Choose Something Worthwhile

This is from a cycle called Instruction Songs.

CHOOSE SOMETHING WORTHWHILE
(Instruction Song #9)

If in doubt, choose teachings of voyagers, that are neither patriots,
nor servants of any idea or idea of community.

Choose something worthwhile that resonates with the agendas of discoverers,
forever propelling you into the unknown.

Always be suspicious of communities of any kind, especially religious communities,
for it is there that personality rackets are hatched, seductively draped around nothing.

Words are thought dust, clouding tongues and clogging up minds,
they are a fog, shrouding souls in cloaks of wishes.

Neither male nor female, human nor non-human, servant nor lord, pupil nor teacher –
nothing should you be, but a curious mind.

I am nothing but a wandering mind.

© George H.E. Koehler, 1999

Negotiating With The Dead

from my "October Meditations" cycle of poems.


NEGOTIATING WITH THE DEAD

As the morning light approaches,
Once more, my bedroom is peopled with ghosts
In discourse with the birds outside

Nights and days are pillowed
On my never ending stream of desire --
A maze of lingering echoes:

Anniversaries are fallen blossoms
Strewn upon the ground,
Sticking to the soles of my feet --

Tendrils of memories
Reliving the last of their lives, but
Another negotiation to turn my weak blood into wine

2001 + 2005
© George H. E. Koehler, 2009

My Ship Of Death Has Set Its Sails

This is from a collection in the making currently titled Senryu Lake.


MY SHIP OF DEATH HAS SET ITS SAILS
Four Senryus

I.
A waking up that
You can’t reverse , ending in
A dream of waking

II.
A further hymn of
Death and dying, where my ghosts
Turn to flesh and blood

III.
In windows opened
By countless books, dead poets
Wait expectantly

IV.
Now the dead have come,
Looking to me, a cripple,
For their completion

2000
© George H.E. Koehler, 2009

Dying Embers

Taken from the collection "Haunted Lives".

DYING EMBERS

The clock moves on – a metronome
Of this quiet hour in the gloam
The firewood crackles suddenly
The flames twist on their feeding spree

The fire leaps a haunting dance
My mind bristles – another chance
To dive into a paradise
Of childhood feelings, throw the dice –

Feelings flare up, course throw my veins
Dead memories relive their pains:
I had forgotten, now they burst
And mingle with my newer thirst...

© George H.E. Koehler 1986, 2009

Prisoner of Life

This one's taken from my cycle of poems called "October Meditations".


PRISONER OF LIFE
(Morning Meditation I)

The broken cobwebs in the staircase
I pass underneath each day
Float above me into empty months
Stretching into nothingness

Trying to shake echoes to life
Dry leaves blow from my avocado trees

My cut toenails
On the bathroom tiles
Lie like the cold shells
Of crickets from yesteryear

Like dead insects crushed
Between the pages
Of my notebooks, damned to become
Part of an unrequited museum of the future

Trying to shake echoes to life
All clocks have stopped

Fallen blossoms scatter in the backyard,
Crumbs lie beside my bed --
Lingering echoes
Of songs yet to be sung

The skylight in the stairwell
Cuts a slice of sky into the roof
I walk up the stairs and I walk down
I come and I go

But I come no nearer each day
To cutting some sky into my roof

In our lives, this patch of blue
We prisoners know
As sky, becomes the strongest pull
Of all our days

Days go by
In a blur --
Jungle rivers cutting their way
Toward their seas

2001 + 2003
© George H.E. Koehler 2009

Blast From The Past

This is from the Travelogues poem cycle, to be found in Haunted Lives.

BLAST FROM THE PAST

I'm waiting at the train station ...
Lofty windows lurch into perspective,
High ceilings collect spaces still reeling
In my stomach, the mirror of my squealing mind:
The waiting hall's an echo of past times,
And memories won't coax my soul
To celestial heights any more –
Our parting is still rippling through my mind

I want to sit in an empty room
With just a candle burning,
And strum some strings and sing a simple song -
I'm waiting, waiting for my train ...

© George H.E. Koehler, 1985 & 1986, 2009

A Hold On The Soul

Taken from the Travelogues poem cycle, available in the Haunted Lives collection of poems and songs.

A HOLD ON THE SOUL

Cold is the master of us all
It falls apon the large and small
Its servants wind, water and dark
Possess earth once it's passed the mark
Where Autumn, plunged in Winter's white,
Loses its fire - colour fades
Crisp flakes drape landscapes, coat the night
Serene, soft hills cover grassblades

Cold's minions creep up on the living,
Their lust for life, all they are giving
Is taken from them - they clutch air
Dampness extinguishes their flair
Upon their weary way to work
They shudder, hearing winter's call,
Cold grips their souls with an icy smirk –
It is the master of us all.

© George H.E. Koehler 1985, 2009