No Regrets #2, Fall 2009

No Regrets Journal

Issue 2 Fall 2009

A journal of poetry, words and images documenting twists and turns of the human condition in the search for love, meaning and community.

No Regrets Journal Website: noregretsjournal.com email: claymedeiros@noregretsjournal.com

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Editor Clayton Medeiros is a poet and collage artist interested in spirituality, love, the human condition and the search for meaning. claymedeiros@noregrets.com Contributors Kim von See grew up in Garland, Texas and escaped to the Pacific Northwest as soon as she could. She lives in downtown Bellingham with several plants.

Neil McKay is a Bellingham poet.

Robert Lashley was a semifinalist for a 2007 Pen/ Rosenthal fellowship. He is trying to be an honest man and a good writer.

Submissions Submissions are by invitation of the editor or contributors.

Copyright October 2009

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Table of Contents Connections Essay

Clayton Medeiros

Your Face

Clayton Medeiros

Unfinished Poem

Neil McKay

Dark Blue

Clayton Medeiros

Whatcom Falls Park Sometime After 10

Robert Lashley

Memories

Clayton Medeiros

Kim von See

Written Out of My Life

Clayton Medeiros

A Heart in My Coffee History

Pictures from a Ken Hutcherson Rally

Robert Lashley

Loves Death

Clayton Medeiros

Hymn to a Basement Hair Salon

Robert Lashley

Loves Butchery

Clayton Medeiros

Tale

Kim von See

Love the Open Wound

Clayton Medeiros

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Oikos Fellowship Church

Kim von See

Poem for Geno

Neil McKay

Why Uncle Moe Still Used the Washerboard (Even After Big Momma Got a Kenmore}

Robert Lashley

All Photographs and Collages

Clayton Medeiros

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Connections At the core of the human condition is the desire to love and be loved, to overcome the distance between us. The religious mystic wishes to become one with god or the universe. The romantic seeks to join with the beloved.

The inevitability of love is our common ground. The limits and possibilities of shared humanity are the foundation from which we understand the world, construct a life in it, establish values, pursue community and fall in love. Our effort to describe who and what we are in the world proceeds from what we believe. For some, rationality is all and only the measured and the measurable count. Logic and science reign. For others, there is a mystical connection to something beyond rationality and the “real world�, a life force or spiritual ground of being that pervades the universe. Others see no guidance in the world, we are alone, adrift and responsible for all we do.

Regardless of belief, love is unavoidable and resists all logical constructs.

Facts are limited to what is asked, answered and measured, but we never can ask and answer all of the possible questions. Reality includes what is measured and measurable, but it also includes everything else, intuition, dream states, visions, chemistry and ineffable emotions. Scientific reality becomes what we chose to document. Our lives are beyond science, beyond facts and beyond rationality. Scientific findings are subject to proof and what constitutes proof is spelled out in the scientific method. Love is not subject to proof.

Myths assist us in understanding reality by transcending finite experience. Myth does not explain or describe experience and experience does not explain or limit the power of myth. We sense mythic or mythopoetic truth as we intuitively react to the power or rightness of a god, goddess or story. Myth simply is. When it seeks proof, it degenerates and becomes a doctrine which requires an

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institution to enforce its rules. The doctrine overwhelms the original truth of the myth. Doctrinaire love is equally bound to fail.

We search for meaning and purpose in life, love and work. Many find answers in religious and spiritual pursuits. Although some rationalists attack faith as not being grounded in reality, it is a waste of time.

Belief simply is. On the other hand, faith can be critiqued. We can tell the difference between an authentic believer and someone acting in bad faith. If we are fortunate, we can also tell the difference between lovers and abusers.

Love is intuitive and chemical. LIke religious belief, it cannot be achieved through rational means. Although love can be mutual and reciprocal, like faith, love does not require anything in return. It simply is. One is smitten. Leszek Kolakowski says, “...There is contained in love...a specific kind of infallibility, of non intellectual certitude, which goes beyond what is accessible to rational trust worthiness....Love does not experience the need to forgive.�

Love cannot be justified. It exists outside the bounds of reason and reasonableness. It has nothing to do with demands or obligations. It must be freely given and freely accepted. Although our unique consciousness forever separates us from the beloved, the act of being in love bonds body and soul and is consummated in making love.

The joy of love is in mutuality, transparency and vulnerability, not in the absorption of one person by the other.

The Hasidic story of a single being in heaven separated on earth has its charms. We search for our other half after leaving paradise. If we live in grace, we reunite in the here and now.

Erotic communion is the ultimate communication between lover and beloved. It is ineffable, inarticulate and requires nothing beyond itself to be complete.

Clayton Medeiros 7

Your Face Among these island windows, Ever changing against the light, There is the curve of your face.

Evening comes across The bay to your eyes, Where I see our love, Shared in stillness.

Blue day darkens, Prepares star bright night, Company for a windy walk, Blowing our words On a journey to Andromeda.

Perhaps lovers there too, Twine their passion like ours, Fill the emptiness between galaxies, A web of embrace Expresses life itself, Generations gifts, one to another.

Now is the time of us, Karmic wonders whorl.

I see the stars In your eyes.

Clayton Medeiros

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Unfinished Poem Every second I paint a picture of you.

I’m painting so fast you can’t even see.

You on your bicycle You in the kitchen You laughing at something I said I can’t stop watching you For fear I will miss the pose That captures the idea of you I’m getting close You touching my elbow You lying on your belly You, eyes closed and smiling Arms extended in a longer stretch than I thought possible These paintings are piling up in my closet I flip through them every day Each painting informs the next pose One pose leads to another idea Two ideas overlap to reveal a third picture Which also must be painted You hiding behind a towel You freckled and soft You so close I can only see your pupils and irises I try to paint your breath, the smell of your neck The heat that emanates from the small of your back.

I’m close.

Neil McKay

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Dark Blue Slow darkness comes Out of the sky’s center, Spreads to the horizon, Until there is only star light.

Evening’s minutes Count toward dream time, Something long ago blue.

Moment to moment In day light mystery, Perhaps a song comes, Melodic and infinite, Fills interstitial space, A dance of black holes Among racing galaxies.

Soft light rises From earth’s edge, Separates night from day Until the last star fades.

Morning’s passing hours, Impatient dog walkers Worried about being late.

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Something graceful comes, Adds French curves, Your favorite color.

Afternoon spreads out Against the day, An exuberant meditation Among closest friends or just you and me.

Wings welcome quiet dark As if sleep needs it, Too fragile for blue.

Stories emerge in passing hours With separate dreams, Shimmering light between us.

Clayton Medeiros

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hatcom Falls Park, Sometime after 10

The cotton willow bends down, then up, then down with the wind then to you as if by providence of the milkweeds

Themselves, they decorate below and around you, ornamenting in packs, clusters. Feathering your hair

and the pearls of your sweat, flying from the confines of file and phylum for the chance to lay there beside you

They testify in your name, my Whatcom Falls Madonna They testify with the water bug, the errant carnation

They steal away to witness you, and the joy of the program How they long to be your living witness

Robert Lashley

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Memories Suitcases in my mind Carefully stored In keyed lockers Like a railroad station With tiled floors Soaring domed ceiling Careful schedules 10:02 arrives 11:07 A lost and found Each suitcase locked Until a key turns Steamy morning coffee Daffodil spring Soft summer day Wind whisked leaves Orion filled sky Suitcases worn Leather corners Creaky hinges Latches snap open Contents once again Come to light I smell the room Where it happened Sunlight across A formica table Screen door breeze Almost June I miss you Once again Clayton Medeiros 16

A Heart In My Coffee There was a heart atop Today’s rainy day mocha Endless varieties Of gray tease the eye Blur the time of day Where darkness might stand Before or after the light Hearts have their own time No diurnal concerns Where lovers are involved Love creeps slowly between friends Leaves us smitten with a glance Sudden chemistry overwhelms Rationality reels Desperately tries to keep up Kindred souls seize the moment Hands recognize each other In the first dance Spirits long separated Tentatively reach out Hope for the true heart Thought never to be As convent walls grew Matched monastic scribbles Notes become chords Chords become melodies Melodies a heart song Clayton Medeiros

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history the men i love are generally tall. they are blonde or dark and drink good beer mostly but will appreciate a pabst when necessary. they are singers, all of them, giving it up on a road trip or lifting hands candidly in church, some of them only in the lone lightbulb of nighttime, unable to sleep. some of them are unable to sleep. for some of them it is always too much and the weight of the sky keeps them awake. a few of them have smoked, or still do. the men i love, their shapes are all over the spectrum. most of them i admit have lived in seattle at some point. all of them were young once, like me. a couple of them still are. the one 18

quote i like to steal the most says, "this town is too small to write poems about one-night stands." the men i love i sometimes am in l ove with. not always but sometimes, drunk or sober, in my room, walking to work, eating dinner. the men i love are men up and down, wearing their coats, peeling oranges, listening to the days change in length.

Kim von See

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Written Out Of My Life Love’s language, continuous, Sappho or Shakespeare, Songs and sonnets For the darkest lady.

I revise old love poems You never read, No new words required, My heart claims no geography In this in-between moment.

All the maps mislabeled, Routes bleed into each other, Creases where cities were, Our Puritan city on the hill, Unconditional love’s compact, Shattered in life’s apostasy.

Too many hidden secrets, Carefully chosen words, Failures of time, meaning.

Linguists believe words Comes as a birth right, Any language can be learned.

The same is true of love, This blank space in us Needs others to write in it, Translate who we are.

In turn, we do the same, Heartfelt, timeless words

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Slowly eaten away With indifferent days, Filled with empty phrases No one understood.

In love, death has dominion, One passes away, The other has loneliness, An unquenched heart, Lost in interstitial space.

I will miss the time of us, Who we once were, As a distant memory, There are no words left to say.

Clayton Medeiros

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Pictures from a Ken Hutcherson Rally

Tell me, child, of your freedom highway.

Tell me of your freedom songs?

bitter is the bread of the word on Antioch. bitter the taste, bitter the kneading. bitter the loaves, far more bitter the feeding.

Where is our freedom highway?

bitter is their song told over in glory told on the times of other ones souls. told on their backs and the backs of their skulls.

Where is our freedom highway?

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bitter is the sound of this new jubilee. stained are their soul claps, stained are their tongues stained to the everlasting, passed over and gone.

Where is our freedom highway?

Where, lord, where are our freedom songs Robert Lashley

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Love’s Death Not a bad way to go, In a certain time, In a certain place.

Carefully chosen friends, A moment When life and death Are the same.

The hum of things, Darkness formed emptiness, The nothing, No one ever there.

Look back to happier times, Familiar music, better things, Love, or at least sex.

The loneliness of One, two or three, Circles always broken, Stay with someone Who, for a long time, Was never there.

All we want to be, The other is.

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When will you sing for me?

I need a song, My innocence Languishes in silence.

Only a song will do, Some disparate back beat, Lost in perfection.

Just one day, The need to be right, No glint of what’s to come, Only the backward glance.

Clayton Medeiros

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Hymn to a Basement Hair Salon

The strands are swift, finely woven tied together in layer and counter layer.

The solution holds by column, section. Tingling the scalp, scalding the skin, evoking tears and cries of agony in the finishing product and process.

In time, the pain of the hot comb subsides.

In time, the long and natty waves will be tethered in row after row.

In time these tears, these layers of sweat will braid and carry you a crown

It's ok, baby, I aint gonna take much longer.

Aint trying to hurt you. Just trying to get it right.

It's ok, baby. Be still. Be still Robert Lashley 26

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Love’s Butchery In the face of love’s butchery Hope lost once again Like childhood never was Fairytales endlessly spin No kiss saves the day For sleeping princesses They dream on Books rot on the shelf Stories are forgotten Tragedy merges comedy A single story line Usurps Greek Myths No end of day fanfare Children lie awake Hope for sleep Just darkest simplicity Constellations in disarray Astrological chaos

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Angels and wizards Discuss time’s passage Forward and back Unsure of their role In the growing silence of useless wands Once upon a time There was the word A sense of purpose Everything carefully named Beginnings and middles There is no end of days A tree grows quietly Prepares the needed cross Clayton Medeiros

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tale we will brag about it as long as people will listen. at least i will—the story of the fish eyeball will never get old. like a young anthony bourdain or a good friend guiding me through a first sexual encounter, she told me, "don't think about it, just put it in your mouth," an audience of well-dressed relatives standing disgusted on the dock around us as we chewed. michael is weird about food that looks like its animal. when he spots the heads and tails we've

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taken home, the plastic bags round with roe... "good l ord." i flashed some teeth at michael as his mouth curled up like a rotting tomato. the thing tasted like fish. like a beating cobra heart will taste, inevitably, like little else than a beating cobra heart. just half an hour earlier we had been stroking the salmon on the floor of the boat, wondering at its silvery weight.

Kim von See

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Love: The Open Wound Leave the wound open The poet said For the sake of love Like the psalmist “As the lily among thorns so is my love…

For lo, the winter is past, and the rain is over and gone; the flowers appear on the earth….

My beloved is mine And I am” hers Sunflowers turning sound A love song to the light Like Gauguin in Tahiti Forever planting seeds Honors Van Gogh One day at his door sunflowers The lotus opens expectantly Seeks the heart’s light Ever hopeful of possibility Against the ravages of loss Petals close in night’s descent Like the phases of the moon Light to dark to light What song can I sing To breach night’s silence Across infernal separation Thrown from heaven like Satan Who loved too much Like the rose I take Beauty and the thorn Clayton Medeiros 32

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oikos fellowship church we walk back to our seats still chewing the body dipped in the blood, the most awkward communion one could ask for. gold leaves turn in their leather covers, we sing between the fabric walls and my dim crush on boring religious music revolves in its chair. this morning someone owns all of skagit valley, all of the western hemisphere. all of new zealand. there is a pot of coffee by the door, and muffins and water. we have been placed in our bodies this morning like ships into bottles.

Kim von See

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Poem for Geno lying on my couch pretending to read Camus Trying to impress the cat who sleeps on my chest oblivious to my pretensions dreaming of taking naps.

Neil McKay

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Why Uncle Moe Still Used The Washboard( Even After Big Momma Got A Kennmore)

It is not the rhythm, but the pattern of it the repetition of motion, sameness in step the self same baptism in ivory soap, evening wash, and metal.

It is a motion intimate in fiber and cleanliness born of hands and birch wood, wood chips and elbow grease.

It is a time and tempo greater than us.

A region toward home held in stick nails and chicken wire.

A bass of a pot that held, in circumference, a land of fateless days.

Robert Lashley

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No Regrets Journal Website: www.noregretsjournal.com email: claymedeiros@noregretsjournal.com

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