Lines from the Other World
"A jewel that glimmers"
"The problem is to see reality as it is," Writes Thich Nhat Hanh
The way it goes—
Scenes from a Marriage
Call and Response
Living on the Fringe
The Untold Want
—for JW
Reading a small anthology of poems
by now dead poets writing lines in tribute
to a then dead poet—and though I’m alive,
I could be next—the now dead reader,
swallowing all the beautiful and puzzling
words that curl into memory like banks
of a wide, slow river with its vines, logs,
and muck—can you hear frogs croaking
under the throb of night, see mist riding
water as it bends toward dawn—a reader
who never reaches the end of the book
to find Jesus weeping, and the town alive
but not understanding the strength of
the desert that surrounds them with a gift.
from a line by Mahmoud Darwish
Gaza, Summer 2025
The child—all quiver and wide-eyed,
wedged between the sweat and groan
of immovable ideologies—may never
find a way beyond body counts or
mounds of rubble, knows nothing
of your politics or your good life
behind safe walls, but does
know what it means to
hunger, to ache
with dread,
to lose
"The problem is to see reality as it is," Writes Thich Nhat Hanh
1
Once, as a boy, looking out the window, wondering if the storm
would reach us—with its ominous swirls of black, with its fierce plan,
its ripping houses to splinters, hurling bricks hundreds of yards away,
voices trapped in closets, in basements, in rubble. It did. With its
anger. Then it was gone.
(1959)
2
In class one summer, studying the Romantics, learning to see the world
they saw—its inhibitions and taboos, its many paths and bewilderments—
trying to concentrate against the construction workers going about their
lives rushing the weekend with cranes and jackhammers—the relentless
noise, stifling us in with an unforgiving heat—I remember the line, finally:
“close your eyes with holy dread”—but suddenly, the professor, frustrated
with Coleridge, workers, our limitations—and forgetting his own—swung
his shillelagh to make a point—glass shattered—the glistening arcs falling
around us—I still see it—across the decades, roads, people, dreams, and
my own shifting life.
(1974)
3
All my years coming to—or hoping for—some shards of knowing—
I watch the rain—the real work it’s doing—much more than I could
understand—the washing, the roots, the life it carries—what it means
to leaves trembling on the dogwoods—but I’m starting to learn
the language of tree.
(2025)
the train begins to pull away slowly,
a cringe from steel on steel until the sound dissolves
The clerk goes back to their art magazine
Faces in the ticket window, money on the counter
The room is full of talk, a wall of white noise
Sidewalk, parking lot, streets, the afternoon rush
The door closes, the careful look, making certain
nothing is missed, the hall is silent,
the candle on the table, unlit
A book is opened, pages down, on the bed
Shoes, shirts, and hangers on the floor
The closet door is ajar
An empty room in the mirror
A dog barks, a can rattles, the highway gives
its distant cough, then nothing
Somewhere in the deep woods
a woodpecker hammers a dead tree
No wind on the field, the grass, still damp, sparkles
A water strider moves backwards
from the bank and path
Trees shimmer on the pond’s surface above
the mountain’s peak, a balance of blue on blue
This night is long and the cul-de-sac’s quiet
Light dances along the wall, curtains flutter,
the tv’s screen is blank, the laptop closed,
the shower stops, the food untouched,
Footsteps clack across a wood floor
The garage door closes, the engine shuts off
The phone never rings
“You and I understand each other. We speak
the same language.” Ingmar Bergman
“This new butterfly”
—determined and frenzied—follows the scent of nectar,
bloom to bloom, on the bush by the porch.
The sheen from last night’s shower lingers.
Trees in the yard dream their shadows, tell their stories.
Songs of the Towhee, Wood Thrush, and Wren remind us
our talk fits. The winds find no fence here.
***
Sometimes we talk—and the knots of living untangle—
sometimes, not talking—and the silence between us swells
as if to burst
Not sure what to say—what not to say—we’ve learned to
read truth in each other’s eyes
Words can hide—but the body never does—saying
everything without saying anything
***
With the music pulsing—smoke rising from the slow burn of a
sandalwood stick—our bodies of need burrow into each other
—as if everything known, desired, or touched were part of the
night’s heat—with its sweat and heavy breathing—lost in
tangles of sheet—our names whispered to the dim light
He drinks coffee—watching
two crows in the trees—reading
his morning Bashō—he wants
to change the world—knowing
it changed yesterday and will
change tomorrow. Chimes play
their tune as curly willows sway.
The woman’s voice beyond
the nandina tells a story of pepper
and salt. This is all he needs.
***
Life is as long as it wants to be. Beauty is this moment,
these streets, this river, the sun dipping into our days.
We walk the cobblestones—hands remembering what
they should do.
Across our afternoon table—music thrumming its warm
melodies behind us—we clink our glasses to tomorrow—
to new worlds—
“and wandering on”
Author’s note: The two quotations that begin and end the poem are by Yosa Buson.
1. The Existentialists and You
for David, for Mary
My college days, always spinning, burned both ends to see—first one
way: soft, easy—then another: hard, ecstatic, with visions—skipping
Chemistry on Tuesday/Thursdays for nine-ball at the Corner Pocket
… slipping away … reading Camus, Kafka, Dickinson to find my
way home. What I needed was one quiet voice talking—so I listened.
2. Questions about Beginnings and Endings, Knowing
and not Knowing, Speaking with a Friend
a haibun
“What if we saw the future first—its contortions and silences—saw
ourselves in an unknown place—that was somehow familiar—and
said, I know him or her or them, I know this world—how could we
know what to change?”
The dew has
only one focus—clinging
to the green of dawn
3. Time Is No Friend
‘Most of them’ ‘need not concern you now’ ‘But wait here,’
‘someone is coming’
Alice Notley, 1945-2025
The poet has died. Her voice was pure motion—one word following
another—without fear, without plan, without concession. One more
voice gone silent in a world of make-believe appetites and surface
entertaining. She isn’t walking now—into forests, across city streets,
through fields. She floats.
I hear footsteps behind me. They’re mine.
4. “Shut your eyes so the heart may become your eye,
and with that vision look upon another world”
after lines by Rumi
We stumble our way into this steady living beside the deep river—
with its slow dreaming—flowing east into the sea where it will be
lost among the scattered stars. We look long into the darkness—
searching for a path. My hand to your shoulder, your hand to
my chest—we keep moving.
“…the normal rules of society don’t apply
to those who live on the fringe”
Tamara de Lempicka
1. Searching
after Atuoportrait (Tamara in a Green Bughatti), 1929,
self-portrait, oil on panel
Every journey—big or small, then or tomorrow—is
about finding beauty, searching for the unattainable,
knowing what is not. There’s nothing else. Never
watch the road. It can’t find your need—and need
is everything you are—all you have. Keep your eyes
on the eyes watching you—then find another way.
2. Possibility
after Before the Storm, 1936, oil on canvas
on cardboard
There’s a certainty—out of favor, unneeded, ignored.
To live long enough is to become forgotten. It takes
a fire in the belly to stand, to sit, say nothing, say
everything, to walk ahead of yourself. All your
strength. The path is there. Move, and the murky
nethers of possibility will swallow you.
3. Unchained
after Andromeda (The Slave), 1929, oil on canvas
I’m the vision trapped in the artist, the paint between bristles,
dabs and strokes of color, life hidden in lines. Creator moving
inside the created. Both worlds. A refugee of desire. There’s an
ache in the bones for letting go, for turning away, turning
toward, touching the unseen, giving voice to the unsaid.
after Untitled (Andromeda: Grand Hôtel de l’Observatoire),
1954, by Joseph Cornell
The monsters are out there—deadly and angry—they’ll come for
me. I can only wait. There is nothing I can do, chained to this rock
by the sea. I cry out, but there’s no one. When night comes, I read
the stars, stretch out my hand to take hold, but they’re too far. I hurt
but can’t reach them. I ache for the life I haven’t known, my love,
my world that should have been. I close my eyes—the only journey
left to me. There’s no rescue here, no forgiveness, no making it right.
There is only this lapping of the sea against stone.
Sam Rasnake’s works have appeared in numerous journals and anthologies including Best Small Fictions, Best of the Web, Southern Poetry Anthology, Bending Genres Anthology, and MiPOesias Companion, and A Cluster of Lights: An Anthology. He’s the author of three chapbooks and four poetry collections—most recently, Like a Thread to Follow (Cyberwit, 2023) and Fallen Leaves (Ballerini Book Press). Follow Sam on Bluesky @samrasnake.bsky.social.
