by: Norman Fischer
Whether it’s “a case of graphomania” or “Thoughts in brain & a dream or three,” Norman Fischer’s poetry engages through association. World, dream, self, other, all commingle in the pre-logic of disjunction. What can we know for sure other than “Once something distinctly occurred?” because for poetry “It’s trying all day long.”
The Urgency
That would be a failure of nerve
Umm….. can’t see above the dunes contrary
If there’s no ruling or prevailing idea
It’s just a case of graphomania
I’ll cut up a few more for dinner
At long last just anything at all satisfies
So how choose — relax
About it there can be a crack or even
More than one. Don’t
Pester her any more than you have to
The two of us talking over the transom
Where I Draw the Line
My heavenly half yearns for yours
The stones around here must have been baked
Centuries ago that palm tree’s trunk’s preposterous
As are the turquoise eyes of the slender girl
Who says she knows
How to break things
From the inside
But I’m too hard of hearing
To have screamed when she said, Mister can you shred a crime
It’s a great shame that no one can read at speed any more
They’re all funding a creepy definition all crafted
By Big Data to explain them
I’m not buying any more supplements
I draw the line just about here
Poem on reading the news while looking out the window November 2006
Fog pours over hilltop bedsheets jumbled hair shocked
Staples stacked in boxes eggs in cartons butter on bread cheese on cracker
Thoughts in brain & a dream or three today’s syllogism built neat square
Built up toward sky till crate that holds them’s tipped – eggs break hair snarls sheets flap days weeks upend
Fog pours over hilltop
The wooden fish is cracked KGB agent poisoned sushi who’s killing who? I’m killing you’re they’re
we’re he she killing us in song colorful mutual eating
Killing & killing’s killing
Killing so kill kill merrily
If kill you must & kill with trust
That when the killing’s done
There’ll always be just only one
Final killing’s kill
I’m seeing as if for the first time a pot hung from a hook
Seeing for the second time a dish as yet uncracked
But when at last the day is done and time hangs heavy on my head
I’ll see a brush perhaps a broom watertap burner’s flame veined leaf
As if for the last time
What’s that sound? A tread upon the step a saw sawing fly flying rain raining? In the desert there’s
seldom rain but always music, desert’s quiet music rustle of a lonely little breeze –
Look at them long enough and objects in the rearview mirror
Disappear
Objects do not depart
Look at their edges & you’ll see outlines dissolve in reverie a bird falls from a tree joys
in movement we call flight but a bird can’t fly & there’s no joy in grass for birds – see how still the tree
is still while the rose bush twitches
Spread the visual world ignites as you would a match in the candle of your eye
Pour forth like butter
Into your dark ear
Something happened to me once but I forgot or something happened
Where or how and to whom I cannot say
Is it good?
Once something distinctly occurred
I was this pain and it ended
When I came to the last page of the book I did not know what color it was
In doubt I looked at my shoe something fundamental & true the ground I walk on
If it had not been my shoe it would have been my foot-skin and if not that then something else
If there was a color I couldn’t describe it
If I’m doubtful it’s not for lack of trying
It’s trying all day long
When I came to the last page of the book I did not know what color it was
In doubt I looked at my shoe something fundamental & true the ground I walk on
If it had not been my shoe it would have been my foot-skin and if not that then something else
If there was a color I couldn’t describe it
If I’m doubtful it’s not for lack of trying
It’s trying all day long
Norman Fischer’s latest collections are “Conflict” (Chax, 2012), “The Strugglers” (Singing Horse, 2013), and “Escape This Crazy Life of Tears: Japan 2010” (Tinfish, 2014). He is a Zen priest, founder of the Everyday Zen Foundation, who lives in Muir Beach, CA.
