Category Archives: poems

Stories About Us

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A little meditation on what Wallace Stegner called “gloomier matters.” But there are always little live things growing. And every story with an end has a beginning and a middle.

Dad says the mums are blooming
as the tulips fade into summer.
Tomato vines work their random course,
they twine and clutch
bearing red fruit and bright worms.

We open the door and go in.
There is a breeze from the open windows
but the day is warm.
What will we be after this?

I want to stand and go, drive east
against the clock, keep low to the land.
Maybe we should weep for a while,
just because. A ritual purge,
a chrismation to make the miles
pass as we climb to high deserts.

Too late. We have the mileage
we have and time catches up
with everyone.

So after this, we are butterflies
between the particles of dust,
there where the light falls
in slanted shafts.

A child reads stories to herself,
lying on the rug.
Outside, an engine strains to rise
and lift away.
And the stories are all about us.

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Stories About Us by Kyle Kimberlin
is licensed under a Creative Commons
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3.0 Unported License.

Three Years

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Hard to believe, but it’s been three years since our little Happy went on to the world that comes next, to be with Grandma and run and play with the other dogs, and wait for us to catch up. It was July 8, 2009.

In this photo, Happy is having lunch just a few hours before the vet came to help her cross the bridge. I think lunch was her favorite, “oven baked” chicken from Subway.* She doesn’t look sick; she looks hungry and profoundly sweet and patient. But she was a pretty sick little doggie.

OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERA

Happy didn’t write poetry, as far as I know. But she was a blogger.

My sheltie Tasha was a poet though. Here’s a poem for memory, written by Tasha in 1999. For the record, I didn’t mind Tasha sleeping on the bed or the quilt. I think she made that up for artistic effect. This photo is of Tasha on the bed, about a year after she wrote the poem, when we moved to our new house.

The Love Quilttasha bed 2000

I’m not supposed to be on this bed,
but the man isn’t watching.
Not supposed to be on the grandma quilt,
the very pretty one with diamonds
of red and blue. The man thinks I’m
color blind. The little tassels of yarn
tickle my nose. I hope the man doesn’t
see me sleeping here. He says this quilt
is just for love, like a leash just for people
or a toy just for later. A dog needs this
love if she lives with a poet.

by Tasha
July 13, 1999

* For a mood lifter after this heavy post, here’s a video of Hank Green singing The Subway Where I Used To Go. And if you don’t know why that’s funny, here’s a version of the original song.

Between Storms

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We had weather here this week that was fierce by the standards of the Santa Barbara coast. It put me in mind of this poem, which I decided to post.

There are two audio options for the reading. The first is with music fore and aft by JS Bach (Ah, Bach), at about one minute, twenty seconds.

The second without music, just me, at 46 seconds.

I would very much appreciate knowing which you think is preferable. If music (public domain source, by the way) doesn’t add value to the presentation, I’ll stop doing it.

Between Storms

Sad, how the clouds gather again
against the small hills
for reasons I cannot comprehend,
and how I stand here watching
the last boat carrying men
from oil rigs in the cast iron sea.

Sad, how all the gulls are home
asleep, having eaten all day,
how I see the shadow of the clock
on the water, its hands turning
from island to harbor
to the tender sand beneath my feet.

So sad, how finally I am rising up,
falling in a long arc
into the mountains of darkness.

 

Download the PDF.

 

Between Storms by Kyle Kimberlin
is licensed: Creative Commons
Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported

What the Dog Owns

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It’s good sometimes to go back through the old folders of incomplete and abandoned writing and try to polish something up. It might unlatch a window.

The Moment

They say that we should be
in the moment, cherish and be
present entirely, the moment
being all we have.

And the future, the infinite
possibility, vast and strange
un-writtenness of it, dark swirling
Maybe of it, belongs to God.

But the past, with its happy smells
bright fuzzy motion, sudden pains
and great meals, long sleepy
afternoons, belongs completely
to the dog.

 

Kyle Kimberlin
Wednesday, May 18, 2005, 1:37:26 PM
Thursday, February 23, 2012 12:10 AM

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The Moment by Kyle Kimberlin is licensed
under a Creative Commons Attribution-
NonCommercial 3.0 Unported License.

Hair Catches Light

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This little poem just floated into my head tonight, no fault of mine. It was published in a book a long time ago, and hasn’t seen daylight since. 


Letters of Your Name

Kindness is important
here, where the children have seen
beyond life.

Ice has its own time
and music, but melts
when your hair catches light.

Mercy because of your amazing
face, and grass
can simply hold the dew by force.

by Kyle Kimberlin
Share freely, under this license. 

An Old Poem

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I wrote this poem for my brother and today is his birthday.
We are still holding fast.

END OF DAYS

In the few cold moments
since my death
I have seen my people
going by. Now I understand
returning home
and remaining away.
We fished orange salmon
from a bridge arched in pain
and rose at three to watch
the moon in the shadow
of the earth.

My mother and father
sleep in their armchairs
and rise up singing hymns.
The sharp November air
has taken the house
the grass is gray
and the birds are gone.
No hope of snow and no
forgetting.

My only brother
his face to the window
is singing
to the miles and the time
behind and forgotten
the words we must say
so we don’t give up.
His words rise like clouds
with thunder and trembling
becoming San Francisco rain.

The birds which are gone
had wings of wet lapis
and the voice of the choir
of heaven. But even I, who was
dead, know the true cost:
the quiet lost, the fear
of telephones, or light
beneath a door. All we can do
is love, hold fast, let go.

(C) 1992 J. Kyle Kimberlin
From the book Finding Oakland

The Moon on my Drapes

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I like this poem – no, I’m proud of this poem – and haven’t shared it with anyone in a long time. It was originally published in Pembroke, the literary journal of the University of North Carolina. I’ve never been to North Carolina, but maybe one of these days… I imagine many trees.





THE SHADOW OF FERNS

Some night you will be cold
and alone.  Maybe an animal
is crying outside or the wind
is dragging a branch of palm
across the roof and it wakes you.
If you love me, say my name aloud. 

There is no ceremony.
Just say it once or twice
into the darkness, or into the cool
electric glow of your lamp.
Say it slowly to a patch of moonlight
on the rug. 

Maybe I will hear it, as I stare
at the vague shadow of ferns
cast by the moon on my drapes.
Then say it for hope, for life,
for the distance between us.




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Shadow of Ferns by J. Kyle Kimberlin is licensed under a
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Reminder: More stuff is there for you at profiles.google.com/kkimberlin.

Anniversary Poem

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Today is my parents’ 56th wedding anniversary. Happy day, Mom and Dad!

On the night of their 30th anniversary in 1986, I was a college student at Chico State in northern California. I had a job as a security guard, and that night I was assigned to watch a research weather station on a remote road high on the bluffs overlooking the valley and the town.

Thinking of my folks, I took out my notebook and wrote this poem, which was published in 1992 in my book Finding Oakland.

IN PASSING 

I have spent these hours
in silence    watching darkness
take this blue canyon
a little traffic
and the town lights
in the valley
A pair of mice   eyes
like black seeds    watched me
pass on a steep trail   pushing
my little light to the end
of this road
I wonder what you’ve known
together    what nights in quiet
canyons    lights passing quickly
to rest in distant places
these thirty years
At sunset I saw a hawk
on a fence post far below
spread his wings and climb
beyond the light
  
J. Kyle Kimberlin
from the book Finding Oakland
White Plume Press, 1992
All rights reserved
Download the book, without charge (PDF).
I’m intrigued by the unusual spaces that appear in the lines, for example, “in silence    watching darkness…” I don’t do that anymore; I very rarely have. So it must have been in style among poets I was reading at the time. Possibly, local writers in the CSUC English Dept. It’s not a common technique, but seems to be making some claims on the cadence. 

A New Poem

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Metronome

 

If you think about going,
or even motion, the destination
and the journey slip away from you,
becoming all of your old life
lost and buried under pavement.
But do not be still.

If you stare at the stars
or the lamp on the bedroom
table, at the stern sun
or its light turned back
from the surface of the grass,
you will sit for an age in darkness.

If you ask the clock for answers,
it will say nothing about months
and years, only the long and short
divisions of a day. Life’s ceaseless
metronome can’t promise
you are going to live.

Be still then. Hear the untuned
cello of traffic through the glass,
the sigh of the faucet, the heartache
of dogs in the distance.
This music is always around us,
a flowing and gathering cry.

J. Kyle Kimberlin
January 30, 2012

Time Reworked

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I have reworked the poem I posted last night. I think it’s better than it was. Let me know if you agree.

Waiting
When I’m alone, I listen to water.
My brother sleeps and my dog
sleeps but I am awake.
The moon is full, and the sky
is crossed by sleeping jets.
I remember I am loved.
Time is running out so
I sit on the bed, waiting.
Time will come for me.
It will not forget me, leave me.
It waits behind the door until
I arrive. It sleeps in the sink.
Tick-tock, it drips all night.
Time hides in shadows
through the dappled afternoon,
sleeps and stretches like a cat.
I smell it in exhaust,
in fruit cut yesterday,
in my shampoo.
I wait by myself for time to emerge
from my dusty luggage, to appear
in folded sheets, to speak among
long blades of exhausted grass.

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Waiting by J. Kyle Kimberlin is licensed
under a Creative Commons Attribution-
NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License.

Fall Back

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Don’t forget to set your clocks, gentle readers. Here’s a poem I posted once before, but it’s been quite a while and it seems right for tonight.

Time
When I’m alone, I listen to water.
My brother sleeps.
My dog sleeps.  I amalone.
The moon is full, and the sky
is full of sleeping jets. I’m here
by myself, beloved, alone.
Time is running out. I sit
on the bed, alone, waiting.
It will come for me. Time will
not forget me, leave me.
It waits behind the door
until I’m alone.  Itsleeps
in the sink. Tick-tock,
it drips all night. Time hides
in shadows through the dappled
afternoon, sleeps and stretches
like a cat. I smell it in exhaust,
in fruit cut yesterday,
in my shampoo.  I wait
by myself for time to emerge
from my dusty luggage, from
folded sheets, from long blades
of exhausted grass. 

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Time by J. Kyle Kimberlin is licensed 
under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License.