Chanteuse

Chanteuse

the singer stands upon the stage
looking out and looking in
but mostly looking out

the singer is confident looking out
and her voice is pitch perfect
she commands an audience of the spellbound

offstage she is bound by what is in
she hides the inside by the typical means of escape
a narcotic certainty that makes evasion possible

the singer knows love on the outside
but on the inside she knows only longing
it is her muse

2/16/2011

A Valentine Poem for Akiko

A Valentine Poem for Akiko

 

You are my love!

I shout, but not in pain or sadness.

You are my love!

I shout, but not because you are leaving me.

You are my love!

I shout, but we are not talking on a poor telephone connection.

You are my love!

I shout because I am experiencing pleasure and joy.

You are my love!

I shout because of the certitude of our love.

You are my love!

I shout because you are with me.

 

Adam
2/14/2011

The Cravat Variation

The Cravat Variation

The murmurs of the foreign audience were lost on the little man.
The little man wore a green silk cravat that was a gift from his mother.
His mother had given him the cravat when he turned twenty-seven.
At twenty-seven, the little man stopped wearing ties, but wanted to look fashionable when he played the piano.
The piano that he was about to play now was a Steinway.
Most of the audience recognized what a Steinway was, but they rarely encountered a cravat.
The cravat had no opinion on the matter, but the little man always enjoyed playing to audiences in Tokyo.
Audiences in Tokyo cough a lot more than in the US, but they also pay more for the tickets.
The tickets to see the little man started at 15,000 yen because he was a famous pianist.
For such a famous pianist, you think he could have worn a tuxedo, but he preferred to wear a a black silk shirt and matching pants.
The black silk shirt and matching pants complemented the cravat nicely and were soon forgotten once he started playing.
He started playing the Goldberg Variations and except for the all too frequent coughs, which he ignored, the pianist forgot about his cravat, the audience, his mother, and he remembered everything.

-Adam

A beautiful day

Box spring mattress hell
Early rising sleepy head
A beautiful day

-Adam

How most people find this blog

Most people find this blog by doing a Google search on "July 4th poetry" or "July 4th poems" or on "Marshmallow Diet." As to the latter topic, I wish such a thing really existed because I could use it. As to the former, the last one I experienced in the US was 2001. The 4th of July in that part of Japan I live in, the part not occupied by US military, is just another day. I sometimes think about doing something on the 4th, but the only thing that really occurs to me is to write poems about an America that never was and will likely not be. It exists only in my head, the debris of a undergraduate and graduate level education in political philosophy: A Socratic flâneur. Though to confess, I am a coward who no doubt would have taken exile over hemlock. Or perhaps I have done that already.

Adam Markus
July 4, 2008

July 4, 2008

July 4, 2008

This shining city on a hill
It is just over the horizon
The city is there waiting
It longs for citizens

Today the city is hidden by fireworks
On other days it is ignored
So much TV to watch and money to make
The city can't compete with crass longing

It has a higher purpose
A few will aspire to it
Maybe someday it will be occupied
But now we ignore it for firecrackers

-Adam Markus
July 3, 2008

Some things you can only lose once

Some things you can only lose once: a mother, a father, a daughter, a son, a grandmother, a grandfather, a wife, a husband, a friend
Wherever you look you find them, but they are only memories that have filled the emptiness
poor consolation for a gap that will be filled only by time and habit or not at all

Adam
March 26, 2008

As the crows fly

As the crows fly overhead,
I wonder when? When?
More pass above me and my question remains.
I look down, the signs are all about me.
And yet, I walk through the forest unsullied.


Adam Markus
2/16/2008

America: A Dream of Sorts

America
Sometimes I miss you.
The wide open spaces.
Plenty of free parking that I don't need.
Space a plenty to be alone with my thoughts.
A place where a man can be a driver.
A place where a woman can buy a shotgun in despair.
A place where the roads never end, but all the places start to merge along the highway.
A place I left to experience the sameness of elsewhere.
America calls to me, "Come back to the parking lot, stare at the telephone lines, and cracked asphalt. Love me."
I listen sometimes, but mostly I put headphones on and dance to my own tune.

Adam Markus
November 15, 2007

Yes

Yes, I was in Midtown.

No, I didn't see anything immediately.

Yes, it effected me.

No, I didn't know anyone who died, but I did tell a group of people what was going on and one of them had a father who worked there.

No, I don't feel guilty about telling her. Someone would have soon enough. I was the one with the radio.

Yes, I was traumatized. Anyone there who had not ever been in such a place would be.

Yes, I still think about it.

Adam Markus
September 11, 2007

THE EARTH IS AN APPLE

You think it is sweet? Maybe, it depends where and when you bite it.

You think that it is sour? Maybe you can't appreciate its citric character.

You rather have it covered in cinnamon and sugar or caramel? Maybe you are averting your gaze from the underlying reality.

You think it is firm, but maybe it will be mush.

You think it is green or red, but maybe that is just the way you are looking at.

What of its shape? Maybe that really depends on where you are looking at it.

So what can we say of this apple? It is all there is for us. The rest is commentary and the dreams of bewildered fruit pickers.

Adam Markus, September 10, 2007

Your Third Eye

Are you looking for your third eye?
The one that reveals all.
Is that what you are looking for?
Look closely in the mirror.
If you stare long enough, you can find it.
Somewhere, between you and the mirror,
your third eye is waiting to reveal itself.
Are you concentrating enough?
Do you have the discipline to find it?
Maybe you can't concentrate and
maybe you doubt me.
I understand your concerns and
can suggest an alternative.
Start spinning around.
Go as fast as you can.
Now look in the mirror.
Do you see it?
You say you are dizzy?
Third eyes do that.

-Adam "Not a Sufi and Don't Play One on TV" Markus
August 26th, 2008

The Mustard of No Consequence

The mustard of no consequence sits unopened
between a can of low calorie beer and
a squeeze bottle of ketchup.
In a state of being, it waits to become a condiment.

-Adam Markus
August 7, 2007

The Dream of the Shirtless

You sit on a one-car train that has no door facing the exit.
The wind is in your face and the rolling of the train
soothes you into a peaceful light sleep.

You become aware that sitting to your right is an ex-colleague.
She ignores you completely and is talking on the phone.
At first you notice how lovely she looks there jabbering away on her cell phone in a hushed tone because she should not be using it on the train.
You can understand enough Japanese to know that she is talking about you,
but you can’t understand what she is saying about you.

On your left, a salt and pepper bearded American in business casual elbows you.
He is apparently on his way to some kind of trade convention.
Talking to the Asian man on his right, he says in loud baritone
“God this train is crowded, I wish we could have expensed a taxi.”
His colleague begins laughing like a hyena.
They both begin to stare at you.

You wake up from your light nap and realize that you are not wearing a shirt.
You look for your shirt, but you can’t find it.
You notice that the other passengers are all staring at you, except for your ex-colleague.
She is now busy applying foundation and stares intently into a mirror.

You begin to wonder why you don’t have your shirt.
You wonder if you need your shirt for where you are going.
Are you going to the convention?
This question fills you with an unknown horror.
Now you really wake up.


Adam Markus
August 3, 2007

road rolls round right

road rolls round right
left leads lawlessly
bypassing bureaucratic boundaries
with wild wonder
my mind mutters
postulating possible paths
towards tomorrow's trek

August 1, 2007

The End of Meetings

time slows
I wait
till awakened
meeting ends

MY ART

The art of losing isn't hard to master;
so many things seem filled with the intent
to be lost that their loss is no disaster.
-Elizabeth Bishop, from One Art

The art of living isn’t hard to muster:
Enjoy the hour, not what it might portend.
When someone makes you promises, don’t trust her
-Marilyn Hacker,from From Orient Point

MY ART

The art of laughing isn’t hard to foster:
Smile at everything and don’t lament.
For every life is an inevitable disaster.

Laugh every day, never mind the disaster
of lost luggage, money badly spent.
The art of laughing isn’t hard to foster.

Don’t feign laughter, just master
a sense of humor, ignore all intent;
for introspection will not prevent disaster.

I laugh now at boyhood disaster:
lost bliss in a shared room, my first love’s feint.
The art of laughing isn’t hard to foster.

I’ve laughed at my bad choices. And vaster,
great opportunities to be content,
But regret is not my master.

---Even laughing at all I love is a gesture,
not of contempt, but of what is evident;
that the art of laughing is not too hard to foster
when faced with the certainty of inevitable disaster.

-Adam, July 21, 2007

Robert Joseph, Happy 38th Prematurely Postponed

“Way down yonder, down in San Fernando,
Where all them Jewish folk roam,
Stands a house next to the Ventura Freeway
Where our papa made our country home.”
-Robert Joseph ( 25.July.1969 - 13.Dec.2004), Chicken Farmin’ Jews
Robert was not actually punctual, so I thought I would be early.

Dead friends make great poems

I hope you would have liked the title

Robert, my Pan of tapes and cultivator of my teenage ear,
“Hear this,” you said and I did 1000 times over and still do

I miss you the most when I make a new discovery,
ear opening victories based on what you taught me

And now, here I sit writing this poem over a beer in my parents house,
overweight and happy the night after my 38th birthday party

There you lay in your family plot,
a small framed corpse that would reveal a fine muscular structure, a low percentage of body fat, and a heart ripped into a thousand pieces as a result of certain excesses that nice Jewish boys from the Valley are supposed to dispense with while still in their early twenties

Is it wrong to draw this comparison, Robert?

My early interventions,
my “helpful” suggestions to finish your degree at Santa Cruz,
to become serious about pursuing a musical career,
to stop smoking, and to otherwise get it together, just failed.
To do myself justice, I’ll blame it on my own youth
And your tin ear for “reality.”

While I like to believe that one is immortal until proven otherwise,
after I finish this beer, which I took with a vitamin, I will go take the dog for a long walk, eat a light lunch and continue on a pathway whose endpoint will hopefully be muted by the gentility of its timing, but till that time, when I listen, I will hear you.




Adam
July 19th 2007 and April 10th 2006 and other dates in between

On Some Tuesdays

On Some Tuesdays

in the morning you often wonder what the day will bring
maybe you are bereft of sleep or perhaps well rested
in either case the possibilities are not endless
did you expect me to tell you otherwise?

it might begin with a routine conversation
fresh from a shower, your coffee wakes you
as your wife tells you she is making fish for dinner
and asks what time you will be home
but you never make it back

if you are lucky the scenario unfolds as expected
dinner is waiting for you when you return
she is waiting for you, the evening dies pleasantly enough
maybe you make love, at least you sleep well

Adam
July 17th 2007

Flight Check

We stand in the rain in a long line
waiting at Ford Highland Park. For work.
You know what work is--if you're
old enough to read this you know what
work is, although you may not do it.
-Philip Levine, ‘What Work Is’


And once you have that job, do you want it?
The toil beyond the waiting?

At the front of the line, you get an offer
You take it.
Years pass and you wonder, how did I get into that line?
Why that line and not another?

Suddenly, one day on your way to work, you look up as
a bird passes and shits on your head
You try to clean off your head, but somehow, no matter
what you do, the bird stays with you

Later that day, as you go about your tasks,
taking in the last memos and avoiding the prying eyes of
yet another new supervisor, you imagine the bird flying higher and higher

At lunch you engage in the usual banter with your work buddies
Initial attempts to talk about something else pass and eventually
you get to the same work complaints over coffee

By the time you return to your desk, your eyelids are heavy
and for a short moment you dream about soaring in the clouds until the phone rings and you begin to count out the afternoon,
but the bird is with you and sooner or later you are going to fly

Adam
July 17th