What are you wishing for today?
I Wish It Would Rain
I wish it would rain
every morning
while we have breakfast
clear gray drops
the size of grapes
coffee, bread, and the dog
waiting for blue skies
every afternoon
the birds singing and gorging
on seeds.
The fountains leaping up.
I Wish It Would Rain by J. Kyle Kimberlin
is licensed under a Creative Commons
Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License.
Here’s an old poem for Memorial Day. I wrote it back during the Yugoslav Wars, when so much was in the news about the suffering of people in that part of the world. It’s sort of an amalgam of images, mostly refracted in imagination, that for me has become even more poignant in the years of perpetual war misbegotten by Bush and his minions.
BLUE FLOWERS
We are driven to the desert
father; sage and red gravel.
Our backs to the ocean, sounds
of locust and snake.
After days and nights of shoes
crunching on basalt and throb
of blood in our ears, we can
see mountains of blue flowers.
After the crossing, men lost
in the village, homes and fathers
left behind, children shuffling
in the heat and flies,
after the mud in dry places,
the cries of the dying and the news
reports, the dust of us will
feed the flowers by the tracks.
Father, I will water your lilacs
again, and I will sing from the rocks
on your grave; my voice above
the laughing of the wind.
Blue Flowers by J. Kyle Kimberlin is licensed
under a Creative Commons Attribution-
NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License.
In this good place I have paper
and ink but not the sound
of your breathing. I have
the sound of trucks passing
and the birds that sing at dawn.
The sun shines all day
but the owls called from a tree
that I cut down out of spite.
I have mulberry trees
and deep shade in memory
but I have forgotten the little
lines around your eyes.
I see that I should stay
for many years, until death
quickens me to energy
and gives me particles
of laughter to remember you
in the next good place.
J. Kyle Kimberlin
4.28.2013
Many Years by J. Kyle Kimberlin is licensed
under a Creative Commons Attribution-
NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License.
This is one of my favorite poems by me. The emotions are close to the surface, but still flitting about in obscurity.
I’ve posted it before, but just gave it a polish. And as far as I’m concerned, if I change a word or a punctuation mark, it’s fair game to post it again if I want to. Don’t you agree?
I can’t do an audio right now, because the PC I use to do that is in the shop for a new motherboard.
Water Melts Sugar
Water melts sugar. Sunlight
in February melts the dull fog
on the bald canal. We are
dissolved, standing on the bank
searching the dark water for gar.
They drift away.
Fog dulls the hearing. There –
is that dog barking ahead of us
or behind? No matter, we have
no need of dogs now, or fish.
We have everything.
You know, sugar is good in our coffee
and on berries when the summer comes.
But look – I think I see one
swimming in the swift, cold deep.
Water Melts Sugar by J. Kyle Kimberlin is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License.
There have been times in my life when everything seemed infused with spiritual meaning. The early 1990s had a lingering ring like cathedral bells. I felt very close to God.
I wrote his poem in 1992 and it was included in my book Finding Oakland, that year.
CLEAN MONDAY
I have decided to follow
Winter’s last storm into the ditch
beyond the wall, which becomes
a drain, a pipe to the street,
the culvert under U.S. 101.
I have been treated well
and have reached the sea
at last. Remember me
by the dark rainwater stain
down the wall of my room
and in the winds of March
that sweep the shingles
and the gutters clean.
I will come home
for Bright Week, in April
with the willow blossoms
on the altar steps
the higher altitudes of birds,
bells at midnight, the turning
of the shrouds and vestments
white. Carried inland by
the softer, warmer tides of Spring.
© 1992 by Kyle Kimberlin
I wish that back in high school and college, we had been assigned to read more poems like Snow at the Farm by Joyce Sutphen, and a bit less Wordsworth, Shelley, Milton, and the like. I might have found a shorter path to begin finding my own voice. Because I think poetry – modern stuff at least – is best written about the simple, but hard to speak of, ordinary moments of our lives.
There is a light
beyond the window
and leaves beyond the light
and the clock pretending life
against the wall
and me in the midst of it
wishing for you
Hear an audio reading of this poem:
Wishing by Kyle Kimberlin is licensed
under a Creative Commons Attribution-
NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License.
There is a tree at the end of this street,
which only appears in the rain, and broken
bits of blue glass around the trunk.
We know nothing but the sound of water
in the ditch. Why is there nothing?
A man lived here once and you
saw him coming and going
from his house. He lived here
and was quiet and kept
many questions in his heart.
In time, he died one night
of the shivers. Not of the cold,
because it was summer and all
the windows were open.
The people slept without blankets
under half a moon.
Be he started shivering anyway
and could not stop.
Passing dogs bark at the house where
no one lives. And there we see the tree
and shards of blue glass. We stop
and listen to a river with nothing
to say. Why does it say nothing?
The Shivers by Kyle Kimberlin is licensed
under a Creative Commons Attribution-
NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License.
As I sit and write to you, it’s dark.
I’m in a coffeehouse: reggae, earth tones,
teenagers. Night stands up behind
Rincon Hill like an old man rises
from beside his bed after praying.
I think of your delicate throat. There are
Christmas trees for sale outside
in the parking lot. I should mention
that I love their smell, mingled as it is
with car exhaust and tar. I remember
your face, like fog in a morning orchard;
so gentle and still and forming in my mind
until the trees begin to ring.
A hymn of cold stones
may answer from the shrouded hills,
but we will be asleep by then.
Hymn Of Stones by Kyle Kimberlin
is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution
-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License.
Today is Brookie’s birthday. She’s one year old. She’s been with us since July 23.
Brookie has her own blog, Brookie’s Trials. You can find access to many photos of her there. But here’s one.
In honor of Brookie’s Day, here’s a poem I wrote years ago.
STORMLIGHT
“I feel the insignificance of the
individual, and it makes me happy.”
– Einstein
Stand facing the ocean
with your back to the railroad tracks.
Stand there even if a train goes by,
a long, thundering freight. Stand
even when the sun is rising or setting.
Stand facing the ocean in the rain.
If the air is still in your shaded patio
play the windchimes by hand.
Cast a big reflection
of your joy across the yard.
Stop to watch a lizard sleeping
on a stone. It’s bad to awaken
reptiles, who dart into the jasmine
with their tails flickering.
Pray for peace in eastern Europe
for sobriety and a cure for AIDS.
Slow down passing graveyards,
hospitals, nursing homes.
Cross yourself or bow your head. Do this
also passing the tavern and the jail.
If tears come, believe in them.
Choose a Saturday, declare it Dog’s Birthday.
Buy squeaky toys, chewy things, party hats
and candles. Put off washing the car.
Take the dog out and stand facing
the ocean, with your back to America
and your face in the stormlight,
in the awesome churning of solitude,
until it’s time to turn again for home.
Stormlight by Kyle Kimberlin is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License.
You know this feeling, if you are not still young. Time is accelerating. I have my grandparents’ antique clock and I could swear that the tick-tock of the pendulum is twice as fast as it was when I was ten.
I look for ways to slow it down, images of hope and life, and hold fast.
What helps for you? What do you hold on to, as tightly as you can?
Listen:
He always hopes that God will relent
and slow the dim, furious roar of years;
trees seen from a car window at night,
roads leaning into an obscure life.
How he dreads it, a door left open
and a cold draft on his heart.
His favorite colors are green and blue.
He loves trees that keep their organic
distance, wants the sky to stand
for everything in life.
When the camellias at his parents’ house
blaze up with colored Christmas lights
he has hope, seeing even here
the bush that burns is not consumed.
He stops at hospitals and nursery schools,
hardware stores, offices with the ticking
of machines. There are clocks everywhere,
and bathrooms. He talks to people
in love, smells the rain on warm asphalt.
He holds small animals close to himself
and weeps. He always hopes
that God will soon relent.
Gravity increases, so birds leave wires
with a dip first towards Earth,
struggling for lift. His music turns
sad, then angry, gray. At last,
it growls and shakes against the sky.
He rolls on, miles and time,
past sycamore windbreaks
and farmhouses in which
old black dogs are barking.
Camellias by Kyle Kimberlin
is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-
NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License.
Yesterday, Papa in the nursing home,
laughing at a life now imagined.
A moment later, asleep.
I searched the eves
of the building for wind chimes
I could hear but not see.
Yesterday, my dog with her muzzle
now graying, laughing at sandpipers
on the dawn – mottled beach.
I searched the bluff
for a cypress that used to stand
just there.
Today, the broken morning,
and the justice, and the wind.
Broken Morning by J. Kyle Kimberlin
is licensed under a Creative Commons
Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License.
Therefore, this afternoon, as never before, I walk
with this owl, with this heart.
César Vallejo
In a summer barn, she
sleeps in the warm smells
of creosote on oak, of the oiled
leather tackle and the hay.
Waiting for the slowly approaching
dusk, elated flight.
You see her appear
and perch on a branch
near your home, and hunt
for food; for mice, lizards,
or the cold flesh of
nights that pass
with a desperate killing.
Blood flows
from the arteries of darkness;
the unending redemption of night.
Bird Of Prey by J. Kyle Kimberlin
is licensed under a Creative Commons
Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs
3.0 Unported License.
Metaphor 