Scattered Marbles- my teenage take on Sappho's fragments

After years of scribbling out poetry of varying quality, I've decided it's time to spend a few weeks dredging my archives to see if I can find some gold to share.

I first started writing poetry at 17, spending Sunday evenings at the Stanford Coffee House (aka CoHo), writing little fragments inspired by the first poets I'd been introduced to at Stanford- Sappho and Lao Tzu. Sappho, in particular, enthralled me. We know little of the truth about her- she was an ancient Greek poet whose reputation spans the entire Greek era, but seemingly all of her complete poems were lost. All we have now are fragments- and for those of us who can't read Ancient Greek, all we have are translations of those fragments.

But oh! Those fragments! As translated by Mary Barnard (a native of Vancouver, Washington- proof that there is life in the 'Couv), we have some of these jewels:

----------------------
Tonight I've watched

The moon and then
the Pleiades
go down

The night is now
half-gone; youth
goes; I am

in bed alone

--------------------

If you are squeamish

Don't prod the
beach rubble
-----------------------

There are around 150 fragments in all, some approximating full poems. She writes of loneliness, love, heartbreak, betrayal- all the classic themes. And until we find a miraculously preserved scroll somehwere in the desert, all we have are pieces, and not near enough to make a statue of the woman and her life, without a lot of imagination.

I've been reading Sappho again, and re-reading my own fragments. There were around 50 of them in all, before I started writing longer things. I don't know that I've ever said more in those longer poems than I did in these pieces. I included a handful of them as "Fragments of Youth" in my last book. Here I present the entirety of my old fragments. Enjoy!

-Mikey Golightly


The wise man said to me,
“Why ?”
And I replied,
“O wise man,
I do not know.”





It is a long, dark path
On which the men of words walk
No, they tread lightly,
For they shall not harm
Nature’s gifts, laid out before them
Dry, as the sun bakes the earth
And the men of words
And they sweat





“Young miss”, I said
“Is it in my eyes
Or is it on yourself?”
And she looked at me,
Her eyes of the deepest thoughtful brown,
And she wondered.
And she asked,
“What is it you speak of?”
And I could not answer
For she left me wounded.










Color
Is not defined on one’s skin.
It is an emotion.
It is an attitude.
It is a state of mind.
But the masses are color-blind.
I am turquoise.





The mind is not the tool of the feeling man
For thought is the ruin of emotion
I cannot look at a fair one
And become puzzled by her
To be puzzled is to be thinking
My heart is clear.




For the fuel which opens the heart is
Gone, so I must partake of yet more
The mind shall not enter my pen.
It is only my soul.
My soul chills-- it is cold.





Are the people outside
Paled by the sun?
Is that what makes them white?
Or is it the sun
That turns them to color?






She asked for the time
I was not wearing a watch
So I glanced at the moon
“It is our time”, I said.





Do the staring people
See
Me
Or is it just another youth?
I have a name.





My future has just come to visit
And he only said two words
“Hello, brother.”




Does he walk proud?
It is only a tradition
He is diluted by fear
Not his own
But yours.



He stood beside me
“It is way too crowded
But we like it.”
I did not notice the crowd
But I saw the people
And I let them enter my eyes
And I shrugged.
He walked away.


The men here, they write
They read
They pretend to know
But the men must learn
Of the fire
Before they can start their own.





The wise man returned
And he read what I had written
I asked him for his word
He offered none.
I asked him why.

He looked at me.

His lips did not move
But he offered an answer.
And I understood.





Is it only the dead
Who can offer thoughts
To stimulate the living?




I do not understand these people.
They say what they do not mean.
They think of that which they do not feel.
And they are alone.
I do not understand myself.




Is the musician who cannot make a tune
An artist?
Does the lyric mean anything?
Or is it just a commodity?
I listen, and I am moved.
I understand his art.
He who sings must also hear.
He is an artist.
He is a man of words.




The young man of the pen
Offered me his words.
I did not listen.
I have my own pen.





Is she beautiful?
My eyes see her, and they are struck.
I do not know of her.
Who is she?
She has thoughts. She has feelings.
I am curious, yet I do not ask.
She turns away, without a word.
My heart says yes.


The young woman of the big foot
Is it large
Because it must support such a heavy woman
Heavy not in weight, but in heart.
She looks away.
It makes no difference.
Her mind is empty.
Her feet are large.
Her heart is secret.

Happiness is...
Satisfaction, both within and without yourself.
Anticipation of the greater rewards of life.
Joy in those rewards already granted.
Love of life, self, and others.




To the left
To the center
Away from the action
Does someone learn of himself?
Or must he be on the right
On the outside of himself
In order to see the picture?



When you have known the others
The soul is forever altered
It is brightened by their beauties
It is tinged by their flaws
But it is changed
A happy man
Is an ever-changing man.




It is a frail man
Who cannot find within himself
The lion or the hound
Or the gerbil.



The cloud looms within
My sun may rise
But it cannot shine
The heat of today is blocked
The daylight is not there
The noontime is the nighttime
It fights to break through
But it is too late
So, I ask, where are the stars?




It is an incredible world
Where one can turn to his neighbor
And enjoy his company
Without speaking a word
Or communicating a thought
Yet feeling satisfied.




This place is full of so many adventures
There are so many possibilities
There are so many people
There is so much to involve yourself in
There are so many kindred souls
There is so much of yourself
There is only one self
And you will soon know him well.




The seconds turn to minutes
The days to weeks
The rosy sparkle of the new day
Turns into the shining ivory of the night
It is only dark
If you do not bring a light.


If you truly cannot teach an old dog new tricks-
Then why study the works
Of an old dog?
Why learn from the words
Of the mortal thinkers?




Do not use love in vain
For those who do so
Are wretched
Their hearts are covered
In an armor of hate
You cannot love
If you are afraid to be hated.




In her dawning,
My heart glows.




She cannot speak a word
Without my ears hearing tomes
She cannot make a gesture
Without my eyes viewing movies
She cannot kiss my lips
Without my tongue tasting a cornucopia
One touch to change my soul.




With words the mind can be at play
But numbers...
They play with the mind
And hold it under their chains.


To the teacher-
“Is it right?”
To the student-
“Yes, it is.”
To the thinking mind-
“No.”



If a man stays silent
He offends those who speak
If a man speaks
He offends someone who listens
A man who does not offend-
Whether the purpose is his-
Is offensive to the species.




Darkness comes without sound
And it spawns a beast
The beast in every person
Until the light breaks.




Quoth the squirrel to the tree,
“O many fingered one, where shall I lay my head?”
Quoth the tree to the squirrel
“My little one, you shall lie elsewhere.”
Quoth the squirrel once again,
“O many fingered one,
Your years are many,
But your wisdom is none.”
And the tree snapped.





Does one look to express his thoughts
Or only to make an impression
On the others near him?
Can someone really be said to have been a great speaker
Or a great writer, or a great poet
If there is no one else
Who has heard his words?



If I shall not be at joy with myself
Then I will not learn the benefits
Of the others.




Most people, I believe,
Set out into the world with
Only the finest intentions
But only the honorable ones
Return
With their intentions carried out.

Hello friends and readers!

After an extended sojourn away from verse and away from the microphone, I'm happy to announce that Mikey Golightly will be resurfacing next Monday, November 2, reading as a featured reader in the Caffeinated Art series at 3 Friends Gallery, along with fellow poet rick j and singer/songwriter Mindy Dillard. I'll be reading both old and new, and if time permits (and is there ever enough time these days?) I hope to have available my long-promised 3rd chapbook, which will be tentatively titled "Let's Save The World With Poetry". I'd love to see you there and re-acquaint you with the energy of Mikey Golightly and the strange power of poetry.

3 Friends Coffee House is at SE 12th and Ash in Portland. The reading starts at 7, and I'm not certain what the order will be.

I hope to see you there!

Here's two new poems to whet your appetite for Monday night...
---------------------------------------------


"Apollo finds Daphne in the Cascades"

Daphne of the springs, I come to you here as
a master of the herbs and a son of myth,
and I beg you to stay here and join me in
song and dream, in wonder and fantasy,
in the delight of trees grown strong from the waters.
Please don't escape to the tangled understory,
the blackberry vines and their mushroom guardians
lay a misty trap at every forest juncture
and there you will be lost to me forever,
embraced by the time-gnarled arms and
the heavy ancient shadows of the Oregon firs,
and I will chase you deep into the trees,
though my ankles snap and my sallow heart withers
with every pulsing beat made without you, without
your mystifying touch, the gentle pressure
that could finally release me
from this love-rending pursuit.
Please Daphne, know that I am not the son of
a God and cannot sentence you to a life of despair
though I doom myself to the absurd courtship
of this magic I once dreamed under Cascade skies.
Daphne I am merely a man enchanted by
your river-borne hair, your incandescent body,
the cut of the stars and the fountains of heaven
I saw when I looked through your naked charms,
looked where my eyes were forbidden to see.
----------------------------------------------

Phillippi Canyon (Exit 123)

The noose cinches itself around the highway’s end,
drivers don’t need a map when the signs are
all gone and every car rolls to the
same destination anyhow,
does anyone take that middle of nowhere exit
anymore, the one narrow road up some
sun-starved canyon, no billboards for miles,
not even a rusted-out water tower and
a boarded-up 1920’s service station
(so why’s there even an off-ramp here) ?
Best to just cruise along in the middle lane,
stay on the interstate where it’s never
too far from another overpriced fuel stop,
the city folk can afford an extra twenty cents
per gallon while the locals can barely
keep their rustbuckets running, or
hold the wind and snow out of
crumbling trailers on
American Dream 640 acres, now down
to 10 dead ones and a tiny
cemetery just past the back door,
the interstate keeps the news away,
let the roadbound assembly line citizens
wear ruts into the highway pavement, thirty feet wide,
this country’s got thousands more miles
if you’re not afraid of the rattlesnakes
and a blown tire on a gravel road
that would probably turn out to be a dead end anyhow,
bring a loaded pistol, though, because
you just might have to shoot a hole
through the padlocked fence across
those public lands still our lands, too.
Back on the interstate they won’t even
hear a shotgun blast through air conditioning and
cell phones and in-car movies and
the lonely hitchhiker wondering
why all these blind drivers ever left home,
the lemmings can stay on their ledges
and follow each other off of city center cliffs,
leave the real West to the seekers
who feel the whistling land in their bones
and sleep only long enough
to keep the voyage going again, every tomorrow morning.