Cacophony Of The Soul: Select Writings Of Zarn Ishtare

[Zarn Ishtare]

Thanks Yuko.

Peanut, I think that's definitely a fair criticism, I'll have to take another look at it.


Poetry incoming today, I'm sending my old phone in and I'm going to pull all the poetry I have on it off and on to here.

[Jingo Jaden]

Well, I am no poetry critic, but it seems to me like at times you channel some of your darker personification into something that stands out as reflectively reminiscent, albeit in a peculiar way. However it all still tends to pan out with optimistic prospects although soaked in a uniquely noir-like fashion. Not bad at all. Mankyndlyness is probably the best I've seen you make although it was some time since you made it.

Keep it up.

[Zarn Ishtare]

How is it that you live

in this society of monsters

when all things are poisonous

how do you yet smile


I don't understand,

when words are like black bile

when you see the bones underneath

yet greet each day so vividly

joyfully


thought and deed are

ships passing in the night

two erfect lines on to forever
never meeting.

How do you stay asleep at night?


Brother, all I have are questions.

Perhaps you have all the answers.

[Zarn Ishtare]

eternities lay between us

in this almost marriage bed

I'm too warm for holding

you, too cold

[Peanut]

A Zarn returns.

Its been a year.

A poem is written.

It was good.

[Wolfsong]

I'm going to agree with Peanut, it was good. Welcome back.

[Zarn Ishtare]

I can only shout about light
in so many living languages
Stacked words, turned phrases
Tearstruck poem pages

Exclamation Exclamation!
attention defamation!


Afternoons of attention seeking singing
Church bells Bella, pearl and ivory ringing
Rattling and battle-wracked,
(Choirs and congregations bringing
Living light, and sweet the sound
Bitter muddy mustard grounds



Well we'll never be the same
Poets who no know lovers names

[Zarn Ishtare]

Summer comes to multiply
the Spring comes to save
The Fall's the fading of the year
The Winter; old year's grave.


The Summer sun comes
shining on the just and unjust alike

[Zarn Ishtare]

privy prophets profit forecasting permanent properties, far off oral tradition prophecies, sweepless singer, after vocal shadow singing

[Jingo Jaden]

You do know how to catch the imagination. Nice to see you creating more poetry.

[Zarn Ishtare]

You are the Moon

swooning for her lover in a shrouded room.

hand to chest, you express

"His effervescent countenance!"

too soon, pale woman,


too soon.

[Zarn Ishtare]

Lovers lick their wounds together
With poor poems
Unsaved letters
Cheaply forgotten;
They reminisce on
Prior post partum pre white worn party dress
Problems, so easily conquered

Zzz.

But watch what happens when light flows from every source and pours from every parapet.
It's happening,
it has happened,
it hasn't happened
...yet

[Zarn Ishtare]

Fellow nightmare monsters of the murder box!
Chitinous crude crustaceans and rude roarers!
Blasphemous Bahomets, all of you; the miserable kings and queens of the night time world!

Looking at you is like looking into a mirror.

"I heard something." What? "The devil whispering, quietly." What did he say? "I heard something."

Confession: obsessed! Damnable darkness, making that silent shrouding sound, sorrow falling on every object! Petulant, distress, flashlight-less I grope. In the dark, eloping, running free through wild midnight forests, know me even as I am fully known; relational databases are breaking to the sound of this song.

[Zarn Ishtare]

It is a great ego that, returning to a poetry thread, ignores all of the old comments and critiques and just reads its own poetry.

[Zarn Ishtare]

Love is stronger than death. There's enough poetry in that single sentence for any man.

[Zarn Ishtare]

All of my grief
Mo Bhrón, Mo Bhrón
has been a gift to me

every grain of sand

every drop of rain

pain

everything was beautiful, nothing hurt



poet, always preaching to yourself

'who else is left to listen?'

but If I occupy this stage alone

unseen their ghosts reign all around me

I can see the suggestion of their shapes on the empty air.

Who has died? I've never met a one. Instead, they merely disappear.




It's Am I That's Where Why When
Again
Again
Again and then Again





just past my fingertips

I feel your outstretched hand

reaching out for me

who-ever you are
hear my plea:
lean in.

[Zarn Ishtare]

Who are you to tell me that you have been alone?

There is no emptiness in an empty room

in space there is a crowd

of infinite muchness

where everyone lives

and breathes

and has their being

[Zarn Ishtare]

No more turning and tossing in empty beds

no more cigarette smoke and ash and whiskey breath

no more busted black leather couches!

Sliding glass doors off of their tracks,

unpatched screen doors open to anything

the peeling of plaster,

carpet stains

wall-paper

**** poor paint jobs over bad spackling

half finished, wood soaked, rain-water rotten chairs

[Zarn Ishtare]

Let all this pointless purpose cease!
End our patient placid peace!
Let there be explosions! Nightmares!
Cut the Rhododendrum stem; let the flower fall
Tear down thegarden wall, let the hanging silk be shred!
Cover your head with ashes, Man
Gnash and wail, scream and flail
Take up your poison'd peerless pen!
Let the Cacaphony begin again!

[Zarn Ishtare]

SO,

Rather than just post nonsense, I invite instead (my audience of none) to observe.


These few lines are all the gold I've mined today:

"An endless string of pearls along a strand
glittering with memory, all together lovely
I reach out my hand
and polish each moment, slowly."




And here's all the detritus that should be hauled away, unhonored, unsung:

"You cannot hear the back-pattern behind my singing
unless you can
Half a dozen poems die in the cage of my lips
or behind the fire driving my fingertips
perfectly forgotten, sacrifices
half a dozen blind birds thrown into the wind
These feelings are too big for the words in my mouth
little round men in skinny coats a burstin'
I make mad crabs of my hands
dancing fingers against a bold typeface
The envy of Gutenberg, the bane of Swedenborg"


So if you envy me my talent, pity me my work!

[Zarn Ishtare]

Ever pouring water flow,
Come the man, ever carrying, perpetually pouring
Everywhere he can
Every dried river bed
Every empty glass and stained cup
Wherever the water asks insistently to go
It sloshes like a child in muddy boots, playing in the rain
Against the lip of this urn
If love is his name
How wonderous that is!



I blink back the little sparks that dazzle my eyes
In the dull dim of corporate daylight,
Where poetry is dutifully stacked,
Signed for by the appropriate authorities
Stored according to OSHA standard

Through a haze I see it all
My fellow fish, swimming through water they cannot know
A race of deep sea divers presuming upon the open air
Utterly unaware of the clumsiness of their dancing
I flow around them, puckish grin, oft times troll footed
Better for hard stomping
Emphatic remarks
Gesticulation
I know the secret conversations!
The one's your bodies are having, all unknowing
The way you place you feet
Changes everything you say.



I am awake, still dreaming
Lost in melancholic reverie
Twenty seven and fresh from the womb of our stillborn relationship
Emptiness
Emptiness is in my expression
I feel it creep over my eyes and hands

You, unseated from your burning throne
Me, a candalabra lacking, want to host a flame
Or to be a candle ever burning
Instead of a bulb seldom lit

Touch my filament
Let me be Light again.

[Zarn Ishtare]

I pity my bloodstream
Denied the opportunity to bask in the love of an afternoon setting sun
Endlessly enriched by its heat
Perhaps their relationship is more meaningful than mine
As my blood carries the fire of the stars through my body
But by this mythological relationship, I only stand to gain

[Zarn Ishtare]

Version The First




"Sam,

My skin doesn't burn

in the Northlake chill anymore

Twelve years and finally a local!


I remember that chill from nowhere,

my heart's chambers flowed with ice, not blood

dirty snow looked like ash, falling on our small town

And me, suntanned and new to it all.


I ignore that cold fire now;

I am impious to that great god, the winds

I turn my shoulder to it, forgetting

forgetfulness has made a feat of me, Sam

A feast of me


But I remember when
Sometimes, I remember when."



Version the Second



"Sam,

I wish you could see this.
I made it up to North Lakes.
It's tepid this year, and the chill doesn't burn my skin; not like then.
Then it was cold fire, and my heart chambers filled with ice. Now
The village is covered in ash-white snow,
but I remember then. Yes; I remember then.

[Zarn Ishtare]

"My mother was an artist.

She painted poetry on paper, twisted graphite into graphics

shaped clay with concentration.

Our house

it was filled with her work, pure purpose only for us

no art gallery was good enough.


Too fast

The beat up pickup

shearing through our sedan

twisted steel flew true

and left our soundless singer without a voice.


Years of agony, interrupted by a gift

a blessing shaped by human hands

and affixed where her voice had dissapeared

I watch her now, mastering again the straight line

and applaud, with two good hands.

[Zarn Ishtare]

My heart,


a fountain flowing.


My hands,

filled with emptiness.

This time, I will get it right.

This time, I will get it right.

[Zarn Ishtare]

aging child wunderkind
beneath the surface of thy mind
dances one light and airy
be she woman, be she fairy

Queen of Half Remembered Dream
Are you, or do you merely seem?
And by seeming will you be
Light, and Life, and Love to me?

[Zarn Ishtare]

In a ciggarette air (call it a tobacco trance)
I watched the red poppies sway and dance
Independent of each other.

No soldier's life, rudely
interupted
Marred their motions
As though that very meaning was stricken from memory
As if war itself was no more, and never was.

I saw the might have beens finally take their place, triumphant in their ranks: the men who'd filled uniforms at neccesity's call were now unneeded.

They came dancing into the square, a hallelujah chorus, "The Ancient Wrongs have all been Righted; All those thieved from are now unslighted!"

Friends were raised to the shoulders of friends;
There was clasping of hands.
Tears shined, happy and unshed.

Our nightmare was finally over.

Our nightmare never was.

And those who might have died, deathless stood, and watched the rain fall gently on Flanders Field.

[Zarn Ishtare]

Today is when we earn the right
To drink the water from the rain barrel, and sleep
In soft and dewy grasses.

But Tomorrow, we will see the light
Refracted through raised wineglasses; we will not refrain
From the daughter of the grape, whose stain
Will grace our lips.

Then, when we are young again
I will forget four small corners
Our poor varnished floor
Dishes made of cadmium.

In a rare auld air we will salute
The ghosts of what were, who will leave us
Unhaunted and unhungry.

Until then, I will eat the smallbread and be content.
Welcome the Ides; refute lament, and plant firm our high flying
Victory Banner.

[Zarn Ishtare]

I am ready for "forgot."

What I mean is, I'm ready to forget, and be forgotten in turn

the sands of time churn, and permanence is revealed

as illusion.

The intrusion I demand satisfaction for

cannot be ignored.

It is the lack of my second engine.

How does this one winged airplane fly?

Awkwardly.

That's what made me memorable.


I am ready to be forgettable. No more the amusement of small things

in this original configuration

Hear me say, prestidigitation

I'm not afraid of vanishing

into the happy humdrum of married bliss.

I'm not into this

passages to nowhere.

[Zarn Ishtare]

Never more beautiful a sound

has ever been spoken on the ground
or above it

The holiest sound is this: "Peace," from a soldier's lips.