GERALD HOPMAN                   Home       Poems 1956-2012       Latest Works       Bio       Statement      Contact


Book of Names


or beginnings

 

cut and shut and tumble about
eat and meet and fumble without
everything done
makes everyone one
and always apart
from head to heart

 

Lynn Craycie
sat by a pond one summer
wondering whether creation
was separate from dreaming

there are clouds
and there stones
 they are mine
because I see them
 but do I lose the hope of death
     if all this beauty
               rests on me?

 

Longwood Evans
never said a prayer

He lived by smile
and touch 
             by fondling
             every moment he belonged to

He spurned the twin deceits
                                         desire and wonder

                                     What is born too quickly
                                                     too easily
                                                                        Is never truly free
                                                                               of death’s hold

He went everywhere alone
yet he made his mark with women

 

Give them nothing
Be fodder for their
Goddess dreams
                        You make for them a mystery
              that happily inspires
            but never fills
                                     a need for conjuration
                                                            without end

 

Loretta confessed
as the French do
with total regard
for style and laughter

She said

I am not the whisper
in a laboratory
or the reflection
of a mystical key number
or the passer of celestial
descriptions

and

we are not all made
for the lordly view

some must dream to reawake
crawling over lizards
weeping
to Mecca

 

 

DR.REGALBUTO
---------------------------------------

I am an essence
not a proposition

Carousing
in the better
parts of day
I
am
so
fat
 I
glisten

I am not hollow
yet I ring

 

Like a serpent
mistaking
a twig
for love
I
am
odd
to be
seen
but in effort
and intention
I am sound

 

 

OLIVER FELL
---------------------------------------

When I was young and a maker of beauty
   neither form nor color betrayed my view

I grew up and away from the rites of my age
and could boast of no love nor a positive enemy

When I had past the age of genius death
and all remained intact and unsacred
                           I tempted my unsuffering destiny
by acquiring a limp and an eye patch

When I become old
                      a stranger to myself and everyone
                 call out no superlatives to grace
                      my everyday defeats

 

Leave me content at last
                    the warrior unsheathed
     lame alone in the field

 

 

SOLJIMAR’S LAMENT
---------------------------------------

I am the jester with his cap off

My madness took its cue from kindly ways
Happily I bartered myself to share the woes
               of my betters

Now I am at odds with my innocuousness

I have tripped on a simple deadly code

Magic acclaimed is a lonely lie
A one man charade for an audience of wise eyed mutes

 

 

THE EVOLUTION OF WOE
---------------------------------------

Worst are the climates that ease
                                     an early wanderer’s first pain

I had my days of sorrow
         but I wasted them on meagre
                                                                    dragons
                                       
                                                Untamed art
                                                        borrowed lore
                                                                    the gall of romantic
                                                                  perscriptions

I once could look in a glass and see love

but all that sits now
                                 like a prayer during war

                                                         a voice momentous
                         for a mad occasion

 

 

ONE HIGH NOTE FOR FRANCESCA
-----------------------------------------------------

She never danced without regret
or laughed in an upward key

She was not so callous
as to feign her humor

but there was a lock
on the midnight rages
that chilled my visits
and made me agree
when she confessed

i am no one’s friend to live with
gods and i are separate
by our births
i was not made to  journey
like the falcon
tamed at the beak
allowed to soar

There in the fury of her denials
I may have caught a giveaway pose

         she trapped by the ghost of a cause driven up
and hers the flight of the winter bird
          not an attainment        merely an expression

 

 

DIVORCE FINAL AND ACHIEVED
--------------------------------------------------

Look I’m no answer
                             I eat too much
I’ve got  indulgances you understand?
We all have to pull together
    or the game is lost
I know that
     but I’m too powerful to concede

 

I had chosen him for transportation
There were also sweeter reasons
           but I’m older now
He was my city field mouse
     hard and always in peril
He read me issued bulletins
      on the weather

 

A man has shadows to uphold
              alone
It is fine to speak
   but there is art too
and wherever he goes
      shoelaces and linen troubles and breakfasts
until he’s  lost his identity

I walked backwards
   to free him
I sat on my little French gazettes
   and wiped away his ashes
I hate disorder
               yet for him
I took in four children

 

She told time by intuition
He thought confidence was a pasture for guilt

 

We demand

Solace

Wisdom

Levity

Convenience

Value

Acceptance

Forgiveness

Escape

 

CONTROLLED REPORT
---------------------------------------

He carried his talent in height
And admired the frankness of spear fishing

We all possess uncles
and they love us too well
             for it
That was his favorite decision

He expected colors and rocks
an interesting sea
clouds to be feminine and women intuitive
I swore  only by manufactured straws
        which I could disassemble

Rely he counseled on sorrow
Woo it for your own sake

Mothers opened their tables gaily
                for him
and tried to keep him from winking
         in the open air
but he would not deny the sweet
      aroma of cobblestones

He died on a Tuesday and
I proposed a sonnet which
he would have dissolved
as a beetle protesting Spring

I was the last to debate his adventures
but he forgave me saying

BE DON JUAN READ GLORY IN YOUR KISS
WE ARE ALL EXPERIMENTS CAN WE DO
                             WRONG?

 

 

SMILER SMILES
---------------------------------------

I am no caterer
                  plain or fancy
I dislike the curtsey
                            as a method of betterment

My laughter is casual
unpracticed
and therefore not heard often
                    by the bank’s deposit clerk

I am an admirer of unintentional
                                                              services

Like a cat helping old mice
                                        across a boulevard
but keeping its sentimental action invisible
I am a humanitarian
but expect no thanks for it

 

 

UNFINISHED LOVE LYRIC
---------------------------------------

If I were as content
as a cat in a peach tree
or as resolute
as an early morning clock
or as sly
as a child begging favors for a friend
or as positive
as sand clothing the wind
or as indivisble
as a rock worrying the sun
or as bold
as a jousting lie in an enemy’s face
or as romantic
as grass and a spring breeze awaltzing

If I...if you

 

 

AT THE CAFE MONA WITH LIZA
------------------------------------------------

She was aware
and young enough to have no doubts
I was alone and listening hard to myself
      and the wailing crowd
I could hear    almost

                                   I Pain
                                  When shall I offer?
                                  Who shall I be now?
                                  Where is the entrance for perception?
                                  Why do I fall?
                                   I DO NOT BELIEVE IN IT!

Liza and the summer rain
here    gone    back again
but when   and where                            My Struggles
                                                                      Are  foreign to
                                                                          Annoyance      
                                                               I CRISS CROSS BY
                                                               INTERPRETATION
                                                                     NOT EVENT!
 Liza’s was a subtle power--
a laugh and a good night for all

                                   I have so trumpeted
                                             There are portraits
                                                     To prove it
                                                         I prided
                                                           Hoarded
                                                               Frequently

                           I ONCE COULD MEMORIZE
                     A SPOTLESS DOLLAR!
Liza tried insanity once
but no one believed her  and she cared
                                               
                                                            I  am an observer
                                                     An overcoat  
                                                           For the daring
                         I HAVE NO EXPECTATIONS
                                              BESIDES SILENCE

Liza heard beauty enter
and she danced her part--
stumbler after grace
out of the beats of pleasure

                                                      I am effortless
                                                                  Uneasy
                                                                  Quaint
                                                                  Divided
                                                                     Sporty
                                Callous without
                                                             Preparation
         ALTOGETHER FULL
                                        WHEN I AM SEEN

liza abandoned her youth
in the catch of a breath
the lift of a wink
the brush of a skirt--
infinitesmal loss
and equal regret

                     I carry myself with a beggar’s
                                        resolve
                       I kneel to the season
                        Flirt before dark
                          Practice my rages
                            Am grim but honest at table
                             Defender of facts
                               Recorder of amusements
                                Clever as light
                                  True as dust
                                     Alive as water

                                       Master of judgement
                                              Choice and
                                                           Cause          
                                         Proclaimed special
                                                 By grip and walk

                                             WHY AM I NOT GIVEN
                                THE COMFORT OF OMENS?   

 

Liza swept her face and studied a ring of keys
wondering how anyone could dream in a cell

 

 

 

THE KING’S LAST HOUR
---------------------------------------

Kill my bones!
They are binding

My blood the executioner
                    of joy amd wisdom
will leap to violent
                         opera

It will go quietly
and with no curtains

But whip the smile
from your chin

You must offer suffering
               piously
as when settling the conditions
of folly and price

I have seen you coddle wine
as you devour it

 

That is the pose
for this event

 

NIGHT TASK
---------------------------------------

What part am I of these boundaries?

The moth who breaks his wings on top of steel
ignores the woman rolling in her cloth
settling a mood signifying culture

The western child rioting in a plagued village
contends for growth with sly emissions
(maybe she will sing)

The dark man with useful eyes
vanishes in all directions

There is no pity in his sack of claws

Within this sphere
beneath this cave
over the earth given size
           by decree
mighty temples are recollected
with windows
                     for the needy

 

 

ON THE MARCH
---------------------------------------

I have come
to lead
the furious troops

Appraise my face
Contain my wisdom
Keep me from the fiercest 
      trick of love

I must not be divisible

With a wand of leaves
and an alien paper
I will circle the wind

Let no man avoid it

 

TARACUMA WHO WE AVOID
-----------------------------------------------

Here is an ancient breed of crow

exiled to a cage of glass

Everywhere he steps he sees

No turn of bone is silent on his shadow

No orbit made by air and tree avoids his stated
                                      breath

He is a cup inside the whirling shape of covered time
        condemned to meet himself in tides
                                                                         in webs
and angles

 

 

FINALE 1
---------------------------------------

Have I prepared                    Have I concerned
                   the petal in the glass?

Have I seriously entrenched the tip upn the rim?

Have I vexed the organ twist gone rank?

(again again
to lie upon the groans
    of innocence)

How beautiful is the Sn Remarco Bridge
Child majesty floating in the perpetual valley
                                 comb of the purest dimensions
                                                                          rippling
SCEPTER OF ORIGINS

(again again
to stalk the flesh
      of the nest)

THE LONG JUNE
OCTOBER RAGES
THE FORESTS WEAVE
SPLIT UP        COLLAPSE
AND ALL THOSE SWORDS AND BEACONS
SWORDS AND LOVERS RINGED BY THE SEA
NEITHER WILL THEY FLAME NOR BE CONCEALED

 

have I allowed
                            have I repelled
                                    
                                     THE BIND WITHIN THE SEED?
THE CONE WITHIN THE STEM INFUSED?

(again  again
      to jaunt at the lip
of the beast)

 

HAVE I CONTROLLED?

and all those swords

HAVE I DISMAYED?

 

and lovers ringed by the sea

 

NEITHER WILL THEY THRIVE ON PLUMS
NOR MAKE OF FIGS A PARADISE

 

 

LEGEND
---------------------------------------

MENBEA DRAWS ICONS ON A CALENDAR
MENBEA OFFERS COMFORT IN A STEAMY ATTIC
MENBEA FORGETS HER QUEENLY DEBATES WHEN THERE ARE FIDDLERS
MENBEA HURRIES TO A MOUNTAIN AND DENIES ITS PAST
MENBEA RAGES AGAINST HER WORTHY ARTISANS
MENBEA IS INCLUDED IN THE BOOK OF MONTHS
MENBEA HAS DEVOTED PUPPIES IN THE CELLAR
MENBEA IS A DESTROYER OF THE OVERLY SWEET
MENBEA OWNED A MAGICAL TREASURE BUT IT GREW OLD
MENBEA CARRIES A BUCKET TO KEEP HER SECRETS INTACT
MENBEA INTONES FOR UNPREDICTABLE WEATHER
MENBEA COUNSELS THE GRASS GROWERS
MENBEA INFECTS HER FOES WITH REASONING
MENBEA HOLDS A SAUCER UNDER WILTING FLOWERS
MENBEA THROWS SAND AT HER PRIZED WIZARDS
MENBEA SEEKS TO MEASURE THE LOWER REGIONS OF EARTH
MENBEA RULES BUT ONLY FOR THE TASK OF IT
MENBEA IS A ROYAL FLAME
HEAVEN BENT AND DEADLY TAME
BITTER SWOLLEN GLOOMY ENSLAVED LAUGHING ALL THE WHILE
MENBEA IS EVER THE SAME
AMIDST WHISPERS AND GUILE

 
   
   
 
 
   
© Hopman
 
     GERALD HOPMAN                   Home       Poems 1956-2012       Latest Works       Bio       Statement      Contact