Poetry and Photography

Stanley Clark is a poet. While the images that come from reading his poetry are subject to individual interpretation, this is my take on some of his work.

IN SIGHT OF YOU

You are driven I see and don't know where,

Through strands of grey sky winding

Through the just lit lights of the street,

Stirring some unnamed city in dusk.

You have ignored pain so long,

As if you always wanted something more,

Or lost something you never saw,

Something held secret,

And not shown to you then as yearning.

Through a moving window the perfectly

unattainable,

You pass by,

For you are driven I see,

And what you bear has brought you to be

beautiful.

MY JEN OF THE HIGHEST MEADOWS

I was thinking about your birthday,

Remembering all those days,

When we were excited, raced and talked and played.

I was in wonder from all those moments,

There folded out your essence,

(Hearing your laughter sneaking through the olive trees,

Didn't really know if it was music,

Or just a special breeze).

I always walked alone when young,

Never knowing you'd come,

I am full of life's dear fun,

'Cause I've loved you as my daughter and raised you like a son.

ESSENTIAL BLOOD

Down to the river's bridge,

To gather the juniper and boxwood that grow there,

Lie full in the water,

And with berries dress your hair.

Sing for the blackman swept up in the storm,

And the redman burned in the flame,

Fear for the whiteman with their world built on sand,

Draw up the past and what's given your name.

Throw down your fear and your anger and shame,

Speak your fair cultures and religious protections,

See what's the difference see what's the same,

Hold all that is good and leave go all that is blame.

Matter of Dimension

Is there a veil hiding heaven

A palpably short stretch from everything done and seen?

Maybe something like passing through a dark room,

Or not thinking you can make it,

Then leap past a stream.

To be there is controlled imbalance,

A bird completely still in flight,

You are time's hidden motion,

It's just its proof is out of sight

Just Traveling

Up in the new light,

The old light will play then bow,

Like courtesans in a continuing magnificence,

From then to now.

Then comes a night from now on without light,

And with it falls pleasure,

Of eye's sight and all that it treasures,

An end to the circle of cycles and the life that it measures.

So You Forgot Who You Were

I caught a glimpse of you when you were new,

When what you felt you always were was misplaced,

Like a favorite old and missing shoe,

A merging feeling sensed,

You were not you to you:

A person without precedence.

And in spite of what you thought of your repetitive sameness,

You were caught by surprise in a surprising aimlessness,

Feeling your way through leaving the door open,

Disagreeing with yourself and notedly shaken,

So much light left you at once close to broken.

So with strength close to senselessness,

You closed up the openess,

Ran back inside,

And again rested in hopelessness.

East To Indio

The walls are blue and gold,

And we may well pray to Allah for life.

The sea here is not so much an expanse of water,

As it is the flow of the people weaving,

Through their days with satchels

Holding the solutions to the mosaic pattern of being;

In the streets, the trading stalls,

The tremendous meeting of this continuous scene -

The everyday market of the everyday dream.