Saturday, November 30, 2024
The man who loves numbers
Monday, November 18, 2024
My dharma talk on wisdom--
https://drive.google.com/drive
for the meditation group in Volcano.
Saturday, November 16, 2024
My reading/talk at UH-West Oahu in late October is now on youtube
You can access the talk here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l-5Xkyw869E
I talked about why I write and how I write and tried to make it accessible to young writers, one of whom I once was . . .
Monday, November 4, 2024
Young boys chanting
Sunday, November 3, 2024
Lilith and I walk uphill
Thursday, October 31, 2024
I and You: Elegy 31
I and You
Eucalyptus is tree
Bark is not
Eucalyptus is tree
Sap is not
I am alive
You are not
I talk to
You who don’t
Talk to me
Which of us
Is more lonely
Saturday, October 26, 2024
Billy Mills review
Billy Mills is an Irish poet, one who devotes a lot of time and energy to reading the work of others. He read my books, Lilith Walks and Meditations carefully, here: https://ellipticalmovements.wordpress.com/2024/03/27/recent-reading-march-2024/
And now he's done an attentive reading of I and Eucalyptus, here: https://ellipticalmovements.wordpress.com/2024/10/23/recent-reading-october-2024-a-review/
Friday, October 25, 2024
Lilith and the untaken photograph
Thursday, October 24, 2024
Lilith and my tee ball player
We crossed the street to avoid two little dogs that Lilith didn't want to see. Three young men were walking on the other side, coming back from the pool with their towels. One of them greeted me; he'd been on my tee ball team when he and my son were five years old. Since then, he'd been in the Navy. Now? "Doing lots of LGBTQ stuff and singing in the Honolulu Gay Chorus," he said. His mom had a knee replaced a month ago, and is only now driving again. And your dad? I asked. Even then, he and the young man's mother were divorced; he did baseball duty with his son. "You know what your dad said to me once?" I asked. "He told me not to let you act like a girl. I said that was not my job, nor did I think acting like a girl was a bad thing." He said his dad had taken him to try out for another team and had thrown the ball--hard--at him. Hit him three times in the head. Never played baseball again. (And then I remembered the young man's name, because it comes after "the Eskimo" in a Bob Dylan song.) He smiled, said his dad had died of cancer a few years ago, but had always had to remind himself that his son was gay. You could watch the gears moving in his head, he said. Smiled.
Lilith meets a Trump supporter
Sunday, October 20, 2024
Lilith and the man on the curb
Saturday, October 19, 2024
Wisdom parami: Elegy 30
Wisdom parami
I’m supposed to
Talk about wisdom
Tomorrow thinking relation
Is where it
Begins or ends
Me and tree
You and me
Even now in
Relation across life’s
Death line you
In tomorrow I
In today still
Spooked by drone
Video of man
In bombed out
Building seated on
Dust couch dust
Man wrapped in
Dust fabric staring
At drone we
Cannot see because
We are it
We kill because
We see / is
That it / vision
As violence when
I only wish
To see you
Whole again and wise
Notes: "The man" is Yahya Sinwar; "you" is Sina
Friday, October 18, 2024
Sign-waving without Lilith
Thursday, October 17, 2024
A is for apathy: Elegy 29
A is for apathy
Om mani peme
Hung you’d mutter
Push back against
The pressure of
Reality (Wallace Stevens)
At least make
Obstacles of sound
To defeat sound
(This morning saws
Shear the dovesong)
And I can’t
Push death away
Or the fascism
You prepared for
By using Signal
(An encrypted app)
I understand apathy
Is push back
Noise reducing headphones
Interfering with interference
Apathy’s active response
To grief to
Murder to misogyny
Stolid cemetery workers
Strip sod / stoic /
They’re older men
Who stop to
Watch traffic below
Like two statues
Shovels in hand
Before they resume
Hard labor for
The death industry
What got Mark
About Dachau was
How exquisitely beautiful
Was the surrounding
Landscape not what
My mother described
When she reported
Seeing corded piles
Of corpses on
Railroad cars men
In striped pajamas
I can see
Wanting to look
Only at one
Not the other
Guarding heart space
A photograph of
You at beach
With Selina smiling
Peaceful heart surf
Your aumakua bird
Forget what came
After / I cannot /
Monday, October 14, 2024
Gaza, year two: Elegy 28
Gaza: Year Two
Sina, we’re called
Upon to speak
A friend sends
Photo of hand
Raised in conflagration
Of Gaza hospital
Says we were
Talking about Radhika
This was mother
And daughter burning
Is it like this
In the afterworld
Outside the box
Ashes scattered like
Glitter for saints
Gleaming faces turned
Up where artists
Hang on trapezes
Let dust fall
To be boxed
Later / Murphy’s ashes
On bar floor
Down theater toilet
Don’t know to
Laugh or weep
This world burning
What do you
Say, dear Sina,
On after-death apps
Maeve killed bird
Yesterday / I buried
It in dumpster
Bryant found rat
Foot in old
Trap in Volcano
All this blood
On our hands
Our claws / Sign
Bomb and let
It rip apart
Kids who can’t
Yet read and
Old women with
Eyes too fogged
To see anything
Beyond clear suffering
Friday, October 11, 2024
Absent Lilith meets the queen
"It's awful what they did to our queen," said the small woman in a large sun hat, sitting next to me on a picnic bench at Swanzy Beach Park. "It's men," she said. "I know that women can be cruel, but men have something else going." I'd met her earlier at the other end of the narrow beach with her dog Poni. Poni was Queen Liliuokalani's dog. Looked like the photograph of Lilith I showed her.
Wednesday, October 9, 2024
Lilith befriends a nurse
The former Bernie supporter
"So
you're the person with the righteous bumperstickers!" I said to a woman
at the ticket booth to the Temple; she'd gotten out of a truck with
four Bernie bumperstickers, one I'd wondered about. "Yes, I used to love
Bernie," she said, "but I gave up on him when he surrendered to
Hillary." Now she doesn't care. I said I was happy to see her truck,
because most of the cemetery employees seem to support Trump. She
doesn't like any of them now. They're all on the same team and just
pretend otherwise. She had a spiritual experience during COVID and
realized that none of this matters. Everything will be ok. "But what is
ok?" I asked. She smiled. I asked if you couldn't think both important,
politics and the spiritual life. No, the politics drove her crazy. I
said I wondered at how she could be both so cynical and so hopeful at
the same time. "People call me a walking contradiction," she said.
"Everything will be ok." Lilith and I walked away. "Vote for Kamala," I said.
Tuesday, October 8, 2024
Identity positions: Elegy 27
Identity Positions
Identity is other
People / what they
Want us to
Be / one thing
Or another / or
The operative word
You either fit
None or most
Shape-shifting where
Shape wasn’t goal
But way station
Like a comma
Between clauses or
Items in lists
Store bought selves
Easier to shelve
Than silly putty
Or broken egg
Identity is history
Not essence you
Knew / culture not
Birth stamp but
Stories some of
Which might sometimes
Be true--
Monday, October 7, 2024
Kintsugi: Elegy 26
Your brothers all
In uniform / lavalavas
Flowered aloha shirts /
Between them complicated
Politics let drop
Easily I lay
On the couch
4 a.m. the next
Morning / jetlagged /
Feeling their grief
As mending as
Scar tissue denotes
Healing more than
Hurt / when Selina
Broke down at
Magic Island's healing
Circle and I
Put my arm
Around her shoulder
("The fittest poet
In the world!")
And the space
Between us warmed
Like you were
In there somehow
Holding out your
Finger which we
Saw directed at
The ocean sky
Whatever is clear
Measure of compassion
Where measure is
Not at issue
Mending comes after
A broken pot
Packed full of
Flowers / gold stitching
To show us
Where potter drew
Shard to shard
Where we made
Lines to erase
Distance you are
There like tree’s
Paperbark mouthing joy
When wind arrives
Wednesday, October 2, 2024
Gold Watch / Elegy 25
Gold Watch
No consolation to
Be remembered I
Know / to be
Divorced from am
Or are / verbs
Have lost their
Tenses you need
Not learn them
Or wear watches
(“It’s about time,”
Eddie Vedder says
Of Trump’s $100K
Bling) to see
Time that cannot
Be seen except
In retrospect memory
Invisible fog unless
Developed on leaves
But we yank
Them off branches
Wood and water
Water and wood
Lake sodden with
Houses timber animals
Roofs / who protects
Us now without
Your presence / friends
Orphans / you who
Were drawn to
Underdogs doggedly watch
From heaven’s keyhole
Return to child’s
Images for what
Cannot be seen
As ascension (the
-c in Italian
Sounds as -ch)
Like Chimney Rock
That floats in
Lake Lure no
Allure to wreckage
Someone’s uncle is
Missing someone’s child
Is missing someone’s
Missing as you
Are: there, presence.
Monday, September 23, 2024
On wearing a Harris/Walz shirt in the south
Wednesday, September 4, 2024
Body / Mind: Elegy 24
Body / mind problem
The body is
Present / the mind
Past / the body
Identified by her
Hair / flesh’s corruption
A test of
Mind-body problem
We want mind
We get body
We want body
We get memory
In a cloud
Uploaded filed away
Not by us
Whose memories they
Are but by
Apple to whom
I pay each
Month to keep
My photos safe
Of bodies not
Souls even if
Eyes offer windows
To experience / not
Its concept / words
Fail / meaning too
Much not enough
Body smells bad
Soul is non-allergenic
You are neither
Now peripatetic friend
How do I
Talk to you
Without them / here
Sunday, September 1, 2024
Scams: Elegy 23
Scams
The pendulum between
Rage and forgiveness
Selina calls it
Someone wrote asking
For money for
The killer’s psychiatric
Exam (which is
Private in Samoa)
Someone else asked
For money for
The killer’s daughter
Who didn’t have
One / I said
No / I cannot
Forgiveness is gift
Not offered in
Exchange for money
The grifter still
Grifts from prison
Says she’ll plead
Guilty then not
Demands release on
Bail wants wants
Wants wants wants
She gave us grief
Our daily bread
How do we
Offer it back
This heart appliance
I remember Sina
Calling to tell
Me about her
First Nigerian scam
Letter before we
Knew what they
Were something about
A prince a
Bank account her
Money to save
Someone in distress
She didn’t fall
For that good
Story but when
She entered Sia’s
Door she did
Not come out
Again / alive
Thursday, August 29, 2024
Disremembering you: Elegy 22
Disremembering you
how grieving a death makes
bird song
less
Or the only song
More than siren
Than weed eater
Than mower though
Mowing is death’s
Artifice before renewal
Buddha-like lightened
If not en-
Another stone dropped
By Selina / news
More horrible than /
As if death
Were not enough
Grief not enough
Without shock / “the
Gory scene” / further
Unveiled in which
Sina’s lost—again--
To details to
How we tell
Stories as rise
And fall emphasis
On fall on
Failure to resolve
The scene in
Sweetness why could
We not have
Stopped you where
You stood that moment
Before entering death’s
Theater your host
A parasite armed
With planned rage
And we chorus
Members sunk in
Amber talking talking
Never moving toward
Because we’re stuck
In time’s passage
Proust’s PTSD madeleine
Memory carves us
Up eats itself
Then leaves us
Dis-memoried and blank
(opening by Deborah Meadows, from “Dear Henry”)
Wednesday, August 28, 2024
Talking Trees: Elegy 21
Talking trees
Bug encasing itself
In its own spit--
Thinking as body
Armor mind shield
Feeling glued to
Highway like a kitten
Shivering under tires
No one stopping
Save the man
In a photo
Kitten on shoulder
I give you mine
To cry on
There must be
Tears where you
Are, Sina, echoing
Like puddle drops
In Hereafter’s suburbs
Neatly set trees
Dropping leaves of
Bark no yawp
In whatever language
You now speak
I am tree
You are tree
We negotiate through
Our roots / synapses
Tethered / pass on
No pass back
"Bug..." Verse 1.4 of Jigme Linpa's Revelations of Ever-present Good,
trans. Ken McLeod
Monday, August 26, 2024
From the Talmud: Elegy 20
From the Talmud
You are not
obligated to complete
the work but neither
are you free
to abandon it.
What work to
Talk to you
Game of telephone
Without the phone
Just me mis-
Understanding myself
As words smack
Into walls like
Tortoises who never
Stop their rowing
My flippers flip
Ignoring the obstacle
Death deals us
Power out after
The storm / Hone
Meaning “sweet soft”
Hurricane force winds
“Make perfect / complete”
In Hindi / “sharpen”
As in a knife
Sweet soft knife
A kind ethics
Cut from corrupt
Papaya’s too-sweet flesh
Sunday, August 25, 2024
Campaign season: Elegy 19
Campaign season
I read your
Mother poems over
And over again
Knowing the entanglements
Of grief: you
My parents Marie
Not cardboard stand-ins
But actual absences
Opening the computer
This morning I
Saw your photographs
Smiling at me
Grown more thin
Susceptible to bronchitis
Toll of peripatetic
Travels in planes
Thinking to separate
Yourself from colleague
From niece from
Intimate opportunists one
Of whom—it seems--
Would kill you
So open so
Inclined to serve
You exited that
Door / opened another
Entered the staging
Of your death
Keep your naivete
A friend advised
When I got
Burned but was
It worth it
To stay in
Such unguarded space
Your intrepid self
Rowing past lens’s
Reach / I want
To talk to
You now about
The politics of joy!
Thursday, August 22, 2024
Eyes: Elegy 18
Eyes
You were over
The moon when
Obama was elected
Now only moon
Watches you watching
The DNC from
Hereaftersville / need no
Screen no Stevie Wonder
No candidate’s son
To weep unmediated tears
Only form of honesty
That’s left / staged
As mockery this
Morning / to see
Compassion’s blade
In my father’s
Eyes too no static
A kind clarity
Clarion to us who
See in the human
Way / image after
Image all the way
Down like turtles
Holding earth for
You to look
Back from your
Moist eyes I
Miss them all
My Bodhissatva kin
Wednesday, August 21, 2024
Word stones: Elegy 17
Word stones
You wrote, Stones
Pass away, but
Words last forever.
You, completely lost
Completely found in
Names / sound stones
Stolpersteine / Stein’s
Stones words laid
Across pages like
Bricks though places
Aren’t bricks are
More diaphanous sound
(A stone’s light)
A feeling before
Emotion before act
Even a set stone
Gets acted on
When we look
Not to step
On it / another
Genocide blooms red
Under shattered concrete
Each soul a stone
Like yours thrown
Across sea water
Skipping like a child
Like your eyes
When you laughed
At the human
Comedy before it
Curdled like milk
Or office politics
Quoted words from "Dear Mom (IV)"
seedlings 7, Jerrold Shiroma, Editor
Tuesday, August 20, 2024
Sina's Garden: Elegy 16
Sina’s garden
You imagined your
Reborn mother at 2
Making mud pies
The love of eyes
That imagined her
Not in the life she
Lived with you
Fresh starts always
Include mud pies
And bloody knees
An early unawareness
Of our being
Before the mysteries
Start / you were
Sheltered by dakinis
Until the end
Did they go
On strike or leave
On holy vacations
Vacate meaning to
Empty out like
Tourists on their own
Time / though emptiness
Isn’t quite it
Except as spirit-
Mulch / tendrils
Of new growth
Peeping out / a child’s
Eye glistening curious
As a dahlia
Blossom and you
Tending your mother’s
Garden / reborn in
A place I don’t
See on any map
Though my heart’s GPS
Sends occasional pings
Saturday, August 17, 2024
Lilith's odd morning
Wednesday, August 14, 2024
Failed story / Elegy 15
A failed story is a poem
Buddhist stories end
With what we
Had thought would
Happen not happening
Teacher angered by
Dirty dishes left
In communal sink
Realizes she left
Them there / wisdom
Of embarrassment /
Your story ends
But why it ends
Where it ends
Or began where
It began can’t
Be told / narrator’s
Unreliable and you’re
Dead / need to know
Basis when there’s
Nothing to know
Is all tease
She in jail on five
Counts, including theft
Of your car
Which she drove
To a friend’s
House afterward
A count is number
But not plot
At least not
In the sense
Of story making
Sense of arc
Flat-lined unreadable
To whom story
Is told cannot
Tell it back
Do not ask
It tells for thee
Asterism sale on _I and Eucalyptus_
https://asterismbooks.com/product/i-and-eucalyptus-susan-m-schultz
I'm thrilled with how the book turned out. Lavender Ink in New Orleans (Bill Lavender's press) did a wonderful job with the text and full-page color photographs of the tree.
Or, get straight from the press: https://www.lavenderink.org/site/announcements/meet-eucalyptus/?v=76cb0a18730b
Tuesday, August 13, 2024
Shoulder blade: Elegy 14
Shoulder Blade
How do we talk
To our dead /
Like trauma they
Interrupt us
Our daily routine
Not ritual but
Remorse instead
Of recovery / we’d
Enjoy making memes
This election year
Deft take-downs
Of shark-fearing
He-man / his under
ling who doesn’t
Mean to be mean
To cats / I fell
In a dark hole
Of right wing fantasy
Social media samsara
Can’t get it out of
My head / knife
In my shoulder blade
Is metaphor (I
Tell my daughter)
Or displaced wound
Taken from or for you
Whose written voice
Sits in Signal
Like an egg
To be cracked
When I want
To be strong
Then shatters into
White and yolk
Fore-conversation
As we are
Now after it
Monday, August 12, 2024
Watching your killer on vimeo / Elegy 13
Watching Your Killer on Vimeo
I watch her inter-
View on tape: VA
She says / is
The space between
Us / living and dead
It comes from
The land / care
Taken of graves
And between us
“VA is everywhere”
Albert Wendt
Writes / after I
Published a book
Whose title offended
You / I visited his
Office (Kuykendall 511)
Asked him what
To do / given the word
That begins with “c”
In English / the author
Also American
Hadn't known
And while Wendt
Understood your concern
Said cultures change
They're remade
By us / as he had done /
Reflected through the lens
She says on Vimeo
Of her perception
Drawn to taboo
Tattoos like those
On her hands
Those who act
I can imagine
Rewind that image
Back to her theater
Back to her
Teaching / back to
Her her her her her her
Ten minutes up
Return a stranger
And more than
Strange that you
Can’t hear my
Words / bent screen
On wood house
God is ugly
Elizabeth writes / so
We won’t identify
With him / we
Who are beautiful
As her words
Were until time
Ends / we tend
Your memory grave
Ashes to ashes
Word upon word
Upon word upon
Unmortared rock
with thanks to Elizabeth Robinson
Sunday, August 11, 2024
Life in Hawai`i: Kamala style