Greening, Part 1: Visitation

Illustration for Part 1: Visitation of the poem "Greening" by Robert Lutz

Make-believe and medicine
Righteous grudge and apt chagrin

Camera obscura maybe
International music baby

Wisdom drowns the swan
Knights yearn for the fate of the pawn

You looked at me
I shed a tear

Honey hugged the grave
Elastic rubber saves

Santa got me a hammock this year
I hear you loud and clear

The end is near
Wish you were here



Illustration for the poem "Intimation" by Robert Lutz

Heavy notes in heavy
boats of sound

Movement, both too much
and too little
too rocky too brittle
singing just a little

All trains no stops
just voices no boasting

Strange requests
too forceful
too exciting
too much shaking
I am jittery
Nothing more to
Say but “Ok let’s
do it”

Shaking in the past
Now settling slowly
and suddenly dropping
and drifting and
drifting through
sand and air
stuck without a stick

Now more now
more sullen oh
depth of perplexity
oh vast specters of
width and shrill
with painful contortion
who sings but the
singer and who
writes but him who
sounds the notes that
all sing together
and all alone

Why the sound
why the movement
yet stillness and
quiet inside and out
all around

Continuously producing
not products but value
I am the valuation
I am the sign and I
speak both too much
and too little and
the lines are short
because the pages
are narrow and beauty
beauty is hollow and
I rest inside of it
sitting leaning cleaning
myself as I watch
how it all happens

It all happens so
slowly but quick
nevertheless and I
am lost in the
sound of time
with the timeless
pulse of language
stringing words together
intimately words with
words and you with
me and others and
I with others deeply
but hollow sharing
sounds and kindness

Now fast and vast
the nasty chime of
broken worn-out strings
and worn-out and
warm hearts

May I sit there
or should I stand
and will you kneel
for me that is
the question is vast
and perturbing and
what I want as
I sway and shake
and tremble
trembling will you
tremble with me
or will I tremble for
you and you will
tremble for me
by yourself but not
for yourself and
why was that the
wrong response yet
it continues so loudly
and proudly how
do I partake
how do I participate

And why so much
more and more and
the tracks are being
rolled out further as
if they didn’t want to end
at all but had to
eventually like a note
that sounds but knows
it will come to rest
with the rest in the
heart why lover and
child can’t you hear
how sad this all is
sad and beautiful do you
want it would you
say “Let’s do it!”
Sing with me before
I die and we die
and I must sing and
cry because singing
is not enough

And the words flow
as the music unfolds
folds contracts and
folds into the contours
of your face the
face of God the
savior where we
wait and rest and
will you kneel for
me and do I want
you to do I really
really want it even
if it perturbs me
and makes me feel


Illustration for the poem

Let’s not retreat
There’s much to gain
We’re wrong to think all is

Our courage is yet to come
Still, remember we’re up
A hopeless cause, a useless

No way we’re going back to the dead
An eye for an eye, against all
Walls can’t shield from

Coming Home

Illustration for the poem

Seeing you feels like coming home:

Full saturation of my heart,
my dreams chattering like timber

Everything stops for half a bar

I taste the moment
I touch life
I cherish
everything that is
a part of you and me

You sun-fired hearth
your joy envelops me
when I surrender

coming home.