&

Other Poems Other Poems Other Poems Other Poems

by Lukman Clark
$6.00
The Book of Adam
&
Other Poems
by Lukman Clark
Copyright 2010 by Lukman Clark
All rights reserved.
SECOND EDITION
Originally published under the title The Life of Adam & Other
Poems by Prima Luce Publications, 2004, in tradition chapbook
paper format.
To copy any of these poems individually or severally, permission must
first be obtained from the author in writing. Brief passages may be
quoted in reviews appearing in the media, including Internet e-zines and
blogs, newspapers, magazines, radio, or television.
House Humani Publishers
Long Beach, CA
househumani@verizon.net
Cover Design by Lukman Clark
ISBN: 978-0-9788752-1-3
ISBN 978-0-9788752-1-3
s
b
The Life of Adam
&
Other Poems
by
Lukman Clark
Contents
I. The Book of Adam 3
II. The Secret Motion of Things 24
These Elliptical Cadences 25
A Nights Watch 26
Personal Record 27
Enhancements 28
In Pursuit of a Bluish Butterfly 29
Inferred Singularity 30
Evidentiary 31
New Dimensions 32
Chronosphere 33
The Cuckoo 34
Synergetica 35
III. Beating Heart, Beating Drum 36
The Blue Shift of Paradise 37
Star Tar 38
Dolphin 39
Jungle Moment 40
Want Haiku 41
Point Six One Eight Harmony 42
Hearts Ease 43
Rose Fruit 44
Vintage Philly 45
1
III.
Night Flight 46
Riff 47
Yes 48
Of Poetry & Things 49
De Botanica 50
Of Poetry Things 51
Mode Orient: Rare Bound Feet 52
Picasso Was A Minotaur, Too 54
Angels of Transit 55
Phoenix Crucifigirus 56
Metaphysicist 57
Not Even A Gold Watch 58
Eine Kleine Dichter 59
Other Voices 60
The Girl 61
Brubecks Rondo 62
Natures Call 63
This Is Not A Pipe In Lascaux, France 64
Bill In The Barrow 65
The Book 66
Un Prelude Du Printemps 67
John Berrymans Grave 68
Names 69
O Poet! 70
r
2
The
Book
of
Adam
3
E
Part I
Creation

Chapter I: Prelude
i. It is written, verily,
How the Most Gracious fashioned,
Using but bountiful Word
A universe without end;
Syntactical strings of worlds
In numberless reams on reams,
From illimitable wells
Of illuminating inks
Swirling over dark Nights hide.
A glorious hymn of praise
For Life! And, Lo! It was good!
ii. Neither angels, men nor jinn
Can recount in truth the facts
Of this committus magnus;
When within a vibration
Were conceived as in a song
The seven-fold mysteries
Or levels of existence --
Each a sealed book, sprung out of
The One Unfathomable --
Each in itself a story
To which all who hear will lean.
iii. Let me, the first True Human,
Father to Seth, to Noah,
To Abraham and all those
Yet to be sent forth as guides,
Tell you Creations story
With corrective perspective.
Let me, who has some knowledge
Of worlds unseen by mortal
Eyesight circumscribed by its
4
Natural modulations,
Help to set the record straight.
vi. Come! Now bear witness with me!
Chapter 2: The Seven Days
I. In principio, Deus. Et Deus perficiet.
When the heavens and the earth first were made...
These words are meant to convey the laying
Of the material foundations of
A magnificent cosmic pedestal:
Atomic fires and molecular brews;
Galactic oceans filled with solar fleets;
Light and darkness in eternal embrace.
ii. Such was the first day, if such a time may be so assigned.
And let earth bring forth grass, serving its seed
For yield of future generations in
A perpetual round of greening life.
In perfect physics, matter is conserved,
Exchanging one face for visage newer;
Should vegetative forces be granted
Station less than material servants?
iii. Such was day two, to further the conceit.
Next, let the waters writhe and squirm, the air
Whip and dart, and the continents teem with
Beasts that burrow, climb, run and go a-wild,
Excelling in the slaughter of plants, as
Well the devouring of each the other.
In rampant carnality, flesh and blood
Shall be served while also giving service.
5
iv. So was the third mystery said and done.
And God said, Let us begin mans making --
Balancing them on two legs and weaker
By weight than most every animal;
Yet, with hearts tuned wiser and minds greater,
So that they too might have their place in life.
No clock was given their reproduction,
As a sign of Gods Mercy and Wisdom.
v. The human life force thus crowned those lower.
Four days signifying four folios:
Each a distinct opus in its own right;
With characteristic space-times, life spans
In each having appropriate meter
Marking the cadence of sundry creatures
Alive to their own worlds, and seemingly
Senseless, like empty words, to those above.
vi. Nevertheless, each world intersects all;
So, it must be noted here that human
Hearts and minds are open doors to entry
And domination by many creatures,
Because all aspire to return to God.
The unsuspecting humanoid therefore
May have not only lice or rank fungus,
But be host to myriad veiled beings
vii. Who find in their human home a heaven.
Following the fourth issue came three more
Vibrations, each finer than those prior:
The first alike water, but not water;
Succeeded by two worlds of air and light,
But not of air or light as we know them.
That fifth band however, mystic hamza,
Is my home of True Human consciousness.
6
vii. All praise belongs to the Lord of the Worlds!
Chapter 3: The Birth of Adam
i. From a drop of sperm
In a place of rest
Held fast to her wall,
ii. I knew of my own
Conception. they called,
Invoking the One,
iii. With the thirst upon
My father, the way
Opened wide for my
iv. Commanded descent.
v. Within her dark womb
This body gathered
The strength of the world:
vi. From a clot of blood
To a fetus lump;
Then to bones, clothed in flesh --
vii. My form perfected
In harmony with
The gravid season.
viii. Blessed be Allah!
ix. But I grew fearful
As my time approached,
Aware of troubles
x. To befall me yet
In the world of flesh;
My spirit cried out:
7
xi. Adonai! Forsake
Me not! Restore me
To my rightful realm!
xii. The birth pains began.
xiii. My good madam sang
Loudly in labor,
Sighing in between;
xiv. I fought to tarry
Until an envoy
Dressed in brilliant light
xv. Appeared to calm me
And bid me recall
The promise Id made
xvi. To Messenger be.
xvii. My mother he took
When the birth was done,
Her mission complete;
xviii. I howled at my loss,
Missing already
Her bodys carnal heat;
xix. And when they entered
The birthing hut -- Lo!
I spoke my name to
xx. All there: Adama!
8
ADAMA!
Part II
Cultivation

Chapter I: A Small Sacrifice
i. My mother left in Spring,
Father followed n Fall.
ii. It happened by the kraal
That near the village lay;

iii. There a young girl did sing
A childish song in play,
iv. While lion stalked a-day
Most unbeknownst to her.
v. My father interposed,
So people have concurred,
vi. To spare young girls murder,
Himself to leave instead.
vii. They say he stood composed
Before what they did dread;
viii. As his hand touched deaths head,
He whispered, For my son!
ix. As to what happened then --
Some saw the lion run
x. Dragging the man anon;
While others this assert:
xi. At the touch of a man
Said lion did convert
9
xii. To golden steed alert
Bounding up to heaven.
Chapter 2: The Man of Clay
i. God had me call myself Adama,
Meaning of the soil.
ii. Pluvial winds, bearing moisture from
Glacial northern lands,
Watered vast stretches of my birthplace,
Swelling aquifers
Flowing beneath the richly wooded,
Grassy savanna.
iii. As a small boy, I amused myself
By the Great River.
It was one of four deep, wide currents
Blessing the whole of
The lands that touch the south-side shoreline
Of the Middle Sea;
iv. These four brothers were born in mountains
To the distant south;
And all were alive with fish and birds
Of multiform kinds;
And all shared their great wealth with the tribes
Of men near their banks.
v. It was on the banks that clay I found,
Good earth for making
The likenesses of animals for
Myself and other
Village children, such that people said
` My birds might take flight
10
vi. And my horned gazelles might spring to life --
But inspiration
Of this sort was not mine to impart,
It being reserved
For a later Prophet yet to come
And highly revered.
vii. At age ten, mutable clay I took,
Shaping two figures
In golden proportion to male and
Female of this world,
Thinking to fill the longings of an
Orphan dispossessed.
viii. A night-long tempest reverted both
To riverine muck;
Thereafter, I removed my spirit
From such useless thoughts,
Directing my efforts to helping
Further Gods designs.
ix. By silent discourse with the living
World, my mind was moved
Clay utensils to contrive, vessels
Hardened in the fire,
Things never seen before, to bring ease
And cleaner habits.
x. As signs of manhood began to show,
My livelihood, too,
Seemingly from nothing sprouted like
A seed in the soil.
Thereafter, my name corrupted was
To the Man of Clay.
11
Chapter 3: The Man With The Tail
The man with the tail
Wandered the land
From oceans east
To western seas,
Whispering
Softly on his way while
Caressing that sinuous
Tail
Long
And lovely, so
Smooth his
Tail, like his
Voice
Entrancing
So entirely
Reasonable that he
A tail should have
His origins
Were rumored
His whereabouts
Might be
Anywhere
The man
With the
Tail roamed and
One day
Adam having reached his full manhood
The man heard of
Adam and the man
Found Adam and
12
c
The man said to
Adam
Man of Clay
Of you the people talk
Your wares they talk of
Used to carry water or
The gifts of vegetation
And for drinking too
For drinking
And no one had seen such things
Until you
Man of Clay
Man of Clay
From your hands
Such simple things
Simple things
The people
Tell me too
They say
When still a boy you
You made figures human
Like they say
A man and a woman
Perfect in form
That you let slip
Away into the slippery
Mud
Man of Mud
Stroking his tail the man
With the tail
13
Taught the people
The baking of figures
Things of clay
And painting them
To set in their
Homes and winking to
Them that these
Might give
Give protection
Give
Fertility
Give
Luck wealth conquest
Give love
From oceans east
To western seas
He wanders

Whispering

14
Chapter 4: Tender of the Garden
i. There was not a man to till the ground,
For the rich acres bordering and
Most between the four great waterways
Received abundant mineral means
That in turn nurtured roots and reaching
Stalks or trunks bearing good food to eat,
Fattening both the animals on
The plains and in the forests, and men
Who plucked them easily for pleasure.
ii. The world was grown indolent, cared for
By the seasons alternating winds.
The tribes knew neither want nor labor;
Neither did they understand the source
Of this beneficence; nor that One
Who sustains all things was readying
The rains to turn elsewhere and sweet loam
To turn to blowing dust and sand heaps
In favor of other lands afar.
iii. Indifference to the worlds design
Gradually brought with it slippage
Into immoderate ways, whereby
Despite a natural abundance,
One coveted what another had
And violence spread like a foul disease
Among the people, between the tribes.
Inequities bred like hornets, where
Once had been peace and tranquility.
iv. The seasons had circled the heavens
Nearly thirty rounds when God brought sleep
Deep, with dreams certain, upon my eyes;
No more would Adamas hands mold clay,
For enterprise more demanding called.
Quitting my home, on foot I traveled
Fearless to the place in dream revealed:
15
A dry, barren tract named Eden, where
The ground was hard as the human heart.
v. Seven years I worked the hardpan soil,
Cracking its obdurate skin, breaking
Stubborn slumps, sifting worthless rocks and
Clearing vegetation coarse and sparse.
At a distance I found clear water
To which I dug a channel, stopping
Short until Gods plan should be complete.
More and more, people would come to stare,
Derisive of the sweat on my face.
vi. Seven years more I sought every
Kind of fruiting tree with pleasing taste;
Some, too, only for their shade and rest --
Taking them all to Eden to plant
In collimated rows and groups,
The better for channeling water
According to each species root needs.
From the ground the Lord God made them grow --
Trees! Olives, nuts, dates, figs and citrus!
vii. Others were fruitful, multiplying,
While I, Adama, Gods sharecropper,
Tended to the garden in Eden,
Content that some few would come to learn
The gentle art of helping things grow.
I tendered these as much as the trees,
Then sent them out, learned women and
Men, with seeds and some green shoots to take
Over mountains and across the seas.
16
Part III
Culture
Chapter I: Adagio
i. Hear, O Dreamer, of these my dreams
Vividly come in deep of night,
Softly come as the soothing rain
That dampens the mountain forest
ii. With scented drops from hanging leaves
Dripping down to the muted floor,
There to gather in swelling rills
To hidden vale with golden soil.
iii. Dreamer of dreams that clay transformed
And barren plain restored to life,
Hear me now when thus I tell you --
Giver of Life is how Im named,
iv. After the Cherisher, Who life
Gave me, first by my parents, then
As a child whom fierce beast did spare.
Given full life, now I am bid
v. With open heart give to Eden,
Fructifying further this field
To which by dream I am guided.
Your helpmate, True Man, I would be!
vi. As you to your visions are true,
True to my own must I be, too;
We together will bring forth life,
Children who might human nature
17
vii. Instruct and tame in gentleness --
To unbend the hand of brother
Against brother in true human
Charity and Godly Wisdom,
viii. To teach them also the knowledge
Of causes, the secret motions
Of things and their rightful functions
For helpful accommodations.
ix. Great towers one day will be built;
Wild streams and winds will ministrate
For multiplying human strength
In diverse motions and courses;
x. And large, spacious houses to cure
Diseases and preserve the health
Will rise, including special baths
And restoring herbal mixtures;
xi. As for Eden, it shall become
A place of great art, for mixing
Earths and seeds to make new plants,
Sweeter and having good fragrance,

xii. Both for pleasureful taste and use
Medicinal. All this before
The great dry spell is visited
Upon this happy and blessed land.
Chapter 2: Diminuendo.
i. Our seasons changed.
Rain-fat clouds grew
Contemptuous
Of the people
The land carried,
18
As feverish winds wheezed fitfully
Through days and nights of thirst and longing,
Rattling sapless forests and rasping
Like a spirit dispossessed across
ii. Desiccated plains.
Dry lightening charred
Edens rows of trees
In hecatomb fires
And sickening smoke.

Of the four great rivers, one
Alone retained its vigor;
Far to the east, its waters
Drew the people to its banks.
iii. Of the soil --
Those few things
That from me
Sprouted up --
All are gone.
Eden is dead. In its burned bounds
Raven a murdered boy buried
With his parents hearts afflicted.
There is nothing to look back on.
Chapter 3: Green Man, Green Song
i. Sound the drum!
What questions
Nag your heart
Dispossessed
As the winds!
How it howls!
Hear its pain!
19
ii. Hear the drum!
Which is it,
Brother slain
Or brother
Who did slay
Who did right?
Who did wrong?
iii. Sound the drum!
The whole truth
Folded up
May not be
In mans world --
Such is why
Laws we give!
iv. Adam dear
Spin in dance
To the beat
Of the drum!
Heart of man!
Beating heart!
Beating drum!
Chapter 4: Opus Pergendo
i. Standing upon the morning side of River Nile, I sing
All praises to the Compassionate and Merciful God.
Facing first light of a ferrous dawn while others slumber,
In deep prayer I recount the eastward trek from Eden,
Returned to its original desolation, or worse;
And, like a foul stain it spread over the soul of the land,
Seemingly in pursuit of human tribes in exodus.

20
ii. Upstream of the alluvial fan, the clan of Adam
Upon good ground settled, never tilled by the hand of man.
Gods living worlds spoke to me, giving helpful instruction
On how best to order the tribes of plants, animals and
Things according to their inner natures and deepest
yearnings.
Respect and gratitude in due time their rewards did reap,
Drawing other humans into humble community.
iii. According to their natures, obstinate and arrogant,
People fell to squabbling and argued against each other,
Turning to me for justice fair, I found every soul
To harbor some talent true and so ordered each and all,
But established, too, a compact of laws, with a council
To promote consensus and a general harmony.
By the Grace of God, our children grew, laughed and
played again.
iv. Over time, the adversities and trials of Eden
Faded into idyllic memories of paradise
And heavenly companionship free of regulation
For restraining shameful passions impatient for trouble
In lurking shadows of our townships moonlit alleys.
Especially she who helped give new life to joint vision
Is fond of warmly remembering the best of times past.
v. In the meantime, on the west banks of the River of Life,
A rival city grows strong, like a mirage mimicking
An actual think, thus leading travelers to lose their way.
Men and women are forced to labor in this citys fields,
Neither for themselves nor for broader, common benefit --
But solely to serve the needs of one man whom they call
god.
And so it begins. Let Gods Will be done, for it is good.
21
Part IV
Passage

Chapter 1: Pharaonic Elegy
i. Man
Of Clay
Returned to
Clay
ii. No longer
Do I dog
Your tracks
Taking
iii. Scraps
Now all
You built
Mine is
iv. After your woman
Died my daughters you
Took to bear many
More young
v. Your city with mine
Is melded like
Our lines
And men I plant
vi. In straight rows
To harvest
In battles edacious
Fruit of my conquests
22
Chapter 2: The Greening
i. Adam set down
A message writ
In Chapter and
Verse for this day
ii. Now delivered
Not on paper
Nor papyrus
But deeply etched
iii. In DNA
Entrusted to
Protected by
And hidden in
iv. The ovums depths
To gradually
True humans shape
So brother will
v. And sister will
Be just themselves
Spirit in flesh
Reverently!
vi. Callooh! Callay!
23
The
Secret
Motion
Of
Things
24
These Elliptical Cadences
Our local horologium
Around a double-focused curve
Conforms itself. Calendar time
Gets traced by gravitys trammel
Angling an otherwise constant beat
Away from the rounding rhythms
Of uniform, pendular swings.
This dual solstitial system
Shapes all sentient perceptions
In polyrhythmical patterns:
Wintry lamentations mix
With estival dithyrambics,
Each in the other embedded
For a tai-ji apparatus.
Given other geometry,
Wed dance to different measures.
25
A NIGHTS WATCH
Into dark, moist night
The world turns
Constellations rise
Like clockwork
New light revealing
Inch by inch.
26
PERSONAL RECORD
Muscular combustion
Infrared signatures
Burns in the gray fog
On a cold moist morning.
My bodily heat
Smears a spectral spoor
For those who would chase
The suns chariot.
27
ENHANCEMENTS
Machine colored photos
Some new light have shed
On silent storms
And invisible fires
In the deep night skies.
X-rays are green;
Red codes the optical;
Blue the radio.
The familiar
May make known the unseen
In the way feeling
Makes tangible
Thoughts that no words have found.
In my hearts spectrum
You are revealed.
28
IN PURSUIT OF A BLUISH BUTTERFLY
Repeated often enough
The turbulence is by now
Taking predictable turns.
Turn up the heat -- with money
Or sexual competing --
And our system beats its wings!
Out of our differences
A strange love attractor grows
Into a bounded chaos
That like a gossamer net
Or pheromone baited trap
Captures our exotic selves,
Together fused at our base
But beating separately,
Were each a wing, and when were
Arhythmically flapping
In our differences we sink,
Prey to dark mistrustful birds;
But when in full bodily harmony
` To one another we sweetly sing,
We bask in intimate perfumed fields.

29
INFERRED SINGULARITY
Shes arranged the two daughters
Flowers of some foreigners travail,
And a spouse, all stuffed and casual
With sweet cavendished briar,
Up close to the neutered cats
On this light side of her horizon.
30
EVIDENTIARY
The photographs display varieties
Of polymorphic sexuality,
Couples in multiples of shape-changing
Mixed unions tasting forbidden fruitage.
Gods breath arouses the golden leaves
Of Lifes bawdy tree to a shimmery
Excitation refracting Light into
A spectrum of desires, from coarse to fine.
To know the Many is to know the One,
Or so this evidence would indicate.
31
NEW DIMENSIONS
Like the red fly unbounded
By bottles bluish,
Of like a leopard changing
Impeachable clothes
For those less conspicuous,
Ive found -- when I stop
Demanding retributive
Piece-for-piece justice --
Space and time confer a gift
Of unexpected
Degrees of freedom, as though
Ive swallowed the world.
32
CHRONOSPHERE
A. I spied her geometry moving
Along with her to market,
A triaxial conformation
For all the world appearing
To advance along a single line
Of times n coordinates.
To the howsoever blinder eye
My peripatetic Patti Doe
Travels in a greater company
Of hidden intervals, revolving
Vertices, braces, trusses
Of time lines intersecting.
B. The curve of time arcs unseen,
Horizons misinforming,
Over-reaching the anxious mind.
What seems a dark ending edge
Is only gentle bending.
Not big bangs, not great crushes,
To use measures different,
The ways of time demarcate.
C. Biting of the luminous apple,
Fruit of the knowledge of time,
We experience the shortest time
Between times out of time lies.
33
THE CUCKOO
Dropped into times nest
And raised as her own;
Hour after hour stuffed
With ticking beetles
(Little lives offered
In blind devotion)
This alien bird
Makes timeless music.
34
SYNERGETICA
Each poems a knot:
Two circles that join
Angled orbit planes.
Images are made
By way of pairings;
Unities are twos --
Only and always
Seven hundred and

Twenty degrees round;
Only and always
Ideas coiling
In tight, new patterns.
35
Beating
Heart,
Beating
Drum
36
THE BLUE SHIFT OF PARADISE
As receding stars accelerate
So might those which close appear to slow.
As unfulfilled passions may be stretched
In sudden red tantalization
So might converging desires come in
Pressing toward the blue spectral sea.
Swelling beyond our shivering shores
And our dunes of incredulity,
The cool sea lifts us wide-eyed skyward
To test the promise of ending time.
37
STAR TAR
Come die with me
And be made most beautiful again
As this world and its time dissolves.
Ill set my sails
And catch the breath of the worlds One Lord
As the galactic ocean calls.
Deep into night,
Deeper than astronomys fables,
Well journey to my pulsing home.
38
DOLPHIN
Ill follow wherever you come with me.
Cartographers have captured the seashores,
Have frozen the tides and shifting grains
Of sand in timeless charted lines.
As a general sort of guide, I suppose
This is all well and good, especially
For business,
And it is even a sort of miracle,
But nothing quite like
That of the fish
Who in touching every shore at once
Became the sea and knew its shores
And the wash of its living edge;
The beaches glare
Being muted
In dampness.
Ill follow the fish who is the sea,
Lord of the swaying plants
And sky reflected
In the eyes of things marine.
Ill ride the fish who is the sea
Rolling slowly
On your every shore.
39
JUNGLE MOMENT
From between your legs
The smell of the sacrifice
Heavy bloodletting
In red rivulets running
Cleansing temple floors
Veiled by dense, soft underbrush.
Jaguar. Stopped in tracks.
Lip curled in deep reverie
Reading this fresh kill,
Taking in your offering.
40
WANT HAIKU
This aging Ninth Moon!
Farmers read their almanacs;
Withered stalks in hands.
41
POINT SIX ONE EIGHT HARMONY
A measure of perfection
The span from her feets flat soles
To her navels invert node --
This golden scale making her
A five-petal symphony.
42
HEARTS EASE
This marriage, Dear Evelyn, has merged
The wild skies and swelling deeps,
Embracing a wide serenity
Of sentient seas thick with
Galaxies of luminous, scaled fish,
Parsec-measured plankton fields
And warm blooded mariners steering
Smooth prows through gravitys tides.
All far-flying and deep-diving things
My unpartitioned heart receives.
43
ROSE FRUIT
Always we hear of loves flower,
Sweet smelling; or by contrast, the
Sharp lacerations of its thorns.
But if we let things take their course,
Cultivate to the concluding
Notes beyond reproductions score,
A harvest of hardy pods holds
Soothing tones for our evening tea.
44
VINTAGE PHILLY
[Thoughts of Evelyn]
The ladys got legs!
Such structural hints
Anticipate a
Dark elegance like
Waltzing silhouettes
On ivory moon.
Her attack is made
By cats eye beryl
With a slight coral blush
Lending subtler shades
To her charming glow.
So captivating
At an eyeballs glance!
Heres a wine that looks
Pointblank back at you!
Then, to smell her hair!
Its just so somewhat
Vanillin beneath
Musky mellowment
Foretelling flavors
Rich and warm to come.
Toasty oakenness;
Pepper and cigar --
Words alone wont snare,
Nor divinations
Bare, secrets she holds
When loves fires ignite
To a long finish.
45
NIGHT FLIGHT
Ticketed and assigned
To non-adjacent seats
We stood in each others
Way in the aisle before
Finding unfilled spaces
Together for talking
Beneath the carry-ons
In the overhead holds
Just some necessities
For starry night crossings.
46
RIFF
Maybe it was Dolphin Street,
Green
With the color of others' money
Where your soul eyes first found me
Blue
And within your gaze I saw myself
Turning up the fruitful earth
Brown
Blessed by childrens joyful running feet.
47
YES
Yes is an absolutely
Positively no
Quibbilivity sort of word
That sparkles
Her darkles
Dancin like dimonds
Or ebony emeralds
For gourmands and for admirals
Their smilin facets
Make up refractions so massive
With light uncontracted
In her yes
Yes so full
48
OF
POETRY
&
THINGS
49
DE BOTANICA
In matters of leaves
As in mindless song,
The structure is all
And all is counting.
The meter of leaves,
Some petiolate,
Some sessile or such
On axial green,
Repeats a pattern;
Indispensable
Regularity
Their mad beauty bears
In lines venacious.
Ivys palmate nets
Or jacaranda's
Pinately compound
Concern for detail
Create a corpus,
A rhythmic matrix,
Repeating the stems
And veins and other
Foundational stuff
With no questions asked
Of form in motion.
50
DE BOTANICA (Continued)
They stick to plans, yet
Each songs starting seed
Comes without bidding,
Bursting time-driven
From loves firm red fruit.
51
OF POETRY & THINGS
One inevitable syllable calls another --
Theres no escaping this.
Though time and meter push onward,
The poem is not predestined;
Nor once having been written
Is it determined wholly.
One mans dactyl, after all,
Is anothers trochee
With a dangling, diminished foot.
52
MODE ORIENT: RARE BOUND FEET
Old Elizabeths foots reduced
Edited down to basics
Scanning ears likelyll miss
Her stoical counting gait
And her small-footed methode
Rocking steadily along
An imp on rhythms springboard
53
PICASSO WAS A MINOTAUR, TOO
His gentle virgins hand
guides the great white bull of the sea
By the short neck-rope of frayed, plaited grasses
Into the arenas high-edged frame.
So sure, so serene in gentle gait
Until the moment grows hugely tumescent
And the artists maiden, taken,
On gold horns surrenders.
54
ANGELS OF TRANSIT
Passing angels part
Great photonic seas,
Their wide washing wakes
Testing my minor passage
On major waves of drama
And eddies of compulsion.
With calmer heart Im inclined to blame
My more grievous sins on the weather --
the Suns balm erasing all traces.
55
PHOENIX CRUCIFIGIRUS
Scorpio rising to a tesseract nest,
There to lose both hands and feet
Rounding my bodys four corners;
Unsquared and eight by eight marching
To inside-out perfection,
This four-spaced soul kisses my body bleeding.
56
METAPHYSICIST
A friend, having some months experience
Accepting an angels awful aid,
Related with annoyed acquiescence
Toward the mouths simple-arted chords
How the angel follows without motion,
Really by not following at all,
By the obvious trick of not being
A part of all these things we measure
In different rates
Through Newtons time/space.
57
NOT EVEN A GOLD WATCH
Manservant to my soul,
I do these mundane chores,
Like stringing Xmas lights,
Painting out graffiti
On our white picket fence,
Making sure our mustache
Is even on both sides,
I fold our laundry, too,
And choose our underwear --
Managing those little things
Til he serves me notice.
58
EINE KLEINE DICHTER
What is soul if not a light
Harmony of notes spilling
Forth in warm gratitude from
Beneath the propped black cover
Of a baby grand borne by
The cold linoleum floor.
59
OTHER VOICES
The raindrops are among the first to go
Unheard as they fall behind a curtain
Ringing louder than their quiet comfort.
No more do I waken to night showers
Softly scrubbing the floors of the city
While pouring out their gentle lullabies.
Over time, other sounds shall slip away...
Yet, life is ripe with boundless poetry.
Scattered by this same hissing mist, Van Goghs
Crows take mute flight into rhythms of light.
60
THE GIRL
From her dull grave dark
Demeters daughter
Dances bare and Springs
Drizzling daylit rains
From red poppies spill.
61
BRUBECKS RONDO
Classic white
Takes black rhythms
In a blue round
Even Chinese
Clap both hands
62
NATURES CALL
Jung lectured me forty years
By day while I probed midnight
Seas beneath barbed moons dreaming
With Sirens singing softly
On sinister, swaying tides
Lifes rebus he propounded
Speaks through four-square ciphony
Quaternal completeness crossed
An answer to his fathers
Flawed Trinitarian rule
Perhaps yet so right about
The Unconscious mind being
Excommunicant Nature
Asserting her sacraments
And so wrong as now I see
About Nature favoring
Four-fold formulizations
Bumblebees and hovering
Hummingbirds do marry with
Their five or seven petaled
Pollen partners numinous
Mandalas of ecstasy
Sailing her bicycle past
Me with her smile she signals
An ardor for adventure
63
THIS IS NOT A PIPE IN LASCAUX, FRANCE
I paint to pass time
No one hunts this day
While rain batters beasts.
It pleases me to draw
Shapes of beasts and men
Small but strong, killing.
I am glad to make
Dead the beasts down here
On these cool flat walls.
Here I strike truly
The beasts I give life
For my eyes to eat.
64
BILL IN THE BARROW
The red wheelbarrow
Void of all
But carrying
Capacity
For white feathered
Poems.
65
THE BOOK
Syntactical strings
Of worlds and of suns
Bumpy braille patterns
Invite my groping
On the Face of God
66
UN PRELUDE DU PRINTEMPS
Like the waking bird who greets the meager light
At the edge of dawn, prepping upon
A momentary branch, to begin
His daily, trustful rounds (or perhaps today
Is the day hell fly towards the sun,
Never to be seen in time again),
I no more question whose heart it is that sings
So strangely within this cistal cage
As I write greener drafts of myself.
67
JOHN BERRYMANS GRAVE
Reading some snippets
Of his life and stuff
While my little girl
Runs across the sand
Making nonsense sounds
Accompanying
Awockatooty!
Awockatooty!
He jumped from a bridge
Must been amnesia
He forgot to pass
Last several drinks
Long dying, long cold
His dreamsongs dream songs
Awockatooty!
68
NAMES
Do we give back our names when we die?
Does the angel call the loan -- and when?
When we first rise up dazed, befuddled?
Or do our names fade slowly, losing
Color and their old familiar shapes
As our warm-hearted homes deliquesce?
Setting aside names given by folks
Star-struck, tradition-bound or just tired,
Suppose we ancient names recollect
Which, as crying babes we had disdained
To use in our strange, newly found land;
Or, heres one for you to think about --
Making our way through the processing
At the Ellis Island of the soul,
New names we take to better blend in.
69
O POET!
Gods dancing top
Dervish self-spun
Tracing a path
With pointed pen
And ink of stars
On sheets of night
My time to dance
Its now. Its now.
70
About the Poet
Lukman Clark was born in Buffalo, NY. He
served in the U.S. Navy, including a tour of
duty in Morocco, which stimulated other
travels in Asia, Australia, the Middle East
and Europe. Lukman wrote his first poem
when he was 17 years of age. A few of his
favorite poets are William Carlos Williams,
Emily Dickenson and Tuli Kupferberg.

ISBN: 978-0-9788752-1-3
... revealed
At last in scripture
Long lost, the true origins
Of the couple whose pivotal
Mission was to launch
Human history upon
Its inscrutable
Omega trajectory.
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