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Ron, age 5, in Germany.
Here is a sample of the poetry of Reinhard Palovcik from his latest release:
Better Days
I often think of better days
when clean sun warmed the breeze
as we lay among the petals
between vast groves of trees
Freshness dripped with crystal blue
from sky into our laps
Your whispers in my ear brought dew
to fragrant evening naps
The road was straight and narrow then
it's destination clear
Our love had nurtured poetry
the words were most sincere
We drank from oceans of the heart
as surf on belly lapped
while rhyme and meter danced from tongues
until the pen was capped
Love So Rare
(with homage to Ian Curtis)
And so I rise to another sad day
my room in its tired old way
its contents strewn with painful care
through these moments of life unfair
Caring acts of love denied
I swallowed my desperate pride
shaking my bones deep inside
again there is no place to hide
As rasping jaws eat at my heart
with you I never know where to start
the first steps are always so hard
this love has me falling apart
The awful truth an ax in my mind
I wish I were dumb and blind
through the fear, we will never find
this love so rare, it's one of a kind
Clouds
Clouds of visions tumble in myriad cascades
under sleek wings of her passionate embrace
Avalanches rumbling down cragged rock faces
sweeping climbers from slopes to frozen graves
Glaciers shoving mountains, crushing forests
carving deep canyons filled with sap and blood
Fish and seaweed spiraling skyward from
oceans of foam stirred by typhoon madness
Rains of hail under corona of an eclipsed sun
pelting holes through leaves and thin-tiled roofs
Volcanoes spurting umbrellas of white lava
charring our bed and cities to rubble and ash
The Earth exploding to massive asteroid choirs
Islands and meteors hurtling away from gravity lost
until I again saw her vast landscapes of textured grain
rocking gently to the rhythm of my soft breath
Creation
Through filters of fiction
we never forget the raw
its bite and sting
exsanguinating us
onto a microarchitecture
of fabric. Fibers fill the air
from distant chimneys, spewing red
green, blue with walls
as lungs, wheezing
through windows. Massive
trucks haul coal to
blackened mills, where
molten iron belches white ash
from encapsulated liquid
flames. The Yeti bounds a crevasse
on furry feet trickling snow over the
ledge into an avalanche of
hexagons, each a crystal caught
among lemmings as they
tumble over the edge into
a festering pool of bacteria
floating in a sea of blood
and pus oozing from
white-crusted scabs, peeled
by green-enameled nails on
long fingers, elegant in black
satin, an aroma of eternity
drips from shoulders bare
of blemish, the submarine is
drawn into violet, vulval
void, an infinite cavity into
which can crawl any manner
of beast or tool, moving
tightly between the sheets
posturing, plunging, rocking
into an explosion among
clouds in a confetti of taggets
staining mist with mire, falling
slowly, coalescing as haze
covers sun, pulsing neon along
carefully confined tubular
accents to chrome-trim
chairs, table, lamp, while the
smoke of a single cigarette
drifts straight then
twists, worming its way
into loops and lilacs among
daisies in a rose garden beneath
fresh, fragrant blossoms with buzzing
of bees and hummingbirds
wafting wistfully through trees rattling
nests of squirrels and birds
their soft, feathered fur
coated with an oily dew
of sharply glistening globes
each reflecting a universe
full of quasars blazing through
gravitational lenses, seen twice, though
not like Gemini, boy embracing boy
in tangled, incestuous perversion
yet above self-flagellation, where
space curves in on itself and much less
than that very secret place
where the navel
becomes a bulls eye
once you're inside
Still Life With Room
The austere stillness of this room
its volume enclosed in four walls
The pressure of my presence
within leaden limbs
fills but a fragment of its space
While a near silence hangs in the air
through walls pass faint echoes
of cars, children at play
a high-pitched gusting of wind
My mind, connected from above
with perception
of moment upon moment
like a brush
is dragged through viscous paint
stroking grey tones
on my image of this room
Embedded in the ceiling
a ring of light
from the room's only lamp
beneath which furniture sits
quietly
in fossilized crevices
amidst the absence of her breath
Expectation
I wandered through endless alleys
searching for bittersweet fragments
of others' discarded lives
Browsed through spiraling libraries
mazes of words and feelings
crowned with thorns of barbed wire
the slow passage of time
festering the wounds
corroding the metal
bent nails in planks
through hands and feet
The blood of my desire
ran along grain and knot
I lingered too long by your side
hoping for a sign of salvation
and now face the penance
this lost expectation
exacts on my flesh
Face
As I looked into the mirror
I saw the lines on my face
the pimples, the scars
the eyes, filled with mind
staring into mind
I wanted to remold the features
to shave the nose, fill the chin
stretch the skin
to remove evidence of age
I longed to destroy the image
enucleate the globes of my torture
rip the mask from my brain
to reveal the bleached bone
indistinguishable from so many others
who squirmed in the salt sea of my lust
Failure
My consistent failure
generates this ever present depression
injected into my soul
by a syringe of my making
wielded by my hand
I revel in the misery
project it outward
to gather all those flowers of pity
from which I fashion
a garden of black blooms
a place for me to languish
as I wallow through waves of self-loathing
Then, lazing in my garden of doom
I reject the need to change
As others would say
it is an illness and therefore easily depersonalized
something I have caught
that drugs can cure
While stronger minds with bounding confidence
emerge
to trod me underfoot
Their bars of prison blown by unjust optimism
they claw at those treasures of flesh
for which I so painfully longed
and which to me now
are forever denied
At the Barrier
At the barrier of dimension
I claw at viscous webs
that stick to the fingers of my mind
searching for a hole
that would free me to the other side
unleash legs of thought
to run through lime green meadows
under streaming rays of suns
wading through beds of blossoms
heading toward an alien architecture
where stretched webs
support smooth columns
with bulbed rooms
lit from within
by a pale blue glow
Having reached the base
I am pulled up
by millions of tiny arms
that protrude from the surface
until, engulfed by the bulb
I float in the pale blue
peering out at myriad spirits
shrunken by the concavity
of its inner surface
their long wispy tendrils
ethereal in the filtered light
My mind is suddenly permeated
with the realization of a celestial presence
not God, nor wafer-eating
wine-drinking madness
but complexity, unfolding
from inside out in convoluted
whorls of imagination
the fabric of the universe
leaking into a wealth of life
eating a path through dark
to savor moments
of desire, passion, lust
Then there is darkness
the stench of decay
eternity of death
the languid boredom
of endless hours
with no direction or goal
A vibration starts
and spreads from hands and feet
up arms and legs
rocking my torso
to the rhythm of chaos
and when all seems ready to break
I am sitting in a chair
writing words to paper
my mind
a twisted shell
of love, frustrated
churning gears spewing oil
on long lost memories
destroying each page
after it is written
Weathered planks of wood
fall from my untended abode
where long overgrown brush
has invaded the deep reaches
of my armpits
the skin receding in wrinkle
around pores, now holes
magnified by age
Pondering death
at the end of time
my suns set sequentially
on the horizon
and I realize
I am no longer human
Finesse
I distanced myself
from friends and lovers
a grain of sand at the beach
a speck of dust on the furniture
a drop of water in an ocean of life
a mineral crystal buried
deep within a mountain
a meteor fragment circling endlessly
between Jupiter and Mars
a fossil of long-petrified algae
embedded in stromatolite
a strand of DNA stuck in amber
mass, energy, and time conspired
to thwart my desire
catching me in a trajectory
of precisely calculated
drive to death
but with richness replete
in my small space of experience
I writhed with beasts of burdened torture
hoping for some last sign of salvation
Doom
I am the instrument of my doom
hatchet that chops livers and hearts
wrenching blood from tissue
tearing pages from books
I open the evil eye
staring inward to my brain
to see a sea of lust
writhing on a river of sand
the formless crystalline waves
drowning me in ocean of night
B to D
I said I loved Her
but I never knew
what that really meant.
at some point
I was dropped from the sky
my spirit, that is.
I took the shape of this body
and from birth to death
followed a chaotic line
traced mostly in jagged circles.
there was no ultimate goal
predictable from my place of birth.
like so many others
I would die some distance
from where I was born
and didn't see the logic
of moving from point B to point D.
where was I rushing to
every day
of all these years
going in circles
leaving for work
ending up at home?
after I met Her
I continued to run in circles
but they were no longer mine.
i'd run to the store
to get Her some delicacy
She craved at the moment.
i'd rush to pay a parking ticket
the convenience of which
saved Her from getting wet once.
running in smaller circles
i'd wash Her days of dirty dishes
launder Her delicates and soiled sheets
take out Her garbage
trim Her hedges and mow Her lawn.
and the circles I ran in my mind
forgiving Her for everything
shoplifting, unfaithfulness
witholding sex, derisive criticism
Her nails digging into my arms
She also had circles
they would intersect mine nearly every day.
sometimes we would twist together
sometimes we'd drift apart.
after a while
the intersections grew sparse.
jealousy began to deviate my lines
I mean
at odd times
my suspicions got ridiculous
looking behind this tree
to see if She was caressing that squirrel
behind that fence
to see if She was fondling some dog
under each rock
to see if She was fornicating with ants.
where was She all this time?
I really didn't know.
one thing I was sure of
She was running
along Her own jagged lines.
And so, I began searching for my goal
that point D
where I would ultimately rest
but where was that?
could I predict it from the starting point B?
somehow solving the pattern
of these chaotic scribbles?
was there some logic
to the riddle of these lines?
not that I could see
and Her lines were equally confusing
at least what I knew of them.
one thing was certain
She was also headed
for some point D.
and my love for Her?
I still don't know what it means.
Frozen
As hoary white doves raise their heads
to bleat a song of ice
Cold bites the edges of my eyes
splintering the lashes
Architecture of spike-splayed frost
coats glass and steel
The hardened crystal glints dry sun
into beams of laser light
In this absolute still solidity of frozen shapes
with clenched fingers of corpses
Where sandpaper grates their touch
our eyes cannot see the depth
The solid core
gleaming, with molten platinum sheen
its density
etched through layers of cortex
Ice
Take the head torn off a dove
toss it over a cliff
Watch the deer struggle
stuck in steel trap teeth
Hear bleak wind of winter sleet
whip limbs with twisting fury
See icicles, breaking to shards, fall
to pierce crusted snow
Taste the cold clear sweat
that drips from brow-beaten branches
hanging heavy with frozen fruit
Let your teeth bite through the ice
to savor the sap beneath
As the spreading crystal
etches frost
through chambers
of your heart
and pale fingers
close the lids of your eyes
Burning
the animated corpse rests in anguish
shortly after death
stiff with muscle-tension madness
its lips still bleed
when cut with a razor
exposing the flesh beneath
blood stagnates in pools
from which vultures feed
dipping their heads
beneath the surface
the soul hovers
over fields of flaming grain
mesmerized by the glow
gravestones erode
slowly with the sand
swirling in gray clouds
After flesh and bone are ground to dust
and breath is drawn to hell
spirit
convulsing in the flames
will still burn for her
Through Dark
Through twisting shells of dark
a cold black flow
claws slowly
along muscle and bone
Paralysis creeps along spine
burrowing into arms and legs
While teetering on the edge of life
I lingered too long on joyous moments
her eyes
her lips
her soft breathing
her sighs
turbulent eddies
glistening white foam
in a whirlpool of incessant
circular sucking
spiraling inward to the gloom
that now gluts my soul
where speeding thoughts
are crammed
moments
of anguish
that sail before my eyes
under funeral flags
high atop poles
that spike a starless sky
No tears can wash the tar
that sticks to these memories
An avalanche of coal
each crystal a charred clot
pours from my heart
in a stream of black blood
as hope fades with each glint
of evaporating light
Poems
I stacked skyscrapers on books
breaking bricks to form these poems
and in the process
outlined my feelings
with nouns, verbs, adjectives
animated with indents
honored cliches
used images as props
cramped the rhyme
mangled the meter
but fell short of my mark
you weren't impressed
so I began to drink, heavily
until the words came bounding out
on lips and tongue
numb with fun
and alcohol
flowing from my soul
infatuation
a kiss
moments spent in twilight
tracing love on elbow
and knee
then, as you looked away
and held your ears
my poems became
the shapes and feelings of beasts
screaming for control of the word
and your soul
Friends
I imagine them
in various sexual postures
Grunting and groaning
to achieve
their moment of release
Thin thoughts of intimacy
splayed through flesh
On a graph of many dimensions
The familiarity eats at my soul
shuffling feelings in a deck of desire
Where I am the joker
dealt with every hand
Approaching ejaculation
with each card
as it is played
Onishi
Only she can be the engine
that drives my verse
Streaks my sky
with amber rays of sun
Sends my eyes
past horizons
of rain drenched meadows
Blossoms petals
on boughs of long dead brush
Sprouts seeds of pines
from parched desert dunes
Hatches butterflies
from hibernating cocoons
buried deep in thorned bushes
Gives birth to billions
of ants and bees
who worship their fertile queen
Only she is that celestial spear
that pierces heart and brain
Schism
Breeze wafts through willows
petals fall from the moon
Swimmer's elbow cracks
knee of runner snaps
Dark green leaves glimmer
under starlight of radiant suns
Gas of nebulas doesn't hiss
black holes never miss
Angled limbs entwined
savor pleasures divine
Men with suits and weapons
bullets fly in all directions
Curtains of aurora borealis unfold
to a cosmic dance of constellations
Corpses rot with time
brother can you spare a dime
Mounds of cherry blossoms
hide lovers' love embraced
Casual money for sex
who now can escape the hex
The oyster has unfurled
its purple cloak in swollen ecstasy
On stage a stripper bares
her femininity to glazed stares
Newly conceived soul breathes
its first breath and cries
Corpses rot with time
brother can you spare a dime
Bleeding
At seven thirty in the morning
I see them standing
outside the blood bank
in ragged clothes
their souls and shoes
worn through
waiting to bleed
about fifteen dollars worth
that's all
Enough to buy food
to make more blood
only to bleed again
Does fifteen dollars
buy enough to live
for one week more?
And where does the blood go?
Blood is expensive these days
at least eight hundred dollars a pint
Few can afford this
and those that can
are not waiting at blood banks
One pint is rarely enough
to buy a life back
Mouse
He always did
that with his beer
every time he took
a sip, lifted the bottle
to his eye and peered
in, checking
to make sure
You see
he still remembered
the time when he
was warm with drink
and silly and taken
with the blonde sitting
next to him
her eyes in sultry shadow
her lips soft and pink
her delicate fingers
stroking her cigarette
He wasn't looking
when they put a dead
mouse in his bottle
and he drank and didn't know
until the fur and stench
were in his mouth
and he retched
and they all laughed
The blonde walked
away and never came
back and he didn't
even know her name
and he swore and
swore that it would
never happen again
You Write
You write and write
hoping that someday
the madness will end
but it never does
It drives your pen
through lonely hours
with no one to read
the words, no one to hear
the soft rain that falls
in your heart
the lightning streaking
through your brain
striking each memory
in a flash of anguish
no one to smell
the smoke of your
cigarette as the embers
smolder slowly to ash
The ink fades
and the paper crumbles
buried in someone's attic
among lost dolls
with missing arms
among blown stereos
and clothes no longer in style
words they thought
were worth saving
but that no one ever felt
Wabi-Sabi and Wabi-Sabi Street.