CABLE STREET (formerly WITTY PARTITION)

  • ABOUT
    • About Us
  • CONTACT
    • Contact
    • Submissions
  • NEWS
    • News
    • LINKS
  • ISSUE 18: Cable St.
    • Table of Contents
    • A WORD
    • InSight Visitor
    • COLLOQUY >
      • Interview: Nandana Dev Sen
      • Poems: Nabaneeta Dev Sen
      • Read, See, Hear More
    • POETRY >
      • Trish Crapo
      • Kelly Egan
      • Michael Franco
    • TRANSLATION >
      • INTRODUCTION: Babel
      • Translation-and-Tradition
    • DRUMMINGS >
      • Djembe
    • Christina Lago
    • Editors' Pocket Anthology >
      • Our Reflections
    • Insight2 Seasonal
    • Troublemaker
    • MEMOIR-18
    • PORTFOLIO >
      • Nuran Akkaya
    • Ngugi
    • Vintage Amphora
    • ¡VIVA! >
      • Peter Brook
      • A FLOCK
    • SOUNDINGS >
      • Jimi Zhivago
    • REMARKABLE READS >
      • Paul Mugur
      • Brandon Rushton
      • Marcela Sulak
    • COLOPHON
    • Contributors18
  • ISSUE 17
    • Table of Contents
    • A WORD17
    • InSight 1
    • Flash Pocket >
      • Flash fiction intro
      • Susanna Drbal
      • Melanie Bush
      • Matt Gordon
    • POETRY >
      • G. Greene
      • Norman Fischer
      • David Robertson
      • Lisa Bourbeau
    • Essays >
      • THE BARD-
      • LORCA IN CUBA
    • Ad Astra >
      • Beatrix Gates
    • Romanian Pocket >
      • Seven Romanians
    • URBAN LEGENDS >
      • Randolph Petsche
    • CANONIZATION >
      • Steve Cannon
    • Soundings >
      • Cheb Khaled
    • MEMOIR-17
    • PORTFOLIO >
      • Couteau and David
    • Ngugi
    • Vintage InSight
    • REMARKABLE READS >
      • NOSTALGIA
      • ROTURA
      • Tiller of Waters
      • Sentsov
    • SUMMER READS >
      • Ninso John High
      • Rimbaud
      • Kaminsky
    • COLOPHON
    • Contributors17
  • Back Issues
  • EXTRA!
  • ABOUT
    • About Us
  • CONTACT
    • Contact
    • Submissions
  • NEWS
    • News
    • LINKS
  • ISSUE 18: Cable St.
    • Table of Contents
    • A WORD
    • InSight Visitor
    • COLLOQUY >
      • Interview: Nandana Dev Sen
      • Poems: Nabaneeta Dev Sen
      • Read, See, Hear More
    • POETRY >
      • Trish Crapo
      • Kelly Egan
      • Michael Franco
    • TRANSLATION >
      • INTRODUCTION: Babel
      • Translation-and-Tradition
    • DRUMMINGS >
      • Djembe
    • Christina Lago
    • Editors' Pocket Anthology >
      • Our Reflections
    • Insight2 Seasonal
    • Troublemaker
    • MEMOIR-18
    • PORTFOLIO >
      • Nuran Akkaya
    • Ngugi
    • Vintage Amphora
    • ¡VIVA! >
      • Peter Brook
      • A FLOCK
    • SOUNDINGS >
      • Jimi Zhivago
    • REMARKABLE READS >
      • Paul Mugur
      • Brandon Rushton
      • Marcela Sulak
    • COLOPHON
    • Contributors18
  • ISSUE 17
    • Table of Contents
    • A WORD17
    • InSight 1
    • Flash Pocket >
      • Flash fiction intro
      • Susanna Drbal
      • Melanie Bush
      • Matt Gordon
    • POETRY >
      • G. Greene
      • Norman Fischer
      • David Robertson
      • Lisa Bourbeau
    • Essays >
      • THE BARD-
      • LORCA IN CUBA
    • Ad Astra >
      • Beatrix Gates
    • Romanian Pocket >
      • Seven Romanians
    • URBAN LEGENDS >
      • Randolph Petsche
    • CANONIZATION >
      • Steve Cannon
    • Soundings >
      • Cheb Khaled
    • MEMOIR-17
    • PORTFOLIO >
      • Couteau and David
    • Ngugi
    • Vintage InSight
    • REMARKABLE READS >
      • NOSTALGIA
      • ROTURA
      • Tiller of Waters
      • Sentsov
    • SUMMER READS >
      • Ninso John High
      • Rimbaud
      • Kaminsky
    • COLOPHON
    • Contributors17
  • Back Issues
  • EXTRA!

Norman Fischer

Three Poems from Through a Window

1

acacias yellow now
 
          light-painted
 
things to see that are there
 
                                                   before
 
eye through window  —  distant grey
 
               rock’s there
 
               tree trunk’s            there
 
patch of sky blue
 
                                      there, there
 
 
                 T    H    E    R    E
 
 
and her strong voice
 
      laughing, scorning
 
what others may think to do
 
     a deer’s there as they are
 
placid grazing, digesting
 
    they seem peaceful to cohabitate

2

tiny branchtip wavings
 
   pittosporum, eucalyptus
 
       living’s a mantled vehicle
 
fenced with wooden railing
 
    pip pip pip’s heat
 
                 sound
 
 life’s heat, movement
 
   Cloud.  Cover.  But
 
small patches of blue sky
 
    distanceseen that the
 
                eye
 
   sees distance as nor flat
 
        but distancespace
 
       D   I   S   T   A   N   C   E
 
mind’s hand’s writing
 
   lifted over the ground
 
   green & white & blue
 
lit by heavens above
 
          dry leaf floats by
 
    across view of this
 
          narrow & brown
 
  passionate gone
 
leaving this for wonder

3

     Sun!
 
 this further painting
 
maybe things click & hum
 
in mind, whir
 
         like backstage
 
    machinery
 
 brass doorknob guards
 
    this human freedom’s
 
    thought,  passion
 
              hope, hype — ’s likewise
 
   that : eyes hold shape,
 
           color, from bounced dark light
 
               from meaning’s
 
                                feeling’s
 
  memory drops
 
         personal symphonic score
 
 plays this piece

POEM (seed pods)

Seed pods rosebuds
And road beds--
 
One hidden peace
Infuses the city
 
At twilight
And the blinds of the day
 
Lower in the tall buildings
Eyelids flutter
 
People huddle seeking rest
In hope of natural dawn
 
As neverending tales are told
Just as if no tale at all
 
Had ever before been told
In endless tonguetellings
 
Measured breathing
Deep and long
 
Some look up others down
Some across to obstructed
 
Or open views
Sun appears on another
 
Side of the earth newly bright
There’s dark here
 
The steady state of space
Marooned upon itself
 
And alone but for what
Fills it in all directions
 
Viewpoints proliferate
With eyes open and shut
 
Everywhere the seen seen
Amid the general silence
 
The human body’s cynosure
Waits to reveal itself
 
To the beloved
Yet unborn

POEM (swell trains)

Some wafting feathers in a corner of the picture…
Let’s think about religion your
Religion, mine, the non religion
Of the religious in which God
Speaks in thunder to the multitudes
In braided words in rumbles
Suddenly sun lights up a room,
(There is more brightness in deep
Space than was previously reckoned…)
A tree outside, as if it had burst into flames
Reality calling
Out through eye that
Still works to bring skycolor
Into view, ear that
Still affords intimacy of windsong
Such words that took
Thousands of years to arrive — calls out
With particular demands that are not unserious --
You have to live
It must matter
Let those waves out there
(Long period northwest swell trains)
Wash over your head you’re here
Editor's Note: Through a Window, the source of the first three poems, is a book length series.  He is also a Zen monk, and has published a number of books on Buddhism.  Other of  Norman Fischer's books of poetry include, but are not limited to, Selected Poems 1980 -2013  and The Museum of Capitalism.
Picture
Return to Table of Contents