THAT SIMPLE ONE

Hide, I saw the cat go by, Chipmunk hide or you will die, Risk to rummage in the garden, No one here can be your warden

I saw the puss across the way Pounce on one like you and slay Which hung suspended from its jaw Limp, that is the hunter’s law

Helpless from the window watch Those who would prevent the catch, Then among us too I see The prowler who our chief will be

One whose jaws can put to flame Cities, countries I could name, But simple is the simpleton Believes a cat, that simple one

                              Pavel                               June 23, 2016

WILL NOT REVERENCE AN IDOL

Horse and rider bent by death Do it honor, bone and breath, From their calling have returned See the cities crushed and burned

Three more riders shall come hence Famine, War and Pestilence, If the dawn should spread in peace By the sunset it shall cease

Red and white and black and pale Blood and snow and burning hail Like the sunset fire red, Death by war and dearth of bread

But see there is another here Who dismounting shall appear, Blackened hoof, the rein and bridle Will not reverence an idol

                            Pavel                             June 24, 2016

BLESSED YEARNING

Dragonfly, the Spangled Skimmer, Wings and rudder shine and shimmer, Skims the surface, rests and dips, Dries the wings between her trips

Through her scintillating wings Visible, the spreading rings Of rising fish that gulp and sink, World upon another’s brink

Air and water, each to each Alien from need to reach Except for want of prey to feed, Swoop and skim or lay to breed

A world that’s close and yet apart, In us the yearning of the heart

                            Pavel                             June 26, 2016

Spangled SkimmerPhoto by Pavel Chichikov

WHO CAN FIND THE WORDS TO TELL

In that sort of land I see Wind chimes are the people there Who move and sing in harmonies Of intervals produced by prayer

Song by song they move and sing, Like birds of heaven call and sway, With no disharmonies they ring, The winds of God upon them play

Clear with no discordant note But neither metal nor of bone, They are eternity’s dovecote, Doves returning who have flown

But who can find the words to tell How they are chimes and perching souls And ringing notes remembered well And praises of the bells that toll

                                       Pavel                                        June 26, 2016

PITY, BUT THEN…

The archangel Lucifer said to God: I Will give you the finch and the black magpie, The eagle, the wren, a mountain of granite, The sea and the sky and an earth-like planet

I will give you a spectrum of violet to red, A sunrise, a sunset the archangel said, But no, said the Lord on forever enthroned, I want your own spirit, your spirit alone

I want you as archangel spirit and soul, With boundless allegiance but never control, Joy never-ending to be of my own Retinue glorious near to My throne

But the Archangel said: Is that all I deserve For the use of my powers? No, I will not serve; And the Lord on His throne said: Pity, but then Mine are the eagles, the sky and the wren

                                         Pavel                                          June 27, 2016

TELL ME WHO CAN MAKE AS SUCH

Catbird drinking, velvet gray Mewed like kittens yesterday, She was so slim and suave and neat, She sipped a droplet at her feet

A droplet from the basin’s rim, Soft of feather was she, trim, Her beak a tube of ebony,    She took the droplet perfectly

Not spilling of it, only one Or two perhaps, then she was done, So flawless in her modesty, Narrow winged and velvety

Tell me who can make as such That can be loved but never touched, That from the groves of Eden strays To drink of life but will not stay?

                                     Pavel                                      June 28, 2016

MORAL DESOLATION’S LONELINESS

I saw this country’s swift self-desecration Godless, rootless and deracinated By law at last and most of us self-hated

Even gender and the laws of sex Dissolving into complex misery The childlessness of all perversity

Many in self-loathing bent to power Because they had no skeleton to stiffen Drank whatever falsehood they were given

Leaders too, self-hating will despair When truth confronts the weakness of the fake Posturing effrontery will break

Lost and formless spirits will be scattered Although there may be some who still retain Their faith and by their trust will be sustained

These will form a remnant if perhaps Destruction of us all is not entire Though blunder into warfare bring on fire

Disintegration of the soul is morbid But who knows how the symptoms may progress Of moral desolation’s loneliness

                                             Pavel                                              June 29, 2016

AS WE TO BLOOD AND BODY

As thyme began to flower The bees we thought were dead Traced the scent, discovered The source of their bee bread

The color of the flower The scouting workers saw, The pollen and the nectar Appetize and draw   

As we to Blood and Body Are drawn to morning Mass The insects to their honey Forerunning what will last

Thyme will grow and wither The flowers of it fade,    But flowing on forever The honey Christ has made

                         Pavel                          June 30, 2016

THE INFANT

See the violent storm come on, the west Is big with gravid clouds that bear a child Of evil news, an unexpected guest, The forests toss in gestures broad and wild

Every beast that feeds on grass and clover The perching ones that nest in branches hide, The pastures and the plough lands covered over Testify that all our leaders lied

Thunder in the sky is not the storm The whole horizon lit with lights of war So that the gusts that come from there are warm, It is not Christ but Satan at the door

It is a new malign nativity, The infant is not masculine but she

                           Pavel                            July 1, 2016

DEEP IN THE MARSH

It slides through the marsh and then keeps still Quiescent as something cold and dead Limp and uncoiled without any will But the frogs and the dragon nymphs have fled

A snake it is and a snake will be, Dragonflies perch on a curving blade, A blackbird scolds from a hanging tree, Those who can fly are not afraid

It slides again and flickers a tongue, An organ of sense but nothing finds Though it hopes for a chick, the fallen young Of the blackbird nest, still bare and blind

Those exist whose will is strong No scruples have, do not refrain, Like serpents know not right from wrong, Cold in the marsh they will remain

                                 Pavel                                  July 2, 2016

SnakePhoto by Pavel Chichikov

IN TIMES OF SUPPRESSION

If you are not seen, of no importance You might be last not first to be suppressed, Nor might the powers manufacture evidence To file you as involuntary guest

Stay within the shadows of the veil Unimportance is the way to be, Leave no sparks of brilliance as a trail Of public disagreement with authority

Stick your head up slightly but beware Of all that lurks or may be lurking near, It may come from the side or from the air, Break the surface gently, do not fear

Be sure that you maintain the best composure By limiting the scope of your exposure

                                              Pavel                                               July 3, 2016

Breaking the SurfacePhoto by Pavel Chichikov

A SERPENT OF THE FUTURE

See how evil coils, immense and still, Scans the world as time the river flows, This is the kingdom of the powerful This is the ruler that the people chose

A serpent self-contained it seems at rest But there is nothing heavy in its gaze, It flourishes on bribery the best, Polished scales shine brilliantly with praise

See how thick and brawny it becomes From feeding on the helpless and the weak, Pressing them with lies till they are numb Then swallowing the gullible and meek

It huddles its corruption but the head Still searches for the prey on which it fed

                                         Pavel                                          July 4, 2016

Coiled 2Photo by Pavel Chichikov

YOU WILL NOT BE ALONE

How can I go beyond the screen of grass? What lies across it in the silent mist? What prevents my going—can I pass?

First be not afraid, but simply go Pass, it will not hinder you from there—But what exists beyond—how can I know?

I see no shape familiar, nothing dense Although I squint and gaze it does not form Nor seem susceptible to any kind of sense

But it is beautiful, the leaning of the blades And colors pale and beautiful, complex But what has made them so—and are they made?

The mist beyond seems physical and yet How would it feel if that would touch my skin? Would it be cold, impassable, would it be wet?

Is it nothingness I see, or life beyond the end?    Let it be so I will not move from here—But see the blades not moving seem to bend

No immobility can be prolonged Time has passed away, be unafraid But move when you are ready and be strong

But why is what I see beyond unknown? Invisible that destination, tell—I tell you this, you will not be alone

                                Pavel                                 July 4, 2016

The ScreenPhoto by Pavel Chichikov

HERODIAS BECOMES QUEEN

She’s got the head of John the Baptist now She sips the blood that swills around the platter It makes her giddy, say: What does it matter?

Now she can dispose of royal power, Send the soldiers here and there to war But save the handsome ones to keep the door

Suppose the legions stationed in Damascus Should rally at the Roman legate’s orders? Would headaches make her linger in her quarters?   

The hilt of power’s sword is hard to grasp And wield because the metal is so heavy, Although she loves the heft she is not ready

Often times she dislocates her wrist So must depend on those who have the grip, Are eager to assist her Ladyship

Swing it here and swing it there they say, Your enemies have much to ponder on—Let them think about the head of John

                                        Pavel                                         July 5, 2016

NOTHING COULD BE LESS

I saw five sparrows bathing in a pool—Shinning water seemed transparent bronze Deep within the mirror of the jewel, Radiance rebounding from a lens

Come, said God, express what you have seen: Five creatures like the digits of a hand, Show them simply, tell what they might mean—But words and thoughts were not at my command

There is some line of light we may not cross, A barrier, a place which is forbidden, The obvious that leaves us at a loss, A commonplace whose purposes are hidden

But there they were that nothing could express, Five ragged birds, and nothing could be less

                                         Pavel                                          July 6, 2016

THE GIFTS

The slide, the swings, the pool are there The children gone, have not been seen, Plastic bikes and pedal cars Scattered through an empty green

The pool in which they swam is drained The dogs surrendered to the shelter, Their lifestyle could not be sustained, Drugs became their mother’s fever

She the other day observed Seated on the street-side stairs, The newest infant on her lap, All the others gone somewhere

Wordless sitting in the sun The baby propped up on her knees, Gone from seven down to one, Her self-defeating tragedy

Love is seated on her lap And what remains to her she holds, How unspring the self-set trap, How get back the gifts she sold?

                                   Pavel                                    July 7, 2016

THE DISCOURSE OF EVIL

Now we can see a shift toward the sterile Nothing can come of this movement but evil—But Evil says listen, what I can produce Is a flux of destruction, unformed and profuse

What I emit has no structure or frame, As I appear so in leaving the same, I churn the illusion of form and of mass, As I first come so then I must pass

Though I seem solid I never shall change, Seeming familiar apart and estranged, Seeming like nurture I never can nourish Seemingly born I never can flourish

Everything holy is what I profane, Logic be muddled and thoughts be insane, Therefore in triumph most gender shall cease, Evil alone have the force to increase

                                         Pavel                                          July 8, 2016

A MERCHANT ROBBED BY MONKEYS

Engraving from the master Pieter Bruegel: A sleeping merchant and a monkey revel—They rifle through his merchandise and poke Through spectacles and mirrors, what a joke!

They hum a Jew’s harp—there’s a hobby horse Ridden by a monkey, and how coarse They are, they sniff the merchant’s bum And hold their noses—where do they come from?

Drop their nature in the merchant’s hat, They clamber everywhere, those acrobats, But since there are few monkeys where he dwelled Perhaps they came from Netherlandish hell

Where mockery and mischief intermix—Demons in the soul can play such tricks

                                     Pavel                                      July 9, 2016

After Pieter Breughel the Elder (1525–69), “Monkeys Stealing from a Sleeping Merchant”Engraving by Peter van der HeydenCourtesy Archimboldo

TATTERED SOMEWHAT, SEE

The left forewing Tattered somewhat, see, But ready still to spring

The veins are delicate And when it skims They break or wet

Blue and glossy eyes So globular Reflect the summer sky

Tattered somewhat, see That till the end Still such vitality

                   Pavel                    July 10, 2016

DragonheadPhoto by Pavel Chichikov

WHO WILL HEAL ME?

Ted and Crystal dealing meth Heroin and other death Joined the local Gospel Church To beat the rap or something worse   

Pseudo-Christians, they were given House and goods, their sins forgiven, Every Sunday they dressed up To sip from Jesus’ loving cup

Seven months, the two relapsed Their resolutions had collapsed, So they took and soon they sold, Their compromises turning cold

Seven kids and their address Unaffordable unless Splitting from the sordid past They sacrificed what could not last

How to do this who can tell? Addicts know the problem well—Who will heal me from my woe Addicted to it as I go

                                Pavel                                 July 11, 2016

I AM A FATE

I will not risk too much exposure Still I feel the sun’s embrace, Feel below a cool enclosure The sun’s affection on my face

Like other tadpoles I was shy, Most were swallowed by a fish, A predatory dragonfly, A heron who received her wish

I survived, becoming wide With many other smaller fry Which lined the pouch of me inside, Among the lily pads I lie

The future is not mine to know I am a frog, I am a fate, I grow as much as I can grow To croak and leap and find a mate

One half of me is in the light One half of me is in the shade, All of me an appetite, I never care how I was made

                            Pavel                             July 11, 2016

FrogheadPhoto by Pavel Chichikov

PHOEBE

Phoebe, goddess, Titaness To us a small bird, brown of dress An ancient lunar prophetess

When the mythic gods had died A little bird un-deified But still a prophetess inside

Catcher of the fly and bee Midair from a resting-tree Fee-bee is her litany

Simple creature, simple song But if she could it would be long Predict destruction of the strong

When the moon in her mid-day Gibbous wanes the light away Phoebe warns against delay

So now although she sees ahead To where our faults and blunders led Fee-bee is her song instead

                              Pavel                               July 12, 2016

PhoebePhoto by Pavel Chichikov

THAT DEEP DARKNESS

This is what I saw when very young A tunnel, underneath the earth, of stone On either side were cells with heavy figures Dressed in cumbersome embroidered robes

Upright of royal stature, royal bearing But stiffened by resentment and by fury Cold with silent jealousy and sterile Maddened by confinement, immobility

As I passed by the monsters tried to touch me Their fingers like the reach of putrefaction Which I avoided just by very little But where the tunnel led I did not know

Now I think I understand the purpose Of that deep darkness where those spirits go They, within their cells, may not move elsewhere Only toward the passage, then return

Return within the niches of their waiting Where in their fixity these heavy figures Watch and wait for any kind of life Which they can touch, so then receive some motion

                                           Pavel                                            July 13, 2016

THE WIND IN THE DOCK

When we are told the republic has died They will say that the wind has blown it away    The wind as defendant may never be tried

Never can wind be deposed under oath Or questioned by judges who sit on a bench The wind can be blamable, innocent both

A despot can say that the wind is the cause Of the end of the freedom and rights of the people Under the previous sacrosanct laws

Then will the despot decree by a whim For the wind is capricious to come and to go But we will be subjects of her or of him

The wind is the rapid and dreadful occasion The sudden emergency needful of power Domestic uprising or foreign invasion

                               Pavel                                July 14, 2016

THE OTTERS OF CHARITY

In the preface said at the altar of God He praises the honors of charity But I hear: “the otters of charity”

So let it be then those whiskery ones Who by their supple vitality Infuse the world with charity

Blessed are they beholding them Lifted in grace by their jollity Those playful otters of charity

Here are My clowns, beloved souls, Says the Creator, impish they, Remember to smile with Me while you pray

                                  Pavel                                   July 15, 2016

INVISIBLE SOMEWHERE

Across the street two addicts and their kids Recovering they say from heroin One is grossly fat, the other thin

Her sister came to visit them one day Begged her not to get back in the trade— You’ll lose those children—aren’t you afraid?

Child Protection might take them away, Why go back to where our parents were? Ancient fury shook the soul of her

She struck her sister bloody in the mouth—The cops had then arrived, and as we saw Arrested her and gave her to the law

Now she’s back and seems to have been calmed But still infection hovers in the air In her, in him, invisible somewhere   

Love demands redress from grief and rage, Evil and its self-indulgence spreads To generations living from the dead

                                   Pavel                                    July 17, 2016

AS SHE MOVES AWAY

As she moves away from the curb Her four year old desperately follows along It is her slow-moving disturbing departure

Get back, she says to the child, stay here But he almost presses himself to the car In a mixture of rank despair and fear

She is an addict of heroin And also the drugs that make her move Inside her obdurate junkie’s skin

He will remember this all his days That bodily presence can also be absence And love can leave in many ways

For he knows that she will self-destroy That his silent pleading is in vain No matter her words or the gifts of toys

                               Pavel                                July 18, 2016

THAT WRETCH

Her heroin habit clung to her back Clung to the curving base of her spine, Then it began to pinch its track Whispering hoarsely: You are mine

Scaled the back of her neck and then Crawled through her scalp and down her face, Fastened itself to her mask-like skin With eight strong legs affixed in place

Became what had been her woman’s features Abdomen, thorax, mandibles, head, A spider’s image or such like creature Demanding incessantly to be fed

Her face was a spider fully outstretched Across her inner mask, that wretch

                             Pavel                              July 18, 2016

MOMBI THE WITCH

The bad witch Mombi in L. Frank Baum’s Land of Oz had many heads One for each of her many moods

She could have been a politician Of modern American character One reflects on particulars

She kept the heads in many niches But she was a witch in a fantasy Not what we called the Home of the Free

Multiple heads being primitive Why not a head of many genders Each its own style of pretender?

Perhaps Frank Baum was a futurist Or maybe was precognitive About our compound transitives

Is there a man or woman yet Who has a solitary face And not a head one can replace?

                            Pavel                             July 19, 2016

THE SINGLE QUESTION

After the crisis is ended One feels an emptiness, The foul neighbor has moved on To a new unknown address

Though she resumed her addictions Nor curbed offensive speech There is a need somehow for tension Anger each to each

We live for clamor always Unsatisfied with silence, With harmony of all our days, There must be some with violence

The felony of jealous Cain Compelling ennui, The single question that remains:    Why him and why not me?

                               Pavel                                July 20, 2016

SAY TO ME WHY

That was a shrew—or was it a mole That skittered so hastily into the hole Under the stump beside the old fence, Fugitive animals, fearful and tense

Doves in the garden, spirits of love Batter each other with wings as they shove, One flutters off at the end of the fight, No twig in its mouth, a subservient flight

Black was the mole, or was it the shrew Evolved from the ages, evermore new—Pluck the guitar or paint on the easel With the gut of the lamb and the hair of the weasel

How does compassion emerge from the eye Of the wolf and the weasel—say to me why

                                                 Pavel                                                  July 21, 2016

AS THEY HAVE SUFFERED In a room but where I cannot tellNeither built in heaven or in hellMoses and Elijah, JeremiahMicah and Hosea, ZechariahAll the prophets major and the minorAll of them in council sat together One by one they spoke without a wordEvery thought and vision seen and heardEvery one expressed incomprehensionAnger at the outcome of creationFor though there may be cruelty and warWhat is the grief of little children for? Abuse and sorrow, woe and lonelinessAbandonment, and mourning and distressPetition must be made to bring an endTo this accursed species, judgment send,The suffering of children slashes soThat blood runs from our wounds, our gashes flow Judge of every spirit feel our griefJudge of all the cosmos grant relief,Heal this lesion, let creation mendCure the world and let it live again,Strike these beings You have wrung from dustDrain the illness from the earth, You must Splendid Jesus drew His glory inAll grew dark without the light of HimListened to the prophets in a silenceThinking of our cowardice and violence,Harshness to the little and the weak:I hear what you have said but will not speak Then He cast His garment off and roseWith majesty that nothing could opposeBloody seemed as He was crucifiedScourged and mocked then pallid as He diedAppeared to them as on the heavy beam:As they have suffered, now I will redeem

FROZEN HOT

A film of ice like skin protects the heart In this unchurched and godless populace Each from each in exile lives apart

Sharing custard on a summer night The young may court with levities and gaze Advance, retreat then nervously take flight

Even though they play at drawing near Or though they may propose and even marry Ice is cold and stiff though smooth and clear

Close and far, come near and then retreat Marry and divorce, the kids between—Only then through children do they meet

They are too much afraid to give so much As heart and soul which they may never know Within themselves so even souls may touch

                                               Pavel                                                July 23, 2016

Custard 5Photo by Pavel Chichikov