Relentless Beauty

On this relentless

Occasion, out

Of a white fog,

No discernible horizon

Anywhere, a ubiquitous

Bliss is this simple:

Snow falls all day,

Into dusk, into night,

Snow arrives, descends

Until it doesn’t.

Snow heaps upon,

Clings to, every branch,

Birch and pine alike,

Every brittle, abiding 

Leaf, and needle,

Curved to a burden,

A clerestory tracery,

A soaring vaulting,

A crystalline nave (This occasion, more

Rare than Rome,

The Villa Borghese,

First stanza to the left,

Bernini’s pale Daphne, 

Delicate, marble fingertips

Turning to laurel

,Leafing in her flight).

Bliss is simply this:

Snow on the apple

Limbs, easily prolific

Blossoms in May.

I long to recall

This relentless beauty

Again and again,

Return to this vision

From time to time,

A salve for absurdity

(Relentless frailty),

Assuaging the ugly

Bedlam of humanity,

This occasion for bliss.

Resilience

Remnants of the hurricane

(I forgot its given name),

Incidental Atlantic fragments,

Rent half the tree, splintered

All usual assumptions,

Filled the driveway with carnage

–I could not escape – foliage,

Abandoned nests, brittle, broken,

Misplaced arms and legs,

Sheared at the joints.

Certainly, I’m not indifferent.I didn’t hear, didn’t notice

The spectacular slaughter,

No sounds at all while

I pursued my routine.

Instead, from my recliner,

I watched the wind tug

At a spider’s web, modest

Basilica, architectural marvel,

Moored in the window niche.

I admired the resilience,

Stronger than the wooden giant,

The white, woven silk,

Easily erased, no trace,

With a flick of my broom.

I’d cut the bough in convenient

Slices, for firewood, for flame,

But my saw was getting fitted

With a new set of teeth.

The body will lie there 

Until next week, naked

Corpse in the street.

After several more storms,

The web remains steadfast,

And the tree begins its decay.

David Sapp, writer and artist, lives along the southern shore of Lake Erie in North America. A Pushcart nominee, he was awarded Ohio Arts Council Individual Excellence Grants for poetry and the visual arts. His poetry and prose appear widely in the United States, Canada, and the United Kingdom. His publications include articles in the Journal of Creative Behavior, chapbooks Close to Home and Two Buddha, a novel Flying Over Erie, and a book of poems and drawings titled Drawing Nirvana.

Phantasmagoria (Looking for the Moon)

The diviner had said the moon was entering some special phase full of promise and prowess. The cat was sleeping at home. I went to the coffee shop. The man sitting in front of me was staring at the counter workers and I could sense he was not a good man. I was happy when he left. The other man must have been a gemini as he talked all day and night to many souls. If nobody was there he waited, patiently, like a cat can wait, or as still as the moon, even his eyes hardly moving, like some kind of advanced meditator. Outside I heard the air brakes of a bus or truck. Going out there, it began to rain.

What a strange and peculiar day,- the autumnal air arriving, capricious weather,- it getting sunny then cloudy then warm then cold all at fast turns. I went back home for past the electric bikes and scooters, and a picnic bench missing one side bench yet somehow still looking anyhow, structurally sound. I drew a picture of the mountains that had clouds, birds, and a house and horse and cart plus some trees in the foreground. A large red sun was setting behind it all. Not long after I fell to sleep and dreamt I had a class to attend but didn’t make it for being distracted by two women fighting, a group of leaves lit by nocturnal electric lights, a talk with a kind woman, and not being able to find a parking spot. I awoke and felt cool air from the twirling fan and the window open. I went downstairs to drink a glass of water and look out the window for the moon but can’t remember if I ever did find it. 

Work Anxiety In the Lake District

First orders come from

above through murder holes

drilled into the floor where

the main bar sinks overflow

and the slop sinks leak.

The waitress is sleeping,

head down on the invisible

cellar bar while a rush of

patrons arrive, walking single

file down misaligned stairs,

chanting verses from a Pink Floyd

song, shouting out orders as they

pass into the well-lighted, unfinished

basement lounge. Second orders

come over the bar from everywhere

at once but all the bottle are

somewhere else, up flights of stairs

others are using, all the taps open

and free flowing but the glassware

is inaccessible in too tall, overhead

racks, in too low cabinets you have to

lie down next to in order to retrieve

what lies within, reaching hands

scraped and bleeding on rough hewn

wooden shelves, on the chipped and

broken glass, still more orders come

and there is no room to move,

the basement ceiling pressing down,

more murder holes being drilled,

delivering last orders from above.

Bleeding: a work anxiety dream

Finally dozing after being unable

to sleep. Anxiety dreams, immediate and intense.

No longer do they focus on undergrad

academic failure, flunking out, the unknowable end.

The end in those college days meant

a place like Vietnam.  Oddly, no anxiety

dreams of grad school, though the workload

was twice as bad, no sleep then, between

classes, assignments, working a late night

job. No sleep, then, for years; living on

beer, empty gas tank fumes and beer.

The anxious dream centers on the work-

place, introduces a wound, a glass cut

to the bone, blood in the ice.  No one

cares. It’s all about the bleeding self

carrying on, working, tending bar

one handed for ten hours without a break.

Everyone who sees the wound says

it needs stitches.  Lots of stitches.

The bleeding wouldn’t stop, the stained bar rag

slipping, hanging loose around the wrist.  

But there I am, building cocktails with my right hand,

deliberate, but carrying on, all fluidity lost

for the duration. No one cares how I feel,

if the wound is dealt with or not.

No one cares how I am unless the drinks

are tainted.

Abu Ghraib: a  work anxiety dream

That one where you are

transported to one of those

torture chamber prisons in Iraq

where they apply hoods with

no eye slits and strap you into

stress positions and play

repetitive bass line music/ noise

punctuated by a kind of bell so that

you feel as if you are only half-

conscious/passing out and a voice

accompanies the noise chanting

in a foreign language you think of

as Urban, not one recognizable as

an actual tongue but something

like one, endlessly repeating spat out

hate infused syllables so you plead,

“I’ll talk. I’ll tell you anything.”

But they don’t want you to talk.

They want you to suffer.

  Sleeper Awake: a work anxiety dream

I wake up in my dream though

I know I am still asleep.

I’m late for work even though

this isn’t time for my shift.

They must have called me in to open

the day after a night I closed.

This used to happen quite often

at The Rib when Linda was working

as she didn’t know where the bottles

went.  So I’m getting dressed and

it begins to feel like the Dali dream

sequence in “Spellbound” inside

the bar I have been transported to.

And then it is raining while I’m rushing

to the bus stop and my umbrella is

full of holes but I’m moving backward

instead of forward and I’m going to be

really late and wet which also used

to happen all the time at The Rib

as traffic was so bad I could never

cross Route 5 . But I’m not working

at The Rib anymore, even in the dream,

it’s The Tavern and one of the college

kids is already setting the place up,

so what did they need me for?

And he’s taking rolls of quarters,

like a hundred of them from some guy

off the street and giving him all

our big bills and the owner’s daughter

is cashing checks, so there is no cash

money at all in the drawer, just change,

more change than you could use in

a month but break a twenty? Forget it.

And the college guy is looking at me

like it’s all my fault and like, what good

was I anyway? I’m like way too old to be

working in a bar. So I perform a couple

of drink making, sleight-of-hand tricks

and he’s like Spellbound and I’m back

in that dream again, though it seems more

and more like that black and white flick,

“Kafka” and then the Welles noir, “The Trial,”

and I finally realize the only reason that I’m

   there at all is someone has to get shot in the end.

Half-Tone Beckett in Bar Light:

A Work Anxiety Poem

They went down to the cellar

with flashlights and returned,

filthy, bedraggled as hounds

left in the rain to wallow in

offal and mud.

They decamped, mid-bar on stools,

that scraped the foot scuffed floors

amid the remains of a night of

serious drinking.

Seen from afar, well above the bar,

light is refracted through green

bar bottle glass like shards of

misspent lives, dissembled as

hobo Hoover towns like hoarse

voiced village criers delivering

messages no one wants to hear

around camp fires in 50 gallon

drums.

All the garbage of their lives

amount to nothing more than

left-behind stogie stumps and

cigarette end prophecies that mean

nothing in harsh pre-dawn haze

waiting for what the new day brings.

Work Anxiety Dream: Stalker

After hours, lights down in the bar,

chair legs facing up on the tables,

only the EXIT lights glowing,

the click of the sound turned down jukebox

playing songs, no one can hear,

random compressors kicking on,

shutting off, the ice machine dumping

a new load of cubes on the mounds

in the deep freeze…

Down the worn thin, unevenly spaced

stairs, into the low ceiling cellar where

the walk-in coolers full of beer are,

the leaking pipes, frayed electrical

wires, the single too-low wattage bulbs

on pull chains are and the wooden, sagging

shelves packed with bar supplies,

used guest checks, register tapes and

the overwhelming smell of sewage,

the creeping damp from the cobblestone

floor, the standing water the sump pumps

can’t contain, where the footsteps not

your own follow yours in a hard-to-focus

gloom, each deep breath feeling like

the next to last one, as we move from one

shadow place to the next, opening long

forgotten doors into closets, new found

rooms that lead to other worlds, darker

places where the walls sweat and the all

in black man behind me raises his arm

holding the long wide bladed knife

as if to strike as another door opens

and a new phase of this hide and seek game

for keeps, begins.

a planetary wrong turn

with no off-ramp to the Goldilocks zone

       *

the one-eyed dogcatcher told the boy about a little green farm

       *

he prefers the original artificial taste of Rocket Pops

       *

when translating ‘summer thunder’ was a cinch

       *

locust swarms on the I-80 corridor

the HOV lane transcends

       *

the urge to answer the unknown caller

       *

before Les Mots

I played Wipe Out

on the surface of the sun

       *

a seance of pewter rain falling

an inch at a time

       *

I rushed in to tell about the silver maple leaf

independently astir in the heat 

       *

pennies on the track

how I got to know the long faces of Lincoln

       *

he couldn’t hear the bell crickets

with the air conditioner on full blast

       *

breathing the same air as the bulked-up horsefly

The evil eye

One of the joys of what I shall euphemistically describe as reaching a certain age is having a doctor tell you that what’s occurred is because you’re old.

I have what he told me is a conjunctival haemorrhage. In other words, I’m safe if, in the next few days, I get into a situation where my opponents have been told not to fire until you see the whites of my eyes. My left eye has next to no white in it, is red, from a burst blood vessel.

& the reason for it? No specific reason, just age, old age — amended to as you grow older after I cast a one-eyed sideswiping glance at the doctor. Just happens, nothing you can take for it, do to it, doesn’t affect your vision. Only wait till it goes away, a series of color transformations, red through to yellow, just like a bruise.

Changeling

The small yellow

flowers brought

down by the rain

have changed the

path into / not a

path. That arti-

ficial transverse

now part of the

tree from which

the flowers fell.

On or off the highway

Able to think in

short phrases only

while long lines of

thought fly by in

the outer lane.

O sole mio

Diva. The word

is so debased

that the young

girl standing out-

side the house

where Maria Callas

used to live, sing-

ing off-key Mariah

Carey songs, has

a better than even

chance of

being called one.

Citric update

Not quite Spring by the calendar, but the temperature is in the high twenties C. — just under 80° F. — & the flowers in the pots under the awning are flush with large scarlet & white blooms. It’s warm enough for the cat to decide to stay out at night.

The citrus trees are threatening to deliver fruit. We’ve had them for about 18 months, & so far their crops have been one lemon, which was on the tree when we bought it, & one grapefruit which we can honestly claim to be our own. But the lime tree currently has lots of small fruit on it, the lemon is in flower & spreads that wonderful perfume, & the grapefruit has pushed out new leaves & has a couple of buds on it.

Mind you, this happened last year as well. Then the ants got active & managed to knock off all the young limes, & then the locusts — huge, some the size of elephants — descended upon the lemon & the grapefruit & turned them into almost skeletons. I think what was left of the lemon’s energy was taken up bringing that single fruit to – I guess I have to use the word – fruition, & that single grapefruit only survived because it grew sufficiently whilst the various armies were busy with the other offerings.

Still, although somebody knocked off the single custard apple from the tree at the bottom of the driveway — a bad growing season for them, not enough humidity in the air — we have got a few mandarins & oranges this year from the other trees in the same area. The fruit reminds me of someone, possibly myself, rough-looking on the outside, but inside, oh so sweet. & juicy.

They Came（it was published by Cathexis Northwest Press） 

Tuol Sleng
like a poisonous flower
exhaling
a piercing venom. 

The palm trees swayed
beneath the faltering shadow,
a procession of bones
    

—the dead—
labeled as intellectuals. 

They came
like a gust of wind,
They came
like a herd of wild beasts.
They came
slaughter upon slaughter,
cursing Tuol Sleng,
damning its streets and rivers. 

They regarded themselves as fanatical idealists,
But never, made the place a paradise.
Passion torched it into a fiery hell. 

They came
with frantic lusts.
They came to Cambodia—
its flesh drenched in rouge. 

When Tuol Sleng opened,
Moonlight buried people
in a sunken pit of earth. 

None to cry those words:
“ They came!” 

Blessing Notes

I look at the world,

I step out

Of luxury.

I am an unspoken solace.

Who knocked me down?

Who raised me like flower?

I met thousands of walkers,

I kissed one art like life.

My departure must be happy,

I look at you,

A bare silence eating you

From within.

Expressions can fill your eyes,

And make you empty

To fill like a dance of worship.

Rejoice in expression

Buy in blessing notes,

Your own version of

The world.

Come Together

Come again

Let’s kiss the rose.

Let it bloom,

Let it not be plucked

Like the lie

That befell as a curse

By the ugly world

That tried to separate us.

There is a dark rain

That fell at night

Silent like a lost key.

I rose like holy chants

At the midnight hour.

Yes, the night was howling

The secrets of dawn

Which it foresaw as a life

In us.

The time is still passing

Like our heartbeats.

The rose will not fade

Like the unloving world.

Dying of Hunger

There is a statue,

An old one.

It has an umbrella

For the rain,

Boots for the feet,

And a smile

For the weak.

I can only relate it to

The under nourished world

Where unborn artists

Who sculpts such statues

Die of hunger

In their childhood.

Bittersweet Symphony

The evening falls,

I hear your departure.

Preaching sermons

Make me weak,

I keep chanting for your presence,

The faded photograph smiles

At my darkness.

One thin touch of remembrance

Can cure the amnesiac memory,

In love’s bittersweet symphony.

Stars sing,

The moon lays its opera.

The universe is a spiritual dot,

My mask is your honesty,

Nothing is hidden among us.

We share dreams

And the world kisses your feet.

I surrender to your footsteps

And I knock down my gate

Of unmoving walls.

Imagination spills

And lightens up the night sky.

I have created a beloved

In my poetry.

Updated Bio: Sushant Thapa has published Nine books of English poetry, namely: The Poetic Burden and Other Poems (Authorspress, New Delhi, 2020), Abstraction and Other Poems (Impspired, UK, 2021), Minutes of Merit (Haoajan, Kolkata, 2021), Love’s Cradle (World Inkers Printing and Publishing, New York, USA and Senegal, Africa, 2023), Spontaneity: A New Name of Rhyme (Ambar Publication House, New Delhi, 2023), Chorus of Simplicity and Other New Poems (Ukiyoto Publishing, 2024), Finding My Soul in Kathmandu (Ukiyoto Publishing, 2024), The Walking Rebel Micropoems and Poems (Transcendent Zero Press, Houston, Texas, USA) and My Grandfather Had Been a Cowboy (Ukiyoto Publishing, 2025). He has also published a collection of flash fiction and short stories titled “The One Rupee Taker and Other Stories from Nepal” published in 2024 by Ukiyoto Publishing. Sushant has translated a book of poems by Nepalese Poet Kamal Dhungana entitled “Dark Shadows”. It was published by Authorspress, New Delhi, India in 2022. He is an English lecturer in Biratnagar, Nepal.