Twenty years ago I wrote a chapbook called Nod. 2003. These were some poems based on the experimental style of EE Cummings & George Oppen Many of the poems were published on now long gone poetry journal internet sites and as we know many online journals don’t last forever. Here are a few poems. Hope that you enjoy them.

~ R.M. Engelhardt

HEDROGLOSSIA

LOOK

If I can’t find the meaning well then at least I’ve found you
And that being that is much more than ever being and much
More than ever merely needing a touch, a voice, a word or a
Feeling, something to be or not to …

SEE!

There I’ve done it again!

Hyper and not hedroglossia!

Too many words asking me to listen
Too many voices only mine repeating
Being two when I’m with you when this elusive thing they call time stands still and these days of our lives are suddenly & distinctly becoming entangled
Moving much too fast for even Captain Zoom & his paisley rocket ship to fathom
And sleeping beneath these quiet dreams of unspokeness
And hearing all of these voices at once and yet, at times being so alone.

So I guess this is what they call hedroglossia,
The wanting of a voice now gone, the hearing of a song
The fear of not knowing possibly what belongs In these arms of poetry and dusk.

WRECK

(oh no Jock Cousteau, please help me salvage this heart.) because she who thinks she knows who thinks she knows knows nothing.
says so long because his song has been sung. (and being a wreck, invisible)
he sinks, drinks her false fear un-emotion and her ice cold seas into oblivion
and sends out one last beacon for her in the night
that she will never answer.

and lost at sea even she knows that he cannot comeback from the dead.
for it was she who sunk the ship before it could even reach its destination

Crea en el amor y en yo¶ll siempre cree en usted

MEMENTO

Better to feel
          (Than be)
Blood rushes thru veins
And the heart beats,
Only one-day to complete its duty
While eventually earth and gods shall all come
Crashing down
And kingdoms & civilizations fade.
And so please, I ask you only this;
That when I leave to let me take these
Few things with me;
The moon, the sun and the stars,
And the small traces of light which
Once reflected in your eyes
That I can no longer see

NOTES TO AN INSENSITIVE UNIVERSE

So what do you know about What is or is not to be?
(Hmmm … perhaps it is we)
Moving, living and struggling as if we think the very existence of the universe depends upon these things
But the universe (dam dark void)
Will be quite fine without us
&  our  ³Feelings´

Poor universe
And without love
Sadder still for not
Knowing what it wants
Or what its here for

POEM TO PAST SELF IN FUTURE TENSE

Yours is a beauty of monstrous pro-
Portions with the world
Spinning randomly into
Oblivion where the leaves are all
Dying all of the time off of the trees,
Where  misery makes its way into every small tissue stealing.

Yours is a world where
Beauty has fled and has left town
For greener pastures, has drowned its-
Self into the sea of angst & tears and
Has mixed its-self with alcohol &
Cigarettes, sad poems and
Indiscriminate men & women who
Already know that beauty has left
The scene,

(And they no longer care to find her)

And yet it is good that beauty has
Finally found you and that beauty is not
Dead

But was only merely sleeping

On the sofa of your dreams

WHAT SHE SAID
 
She said;

³If you ever tell me that you love me I’m afraid that I’ll have to leave.´  

So not wanting to ever lose her he bent down, got close and softly whispered   in her ear;

                     ³Lust … .Lust …Lust´ 

WAR FILM

Buddhist hope cow.com of love transcending the  dialect of     
gloss & loss & gloom to the mysterious mysticism of the time  machine

                                               of  ³when?´
                                              
             Oh how I love thee, mammals of flesh and blood and candy.             Let me count the innocent waves, the waves of psychotic           
              emotion, measure my ass for caps and my heart for meaning                                
                less
                                             ³gestures.´
                                            
(And please; screen my phone calls for truths, religions, promises & AIDS.)

  For selective in our service we the
  brave and the free will send out our hippie-bred children into the 
  Man swarm and the cities of their destinies, their lives as  
  Instantaneous as eighteen-year-old twinkies and our reasons   as contrived as an
 
oily eagle
                                                ³fart´
                                               
         Captain Zoom may send you to your doom as happy as a       
           rectal thermometer but the smiling mortician man grim will       
             dress you up in green who spills & spells out
                                        F R E E D O M     
                                       
                                     ³Horizontally´
                                    
                                    with a capital
                                   
    D.

ALONE

Alone in a room with-
                                               Out you is alone, alone                                                 Without you is alone.
                                                             Alone without you is like
                                                             The moon without the stars,
                                                             The world without the sun                                                           
                                                               Shining upon it.
                                                              
                                                 Good days or bad
                                                 With you I’m never sad
                                                 But without you in a          
                                                                                        Room I’m alone.

I   KNOW

There are certain things  I know don’t  know, feel don’t  feel & see don’t see.

I am a blind
Man with the near
And the far, I am a
Baby bat that grasps
And squeaks to all
Things sad & mean all
Past & future present past
In the worship of your heart.

Sacred life of words
Unspoken by man
Knowing truth
Is truth.

*All poems From The KotaPress Anthology  2003
R.M. Engelhardt ©