Instruction Pieces - No. 6

INSTRUCTION PIECES
No. 6

1.
Peddling a broken heart is an indescribable waste
of life energy and time.
Learn to become a mountain;
a mountain always seems to be at peace,
even in the most tormenting environment.

2.
Try to nourish, without striving, like water does.

3.
Securities are imaginings – to hold onto
wishes for a secured life
is living within a dream of life,
and not a real life.

4.
Expect thunder from a quiet sky.

2001
© George H.E. Koehler, 2010

Instruction Pieces - No. 3

INSTRUCTION PIECES
No. 3

1.
Repetition is - allegedly - the mother of wisdom.

2.
Are you busy being born? No?
Then you are busy dying.
To be born again and again,
Step forward from where you stand.

3.
Sometimes only ruthlessness reaches truth,
You insufferable dreamers.

4.
Always go too far - truth is always beyond:
Beyond words, beyond gestures.

5.
Never be afraid to go too far, in order
To transgress human nature and its myriad duplicities.

6.
The damaged receive.

7.
(Well, all candour can eventually make us sorry.)

2001
© George H.E. Koehler, 2010

Memento

MEMENTO

A mist of rain
Hides the Autumn moon
Like a stream of promises
Obscuring true desires

I sit in an empty bed
Cloaked in the sound of steady dripping

I close my unread book,
Switch off the lamp
And turn to sleep alone

In the middle of the night
I get up and sniff
The breezy sleeve
Of the Spring shirt
I wore as I once walked with her

Hoping to steal some fragrance
To soothe the Autumn thoughts
That press in my chest
Till all hours of the mornings
Until the sky grows light again

Only her promises remain
To stretch the empty bed months even longer
As spiders weave their webs
Above my head

2001
from: October Meditations

© George H. E. Koehler, 2010

Clutching at Tradition

CLUTCHING AT TRADITION
(INSTRUCTION SONG #7)

Clutching at tradition is like
Leaning on a crutch,
Even when you can
Walk by yourself

Walking unsteadily alone
Is always more fulfilling
Than leaning on whatever
For support

What we lean onto for comfort
Will develop into the first prison bar,
The nucleus of our self-constructed prison,
If support is maintained too long

That spark of creativity, the courage
To satisfy your curiosity
Whichever impetuous guise it may adopt,
Is the beginning of all possibilities,
And the start of the usurpation
Of the individual prison
Of perception each of us maintains

Whenever you poke your head
Out of your snail’s house
To take some hesitant breaths
In regions you normally never tread,
You are risking being corrupted by the new,
You are risking the loss of the grip
On your view of the world

Now, are you going to say “Wow!
Infuse me with all this new stuff!” – even
If it means throwing your old values overboard?

Or will you withdraw
Into your snail’s house,
Into your brittle eggshell-mind
That you have nourished with
Your inconsequence till now?

These are the daily decisions
You must learn to make,
And to make gladly.

2001
from Instruction Songs

© George H.E. Koehler, 2010

Aquarium Blues

AQUARIUM BLUES

A few more drops of succour
Drawn from the well
Of an oblivion poet

Or a small slice of perception
Cut from the reality sandwich
Of a Nirvana salesman

Just edges of reality
Like ignored breadcrumbs
That pepper the floor

Polite goodbyes
In an isolated
Fishbowl of fear

Where everyone swims in
Year after year

And the waves
Of all our oceans finally die

2001
from Undressed Ideals

© George H.E. Koehler, 2010

Permutation Poem No. 30

PERMUTATION POEM No. 30

“Life has to kick you in the face
before you have a story
on your instrument.”
-- David Murray, 1995 interview

The best answer is without sound
Best answer without sound is the
Answer without sound the best is
Without answer the best is sound
The best sound is without answer
Sound without answer is the best
The sound is best without answer
Answer best without sound is the
Best the answer without sound is
Is without sound the best answer
Best the answer is without sound
Sound the answer is best without
Best sound is the without answer
Best sound is the answer without
Best sound answer the without is
Sound the answer best is without
Best the answer is sound without
Without sound is the best answer

2001
from: Old Honey from a New Tomb - A Selection of Permutation Poems

© George H.E. Koehler 2010

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

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