Box Empire
Posted on | August 26, 2012 | 2 Comments
It is all about the streets
here where all the poets live
and sundry other beasts
primed to survive
but not wise.
The Romans knew this
they built an empire on roads
they made themselves for
before that there was only
the rivers and the sea.
It is a different empire now
an empire of boxes
boxes to live in and
boxes to ride around in
boxes to keep the sound in
when running around
with no where to go.
But the streets are still here
outside every purposeless window
lost to the boxes watched
inside the boxes.
There are still a few
who walk the streets
the poets and the poor
the vendors of dreams
made of powders and flesh
and those with no dreams left.
I still dream
I dream of a street
that so far eludes me
a street that does not lead to a box
but a place called home.
17/08/12
copyright 2012 – Bauke Kamstra
Please comment.
Pillow Man
Posted on | August 20, 2012 | 3 Comments
You will go to bed tonight and hug your pillow
and you will drift slowly and silently into sleep
quietly your sleep will turn into a dream
a dream perhaps of me, a dream of
a scent that is familiar, of words that you love
a dream of a look you once had that ignited
a small flame within you, a dream of many
who have been in your dreams before, who
you have seen across rooms, plazas, who
have touched you in a certain way.
Slowly that pillow that you clutch will change
as a pupae becomes a butterfly,
it will change from that soft cocoon,
and it will become a man
not just any man, but the best of any man
you have ever known, the best of any man
you have ever imagined, the body of a god
the heart that beats strong, that embraces
and protects, the touch so gentle, yet firm
with no trace of hesitation or regret
the fresh heady scent
of wood, leather and soap
the taste of strawberries, but something more
something spicy with a bit of heat in it.
His strong arms will surround you
so strong, that if you were a child
he would throw you up laughing
and never fail to catch you
and yet as gentle as a breeze
as his long, clever fingers, caress
and tease the knots of care and worry
a healing of scars made by tears
of cries that have echoed for years.
Within that deep entanglement
the body’s warm oils will flow
and every part of you that needs a touch
will be touched by hand or eye or mouth
just when that touch is needed most
and O the kisses, firm and sweet
you will think he has ten mouths
and an educated tongue.
When at last you are replete
far off you hear a song so sweet
subside to silence wide and deep
and with those arms still warm
you settle back down into sleep
until the slow dawn slowly wakes you
with a sigh the dream escapes you
you open your eyes to your pillow
and see the red rose he left you.
Please comment.
copyright 2012 – Bauke Kamstra
The House of Sleep
Posted on | July 18, 2012 | No Comments
What is the source?
Is it a great flaming sun
fueled by passion’s heat
the fusion of life and mystery
Bound by the gravity of its words
the poets all orbit the source
their faces perpetually turned
to its lambent flame.
But this is the poet’s realm
where truth and metaphor mix
this sun a metaphor for truth.
For every poet who
imagines the source
there is another metaphor born.
Where truth and beauty conjoin
there lies the poet’s realm
every metaphor a path
that leads to its door.
How many poets stop at that door?
turn away, content.
Those who dare the door
come to the House of Sleep.
The sky is dark with raven wings
for here the rooks rule sky
the House clings to the earth beneath
you know it is the center
where forces meet
the House tells you
if you listen.
It is a castle without battlements
yet inside it is larger still
no one knows
all its ways.
Life did not begin here
but all spirits pass
living and unliving
in this place of dreams
and the dreamers roam
caught between one glimpse
and the next.
Here in the House of Sleep
are the doors that open
for a poet’s breath
that none other may pass.
More doors there are than these
doors to all the worlds
whether the dreamers be there or not
and doors to all places past
and the places that may be
for what is forbidden to mortal men
dreamers and poets may pass free.
This is the poet’s hearth
this House of Sleep
and if it, too, be a metaphor
know that it is truth as well
and be prepared
to come here when next you sleep
if you are a poet
and if you dare.
Please tell me about your visit to the House of Sleep!
When I Cross Over
Posted on | June 25, 2012 | 14 Comments
I am not who I am
I write messages on the sky.
I am a bordering creature
at home in air or on land
I cross the borders
or they shift beneath me
I am always in this world
and often in another.
Those like me are not like me
though we share many things
the carrion and the corn
the glossy black
so obvious by day
invisible by night
the winged air and wary land.
There are places I go
that they may not
when I speak to them of this,
the sparkle of my eyes
reflected in their dull stare,
they do not know of what I speak
or even that I do
hearing only an echo
of their own broken voice.
Mostly I go alone
for to be with them
is a greater aloneness.
When I cross over
it is not what I do
it is what I am.
When I cross over
I become one with the one
and I see through the eyes of time.
When I return
and the world becomes small
I am a part and apart
I am a part of the one
and yet apart
I am a part of the brotherhood of crows
and yet apart.
I am a part of the wholeness
and apart in my loneliness.
Yet with me comes
the eyes of time
and I write what I see
on wind and sky
and again I wait the time
when I cross over.
Please comment!
copyright 2012 – Bauke Kamstra
What is the Sound of Death?
Posted on | June 11, 2012 | No Comments
What is the Sound of Death?
No crow can sing it is said
a voice as raw as its carrion meat
rough as shaken gravel
so harsh it would seem to strangle itself
as raucous as a crowd at a hanging.
So terrible is this sound
that even the crow’s chicks cringe
when their parents declare their love,
an endearment in the language of crows
resembles a curse in any other.
The crows know this
they make no choir
but have impressed upon themselves
a law of silence so strict
that when they gather
to endure the night
the only sound
is their defecations
striking ground.
What is the sound of death?
When men meet on bloodied earth
and murder make
with such fury
such thunderous sound
that one would think
would wake the recent dead
so generously strewn
about the proud battlefield.
Is this the sound?
The dirge that plays
or the keening wails
of grief that follow death’s release
Are these the sounds?
The soft swollen weeping
whose silent tears
are swept into tiny jars
that the sorrow
might be buried
with the dead.
Is this silence the sound of death?
It is when violence
wounds the flesh
and breaks the bones
that the sacred crows descend
called to that arcane task
bequeathed their race long time past
to call the souls from tortured flesh
into the realms of death.
This is the sound.
Please comment!
Bauke Kamstra – © copyright 2012