche stay:
The Ancient ones of long ago

In Northern Peru; from the
Coastlands, Highlands, and
The Southern marron plains;
The Ancient ones, the Recuay

[And Chavin] of the Andean societies
Of this classic, enduring age:
Here farmers and herdsmen—
(Of the Valley de Callejon de Huaylas),

Worked and prayed, by hilltop
Fortifications; here they carved
Monolith stones; Supernatural figures;
Textiles, all sophisticated art.

#1398 7/28/2006

Note on Peruvian Cultures: The Recuay culture dates back from about 400 BC, to about 800 AD, and resides in the region known as—Ancash, a region located in Northern Peru, its capitol city is Huaraz, and its largest city is Chimbote. The name of the region originates from Quechua “anqash,’ meaning ‘blue.”

The Nazca are from the South, and perhaps had the best colored, and details poetry know in the ancient Peruvian world. The Moche, are from the Northern coastal areas of Peru, such as Chan Chan, etc. Tiwanaku, also having equal art in poetry as Nazca, but not as colorful, live in what is now Bolivia. All having fine art, textiles, potter, and so forth; the Inca empire, consolidated all of Peru.

There was kind of a cultural exchange shift, in northern Peru, in the North Highlands, following the Chavin’s collapse in 100 BC [perhaps its early horizon was abut 400 BC; but its footprints can be dated perhaps 1000-years earlier], and the interactions between them and Recuay. Perhaps a second one between 200-700 AD, with the Moche and in 750 AD, the Wari; thus, we can see a complexity in their societal ancient character, if we follow them from one stage to another.

2006-07-28T19:09:00.000-07:00

The Color of War [Iraqi: war poem]

Introduction: Here is an unusual war poem Dennis has written today, on the Iraqi war. He said after following it for four years, “…it is getting old; yet it sells papers doesn’t it?” He was for the war when it was a war, so he told me, but now it is not, it is more a police action, he explains to me, and feels perhaps we have overstayed our welcome. “And what are the motivating factors now?” he asks. He adds, “When we get into questioning the motives, after a war, when they are not clear, it is perhaps time to leave…” Dennis being a Vietnam Vetern knows a little bit about how it all works; and here in this poem, he paints his picture of war, the Iraqi war, and how he sees the colors of war through color crayons of a little boy.

The Color of War
[Iraqi: war poem]

I saw the other day—
A little boy coloring away
(With crayons) in a sketch book;
With every colored pencil
Under the rainbow—
And then some…

And when I took a second look
I thought of the Iraqi war
(American and Allied soldiers)
And all the colors it stood for:

Red was for the blood they’ve shed;
Gray, for depression of their families
Far away…
Blue was for sad skies;
Black and white, for death and life;
Green, for the spoils we’ve not seen;
Brown, for the dray and dusty nights
All the solders had to fight—on
Foreign ground.

I pleaded, for the boy to stop,
Surprised, he looked up at me—
With his deep blue eyes, haunting
Me, he said, with a tear on his cheek:
“I wanted to color the soldier’s feet!”
I looked and there it read: ‘Peace’
Already colored-in, with gray:
Said the boy still looking at me:
“That’s the way it came.”

#1371 6/16/06

2006-07-25T16:53:00.000-07:00

Lima’s Devouring Winter Dew

The mist of the pacific flows cool and fair—
On city streets that are far and near
With haunted blows, from Lima’s shadows.
Ah! Its pale magic mist now fills the air

Here I sit, at El Parquetito’s café
With a splendid delightful cup of coffee
As the phantom sun awakes and sweats
Trying to peek through Lima’s wintry cloak!

#1376 [7/5/2006] Written at EP Café, on a pale winter afternoon in Lima [July], Peru; dedicated to Rosa and Enrique, who had the pleasure to look up into this drab misty sky with me in Lima at 1:00 PM. Then after lunch, around 2:00 PM, the sun came out, but our lunch was now over. Wintertime in the central part of Lima is pale; with misty grays a lot of the time. And when the sun comes out, you got to bottle it, or run to it to enjoy the few hours you will have it. Winter’s in Lima are ‘Pale Dawns’ all day long, or can be. That is because you sit almost on top of the ocean. In farther out areas of Lima, the sun does come out. So today I was inspired to write about its bleakness, whereas, I normally write about all the positives; yet this can be taken as a positive, because when the sun does come, I parade around like a wild duck trying to suck up all the sun’s rays I can get.

2006-07-25T16:40:00.000-07:00

Sipan’s Valley Tomb

What is it in thy grave? That bleeds your sacred name

Of bygone years: Once long-forgotten in

A midnight tomb

Foredoomed!… Now resurrected for mankind.

O turn thou head to me In whose empty eyes I see,

Eternal legends! For I know, no need for thy

To say anything.

Ah, your hour did flee Ruled across the Sipan Valley:

That old glory lost in years Now remembered…:

Returns motionless—;

As the sun grows bright Once again, over Sipan’s tomb…

today, is yesterday’s sunset

Renewed…!

#337 5/2/06 written at El Parquetito, Lima, Peru; notes: in April I took a trip to see the tomb of Sipan, and its surrounding environment [Northern Peru]: its tombs, and its pyramids, and its valley; all seemed to carry a force, a hidden force in the sands. The bones of the Lord of Sipan are in a nearby museum, and a replica has been put in its place; this dread, can also be felt, as you stand by the outside tomb, some fifteen feet deep, as you look into it. The Spirits are annoyed to say the least. The Lord of Sipan, equal to King Tutankhamun of Egypt (so it has been said), equal in its worth of a great discover that is, dates back to 200 AD; it was originally discovered in l987, thus, it is a newer discover, like Caral, in Northern Peru, discovered in l992 (the site dating back to 3000 BC). The tomb has been replicated to look as it did on the day of discovery: five bodies within the tomb, with all its royal attire; it is a moving site, nonetheless, even with the original bones of the Lord of Sipan, taken out for posterity’s sake.

2006-07-25T16:36:00.000-07:00

Poetry Tips

Here are some tips that come to mind, things I use in poetry, and perhaps do not always use, and should:

1—I find [or believe] a ‘fact,’ in poetry, is not poetry, nor can it move the mind’s eye, thoughts, and one’s imagination.

2—I find repetition is, or can be effective, or can be valuable, but not when it shows the lack in, or scarcity of the imagination.

3—I believe, the use of semicolons and commas become or can become hideous, or hazardous if not used wisely. The poem can reek with wrong [ly] breaks.

4—I also believe in genuine poetry, or that, genuine poetry should vibrate; there is a vibration that exists, one needs to find it and use it. A kind of force; or something to carry it; most poetry does not emerge from the page it is written on.

5—Poetry I believe must have been felt as a personal experience. Again I do think the great lyrics (most of those I’ve read, and considered great) are clearly simple in diction.

Note: Fact with truth: modern poetry, has what may be considered an invaluable element to it, but it is nonetheless, the way life is, it is almost a requirement nowadays, as priceless as it is, it costs, and it resides beyond the mind, beyond thought and expression, idiom, appearance, and I hate to name it (as you may already know) it is called: good advertising, like a product, to put it over. Thus, poetry then must be unusual and sensational, a burden it must carry to the first step of the ladder. And when all the good poets are dead, we will find no more truth, I dare say, only detail and reality.

2006-07-25T10:37:00.000-07:00

King Toledo of Peru, vs. El Perro [The Hero dog]

Here is my new poem on the Hero of Peru, I do hope the King of Peru, Toledo, does not get mad, for the new hero has taken his throne away for a few weeks, the spot light I mean. But before I give you the poem I shall simply update you: El Perro (the dog), who has a name, ‘Lay Fun,’ to my understanding, was a watchdog on duty, and he killed a robber. And to the public’s dismay, the government, and Toledo is the Government in Peru, wanted him crucified, but some group came up with money and lawyers, and saved the dog from his doom, destiny, to a national hero of the month status. This of course, took the focus off the King of Peru, which Toledo, whom is on TV 7/24 I think. I doubt Sipan got as much attention as this little fellow got; I’m not saying he’s a bad king, he is Inca, so I know better—save, I could be roasted alive for writing this. Plus, he does like freedom of speech, and Americans, a few attributes not plentiful in South America nowadays, so I give him credit, and applaud. But on the other hand, I think his spouse (whom is out of control most of the time) ran off with a bunch of mummies to Paris or London or some place to cash in before the king steps down in a few days from his throne. So, having said all this, here is my little poem, dedicated to King Toledo:

E Perro—the Hero [of Peru]

There is hero in Peru these days,
El Perro, ‘Lay fun’ they call him
(I think it’s a he)—He killed a
Robber, I hear say, and he went
On trial the other day, for dog
Slaughter they say.

The Republic of Peru, took
A stand, and lawyers saved his
Dog, hide from the man:
Now he’s the hero of Peru,
I thought this could only happen
In America, I was fooled.

#1396 7/24/2006

2006-07-22T08:50:00.000-07:00

Fifteen Poems Out of Iraq

By Dennis L. Siluk
Dec. 13, 2004

(Dedicated to the freedom fighters of Iraq: in particular the Iraqi men, children and women; also, the American, and British Soldiers ((and the pint-size Coalition))

Pain and the Whip [#1]

If you are feeling no pain; and you do not see the whip (the whip of the strongman looking down from the clouds): why is it? Now ask an Iraqi the same question, and see what you get. Possible: “We feel the gust behind our necks, and the pain has never ended.”

(Isn’t it great to be an American?)

#413/12-2004

Blind World [#2]

Faithlessly the world hid, hid from the strongman of Iraq. We saw all the signs of desperation (and turned our backs). We hid (for twenty-years) completely within— like a fossil in petrified wood.

#414/12-2004

The Evil-Coalition [#3]

The inner ear was mute— it is so good at doing this—the United Nations has adapted it for Iraq. As has its evil-coalition: France, Spain, Germany, Russia and China (and half of America); but they can hear the syllables quite well in: bribes, contracts and oil. I think Saddam got them spoiled.

Human sounds: the crying of women and children; food for oil, while the evil-coalition took all the spoils. Recoiling sounds, never made it around—never pierced the deaf ears of the evil-coalition. As they walked on water to their United Nations positions.

#415/12-2004

Friends [#4]

Friend: they all call everyone friend at the UN; and put their foot, but not their heal, everywhere.

How is it that they do not love Iraq? They see their world, but not them. Without the United States they’d have no friends.

#416/12-2004

Holy Ground [#5]

Yesterday was like every other day. I got out of bed, turned on my computer and read. Tried to find some beauty in current events especial in Iraq.

I seen hundreds of Muslims kneel and kiss the ground—; building over and over again; as the world looks on.

#417/12-2004

American Soldiers in Iraq [#6]

The American soldier in Iraq changes everything. There are no thorns to hold them back: freedoms knocking at their door.

I’ve heard it said American Soldiers shouldn’t be there by those who would befriend the evil-coalition.

By folks like Robert Bly, that would rather give a lecture and not blink an eye on the Iraqi’s who have died—died, tortured, under past regimes (cannot anyone hear their screams?) How greedy we are to keep our freedoms to ourselves.

But the windows are open now, there is no wall to fence them in; they are neither ‘those nor them.’

#416/12-2004

The Question [#7]

Go to sleep Iraq, taste the freedoms on your back. Twilight has no secrets—anymore. People are running to and fro…. Two worlds with different doors; one that leads to democracy, the other that leads to scorn. Run, run fast, before the UN cracks your back.

#417/12-2004

The Hand of the United States [#8]

When Christ returns, he will be on a white horse, with a sword in his hand, it will not be a flower my friends. And so we march on to meet Him, as a warrior, no less than He would have us be.

They try to define you Iraq; radical or not! They wonder about your motives a lot. In the United States they say: ‘There is hope,’ and you are that. But not everyone knows how others think. While the world hides: grab the hand that is willing.

#418/1-2004

Note: created out of protest for the war; the author believes the war was right and just (proper), even against world opinion, although he does not believe we should be rebuilding the whole country; he believes it is not the job of the conquers to do such a task, especially at the expense of American tax payers; plus on biblical grounds [Ref: Old Babylon; and the Book of Revelation]. And he believes it is wise to bring the Americans home as soon as possible. We have almost accomplished what was necessary.

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Poems On Iraq [Dedicated To The Freedom Fighters]

By Dennis L. Siluk
Dec. 15, 2004

[Dedicated to the freedom fighters of Iraq: in particular the Iraqi men, children and women; also, the American, and British Soldiers (and the pint-size Coalition)]

The Spectator [#9]

(The Birds)

How would you know the cries of the Iraqi’s? when you simply turn your TV on and off (channels fixed for football and planting flowers, cartoons, Jay Leno and David Lettermen’s night talk shows, poking fun at hurting folks; no better than the insurgents; making amusement at everyone’s cost: no blood in their face: no shame. It’s not what the birds sing—in Baghdad.

#418/12-2004

The Spectator [#10]

(All Eye)

The eye sees, sometimes like a snail; a snail climbing over a dead body in Iraq. The ear translates sounds, but cannot talk, like water over rock. If all you have are opinions from the media, you do not long for conviction; stay in your hole, stir on…; better to lay down and fart out an egg.

#419/12-2004

Sensitivity: children of Iraq [#11]

It is too bad we cannot taste the tears of the children of Iraq—out of their dusty eyes. They hear their own voices when they echo back, (when I think of them) not knowing foe from friend. In this poetry I’m never sure what I’m gong to write. It can be a very silent subject with quill and mind; so many answers from so many minds.

#420/12-2004

The Soul for Iraq [#12]

The soul is the character of a person. It has a big job—more so than the eyes, and ears, the voice and even the legs of a person. LOVE comes from the soul: everything else vanishes; so if we give to Iraq, lets give soul.

#421/12-2004

Gloomy Faces [#13]

How easy it is in so many countries to see ones road, ones life path, that is set in for them. Hard to move a person from it, against the cold that blows—. “Leave my prosperity alone,” they say.

But the worms are the same in Iraq, as in Europe. They sit silently waiting for dawn, a new day, beginning. When we die, we are like the worms, waiting for a new dawn, what will we say on that silent day, to the worm gatherer?

How marvelous to look out my window and see so many gloomy faces—go to Iraq and complain.

#422/12-2004

Europe’s Dust [#14]

[And a little in Canada]

Most devils have now gone to Europe more dust to hind themselves in, and there is no wind. With feminine hooves they stand, side by side with their mates, as if to celebrate the dust inside their heads; Canada’s no different. The hoofed devils find it hard to believe, how easy they are to lead.

#423/12-2004

Europe’s Favorite Son [#15]

The Europeans play with Iraq, like a gang of school kids trying to inflict terminal doubt, throughout the schoolyard.

They never have looked seriously at Iraq’s will for freedom; but rather like a mother whose lost her favorite son (Saddam).

#424/12-2004

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2006-07-22T08:49:00.000-07:00

An Old Man In Baghdad

By Dennis L. Siluk
Dec. 18, 2004

[Poetic Prose]

How many people must die in the name of peace?

In Baghdad, the birds are not singing, softly, like in my backyard; men and women walk guarded all around. An old man, a public man sits in a park. He’s been in the trenches of course; he’s heard the hounds of war. He’s not over seventy yet. Just watching, a smile, his lips quiver—burnt-out fire in those old tired eyes. ‘How many people must die for peace?’ he murmurs.

“What an experience,” he mumbles; restless, moving about, his body not able to slow down. Only he knows what he is sorry for; ashamed of. He had killed many things that had been lovely in the world. There was a reason to his thinking. It didn’t matter anymore. There were tears in his eyes, “I’ll never talk about it again,” he sighs.

“No one comes out of war untouched,” he groans, looking at the hounds eating scraps of rat meat. “The war, mud—muddy people, how did I live through it,” he grunts. He looks about, solders, solders, everywhere, ‘…grab your moment, do your loving,’ whispers the old man. He chants, ‘In war you get to hate all people, it is only the bystander’s yelling peace.’

“The bystander, the spectator, they forget, forget—that for every dead man’s life, you put out a light, a life beyond them.” This is why the old man was weeping; a soul, American or Iraqi, or who knows—souls tossed out of their bodies and thrown to the desert winds. These were the images he brushed aside, now looking down, alone with himself, down for the weeping dead, all now anonymous, reduced to a dead pulse for him.

The warm air of the park hung motionless over him, as he swallowed the sounds of shifting feet, resting his back on a tree, falling slowly to sleep.

#426/12/16/04

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2006-07-22T08:48:00.000-07:00

Earnest Hemingway: Poet Or Novelist?

By Dennis L. Siluk
Dec. 20, 2004

I got a lot of Earnest Hemingway's books, many First Editions. Did you know he started writing poetry in l912 [couldn’t have been much older than 19 or 20, if that], and never stopped until l956, and as we all know, he died less than a decade after that, a suicide case, all history now of course? I’ve read a lot of poetry, although that does not make me an expert, but I do know who I like and do not like. But first things first, as a historical fiction writer, or non-fiction writer, he made his mark, and was good at what he did; yes, he was worth his salt; even if he had excessive dialogue, and short sentences, and a few misspelled words in his first editions [but most people do; Faulkner had 50-errors in one of his books, and Joyce it took 13-years to wipe out all the errors he had in Ulysses]. Nonetheless, “A Movable Feast,” is one of my most cherished books. And although I have his first edition of “The Old Man and the Sea,” I can’t stand the pace; when all is said and done, I think he could have written the book as a short story of 6,000-words vs. his 21,000/24,000. I like the book, “Across the River and into the Woods,” written in l950, he was sneered and jeered for that book, but I liked it, and he fell in love—to understanding—with one of the main characters of the book

(But again I can’t blame him; Faulkner had a mistress on the side so I’ve heard and some black blood in him from his great grandfather ((good for him)). Anyhow, he had to prove himself, so he wrote the Nobel Prize winning book, “The Old Man and the Sea.” Again, I prefer the previous. But as a poet, how does he fair in my eyes is what this ‘overview,’ is about.

How can I put this: with poetry I do believe he needed God’s help, and alas, God never gave it; need I say more, no, but I will; by the looks of things he used poetry to get out his emotions out—at any cost, which is good, and in the process though, he made a joke out of it; but again I must say, so did Dr. Seuss. I think Hemingway slammed every poet alive to include Graves, Stevenson, and Kipling to mention a few, which is fine, since I’m slamming him. He also used it to vent against his Christian views; he criticized them in essence; I wonder what he is doing now, I don’t think too much criticizing. But again, it was his way of dealing with stress and pressure, and getting mad at God for allowing two wars, and why not God. I mean, God didn’t’ start them, but I think he wanted Him to stop them; something like that. But why should God stop them, when man would just start them up again; that would be my view, if I were God. I’d kind of think: you made your bed, now sleep in it. But we all try to punish God for our own dirty lives, like the gays, and aids, and all that crap.

I use, I know, a few bad words now and then, but read his poetry and you get a massive structure of swear words to express his emotions that could hold up the Empire State Building. Reminds me of Allen Ginsberg [a nasty old poet], but Hemingway wasn’t that bad. His short stories, most of them I don’t care for, like Joyce’s and Sherwood Anderson’s; not half as good as O’Henry’s, or some of Fitzgerald’s. So I always end up back in Paris, with Hemingway, and “A Moveable Feast.” Although “To Have and Have Not,” was a great movie, the book didn’t sell that good, and I suppose the reason for it being a great movie was because William Faulkner did the screen play. Oh well, we can’t have everything in life can we now.

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2006-07-21T22:21:00.000-07:00

Hymn To Darwin

By Dennis L. Siluk
Feb. 1, 2005

Lead us by the nose, take us
Down the path of endless roads:
For gloom, confusion and despair
Who cares, lead anywhere!
Who can guess better than thee?
Lead us to your vacancy.

Wrong or right there is no quest
For Darwin knows the very best!
Tomorrow we shall hoot and rave
Never knowing we are slaves—:
Slaves to the mighty whims,
Of Darwin’s Evolution.

Bury God and the ghastly Devil,
Hell and Heaven just as well;
For we have thy Hymn, of Darwin
Better than a Fairytale—.
Ah, yes! –yes, where will it end?
By and by, it will be man.

2006-07-21T22:17:00.000-07:00

The Poles

By Dennis L. Siluk
Feb. 24, 2005

I am human because

Of ice

On both sides

Of the Earth…

Currents make us

Warm or cold…

Water flows

The way the Gulf Stream

Goes…

Should Greenland disappear

So would the thick ice

And cold air…

Solar energy warms

The atmosphere

The ice starts to melt

Shiny ice reflects

We’re cold again

(my friend, I’d guess)…

Salty-evaporation

Flies into the air…

The wind takes the heat

From the west to the east

Thus, it sinks

And so we start over

Again…

Water sinks

It stops flowing

Now where does it go…

—To the North or South Poles?

There is more to this poem

Than meets the eye

Or mind

An ice-free world

Is a possibility…

Climate change

Could mean many things

It is all about balance and heat

I think….

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2006-07-21T22:14:00.000-07:00

Poets And Their Mental Disorders

By Dennis L. Siluk
Mar. 6, 2005

Well, it shouldn’t be any secret, most poets have some kind of mental disorder. If that doesn’t sound familiar, just do a case study on any of them. Just for information sake, I’ll mention a few of the poets I like, and what I think was their mental make up, maybe I’ll even add myself into the picture, see how brave I am. So on one hand I may give my personal diagnosis on these poets, on the other I’ll leave out the prognosis, for most poets are guarded and it is hard to do. So empirical data is what I shall go by, that is others empirical data, and their writings.

Poets like Hemingway, and Dylan Thomas were all alcoholics, so we can attach an Anxiety disorder along with that obsessive-compulsive craving. Most poets are bipolar; we that is to say, have a few ounces of mania and depression to both sides of their personality, inwardly and outwardly. The bad thing with alcohol and depression, the more alcohol you drink the more depressed you get, one feeds the melancholy, to a deeper disorder.

For the suicidal caseload (of which I am not one), we got Hemingway again, Ann Sexton, Sylvia Plath, Thakl [The German poet, died at 27]; and a few more I’ll add in later. Some with organic personality disorders, like myself, and others with anxiety disorders, NOS/Neuroses]. George Sterling, one of the great poets, also committed suicide at a young age; in having I believe a bipolar disorder.

Schizophrenia is also another disorder not contributed to physical conditions to my knowledge, as would be organic type disorder. But a many poets fall into this category as we’ll for many with the bipolar disorder; Schizophrenia is simply boarder line with them.

In my early studies, and that was many years ago, I had to study Abnormal Behavior Patterns, for one of the many psychology classes I had to take, before I got my license to counsel, and it is impressive, if not annoying to see how many personality disorders are created by the organic type diagnosis. I had to deal with a verity of schizophrenia type cases also, finding most were above average at one time in intelligence, but catatonic stages whipped them dry, or paranoid type episodes sucked them into a vortex they could not get out of; often times leaving them with affective features.

But let me go on with the poets in general. Alcoholism, excessive drinking, addiction, drugs, opium barbiturates, they all play a role as psycho-stimulants, and have their down fall for the poet; no poet lives long on drugs or alcohol that is for sure. Although I do believe James Wright had some kind of mental disorder, a Minnesota poet, and did drink a lot in his day, died in l980, at the age I think of 53, it was cancer, like Clark A. Smith, who was a great poet, and H.P. Lovecraft, all dying to my knowledge of cancer; all three loners, reclusive to a high degree; possibly all with bipolar disorders; others with limited ability to interact, other than superficially with workers, supervisors, and the public in general; and when they did, it was normally brief at beast.

Robert E. Howard, after his mother died, committed suicide, he was a great weird writer, but his poetry was superb. As was Victor Hugo’s; Hemmingway’s poetry, of which I have little of, was arrogant, satirical, so his suicidal world was plagued from the start I do believe, by not only paranoia, for he did believe the FBI, as well as Castro himself was after him; thus he would fall into some alcoholic psychosis area/infection. Believe it or not, James Joyce was a great poet, the rest of his crap you can throw in the garbage. I do believe I could place him in an odd category called transient situational disturbances. Even Theodore Roethke, was a known manic/depressant, but good poet. Neruda, a poet from Chile, had two strange sides to him likewise. Ginsberg, was homosexual, and had his share of bazaar lifestyles, with Williams Burroughs, who could play the poet, but was not a real one in my eyes. So you see here, we got a pot full of crickets.

So it comes down to: do we have any sane poets out there? I doubt it; and if they are, they are most likely not giving you the Picasso in poetry they’d like to give, because they can’t. I could mention many more poets, but these are the ones that come to mind, lest we, and we should not, forget Emile Dickinson, and V. Woolf, both strange in their own backyards.

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2006-07-21T22:03:00.000-07:00

Ambrose Bierce (Poet Or Political Activist?)

By Dennis L. Siluk
Apr. 19, 2005

I’ve read Ambrose Bierce’s historical short stories concerning the Civil War, and some were most interesting; and I am sure he was a good reporter during that era--likewise; but a poet he wasn’t. I am not sure if political poetry is of any use to anyone, which I find tucked away between almost every stanza of every poem; so I say again, a political activist he was with his poetry; and not sure if it is of any use to a reader of poetry: lest they find themselves hard up for poetry. I have never found any use for it, nor has anyone else I know. Robert Bly, whom is a real Poet, has used it to get his protest and view on and for the Iraqi War across, which spoiled if not soiled his skills and reputation in so doing so; they do more damage to poetry than good. But than folks like Don Swaim, feels real poets like George Sterling, are a lesser breed than he, not sure if he has written any poetry, or just read it, but he feels qualified to degrade him; he says in so many words: if he had wrote like George Sterling he might have committed suicide himself (how kind he is with his unfamiliar spirit, leading him); Ambrose Bierce did similarly (suicide), he disappeared into South America, why? I would guess, for the same reason Sterling committed sucide, to lock himself up in a world he couldn not endure outside (kind of like, having a house without windows); But then, maybe Mr. Swaim is ahead of the game and knows more than all of us, that being, the art of poetry, imagary, and even more than his beloved Ambrose Bierce, who felt Sterling was his superior in poetry; glory to the hound-dogs.

------------

2006-07-18T10:15:00.000-07:00

Two Poems:Two Poems:
Dedicated To Islam And The Chinese Poets

By Dennis L. Siluk
Dec. 12, 2004

Overbearing
[Dedicated to Islam]

Many come by me walking
I shan’t remember but a few,
For those who came overbearingly
I have forgotten you…
…
…

It is like the bobbing of a tree
Bowing in a storm
I remember not the wind at all
Once the storm has gone.

#407 [12/10/04]

A Few Hours More
[Dedicated to the Chinese Poets]

New eyes An old man
Cow bells ringing on cows in Garmisch
The Valley of the Mesa Verde
The fish-fry in Beijing
On my plate of life
Appear many things…
A war that never goes away
Music and poetry that helps me
Live each day…
My bookcase is filled
My lamp is warm
I see night approaching
As I read on…
The birds are now gone;
So much I notice now—
Things, things I never did before.
Along the road of life I’ve learned
There are many, so many doors.
Tomorrow, I know:
I’ll still hear those cowbells ringing
In the Garmisch winds;
How marvelous to have been part
Of all of this, I’ve lived—;
To have been…
One of so many…that might
Have been, and was.
I am what I am, just a
Breathe on earthy shores—
Content as a fish, I might say
With a few hours more.

#406 [12/11/04]

"Overbearing," and "A Few Hours More"

2006-07-17T22:28:00.000-07:00

Three Summer Poems

1) Summer’s Song

Enter July, happily,
Summers here, and fair
Fancy-free, and young heats beat
With lovers everywhere!

Bright and dark eyes, smiles sweet,
Some tears along the way,
But ‘Winter’s gone,’ and
Summer’s here,
Laugh your troubles away.

#1392 7/17/06

2) Summer’s Edge

With you, my thoughts are sweet and dear
And my heart is trouble free, but
I sit and let the seasons by
Looking out my window frame—,
And wonder with my heart stretched thin:
“Is he in Paris again?”

#1393 7/17/06

3) Pretense Friends

They shook my hand, and smiled clear
They spoke with check and brow,
And all I heard was what they said:
“We’re friend forever now!”

And they were playful and mild
Who whispered lies to me back then,
The soul that grows in July,
May never mend again.

So young I was, and unwise
And so many a hearts, they split,
And little did they realize
They were only pretence friends.

Who brought me silly talk in June
Shall meet a bitter end,
For July is nearly over now
And my heart has yet to mend.

#1390 7/17/06 Written at El Parquetito’s in Miraflores, Lima, Peru; if visiting Peru, stop by the café and say hello to Dennis, he is usually there writing something, having a cup of coffee, busy writing over some Lomo Saltado, with a coke. Rosa

2006-07-17T11:48:00.000-07:00

"Who" [Dennis Siluk’s first poem]

Who made the earth:
who made the sky,
who made the clouds,
burst inside—?

Who made the moon
and stars that glow
—He’s my Lord
my love, in my soul.

He gave man light
to live and see;
He gave man dark
for a silent sleep.

He gave us feelings
and choices to use,
and we can plan them
as we choose;

But most of all
He gave simple laws,
such simple things
with great causes!

For when the day comes
and it will sure be:
when flesh and bone
meet gravestone—

Our heart and soul
will be judged as one!

Note by the Author: “Here is the first poem I wrote, to my knowledge, dating to 1959. I discovered it after my mother had passed on, in 2003; I had reviewed it I see my notes on it in 1980, so I had not seen since 1980 to 2003, some 23-years. My mother always read my poetry when it was simple and plan, and to the point, when I was young. I was back in 1959, eleven (11) years old, perhaps closer to twelve at this time. In this poem, it expresses I do believe my faith in God, Jesus Christ. It was written while I was living on Cayuga Street; I was I do believe sitting on some stairs leading up to our attic where me and my brother slept; we live in an extended family, with my mother and Grandfather. Perhaps it was my escape from the tough neighborhood I was living in. In 1958, we had moved from 109 East Arch Street, to this new neighborhood, at 186 Cayuga Street, St. Paul, Minnesota. My brother was perhaps fourteen at the time, or going on that age I suppose.
So for the first time ever published, here is my first poem, out of 1400.”
[Dennis Siluk’s first poem]

2006-07-17T11:20:00.000-07:00

Old Man Jay [Poem: written 1960/61; #8, Jr. High School Days]

Old Man Jay
lived in the trees
Old Man Ja
had ten mph shoes
Old Ma Ja
had a secret
Ol Ma Ja
could not forgive the self
Ol Ma J
had it under control

To different trees
he conveyed each night:
his hopes, and wishes
under the sky’s light

Ol M J
walked twenty mph
O M J
asked for forgiveness
o m j
spent all his time
trying to control
being out of controlling.

No one noticed
No one knew
that he existed
but…. o w j.

And because
he couldn’t
control,
his heart gave away
he died at thirty-three,
the city’s newspaper read:
“Vacancy!”

Note by the author: “Perhaps this should remind me (rereading this old poem after letting it sit for 25-years, and writing it 45-years ago), that when we are kids, we are displaying our gifts, if only we could see them; here I’ve noticed a pattern of diminishing letters, and the psychological melt down; perhaps that is why I majored in psychology in college, and a minor in literature. We think we are doing strange things, when we are not, we are doing, or writing what is inside of us, what we feel is important. Control is a major power player in any part of human behavior; in the Army, or family, or place of employment. The Government, the word power never rises as high as control I do believe. Influence is based on leadership, but behind leadership is control, and behind that is power. This poem was written in l960/61, number #8, while attending my first years of Jr. High School, at Como Park, in St. Paul, Minnesota.”

2006-07-17T10:45:00.000-07:00

Mr. Ground, the Hog (A Poem written during my Jr. High School Days))1960;#7))

Old Mr. Groundhog
who always seemed
to be around,
playing with us kids
from sun up to sundown
lived long ago, in the city
of St. Paul, Minnesota;
yes, the land of much snow.

With the city’s children
he’d play each day,
in parks, in every kindly way;
a legacy carried over from
his father’s day.

He became well known
all around, here and there,
the envy of parents,
who really didn’t care;
who had no time to play,
but shunned their kids out,
and would swear:

‘…there’s that crazy old man
that lives down the street!’

Note by the author: “Here again is a poem from my youth, another poem unpublished, and found tucked away in and among my many papers lying about, and for the jest, or better put humor of it, I have placed it in this collection (of six recently found poems, from my first years of Jr. Sir High School days, and two poem from my Sr. High School days). I’ll publish them one by one, and most likely put them into a future book, but for now you can read them first. This one here, “Mr. Ground, the Hog (1960),” was written I do believe when I was twelve-year old ((12 years old)). This is poem number #7 of #1390 poems to date written.
I first started writing poetry at the age of eleven, my first poem being “Who (1959),” which I found three years ago, after my mother had passed on. I will publish that also, which has never been published before and: “Typing (1962 #15),” written in 1962, and published in the book, “The Other Door,” my first book, and the “Beyond Man (1964 #17)) written in Journalism Class, at Washington High School, 2nd year, I was 16-years old;” also “Old Man Jay (1960/61 #8)) written during my attending Como Park Jr. High School, in St. Paul, Minnesota. So there is a little history here. During this period I wrote between 17 and 20, poems, the rest I’ve yet to find.”

2006-07-16T21:23:00.000-07:00

Epigrams #33 (Witticism: to Wake Up to (in Spanish and English now))

1—

There’s an old saying that’s quite true:
‘If there’s a will, there’s a way,’ alas,
Make sure you make room for a way
back though.

6/2004

2—

People don’t choose their fears—;
their jealousies, envies and hates,
they do.

3—

The secret is not that an alien race
has come to earth to visit us, it is in
that, it dies on a sunless planet,
someplace in nowhere.

4—

The Human Origins: possibly is
a mixture of ancient genetic mutations
and a face lift from Homo Habilis,
to the Homo creatures we are today.
But who did the uplifting?

5—

For every effect there is a source;
and who shall have the right to
possess it? It is a good question.

And to kill a killer, you must be
a more sever killer, or be killed.

6—

For every effect created
there is a price to be paid
by the population that safe
guards it.

7—

Faith believes, it also trusts—,
and it also tests.

8--

Evil breeds evil—thus,
the initiator has something
to look forward to… 9—

There are things more powerful than Hell
and its demons: it’s called: self-interest.

10—

Sometimes we’re in the mouth of the whale—
and still other times we are running from the lion;
seldom are we in the jungle undisturbed; thus,
when it comes about, we must grab the moment…

Note: Epigrams: 11 and 12 written 1/2006

11—

Tragedy

When there is pain
It becomes more important
(for some reason), when
happiness is nearby.

1/25/2006 [#1105]

12—

Cold Displeasure

Cold Displeasure leaves a man twisted
so tight it gives him exasperating absentee
thinking.

1/28/2005

Note: The following two Epigrams on
Character [13& 14] were written: 2/1993

13—

Character #1

I hasten to say—
Statements into man's character
Also refers o his soul!...

14—

Character #2

Character is often molded more by
[induced by] self interest; thus,
leaving man chained to a clock
that is about to crack.

More: Epigrams: 15 and 17 written 1/2006

15—

Imagery Poetry

Poetry: Imagery—(or, Imagination) in
poetry, is the life and character of a
poem—lest you clip its wings and
call it cosmic….

#1122 1/29/06

16—

The Living Ears

They stand along side of me,
those ears, filled with sounds—,
hand-made speakers (reversed)
by some angelic being; they
stand, those sea-faring twins,
my brethren, bringing their
emerald sounds into my head.

#1123 1/30/2006

17—

Barred Windows and Lost Shoes

In a world of figs and power-brokers,
Satan runs after poets; thus, I can’t
apologize for what is truth, but poets
always seem to be looking for a lost
shoes— save, they don’t jump out of
windows first…!

18—

Was God a boy scout? No one
thinks so but Americans.

#1136 1/06

19—

Believing in one religion to
another, because it was given
to you at birth, or at face value,
is like marrying in haste and
trying to make the best of it.

20—

An Ideal

An ideal (your ideal) remaining an ideal
within one’s self, until it becomes a
public nuisance (becoming annoying
to others), is your own fault if there is
a price to pay.

#1135 1/2006

21—

The Double Flag

What can America say to the world?

It hasn’t said already? —with
it’s granite walls, and pilgrims rock;
for its civilization has no one flag, it
has them all. And so it shares its
flag with the world!... (where we’re
all from).

#1129 1/2006

22—

Advice for Mice

I’ve leaned for myself, my senses
are better than my mind [thinking or
deliberating]. And another’s advice
bears self-interest; thus, what can
I do? Die as you will; pray as you
may; and avoid in-laws who have
more say with your spouse than
you.

#1130 1/2006

23

Character #1

I hasten to say
Statements into man’s character
Also refers to his soul!...

2/1993 [#1146]

24

Character #2

Character is often molded
More by (induced by) self-interest
Thus, leaving man chained to a clock
That is about ready to crack.

2/1993 [#1147]

25

The Outside World

Perhaps we are not supposed to have
contact with the world (s) outside;
what can it do but bring us conflict:
distort, possess, alienate—yet, it seems
to be part of our inexhaustible needs.

#1148 [1/2006]

February Epigrams

26— Part one and two [#1157] 2/2/2006

Time

If I find anything unforgivable,
it is squandering of time, in
a world we have so little of.

Wasted

Being unhappy is the norm
for some people; to point it
out, is simply throwing gun-
powder into a fire.

27—

Don, John and Me

Don said he was going to beat the crap
out of me for screwing his wife. He even
chased me around the pool table in the bar;
then I said: “Ok, let’s fight!” I tried to explain
that it wasn’t me, but he said John told him it
was. The following day, I said to John: “Why
did you tell Don such a lie?” And John said
to me, “Because you’re tougher than me, and
can beat him up.”

#1158

28—

Christ and Taxes

We kill a million Christmas trees to
celebrate one man’s birthday each
year, he is special of course, and is
worthy of this ritual. And some folks
have complained; but to be quite
honest, the IRS, cuts more down for
taxes.

#1162 2/2/2006

29—

The Old and Dying

When my mother died it was like blowing
out a candle, almost as if she was ready
for a vacation; when death comes, I hope
it is that simple; perhaps living was much
harder than dying for her; plus she had
Christ in her corner, she felt safe. She
wanted to go, so she told me, thus it
proves the old and dying are the wiser.

#1162 2/3/2006

30—

Scheduled Poet

Hopeful poets die hopeful,
standing around waiting to
give poetry readings when
they could be living—getting
high off of life.

#1199 2/11/06

31—

Emptiness in Kyoto

God created man from emptiness,
Who created form from the emptiness—

God used—and the ‘form’ had eyes,
Like the sea had islands; and it was good.

#1200 2/10/2006

32—

Delightful Rebellion

…many youths are drunk

with rebellion—
as if welded into it. My
advice is: get off the drunken
stage, before you fall off.

#1204 2/12/2006 Dedicated Ximena H.P.

33—

Cold Eyes (Haiku)

The Devil wiz’s along
The edge of earth,
With cold eyes.

#1206 2/13/2006

IN SPANISH
Translated by Nancy Penaloza

Epigramas
(Un poco de Ocurrencia)

Nota: Epigramas: 1 hasta 10 escritos 6/2004

1-

Hay un viejo refrán que es casi cierto:
“Si hay un deseo, hay un camino”. Ay de mi,
Sin embargo, asegúrate de hacer sitio para un
Camino de regreso.

6/2004

2-

La gente no escoge sus temores-;
Sus celos, envidias y odios,
Ellos lo hacen.

3-

No es un secreto que una raza extraña
Haya venido a la tierra para visitarnos, esto esta
En eso, esto muere en un planeta nublado,
En algún lugar en ninguna parte.

4-

El origen de la Humanidad: posiblemente es
Una mezcla de antiguas mutaciones genéticas
Y una expresión disipada de Homo Habilis,
Y las criaturas del homo somos hoy.
¿Pero quién hizo incitar?

5-

Para todo efecto hay una causa;
Y ¿Quien tendrá la razón para
Poseerla? Es una buena pregunta.

Y para matar a un asesino, usted debe ser
Un servidor mas asesino, o será matado.

6-

Para todo efecto creado
Hay un precio para ser pagado
Por la población que resguarda
Esto.

7-

La fe cree, esta también confía-,
Y también examina.

8-

El mal crea mal-así
El creador tiene algo
Para mirar hacia delante.

9-

Hay cosas más poderosas que el infierno
Y sus demonios: esto es llamado: interés propio

10-

Algunas veces nosotros estamos en la boca de la ballena-
Y aun otras veces estamos escapando del león;
Raras veces estamos nosotros en la selva tranquila; asi,
Cuando esto ocurre, debemos de grabar el momento..

11-

Tragedia

Cuando hay un dolor
Este llega a ser más importante
(Por alguna razón), cuando
la felicidad esta cercana.

1/25/2006 (#1105)

12-

Frió sinsabor

Frió sinsabor deja un hombre torcido
Tan firmemente le da al ausente pensamiento
Exasperante.

1/28/2005

Nota; Los siguientes dos Epigramas sobre
Carácter (13 al 14) fueron escritos; 2/1993

13-

Carácter #1

Me apresuro a decir-
Los comentarios dentro del carácter de los hombres
También se refieren a su alma….

14-

Carácter #2

El carácter es a menudo moldeado más por
(Inducido por) intereses propios; así,
Abandonando al hombre encadenado a un horario
Eso es, cerca de sufrir una crisis nerviosa.

2006-07-16T11:40:00.000-07:00

Lord Canary [Written while in Social Studies Class
At Como Park, Jr. High School, 1962]

Lord Canary—
(Not sure why we call him that)
A teacher at Como Jr. High,
Teaches us students about mirrors,
Mirrors, mirrors, everyday,
Simply yelping on and on…!

Common sense is never given
In this class of Social Studies
[Not in the least];
All us students would like to tell him:
“He’s Crazy!”
Yet, he’d simply go on and on,
Anyhow, about those blasted
Mirrors, mirrors, mirrors:
Reflections of mirrors,
Anyway…!

But came the day,
(As all days do—)
He yelled with dread,
While looking in a mirror
And said, “Oh my gosh!”

We all (us students) saw him as a
Chirping Canary, and so we drew one
One day, right there in our classroom
On his blasted old mirror!!

Note by the author: “This poem was written in 1962, while I was attending Como Park, Jr. High School, Social Studies class, bored out of his mind, as was every other student. I wrote this poem, until now unpublished (and recently found among my old papers), as you most likely will agree, as it should be, was written with a teenagers hand. But for the fun of it, I have added it to this collection. This is perhaps one of my first twenty-poems (#17).

2006-07-14T18:47:00.000-07:00

Wars, air of Ambiguity [in Spanish and English]

Dedicated to 1st. Lt. Laura Walker
(From an old soldier/Vietnam Veteran)

[Advance] We fight in foreign lands not because we necessarily love its culture or land, but because we believe in pragmatism (life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness); simply as it may be, it can be costly.

The Poem:

We all lose something in war
And sometimes gain something:
Idealism, physical, cynical
(no blood in the face),
Psychological, innocence—;
We’re all victims of violence
For sure… (accepted or not).

A character in a book dies in
The clap of an eye—,
In real life, it is not so simple,
No dreamy solution.
It is the duty of the soldier to kill
(Or accept being killed);
Just when, is when it becomes
Complicated?
Disillusionment creeps in…,
As does an air of the unknown.
In war there are only epigraphs;
Death, to a part of the human race
Is really what takes place?
It starts as it ends, with
The human effort exhausted.

There is nothing more admirable
More brave, more flawless,
Than one who gives their existence
For another’s—especially in
A foreign land! for pragmatism…

In Spanish Translated by Nancy Penaloza

Guerras, aire de ambigüedad

Dedicado a la 1r. Teniente Laura Walter (De un Viejo soldado/ veterano del Vietnam)

Por Dennis siluk

(Avance) Que luchamos en tierras extranjeras no porque necesariamente nos gusta su cultura o tierra, pero porque nosotros creemos en el pragmatismo (la vida, la libertad y la búsqueda de felicidad); simplemente como esto, puede ser, puede ser costoso.

El Poema

Perdemos algo con la guerra Y a veces ganamos algo: Idealismo, físico, cínico, (Sin sangre en la cara), Psicológico, inocente-: Todos nosotros somos victimas de la violencia Pero seguro… (Aceptado o no).

Un carácter en un libro muere en un abrir Y cerrar de un ojo. En la vida real, esto no es tan simple, Ninguna solución, soñadora. Esto es el deber del soldado para matar (O aceptar ser matado): Solamente ¿cuándo, es cuando se hace Complicado?

La desilusión entra sin ser sentido Como un aire de desconocimiento. Con la guerra solo hay epígrafes: Muerte, para una parte de la raza humana ¿Esto es realmente lo que ocurre? Esto comienza como termina, con el Esfuerzo humano agotado

Nada hay más admirable Más valiente, más impecable, Que uno quien da su existencia Por otros, especialmente en ¡Una tierra forgion ! por pragmatismo

Note by Rosa: I don't know much of war, my husband was in one that is all I really know, but in my heart they are the brave, who are willing to give to strangers, freedom, at the price of their own lives. And I think Mr. Siluk sums it up quite well in this dedication poem.

A Poet, Dennis Siluk if you wish to see his website please select another article, poem or short story of his, it will be on those...

2006-07-12T17:29:00.000-07:00

Six-Poems from: The Other Door

Note: Written in l981, not previously published, written while in West Fargo, North Dakota.

The following poems from the l981 book:

“The Other Door,” author’s first published book [poems 69-74].

1) Grandpa’s Vision
[Pink Elephants]

He said he saw pink elephants
[At the age of eighty-three].
They said he was unnatural—contrary.

They said oft, “How can you see
Such things…ay! Abstract visions”
And worried [wondered] for whose collision?

He said one day, back to stove,
“I know what’s real and me,
So if you doubt what I vision,
Come, join my world—there you’ll see.”

2) She Gave All

She told her secrets
And told him all her cares—
She was stripped bare.

3) Hades Fire

Hell is not kindle
But living, secret mistakes
And future heartaches.

4) Lovelorn

A woman in love…
Ah! Triumph is in conscience
If ill will befalls.

Written in St. Paul, Minnesota, l979-80

5) The Cardiac Acclamation

To die old and bold
Is to die with venial sin
And fertilely win.

Written in Alabama, l979

6) The Roar

Light broke the frosted clouds,
Yielding the silver swan as it swam
[With a borrowed hand] through its brow.

And for these foe—the seagull—
No more could be heard
Over the roar of the bird.

Then as evening assailed—estrangement!
Atmospheric glaciers dehydrated,
Alienated amazement!

Thus, passive dependent thoughts prevailed
As the plot sailed!
Now with cue, one knew

The reason God raised his hand,
The real psyche of man.

2006-07-12T17:24:00.000-07:00

Poems of an Inner City [Minneapolis, Minnesota, 1980s]
Poems of an Inner City

Poems of an Inner City [Minneapolis, Minnesota, l982]

Note: The following 7-poems were originally published in the Minneapolis independent news paper “Insight”, between August 12, l982 and January l983.

Index/Outline

58-1- First Avenue [August 12, l982, Vol 9, No 22)

59-2- The Big Henn -epin Avenue [[September 23, l982, Vol 9, No 25]

60 & 61/ 3-&-4 - Bus Stop No. 1 and The telephone Hood [October 21, l982, vol. 9 & No. 28]

62-5- Elsie’s Christmas: back in ‘32 [December 16, l982]

63-6- About 10:00 PM [January 6. ;093]

64-7- Ritual --on First Avenue: Mpls, MN [January 20, l983]

These poems were written as the author hung around the corners of Hennepin Avenue in Mpls in the early l980’s. Most of the buildings have been replaced now, and the whole area has a new composure. And so these poems may provide a piece of postarity.

1- First Avenue:

I saw a man die yesterday
--A man I never knew--
With all the dignity of a dog,
He died at twenty-two

He lay face down on a sidewalk
Two bullets in His flesh:
His black skin absorbing the sun
Observers, motionless.

O! I know it’s not uncommon
For such a happening
Within a crowed asphalt city
Where people are just things

But then it hard to submit
--even with our morels and mores
A life taken so simply;
When after--the unspoken door.

The paper read: “1 man dies…22
Shot and killed…First Ave…
From…Oklahoma…7 P.M…
Outside ‘a bar-called Gem…”

I heard the killers got away:
The motive--
It was hot that day…

Note: I had stopped in the bar, call Gem that day. And was walking down the street when I heard someone running. I turned around and heard a shot, one man ran up to Hennephen Avenue, the other down the opposite way. The man dropped about 15-feet from me. The ambulance came within 12-minutes. I did a lot of drinking and bar hopping back then. It was a very hot day.

2- The Big Henn-epin Avenue [Mpls, MN ‘82; 7:15 PM]

On your street Mr. Henn…
By 7th -- in an archway [hall]]
Marked “Magazines…”
To a passer by -- a stranger calls:
“A joint my friend;
Something else then.”

Between 4th and 8th -- Hookers
Rest their feet --
In your busy taverns;
While cops walk their beat
Looking in.

And outside a hamburger stop
A cluster of provocative
Use unlawful talk.

Then in a car-lot in back of
An Inn -- six argue
Over a fin.

Along 6th Avenue a block away
A Wino picks up some butts
While being accosted--
In the light of day.

A’d by a parking meter
Not far away -- an old Vet
Waits for prey.

Down on 1st -- walk two young studs
--Checking out cars
For a neighbor - run.

A’d on all the bus stops
Within this square --
Tax paying people--
Watch and stare.

At 9:15 --it’s clear to see--
It repeats its - Self by three

Note: as I had mentioned above, I would walk the streets back then, at night. I was working, divorced, and into what was happening. I lived in St. Paul, and played in Minneapolis. I guess there is a time for everything.

In this next poem, I can remember many times waiting by a bar, or inside a bar, or in a building in Minneapolis, for the telephone. And it seemed every time I was on the phone, the person waiting would stand two feet from me listening. A way of saying lets gets going. What provoked this poem was one day I was on the phone, a lady stood the two-foot distance I was mentioning from me. I looked at her odd, as to say step back. She would not. So I told my friend I’d call later. I got off the phone. When the lady got on, I stood two feet away from her. It really irritated her. When she got off I asked how she like it. She simply gave me a discussing look, and got away from me. Thinking maybe I was a crazy. Then I went to the bar, sat down after that experience, and wrote the following poem, called: “The Telephone Hood”. It should be noted, even though these poems were published in the news paper, I never have given a commentary on them. So you are the first to get a little back ground. Although, they can be self explaining.

3-The Telephone Hood

Something I’ve noticed
And never understood
Is--a Telephone Hood.

You’ll be in a restaurant
Tavern or shop--
S/he’ll be Five-feet away
And feeling they should;

Staring, mocking--silently
Thinking their Mr. Bell System
You see.

But then it’s their turn--
And supposedly -- WELL
Understood

Their phone call is private,
Personal--get away
Telephone Hood!

Dedicated to the Telephone hoods in the downtown area of Minneapolis, Minnesota.

4- Bus Stop No. 1

His cheek-bone
Contracted from swelling;
His neck, three shades of red;
His temple, an open wound--
With,
Blood oozing sown His
head;

His clothes
Textured with soot;
His eyes, pale with death;
He
Stands--this young lad--
By bus stop number one,--
On
The corner of sixth and
Hennepin
He curses the by-standers
For staring, not helping;
He laughs with gestures of pain;
And
Carries on, and on, and on--
With vulgarities.
As I approach with empathy
I take a helping stance--
I rush to a near-by tavern
And call an ambulance.
As
I return to the walk
I notice He’s walking away
[laughing, joking, kidding with
Friends];
A police officer looks my way
With five words to say:

“We’ve done our deed today.”
Three
Days pass
He’s back again
The same corner
With a bottle
Of Gin;
I think now--Should I, I
Befriend?
For He’s calling Wolf again:
This ugly looking human shock
--That happens quite a lot--
On
Bus stop+ 1...

5- Elsie’s Christmas
(back in ‘32)

A note about the poem: Elsie is my mother. She loved Christmas Trees; decorating them. She is today 81-years old. She doesn’t decorate them any more, but Christmas time, the buying of gifts, the cards and all, seem always to be the best of the year for her; and of course Christ’s birth. I wrote this poem in December, l982, and it was published on December 16, l982. Now, almost 20-years later, I re-discover it, and share her memories with you. I remember talking to her just prior to creating the poem. I asked her what came to mind. And when I gave it to her, she care for well, keeping a copy in her bedroom drawer.

Part I

It was back in ‘32
When a paper-doll would do--
Icicles, wooden shoes.

And just about Christmas
Time--I remember--
I’d be huddled
With a brother, sister
Friend…
On a street corner
Watching fire-engines,
Street--cars, --Racing
Through town--
On cobblestone streets,
Where children sang songs.

And not far away
Was an orphanage
--I recall--
St. Joseph’s (in St. Paul):
I spent some time there
After Ma died;
But it never got me down--
Remembering how she loved
Christmas year-round.

O! how I love Christmas time--
With all its beauty and rimes;

With the horse drawn sleighs
And old street lamps,
The Salvation Army
Ringing their chants.

And each Christmas
I’d walk with dad
To the market place--
Hauling a Christmas tree
Home that same day;
Dressing it with tinsel,
Bulbs of all kinds.
Listening to the radio,
Playing Christmas chimes.

Part II Elsie’s Christmas [l982]

It’s now ‘82
Times have changed;
More Santa’s
Are doing their thing.

Artificial Christmas trees
Year round Christmas socks;
More children on skies,
Snowmobiles in the parks;
More toys, TV’s--
Parking lots;
Christmas cards that seem
To talk.

Festivals of merriment,
Ice-fishing on lake
McCarrons;
Ice Castles, Parades --
Not quite the same,
Not --
Quite like ‘32
But it’ll do.

But the church bells
Haven’t changed;
The white snow-flakes
Still remain; and
The North Wind -- still howls
With a whispering chant.

O! how I love Christmas time --
With all its beauty and rimes;
Like back in ‘32
When a paper-doll would do.

Part III

Some things will never change
Like back in ‘32 -- we all knew:

In a stall in Bethlehem,
In a land called Judea
2000-years ago--
A baby child was born, called,
Jesus Christ our Savior.

Word count: # 989/re-edited 2001

Added new version: Part IV

Elsie’s Christmas--2001

O! the fun has never stopped even at 81
I watched her as she watched me
Open my gifts a few days ago, as if
She was but ten

Still the love for Christmas lays
Deep within her heart
Like back in ‘32,
When a paper doll would do.

And although she can’t reach or walk
Like she use to way back then
She still can wrap them gifts

And so this is my story to you,
A Christmas at 81, for my mother,
the whole
Year through…

6-About 10:00 P.M./I met a Demon
(San Francisco, l969)
Poem deleted for present

7- ritual – on first avenue (mpls minn)

How shall I write
This poem with tears
Fears scholarly years
With love?

In a pub on first avenue
By fifth its 9: 15 p.m.
I’ sitting on a wobbly
Wooden stool
Sipping light cold beer
Thinking thinking
This is where its at
The new now me
Generation crowd
Comes goes

To support their
New now me atomic
Basic needs

The bar-tender says
The same sir “sure”
He smiles…no tip
He’ thinking now
I think he’ thinking
Next time buddy

Music diffuses throughout
Bubbling complaints
All about
Politics religion girls
Sports wrongs
A million sold I bet

I’m thinking of a poem
A poem poem to write
Something peaceful

I say but who would
Understand
In this world of
Forced-fed complexity

No that wouldn’t go
Be read

A picture on the wall
It’s staring at me
Crowded skies dense mist
Surrounding its terrain
Realism I say!

But that brings pain
Too hard to live with

Maybe a sonnet haiku
Something with rhymes
Stress’ metaphors
Similes classical
Flowery psychological (?)

I now look sown at my
Light cold beer
I must have been sipping
Sipping sipping
It’s nowhere

My ash-tray is filled
Butts butts butts
I believe there’re mine
Everyone’ busy
Pretending I bet

Body’ bottle’ and minds
I doubt they notice mine

I know! A universal
Subject
intoxication

2006-07-12T11:45:00.000-07:00

Silver Shadows [Dedicated to Nora May French] Elegy

I have vainly sought love and lost, yet wait—alone
I must fall fathoms-deep, before I find it, this I know

And to my sweet, but broken heart a silver voice replies
‘Like a butterfly: death will take you, and make you alive’

There will be no repentant eyes, nor broken wings,
Only a moment of faith, from hours of heart felt tears.

Oh tangled winds, with silver wings, do bring, do bring
This fallen bird, eyed with light, eternal love and night!

Do bring, do bring, silver shadows, to this lifeless thing,
Then I will sing, sing, in the far off hung sea waves—

I will sing, sing, in the gave, to the sea’s harsh heartbeat,
And as our voices meet, farewell, farewell to humanity;

The sea morns with grief, brings to me its mystery—
I hear it calling, calling, with untroubled, misty eyes:

I hear it calling, calling me: “Come, I will set you free!”
Fathoms deep my echoes reach: ‘I follow at thy will!…’

Notes: #1387[7/12/06] Died November 7, 1907; born: 1881 in New York State; attended UCLA; associated editor on the ‘Argonaut’; Poet, Journalist, killed herself at George Sterling’s (Poet of San Francisco) home at Carmel by he sea, by way of cyanide, November 13, 1907.

2006-07-11T19:32:00.000-07:00

Nature’s Unrest [An Eight-Part Poem: by Dlsiluk]

The Somber Sun I

What has thou seen O Sun,
Of love or of hate
I will not be surprised,
If thou close thy eyes
And find it, within thy sky filled heart
To wipe all forms of memory—
And hide unto the dark.

#1379

Prophecies of the Wind II

The winds, the winds, the winds
What tiding do you bellow in?
Bring forth your tears sigh again
So all earthlings will understand
The prophecies are in the winds:
The earth shall tremble, quake,
And fate will ultimately win!…

#1380

Oblivious Night III

I slept a short sleep: and woke unto the night
To far to see, my hand in front of me
Beneath the Moon’s ghostly hallow light
Here the living world lost its voice
Lo! The dim, grim night struggles in
Trying to find its way, behind the grave,
Like a fish swimming into the deep—
I then went back into my sleep.

#1381

Summer’s Heat IV

The Summer’s heat
The air intensifies with life
Then seals the icy winds

You can hear the lifeless spirits
Amongst the fields of Summer’s heat
Murmur, quietly…

Stirred with secrets!

#1382

Satan, Forsaken V

“All earth is now my throne—!
For I have lost my heaven—
And now I stand-alone.
Man’s obedience
Has supported me
Unjudged I stand before he:
Yet God forsakes me
Forgotten in the wistful
Echoes of eternity…”

#1383

The Prophet VI

The prophet rides no more
Across the heavens and the stars
‘Tis God’s emptiness
He cast a spell upon us:
With our incredulous years!

#1384

The Poet VII

The poet marvels at his life
As if he found a magic brook!
And then by suicide
He takes his life,
Like lost echoes in the woods.

#1385

Power VIII

Power: Oppression
Limitless
Tyranny
Influence
Obedience—!
A tempest
Hard to keep
Under ones
Enormous feet.

#1386

[7-11-2006] Poems I thru IV, written at the ‘4d, Gelateria Italiana, Café,’ in Miraflores, Lima, Peru; poems V thru VII written at the ‘Favorite Café,’ in Miraflores, Lima Peru.

2006-07-09T17:08:00.000-07:00

Jerusalem Weeps [Judas Iscariot] Poetic Prose

JUDAS: what luck have I, a fisherman, to save the world through me; oh, I must be the prophet of doom, for doom is what will save the world, through my surreptitious knowledge which will be light onto the world someday. A small gift for honest eyes. I heard the voice, it sounds cruel I know, I am Judas Iscariot, who shall take my place!~? There is none, not one willing to. My father as you know was and is a simple storekeeper, he will be proud once he knows the reasoning. [Says Judas, enthusiastically to Peter, by the temple in Jerusalem, in an alley.]

PETER:

friend: do you think misfortune will bring your salvation? Is it not love He reached for, and now you tell me, your love for the world, and willingness to sell Jesus to the murderers will produce an escape for man’s sin? You are the goat, the sacrifice, and the prophet, all in one?

JUDAS TO PETER:

to see me joyful is hard I suppose for you Peter, happiness is a byproduct of what you have done for another, misfortune you call it. I am only the one to balance things out, I am not the sacrifice-complete, although I am sacrificing myself in a way so the process can be completed, for I know people will not be merciful to me, in future times, and now I can see the laughing of many at me for selling out my master, in the present; he did whisper to me you know: ‘unendurable,’ it may be, and so now the bitter tears are coming. But I did much more than that. I did not, like you, deny my master three times [Peter trembling] I will not hide from the glory I’ve sorrowfully produced, I did what man was meant to do, yes, it is a mystery, hidden knowledge I have, what you do not understand. When I kissed Him, a tribute, we both moaned crucifixion, from the city of Jerusalem. I felt a burning fire, and I remembered the prophecies, I heard them in my heart, Jesus even told me: the world did not hear him; at the table, yes, I heard Him well.

PETER:

no, Judas, those that see and hear God clearly, do not place their sins on the alter and forgive them themselves…and say they are Jerusalem’s hope; you are a criminal to God’s court, you have sentenced His Son to death! You gave Him the kiss of death!… as if you have the power.

JUDAS:

blame God for the prophecy, not my so called sin, as now you have given it to me, as if you are the Son of God, as if you have condemned me already; my sin is His design! If you deny that, tell me who wrote the prophecies centuries ago? For does it not speak of the Messiah’s death by my hands? Diluted love you have Peter. So it was preordained.

[Jesus is in Jail; Peter is alone with Judas, still in the alley, Judas leaning against the wall.]

PETER:

so you Judas, you say, from your Kiss, the one that was not filled with sin, comes salvation? Why did you take the silver, the reward? Because God has none? Mary has come from Nazareth, and what shall she see, only her Son in prison, and you, you claiming to be He; would not God tell her this secret knowledge you have, it would seem only fitting since she gave birth to his Son. If God dreams, Hope he does not dream of thy!

[Peter starts to walk away, but hesitates and adds to his dialogue]: …it would have been better had you never been born. [To Judas, those are striking words, he becomes mortified: Peter has spoken the very same words of Jesus, whom said the very same thing to Judas, but privately: thus, he sucks in a deep breath of air, and lets it out slowly.]

[Peter has walked away now, but yells back to Judas]

You are the fool of Jerusalem, and she will weep because of you; you’ve purchased Lucifer’s service—the Lion that paces, to die in rages: your eyes swallow this city, and it will never forget, nor forgive you. He was your bird in the window at the Last Supper, the last one we will ever have here on earth with him: we all saw him but you, the bird; I dare not say, but I will say now: He, was looking at you. Jerusalem Weeps.

[Judas is hideously, and nervously, laughing with facial expressions, but you cannot hear him; a moment passes, he is now alone]

Jerusalem Weeps Morning

JUDAS:

listen and hear me, I did my calling, for the purpose I was born. [He is looking out his window, talking to a silent devout city; it is very early in the morning.] I have saved a lost world, and they will someday understand, when undisclosed information becomes available to them: they will be aware of, what man now is not. I have my mission, like Jesus does, and Peter; yet all but Jesus are envious of me, they are all like vipers wanting to attack, and not look at the distant impact I will bring about—through me.

[There is a reflection of a shadow on the stones of the building that happens to be across from his, above the building, the sun is creeping over the horizon, the shadow flickers like a bird, its wings span covers the whole building now—it has taken a moment to do though; it is the background, for the most part, of the whole scene now. The shadow talks, and it seems to speak to Judas privately]

The Shadow:

I saw it all. [Judas passes, his eyes get heavy, and his forehead frowns] Yes, Judas, I could not have done what you did; prophet of doom, so you are: cannot the King of Kings shed his own blood for mankind, without your help, by his own hands perhaps? You cover the road with His blood, and call it yours. Sin does not triumph, in His court: the day you were born, I was the bird in the window, Peter is right, you would have been better, never to have been born; how now do you save your own soul, haw, but you saved the world’s?

[Judas terrified, runs outside, into the fields with the shadow chasing him as if it was attached to him—and hangs himself.]

4/16/2006-6/22/2006 [Written in Lima, Peru]

[Judas Iscariot] Poetic Prose

JUDAS: what luck have I, a fisherman, to save the world through me; oh, I must be the prophet of doom, for doom is what will save the world, through my surreptitious knowledge which will be light onto the world someday. A small gift for honest eyes. I heard the voice, it sounds cruel I know, I am Judas Iscariot, who shall take my place!~? There is none, not one willing to. My father as you know was and is a simple storekeeper, he will be proud once he knows the reasoning. [Says Judas, enthusiastically to Peter, by the temple in Jerusalem, in an alley.]

PETER:

friend: do you think misfortune will bring your salvation? Is it not love He reached for, and now you tell me, your love for the world, and willingness to sell Jesus to the murderers will produce an escape for man’s sin? You are the goat, the sacrifice, and the prophet, all in one?

JUDAS TO PETER:

to see me joyful is hard I suppose for you Peter, happiness is a byproduct of what you have done for another, misfortune you call it. I am only the one to balance things out, I am not the sacrifice-complete, although I am sacrificing myself in a way so the process can be completed, for I know people will not be merciful to me, in future times, and now I can see the laughing of many at me for selling out my master, in the present; he did whisper to me you know: ‘unendurable,’ it may be, and so now the bitter tears are coming. But I did much more than that. I did not, like you, deny my master three times [Peter trembling] I will not hide from the glory I’ve sorrowfully produced, I did what man was meant to do, yes, it is a mystery, hidden knowledge I have, what you do not understand. When I kissed Him, a tribute, we both moaned crucifixion, from the city of Jerusalem. I felt a burning fire, and I remembered the prophecies, I heard them in my heart, Jesus even told me: the world did not hear him; at the table, yes, I heard Him well.

PETER:

no, Judas, those that see and hear God clearly, do not place their sins on the alter and forgive them themselves…and say they are Jerusalem’s hope; you are a criminal to God’s court, you have sentenced His Son to death! You gave Him the kiss of death!… as if you have the power.

JUDAS:

blame God for the prophecy, not my so called sin, as now you have given it to me, as if you are the Son of God, as if you have condemned me already; my sin is His design! If you deny that, tell me who wrote the prophecies centuries ago? For does it not speak of the Messiah’s death by my hands? Diluted love you have Peter. So it was preordained.

[Jesus is in Jail; Peter is alone with Judas, still in the alley, Judas leaning against the wall.]

PETER:

so you Judas, you say, from your Kiss, the one that was not filled with sin, comes salvation? Why did you take the silver, the reward? Because God has none? Mary has come from Nazareth, and what shall she see, only her Son in prison, and you, you claiming to be He; would not God tell her this secret knowledge you have, it would seem only fitting since she gave birth to his Son. If God dreams, Hope he does not dream of thy!

[Peter starts to walk away, but hesitates and adds to his dialogue]: …it would have been better had you never been born. [To Judas, those are striking words, he becomes mortified: Peter has spoken the very same words of Jesus, whom said the very same thing to Judas, but privately: thus, he sucks in a deep breath of air, and lets it out slowly.]

[Peter has walked away now, but yells back to Judas]

You are the fool of Jerusalem, and she will weep because of you; you’ve purchased Lucifer’s service—the Lion that paces, to die in rages: your eyes swallow this city, and it will never forget, nor forgive you. He was your bird in the window at the Last Supper, the last one we will ever have here on earth with him: we all saw him but you, the bird; I dare not say, but I will say now: He, was looking at you. Jerusalem Weeps.

[Judas is hideously, and nervously, laughing with facial expressions, but you cannot hear him; a moment passes, he is now alone]

Jerusalem Weeps Morning

JUDAS:

listen and hear me, I did my calling, for the purpose I was born. [He is looking out his window, talking to a silent devout city; it is very early in the morning.] I have saved a lost world, and they will someday understand, when undisclosed information becomes available to them: they will be aware of, what man now is not. I have my mission, like Jesus does, and Peter; yet all but Jesus are envious of me, they are all like vipers wanting to attack, and not look at the distant impact I will bring about—through me.

[There is a reflection of a shadow on the stones of the building that happens to be across from his, above the building, the sun is creeping over the horizon, the shadow flickers like a bird, its wings span covers the whole building now—it has taken a moment to do though; it is the background, for the most part, of the whole scene now. The shadow talks, and it seems to speak to Judas privately]

The Shadow:

I saw it all. [Judas passes, his eyes get heavy, and his forehead frowns] Yes, Judas, I could not have done what you did; prophet of doom, so you are: cannot the King of Kings shed his own blood for mankind, without your help, by his own hands perhaps? You cover the road with His blood, and call it yours. Sin does not triumph, in His court: the day you were born, I was the bird in the window, Peter is right, you would have been better, never to have been born; how now do you save your own soul, haw, but you saved the world’s?

[Judas terrified, runs outside, into the fields with the shadow chasing him as if it was attached to him—and hangs himself.]

4/16/2006-6/22/2006 [Written in Lima, Peru]

See Dennis' web site: http://dennissiluk.tripod.com

2006-07-09T17:02:00.000-07:00

2006-07-09T14:05:00.000-07:00

Treasures of the Andes

Within the Andes golden rim
I gazed afar, and caught a dream,
It filled me with bold, treasures gleam,
What guarded jewels there resides? —

Sliver and copper, stone and clay,
Building blocks, for herds and dwellings,
And farms of cows, lamb and llamas
With turkeys, chickens and camels, —

Up, the narrow and moonlit pass
Where twilight, is now, far ablaze
With dimness shadows comes the haze
With its mass, impervious cast

Splendid and thrilled these treasures shone,
With echoes, from shifting winds,
Eternal autumn, for my soul, —
Offer the Andes, from its treasures.

#1378/Dedicated to Mayra, at the café, El Parquetito’s; and Enrique H. 7/7/2006

Note: I have been in the Andes twice, and will be in August for my third time; while sitting at the Café with my brother in law, and wife on the 7th of July 2006, I thought about the Andes, and it peacefulness. I asked him, Enrique: why he loved the Andes so much, since he lives right beyond them, and must go through them to get to Lima, actually, they surround his city I suppose you could say, Huancayo. What I gathered, besides a way of life, which is different than from the big city where he was raised, was love and peace. Here in the Andes and beyond, in the Mantaro Valley where Huancayo is, you are surrounded by this frame of mind, the Andes injects this into ones blood.

2006-07-08T12:34:00.000-07:00

Deep Days in the Dead City

Deep days in the dead city, in its jungle like streets,
‘Our days are numbered,’ I’ve heard that somewhere along life’s line; in songs, perhaps in the Bible, here, there, but I’m still here. Everyone wants to play in this game called life, I just want to get away, out of the city, its parks and dogs, its streets, and family members that are more strangers to me than strangers I’ve just met; I think a city over 50,000-you lose something (if not your heart, your head).
The Devils around more of the time I believe, in such bigger cities; I know He’s here in my hometown, St. Paul, Minnesota; He’s at the movies a lot also, I’d say. I’m not missed here much, and I live here, no reason to stay, love is in some other place. But He likes it like this, more games to play.
I had to cross many rivers, many streets, or so I feel to get to so many people that are too busy to give a damn, or a once of time, whom are more stuck in their own cocoons than I. What is my solution? Go to the mountains—leave them all behind, leave them before you lose your mind, there is no love no affection, pretense is like a vine, it wraps around their busy, busy, busy minds. Here my eyes never go dry; I’m like a ship sinking, everyone grabbing the rafts from me—let him sink, they sing, we got money to make, do other thing.
Goodbye, goodbye, goodbye, hope never to see you again, everyone. Don’t need me anymore anyway, time, struggles, the big city, the jungle streets: you never gave an once of peace, or sleep, and everyone thinks he or she is the great somebody, the man, the king of the house, the whore who never scored, the bitch who got rich, and lost her soul for a dead fish. Raise the kids to spit farther, too late to teach them right from wrong, respect or regret, the city will tell you how to act and raise them, or perhaps it did: it’s your children, the city’s got your best interests: and the kids turn out to be worthless. The walking dead, better you talk to stranger, less dread, or go to the mountains instead.

#1378 7/9/06

2006-07-06T09:13:00.000-07:00

Lima’s Devouring Winter Dew & Word From the Desert [Mecca's Grief]
[Two Poems]

The mist of the pacific flows cool and fair—
On city streets that are far and near
With haunted blows, from Lima’s shadows.
Ah! Its pale magic mist now fills the air

Here I sit, at El Parquetito’s café
With a splendid delightful cup of coffee
As the phantom sun awakes and sweats
Trying to peek through Lima’s wintry cloak!

#1376 [7/5/2006] Written at EP Café, on a pale winter afternoon in Lima [July], Peru; dedicated to Rosa and Enrique, who had the pleasure to look up into this drab misty sky with me in Lima at 1:00 PM. Then after lunch, around 2:00 PM, the sun came out, but our lunch was now over. Wintertime in the central part of Lima is pale; with misty grays a lot of the time. And when the sun comes out, you got to bottle it, or run to it to enjoy the few hours you will have it. Winter’s in Lima are ‘Pale Dawns’ all day long, or can be. That is because you sit almost on top of the ocean. In farther out areas of Lima, the sun does come out. So today I was inspired to write about its bleakness, whereas, I normally write about all the positives; yet this can be taken as a positive, because when the sun does come, I parade around like a wild duck trying to suck up all the sun’s rays I can get.

Word From the Desert
[Mecca’s Grief]

He could not read, nor could he write
But wrote the Koran, in a cave by night
From Mecca he came, for many souls
With words, swords, and promises.

He cast Christ, as less than God,
And promised heaven for all who saw;
Stoned, cursed, in a silent war
Mohammad’s Journey changed the world.

#1377 [7/6/2006]

Note: While in search for Mohammad on the desert, He hid in a cave, and the only thing that saved his life was that of a spider web; thus the forces that were after him, detoured, and the assault did not take place [632 AD Mohammad died]. It all started, this new religion called Islam, in Mecca, in search for the one God. The holy men of Islam said: Jews and Christians have equal rights with Muslims, this of course has yet to be proven. And it seems nowadays, it is best to avoid God’s messengers from Islam, or is it from Satan, lest one be left wondering who your neighbor is for the rest of your life. If Islam was meant to be a peaceful religion, it outdid itself, and made a revere, so I feel, and it is sad. From what could have been a glorifying religion to God, has turned out to be a disgrace not only to heaven, but to earth, with its soiled fingers, killing in the name of Allah, so one can get a free ride to the gates of paradise.

2006-07-02T20:36:00.000-07:00

The Ill-omen of Istanbul (A Dramatic Macabre Mythos in Poetic form))
About Achilles’ Arrow))

Poeta Laureado De la Ciudad de San Jeronimo Peru

I heard of a legend when I was in Istanbul, in 1996, it was of the Arrow of Achilles, lost someplace in Asia Minor; then I took a trip into Asia Minor, and went to Troy, and several other cities, thus comes this Poetic Mythos,

Part V
End: the Parting

It was raining, raining ominous red rain
When I awoke early in the morning—
Then, looking out my window came
A gray, gray dawn—ascending
Rising with the shadows,
Helen by their sides:
Happy I was, night had lift,
Took the cold, cold horror with it
(That brought me cold, cold sweats)
Shadows, shapes, imps and alike:
Like torn curtains, shifting away
All, now, in the distorted atmosphere
As I Looked out my window—gray light…

This cold horror that was leaving slowly
This red, red ominous rain: gray shadows,
Brooding: rippling drenched bodies:
I saw them gripping Achilles’ arrow
In a most brutish iron gripping way:
This red, red ominous arrow,
That brought horror, ringside:
Where within it, resided a legion of beings?
Of demonic raving, inept beings!
This red, red ominous arrow
That cast its spell on me…

Part VI
The Afterward

I sucked in my breath, cleaned up a bit,
And went down stairs for morning breakfast—
To join the group, with floundering suspicions;
Who never knew the whole of it,
Only that lull that stinging left jabs,
Like a weeping sponge,
Never more to know
But the pounding of the heart!…

Part IV
Night Arrows

I’m not sure, but I felt I was hallucinating
Or was I dreaming in my sleep—?
Brooding over the darkness of the cliff,
On its plateau, surrounded by its woods
Within its cave, where shadows hung like bats
Hung over me, incessantly, as I ducked,
Where resided Achilles’ assaulting red arrow.
Silent, I felt my red flesh devour me
The silence became Deafening
(Bewildered, bemused, and confused)!

Ineffectual pawing, were the shapes
Hammering, as if I was the stake—
I tried to shake them off:
Eerie evil: —I told my body to awake
At the edge of my bed stood several
Of these Cliff dwellers, faceless:
Was I still in a dream state?

—Sleeping, the Bed and Morning

I took a second glance at the clock
It was 3:30AM, where did the time go
Morning was close at hand, as this
Ghostly cult did their demonstration.
Then I heard a whisper, murmur:
“Where is the red, red Arrow?”
An evil face echoed with it—.
The tone almost battering me,
Impervious to my brain
It cast it spell on me—hostage
To frozen terror, gripping me,
Cold sweat dripping off of me,
Their smell rippled, swelled over me
With wild, Rhythmatical movements
Invoking: blood staggering to my heart
A driving force willing to murder me.
“Where is the red, red Arrow?” they cried,
[huskily] in this heart-stirring game.

The Arrow, Murmur and Helen

Under the bed went my hand in search
And found the cursed arrow—at last
The arrow had a murmur: in a language
I had never heard, said, in chamber tone:
“We are the legion that Christ cast into the sows,
Taken out thereafter, now cast into this vile iron
Red, red arrow!!” so spiraled this sounding drum
Of a voice, that begged to be released,” and there
Beside my bed was the lovely and Helen naked.

As the woman lay on my desecrated bed,
Chanting to the arrow, as it inflected slashes,
Painful scratches, gashes: she bore them all:
“This was not a dream,” said the beauty queen,
Helen of Troy, dancing, wild and chanting,
As the slobbering ecstasy went on, with the
Blemished, devilish black browed snarling ghouls.

Gray Dawn

I did what I had to do; gray dawn crept near
Hence, I lifted up the arrow
Unmistakably, they stopped chanting,
The arrow had a murmur: Helen, in my bed,
Now she pulled me in, Death was immanent,
I had done what they wanted—sinned,
—I then threw the Arrow at the six,
All voices emerged with, a salivating madness.

Part III
Alien Artifact: Achilles’ Arrow

The arrow was but an artifact to Solomon,
Old Solomon the Muslim, from Cairo;
One with a bloody, deadly lineage, and legend;
But I wanted what was beyond the myth,
Beyond the connections of the Trojan War,
That had killed Achilles’, and brought Troy’s ruin:
This Alien artifact, with human ken.

As we traveled through Asia Minor, strange were
The days, nights, visions and dreams:
Coming repeatedly, hideously vivid at times,
And there we were in the drums and fire,
Arrows shooting everywhere—so the battles
Bellowed across my mind, hour after hour
As we traveled to find the ‘Cave of the Arrow.’
And in doing so, I left my tour of sorts,
Those folks I had come to know, in Istanbul.

I had left the tour for a spell, and when I had
Returned, was asked, “Did you find
What you were looking for?”
And I said, “Of course!”

The Cult/Aboriginal Ghouls

The fact roused, that we were being followed
Uneasiness came to us—tourists on the bus!
No one made a connection to me, with them,
With these undesirable black-clocked barbarians;
This race following the bus, from far behind
Following us, these aboriginal ghouls, unfazed:
The arrow was perhaps their amulet for witchcraft
And the imprisoned demonic beings, but toys!
—the captured living dead, Amulets to worship:
In this most frightening, unseen hypogeum.

Perhaps they felt I might set them free
For I had taken their Pandora’s box (you see);
But my interests were not in rituals, or alike:
Such as dancing in hotel corridors, as they….

In my sleep, I still dreamed of red ominous flesh
Burning scorched to oblivion; black magic;
Slaughtered women and babies, nightmares.

[Then:] while in Samaria, I walked swiftly
By the docks: Merchants swayed,
Eyes silently engulfed— eyes weighing me
Followed by the cult’s silver pale moo.
Their Voices, angry— decreed:
‘The Arrow’s not yours to keep.’

Part II
Haunted, and Old Solomon

The morning after my arrival, I set out
To the valley where within, resided
A towering cliff, in search I went
For this legendary red iron arrow,
A few hours up and over the rocky slopes—
In the valley beyond Troy’s reach
Here, face-to-face I stood in the cave
Douse in sweat: Solomon pointing to the arrow
Underneath the rock—protruding…
There I pulled it out, took it, paid my guide well,
As he cursed the arrow from hell,
Then left, as he had come [Solomon]—.

There in the cave: signs of savage feasts
[Sacrifices: had taken place]: animal, human bones,
Bits of stone weapons—broken Skulls…all around;
Skulls, unimpeded bones; carvings on the walls
An ancient written language, to me unknown
Written in red flesh, by human bones.

Part I
The Demonic Arrow

I was standing beneath the half ruined walls
Of the city-fortress, legend calls Troy—
Felt the temper of the forces that once fought here
The dead seemed all around, red ominous flesh
Cloaked with horrified visions, and the arrow
That damn arrow, inside my mind.

I had learned the present valley inhabitants
Half invisible, ghoul filled souls, children and all
Were the aboriginal cults, Troy’s leftovers?
A degraded indigenous race; so others told me:
But Solomon knew well, they had a pack with hell
They were the keepers of the arrow.

“I told you, it’s a demonic haunted item,” said
Solomon, of Cairo.
“What is so evil about it,” I exclaimed.
“Yes,” said old Solomon, “I will take you to
the slopes, to the cliff, to the woods, to the
cave, there you will find your mad dream.”

And so it was [and so it began]: the Journey.

Part one and two written 6/25/06, evening; part three and four 6/26/06, at EP Café; Part five and six, written 6/27/06, at home in Lima; revised 1 & 2 July 2006.

2006-07-02T17:31:00.000-07:00

The Fifth Moon
(Ghouls of the Mosel Valley)

By Dennis L. Siluk

A Dramatic Prose Poem

The Fifth Moon
(Eltz Castle, Night in the Mosel Valley)

Part I

(1974) “I must talk to the dead,” Eva said. The old seer listened closely, she asked for ten-marks for her services.
Said Eva, “Is it death—, I must face to reach him, to go through?”
“Death, O death,” responded Ronda, the seer, “death with a tear you may think is death, but it is not.”
So the old seer (at Eltz Medieval Castle, in the Mosel Valley of Germany) laid her hands upon her breasts, The Duke, called the Lion, looking from his den of Saxony and Bavaria (AD 1192), just stared.
Said the old Seer (with wide, owl looking eyes), “You must not groan, when you go down to death lest you wake them up and spoil your quest!”
“If the dead come to my aid, I will reward you with 1000-Marks,” said Eva; a nice sum.

In and out of the courtyard the old seer paced, swimming with thoughts, chanting; then someone was yanking on the iron bell, ringing at the gate, a summon to let them in, and the seer opened it, but no one walked through, no one visible.
The breath of dusk, sank over the valley, a dark sickness came with it. And the old seer laid down, as it sank overhead, laid down holding her knees in her hands, her forehead bruised, as if something hauntingly had slapped her naked being around. She whimpered quietly, covering herself with old fallen leaves, as Eva knelt beside her. The moon had lowered itself; it seemed now to have acquired ripples, five ripples in all, to its rim, making it look like five moons, five eyes looking at Eva.
The hideous night— was developing into crystal orange, purple ash darkness, laced with shady hues.
Both remained silent; Eva, waiting for the seer, and her journey to the voiceless deep; it was funny she thought how the fall leaves that laid upon the ground, around the seer, seemed to leap around her, and the air, the atmosphere had no wind: in consequence, Eva’s nerves were under agitation.
“Is it time?” she asked.
But the seer’s eyes were bolted shut, with blackness, black lids. Her pulse was nil: Eva stumbled and then stopped, and her body lifted, hands unseen once waiting, were not waiting anymore, but were laid over her breasts and diaphragm: then an assault took place, panting over her fleshly frame, young and tender like a child’s; her flesh hot—inside out, took on pain; then the presence withdrew, muttering as if it wasn’t through
and the shadows now under the walls of the fortress, moved like blinking eyes: moved into a little light from the fire on the moons, as it trailed down upon these moving shapes in the courtyard, and the old woman seer, who didn’t move and yet was bruised.
“Ingles, speak Ingles,” Eva cried. And the voice that muttered in German went silent
“I will take you down to hell to see your brother, who at one time was your lover…,” then another voice yelled,
“The ghouls want her too!”
Between the devils and the ghouls, the demons and the imps, she had to strip and dance for them as they sang ungodly songs. And she danced and they sang, and she danced and they sang, and the seer remained in some kind of trance, unmoved.
And the ghouls asked her to dance more, “No, I will not,” said Eva, in defiance, and the seer’s eyes opened,
“My dear child, unless they are pleased…you shall not see your brother, you must endure more,” and she shouted this second time, scorched red from her attacks.
“I cannot!” said Eva, boldly.
A hand appeared, touched hers, and accepting this alien being for just a second, strange it seemed, it undid her garments; she had just fastened back on. She tried to stop the hands: tears now rolled over her face, but the male voice, just said in a chanting way:
“This is part of your agreement!”
Naked her beauty was taken again—!

Eva Stripping, and Dancing

The moon now bright, and as white as her skin: the shadows all leaped about her, as she wept; the husky spirit now ruled her. And the spirits continued to dance across her naked body.
Slender was her body, in the moon’s light, and the polluting, penetrating dance of the spirits—almost visible, but not quite, all of them seemed to touch her inviolability, or what was, almost once, what ever had taken place, between her brother and her, she was no longer an invidious virgin, not at this hour of time.
The dead wanted her, the chant continued as the seer closed her eyes; Eva’s spirit almost broken, wailing inside of her; her legs trembling.
She heard the voice again, the one that was trying to enslave her.
“Obey…” it said—cold it was the lurking shadows, as the evening was, and the lurking moons; everything had substance now, the moon’s light upon her, the shadows and shapes over her, upon her; flesh assaults continued to take place, the beautiful girlish body was pulsating now in pain, pain from the beasts like parade that had invaded her, widening her frame.
It rained from the moon: shadows; watching shadows. Her body now gone mad; the seer still in her trance, Eva, now running out of the courtyard, down to the Valley by the river—the Mosel: shadows swaggering along in a long trail. She hid—on hands and knees, telling herself, ‘…if this is less than hell—by gosh, my brother must be insane by now,’ then she added, ‘his soul can live without seeing me.’ She had had enough.
The five-moons were now becoming one again, she noticed, as if she had been somewhat in a trance herself. She remain hidden half naked behind the boulders and foliage. Said an old sounding husky voice, “Show your face Eva, we got carried away, we’ve traded love and wisdom, for power and control, long ago, and it was hard to let go.” And as she looked above the stones, there was her brother on hands and knees, on a dog leash, barking.
She would not show her face, she had only the woman in her to offer; desire for them, to fill: to fulfill their needs again, but at too high a price: of which she had already paid. She had been brought down to disgrace. This love making was not clean; savagery had ripped her and soiled her.

There the seer stood, looking at her, in back of her, said, “They cannot murder you, and only make you endure them. Now you can go to hell with your brother if you wish. They will keep their deal; they have to, for it is written.”
But out of some kind of protest she said, but did not want to say, “But can I come back, will I be able to?” She told herself inside her mind: realize Eva, devils lie, ghouls stretch the truth, they will simply keep telling me: it is postponed and I’d never get home.
“The child in you is dead, now dead, you were submissive, and there are more spirits that want you— willing to do whatever you wish!”
And she thought, deeply thought, ‘…with them there is no opposing once in their hands; God forbid. When does more sin, buy anything worth while?’ She looked at the moon, it was only one, and she felt good.
Then the husky spirit dragged her brother by the hair, all around her, like a flying vampire. Said the voice,
“Did you know Eva, when you lay in the courtyard; your brother was among the many that lifted your legs, put fire inside of you? He was a snake on top of you, he likes being a snake”
‘Oh,’ she thought, ‘if it is not desire they get fed, it is hate they wish to have… called: revenge.’
Eva knew there were many watching: for pleasure, many that swept over her, but had no idea her brother would—and he nodded his head—yes, when she looked at him for confirmation.

Then the seer, just like that, disappeared, “Ah!” Eva said, adding, she’s a ghost-seer, and so the old woman burns with lust also.”
Said the old husky voice, “She will be back, the dead are ripe for this…she had you in her real form.”
Eva looking at the moon, there was only one, not five, as they had troubled her before. “Come, follow me, it will not burn, God does not look down in hell, so He will not see what is happening, it will be pleasure, with the door shut.”
But Eva hated this voice, this maddening horded of ghouls and devils, shadows and shapes, and all; now she hated her brother as well, hated them all the same: and knelt where she had stood, and started to pray.
She prayed loud and clear, wounded she was, yet she cried to the high heavens, past the moon. Half naked she cried, and the ghoul was no longer by her side. Shame and grief had burned up her love for her brother; and her being was now hollow, voiceless, “Let fire eat fire,” she cried, “I am alive.” And long black shadows shouted, mimicking her, and turned the valley into an empty echo: stillness, no wind: as a little tornado had come and chased every shadow out in a hurry. And a voce said, “You called me?”

Part Two

Bright Death

(an hour later)

The Sear of the Mosel Valley

(The Seer) She was a woman in her middle 60s, or perhaps one could say, unaged; neither short, nor tall, nor thin nor stout (and cast no shadow at all about). She had a cold contemptuous idiotic face, and a lazy voice, a dweller among the valley. —long resident, who had impressed many with her fortune telling, necromantic life; even those who had never seen her work.

The Duke from the Window

For the most part,

it is not as you think —
the dead live, and can be witnesses for the living on what lays ahead. They are in their own prisons though, an exile to the full—physical world, and that misty face of a Duke in the window, in the castle window, is still looking down upon the courtyard (as Eva noticed)—neither alive nor dead, in one of the 72-deaths given to man (given to him 1000-years ago or so), what was his fate, and is he just an illusion, for a moment’s grace he had, earned, a projection. Whoever he was he was like a thief for a moment in time (perhaps the husky one now; taking the Dukes place), he had flung thoughts into vapor, and created a moment of time—; snuck back to the castle to see the starlight, the moons he was still watching, creating out the window, pulling Eva to him: he was standing in a room of ‘bright death,’ where a candle was lit, and it lit the whole place.
I do believe he was looking for lost and warm memories, making it shape itself, in itself, the memories from whence he came; or had, or wanted to make. He looked at Eva, as if she was a goddess, walking the path to the castle, as if in another trance, the five moons overhead: magnetically pulling her to the gates. He could see through walls, and all such things, and followed her every stop.
“Ah! To be like her,” he said, rustically.
As Eva looked up at the moon, it seemed on fire again, spreading out, in ripples, akin to a lamp lit, with no holding stick, a macabre fire surrounding it.
The shape in the window, wished to hold her in his arms, but he was just a shadow of death, lit up in a room, a room called ‘bright death,’ for no other room could he stand in. Death and the underworld have its rules: its hierarchy; its courts and counsels. And this was the only room they were allowed; it was where death took place, it was where death could linger, lurk.
“Come, oh come,” he summons her, looking out the window, like a bird in a cage.
“My love, my love,” he echoed out into the courtyard, she caught his eyes, “O,” she screamed, “No, no, no—not again!”
And ran behind a tree, away from the window; as she glanced around, and up, but she saw the side curtains aflame, and he was dancing.
She fell to the ground, hid now under the leaves, watching the spirit dance around the flames (peeking), as they filled all the room: an illusion she claimed, for there was no heat or smoke, or crackling, or any such thing with the fire.
‘Ah! there he is…’ she thought, the old devil, the one with the husky voice, mixed within the frame of the Duke, who was really not anything, just an illusion, a fluke, from some dark, hidden place.
The quick crescendo, of this voice, lulled her back under that brutal arch of a gate, to the window (a long day, it was).
“You evil spirit, leave me be!” she cried loud, and she clung to her knees shaking; and the moon was bright, she knew now, now that death would not leave willingly: she screamed within her scream, silently, until the courtyard was full of bright death; light from the moon’s breath never ceased.
“But why did you come back?” asked the voice, to say something, to have a conversation, to hear her reply. She was on the edge of escape, and came back, but then so did he.

And she looked at the moons once more, there were yet five of them, one transposing…the others.
Behind her, stood the old seer, she was back again, she murmured, “Did you think you would go home laughing at us?”
And the old seer, fierce with orange and purple light, embraced Eva, and she cried:
“Christ has mercy
Christ has mercy…!”
And the trees and the great fortress walls were terrorize with flaming fire, and the wind from the valley come back with double force.
“Fire, fire,” moaned Eva, it was the fire that didn’t burn; the physical burn it didn’t burn, only the invisible, and grief came quickly, insidiously.
Said the seer to the devil-spirit, in the window said: “We must escape, or we shall be nothing, soon …”
With nausea in her, she smiled nonetheless, at the moon, which was single again, to her vision: she thought how funny—illusion, or real: too much for the mind to endure.
For the fire can kill a ghost, demon, devil or imp; especially the fire from the Holy Spirit; and the fire now had subsided, bright death had reversed itself. The seer had staggered and her arms grabbed the spirit in the widow still in a trance from the fifth moon, and wanting his desires filled, disassociating for the moment, yet he left in a menagerie rave, raving.

Elegy: Like bugs swirling across the light of the moon—the ghouls ballooned away—; debased and brutalized, spirits slewed—but at least they had memories.

(The Husky Ghoul: End) And the Ghost, the ghoul of the courtyard, the one of the fifth moon, who had the powers to subdue, to put into a trance (with hypnotic chanting); in fear he would return and be silenced by the Holy Spirit, he simply glanced at Eva, then he vanished, leaving an echo of rage…!

€

The Fifth Moon
Part III

Half Moon

And Chant of the Ghoul

€

Half Moon

The teeth of the shadows, and ghouls could be seen in the dried-up sea-cliffs of the moon; had some one taken time to examine them that is. The shadows and shapes had hoofs and were tasting blood they had brought from earth, and stomping their hoofs about the airless plateau, into the crumbling sod, and dust: drunken wits with desires came over them, as they continued dancing, wildly dancing on the edge of the moon.

The Serpent Ghoul,
A Dancing Ghoul on the Moon

There was tides, ripples, drowned around the moon, and a shadow with a husky voice, called the Chanting Ghoul, sluggishly, cast his eyes down to earth, to the windows of the renowned Castle Eliz, his abode, in the Mosel Valley.
And the spirits ears heard the request, wish (Ronda the seer, transported, via, telepathy; ah yes, crushing to the ghoul’s lustful ears, icy fingers and all; the waves and currents of the message read:
“A young woman called Eva, wished to visit the land of the dead—to see her lover, who was also her brother, once more; begging the spirit, please!”
Thought the spirit, ‘How does she know he is here? —for he is not!’ But nonetheless, he’d play the best, show he could. He was indeed an actor, not reactor. And like fish with no bones, the Ghouls of the moon, left their abode—for the Mosel.

And with him went the power, the Chanting Ghoul took with him the power to transpose the ripples of the five moons, an everlasting repetition of framework and trance.
Then chanting spirit, walked along the Mosel River, dabbling with sea worms, and dead bones, along its banks, “We are glad you came,” said the hundred or so Imps, devils and demons, waiting for the women (who had according to them: given her rights away: wishing to enter their abode, alone!).
The Chanting Ghoul groaned, moaned, chanted in a low voice: “We shall crack her bones, like old timbers, mark her soul: vacant: for wickedness has no eyes for love.”
And all his fellowship followed him to the courtyard of the Castle.
The voice said, to his comrades (boastfully): “I shall put this young life into a little box, and inside the box she will find out, this is where hell-dwells.” The followers answered nothing: just thoughts hidden in desires, and waiting.
“Lo,” he shouted, “I shall choke out the candle inside her soul.” And the horde of demonic creatures yelled, shouted, and had merriment for the moment: anything to make their boring lives spark.

(And that is how it was, the morning of the half-moon.)

And Chant of the Ghoul

The Chanting Ghoul

The Chanting Ghoul thought of what he would do now full of lust, desire, with this woman seeking to enter the harsh cracked walls of the underworld: thus, planting seeds in the corner of his mind:

“Come cat to this rat, I shall perch on your spine—; pull out your claws, plunge them into my eyes, while I fondle your neck, back and thighs—stroke your fur; mistress of my mind, darling touch my cold deep stare, while I smell the fragrance of your flesh; delight in it. From toe, to head, I shall touch my hands upon your flesh!...

The shroud of the morning mist was now lifted, faintly lit, “Let the feast begin,” cried the ghoul, “let lust light your gaze, be what you will, O Beelzebub, will be pleased.”
And he spoke to his demonic colleagues:
“I feel sorry for anyone who has to live with my disposition, any human that is for I shall snatch her up like a tornado and slug her and slam her right back down where she started from (he was boasting again; it’s what demons do for fun); that be the benefit of my pleasure, having watched her take the trip.”
Several ghouls were around the Chanting One, listening, “What was it I said yesterday,” Amrita said.
“You said a lot yesterday,” and the Chanting One, added, “and a lot of what it was, was ‘a fellow will trip himself foolishly the someway, in the same day, over a woman; I think you mean me?” And Amrita said not a word.

Note: I have traveled up and down the Mosel River, (in what was known back in the 1970s as West Germany), and throughout the valley area; the castle I am referring to here is Burg Eltz, it is back in the hills on the other side of the Mosel River, probably the only castle you’ll ever walk down to. At your first glimpse, from the cliff, you can see it. It is far from the river and road, perhaps that is why it was not destroyed in past wars. It was build near the time of the Dark Ages, around AD 1160. Henry, son of the Duke Henry the Lion of Saxony and Bavaria lived there from 1129-1195; written at Barnes and Noble, Part I: 2/15/2006, in poetic dramatic prose form. Part II:
1/16/2006 #1213; Part III: 2/17/2006: #1214 [Half-Moon, and Chant of the Ghoul.

2006-07-02T08:34:00.000-07:00

The Last Trumpet

A Prophetic Poem

Part One

In Winter’s fog appeared the Christ,
With thorns and crown and frosted light.
For several months, like Job I cried,
As visions came like moving tides.

By providence, biblical rhyme
They came, one by one, future time.

His hand was bright, His palm I saw,
Every print was visible-now!
It lit the room, filled all the space,
Filled my body, Lit my face…

Death was won, osmosis with Light,
Future sorrow was dead as night.

There was no hedge around me now…
A spinning wheel with pottery,
Did God step back I cried “O Lord!!”
Was this the steps, salvation’s door?

O Mother Shipton of long ago,
Witch, prophetess, your words come true.

Part Two

A jackal turned into a horse,
Could famine be its name? Of course!
A double-edged sword stood tall and bright,
Three times I saw its brilliant light.

Could not this be Eden’s door?
Salvation, judgment, swords of war?

A mask that cries a joker’s death
Gives a taste of Shakespeare’s Hamlet,
An unclean spirit circles its brim
Do they watch the wound upon the head?

Joker, joker, O mask of death,
Tarnished copper is upon your head.

In my anguish and trying tears,
The Lord spoke softly to my ears,
“Like David, you are after my heart,”
And I cried-in pretense-Ah, me!”

And I heard a stern utterance:
“Is this not so?” Yes, it’s true.

Oh angel, angel, how I try…
To be like Paul, and still alive;
And to my earthly, human ears
An angel spoke with soften tears:

“Saint Paul was human, just like you;
And your limitations are you.”

I’ve heard…no tears in heaven,
And thought: “What of my friends in hell?”
Then, within a mist of sacred dew,
I became awe stricken…alive.

I now knew, of the wonder that is to be:
A touch of God’s eternity.

Visions come and yes, visions go
Yet weeping seems to be my goal,
I cry, “O Lord, give me peace!”
Two times I rest within His grace.

And like a vacuum it starts again,
Like in the book of Revelation:

One side is black, the other white;
Night and day unbalanced light.
An ancient battle now appears
Swords and soldiers fighting everywhere.

A black hand covers my dream…
Am I not to see the suffering?

Judea, Judea, is it not you?
The Battle of A.D. 70, I choose;
The mask again, warnings devise
The Prince of Darkness: out of sight.

A copper bullet, rocket speed,
Faith, faith it’s headed at me!

“And young men shall see visions,”
Cried the prophets of long ago:
Daniel, St. John, David Wilkerson…
Have you not witness them too?

Ruin awaits a world asleep:
Prophets of old, time is ripe.

Panic I see and buildings fall.
Is it my face I witness now?
Beside a stone wall I shift and rest:
Pre-trials, earthquakes: time is short.

Trumpets, trumpets, where are you now?
Time is winding up for all….

Like molten metal in a bowl—
And poured to earth like plagues of gold;
Stands a husky skeleton tall,
Babylon: Daniel’s Beast, the toes?

Oh, but you will fall, quickly now—
Hollywood cracked, Sodom’s fall!

Skulls, spirits, ships at sea;
Huddled demon standing, watching:
The Capitol, Cathedral, One?
Seattle, San Francisco, Why?

Landmarks: Florida entrenched-war or play?
White capes, death shapes, saints walk by.

Powerful looking, not feminine,
He Knelt, the Savior in the Garden Grove,
His eyes piercing in thought.

I knew He was the Christ, confirmed,
And the spirit in me was prompted by Him.

Tarnished baked skin by the sun
His beard, admirably kept…like fine wool;
His hair-not long: like paintings shown,
But light-dark-brown, like the profile of Psalms.

Unclean spirits circled the air;
No distraction, steadfast, He was in Prayer.

Avoid this vision if you can!
Christ on the Cross-Deboned like fish:
Ugly as sin, my body’s shocked,
My mind is pulsing, vomiting….

Now I know the price He paid;
No man has ever been seen this way.

Odd-looking space crafts, labs, all eerie;
Machinery unknown to me,
Demon possessed, falling from space—
Our earthly atmosphere defaced.

And the prophet prophesied:
“There will be strange things…in the sky.”

A pale arm-dreadfully thin…falling;
‘Tis called Pestilence, deadly sin:
The fourth horse of Apocalypse,
And the Lord spoke: “Repent, repent.”

And the world shall taste uncouth rime—
Ah, that is the False Prophet’s time.

Then I saw a High Priest of sorts,
With a robe of precious stones,
Purple, prayerful—with jeering tones;
What church? Nimrod! Satan’s Prince?

“The wheat and tars shall grow together,”
Cries the Rapture and heaven’s quest….

Then I saw an eagle, a dragon—
The eagle hurt, falling from the sky!
Dragon, with a grin, abnormal—
Teeth like sharks, moping, passing by.

Oh! Darkness will befall the earth,
The Abyss is open 12:03, the curse.

Visions come and visions go,
The spiritual world is becoming real;
Current events—unraveling time,
Hell’s Abyss is alive!

Symbolic signs of Revelation,
Are but future Tribulation.

“Run to the mountains and the dens,”
Cries the scriptures and friend;
For death will have its sting to see
The latter days are nearing.

Reality with life’s visions
Are witnessing Globalism.

Was it hell or the “Lake of Fire?”
Prophecy, reality, ‘tis true.
As I viewed this vision, I wasn’t told—
He was preserved, consumed, and froze.

O but a joke, scorn, or jest
Is a far cry from this quest!

Oh, but this age in which we live,
Truly, this era is different, we sense;
A polarization of all things,
Neutrality doesn’t exist—

Time, relativity, the present;
Satan will soon wage war in Heaven.

The universe, like a body of cells,
Cascading like the gates of hell.
And so the science of physics
Whispers to thermodynamics:

“God’s spiritual breathe gives life…
Like the cell that subsides and dies.”

I saw Egypt, Russia, U.S.A.,
In different ways and stages, readying!
And Ezekiel cried from Scripture:
“Fire rains down on the coastlands.”

Israel, Jerusalem—You!
Two wars: China and the far North.

Two planets close to each other I see,
One like our moon the other like Mars?
A third object a comet-speeding
Through its channel, it’s leaving.

Another object, smoothly carved,
Headed towards earth’s atmosphere.

Disaster rides the horse of red:
Three times I saw Washington’s death—
Buildings, houses being attacked,
Jets, paratroopers, ablaze!

There on the coast sits Master Frog,
A satanic spirit, New York’s god.

A roaring jet around the globe,
A wounded eagle, falling slow,
A Dragon standing, teeth like sharks
Great Babylon’s in the dark.

The seeds of what shall surely be—
Daniel saw him too—the Lamb-beast.

Call now, but who will answer thee?
Control room, people, and clouds, smoke
Speeding missile (dust, hurricane);
Throwing earth like loose hay.

Two crowns, wooden bowls, long table,
An upheaval in nature—God’s anger.

The end of a serpent’s tail: shark?
A scorpion-like extension;
Flashes of faces I see: a demon,
A huge being, soaked: Neptune?

Prophecy: a beast from the sea;
And from the Abyss, tails that sting.

A mountain shows its mighty face
A pyramid, ship, fire, disgrace!
Is Egypt rising like the Nile?
In a political world, like an unfed child.

Judgment bowls, with balancing scales—
One for man, and Satan’s Child?

I see a Hawk…of Palestine?
His iris is a pitiless, dark design—
A bird of prey, I am told;
“Look to the South,” cries the prophet Job.

Nations of prey, where is your light?
O Israel, you are their plight.

Angry faces that seem to die,
Four faces in torment they cry,
A wound upon a shaven head
Sectioned in four, the center spot…dread.

Hoof beats of apocalypse scorn,
Gabriel stands close to his horn.

In a moment of a vision
There they sat…ah, in deaden pews,
Indifferent, in a faithless church,
People sleeping as in a trance.

So it is written of-end days,
Apostasy—the Christian ways.

“In whose hand is the club of wrath?”
Cries the word from Isaiah:
Whose purpose is to destroy?
Who can shift nations like toys?

And the prophet cries from the past:
The nations are his to leave and cast.

Then I asked with deep affair,
To grant two visions to a friend:
The Jews were held behind glass doors—
Bargaining, readying: a black book.

And the prophet cried long ago,
“It is time; Let my people go!”

And in the jungle, a puzzle—
Ten pieces, animals, different sizes;
The riddle was all put together,
Except for one piece called the beast.

Then all pieces become alive
“Set your house in order,” Isaiah cries!

◊

I saw her cast into a bed—
Jezebel, Jezebel, I dread;
Dabble not with her system, but heed:
Darkness, the last trumpet, history.

Tears, let him hear who has an ear,
A child in prayer, and a soldier’s gear.

Am I alive, in a womb…Dead?
In the sky by an angels breast?
Smoke, smoke, lots of smoke I see:
Jerusalem’s looking at me.

You’re illuminated? The White Knight’s
Untouchable in this darken night.

Egypt, Paris, fields of wheat;
Spacecraft falling, machinery;
Life or death, an egg in a hand:
Starvation, war, global plans….

The bowl of judgment has arrived—
Anger and plagues are inside.

Florida, you’re dusty and dark…?
China, you’re in the news…:
People reading papers (a world event),
Poland’s red tapestry, Java, etc.

Interplanetary gloom-woe!
The blood of Armageddon.

Part Three

And now a verse of present rhyme,
The Middle East is losing time;
Believe in the Lord…His prophecies.
Do not shun them deliberately.

And from the Hawk and ships at sea,
The thunder of war is readying!

Behold! Tonight I see the Christ,
With an aging beard that wasn’t right.
Had I not been warned years ago?
Do not tread the ground that’s old.

Then I saw a Hawk, descending,
Claws, wings, expanding, readying,

And yes, I asked for prophecy,
A sign that all would know, I believe;
The shroud, the shroud: three times I see,
The Shroud of Turin a mystery.

Birth pains of Apocalypse, I see,
An eagle stunned (the U.S.A.),
A woman, standing by a desert…Why!
Eight Angel, Israel…let her by.

Visions come and visions go, be blessed;
Revelation declares this so….

٠٠٠

I can't start to tell you the history behind this poem: but what I can share is this, it was made up of 50-visions, Dennis had in l984 (7-months of visions, and 18-months in writing the poem), and he gave the Manuscript [MS] to two clergy, and one died, and that MS got lost; and the other one lost the manuscript likewise, and he lost his. Then for 13-years no one could find the third MS, his personal one, then it was found (misplaces), and Dennis put it into a book form. If asked, and he was: "Did God tell you to do this, get it out to the people," he'd say 'no,' and add, "I wanted to do this, He [God] just gave the visions, I suppose out of love to convert me, and he did. (And He told me so…what I’m telling you). And for whatever reasons I put them in a poetic form, and gave them away; and thus far, they've all come true. It’s funny, all to convert one person." 1/14/06 Rosa

2006-07-01T10:11:00.000-07:00

Brooding Darkness
[Macabre Poems by Dennis L. Siluk]

Brooding Darkness

Orion’s Orchard
[Poetic Prose]

In the universe, the one that surrounds the world (perhaps the mind as well)—someone once threw a ball—I do believe—somewhere, and it exploded—, somewhat: which slowed everything down a bit, and its thrust (its push, in all directions) is still keeping it airborne: carried by the push that was set in motion (so very long ago); hence, when it loses its momentum, it will crash, I do suppose, and all that is, will be the ball (its substance: what is hanging on to it, in it): that is all that will be left, everything else just: waves, just waves in nothingness what, that one person once made thrust out of; as a result, nothingness and all that it created will come to some kind of a standstill (I repeat)—it has to: for what will carry it? Save, that that someone does not create something else out of some kind of new anything. It’s how it was, how it had to be, how else could it have been: come about to surround the world, with all its t’s crossed, and I’s dotted. We normally don’t think this way, lest we want the mind to become mad.
I heard a voice in this dream of my mind, it said, “I am immortal, I sit behind the suns, and I write epitaphs of all, all the living things, then I open up their lips, an endless task it seems at times: the zenith of life comes from nothingness—and I, I hear their dying wish: to remain, to be something; eyeless faces, that is what you all were once, but by My graces so you became, and they become—more.

Orion’s illumed by my side, showers Me like a rainbow with its gasses, breathless orchard: it is the magnificent mocker of the universe: perhaps you would call it such, perchance: Baudelaire’s fantasy; or Poe’s Twilight; or Clark A. Smith’s perilous deep orchards; George Sterling’s musical images, ghostly lights; Dennis Siluk’s murmur, bemused silence; Ellis’ epigrammatic flight of the imagination. I touch, only touch (lest I destroy my own makings): only touch beyond its burning drums, into the winds of nothingness—what I created it all from. The horse head: it roars like a volcano, a moat around me; the Universe is like a squeezing viper, a sacrificial rip in all the proportions I’ve carved out of the thrust, as you call it, from the push: I fixed it for you: the watcher from earth.”

Comment by the Author: “Here is a cosmic poem of sorts, which I hope you enjoy; I do trust this briefly and vividly will exposes the element of suggestiveness of the beauty of God’s vast universe.”

#1366 6/5/2006; written while at the El Parquetito Café in Lima, Peru [Miraflores] one afternoon.

Valley of the Beast
[Armageddon]

They were assembled for the feast, the feast of victory, in the Valley of the Beast, the Valley of Armageddon!

The vaults of Hell now, were opened, to assault the nations of the earth: hence, Hell spoke:
‘Cursed be to those who do not heed these words: join us in the valley of the beast, for war!’

And so the world sat waiting on war, with blood soaked knees, in the Valley of Beast. And they came from far and near: from bog, valley and woodlands; from the north, east; and far west—brother against brother (to fight for the Beast, in the Valley of Armageddon).

They came from Hell’s abyss, commanded by none other than, Agaliarept, Lucifer’s henchman; with hissing, clutching at the feet of nations, until they carried: “War, war, war…!” And there they stood with flaming swords, and many died caked with blood up to their thighs, as the fury roared—two billion died; and thus, the Prince of Darkness, was shackled for a season, but he will be back: by and by.

Note: written at he Café “Tarata” Lima Peru, 5/1/2006 [afternoon, during lunch).

Black Galaxy

O midnight mystery! That links the soul with sight
Like winds upon a mountain’s side
Glares your deepest sapphire eyes—;
Here is Pandora’s pyre,
Where chariots fly through nebulas.
O midnight mystery! Here is the Black Galaxy?

Written at EP Café, Miraflores, and Lima, Peru; 6/7/06; redone, 6/9/06: #1370

Moiromma’s Dawn
[Arctic planet on the rim, between
two solar systems, ours being one]

Forlorn, the empires of this planet
Forgotten, is its sun, under its innumerable clouds
Arctic nights, sink below its morning star
And never a soul, shall ever know
The yearning of Moiromma’s people…!

#1372 6/9/06 [Written in Lima, Peru]

A Testimony from Hell

Cold are the massive ramparts of deep Hell
Demonic beasts stand waiting by their posts:
Agaliarept, the Henchman of the host
He, guards the unholy profound supreme:

Eternity waits—thine war-abyss eyes:
Here the cosmic demons pace and lye;
Underneath the oceans surface, and its tides,
Waiting to take control, of contending skies.

Down Hell’s corridors: flames sweep the deep
Blood hath wet, the devouring trodden walls:
Thunder, unbigoted, unresting, orbits—;
Immeasurable nights, fume the halls.

Here, ye— eternal gates (for fates) lift up
For humankinds, induce unnumbered tears
Here, ye—the mammoth disc, of the vast sun
Beams realms of blood-red dark tow’rs of death!

O dim bowls of fire, with faint unrest
Thine silence now rules the ghostly deep
Held by the pyres of the spectral past:
“Be patient,” says Satan, “we’ll rule the weak!”

Day shall soon befall this ungraceful abyss
Time shall unwind, these darken dungeons:
And the legions of Hell, serve God’s will; says
Satan: “The near doom of mankind: in time!…”

#1366 6/3/2006

Commentary: we as humans hold no truce with death, nor a peace treaty with hell, it is the calls of the unchosen, unworthily, the degrade of beauty that knocks at our front door, yes, they come up all the way up from hell’s corridors, to minister honey, to the divided hearts of earth, likened to a hungry bear. Reluctant we may be, but so are they.

The Keeper of the Dungeon
[Opiel: The Gatekeeper]

The Dark, damp, deep dungeons
(Underneath the castle grounds)
Where freedom has no sunlight
This dark palace,
Is where the cadaverous dungeon keeper resides?
Where death filters its way into, this dungeon’s stonewalls:
Here, upon your arrival, hate—with mortar mixed tortures
Fester about; infinite, horrid decaying bones separated from flesh
Paralyzed human spirits—live…(the Keeper’s clientele)
Live in a lifetime of hideous silence.
Here, all cease to speak, blinded and stripped
Raiment’s, just muffled echoes—
In these Dark, damp, deep dungeons
(Underneath the castle grounds)
Where freedom has no sunlight
Where death filters its way into this dungeon’s stonewalls.
Here all will forget ones original name, after time
And all carry their own chains [no crosses allowed]:
Contemplate propositions once made—now too late.

It was this demonic beast, Opiel: keeper of the dungeon
(Once keeper of Hell’s gates)
That broke the silence seized the arms of each human being
Grabbed some by the nostrils
Dragged them disquietingly
Across the stone floors, in utter darkness;
In silence, darkness, solitude, who could stop him?
Motionless they all stood…!

“You are all my guests,” he laughed
His echo was like a pack of rats.
(No future, only madness.)

Dungeon walls speak: blank, dark secrets:
They have unconquerable spirits,
Impending footsteps, no fatigue,
Cold and slimy bodies; these walls have feet,
Instinctively they groan, wiggle about,
As if their thighs are blinking eyes
They do not know defeat!

One guest once told me:
They thought it was a dream
But when they awoke, it was reality!
“Ghosts have their dungeons of madness also…”
(I quote: the keeper of the gates);
Some are let loose to created havoc
Others like reptiles, sleep in these dark dungeons
Night after night after night; so says the Keeper:
“Revenge is my birthright.”

#1370 6/14/06 Written at EP-Lima, Peru

2006-06-30T18:01:00.000-07:00

21-New Poems and Commentaries
By Dennis L. Siluk 6/30/2006

Poetry

1) Mother’s Bedroom

In my mother’s bedroom:
Thin bottles for perfume,
Powder on the little desk,
Colorerful ribbons on her bed,
Snow-white curtains,
A pink nightgown,
Indian moccasins with colorful beads.
The wooden-varnished floor
Has a rustic neatness.

The ceiling light is bright,
A white glass shade:
Still it harbors some insects.
You can see the bible
Resting along side her bed,
Its warped in brown covered leather
Flyleaf’s hanging out.

#1375 6/24/2006

Note: certain things trigger certain things, my mother’s bedroom, rather plain compared to some I suppose, had its peculiarity, it’s own personality, or was it my mother’s personality in that setup in her bedroom. But when I think of her, and the bedroom, which I had to cross through to get upstairs to the attic bedroom—my brother and I slept in—it is hard not to remember her personality intertwined into that house, that bedroom. Autobiographical sketches in poetry can be hard at times to depict, especially in poems, which call for them to be condensed, thus, one must create the imagery and construction, and insure the mood is nostalgic; with my mother’s death being three years come July 1, it is nostalgic indeed to write this new poem: to tell as much about the state of our exchangeable lives as I can.

2) To an Old Dead Friend
[From Donkeyland—USA]

In the heydays of the early-sixties
car-loads of us neighborhood-bums
ignorant and arrogant dreamers
came crashing through the streets,
funny we all remained alive,
free-spirited Christian infidels,
with stray spirits, many never find
the way out, too good to be true.

Often I used to loiter
past the old church steps
to the Mount Airy Bar, time after time
like you, waiting for something….
There in that neighborhood we got hooked,
like two bears to honey,
someone, somewhere praying for our souls,
“Where is God, take me from this booze.”

Now I stand outside the consecrated ground
remembering your high school smile,
You lost, but like one who’d won…
I gave it all up, long pursuit of God’s
demon, man-slayers with drugs and booze,
those transitory imps, fell off you lice
back into the neighborhood, like friendly mice,
when you died, in your early fifties,
still covered, confused, and drugged,
true to your boyish wariness in high school.

Old friend, I see your wife burdened,
living a single life, on whatever she can,
under your hand, she was nothing
worn, waiting for you to come home,
broken-hearted lioness, hands of stone
waiting—then you hung yourself in prison.

#1374 6/25/06 [written while in Lima, Peru]

3) House Without Windows

I am building a house with no windows
And a very small door,
And my friends all ask me why.

Life has been for me full of anxiety—
And I care not to let it in any more;
So you see, I am making a very small door.

And having no windows allows
What is outside not to look in—
Thus freeing my spirit to rest again…

Original published in the Magazine: The Mango Tree, out of India (August/September issue 204], considered by the editor to be an exceptional poem. Also published in the book “The macabre Poems,” Volume III.

4) O Little One

You’re growing so fast,
My little one,
With eyes of spacious hue.

You’re growing so lovely,
My dearest one,
With hair of golden dew.

And with a whisper,
And head turned down,
You say you love me so!

Your voice teardrop lime,
Your pride so new,
I say I love you, too.

Sh!—I swish I was,
But I am not,
The things a dad should be.

But I miss you so
And I L-o-v-e You!
With all there is of me.

Note: Taken from the book, “The Other Door,” the authors first book, written and published in l981; 2006, being its 25th Anniversary. Now considered a classic by many; pp; 12.

5) Rose-tinted glasses
[A Two-Part Poem]

World’s Blindness & Poet’s Vigil

1) World’s Blindness

Man can’t seem to see
He’s divided
The worlds in disarray;
All us little sheep—
Are now fast asleep
While Satan’s on His way!

In the dead of night
He’ll burn daylight:
Covered us with blindness;
When we do awake,
It will be too late
Lost somewhere in the stars!

#1376 6/24/06

2) Poet’s Vigil

Poet, find your way
In the outward trail;
Quickly, please—today
Write, that man my read
Images deeply glowing
For time is short for all
In the global picture now.

#1375 6/24/06

Note: We have tough choices to make in the future, as this new century moves forward; no magic yet, just hopefully mature actions; we live in a world when hard fingerprints is the one that makes right and wrong legal, not that it is. When I was a kid, when someone said this was “Right, and this is wrong,” I was expected to listen; now it is pushed under the rug. We seem to need the editorial pages of newspapers to tell us what’s right and wrong, and in most cases the paper is only a view of unknowing, uncaring people putting something out there so they can make a buck, the “Herald Tribune,” comes to mind, they got a lot of opinion, comments, they think is written in stone, when in essence, it is some kid green with life, and war, never been in one, never will telling us all what is right and wrong. They are hired because they can come up with fancy words, nice sentences, no common sense, but they can spell; God help us all.

In these two poems, “Poet’s Vigil,” for example, it should be noted, we as poets, parents, government officials, have a duty to show in words and actions, what is really happening, stretch out the rights and wrongs. And in the second poem “World’s Blindness,” it is no more than reading a daily international paper, traveling around the world and seeing what is happening: the devil is working overtime, as we play ‘Blind Man’s bluff.”

6) The Butterfly Urn

“Ashes, that is all I am—looking up at you;
whose the fool?
“I take up such little space, inside this little
urn—
“you’d think I was a butterfly, in a
cocoon.
“Just keep me if you wish, in a corner of a
room in your home:
I won’t say much—I got many other things
to do.”

#1374 6/22/2006

Note: The urn is preferred for many reasons in considering a proper burial; and as in many Asian countries it is kept in a home (as in Japan); some times—as in Cambodia, bones are kept (of the loved ones) in a little open-ended shelter in the backyard of a home (folks have been kind enough to show them, and allowed me to touch, and hold them, they feel they are residue spirits in a way), most made out of wood. It provides a closeness you will never get, putting a loved one in a cemetery, that most people never go to after the day they bury the person. In some cases this is perhaps good, depending on your memories of the person. In Peru, people do go to cemeteries quite often, an exception to the rule. And in Haiti, where I spent some time, a cemetery is preferred, they save all their money for such an event, it is like a holiday, another exception. But in America, they can’t wait to put you in the ground, call the insurance company up, and run outside and celebrate, spend the money, and will never step a foot back in that old graveyard again.

On one hand it is a cheap burial compared to the grand tomb, of modern man, costing between $10,000 to $30,000-dollars; in Minnesota you can do a service, nice Urn, and cremation for $1400-dollars, and take the urn home for everlasting warmth. Young Americans think this a tragedy, and so do some Peruvians, it only proves one thing, their inexperienced limits of the world: they think they live in a one-world parking lot.

7) The Cake Poem

Red, yellow, orange green and blue—
Balloons on a cake,
Candy covered mushrooms
(Red and white):
The cake sits in a window display
Waiting for the right child
To see and say:
“I wish it was my birthday!”

#1373 6/16/2006 (Commentary): written in Lima, Peru (prior to dusk), while waiting for my coffee at the Deli, “Wilton’s” in what is called ‘The Circle,’ area, by Miraflores, Lima, Peru. While drinking my coffee a woman with her two young boys looked—from the outside in—looked at the colorful cakes, with all there decorative items on top of them; the frosting hanging over the edges, the colorful items (toys); thus, life is made up of many moments, and the eye catches them, and the mind stores them for future time; I’m sure the boys will get reflective this evening while sleeping, reflective of those cakes while sleeping tonight, thus their subconscious will mold some dialogue for their parents tomorrow morning; in any case, this was one of those magical moments (plain as it may seem, that is what life is made up of: many plain magical moments); hence, this poem is plain ( but the cakes were not: and the two boys can attest to that). Dedicated to the Deli helper: Luisa

8) Before the Dawn in Beijing
[A Love Affair]

The nights were long, it seemed an era
(All before the dawn in Beijing),
Came youthful smiles, in my magic age
And we who listened to each heartbeat
A sweet compulsion of that sound
The burst, a mighty morning on Beijing;
Then yellow flowers seem to fall (sing):
She was an empire with pains and peaks
I an ocean, and sky above—

The dark was deep, a drowsy soul
Somewhere between reality and sleep,
Tides of Time and matter seeped—
Pure being, freed from memory
Of voices I have never heard,
And dreams and echoes
Nor did I find the light of the star
Before the dawn in Beijing,
Which haunts the hollow past in me…!

#1371 6/17/06

In Writing the story of “An Affair in Beijing,” original Title “Stockbridge Romance,” I had added an old poem I had done in 1997, when I was actually living this affair; and it seemed only proper to write a new poem for this future book. And so I came up with this poem, and in doing so, I will perhaps change the name of the story to the name of the poem. Normally I change the name to my loner stories, or short novels several times to fit the story. The title in important; but when you are writing the story and at the same time, giving the story to others to read, it often changes. In the case of a most recent story I’ve put on the internet, “A Romance in Augsburg,” the title did not and will not change, simply because it fits the story, and was written five years ago. Now you folks are getting it in a revision of sorts, a reediting of it. One time the book was in the process of being set up, and I had to call the publishers at the last minute to change the title, and they did.

9) War Poems on Iraqi

1) After the Dawn of War II
[Iraqi 2006]

I looked over the shoulder of the world
Through its crawling fog
And heard the cold cries
Seen the stir in the eyes
Heard the trumpets of war
Breaking the silence of dawn
(Heard somebody say):
“Soldiers will die today
For Iraqi Liberty—
That thou endure.”

#1371 6/16/2006

3) War Flag III
(Post Iraqi)

Lone are the days and short
Before the next cruel war—
What spirit then shall fill a sweet despair?
To wave the flag of war…and say:
“I’m here and Ready!

#1372 6/16/2006

3) The Color of War I
[Iraqi: war poem]

I saw the other day—
A little boy coloring away
(With crayons) in a sketch book;
With every colored pencil
Under the rainbow—
And then some…

And when I took a second look
I thought of the Iraqi war
(American and Allied soldiers)
And all the colors it stood for:

Red was for the blood they’ve shed;
Gray, for depression of their families
Far away…
Blue was for sad skies;
Black and white, for death and life;
Green, for the spoils we’ve not seen;
Brown, for the dray and dusty nights
All the soldiers had to fight—on
Foreign ground.

I pleaded, for the boy to stop,
Surprised, he looked up at me—
With his deep blue eyes, haunting
Me, he said, with a tear on his cheek:
“I wanted to color the soldier’s feet!”
I looked and there it read: ‘Peace’
Already colored-in, with gray:
Said the boy still looking at me:
“That’s the way it came.”

#1371 6/16/06

Here is an unusual war poem Dennis has written today, on the Iraqi war. He said after following it for four years, “…it is getting old; yet it sells papers doesn’t it?” He was for
the war when it was a war, so he told me, but now it is not, it is more a police action, he explains to me, and feels perhaps we have overstayed our welcome. “And what are the motivating factors now?” he asks. He adds, “When we get into questioning the motives, after a war, when they are not clear, it is perhaps time to leave…” Dennis being a Vietnam Veteran knows a little bit about how it all works; and here in this poem, he paints his picture of war, the Iraqi war, and how he sees the colors of war through color crayons of a little boy. Rosa Penaloza

Commentary on War: I’m fifty-eight years old, and I can’t remember a time when the United States was not at war, preparing for another war, or just getting over a war (not to include WWI and WWII); thus, we’ve had a busy half-century. I was but three years old when the Korean War broke out, in l950, and in 1953, when it was tranquilized. Then again in 1964, my friends went to Vietnam, and I in 1971, that war ended in 1975, an eleven year war. I thought we’d have peace but we got a few more wars in-between (we always do); such as, in the 80s Haiti involvement, Granada, and some secret Central American things; nothing real big. And then we got Bosnia in the 90s, and a few other little East Europe wars to attend to (mixed with these wars we had Granada and a few African uprisings); always helping out Europe with their little squats, which they feel are important, and when it comes to American made squats, of course they are less important to them. Also in the 90s we got Iraqi I, and in the now 21st Century, we’ve had to contend with Afghanistan and Iraqi II. We are a country full of warlords to be sure. What will be next, between 2007 and 2016, as I had predicted in 1984, we will be in line with the onset of WWIII. We have been fighting it since l950, with Korea, now it is set in motion: the war on terror is part of it of course. When I say set in motion, I mean, things are going to fly. We already got Iran and Korea on the hot list; Syria is bordering it; and we are going to have to contend with the Arabs sneaking through South America to North America and lighting up a path once they got on solid ground. Russia and China are becoming economies with highbrow ideas; we may have ruled the 90s, but I fear, things will change, as often they do. Dlsiluk

10) The Keeper of the Dungeon
[Opiel: The Gatekeeper]

The Dark, damp, deep dungeons
(Underneath the castle grounds)
Where freedom has no sunlight
This dark palace,
Is where the cadaverous dungeon keeper resides?
Where death filters its way into, this dungeon’s stonewalls:
Here, upon your arrival, hate—with mortar mixed tortures
Fester about; infinite, horrid decaying bones separated from flesh
Paralyzed human spirits—live…(the Keeper’s clientele)
Live in a lifetime of hideous silence.
Here, all cease to speak, blinded and stripped
Raiment’s, just muffled echoes—
In these Dark, damp, deep dungeons
(Underneath the castle grounds)
Where freedom has no sunlight
Where death filters its way into this dungeon’s stonewalls.
Here all will forget ones original name, after time
And all carry their own chains [no crosses allowed]:
Contemplate propositions once made—now too late.

It was this demonic beast, Opiel: keeper of the dungeon
(Once keeper of Hell’s gates)
That broke the silence seized the arms of each human being
Grabbed some by the nostrils
Dragged them disquietingly
Across the stone floors, in utter darkness;
In silence, darkness, solitude, who could stop him?
Motionless they all stood…!

“You are all my guests,” he laughed
His echo was like a pack of rats.
(No future, only madness.)

Dungeon walls speak: blank, dark secrets:
They have unconquerable spirits,
Impending footsteps, no fatigue,
Cold and slimy bodies; these walls have feet,
Instinctively they groan, wiggle about,
As if their thighs are blinking eyes
They do not know defeat!

One guest once told me:
They thought it was a dream
But when they awoke, it was reality!
“Ghosts have their dungeons of madness also…”
(I quote: the keeper of the gates);
Some are let loose to created havoc
Others like reptiles, sleep in these dark dungeons
Night after night after night; so says the Keeper:
“Revenge is my birthright.”

#1370 6/14/06 Written at EP-Lima, Peru

11) Orion’s Orchard
[Poetic Prose]

In the universe, the one that surrounds the world (perhaps the mind as well)—someone once threw a ball—I do believe—somewhere, and it exploded—, somewhat: which slowed everything down a bit, and its thrust (its push, in all directions) is still keeping it airborne: carried by the push that was set in motion (so very long ago); hence, when it loses its momentum, it will crash, I do suppose, and all that is will be the ball (its substance: what is hanging on to it, in it): that is all that will be left, everything else just waves, just waves in nothingness what that one person, once made thrust out of; as a result, nothingness and all that it created will come to some kind of a standstill (I repeat)—it has to: for what will carry it? Save, that someone does not create something else out of some kind of new anything. It’s how it was, how it had to be, how else could it have been: come about to surround the world, with all its t’s crossed, and i’s dotted. We normally don’t think this way, lest we want the mind to become mad.

I heard a voice in this dream of my mind, it said, “I am immortal, I sit behind the suns, and I watch epitaphs of all, all the living things, then I open up their lips, an endless task it seems at times, the zenith of life comes from nothingness—and I hear their dying wish, to remain, to be something; eyeless faces, that is what you all were once, but by My graces: so you became, and they become—more.
Orion’s illumed by my side, showers Me like a rainbow with its gasses, breathless orchard: it is the magnificent mocker of the universe: perhaps you would call it such, perchance: Baudelaire’s fantasy; or Poe’s Twilight; or Clark A. Smith’s perilous deep orchards; George Sterling’s musical images, ghostly lights; Dennis Siluk’s murmur, bemused silence; Ellis’ epigrammatic flight of the imagination. I touch, only touch (lest I destroy my own makings): only touch beyond its burning drums, into the winds of nothingness—what I created it all from. The horse head: it roars like a volcano, a moat around me; the Universe is like a squeezing viper, a sacrificial rip in all the proportions I’ve carved out of the thrust, as you call it, from the push: I fixed it for you: the watcher from earth.”

#1366 6/5/2006

Comment by the Author: “Here is a cosmic poem of sorts, which I hope you enjoy; I do trust this briefly and vividly will exposes the element of suggestiveness of the beauty of God’s vast universe.”

12) The Panama Canal, 2006 (The Big Ditch) A Poem with Commentary

[May 2006: Advance]: After visiting the Panama Canal, to see its worth, on the world stage, seeing it four times in four days, from the locks to the Bridge of Americas, to the lakes, etc; spending hours each day at the locks, and islands thereabouts, and talking to the Panamanians. I wrote the following poem below, at the canal.

I was told this was the eighth wonder of the world, but then when I was in Haiti, in 1986, likewise I was told, their Citadel was the 8th Wonder of the world. I have traveled the world over, and perhaps we have nine wonders of the world, the Panama being perhaps number 1 to 3, and the Citadel number nine, and we’d have to take one other wonder and put it into the missing category; the Panama Canal is really in a class of its own.

A wonder of the world it isEqual to 6000-plus, war shipsSix pyramids by the Gaza strip.With all its tunnels, and locks,Dams, lakes, fifty-one miles of it;Buildings, mess halls, bridges— Structures and more structures;Spillways and much cartage;Bulldozers, trains—ten-years of it,

Building:

Excavations, constructions—:Like digging a big ditch, throughMountains, valleys, lakes—all All I say, all immense, immenseWith tons of cement and steel,Between silt and mud; and twoOceans between: obstaclesOne after another—yellow fever.
The Suez Canal is but a glimpseOf this immense task, in Panama;Unequal in every way, to its grandeur.

Afterwards: In building the canal, it took, ten years (by the Americans; the French, several); and cost $675-million dollars between France and America; 62,000-workers worked at any one time on the site (42,000 world die from disease, accidents, est.); the site being 51-miles long, and ten miles wide. There were three locks to build, a few dams, a lake or two, a mountain to blow up, and create a passageway through. The French sold the rights to build the canal to America for $40-million dollars, after they had failed in its completion, at a cost of $300-million. Today that price tag would be over 14-billion dollars. It took 1600-hundred pounds of gold to pay the workers each month; or 24-tons of Silver. They had to produce five million loafs of bread, 100,000 pounds of cheese, 9-million pounds of meat, and 300,000 chickens each year to feed the hungry works. In addition, they had to use 150,000-gallions of mosquito oil. Its construction matter is equal to five Suez Canals. The material taken out of the Panama Canal would be equal to six large –pyramids in Egypt. It was an immense task, perhaps the most perplexed since the landing on the moon: in all the history of mankind.

Note: Written in Panama, at the Canal, 5/24/06, #1360.

13) The Jackal of Venezuela: Hugo Chavez
[Part I/For His Homeland]

Over the Venezuelan cliff
(Hugo Chavez: now president)
And under so much History!
They did not see him smirk,
Turn, like an animal,

In his cage of vulgar, his cage of scars:
He’d had so many wars!
The dark caves of his mind was
The real trigger—Russian roulette.

#1362 5/31/06

The Jackal of Venezuela: Hugo Chavez
[Part II/For his Self]

You now are aware of the Jackal of Venezuela
Growing beside you, like a vampire cow:
A death vampire, color gone, gumless bat
Balding, gelded by shadows—illusionary,
And a forehead like pigs backside
An utter lack of bone structure for a man.

But right now he is dumb
And I love his stupidity,
The blind, leads the blind.
The reflection of it; I would look in
And find a face, and it tries
To grab my nose—
That big skull’s, smashed-in
Like the shanties in Caracas—
Godawful—your smile smells
And hell is waiting…!

#1363 5/31/06

Note: We see them come and go do we not. The butchers of the world; from Iran to Iraq, to Venezuela, to Zimbabwe, Russia, China; Cuba, North Korea, Peru; we cannot get away from all these dictators that want to help us run our lives, business, as if we can’t ourselves. So we pick out the whatever we can find from garbage cans and hope we come out will a sliver dollar, but we get what we are looking for most of the time; yet we keep thinking we are going to hit the jack pocket; in such people, there is no pot of gold, as they promise, waiting for us once we get home from the poles, our voting. If they can’t butcher you from a coup d'état, they will try it your way, legally, democratically. They have the charisma it’s called psychic magnetism. The sad thing is, it is happening in Peru right now; and it will happen in other places. Colombia, was wise in its selection perhaps they’ve had enough pain; there is enough for everyone out there (more pain that is, simply for the asking), and we keep asking for it, and when we get it, we cry.

14) Grand Canyon [‘89]

Un-thought of, undreamed of,
I was now flying over and through
The Grand Canyon, shadows of
The plane blocked out the sun; so
I could see its depth, its ripples
And as we ascended I could see
Over the desert as my eyes drifted
Across the wideness of the canyon;
A lilac sun beamed its filtered air
Onto my face, as I look out its
Porthole: civilization loomed
Back behind me, in Las Vegas;
I grabbed a slice of the moment,
Back in ’89, for you, and this rhyme.

#1349 5/17/2006

15) Grandpa was Always Old
[1956-1967: Elegy]

Grandpa was old—he was very, very old, it seems all my life he was old. I know now, looking back, how many years he lived, 83-years [died: 1974], but he looked old at forty, perhaps fifty. I’m fifty-eight, I often wonder if I look old, as old as he looked to me; whatever the case, he was very old to me. Something gray and cold and at times hurtful, that been around forever, he was part of that. He personified that to me, to others, but particular to me.
I’m sure Grandpa never thought when he was gone, someone would write stories about him, many of them, and in the stories they tell of this younger man, me, with a sense of humor I hope, and everyone knows, Grandpa does not have to have grace, or lightness of touch, a dream of beauty breaking through the sun beams coming to earth. Grandpa can be Grandpa.
O, those who knew him shall have many good memories, some that other people will never have, because of him.
Long ago, when he was the owner of a restaurant, down town in St. Paul, Minnesota, when I was a kid, I used to go eat there [1956-19??]: a hamburger, pie and coke; I always had the same. He’d give it to me free, and sometimes he’d make me pay, sometimes not, but he’d always walk away saying: “…godam kids all da like is da-hamburger, coke, hamburger, coke…” if indeed that was all he was saying, I never got past that, couldn’t make out the rest.
His friend, who helped him with the restaurant, told me he got robbed a few times, but then later on in years to come, when he was going to sell the cafe, Grandpa said about his friend: “godam son-bitch, crroook…he steal everyding from me, fu..k ass…” oh well I’d say, just give him a ride home.
This is a real picture of Grandpa. He was always old in spirit, and at the end of his life, I don’t think he knew what to do with it.
He was trampling through his lilac bushes during the last days of his life, pacing a path in the house from his porch to the kitchen; the ceiling was his sky full of stars now. He got old, so very old quick, and up and died, but it seems I never saw him get old, he just was always old, and then died. I suppose I didn’t see him get old because he was always old to me.
I think Grandpa did all he wanted to do in life, his road was long and we: my brother, my mother and myself, are all better off today because he let us live with him so long ago, had he not, who knows what would have taken place.

16) Love, Youth and Envy: Poems

The Missing Song

An era in me embraces my youth
It seems but an autumn’s day,
When life and love, with jealous hast,
Went fast, to grabbed it all away!…

For then, no more a thoughtful breeze;
It somberly moves me now—
And haunts my breast, its absentness
The living grave of remembrance.

#1331

Envy’s Men

The smarter men despise me so,
I think we must disagree,
Alas, it is second envy
The only proof ‘twixt them and me,
I dream and they envy.

#1332

Past Loves

I buried love with hope
But it did not obey:
I said: it didn’t care
About my little pains—
And yes, I changed…!

#1333

17) Circles in Love

All my life,
I was a sacrifice
to love—
domineering it is!
If true gracious love
appeared,
I dare say,
her face was never clear,
and soon
she walked away.

I have gained some wisdom
with my pain;
and with all her pride,
she has none—.
Two tyrants now,
mostly vane:
lost in a world of one.

#334

Note: Written in the evening of: 4/30/2004 and the Morning of: 5/1/2006. Love, envy, pain, pride, youth, memories, they all revolve round in circles: small circles, then bigger ones; make us dizzy, especially if one is fickle. We live half our lives, if not most or all, fighting loves shadow. We want it to be (romantic love that it), to be the utmost, the high of highs. We have our first love, and we fall hard usually, we remember it all our lives. Then somehow we find our wives [or wife], raise our children, work hard, go to church, a few vacations, etcetera; and that even disappears sometimes: nowadays, most of the times. Then we go hunting again (or shopping), looking for our death partner: perhaps, the one we will be buried with, or by; then we get thinking of the ones we left behind; you see, the circle never ends. Perchance you never got caught in the circle, the better you are for it, for love was never meant to be a burden: like lust, or greed, or selfishness; we just kind of made it that way.

18) To Clark A. Smith
[Arriving in Hell]

When CAS, made his decent,
(Paid his toll, before he left—
Earth’s crust)
Proud he was when he appeared
At dock #666 Hell’s Northern Pier.

There stood Satan himself—
Opening the gates, “Drop the oars,”
He said, formal and brief: “You are
Amongst friends, the Dead, who
Never die, nor ever sleep…!” And
His ten-wings snapped insanely.

There was the Henchman, Agaliarept
Ruler of an army in Hell; he leaped to
His feet, held out his hand—saw the
Scorn on his face, said:
“Welcome, you are home my friend!”

His eyes—vile, a hoary-red; he
Stepped up onto the dock, over the
Ash-dark canopy (called a sky)
Saw Satan taking off his ten-winged
Ring, said: with a whisper to CAS:
“Wake thy eyes, and make me a
poem that will never die…!”

#1122 1/29/06

Note: Clark A. Smith, was of the old stock, yet he rose above his day, and went from Imagery poetry, such as George Sterling used, who was Smith’s teacher, and that of Robinson Jeffers, and Lovecraft, along with Baudelaire, to cosmic and fantasy. He perhaps went as deep, if not deeper than Poe. From symbolism to modernism; he did adjust to the times, but he also would not leave what was considered demonic roots of imaginative within the freedom Pure Poetry, which it allowed. I think George Sterling tried to convert him away from too strong a stance in this area, but he would not budge.

I am sure if I had asked Mr. Smith, had he had the chance to edit this poem, he would perhaps have himself sitting down at a table with Robert Howard, Lovecraft, and Satan himself, at a dinner table talking about verse, meter and other elements of poetry. And would tell me: I’m too soft with the imagery.

1/28/2006

19) Strange Devouring Poetry

1) The Ash Dark Pyre

Cremated ashes on a dark Pyre
Reptilian serpents fly over me.
My soul is like some jaded vine
Irony supreme—a strange mind!

#960 12/14/05 Committed to Clark A Smith

2) Aforgomon’s: Obliteration

I saw the god, Aforgomon
There was something in his gaze
Likened to a salty hurricane!
Then he turned and swallowed me…
(head first)

“I have come,” so he told me then—
After peering from his abyss den
(where he had lived for eons when)
Now on earth’s surface:

“Death
by chains” he said
“of
fire” he said
“is
simply a
symbol;
It
Does
Not
Hold the
Gleam
Of
Obliteration
As in my
Dizzying
Gaze.”

His eyes were like the sea—deep
He had no pity for anybody—.
My body veered before the wind,
As he appeared—at my command
That is when: when
He turned and swallowed me—
With all his necromancy!...

#958 12/11/05 committed to CAS (Clark Ashton Smith)

20) The Messiah

Like pelts stretched from side-to-side
On a wooden cross, undressed, alive—
The Messiah hung, like a wild beast,
Uncouth, uncrowned, no dignity.
Deboned—like fish—His body hung;
Lifeless, deformed, in silent pain.
Dried blood upon His ransomed face,
Eyes decaying, hardly seen.
Pores hemorrhaging with a gloss of sweet;
Skin like mounds of inflamed tar
(like boils reflecting off dark shaded ice).
Deep distress around His soot-covered veins,
A mixture of Saliva, Dirt and Shame;
Ugly as sin, beyond recognition
(like open incisions of an autopsy).

Acquainted with grief, yes, oh Yes!
As the prophets foretold, long ago.
A new scene, we became REDEEMED!!

Notes: Originally written in 1987; published in the book, “National Library of Poetry,” (won Editor’s choice Award in the North American Poetry Competition of l988, out of 10,000 entries) also published in the book, “Siren,” 2003.

.

21) Winter of Death

In the winter of doubt
Death swims—engulfs
Like a hurricane—like
A ship sinking; thus,
Pitilessly with tons of
Crushing sea!

Here I stand on the lofty
Poop, above the angry
Waves—, as it waits
For Me!...

#943 [12/7/05]

Commentary of Poetry

Poetry is Written for a Universal Audience

I’ve been writing, reading, and singing poetry for 46-years, and I’ve never heard anything so silly as poetry cannot be enjoyed universally, or it is strictly made for the poet. It is, if given a good translator: translatable, I’d say perhaps 50% of poetry. And most poets do not write for themselves, they wrote for the world, the last of the truth givers. One half the Old Testament is written in a form of poetic prose, if not, epic, ode, elegy, or dramatic. Most of your songs today are poetry in motion, a form of personification, a figure of speech that gives human qualities to inanimate objects or ideas, or can. Humor’s Trogon War is poetic; without it we’d have never known there was a war in 1250 BC in Asia Minor.
I do agree with the fact, perhaps a large hunk of poetry is not translatable from one language to another, but most epic poems are, like the Epic of Gilgamish; it frees the spirit, it is like music. In most of Faulkner’s early writings you will see a pattern, a form of poetry, he had a hell of a time trying to avoid mixing genres of poetic prose fiction into his historical novels and short stories.
In poetry virtually every line of any poem contains all levels of meaning, condensed: poems are short stories, if stretched out. Thus, you do not have to run around town and buy 20-novels to get to the end of the story.
I’ve read poetry from many ages, from the Old English, representing works in oral tradition, the old bard who had to memorize to make sure it got to its right place, with its accented syllables per line. To Anglo-Norman or Middle English poetry, where we get the French lyric forms.
And I can go on to the Renaissance which their poetry gave rebirth to humanistic culture, focused on mankind rather than on God; to the 17th century of Neoclassicism, all the way to what we have now Postmodernism.
In poetry we have what we call verse, meter, both words for poetry itself, meter is the pattern created in a line though. So if anything, you have in poetry the best of that language in a poem.
Like anything else you write, the poet and reader needs to know the audience, who is the audience he is writing for or to. Some folks say they can’t understand Faulkner, to me he is an easy read, I’ve read all his stuff; and Hemingway, is like he is writing to me. But there are some authors I get lost with after a few sentences. The poet doesn’t necessarily write to the whole world at large, no one does, but some can. And like any story, you got to know what the main subject of the poem is (or in a story: the theme, plot and insight), and if the poet can’t give it, he perhaps is not as good as he’d like to be, or you’re not as good as you think you are in reading a condensed story, in poetic form.
You also have to figure out: does the poem belong to a genre, again like reading fiction or nonfiction; these are normal questions we ask ourselves, usually when we read anything. And like many writers, such as William Burroughs, and his friends of the 50s, you have to take into consideration what figure of speech is being used in the poem, just like the story. Nowadays people do not want to take any work in reading, but it requires this to have a good read. And you may want to know what the poet’s life and times were. If I read Fitzgerald now, he is like plain music, but in his day he was a flash of lightening.