At the End of the Day

(Author's note: This poem was first published at ninaalvarez.net, as winner of her 5th anniversary poetry contest. Thanks, Nina! And congratulations on 5 great years supporting poetry and poets. —MAB)

A simple place to write with a friendly pub nearby.

Land to grow vegetables and herbs for our evening stew.

A landscape of pasture lands, a river nearby for fish,

the cheap cuts of steer or pig, a plucked chicken

(save the parts for stock). A cast iron pan. Good wine.

A quiet place to read where the land stretches its legs,

reminds us that we are humbled eternally by grace and

beauty. To know these moments is our only ambition.

At the end of the day you come home to what you are.

The corporate ladder is climbed primarily to patch walls and

change light bulbs. The serene young blonde at the corner bar

has aspirations. She will either live them or not, both results

equally poignant. The herons defend their twilight, blue-grey

mystics in a perpetual stance of expectation, until their wings

explode in the urgent energy of exploration. Mythic dances

unfold unobserved. These are our first angels. The moon in

           

daylight pretends to be a cloud. Nimbus or cumulus, I’m unsure.

In daylight the moon is a won ton, cloud-swallowing minister,

the monk who chops wood before and after enlightenment.

Wood chips on the grill smoke white cloud riffs against the sky.

The clouds themselves are thin fish bones; sky soup. The breeze

moves through us at the same pace as clouds. The moon

remains still. The moon is a skull in this light, not threatening but

ponderous. Strange dreams flow out of it that remind you of the

long poem by Harrison. The moon in daylight said this to me:

You are the changing line in the I Ching symbol that suggests

you will be a great man one day. I am buckled by the notion,

having no such pretensions. The old man who told me we are

born with nothing has it wrong. We come into this world

with everything. We leave with everything.

c. 2012, by Martin A. Bartels.
Part of my new collection, Unlanguage

French Onion Soup

Light a candle and sip French

wine so as not to draw tears

Slice onions, shallots and 

leeks thin, patient

so as not to cut fingers

Salt and pepper to balance the

sweet times of life,

Sugar for the heavy times

Dark broth

Crusty bread for your soul and

Cheese for the pleasure, let it

melt inside you

Serve warm in bowls with love.

—from Imagined Recipes from my Grandmother’s Cookbook

c. 2012, Martin A. Bartels,

part of my new collection, ‘Unlanguage’

watch rain turn to snow

watch rain turn to snow

as flakes fall they struggle for their

ephemeral dominance

as the temperature turns just so

they emerge in a slow fall of self-creation

quiet seeps from the ground

settles within our own cold atmospheres

clouds pause

c. 2012, Martin A. Bartels (working draft)

part of my new collection, "Unlanguage."

Digital Memory

I’m sorry now

I deleted the

photograph of you.

It wasn’t that good,

quite blurry, actually.

I needed the space.

c. 2012, Martin A. Bartels (working draft)

from my new collection, "Unlanguage"

Dream Strangers

Those strangers who sometimes populate

our dreams, those whom we have never met

yet in our somnolence, know well.

How is it they take such fleeting residence

in our dark night minds? Last night, this visitor:

the lovely, tall woman whose name is Lor,

short, I guess, for Laura. She prefers Lor for its

mythic quality, a conceit that may be true of all

dream strangers. We share a mutual but

cautious attraction, the beginning of a courtship.

I feel the irresistible lure into unexplored spaces

of the heart. She shares a ground-floor apartment

with a male roommate, Joe or Tom or Steve, a

monosyllabic who is trouble. Her sister is Pamela,

photos of her frame the hallway. Lor is thin, with

sandy skin and short-cropped blonde hair that

suggest California and sunlit beaches, ocean.

We sit outside her apartment now, afternoon,

plastic deck chairs on a concrete slab, while her

roommate throws a tantrum inside. Sawdust

from a construction project across the street

floats in the air: wooden snow. “Is it always like this?”

I ask, meaning him. “Pretty much,” she admits,

resigned to his behavior for some reason she

fails to elaborate. Later we are inside, her space

daylight in springtime, discretely floral. I have

never seen this place awake, yet the subtle

scent of lilac drifting from her bedroom lingers,

coats me in a kind of memory that folds around me

long after I have finished my first cup of coffee.

c. 2012, by Martin A. Bartels, working draft

(part of my new collection, “Unlanguage”)

Raise the Dust

If we breathe a little slower

we’ll last a little longer.

The poetry of life might beat

so that our heart-seams heal.

If we walk a little slower,

taste the pace instead of outrun it,

if we close the doors of all the

stress… well, easier said than done.

I’m not here any more. I gave up my

self for Lent and listened to the

Avett Brothers a little more.

Classical music, too. Mompou and

Barber are underrated for healing.

If you look closely at the brushstrokes of

Van Gogh, Monet, the dots of Suerat,

you will momentarily inhale the infinite.

There are no judgments here. Flakes of

relevance are the new snow.

In Mexico there is a rural church

outside Puerto Vallarta where a

velvet Jesus hangs in black light.

The doors open to their velvet

cathedral where the glow mimics the

northern lights. It’s okay to feel

sacred here. Children kick soccer balls and

tires on dusted streets. Mothers hang

laundry on tight lines strung between

scrawny trees. A tiny café serves fresh

fish caught off the coast. It’s dark enough

here that stars are thick as mist. For

some of us the mist is a transitory

residence. If we walk slowly through

this mist, hands held as loose tethers to

this earth, our footprints raise the dust

of future memories, surround us in the

final blanket of our comfort.

Martin A. Bartels, c2012, working draft.

Part of my new collection, “Unlanguage”

Colorado Winter Landscape

At such altitudes

one is forced to consider

whether anywhere within a

thousand miles

is not surrounded by

ice and hard landscapes

so cold that breath hangs like

doubt against the hope-blue sky

(the backdrop against which

potential must be measured),

if only to arrive at the conclusion

that on blue days in such surroundings,

there is solace in the melting rivulets that

trickle to the horizon,

and the silence that

makes even our hearts attend.

--c. 2012, Martin A. Bartels (working draft)