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| (c) 1988 Norman Dziedzic Jr. See the triptych here. |
Thursday, May 31, 2012
Wednesday, May 30, 2012
Never Again
In the forest walking
Walking home I stopped
To watch a toad
jump
Across a rotting log.
Lizards grabbing
passing flies.
Instinctively led inside their heads.
Not a
thought
amongst the lot.
And even now I hear
I hear the freeway
passing
Way too near
My solitude.
It's gone.
(c) 1984 Norman Dziedzic Jr.
Monday, May 28, 2012
Patients
Hello.
I am here ... patient.
I am here and I - am - patience.
I am as patient as bedrock and black and silence.
I. I am here... and you are not very patient.
You are life.
You are motion and energy and noise.
You are life and you - are - oblivious.
I am growing ... my patient.
I am growing so slowly.
Slowly like trees and canyons and space.
II. I am growing...and you are slowing.
You are still life but...
You are wondering and wheezing and denying.
You are wondering and you - are - fear.
I have exploded ... patient.
I have exploded and I - am - rapacious.
I am operating and gorging and mutating.
III. I am exploding ... and you are fighting.
You are hope.
You are chemicals and beams and invocations.
You are hope and we - are - patients.
We are tired ... fellow patient.
We are tired and we - are - waiting.
Waiting for relief and peace and closure.
IV. I am here ... and we are inseverable.
We linger.
We are silence and acquiescence and patience.
We linger and we - are - gone.
Goodbye.
(c) 2012 Norman Dziedzic Jr.
Friday, May 25, 2012
Philosophers
In high school they had us read Shakespeare and Hemingway etc., and even Descartes and Wittgenstein in a "Philosophy/Religion" class. That was all fine except when they started to tell me what old dead white guys were thinking when they were writing. This did not sit well with me and this poem is what came out of my brain after that.
PHILOSOPHERS
An iron leg walks the plank of chalk-dust but the balloon
pulls down the wave. Opening my eyes : only pencil cases.
Still chicken little yells, "The sky is falling!"
Soundless noises pierce empty microphones. And a wall
knocks over the form of the now forgotten worth of it all.
Wrapped in (rapped with) ideas of this and concepts of that.
I am here
You are there
He is everywhere
And yet all is lost without sight of the invisible.
Without hearing the mute they leave their houses. Falling
to ashes they stand deforming. Without their key, their
house, its corners: a meaningless store of space.
Up-side-down I can sing a song. In-side-out underwear
can still be worn without anyone knowing. The shaven beard
grows even in death.
I am here
You are there
He is everywhere
nothing more needed
Yet too much more expected
(c) 1984 Norman Dziedzic Jr.
Thursday, May 24, 2012
Wednesday, May 23, 2012
Good Night
The mirror I have
is never nice
the pictures shown
(though seldom seen twice)
never fade: I always see
staring back
the real me
The mirror I look to
uses only truth
I hide the facts
(though full of proof)
I try to run away from there
from something
that is everywhere
the things I thought
I'd never be
confront my face
they're inside me
nowhere to hide, when from my mind
no hole so deep
I cannot find
me cowering there
from whom I've seen
how old he is
unjust and mean
A face with
cracked and callous brow
from hiding pain
of others; how
he lives with knowing;
with all his faults
showing
puzzles even him.
I hate him staring back
and laughing so...
so hard, so long
"so what" he says
I hate him knowing what's inside
I hate knowing I can't hide.
The hardest thing I see:
the mirror
for I know the one I hate the most
is me, it's me
If I should die before I wake
you'll see him
just the same as me.
We are one mind
though not one blood.
One mind like taffy
pulled between
ungrateful hands of greed
If i should die before I wake
break my mirror
on my grave
for truth is deadly
when it can't save
one from one's self
If I should die before I wake
don't pray for me
but for yourselves:
alone, the single both of you
Afraid to sleep
I must beware
one self might kill
the other there,
in darkness
I hate it so
it must hate me
...or, can it love
so openly?
Or can't it feel,
could it be so cold
not to care
and leave me
crying here with no more
than my rightful due:
sitting in the hole I've dug
If I should die before I wake
don't cry for me
I drove the stake
right through the good
I used to feel
right through a life
that wasn't real
(c) 1985 Norman Dziedzic Jr.
Tuesday, May 22, 2012
Dichotomy
I am the other
However I find that
The other's not me
Which is interesting
And while the other
(That is, that which
is not me and
which I am)
Uses me much like a book
I use the other much like money
So I am it
While it's not me
I spend it while it studies me
And this raises thought
As if I'm in a box
And it's never there (for it's not me)
Except when I am it
Which is always
I guess that when I want it there
It's there
And when I don't it's not
But if I'm it
it wants itself
I'm starting to get the picture
And as I struggle with self
As all selfs do
It feels it not yet still
fights back
Which I must feel
Even if I don't respond
Being divorce from me
It can be objective
While I, being of it,
Lay slave to the subjective
And in-between subject and object
A verb of dreams
Builds the framework
Of my dichotomy
(c) 1985 Norman Dziedzic Jr.
Monday, May 21, 2012
The Closet
In my closet are many things
A list of five-hundred forgotten kings
An old black book of unplayed songs
A list from God of rights and wrongs
In the closet an old pair of vampire fangs
In the back an unfinished picture hangs
Clothes obsolete and never worn
An old English paper crumpled and torn
On the left on the shelf a red shoe box
Inside a half dozen unpaired sox
Six baseball cards without the names
A rack with all our childhood games
Five posters that glow in fluorescent black light
Three feet of string and a tailless kite
A white telescope with a lens with a crack
An old locomotive and some dusty bent track
Behind an old traffic sign reading "merge"
Three roads to nowhere all converge
(And with my pencil, paper and mind
I can see though I am blind
Can sing and can whistle without using a note
Can travel the seas without raft or a boat
Can learn without ever a teacher near
Can get real drunk without any beer
Can feel though I am locked in a shell
Experience heaven, experience hell
Can run and can fall and without wings can fly
Without ever living can know how to die
With a few well placed phrases and maybe a rhyme
I can solve the world's problems, can travel through time
Never speaking a word I know how to converse
The meaning of life I can give in a verse)
I can travel these roads when I feel real blue
When there's nothing else left, they know what to do
In front of the sign an old sleeping bag lays
Now downstairs I hear that our stereo plays
Picking up all the things that I've strewn on the floor
I exit the closet, close behind me the door
(c) 1984 Norman Dziedzic Jr.
A list of five-hundred forgotten kings
An old black book of unplayed songs
A list from God of rights and wrongs
In the closet an old pair of vampire fangs
In the back an unfinished picture hangs
Clothes obsolete and never worn
An old English paper crumpled and torn
On the left on the shelf a red shoe box
Inside a half dozen unpaired sox
Six baseball cards without the names
A rack with all our childhood games
Five posters that glow in fluorescent black light
Three feet of string and a tailless kite
A white telescope with a lens with a crack
An old locomotive and some dusty bent track
Behind an old traffic sign reading "merge"
Three roads to nowhere all converge
(And with my pencil, paper and mind
I can see though I am blind
Can sing and can whistle without using a note
Can travel the seas without raft or a boat
Can learn without ever a teacher near
Can get real drunk without any beer
Can feel though I am locked in a shell
Experience heaven, experience hell
Can run and can fall and without wings can fly
Without ever living can know how to die
With a few well placed phrases and maybe a rhyme
I can solve the world's problems, can travel through time
Never speaking a word I know how to converse
The meaning of life I can give in a verse)
I can travel these roads when I feel real blue
When there's nothing else left, they know what to do
In front of the sign an old sleeping bag lays
Now downstairs I hear that our stereo plays
Picking up all the things that I've strewn on the floor
I exit the closet, close behind me the door
(c) 1984 Norman Dziedzic Jr.
Saturday, May 19, 2012
Haze Outside
Haze outside
the picture falters.
here between day and dark
as night
a sketch
lacking color
depth or
feeling maybe
fading...
When dark the
lights will form
an outline
sharp.
When now the
shapes loose def-
inition
the city falters.
Haze outside
(c) 1986 Norman Dziedzic Jr.
Friday, May 18, 2012
After Roses
The Rose
from thorn to petal
shows,
that never was
there found
a smile
without a tear.
And thus I know
that every face
of joy
has seen a time
of harder lines;
(about the eyes,
the mouth;
maybe in the brow)
{And yet
there never was a time
at which
on looking at your face
I didn't see
a smile}
And so [a rose],
from bud to blossom
grows,
without the need
to separate
the tears and smiles.
And yet
there never was a time of years
(or space of miles)
I could have placed
between two,
joined as such,
to satisfy a want
I knew
to be too much.
a
petal
a thorn
and yet a rose
and yet there never was a time
at which
on looking at a face
I didn't
see a smile
a tear
(c) 1987 Norman Dziedzic Jr.
Thursday, May 17, 2012
a rose
a
rose
a rose
and yet
a rose
and yet there never was a time
at which
on looking at a rose
I didn't
see a smile, a...
face
a face
and yet there never was a time
at which
on looking at your face
I didn't see a smile, a...
rose
(c) 1986, Norman Dziedzic
Wednesday, May 16, 2012
City Lights
City lights
from darkness
show; in night
to make me
know
A man has walked before me.
And wondering
what will be known
of me,
I think -
not the name.
With no face,
no words,
one is left to
make a stand
upon ability alone;
however grand or
pathetically drone; to
be exalted or
thrown away with
cares from
yesterday.
And coming to
the break of day,
I will walk before the sun
that I may know
I walk alone;
And they may know
A man has walked before them.
(c) 1985 Norman Dziedzic Jr.
Sunday, May 13, 2012
Momentary Distraction
Those walking by
Dressed for warmer air,
Force smiles
To the wind.
However,
This is only a
Momentary distraction
Dear.
Walking by you,
It's difficult,
Not to smile;
But sometimes
Your face says -
Not to look.
Yet
It never says,
To look away.
Even though I should not,
I worry.
Your bare arms and
Legs, to fight the day
- And not to call
You frail -
I think,
I want to
Hold you close,
To breath warm air
Through your hair,
onto your
neck.
Walking by
I see your smile.
And being dressed
For warmer air,
I long to feel your face
Nested next to mine.
However dear,
I am only a
Momentary distraction.
(c) 1987 Norman Dziedzic Jr.
Saturday, May 12, 2012
Showtime
The lights go down
a momentary blank,
canvas black,
empty space
waiting
waiting
an endless instant ...
a forever moment
The curtain goes up
the book is open,
parchment white,
filling space
moving
moving
an endless dream ...
a moment forever
(c) 2012 Norman Dziedzic Jr.
Thursday, May 10, 2012
Night Time
Night Time
Wanting, Waiting, Longing.
Wanting sight but
more than seeing;
Touching hands but
more than feeling,
Holding maybe.
Tightly.
Wanting grasping -
tightly longing -
timely waiting -
holding feelings.
Wanting not
for waiting longly,
Only touching
timely holding.
(c) Norman Dziedzic Jr.
Tuesday, May 8, 2012
Sendak Sendoff (Once)
... Of course
I never knew where they were.
For I shut my eyes
when I thought I saw them
And I shut my ears
when I though I heard them
And I shut my heart
when I thought I felt them.
Was it the Wild Things?
I suppose.
But what are they?
"I don't write for children;
I write, and somebody says,
that's for children."
We should have known.
We should have known.
No one fears another that completely.
No one knows another that wholly.
No one wakes another that widely.
"I don't write for children."
I never knew where they were
until I fell;
until I left;
until I stared without blinking...
once.
Once I conquered yellow eyes;
Once I conquered the sea;
Once I conquered the forest;
Once I conquered me.
Once.
(c) 2012 Norman Dziedzic Jr.
Monday, May 7, 2012
Tunnels
BLOCKS
OF WOR
DS HEL
D TOGE
THER W S EXCEEDING
ITH T U N N E L S ALL LEADING L BOUNDS OF
TO THE NEXT E NORMAL TH
. WITHOUT N INGS. US
A FEAR OF T N UALLY UNS
HE VOID ARO U EEN. T
UND THEM T U
N
N
E N N E
L U L
I T S
N S UNDER ALL
G L THE WORKI
SEEMINGLY E NGS OF TH
TRANSCEND N E WORLD.U
ING BOUND N NKNOWING.
S. DISSA U UNKNOWN T
PEARING, T O THOSE O
ONLY TO B ; UTSIDE.TH
E FOUND E S ESE T
LSEWHERE U
L N
E N
(c) 1989 Norman Dziedzic Jr.
Saturday, May 5, 2012
Three Tomorrows
Eight rotations. Here I sit
You'd think I'd learn
To turn
away
And not to burn
inside
Three weeks lately. Movin' 'round
You'd think I'd see
How free
outside
I'd be
outside
Only yesterday. I'm still here
You'd think I'd try
To fly
home
Or even die
to leave
Three turns left. I guess I'll stay
You'd think I'd know
Not to show
my thoughts
How very slow
it seems
One-million yesterdays. Three tomorrows
I think no more
A bore
it is (and after this)
No more
will it be there
why don't I care?
(c) 1984 Norman Dziedzic Jr.
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