Five Poems by Kurt Cline

SONNET #1 (for Ted Berrigan)

This is the mind of the continuum
Spinning off, like a RED BALLOON
Trailing its string through unfortunate skies
To be or not be in the enclosure long ago
A feral cat cries  & handwriting too
The fountain pen  the swirly pool
As quietly as daybreak gives delivery
Empire State hypodermic syringe shooting up sky
Makes impossible  to be or not  the thought of a thought
Itineraries of dandelion fuzz  rainbow bubbles
Another shot of poetry.  The blind moon
Departs with prudence & dispatch.
But my clock is dishevelled   my pants have grown antsy.
Come sit by my side—I’ll build you a rocket-gantry to infinity.

RETROSPECTIVE

From the boardwalk you can see
Inch by inch the sun going down
Like a UFO over the
Ocean & under the sea
In a leaky submarine.
Life just has to go on.
A great world to live in
If you get the chance to.  Time messed-up
As it is, he didn’t have many associates.
You’d better be careful what
You ask of a man like that
She never told him life could move so fast.
He doesn’t understand: the world washes away
Like stars with the morning tide
Crumbles like sand
In your hand.  People continue to move
Albeit in a big circle.  But where
Is all that love heading?  Big cash
For the winner & such a sea
Of ships!  What a good friend
Who draws moans from the ocean.
You are safe—as the silence knows too well.
When she thought it, it was him.
She could love him, that is, time
Messed-up as it is.

SEA OF GREEN

In a land called nevertheless useless
this may well be the end
what’s behind yr skin’s
the tangled skein
of a dead-end alley.
It’s an iniquity!  An antiquity!
Leaden boots walking
through synchrono-
city.
Been to the hub
of the spiral galaxy.
Can you tell me two microtubules
that aren’t tangled?

FANTASIAS

And as all my blithering hopes turned to narcissus blossoms

The windows along the roadway prayed

Prayed I could keep my mind on straight

Lightbulb reflected in concave mirror

Dear Lord please grant the prescription pan out

Since transgressing laws of man and cinema

I somehow seem to have gotten away with it anyway!

Their powers are not as great as they would have us fear

You’ll notice no hesitation   only the coming on   of dawn

A tremendous number of cows out there, farting

Take anything.  Break it down far enough

It becomes invisible.  Landscape woven word-worlds

Thoughts   concepts   disappear

Storyline minimalistic

In fact seemingly deserted until

Fades away.  I am going to a place

I barely remember, before anyone knows I’m gone.

MEMORY TO GO ON

Eyes touch mind
There will be no rumors
Fast talk avenues can’t be tricked
Life does.  Time asks
The spoken-for or
Possibly forgotten—
And down here  these
Mammoth moments
Never stop
In time.  Some people
Can only have one life

Some people have got to be there.
You don’t get a chance to—time does.
The spoken-of or probably misremembered
Thoughts that could never
Again be hurled up into the sky
It hurts to know
Not even death can solve love.
Tonight time isn’t left alone.

Mind is a door: how it opens
What kind of key you got in mind?
A nice cottage   curtain blowing
Let’s sample the night-wind!

Life is love
Love is a gift
The world out-
Side understands

Kurt Cline is Associate Professor of English and World Comparative Literature, National Taipei University of Technology. His full-length book of poetry, Voyage to the Sun, was published by Boston Poet Press in 2008. Poems and stories have appeared, most recently, in BlazeVOX, Danse Macabre, Ealain, Burningword, The Tule Review, Mission at 10th, EastLit: Journal for English Literature of East and South-East Asia, Wilderness House Literary Review, HuesoLoco, Apocrypha and Abstractions, Black Scat, and Clockwise Cat. Scholarly articles have appeared in Glimpse; Anthropology of Consciousness; Concentric; Beatdom Literary Journal; and Comparative Civilizations and Cultures.