What We Do Here:

This Blog is about Poetry, and its purpose is to forward poetry in the world with connections to any and all poets I can find. This blog works in conjunction with me other blog.

Friday, May 9, 2014




Fig. 1.  Interior of a Theater.  Signed Shunro. 1794.   (Hokusai).   



Interior

It is so easy now, to part time's tender veil
and look back on my misspent, single youth,
for twenty four years towards my death, the stale
and sulky air bleeds like an angry truth.
The stage I sketch, is but the stage of me
and all I draw is for a few to see.

All that I am starts here--in crowds of masks,
as actors state their lines in scheduled scenes,
my father waits to take me home to tasks
of ornate mirrors carved by humble means.
And here among the tiered walls of this space
a son denies his birthright and his place.

The men on the stage are now outside of time
I stand outside the wall surrounding them,
of where they watch the scenes of song and mime,
delighted by the world they're captured in.
I search these faces for my father's face,
lost in the lines my humble hands must trace.

Look here and you will see that he is gone--
there is no trace that he was ever here,
these lines serve only those I must endear
with noble poses and with shadowed tone.
And yet I search for Father on this page,
I search the deep, wood texture of the stage.