Selections

from

The Poetical Expressions of Theodore D. Walther

(1989 - 2005)

by

Theodore D. Walther

© 2005

THE CUP OF ETERNAL MEMORY

"Go as you will into that dark night..."

WHEN IS THERE, WHERE IS NOW

The morning comes

Touch of life, what part this

with its faded mirror and soapdish prospect,

And if not to you then where and to whom

the razor of note, the Spanish soap...

Touch of life, as if to play a part nonetheless

the trembling hand, as again sleep

And who am I to ask once again

does not always easily approach

And yet again as if life were a part to play

the fettered mind, the wrath of conscience

And you the singer (oh, but I the dancer!)

or mere consciousness--

And perhaps certain parts are there to be played

no small feat to display oneself.

Anyway, anyhow--and perhaps only to mix and match,

The morning comes

Undecided, indefinite--

with its window light and feathered friends,

As they say over and over again, elective affinities--

the dream long gone, the lonesome sigh...

Ah...but what then?

the cautious mind, as all too often

Touch of life returns to me, like a song

remembrance displays a lack of succor,

From my youth (though I can't remember the words,

itself unkind, storm of brilliance

Only pale melodies, rocking me gently

or unwilling defeat--all things answer

Moments before the fall).

in kind, in memory.

And I sing the body electric! said the man,

The cup which presents itself,

Speaking this to me like springing forth from life

the untouched bowl, the singular act

Oh, how we body forth, body forth, and the mind

of residing alone, undisturbed, tranquil...

(clear mind, gentle mind) in its own true way does follow--

these sufferings do not allow

somehow someone must love us, you and I.

the exacting distance of time to intrude,

Ah...this touch of life!

they offer no recompense--only pain

Who could ever second guess the motion of this moment,

and ingratitude, the worthlessness

This incredible singing of one season into another,

of desire, costly acts of ignorance

The horrendous cry of the wind as it suckles my mind.

which all rebuke yet retain...

These ideals remain and play

in the light of day or night,

SONG OF OCEAN MIST

through the lost version of one's self,

or one's winnowing health; yes, I know

Sunlight and sea spray

it sounds absurd, patently absurd

Distance composed of old world rhyme

that nothing be worth more than something--

And gentle splash, magnificence in crash

a cynic's view, an unlikely soliloquy

These thoughts take me

in the ephemeral nothingness,

Now formless

a truly modern rendition

Like morning

of that immortal passion:  silence.

Like age...touching

Now light

In relief and leaving

We go further now than we've ever gone before,

Withdrawn, lingering

we go to one and we go to more;

Tidal in surge and swell

we brook great distance with our singular leap,

Here full of light,

and shatter the ages into peculiar sleep.

Full of song

One and one and one make three,

And sing to me now

yet numbers leave us poverty;

This sunlight and spray

the ritual counting makes no sense

Of water and how

when one can see the difficult space

These things came to be,

beyond the view, so far apace,

This ocean revealed

at the speed of light in the present tense.

Timeless, mystical

Beauty incarnate

This winter has passed now, the days lengthen, the great light returns...and yet my question remains (of winters past and memory retained).  If indeed we are moving into the future at the speed of light, can we then see no past?  Or, conversely, if we should move into the past at the speed of light, could we then see no future?

And I

(like an afterthought)

return to you

once again.

Or, is it true that past moves into the future and future into the past and thus we remain alone, isolated in time and space, free to feel and think and sweat this magnificent turning of season into season, thought into thought, vision into vision, imagination...as if tomorrow were part of today, and yesterday part of an eternal play, a clever ploy, a twist, a wrinkle in time...curved space...eternal recurrence.

And what finally of the memory of that single brazen dog,

the one with the wild eyes--perhaps a mad dog--

running faster than a dog should run through city traffic,

but running and running...eyes wide, nostrils flared,

no fear apparent:  he had obviously moved beyond that.

Faster and faster he runs, faster than fast,

THE PHANTOM HEART

away from the past and into the future

with no heed taken for life nor limb,

He lives now in a corner

just running and running...you see, his name was Jim.

where his mind often dwells

I said to him, I said, "Jim, old boy, don't run so fast,

in shadow and mist--

the first time they kissed,

with no care or concern, you see it won't last.

the tears, the fears,

There's cars there, boy, and much bigger than a dog,"

the endless laughing spells,

perhaps a mad dog, running fast through traffic

the darkness more comfort

with no thought of the past, no concept of fear,

than the harsh light of day;

no memory, no future, no care or concern,

the room stands pale as scars,

just into the run and the beauty there...

the tales and travails faraway;

the run of a mad dog with eyes like the sun.

a phantom heart never tells...

as nevermore will the stars

and the moon light his way.

THE GYPSY ROSES

The gypsy roses come and go

To where a gypsy rose

Whispering to me their mystic tales,

Cannot hope but to stay,

To stay and live and grow

Singing in my mind a musical mystery,

In a place of sowing and reaping,

Seeming as if it cannot be...

Of sustenance and nurture,

These words they say,

Beauty and silent, subtle attraction--

Their songs sung true and long

Beatific sorrow...nature's satisfaction

As time and tide does sway.

And time's slung suffering;

And now you have asked, dear love,

These days complete with bells and echoes,

Where, when, and why do they play...

This hell on earth, torment in a moment;

These gypsy roses

Yes, I have sought your silence,

Swirling as they come,

Your fragrance, your slim excess...

Spinning mad against the sky

Oh, my gypsy roses, must you come

And go with the seasons eternal?

With haunting beauty their only sin

And I...must I stand or lie, turn upon turn,

And this before ardor,

With you by my side, there deftly cloying,

With lust the upholder,

Nailed to my heart--a ritual, a rite--yes, yes...

Impassioned the vagrant eye;

Once again before the dawn, only once again,

As if time had little reason

And there but to savor, perhaps only this murmur;

To do with you there before me,

The hearts of my loved ones,

Naked as the day,

My beautiful gypsy roses...

Or me there behind me...

My sirens, my truth, calling me this moment

It would seem that someone has loosed the world!

Of yours, mine, and ours,

And even so, with eventide

the touch of silky dew on morning lips atremble,

And unleavened bread

The still, sweet swiftness of your breath:

A gift, a nonesuch as this and timeless,

We feel our way down

Beginning, beguiling, and endless,

Deep amongst the furrows,

As life and light and the perpetual horror

Ill contempt a useless, futile harrow,

Of my gypsy roses ever so gently dying.

THE MYTH OF WOMAN

SLAUGHTER

Subliminal in her method,

I who know of nothing

Chemical in essence--water and pheromone,

conceive of poetry--

Always seeking, ever searching

poesy and whimsical,

Life's seductress in need

forever passing--

To feed and house

and shifts of water's tide,

And clothe and bleed,

whence the dream does spring.

To propagate she promulgates

But too late these beautiful mornings,

The myth:  the sensitive, the weak, the meek,

too late the dream

The eternal wound

of slaughter and heartache,

Grasping at life,

of children and spring rain

Gasping for more,

and the unbearable resonance

Ever taking, ever giving

of laughter.

She alone is the door;

Evening brings the lighthearted mist,

Back to the earth,

yet no effortless lost imagination

To every grain of sand,

can release the ethereal event...

To the wondrous mystery,

the critical mass of imbalance

The allure of the ages;

and perpetuity--the echo

And while not all drunks are poets

of last year's genocide.

Even fewer are sages,

Words on a page cannot hide this:

Yet this I do know as truth:

that you and I exist and love,

Plant the seed in fertile soil

triune, triumphant,

And with water and love

vicious and forthcoming

And many tender mercies

in the neverending wellspring...

It will live and grow and love

let the feast begin!

And, ultimately, it too shall know

That the myth of woman masks

Nothing more than eternal suffering

And succor and everlasting toil.

THE MAN IN THE MOON HAS GONE CRAZY AGAIN

A quick look out that starlit window

Reveals a fact little known:

That the man in the moon really does exist

And plays tricks all night and all day

with our minds, our hearts,

Our most inviolate, innermost selves.

For there it is now, then just as soon it's gone;

Daytime, nighttime...shadows moving slowly

Across the sky, specters steal over the ground

Mirroring that which is above, seeming surreal

Yet perhaps more real than we can know.

And then this notion that there is no man in the moon!

Of course there is a man in the moon,

And one with a nasty little sense of humor, you see.

And so you watch in wonder as the full moon hides behind clouds,

Appearing briefly and only then to reassure you

that the old man up there is watching closely

and knows what it is that you are actually all about.

And you, like a frightened child, take one last look,

Fearing the mystery of the ever-impending dawn,

Frozen by the unendurable thought of yet another new moon,

And then the crescent; more thoughts, more emotions,

And then full, new, crescent, full again, waxing, waning,

Always there, always stealing away, always smiling,

Ever taking, ever giving...and gentle as the silent night itself.

You below are the one in question.  Do you truly exist?

Or are you merely a reflection, a wraith,

A phantom player dodging shadows on a stage

Over which the immortal lunatic beams and peeps and shines.

FROM M TO MEXICO

This divorced lawn, it's mine no more...

so full of weeds and centipedes,

disgusting...hopelessly fallow,

a field that I once called home.

And what a dramatic event!

I can't seem to do anything with it at all.

It's doing nothing now...in fact, it's nothing doing

and nothing always turns into something,

always into something...like this divorced meal

which stares me in the face now

like it's somehow not done,

like it's not over (if only it could be),

finished, finis...and no dessert to boot!

Ah...but it's so special this divorced day and night,

these pages black and white,

though I can't make hide nor hair of any of it anymore--

not this totality, not this encompassed world,

though noxious repertoire would seem a more appropriate term

perhaps when speaking of this insidious dream, these days

of solitude, these nights...troubled, yes...troubled.

Ah...but it is so special now that your lies have fed me,

that your illusions have clothed and cloaked me...

and still you lead me on, page after divorced page.

What a madman I am to keep on, Quixote surely reborn.

Just so I must become the man with the one magical, mystical eye

as I press on!  I simply must!  To press on, onward,

further I have to go...from nowhere now to nowhere,

yet good enough somehow--good enough for those who care--

good enough for old Lytton there...so onward I go, stumbling and bumbling,

battling the tears, tilting this way and that;

flying all the way back to M, here as in the 14th Cyrillic letter,

then back and further back now to the lost enchanted

worlds of Mexico...lost there amidst the M's...all the way to Tula,

Xochotipal, Teotihuacan...to mystery and warm allure,

to the sense of lost, breathless wonder written, as it were,

beneath the endless stars of old, though not forgotten, Yucatan;

yes, with you by my side,

but I am alone...divorced yes, and I grow older.  Or do I?

Do I die day by day, shriveling in the moment,

or do I live and grow--seizing the day,

throw that old book away, Encyclopedia Americana, Vol. 14

perhaps offers a new way, a simple solution;

one marriage down, simple dissolution.

Ah, the delusional dawn!

And somewhere in the distance

the sun never sets.

FAR FROM MONICA'S SHORES

CLOUD-HIDDEN, WHEREABOUTS UNKNOWN

My head in a foggy wrap

It was there, high above Monica's beautiful shores,

I've used that metaphor so many times before

Out on that well-manicured point...wooden edifice

Not always knowing what I was even trying to convey,

Surrounding, arcane sculpture to my right,

The horizon well beyond

Yet now it's as clear as when the sun finally dissipates

There where I first heard the voice, and surely the call--

The morning mist, as clear as the sky above,

The call to walk a walk of tremendous uncertainty,

The fields of tall dried grass stretching out before me,

Perhaps to fail, perchance to fall, utterly and gone;

The occasional swarm of scrub...gnarled oaks perhaps

Yet better to fall than to perish there, starved

Bringing memories of both youth and age

Of companionship, nowhere to call home...high

And as the sun begins to warm my body

Above Monica"s suntanned shores, drunk

I feel a sense slowly dawning that I do know something;

As a skunk and truly alone.

I can see...myself, for one; I can see all around me,

Thus it was that I dragged my tired body,

And clearly too...and everything seems so beautiful:

My ragged presentation...loathsome

The hawk circling above, a ship I can see far out

For the peripheral passersby to behold

On the blue-green-grey waves...but where am I really?

Up to stand, devoutly dressed in nothing

Better yet, who am I really?  This of course begs the question:

More than my penury, looking back momentarily

What am I?  Merely a man standing on a grassy knoll

From those sweet blue waters

Overlooking an expanse of ocean with nothing around me

To a shimmering city of silver and smog

But that which has come to be known as nature;

And dazzling gold; with nothing in pocket,

The sky, the trees, the rocks, the grass...they certainly

No one to hold, bankrupt but for the green

Can't answer my questions; the men on the boat see me

Grass below my feet, the sun rising brilliant

As only a solitary speck, if they see me at all

In the eastern sky; and were it not

And as I stand there in the midst of all that beauty

For these few, simple things

Clearheaded, clear-visioned...the ultimate question

I never would've realized that not one

Comes to mind:  why am I?  And to whom or what

Regret lived within my heart, no remorse

Would I ever ask that question...and then of course

Resonated there for words or actions

The consequent conundrum:  why on earth would I

Previously taken, nothing but a hunger to love

Ever want to ask that quixotic question in the first place.

And be loved filled my vagabond dream.

Young at heart, full of love, it would seem,

Longing for adventure, deep in the stream?this

PEDESTRIAN MAN

Was the path down which I had strayed, as

In its embrace I beheld the dawn's sparkling view...

Peripatetic, yes...all the way to Mexico;

The angels beyond with Monica a precious queen

I walk the days and nights away,

Stretched out far across the timeless sands;

A stranger in any town, on any street,

And I, standing, swaying above, perched there

I shuffle off to Buffalo.

On the western edge, beneath my feet

And you, you're just like me,

The last piece of terra firma between the mysteries

A nameless nobody in a faceless crowd,

Of the deep and the madness

A fool dressed in black with the world on my back

Of the American metaphor, mercy

And I'd give it all away gladly

Approaching stealthily in a foggy wrap,

If only you'd stay beside me.

My mind waving like a flag unfurled

And never say a word, just don't speak at all;

In a furious onshore wind

Simply walk on beside me and feel these things we feel

And where to go?  What next to do?

With me, let all the distractions and other people's actions

With the very first step as unsure

Simply come and go and we'll walk, silently,

As the virgin day, stuck between

Unknown in our own way and happy

Approaching fog and the beckoning city,

In our own sweet time, we'll be free.

Yet something there...something deep

And indefinable, calling me now

At first faraway, then closer, perhaps

Within reach...with the sun and the mist

Commingling in my mind...and then suddenly,

A symphony playing a siren song

Of shapes and forms, everything in motion

And hard to track as one thought led only

To the next and that to lead me to take that step,

That first step, to leap, as it were, directly

Into my future; eminently embraceable...come

Whatever may...on that day, faraway

From everyone and everything...high, alone,

Light years away from Monica's beautiful shores

Naked man in the eye of the swirling storm,

Maelstrom universal, let the ageless spirits play;

I let that timeless, wonderful moment simply pass away.

THROUGH MY EYES

If you could see the world in which I live through my eyes

I know that, first of all, you would cry at the beauty

In the smallest delight, at the play of clouds in sharp, wintry light

At the midday passing of two butterflies, the eyes, the smile,

The touch of an infant child, a laugh on the breeze, the grass

And the sky gone utterly wild.

I also know that, after this first burst of wonder, you would pale quickly

At the insistence of one human being upon another, the mad

Grasping of the crowd at their own adoration...the careless stumble

And tumble towards slaughter and complete wretched decay

Shown in the apathy of yet another inflated ego chasing itself,

Like water chasing itself through a mountain stream, oblivious

To its own beauty, the unconscious loveliness of nature's way.

And I suppose that, after all was said and done (with nothing truly new

Under the sun), if you could see the world in which I live

Through my eyes, you would sing and laugh and cry and grieve,

Not knowing what tomorrow may bring...whether tomorrow will

Appear at all (perhaps all may truly fall after all), whether you care

Too much one way or another, or not at all for your sisters and brothers,

Your father and mother, or for yourself in the end.

CHRISTOS

NOT HAVING

I see it in your face, dangling from your ears,

Watchful, like a wild horse in the field,

the point where heaven and humanity coincide.

like a young man in the midst of a dying day?

And you love men, I know that by the way you smile...

be he filled with dreams and wonder

warm and receptive, your shelter within

or surrounded by ignorance

conceals the truth:  you have wrought mystery.

and the apathy of nature's way,

You love men, their hardness and their suffering.

he remains watchful

I see it in your eyes, written across your face;

like a bird in flight

the shadow-play between want and need...

through the hazy fog of L.A.

this is where you live, the thread

Below the masses move...slow, imprecise,

by which you hang, a homespun cross.

reluctance and reticence mark their steps,

Yet understanding does not replace nor repay

and for many tomorrow simply never comes.

that which is taken each time you love.

Prick up your ears now, my friend,

Your life is given over, the sword pierces,

like that horse alone in the field;

blood flows throughout the land.

prick up your ears, you who are also doomed

Your legs are spread wide

to suffer the ten thousand sorrows.

each time you bear that christ,

Yes, prick up your ears and flare

this enigma--life bursts forth...

your life-loving nostrils...and then run.

revealing the seed, the altar.

Run like madness.

The sacrifice is prepared,

Run like you've never run before.

the time is at hand...

Run into the settling twilight,

a sense of urgency is born

into the future's tragic mystery.

as once again we slowly die.

And there...perhaps finally there

you will find your rest

where all meets nothing

and security means not having.

All selections (c) Theodore D. Walther, and may not be reprinted or reproduced without author's written permission.

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