Familiar Objects in a New Light

fragment


From New York I returned, my balcony
Neither as large nor high as that at the hotel;
The metal railing dusty though I never
Noticed before; the bolted rectangles
That fix the railing in its place appear
Peculiar in this new light of my return.
There I saw new an old friend's other face
So sadly different in that different place,
Indifferent to simple pleasures which fix
Railings to balconies and make views safe.
The subtleties of different light expose
New aspects always present, overlooked,
As we watched near and far the city on high,
Or gentle clouds against a deep night sky,
But borne out by the history of events
Experienced at once an ignorance
In a new light revisiting new places,
Old friends grow unfamiliar in common spaces.
Both here and there, cigars remain the same:
These moments come, remind me why I came.

KLK
5/31/05

The Oval Wheel

The language of liars is lies: To speak

To them in an idiom they understand,

The vocabulary of image over substance,

The rationalized ends beyond the means,

And what is meant is indirection; so

How can they know when you talk differently?

Even if you speak the truth, they hear a lie,

Suspect you misdirect when you state fact,

That you are merely trying to distract

From something more important to your motive.

But even liars think truth orients

Their way, the same way we all think our lives

Normal although most of us deviate.

Unless you are a liar you know this,

That liars don’t know they are liars. True,

Yet even great liars respond to needs

Emotionally and may envy you

That poise they sense beyond their inner noise,

Turning again to hear despite their fear.

KLK

10/10/14

Time Enough to Listen

When I hear your voice, serious or laughing,

Something in me responds beyond the years

We have known, more than days, beyond the hours,

A simple pleasure in your presence, having

Nothing more than that moment is enough.

To watch your eyes and follow your clear words,

To hear that you mean what you say, and care

What I think, how I feel about your stuff,

Gives me more satisfaction than if we

Were more than friends, more than those loves long gone

Neither of us know now. For I can see

Trust in your eyes in that moment alone.

To love each other like that is enough

And more than time for us to listen and laugh.

KLK

3/3/05

Chuck Wanted a Window

Baudelaire
Had the air

Of a man who 
Wasn't there

Of a man who
Didn't care

Of a man who
Needed more

A savoir faire
So debonair

Je ne sais quoi
à tout à l’heure

KLK
10/17/14

My With

Even without me you are with it, and
When I'm with you, we are together, so
Together by yourself, my Sappho, my
Emily, family, so happily
Your own, I say, when I'm alone, I see
If only you be with me certainly I,
With it with you, whatever we do, know,
If you are my with, I can want for nothing.

KLK
10/18/14

Window in the Envelope

Culture is an illusion we buy into and, by belief, make it something to reckon with, a bargain, a way of seeing, a way of living, a state of being.

Still, it is illusion. Why?

Nature is an illusion of the senses and, further, of technological and scientific extensions of the senses within the mind.

Still, it is illusion. Why?

With all our tools and toy ideas we never quite reach escape from the planet of which we are a part.

Planet on my table, on my shelves, and online, planet of my life now only a memory, help me extrapolate beyond this illusion of identity which prevents me from doing all I can before the final frontier.

No question. Amen.

KLK 

10/21/14 - 

for Jeff, whose birthday it is today or tomorrow, Catch Me If You Can!

THE SECRET ORDER OF THE TIP OF THE SPEAR

Was Van Gogh
Shot by children
Or did he turn
His own gun upon
Himself and make
It a window?

A wound can become
A door
If wide enough
If deep enough
A way to leave or

A means to life

If nothing else nothing more

KLK
10/21/14

A Woman's Touch

You may not know the sanctuary of
A library in an unknown town but I
Learned to take refuge for the sake of love,
Did even with young children, and still try,
With children grown and gone, remembering
Familiar feelings in strange places much
The same through changes, elements to cling
To, reference points consistently in touch
Among the stacks and pages turning. See,
What I believed in changed against me but
The changes less around and more in me.
Now I retrace from place to place less what
I tried for love consistently to fit
Beyond belief now changed thus changing it.


KLK
9/21/14

Exorcise of Prudence

The first response tells all you need to know
About the character in front of you,
If she believes you are like all men she
Has met before or may be different.
In that first minute you know whether she
leads with her baggage or has mastered life,
Contact too brief for it be just me
Who gave a glorious rise to dynasty
Beyond mere baggage I am often startled by
The instant empires open in a phrase,
Her edifice of ancient origin,
Tumultuous acculturation so deep
As to defy an Alexander's skill.
Such women have religion, worshiping
Their demons every minute of their lives
And only a dark priest from the past can reach them.


KLK
11/02/14

From an earlier note 06/04/05 - notebooks

Blind Date

The moment I saw her
As I walked in the restaurant
And scanned the patrons searching for
The face I knew she was not what I want.

There sitting in the booth
She seemed both old and undesired
Beyond a lack of grace or youth,
In herself wholly lone and uninspired.

A single photo viewed
Revealed some similar effects
But the results now were construed
As lack of interest from the male sex.

For so she had confessed
Her online dating, never meeting,
Was virtual with no-shows at best;
Yet she continues with this no-date dating,

Concluding it is all
About LA, and nothing she
Has shown or left undone, too small
Of mind, not her size, which she fails to see.

I know why I am single.
My choices make me how I look
And live outside of Match and Mingle,
Or women's preference in how they look.

Without my seeing I
Am seen outside my wants, and dream,
As those unseen looks capture why
For others I am only how I seem.

Hear what my eyes have seen,
Here following what these words mean:
Looking is both how we seem and what we
Make of this world with looks we do not see.



KLK
5/8/15

A Narrow Margin

I fall asleep in bed with
what I've been reading within
reach and in hand

a posture shift
speaks volumes as the
books hit the

wooden floor and the
downstairs neighbors
pound the ceiling

cursing and pulling me
back from a distant
place I had barely

reached a moment before

KLK