steven_schroeder

first day of december

steven_schroeder@earthlink.net (Steven Schroeder) — Fri, 02 Dec 2011 07:22:53 PST

1

The Brownian motion of a mass of children
you might mistake for random dancing
cold beside a line of still

buses waiting on the first day of December.

2

A woman counting out loud to a known number
I do not know until she comes to it

and the children flow before the buses go
to some place I know as nothing more than
away from here.

3

A dog more Chihuahua than not
wears a bronze bell I carried home from Lhasa
that rings a prayer every morning walk. He is
the incarnation of a young Lama for whom

the one hundred and eighth clear tone signifies
desire to hear one more, and he
knows he is and will be

born again.

4

Red berries glance through a window
bright in morning sun, wait for snow.

Lobelia blue on green leaves gray now fades slow.

meditation on a sermon of John Donne

steven_schroeder@earthlink.net (Steven Schroeder) — Sun, 27 Nov 2011 22:43:25 PST

god could not contain himself and
so he said and so it was
and then he said
that this is
good

glad of the sea
glad of the earth
glad of the sun
glad of the moon
glad of the stars
glad one by one

god said of every one
that this is good this
gladness is
good

and had god thought
god would have said right
then and there that god is good as well

and god could not say
enough of four realms of four
elements seven realms of seven planets

god could not stop and take it in
take it in take it all in
taking it in

god said angels like words
beyond numbers to express them
and still god could not stop and take it in

the elephant the whale behemoth and leviathan
planets and suns and stars and angels
beyond counting and god

could not stop and take it in
so god made us of it all
and vanished in the
whole host of it

god could not stop
to take it in god could not
contain himself and all god said

is good
it is very good

bird's eye view

steven_schroeder@earthlink.net (Steven Schroeder) — Fri, 14 Oct 2011 06:14:10 PDT

Pigeons have no idea wings mean
a point of view to be desired.
They fly to get from here to there
without thinking what the means imply
for vision. They fly to imagine
a color world of fours divided by
three, wonder if being bound to earth
removes a quarter of its rainbow.
They sometimes slip so deep
in tetrachromacy they look
a little foolish when children rush
to scatter them, forgetting to fly,
distracted, unable to believe
their eyes, try to find fractions for
cyan, magenta, yellow unbroken
by the possibilities of the palette they
have always known in hollow bones, light as air.

lightning fast, October

steven_schroeder@earthlink.net (Steven Schroeder) — Tue, 11 Oct 2011 06:23:23 PDT

The crown of the maple tree has been
five Springs falling since lightning
just a few feet beyond the window
sent the cat scurrying under the bed
to think twice about promises made
to Saint Anne. She has not yet
gotten to a nunnery, but she
counts the interval between
light and sound with care now.

In the long beginning of the moment
of the fall, a squirrel has made a nest
four Winters running in the hollow
lightning left, knowing it could not last.

Squirrel contemplates the absence
of a roof over his head, kicks all
the furniture out, hopes this false Spring
lasts until he’s settled in again before the first snow.

hospitality

steven_schroeder@earthlink.net (Steven Schroeder) — Tue, 16 Aug 2011 13:59:26 PDT

An old metal watering can
hangs at the right angle to shelter
a summer colony of Polistine wasps just
far enough off the beaten path to keep things civil.

These sisters of Saint Benedict are
social insects, but the whole convent is
a hermit like me. They
need each other, but they
all need distance, and they
all keep their distance,
out of sight hoping to stay
out of mind. One
has wandered into my
kitchen this morning, lost. I
open the screen, avoiding her sting,
and wait until she is between
screen and window.

I close the window and tap,
which sends her spiralling to find
edges until she happens upon the opening
I’ve made, not knowing and not caring who made it.

She hurries back to the house she knows she and her sisters made
in something I’d forgotten, out of sight, out of mind,
working like a prayer to let the world be.

red

steven_schroeder@earthlink.net (Steven Schroeder) — Wed, 10 Aug 2011 06:19:19 PDT

what you can’t say, sigh
what you can’t sigh, sing
what you can’t sing, dance

red moon rises clear
as day on the edge of the city
so sweet you can taste it
from here tonight
and I think this is where
the earth down here
gets red and I
hope it stays
a long long time

long enough for all that light
to fill us with all the madness
we need to remember
what a red state is
what a red state
Oklahoma is

it hangs slow slow shining, nothing
but light, and there’s space
enough in that
for every single one of us to dance

up don’t mean down and out
don’t mean in unless we stand together
the side of the sign that don’t say
nothing is the side of the sign
on the side that belongs
to you and me

if you see something, they say,
say something but I say
you can never say I
without meaning
we even when you forget
I say look at that moon like nothing
you’ve ever seen and say what you see. dance.

WoodyFest, Okemah, Oklahoma, 16 July 2011

a lecture on metaphysics

steven_schroeder@earthlink.net (Steven Schroeder) — Sun, 24 Jul 2011 09:18:59 PDT

Nobody to write for but strangers I
thought including myself I think
happening upon an old philosopher
reminiscing. An Oklahoma boy,
he happened upon Chicago
at just the time Gertrude Stein
was hired to lecture on grammar
here, where there was he seems

to think there there at the time.
He said she said they said (meaning,
I suppose, the old man in charge, assuming
there was one) grammar, so she and Mortimer
were going on about narrative and she hit him on the head
said you are a young man who likes to argue. He was.
And she wanted readers so she wrote for herself
and myself, strangers.

It drove him to Thomism (the old philosopher)
which is not as far as you might think
from Oklahoma, almost Kansas,
which both know (Thomas
and the state you are in or have been
in at one time or another knowing
what Dorothy said to Toto) knowing
time and time again and time and
time again and time was it could have
been otherwise. Time is it could be otherwise,
always is. Now is otherwise another time.
The grammar of this is word after word
time after time I say she said (though
I was not) there. That is

what all men mean
when they say said the saint
when he was a heretic. Women
too, it goes without saying. Gertrude
said, he says, or so the words say as far as
I can tell reading for myself, a stranger, writing.

only gifts changing hands

steven_schroeder@earthlink.net (Steven Schroeder) — Wed, 06 Jul 2011 08:43:36 PDT

only gifts changing hands

rapture

steven_schroeder@earthlink.net (Steven Schroeder) — Sat, 21 May 2011 07:57:03 PDT

if you know
the world will end
tomorrow, Martin said,

plant an apple tree
today. if you do not find
yourself taken by rapture

every day that comes
the way a thief comes
in the night, the way

every sapling is
a promise

every promise
a miracle

you will never know

downstate, late March

steven_schroeder@earthlink.net (Steven Schroeder) — Thu, 19 May 2011 21:53:55 PDT

Placing the color of dry grass
on a spectrum of ocher,
I happen upon a deer

that has not been
dead long and say yes,
that's it – the tipping point on

the edge of brown,
the shade death thirsts
until, forgetting at last, it is

no more than white bones
bleached in sun, nothing like
the color I had in mind just now.

flag

steven_schroeder@earthlink.net (Steven Schroeder) — Fri, 13 May 2011 12:02:01 PDT

after rain, bright
red song flies
over morning. this

this this is mine,
cardinal sings,
jus' jus' just sayin’ --

so I will not be
tempted, passing
through, here, now, to

think, for a moment, otherwise

when a victory is won treat it as a funeral

steven_schroeder@earthlink.net (Steven Schroeder) — Mon, 02 May 2011 21:39:29 PDT

1

weapons are
inauspicious tools
all despise them

weapons are
inauspicious tools
do not use them

victory is
not beautiful

beautify it
and you are
happy with murder

when people are killed
they should be mourned

when a victory is won
treat it as a funeral

2

don't use weapons
to conquer the world

master a place
weeds sprout

after armies pass
times are bad

get good results
that is all

get results don't
dwell on them

get results don't
cut others down

get results don't
be arrogant

get results don't
struggle

3

governing a great nation
is like a tasty little stir fry

attend to the world
and evil will have no power

...from "like a tasty little stir-fry," in a guest giving way like ice melting: thirteen ways of looking at laozi, steven schroeder and debby sou vai keng. ink brush press, 2010

days of rain and now

steven_schroeder@earthlink.net (Steven Schroeder) — Mon, 02 May 2011 11:34:36 PDT

days of rain and now
a flood of morning
light
       bike shop sign says
free air, leading me
to believe
there could be
a price to pay
for sun dancing
on pools where yesterday
lingers in a season still
gray in this gray city

a murder of old friends

steven_schroeder@earthlink.net (Steven Schroeder) — Thu, 28 Apr 2011 20:46:25 PDT

From this side, dry, without
benefit of steady rain,
it is hard to know

if two crows flying
from one gabled roof
to another are

more or less than
a murder of old friends
undaunted by gray skies

and mid-April's touch
of winter not yet
willing to let go.

Perching, one leans
to the other as if
to share a private joke.

They fly, trailing laughter
over earth bright with rain today.

call and response

steven_schroeder@earthlink.net (Steven Schroeder) — Fri, 22 Apr 2011 07:20:19 PDT

For the time being, Spring has
stopped, cold, in this
April moment.

Two cardinals sing
call and response in two
trees before sunrise. You can

hear her warming her hands
by the fire of their
scarlet voices,

enticing her
to stay.

credo

steven_schroeder@earthlink.net (Steven Schroeder) — Fri, 08 Apr 2011 08:47:45 PDT

Crossing this border
where a sign says drive
friendly, the Texas way,

I'm wondering, as
I always do, which?

when a warning flashes
on the dash of the rental car
I'm driving: ice is possible

and I think this car
has been here before,

glance at the thermometer
and say out loud anything is

possible. It's above freezing,
barely, so it could be a joke --

but I've hit a bridge in weather
like this iced, as they say,

before the road, that spun me
all the way around, left my
eyes wide open

and I turned to my friend
and said it's a miracle
we're alive.

As it always has been,
as it always is.

A couple of hours later,
passing the Jesus Christ Is Lord
Not A Swear Word Travel Stop,

I smile and think it is good to have this
in common with the born again sure,
scared as hell somebody wants
what they have bad enough
to take it folks who
own the place:

It's a miracle we're alive, as it always is,
as it always will be, as long as we are.
And that is good. That is very good.

Comanche moon

steven_schroeder@earthlink.net (Steven Schroeder) — Thu, 17 Mar 2011 21:53:26 PDT

Comanche moon they
say as though they
remember making their way
across the plains by the light of it

or shuddering at the thought
of someone else. But they
mean no more than that
it is big and bright

like stars at night
deep in the heart... But
you wouldn't know it
in the glare of the city, full

of the moon tonight, even
inside out of sight of it
where crowds, still

making the world flat, still
see nothing but some city
of their making on the next hill.

we must be mad

steven_schroeder@earthlink.net (Steven Schroeder) — Fri, 11 Mar 2011 07:07:00 PST

The horns of the moon's dilemma
curl into a smile without a cat
tonight, bright against the dark
sky. Somewhere Alice is saying

she doesn't much care where
she gets as long as she gets

somewhere, and the cat
who is not there
smiles now because
it goes without saying

that it doesn't much matter then
which way she goes because
she's sure to do that if only
she goes far enough.

Walking west at a brisk pace,
I have no doubt without
a word from the cat
we have no idea
how far that is.

what has been

steven_schroeder@earthlink.net (Steven Schroeder) — Fri, 25 Feb 2011 21:29:57 PST

East of Hannibal
and Lyle

Lovett is going on
about penguins

when I spot a Cooper's Hawk
perched on six feet of what has been

drifting since before
the blizzard began

last week.

I could have
lost control

watching, but you can't lose
what you never had.

In that moment, the hawk
goes nowhere, and I fly,

my mind on
the road again,

past the sign

that points the way to Mexico

barely visible above
the snow line, the sign

that says Louisiana
19 miles, thinking

twice about where
I am now and when.

into the gray city

steven_schroeder@earthlink.net (Steven Schroeder) — Fri, 04 Feb 2011 13:29:05 PST

Two days after the blizzard, plows
make a mountain to move every place
two paths meet, and there are people on
the street with shovels ready to deal.

Sunlight falls steadily, and waiting
has been accumulating
for a week.

Snow relaxes under a blanket of it
into the gray city,

and everyone with time knows
it will be impossible to tell them apart
by the day after tomorrow.

The city will get through February
as it always has, and time will wear
a path in waiting from memory the way
dogs have in snow, knowing where they
have been even if their eyes deceive them.

could be

steven_schroeder@earthlink.net (Steven Schroeder) — Tue, 01 Feb 2011 06:04:44 PST

more wait and wind
than snow or ice,
anticipating
drifts for days
before a snow
they say could be
a hundred year storm

january 2011

steven_schroeder@earthlink.net (Steven Schroeder) — Mon, 31 Jan 2011 11:33:15 PST

1

world's on the way
to ice tonight
but the river

will not stand for it.
cold as the city is
in january, light
it sheds still

dances on living water.
snow tonight, snow
tomorrow. river

takes it in, flows
as every river flows

to an ocean
that drinks them in,
drinks them in, drinks them all

in, but does not overflow.

2

flag frozen half mast
in a state of endless sorrow,
sacrament of a thousand year reign

of mourning, ice
unmoved by the great wind
still stirring new snow.

on the river, January

steven_schroeder@earthlink.net (Steven Schroeder) — Fri, 28 Jan 2011 09:04:15 PST

an old gull makes the most of winter
by walking on water as far as
it will carry him frozen

he believes he knows how far the ice goes
and he will go no farther without flying

he eyes living water the way
a bird will, askance,

sees nothing there,
right before his eyes

the dead

steven_schroeder@earthlink.net (Steven Schroeder) — Mon, 24 Jan 2011 22:22:41 PST


The dead
are more
present than
the living, who are
distracted by
the weight of it
and can never
collect their
thoughts.

        The living
never catch the beginning
or the end of what is said,
mucked up in middleswamps
where nothing can appear
distinct and minds strain
against quicksand when they are still
only up to their necks in it. But the dead.
The dead. The dead have nothing to carry,
and though that is infinitely heavier
than the weight of the wait of the world,
they have learned to walk on water
and never break the surface
of sand.
        Everything they’ve said
they say, and the living
cannot make it out, though
the quicksand has not yet covered
their ears.

        Before
he died, my father
is saying he watched
some program about an Australian tribe
that believes we mature into dreamtime
and it makes him think of me. I know
now that he smiled at this because
he was nearing dreamtime and expected
it would give us time to talk.
        Yes. If we could learn to walk
on water and carry nothing,
we could put our feet on the surface
of a quicksand world and converse
without dying.

from Six Stops South (Cherry Grove Collections, 2009)

slant

steven_schroeder@earthlink.net (Steven Schroeder) — Sat, 22 Jan 2011 22:06:15 PST


Light in this cold is
so slant it bends
sound to it.
          You can see
words in clouds
that rise and scatter
before they reach another
frozen figure who has ears
to hear them.
          Nothing remains
but the air between
you and the sun,
orange on an alien
horizon, with no
more meaning than
a gesture in a place
where language falters
at the speed of light.

from Six Stops South (Cherry Grove Collections, 2009)