JOHN ROCK

 

 

(Author’s Note: I remember driving down to Asheville, North Carolina, mainly to be part of the Ecstatic Dance community that they have in that town one spring and thinking: “Man, wouldn’t it be great to just live on the beach of Lake Superior and camp in the National Forest and write poems by a little fire all summer…” so that’s what I did.  I turned around and drove back up to Cornucopia, Wisconsin and set up my little canvas Hillary tent on public land back behind Siskiwit Lake, where nobody really went except bear-hunters and loggers, and made a fire every morning on the beach of Lake Superior and worked on poetry until it was time to head out to Port Wing and work at a little organic berry/flower/herb farm, then back to the beach to watch the sunset, swim, listen to classical music on the hood of my car, then spend the night studying and writing more poems by my oil lamp.  It’s funny cause even after living up there a bunch of years I had never really done that, just lived on public land–I’d always lived on friends’ properties, paying rent and helping out.  When winter came and gardening season was over, I bought a new wall tent to replace my old one that was falling apart and moved closer to Chequamegon Bay by Washburn, WI. and set up in a friend’s woods, walking to town as winter came on, going to a cool eclectic meditation group and hosting Dance Meditations of my own one night a week, still walking beneath the stars, still listening, still learning to listen, and writing more winter poems.  This is the book that came out of that summer, fall, and winter.)

 

 

 

 

 

For Gabi

–for all the poems on the way home

 

 

 

 

 

 

Invisibility’s Moment

 

First distant shots of deer season so soft

like thoughts returning to the well

that has poured this morning wind

 

To the south

open hay fields

with bound cylinders of nutrition

left snow-steeped

but always one day you hear a tractor

and they’re gone

 

Snow devils dancing invisibility’s moment

as if something is struggling to appear

then disappear

to be another whisper story-born

in pine needle lyre

calling with our ears

the older we get known

 

Winter opening your beaded gate

so my true self

can stumble through

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Winter Steps

 

Crystalline snow waterfalls

Wind-drifting just barely in the perpetual

almost stillness

in the thickness of the verging silence

in the vast canvas of winter arrival

Woodpeckers flitting and speaking

within branches bare

leaning to stare

And this human in love with language

almost

invisible

 

Snow-arisen

all appellations

unsettling

in

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Breaths of Dawn

 

on this beach made of morning

with the sun chasing the moon’s divan

everything glowing from the tide

and sun-ladder aware

as the night within us waiting for the temperature

to rise and descend

again

and open

new gates of arrangements:

a girl

looking at her own hands

is the washed up night

paying attention

to its

breath

 

 

in love with this morning wind

fog calling toward the center of awakening

from tent roofs strewn

with far worlds of condensation

destined to be traveled by some lost shipwreck of breath

and drip of dream

galaxies spiders stretching across and warm from the woodstove

till spring

the slow unaccountable harvest of winter

words in compost layers full of means

a highway of silver

on your almost dawn skin

growing mist

invisibility’s shadow of birth blinked

and yawned

if you think

this moon

is still

viable

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Two Roses Released

 

Heat from fountains of earth-faces falling

breath truly visible

and seasons laughed

with only these emotions

to give them hues

 

Lone fire left burning on the shore

for the waves laughing

to take home to coral

in costumed descents

an ocean night offering

cities beneath our ships

slow forming

where we rose

and made tea

two roses released by the coral

to muse over our bones

and swim again

 

Who left that beach fire

we saw as sleep took us

from our deck

and made our masts a forest grove

full of faces moon-grown

a drift of rose

the rising moon held

 

A small fire’s bare feet

as winter takes a step closer

and asks if it can give us a moon

like nothing else

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Like Nothing I Had Ever Known

 

Dreamed last night of walking a trail where I grew up with two other people, finding plants I had never seen before with flowers that smelled different on the same stem. We walked further on and I saw houses all over where there hadn’t been any, many on the water of the flooded fields like Venice, and I started crying for what was lost, but they were such fascinating tones that emerged, beautiful, like nothing I had ever known.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Morning Beach

 

Morning fog over Roman’s Point

Went to my car for a notebook

Raven at my campfire when I got back

“Stay as long as you want”

“Is this tea green or black?”

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Risings

 

Pine wind

whose branches release the snow

to settle upon this level of dreaming

like a shell held by pillows

and finding itself empty as morning lifts

morning

morning sun coming to plow the raven-swept azure

morning gods coming to blow the conch

of castings into tree-wind’s adjustments

of November’s hand turning

morning face of nurtured summer

deep within

morning cloak and costumes that have replaced each other

morning like an ornament or seam all these endeavors

of moon and sun-placed vowels

deep within pine wind constellations

of sips

of snow

arisen

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

On The Beach

 

One boat easing from the harbor

 

All this grown-up sky and mist-cloud left

with room to breath

All this washed up night and scrolls of night architects

rolling from dream to dream

As if the shore is a dream the sea met

with grand intentions and introductions

deduced in cast gold and shoals of silver returns

by the moon so light and viable

as all of us so ever-poured

 

So close to the morning

or is it moonlight?

All I remember is you spooning me off the bed

That was the beginning of the universe

And when I climbed back in and smelled your hair

That’s when the earth began

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Chants of Decomposition

 

By spring the castle cracks

will never be resisted

caused by singing

enchanted by decomposition’s promised gardens

of tomorrow

 

The moon is a spoon

dropping silver batter

on this drenched beach

rolled in shells of the age-old

tossed behind during stories of the past

so long ago

closer and closer on this sheet

to each other

 

Ever-thrown these pots of silver

cast across centuries

falling into our bodies from pitchers

of nocturnal hands

 

To not stop myself

from the moon

to be poured

even though

I’m poor

with the moon

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The Unknown Artists of Heaven

 

Mist held in mountains just for us

this cement that came into being through all our dreaming

earth-sweatings of stone and moraines dropped by new attentions

it was only the birth of a new bird that turned the world temperate again

wings folded

eyelids like blue sails of ocean-rites

and clouds devised and disappearing

harmony’s device of diamond beauty

found by comprehending wings

tidepools full of the unknown artists of heaven

beneath the brushstrokes of cloud

and love’s moon-pulled swellings

by day night is born as if from a thousand arrows to be under-grown

in all the successions to be untaken

seriously

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Gift of Shadows

 

kissing little bird feet

through the walls of my canvas tent

there’s morning suns

everywhere

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Breath On The Midnight Phone

 

Waiting for the first frost and waves of migration—all these colors calling into space itself, and that falling is just the beginning of every journey to where you are just another eye closed in god, eyes open so full of letting every color go—sleep is where the orchestra rises around us with our gentian bed evolving among the strings and winds, enfolding us as we all grow higher and deeper with every note—making love in this blue morning, in this bluer night, hearth of breath, limbs powdered with gold, caravans with routes ancient enough to have lost all intention, just flying from stamen to stamen, just energy moving like cells upon the sand, to call our love deserted of ascension, only breath on the midnight phone

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Orders Of The Moon

 

telling tales like journeys

about children who set off on maple leaves

toward the sunset

leaf-partners

childrening toward the chorus

of the sun’s leaving

all upon the earth-seed

and grown by orders of the moon

each moon-cave a poem

for torches

beneath the human surface:

a poet who would’ve never known

those walls were encrusted with jewels so sharp

she couldn’t help but

touch them

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Night Architects

 

thrown up from the sky the clouds have grown

washed up from the night and ever-thrown

beaver-chewed sticks and logs from the throne the night has grown

carried through dimensions and swam by the moon’s reflection

architects of mirrors and jewels slapping

out warnings before descending

the moon has caught its own eye in tiers

turned to pools opened by dams as beaver architects

silently carry their thoughts across it

wakes awakening in discovered edges and ledges found in a soul’s

beginning to dream out folds and laps of the moon’s hand

and body full in the mirror

and all in all

to arrive

just in time for the moon

lost in love with a cloud

to re-appear

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

To Bring Oh So Proud Fingers And Breath Entwined

 

In invisibility’s true shadow, lit with whatever light there is, oil lamps and outlines growing us humans somewhere in between, both body, fifty years bridging, thousands of years per poem, formed by what the rest of humanity casts and trims, refilling the kerosene, glass clean, Nuthatches upsidedown as they pass through

 

Held by feathers forever blown, once held by a body who flew me, until the night moon dripped blue dew that turned into a dream of my own flights of ringing homeland, like a bell shaking off its snow

 

Or am I just a being who walks through the music convening where the road dips to a creek, old stereo, laundry machine, buckets tossed, raccoons and minks searching for emergence, culvert cast their great great grandmothers smelled through even without the moon

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Ever Throne

 

Adorning each other’s limbs with silver

as if we are full of nothing

but moon

our eyes so oceanic

yet of oceans unknown

every shipwreck’s reward

and dolphin’s call

slow circling ships

that set out to recover

from the shore

 

one thoroughly costumed human

ill in the magnet of shedding

stumbles onto the deck

and is crowned with love’s laughing

and leaping

surrounded by dolphins

every step a parade of bioluminescence

that forever returns

 

who’s regret is this

in the morning sun?

regret for the islands we can walk to

once winter has truly come

regret for white ships folded

into their own adornments

a crown made of dolphins

left on the beach by children

who agreed to one day

return

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Invisibility’s Breath

 

The slow spell of morning

Gunshots like snowflakes falling onto glass

As the temperature drops

And the wind lifts

Away to the west

Where autumn has refound its depths

Blazing from yellow to orange

Leaving only tree’s inspiration to iron

Passing through gates ornamental

Like the wind polishing the music

From everything’s that’s left

Hinges creaking for only those who step

With their ears

This concentration of chorusing fires

Calling to the sunsets we held

This audience

All liquid condensing from the moon’s reflection

Sauntering into the moon

Dripping from the edge of night’s highest flower

Landing from the moon

Walking back into the sea

In the night silver ring

To be struck and shone

Rolled across the snow

Onto an empty finger forged alone

Cleaved toward forgiveness’s bright shadow

First shots of deer season so sizzling and soft

Like thoughts

To the well returned

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Drinking From The Moon

 

Whose jewels are we that we walk upon

near the party’s blazing mantel?

Only outfielders of light

disappearing

like oil

into skin

 

One day a man fell from the sky, some say he dove, some say he returned to the sea to escape history—in his own eyes his wings had turned to fins gleaming and gold, fashioned by his father and the sun, suited for one sky or another, the sky of heaven and the sky of earth. So at first he did fall, but then righting himself became like a cormorant intent for what was beneath.

 

Someone’s walking to me across the water

toes curling over silver edged ribs of turquoise

of the melting sun

 

Someone’s walking to me across the water

dragging the density of dried and bitter swags of roses

until they burn down to the core of summer

which will finally end

as her legs fold upon the shore

 

Sauntering toward our night urns

and saunter’s spell token

just above the horizon

Tons of people come to drink from the moon

in cups clinked

in celebration of the artist

 

As we descended we saw a man rebuilding the moon

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Earning The Emptiness

 

Deerfat hung in trees for Chickadees to replace dripping night snow’s morning thoughts with a world just beyond worded tectonic plates of permafrost, molten depths beneath, before rock becomes rock, in fields of buried autumn moans, eye-white, silence bright, just beyond crystal eves, in the dance of night history, alive in the palace of night, night right, bright and burning silver translations, abbreviations stepped, leapt, accepted ring of ribbage, shoulder, bones just off the road, wing-harvested, channels, watching the spirits leave even the sky—the eagles watch for the joy of transformation and eat till their full– heavy-weighted nests two party divested in roadkill’s soaring spire, earning emptiness…

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Water Meeting

 

In this hearth of forest bells and fallen acorns of night’s offering as it disappears—castle loves gone with the castles, bright mid-summer eyes of baby’s breath, it all continues somewhere passed like these emotions—diamonds of laughter, rubies of finding everyone in myself, all the fallen soldiers, all the unbuilt inventions are in love in some dimension—circles of morning where we met in the river and became just another band on the sombrero of dawn’s glow—beneath us old castles swept and washed by plankton into emeralds and frog’s eyes secretly lifting through the duckweed and becoming homes for other things as civilizations rise and reachingly fall among the coral we came to meet, water to water, within the water to dissolve and see what our inventions have and have not formed from the lofts of night’s stand I understand from a piano to my body night has turned its extravagant hand…

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

For All This Water

 

all the listening beneath the listening

the lapping lore ever-arriving

being the river and the one who comes down to drink

fishes of understanding

caught and released

and only shone by how well the wind can be listened

all the dances drawn back into the great lake just in time

for someone new

like a journey’s tip so true

found with comprehending wings

musical diviners

between the breaths

these waves within the harmonies unhistoried

but human as anything

 

morning sun at my back

fire before me

legs spread

cigarette

morning tea

gulls as a village where-ever they land

clouds which reminded me of New Mexico

when I left my car

for all this water

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Stars Becoming Snow Becoming Shells

 

These beauties of night falling

Onto this tent roof

And giving to the dreams of love

In the morning

One thought found

Still and strong

Vibrating with dawn birds clothing us

In morning music

Colors of brushstrokes flitting from wing to wing

In this arrangement

Of dawn

 

Earth’s song that rises to meet within

Smoke-filled gloves expressed

The cloak of new leaves

Patterns yawned into by tree-wind’s adjustments

Sips of snow changing form

The morning sky soon to be crested by white flowers

Unfolding with rain

Stepping beyond promise into migration’s wind of trust

Disappeared in a blink able

To lose themselves in oceans of sleep

Like shells of forgiveness we can so easily become

Strewn on beaches for the ones who can’t help

But hold a beautiful thing

Until their pockets are full

Of those who found themselves with love lost

And became

These shiny things

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Adult In Wonder

 

On the outskirts of night’s highest flower

There’s only room for awakening

And verdant light like a sovereign’s breath awoken

A stroke of a band of morning come too soon

But just in time to give the moon a break

From painting shadows

Painting its portrait in surfaces welcome only for that moment’s pose of bending

Loons coming to eat silver berries

But then dousing in chalices

Adult in wonder

Beings born from the meeting of sky and sea

Of sand and lapping

The ascent into horizons rich with emptiness

And pregnant with mist

Vistas as if standing on our own shoulders not knowing how to climb higher

And in our fingers

These lyres made of falling summer

And aspirations rolling over to dream another dream

Until dream-awoken

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Winter’s Coming

 

There are no futures or histories

on the beach

Even what the night has washed up

Even what appears to be grown

could all be taken another way

Swallows and swifts are thoughts forever glimpsed

And tree-lines against the slate coolness

almost grasped

and almost released

One gull

further out

than the others

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Desert Convention

 

Snow sifting night’s form

And starlight’s lifting shifting of listening transformed

In the pine wind’s moon travels

Caravans that pass through a cradle

And hang it from a star Christmas of breath

A sky saddle only distance of dreams

A height of desert night candle

Pinions flaming cerulean illumination

Darkness the dancers condensing tree-bark’s breath

of scaled blue convention

All in a bowl to drink

Beings bright with flight knowing only beauty

All within sight

And attempting to give

And found with comprehending wings

Eyes open or closed

No difference between

The molecules who have found us clothes

All azure cloaks beyond impossible forgiveness

Our only memories gates that glowed

With opening of a single human

From night’s highest flower

And prayers and buried memories pouring like Nighthawks

From this moth-winged

Tower