Caglar Juan Singletary
'Non-Violent TaeKwonDo Troopers' & 'Annie Oakley'
excerpt from "Off The Charts: The Song-Poem Story" (2003)
I can also appreciate his love of
giant women... (check out his MySpace page)
I had a dream
I set a tiger loose
on my reckless fear.
STARE DOWN
UPON ME
FROM BEHIND
THE SILHOUETTED PINES,
THE MURMUR
FROM THE OTHER
LAKESIDE
IS DROWNED
BY MOTORBOATS
AND RAIN
SHAKEN FROM
THE MAPLES
IN THE WAVING BREEZE.
Low tide
Slow ride
Swimming more
than anything
Trying to
break through
The Face-smack
Foam - with power!
It'll knock your rocks
Smooth
Like these suitcase
Weights [of mine]
All is green and grey
and white, and...
Poooshhh!
If you hold on,
You won't be
Dragged back to
Shore
Sudden dots appear
-The ones who've
Gone before
Sit waiting,
Straddling hope
And somehow,
Like old deaf men,
Wait for their turn
To fall.
Like Soldering,
I press weight
From pen
To paper
I wait
For heat
That melt
To mend
Connection
On some
Invisible
Green
Dream
The truth
Of which
Runs from
My heart
To my
Hands
From down
My arms
And drips
Unseen
Electricity
The speed
Too fast
For brain
To hold
Or catch,
To see
With clear
Perception.
In Plane View (Costa Rica)
Over-powering Toucan posters
And no Golden Sloths
Casado con chuleta, por favor?
Salsa Lizano, ubiquitous as red earth
Near volcanoes shrouded in all-day funk
Of blowing wind and condensed milk, water.
The plane is bumpy
Yet collects no stones in its undercarriage
High world
Ground world
All seen through
Keyhole of invisible
Squinting doors.
City life is grey and bleak
My name IS grey, and so, I bleak?
The countryside waterwheel
No-grid existence - I long,
Overdue in wallowed hours
Bowing to a clock that works against me.
Green and Red and Blue and Stars,
Or Red and Blue and Green and Death?
TV: off.
The forest would reclaim the land
Faster than you could build on it…
I am dozed by distant visions of skies
Clouds
The inner focus of the mind
At times of wandering loss
Direction is limitless
If you don't limit your map
To paper.
Leafless Lung of Tree
Sways, reflex on
Blue sky background
While unaccustomed
Sun sheds unfamiliar
Shadows baffling
The February animals.
That house I knew
Still faces East I knew East stars,
The tree, the stars
Across the street
Street, back shed,
And in the back
The snowy shed
The walls of brick Brick: Red
Of brown, of red
And all the black Black past sky
Of ashes past
Like darkened sky,
They do not last Last sight
If not in sight
Since last we spoke Spoke words:
Then in these words
I now invoke
Invoke all
And conjure all
The past, unseen
To give me insight Unseen insight
While I dream
Those images Dream images
Once lost, come clear
Old sounds revisit Clear
Inner-ear
And I, for once Revist ear once
Might know again
And never lose Again lose smell,
That smell
Of summer rain. Rain.
In shards, I wander
Down ancient, cobbled streets
And pine for some belonging
As I focus on my hands
Too sore to do the talking
Who will listen anymore?
Everyone these days
Needs understanding
Who am I to stand between them?
Wailing, shaking, sunk
Into a funk of my own making
Like some robber who sees
Through broken, pilfered mirror,
Himself:
inflated shadow
And the moment,
But a shard.
Chestfull
My grief is a massive hydraulic machine
Now begun,
Pounding giant beams
Of tempered iron
Into the very foundation of my soul
Each time the hammer lifts
The conditioned excitement
Of the Fall
Deepens
Grows
Numb
"Waiting Room" - J.Legg, Gr.12
Old Man @ Dad's CT Scan:
School bus time in the rain
The smell of hand sanitizers and a
2-hour wait.
Hospital magazines
And waiting room murmering
Paper crinkles as cheeks tighten
Watch the strange man,
Archetype
Jowel-frown, eyes darting
Old Fart
With contorted face
'Casually' licking his cheek
Meanwhile, outside workers spend
Hospital money on loud noises
And cramped quarters, these
Patience will never see.
Turn-takers, loud-talking
For our suposed entertainment
Appealing to my notetaking
Lack of attention to the grave
Situation
Call and response
To fill in the blanks of their
Silent hearts.
Opting for elastic headbands
Over true stimulation
All trouble, no bass.
And the man, alone now
Stares at the floor in front of me
And twirls his crossed-leg foot
Like some wayward antenae
Now tapping into an anxious heartbeat
Mournful of the silence,
He shifts his gaze to the squint
Of true-light windows, over
Courtyard of construction.
The sounds, like a mirrored silent movie,
Distract his face into the numb crux
Of thumb-forefinger.
Staring...
Waiting to catch a train from
The corner of my eye
Silence
On the outside, full twitch
And scribble
Noiseless
Inside thunder with a whisper
Heard better with cupped ears
Invisible.
And Still,
empathy can be
FELT.
Electric Vibes
Harmonize
Blur your ears,
Close your eyes
Slde the ride
And hold that find
Then, find 3 in a row
Waves hate shade
And end too late
When rock hits,
Stop the flow...
Poet of the Month:
1854-1891
"Ver Erat"/"It Was Springtime"
[for which he took 1st prize in Latin Composition]
It was springtime; a malady immobilized Orbilius
In Rome; the weapons of a terrible teacher were stilled.
The sound of slaps no longer reached my ears;
The whipping-stick no longer kept me in continual pain.
I took my advantage, sought the smiling countryside,
Forgetting all; free from studies and free from care,
Sweet blandishments restored my wearied mind.
A certain flood rapture seized my breast;
Boring classes, the teacher's harsh lectures
Were blotted out of mind; I rejoiced in the fields afar,
In the florid wonders of the burgeoning earth.
Nor did I, childishly, seek empty rural idleness:
I was filled with feelings greater than my small breast;
An unknown intent more divine added wings
To these exalted feelings: I watched what I saw,
Marveling silently, and in my breast was born
A love for the warm countryside: like an iron
Ring the Magnesian rock by some mysterious force
Attracts, and silently binds itself with invisible hooks.
Meanwhile my limbs were fatigued from my long wanderings,
And I lay down on the green-growing bank of a stream;
Lulled by its languishing murmur, I lay and took my ease,
Charmed by the songs of birds and the breath of the Western wind.
And lo, through the airy valley doves approached,
White flock that bore in their beaks fragrant crowns,
Flowers that Venus had gathered in her Cyprian gardens.
The swarm approached the grassy ground I lay upon
With a soft beating of wings, and hovering above me
Thereupon they bound my head and my hands
With green-growing garlands, and with sweet myrtle
Crowning my temples, they bore me, delicate weight,
Through the empty air.... The flock through lofty clouds
Conveyed me, drowsing beneath a branch of roses: the wind
With its breath caressed my gently swaying bed.
When the doves in rapid flight had reached their habitat
Beneath a lofty cliff, and gained their hanging
Homes, they set me down and left me there, awake.
O ineffable nest! ... A light gleaming with brightness
Poured round my shoulders, wrapping my body in its rays:
Nor was this light at all like the dim light
Mixed with darkness that obscures our eyes:
Its heavenly origin bears no trace of earthly light!
And within my breast rose something celestial, godlike
Power, that flows forever like a stream in flood.
Meanwhile the doves returned; in their beaks they bore
A crown, a laurel garland: crowned thus, Apollo
Delights to strike with his finger the sounding strings.
And when they had bound my brows with the laurel crown,
Lo, the heavens opened before me and suddenly
To my astonished eyes, hovering on a golden cloud,
Phoebus! His divine hand offered me the sounding lyre,
And with fire from heaven he traced these words on my brow:
YOU WILL BE A POET.... Through all my veins, then,
Heavenly warmth flowed, just as a fountain,
Pure shining crystal, flames in the light of the sun.
And then the doves their former shapes dissolved:
The Muses in chorus appear, singing sweet songs
With melodious voices; in their caressing arms
They caught me up and carried me away,
Three times uttering omens, three times crowning me with laurel.
~Nov. 6, 1868, age 14 (!)
----------------------------------------
And, from "Credo In Unam" c.1860s
"...
Bring back those ancient days when all was young;
Days of lascivious satyrs, animal fauns,
Of Gods whose love-bites broke the bark of trees,
Who kissed blond nymphs among the waterflowers!
Bring back the days when the world's sweet sap--
Rivers and streams, the pink blood of young trees,
Poured through the universal veins of Pan!
When the green earth beat beneath his goat-feet,
When his breath, in shining Syrinx' soft embrace,
Brought forth beneath the sky the hymn of love;
When standing in the plain, he heard about him
Living Nature answer to his call;
When the silent trees cradling the singing birds,
The great earth cradling man, the azure Ocean,
And animals all, still loved the power of God!
Bring back the days of almighty Cybele--
Gigantically beautiful, once she rode
A chariot of bronze through the glittering cities,
Her great breasts pouring through the universe
The streaming purity of boundless life.
..."
Poet of Last Month:
The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock (1919)
When the evening is spread out against the sky
Like a patient etherized upon a table;
The muttering retreats
Of restless nights in one-night cheap hotels
And sawdust restaurants with oyster-shells:
Streets that follow like a tedious argument
Of insidious intent
To lead you to an overwhelming question . . .
Oh, do not ask, "What is it?"
Let us go and make our visit.
In the room the women come and go
Talking of Michelangelo
The yellow fog that rubs its back upon the window-panes,
The yellow smoke that rubs its muzzle on the window-panes
Licked its tongue into the corners of the evening,
Lingered upon the pools that stand in drains,
Let fall upon its back the soot that falls from chimneys,
Slipped by the terrace, made a sudden leap,
And seeing that it was a soft October night,
Curled once about the house, and fell asleep.
And indeed there will be time
For the yellow smoke that slides along the street,
Rubbing its back upon the window-panes;
There will be time, there will be time
To prepare a face to meet the faces that you meet;
There will be time to murder and create,
And time for all the works and days of hands
That lift and drop a question on your plate;
Time for you and time for me,
And time yet for a hundred indecisions,
And for a hundred visions and revisions,
Before the taking of a toast and tea.
In the room the women come and go
Talking of Michelangelo.
And indeed there will be time
To wonder, "Do I dare?" and, "Do I dare?"
Time to turn back and descend the stair,
With a bald spot in the middle of my hair--
[They will say: "How his hair is growing thin!"]
My morning coat, my collar mounting firmly to the chin,
My necktie rich and modest, but asserted by a simple pin--
[They will say: "But how his arms and legs are thin!"]
Do I dare
Disturb the universe?
In a minute there is time
For decisions and revisions which a minute will reverse.
For I have known them all already, known them all:--
Have known the evenings, mornings, afternoons,
I have measured out my life with coffee spoons;
I know the voices dying with a dying fall
Beneath the music from a farther room.
So how should I presume?
And I have known the eyes already, known them all--
The eyes that fix you in a formulated phrase,
And when I am formulated, sprawling on a pin,
When I am pinned and wriggling on the wall,
Then how should I begin
To spit out all the butt-ends of my days and ways?
And how should I presume?
And I have known the arms already, known them all--
Arms that are braceleted and white and bare
[But in the lamplight, downed with light brown hair!]
Is it perfume from a dress
That makes me so digress?
Arms that lie along a table, or wrap about a shawl.
And should I then presume?
And how should I begin?
. . . . .
Shall I say, I have gone at dusk through narrow streets
And watched the smoke that rises from the pipes
Of lonely men in shirt-sleeves, leaning out of windows? . . .
I should have been a pair of ragged claws
Scuttling across the floors of silent seas.
. . . . .
And the afternoon, the evening, sleeps so peacefully!
Smoothed by long fingers,
Asleep . . . tired . . . or it malingers,
Stretched on the floor, here beside you and me.
Should I, after tea and cakes and ices,
Have the strength to force the moment to its crisis?
But though I have wept and fasted, wept and prayed,
Though I have seen my head [grown slightly bald] brought in upon a platter,
I have seen the moment of my greatness flicker,
And I have seen the eternal Footman hold my coat, and snicker,
And in short, I was afraid.
And would it have been worth it, after all,
After the cups, the marmalade, the tea,
Among the porcelain, among some talk of you and me,
Would it have been worth while,
To have bitten off the matter with a smile,
To have squeezed the universe into a ball
To roll it toward some overwhelming question,
To say: "I am Lazarus, come from the dead
Come back to tell you all, I shall tell you all"--
If one, settling a pillow by her head,
Should say: "That is not what I meant at all.
That is not it, at all."
And would it have been worth it, after all,
Would it have been worth while,
After the sunsets and the dooryards and the sprinkled streets,
After the novels, after the teacups, after the skirts that trail along the
floor--
And this, and so much more?--
It is impossible to say just what I mean!
But as if a magic lantern threw the nerves in patterns on a screen:
Would it have been worth while
If one, settling a pillow or throwing off a shawl,
And turning toward the window, should say:
"That is not it at all,
That is not what I meant, at all."
. . . . .
No! I am not Prince Hamlet, nor was meant to be;
Am an attendant lord, one that will do
To swell a progress, start a scene or two,
Advise the prince; no doubt, an easy tool,
Deferential, glad to be of use,
Politic, cautious, and meticulous;
Full of high sentence, but a bit obtuse
At times, indeed, almost ridiculous--
Almost, at times, the Fool.
I grow old . . .I grow old . . .
I shall wear the bottoms of my trousers rolled.
Shall I part my hair behind? Do I dare to eat a peach?
I shall wear white flannel trousers, and walk upon the beach.
I have heard the mermaids singing, each to each.
I do not think that they will sing to me.
I have seen them riding seaward on the waves
Combing the white hair of the waves blown back
When the wind blows the water white and black.
We have lingered in the chambers of the sea
By sea-girls wreathed with seaweed red and brown
Till human voices wake us, and we drown.
Old-School Poets
of the Month:
John Donne
(1572-1631)
I wonder by my troth, what thou, and I
Did, till we lov'd? were we not wean'd till then?
But suck'd on countrey pleasures, childishly?
Or snorted we in the seaven sleepers den?
T'was so; But this, all pleasures fancies bee.
If ever any beauty I did see,
Which I desir'd, and got, t'was but a dreame of thee.
And now good morrow to our waking soules,
Which watch not one another out of feare;
For love, all love of other sights controules,
And makes one little roome, and every where.
Let sea-discoverers to new worlds have gone,
Let Maps to other, worlds on worlds have showne,
Let us possesse one world, each hath one, and is one.
My face in thine eye, thine in mine appeares,
And true plaine hearts doe in the faces rest,
Where can we finde two better hemispheares
Without sharpe North, without declining West?
What ever dyes, was not mixt equally;
If our two loves be one, or, thou and I
Love so alike, that none doe slacken, none can die.
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"I can't gain weight... my anxiety acts as aerobics"
~Woody Allen (Scoop, 2006)
...or...
?
...or... o.k., I have a feeling these are broken.
