The Distancesof Sleep

Steven Carter

TheDistancesofSleep

StevenCarter

Steven Carter is a retired emeritus professor ofEnglish and former Senior Fulbright Fellowat two Polish universities, having taught for thirty-eight years. The author of forty published books, heis the recipient of numerous literary awards,including the Schachterle Prize presented by theNational Society for Literature and Science;UNESCO7s Nuove Lettere International Poetry andLiterature Prize �twice�; the Eric HofferFoundation7s MontaigneMedal; 1st Prize in the 2012British International Haiku Awards competition�haibun section�; and 2nd Prize in the 2011 HaikuPresence International Haiku competition.

Alba PublishingUS$15 / UK £10 / €12 AA

The Distancesof Sleep

By the same authorSnow MoonAfter Blossom ViewingPillars of FireGingko LeavesChrysanthemum GardenInteriorsThe DistancesLeaves and AngelsEkphrasisRiver MistInvisible RiversThe Sound of Purple

Alba Publishing

The Distancesof Sleep

Steven Carter

Published by Alba Publishing,P O Box 266, UxbridgeUB9 5NX, United Kingdomwww.albapublishing.com

© 2013 Steven CarterAll rights reservedNo part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in aretrieval system, or transmitted by any form or by any meanselectronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwisewithout the prior written permission of the copyright owners.

A catalogue record for this book is available from the BritishLibrary

ISBN: 978-0-9575265-7-0

Edited, designed and typeset by Kim RichardsonCover image © petarpaunchev/Dreamstime.comPrinted and bound by imprintdigital, Devon, UK

10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

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The following haiku and tanka originally appeared, orwill be appearing, in the following journals: "In deepwoods", "Purple hours" (different version), and "DeathSentence" in Red Lights; "Songs of Eden's blue thrush"in Chrysanthemum; "Ghost of my mother" in Lynx;"Branches on my window" in Ribbons, "Wind in jack-pines" and "The moon a magic lantern" in Skylark;"Invisible won't listen" in Kokako; "Stirring bones" in AHundred Gourds; "Two dimensions" in Blithe Spirit;"The child I was" in Kernels.

Contents

Book I 6 HAIKU 7

Book II 6 TANKA 47

Book III 6 STALACTITES 75

Knots 6 NEW ZEN APHORISMS 109

—For H. M.Good dog-soldier

7

Book IHaiku

8

Held by the glow of Held candles

Midwinter sky

[After Marian Olson]

The night too dark to hear what you won’t say

9

Day-planner in the trash Indian summer’s

Indian summer

Twilight—Stealing colors from dawn

Dawn—

10

1.

I see the world more clearlyThe eye surgeon—

There will be some pain

2.

HurryingPast

Mirrors

11

1.

The fall of light in summer rain

2.

Dancing—Stars

Through tears

12

Pretending the strayCat’s affection

Is affection

You and ILost and found—

Lost and—Lost

13

At the last momentWe both pull back

The ocean and I

69The months

Counting me

14

Sibley Park fireflies winking for us and not for us

Blushing brideVeils

Of rain

15

Settled . . . she puts on the other shoe

The ache Of cobblestones

Auschwitz

16

Running overWith pity

The beggar’s empty cup

Ancient Indian interment site farm truck up on blocks

17

Innocence on a swingAbove the clouds

Almost

Scolded by MumKid with a dirty face

Kissed by Mother Earth

18

Curves of the hillOf my love

Under the hill

Crumbling line shackOne crumpled boot

I fail the words

19

Bottom of an oceanDeep in his eyes

Afghanistan

Low tide on time From the next dune

What did you expect?

20

The painOf not comprehending

Your pain

I call it death-in-life twilight slips into something more comfortable

21

I’d like to answerMr. Owl

But who—who am I?

Church belfry pigeons know for whom it tolls

22

Campfire ashesTrembling with fright a ghost

Tells people stories

Green dragonflies coupling she blows me a kiss

23

Folding and unfoldingThe Dear John letter,

John

Death-rattle of dry leaves stomped on by kids who never die

24

Wealthy Sunday strollers—Shaking diamonds from their wings

Fountain birds

Grandma’s wintry gaze what won’t be will be

25

The perfect affairSleeping with quietness,

Quietness

Fogged-up rear-view mirror God knows I didn’t try

26

AugustAugust

August

Happy unhappy birthday the mirror talks back

27

1.

The horror of being comforted amethyst star

2.

Her address book phone numbers in black ink in fading pencilBiblical quotes

28

Leaning on me the dying pine tree I lean on

L P’s apparentlyNot long enough

—1958

29

1.

Mum wipes his faceOf dust

He will become

2.

He wipes his faceOf dust

Tossed on the coffin

30

ScissorsRusted shut

—Desire

Curlews Your call is important to us—

31

Back from the brinkShe survives

My survival guilt

Abandoned farmhouse moths in and out quick as a lifetime

32

Pussy-willows in the moon I pick a soft shadow

Sea-waves of wind in the wheat the wheat is what it is

33

Thirsty moon down to the lake —Level falling

An eagle gets off the world

34

1.

I tattle to the gods Look what I’m not doing

2.

I tattle on the gods Look what they’re not doing

35

The ocean past present past

No reason is the reason O rose thou art sick

36

Sensational disclosures from the Garden! Butterflies drunk on air!

High fivesToo high to touch

Anasazi handprints

37

Always the last to know strip tease of autumn aspens

Revelations in the sky! Clouds impersonating clouds!

38

Glasses broken I read in all languages

The wind returns my name to me OR CURRENT RESIDENT

39

Drinking at the cold spring God is dead rings in my teeth

Full moon overheard on the psych ward Hey, time to act like lunatics!

40

Night of fallen leaves devil’s moths halo candle-flames

Burning my journals another log another log on the fire

41

—Wild stars

A nothing leaf new gives under it’s the all moon

[This haiku reflects my notion, shared by many, that each leaf, star,

cloud, etc. = a cosmos unto itself. Hence the it’s]

42

—Wet moonlight

Swan Lake diamonds of sun rippling nearer to me of little faith —The Artist has cleverly concealed

43

1.

Box confession good for the soul of the listener

2.

Box all ears a devil’s moth

44

1.

Spindrift the moon slaps my face

2.

Spindrift the moon—I am a poem, you fool!

45

Ants lugging crumbs out of chard theweight of the world

I imagine out loud The moon hanging from a string

My grandson sees it then I do too

46

Forest for the trees is it love for thekisses or kisses for the love

Used paperbackTo Phil from Sue

No marginalia

47

Book IITanka

48

TTWWOO FFOORR TTHHEE FFAALLLLEENN

under summer grass, the dreams of warriors—After Basho

1.

Windless flags hang their headsFrom the teleprompterGeneral Powell:—Sacrifice, sacrifice, sacrificeCeremonial guns fire blanks

2.

Scars— Bomber contrailsAn eternityFor the supple skyTo heal

49

Forbidden colors—Shades of sunAnd moonLostIn her dark curls

I think them braveThe struggles Of snowy crocusesMauve leaves Touch white silence

50

StreetlampsCircles of lightCircles of darkA drunk staggers intoThe human condition

Her mouth agapeGod knows I triedTo charm her w/ the music Of the Greek wordFor holy love

51

In her hairTints Of September moons DistancesOf sleep

In deep woodsGreen rain,Hidden flowersThoreau’s last words—Moose, Indians

52

Death sentenceDoc’s eyes on the wallStill on its wayLight From a newborn star

Stirring bones On the bottomSouth to north A river runs throughThe words we don’t say

53

Sullen moonEmpty sky—Filled with emptinessBashoHas a frog in his throat

Sleepwalking through my dayAwakened by the touch ofLilacs On my cheek So dream-like

54

Light—knottedAround Zeus’ pinky fingerSo he won’t forget to rememberThe Big WhimperComing to a star near you

Songs of Eden’s blue thrushGate-crash my dreams whereSongs are strictly forbiddenWaking I fall Fall for the singing

55

SilencesBetween rain-showersFog forms on the BayThereforeI am not

Purple hoursEmbraced by evening lightAfter Mom’s deathA purple sweaterWith one button missing

56

Dust-covered— Gray jewelry box containingHer amethyst ring andA journeyTo the end of the night

Ghost of my mother—Once uponA moonWinter dreamsA tired smile

57

3. a.m.—scrapingsOf Memory on the paneLost and found—Lost and—Lost

MoonsetThe top drawerI never openWhereDid we put the truth?

58

He’s looking down on usGrandma used to say of GrandpaI always wanted to askWhat if we livedAt the South Pole

John the mailman pulls upPain I know is comingNot quite here yet—Not quite here yet—. . . OR CURRENT OCCUPANT

59

Cradling it Like a newbornFilled with ashesThe urnNo heavier

Wind-whipped morningGalloping into deep woodsLast night’s dream of youAstride the secretsKeeping us

60

Persistence at twilight Of the feeling of rocking From today’s sail In tonight’s dream I’ve already drowned

Forty years onSame mountainSame lavender-gray shadowsSame me (or not)Jim Morrison—This is the end

61

Under two voluptuous moons We breathe stones;As fish say of water (Don’t forget the talking fish!)It all seems quite natural

Branches on my windowBone-scrape the glassOne more dayThe test results Delayed

62

Dawn’s sheltering skyThe perpetual smirkOf a desert tortoise;Hey, he seems to say,The rent’s free—

Two dimensionsOf a childhood selfCut out of black paper:Well, she did what she shouldAs long as she could

63

Swan Lake tosses in her sleepWaves (indignant virgins) Slap the shore I lie still.I keep my eyes open.

Numbing our painThe agony Of rosesStabbed In a crystal vase

64

No, no, dream down excuses, Don’t dream them up!They send me you-know-where(I bump into Eurydice)Into zero summer

Empty hours between poems Like Kona weather On Maui Death-in-life Till the trade winds turn ‘round

65

70 candles and the moonShiningOn Memory’s Bleached bonesThere must’ve been a cake

My bitter promise NotTo remember usTill dawn brokeYou know the rest

66

Please don’t tell me The sun falsifies the is that is In shadows embracing usIn shadows We embrace for real

Moon Full of mischiefChurning up killerRip-tidesOh, she’s just going through a phase—

67

—The child I wasThe child I amThe child I will be—In a hall of funhouse mirrorsI turn, turn, turn from the children

At 120 mph the teen down the streetMuttered to his speedometer That’s all she wrote—His only immortalityFading graffiti

68

Silver stoicism Of moonlightMy secret sharerI felt nothingTherefore I was

Crippled cartwheels Of newborn starsMirror of OrionHow dare you return to me What I am

69

Fading glories Of dreamlessnessGlories of twilightFrom a vindictive mirrorSleep mutters Shall we dance?

A turbulence of dreamsTucked between lake-wavesStill asleepI see a contrition of birchesBowing

70

My blind friendOn Sartre’s Being and Nothingness“I guess there’re a lot of things I can’t see.”I have nothing to say

Bone-white skyBone-white starsBone-white sea-fogYou get the messageOr do you—being definitely alive

71

O the in between-NessOf the worldAnd of each affairI knew would be the last

AprilIs the kindest monthWhisperingTo snowy crocusesPatience

72

On my palate a tasteOf ChardonnayDrunk on airButterfliesPaint the wind

Last day of winterOceanIn the dropOfAll my farewells

73

Wind in jack-pines Breath of the Spirit said the BlackfeetUnder a Montana heavenI forgetTo breathe

Sounds ghosts makeFrom the garden haunting—A hum of beesWhat I hearIs not what I heard from

74

Invisible won't listenVisible is deafTherefore—thereforeDark musicBetween the words

The moon a magic lanternO pocked and pitted mirrorGiving us back to usIn my dimming vision The word reads tragic

75

Book IIIStalactites

76

AAUUTTHHOORR77SS NNOOTTEE TTOO TTHHEE RREEAADDEERR

A few months ago, working on a book of haikutitled The Sound of Purple, something began to worryme.

Haiku, regardless of the antediluvian 5-7-5structure and/or the number of words, are stillsequential; that is, they move in time from point A topoint C (assuming they’re three-liners): like—well,the conventional English sentence.

Yes, haiku ought to be more capable thansentences of producing what T.S. Eliot called “anemotional and intellectual complex in an instant oftime.” Still, time—the so-called flow of time—has thefinal say.

But life isn’t always sequential; when memorykicks in maybe it’s never sequential. As Proust andBergson understood, language struggles (perpetually)with the Perpetual Now: the heart of the heart ofexperience.

Stream of consciousness addresses this issue, butwith limited if brilliant success (cf. Faulkner, Joyce,and Virginia Woolf ). Even with Molly Bloom’s eroticreveries, there’s still a Point A and a Point B from pageto page, right up to the final, glorious Yes.

There’s a difference, I think, between experiencingthings in time and experiencing things with time.Time is less a medium—water to oblivious fish—thanit is a bosom companion. We are less in time than weare with time.

—Think of two people riding in a car, talking

77

more or less at the same time, each hearing andunderstanding the other’s words. Time exists for them,of course, but in instances of simultaneousdiscourse—what I’m attempting in Stalactites—itsflow takes a back seat to the immediacy—the“complex”—of what’s being said.

In 1966 a writer from Cahiers du Cinema askedfamed movie director Jean-Luc Godard: “Surely youagree, M. Godard, that a film should have abeginning, middle, and an end!” “Of course,” Godardreplied. “But not necessarily in that order.”

Memory works the same way, always confusingbeginnings, middles, and ends. Occasionally, if thewaters of experience—still or choppy—run deepenough, they become seamless, yielding an emotionunavailable when (what seemed to be) separatemoments were experienced.

How to get this down in writing? I remember thepoet Jack Spicer insisting, “The perfect poem has aninfinitely small vocabulary.” In other words, the idealcomplex I’m trying to describe exists not “in” or“between” the lines, but beyond the lines—wherewords can’t go.

And yet we shouldn’t say much less feel that timeis redundant to the “truth” of experience. Time is verymysterious. Thanks to Einstein we know that spaceand time are all of a piece: yet different. We can moveforward and backward in space—but not in time.Why? Maybe the “flow of (space-) time” isn’t a thingin itself, but something to bounce off as we struggle toknow the “Now’s” of our lives, separate from past,

78

present, and future. To me, time is the midwife of these “Now’s.” As a

quantum physicist says with a chortle, “If time didn’texist everything would happen at once!” Well, thisisn’t what happens in what follows. But even when astalactite seems to be sequential, my hope is that thewedding of intellect and emotion will succeed inmaking of the two intersecting “columns” one.

79

BrightHourRedsOfStarvingTheInWolfAFeastingDarkOnSkyDarkness

80

MyFromMagicMyDecoderParents’ RingBedroom—LightsWhy?Up

81

Silence1After+The1Night-=Bird’s OCry

82

NoAThePeach-EarthBlossomDoesn’tFallsMove

83

AloneBeyondInTheTheCrackedAttic—Window-pane—TinyColdViolinComforterOfOfASnowMosquito

84

MyCupping LastRainMemoryInOfBothHerHands

85

BottomlessWindLake—FromNoNowhereHaikuToTodayNowhere

86

GazeDeathOfOfYourAGlassGlass-wingCat

87

DeathVivaldi’sInFourSummerSeasons

88

Floating— WhisperedPaleToGreenALight Stranger:OnNana’sDarkLastGreenWordsLeaves

89

MoonTheInRainMyKnowsGlassOnly OfOneChardonnayThing

90

ThisSleeping,OceanSheWithWhispersOrSomeoneWithoutElse’sANameName

91

WinterSpringMirrorCleaning—He(ASeesBoxTheirOfLostToys)Son

92

DyingComedyIsIsEasy Hard

[The last words of the great Englishactor Edmund Kean]

93

ChardonnaySummerFillsSkyTheFilledBillWithUntil EmptinessTheUntil Bill Thunder

94

AIYoungster SayKicks(ToUpMyselfPaleOnly)PuffsDustOfToDustDust

95

TeacupTremblingHeldOfInRain-BothShadowsHands

96

TasteDryOf Wishing Honeysuckle Well

97

TurnZenATemple—StoneBonsaiOver—GardenWhatBeDisappearsVeryIs CarefulAlso Not PartTo Of SayYouBanzai

98

The ColdWindLightHasFromNoAShapeNewbornSaveStarInStillPine-OnBranchesItsResistingMerry The WayWind

99

Torrents“IOfHopeBlueYou’llShadowsUnderstand”

100

GazeDeathOfOfYourAGlassHummingbirdCat

101

SheDiscovering FinallyI’mFindsHoldingTheAWordsDrink

102

Fading—TheColdMistColors,IsClearTheColors Mountain

103

SalesDoctorCallCarefullyHowAvoidingAreEyeYouContactToday

104

CreepingSentryOverGuardedTheByWall—ThePlum-GateBlossoms

105

The—Grandpa’s NeedMossyToHeadstoneFeelInSomething Winter

106

“My ShadowingLifePine-IsShadowsAnPine-EmptyShadowsPlace”

107

VioletOneShadowsLessDownBedroomTheToSkyForget

108

109

KnotsNew Zen Aphorisms

Do I contradict myself? Very well, then, Icontradict myself

—Walt Whitman

110

1.

Say IfGood-DreamsByeCameInTrueAWeDreamWouldn’tAndLiveOnlyInTheTruthDreamButWillInMissDreamYou

111

2.

Hey—BabiesTheAreRoofBornMightBaldNotAndFallSeriousInTheyAnythingKnowCouldWhat’sHappenComing

112

3.

Lord,No—CheckIOutWon’t—WhatThereforeI’mINotAmDoing

113

4.

MoneyWeAlwaysForgiveBuysTooYouSoonAAndCheaperForgetClassTooOfLateEnemy

114

5.

TwoTruthsBearMerelyWitnessExchangeToOneTheSetTruth:OfOneShacklesSpeaksForIt,Another;OneNonsenseTurnsSetsAYouDeafFree—EarTruly!

115

6.

WeWeAreKnowAWhatFinalWeDestinationWereThatButHasNotForgottenWhatItsWeJourneyAre

116

7.

MenTheComeGraveAndTooGoYawnsEarthInElidesBoredom

117

8.

...OtherUnquenchableSideGrievingOfOfTheMorning Pillow Rain

118

9.

WeNoResentBabyTooComesHappyLaughingMoreFromThanTheTooWombSad