Seeker Magazine

James Morford

Jim has graced Seeker's pages as the author of several short stories. This month is our introduction of him as poet. Jim is a native Californian who travels a great deal...to Europe 28 times, and at least two years were spent in Mexico.
In his own words, he explains his feelings about poetry:

I am an American and, like most Americans, I grew up suspicious of poetry. Poetry didn't make anything "happen," and only that which makes things "happen" had real value. Poetry was the province of the aesthete and, although never stated but always implied, the ineffectual. Oh, poetry had its uses: it could be quoted in a speech or inscribed on the front of a building. But that utility was always ancillary. Poetry only enhanced.
As I grew older, I realized that poetry through its intense concentration of words, crystallizes the poet's experiences in such a way that they can be understood and, in a certain sense, lived by people other than the poet. Through poetry, the individual can experience that which he or she might otherwise be denied. Poetry was more than ancillary; it was intrinsic.
So even on the terms under which I grew up, poetry can mean a great deal. There are, of course, other reasons for placing a value on poetry, the joy of language being one. But for most Americans, what I have described is what I believe the most important.

NO CROSSROADS AT THE BREAK

Let us take our break
Along this road
As narrow as it is straight
Where we will
See things as they are
And about them be positive
However, a warning:
If we need turn
Our visit is done
I will not pretend
A yearning
I do not have
Conditioning, you see.

You need not worry
About a guide
The roses are dead
And not remembered
By anyone of note
If you have doubt
We can take a vote
Democracy settles everything
With finality
So bring your beeper
And let us hurry
Breaks never last long.

From that jujube tree
Dangles ivy
That hides
A blue door
That opens
To a passageway
That leads
To a garden
That is
Not even a memory now
All tension is gone
So let us pass on
No need to create
Something
Out of nothing
Only the visible has
True mystery.

This pile of powder was
Bones once
Now mute in the wind
And this blunted arrow
Came to a point
Once
Up there you can see
Where the leopard lay
Once
Before tourists carried him away
Everyone knows
There are no visions
Without exception
And no real division
Except
On Sunday television
The only true heart
Is made of flesh
Personally, I judge myself on performance
Even though the books say not to.

We've come to the dry and dark place
With enough silence
To make our thinking
Deafening
Let us move away
To where
I can see your sculpted face
And hear
The beat of music
That never stops
Like a million
Man-made rain drops
On a tin roof
Come! Come!
Let us hurry
And not be overcome
By worry!

This is better
Deserts are arid and sad
People suffer
Good and bad
Equally
Before The Stranger comes
But don't you make a fuss
Nor stomp about
Or have a
Reaction-formation
Never beat
A pale horse
Just to make it black
He is gone and won't be back
So don't you go and have an attack!
It's embarrassing.

Time to return
To where we started
And in our beginning
Find our end
We've had a pleasant diversion
But we must not forget
All is profit
All is loss
The early harpy
Eats the larvae
Worms and all
Always has
Always will
Personally, I desire many a man's gift
And many a man's scope
So naturally I hope
Honesty is the best policy.

We have ended
At our beginning
But I can't rest
Nor sit still
I hope I never will
Time is motion and
(forgive the pun) mass
I must keep moving
And gather no
Moss
To sleep I take a pill
Sometimes two
And seldom do I
Forget to floss
We must do this again
When there's more time
And there's sure to be
Since I understand
They can freeze you now.

SHELF LIFE

I often take it upon my self
To gaze at your picture upon the shelf,
And think of when we were young
Our lid-less eyes turned toward the sun.
How little we thought we couldn't do,
We among the chosen few.

Now you are no longer here
And I stumble through each gloomy day
In a mindless, half-blind feckless way,
The only remembrances of my once brave self
Your picture upon my bedroom shelf.

MOMMY'S SUITOR

Poor awkward guy
Standing in my bedroom doorway
Proffering a baseball glove
Like an olive branch
Even though I came with the territory.

He didn't know
Appeasement was not needed.
The recipient of his gift
Was more AWOL than warrior,
The family prize was his.

THE DWARF

When I stand
Dogs sniff the nape of my neck,
And when I move
The cat's pupils grow large.

When I dream
My heart gushes like a red spring
Rushing to feed a mountainous vision
Of myself.

Such dreams
Stretch the horizons of who I am
And shrink what I trade upon,
My abject cuteness.
They are my nightmares.

YOUNG WOMEN HAVE LET ME KNOW

Young women have let me know
Most of me belongs to the past.
Just as they pet the old dog
That can no longer bite,
They now pet me.

To young men I come wrapped
In yesterday's newspaper, prone to
Gray-headed error and garrulous,
My memories no match for the
Intensity of their visions.

Such slights point to that
Final horror, when I am
Banished to a crowded island
Where people slobber and sleep
Without knowing one another.

Until then I refuse to be stuck
In wobbly orbit, a smiling moon-man
That politely sits for his portrait,
Remember to wipe his nose,
And tries not to stain his trousers.

I hope to continue working,
Enjoy what women I can,
And when approaching
That final horror, aim
For a bang, and not a whimper.

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Letter to the Author:
James Morford drofromsemaj@prodigy.net

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