Three
Poems
by
Barry
Spacks
Valentine
I'll usually give you a little poem
and a great big box of chocolates, or
more of a poem
and less of a box
and who can say which we'll have except
the chances for chocolate grow smaller word
for word...if this keeps going on
we're down to six fruits-and-nuts, no, less,
three caramels one angelcream watch out
a last Jordan Almond we'd better bite it in
whoops, it's gone, there's nothing left
but you and me, and a yen, I tell you,
heavy for sweets...now what should we doabout that?
WHAT BREATHES US
Regards to the day, the great long day
that can't be hoarded, good or ill.What breathes us likely means us well.
We rise up from an earthly root
to seek the blossom of the heart.
What breathes us likely means us well.We are a voice impelled to tell
where the joining of sound and silence is.We are the tides, and their witnesses.
What breathes us likely means us well.
WITHIN ANOTHER LIFE
Those whose days were grudging or confused
may come back trapped within another lifeas a boulder, or a pane of glass,
or a door that suffers every time it's slammed.If I return a boulder, love, some summer day
come sit by me and contemplate these horses and these hills.And if a windowpane, gaze through to see
the meadow on our walks where the brown geese strut.And if I am a door, come home through me,
be sure I'll keep you safe.And if a knotted, twisted rope,
from long self-clenching and complexity,oh love, unbind, unbraid me then
until I flow again like windswept hair.
About Barry Spacks, first Poet Laureate of Santa Barbara
Nine poetry collections (most extensive: SPACKS STREET: NEW & SELECTED POEMS, from Johns Hopkins, 1982, winner of The Commonwealth Club of California's Poetry Medal; most recent: REGARDING WOMEN, WordTech Communications, winner of the Cherry Grove Collections Prize, and THE HOPE OF THE AIR, Michigan State University Press, both 2004).
N.E.A librettist grantee; many poetry readings; poems in 18 anthologies and a multitude of journals, print and cyber; two novels, stories, essays, reviews.
For poems and novels: St. Botolph's Arts Award, Boston.
Life-long freelance editor. Singer-songwriter, actor; Literature professor, M.I.T. (1960-1981); persistently Visiting Professor, U.C. Santa Barbara (Distinguished Professor in Humanities & Fine Arts, 1991). Senior Vajrayana (Tibetan Buddhism) student of H.E. Chagdud Tulku Rinpoche.
2 CDs , A Private Reading, from WC Studios, contains 42 poems (plus chat) from 50 years of work and Regardng Women, excerpts from his recent book of that name.
