Amor Vacui: Poems

By T.A. Tomax

T.A. Tomax , the author of the novella "Wrestling the Ally", chronicles the journey of a soul to the outer limits of passion and out of the ashes of absence and despair into the clear light of the love of life in all its particulars: this tree, this dragonfly, this rock, this afternoon walk, and yes, this grief and this joy. It is simply breathtaking to follow Tomax from the starkness of erotic obsession to the wonders of a deeply textured world of light and shadow, leaf and stone; from finding the world in the beloved to finding the beloved in the world itself: splendid, fragrant, sensual, full of sound and form and color, utterly solid and utterly itself. And yet, Tomax transcends the natural world by a deeply felt seriousness and simplicity of tone that ultimately transforms evocation into invocation and worship. Amor Vacui, indeed.

• Language: English
• Publisher: AuthorHouse
• Release date: Jul 9, 2013
• ISBN: 9781481762519

T.A. Tomax

T.A. Tomax, the author of the novella Wrestling the Ally, chronicles here the journey of a soul to the outer limits of passion – and out of the ashes of absence and despair into the clear light of the love of life in all its particulars: this tree, this dragonfly, this rock, this afternoon walk, and yes, this grief and this joy. It is simply breathtaking to follow Tomax from the starkness of erotic obsession to the wonders of a deeply textured world of light and shadow, leaf and stone; from finding the world in the beloved to finding the beloved in the world itself: splendid, fragrant, sensual, full of sound and form and color, utterly solid and utterly itself. And yet, Tomax transcends the natural world by a deeply felt seriousness and simplicity of tone that ultimately transforms evocation into invocation and worship. Amor Vacui, indeed.

Book preview

Contents

Part I       Speaking the Body

The Gesture of Hope: Telling Stories

Coming Untethered

Speaking

About Me

Tired

Words into Flesh

Suddenly I Am So Happy

Opening

What I Want

Prometheus, or: The Requirement of Pain

On Your 55th Birthday

Night Creatures

The World, Taken

Lullaby

Waiting

Warten

Was Uns Geschieht

Sagen, Sagen

Coda

Part II       Bardo

Fear

Tides

This Body

Your Creature

Prometheus Revisited

Wie Das Ist Fuer Mich

How It Is That You Are Where I Am

Seltsam

To Be Your Torch

The Concept of January

The Concept of You, on the Other Hand…

New Years Eve and Day

Part III       Quietus

Going to Bed

What Now?

Shipwreck

Burning

Absence

Upon Waking

About Pain

Beautiful Mess

Something You Won’t Want to Hear

The Blessing of Horses

What Suffices

Hiking at Night in the Mountains

How I Use You

This Morning

Saturday Morning

Maybe Not

The Horse He Was

Little Horse Lost

Dreaming of You

Sunday

Sliding Down

Visions of that Room

The Blade You Are

Waiting

Friday Evening

Another Tuesday Not Showing Up in Your Office

Sunday Morning 12:21 AM: The Smell of Rain

In the Bookstore

I Don’t Know Where to Go

I Wish I Could Stop

Another Storm Coming

A Sunny Day

A Tree in Late April

After the Downpour

How Strange

You, Still

Falling Fallow

Untruth

Full Moon

Walking To My Car

Why It’s a Bad Idea To Get in Touch with You

Today Is One of Those Days

My Nights

Here Is What Happens

Kissing You in a Dream

It Is Late

Part IV       The World

At Night

The World

Early Evening, After It Stopped Raining

You Again

What Kind of Animal We Are

Pea Fowl

Suddenly a Sunny Day

The Rest of My Day

Nightfall from My Desk

Pornographic Poem

Hiking at Sunset in the Mountains

Wading the Stream in the Late Afternoon

Another Evening Walk in the Mountains

Momentary Difficulty

What Really is Going on as I am Writing a Poem, or: What is the Deal with Time (and Other Species) Anyway?

Evening Walk

Saturday Hike to the Waterfall

Sunday Hike (Ridge Trail)

Monday in the Canyon

Walking at Dusk

Thinking of You

Standing Under a Very Tall Pine Tree at Dusk

Arriving

Meeting a Raven

Where the Ravens Sleep

Strange Weather

Crying in the Lap of a Tree

Evening Walk with a Temperature

Walking After Having Been Sick

Kissing the Tree

Visions of You with Horses

After Standing on the Bridge and Looking Down at the Stream, Crying

A Hike to the Waterfall

When Will This Stop?

What I Am

Where Everyone Sleeps

Same Old Story

On a Very Hot Saturday

What Walking in the Foothills Does for Me

Sudden Understanding

Walking in the City of My Youth

A Day At The Pool

Last Night

By The Pool

Who I Kissed and What I Saw in the Woods

Falling Silent

What Remains of the World

Last Day of July (Afternoon)

Spaeter

Spaeter II

Auf der Burgruine

Wandern mit meiner Freundin

Rain

Nothing to Say

Only One Way

Coming Home to the Canyon

The World This Morning

Early in the Morning

Early Evening

After Twilight

Keeping Still

Forgetting You (It’s Been Almost a Year Now)

A Sky Full of Bats

Night

Nearing Night

Looking on Trees

The Comfort of Trees

These Thoughts of You

I Went into the Canyon Today

During My Lunch Break

Morning in the Canyon

Yesterday Night

Tonight

Who You Cannot Be

Passing By

Sundown

Morning in the Canyon

Seed of the World (After Reading About the Next Planned Lunar Mission in the Paper)

There Is This Moment After Sundown

Giving Up

Standing in the Dry Bed of the Stream

Morning Walk in September in the Canyon, or: Fall Even Here

What Matters

A Small Part of My Day in the Mountains

What I Cannot Have (Because It’s Too Late for Walking)

What Else I Cannot Have

Evening Walk

Leaning Against the Trunk of My Pine Tonight

Where I Belong (Amor Vacui)

Freak of Nature

After Talking to You on the Phone, Saying Nothing

Overcast Evening

In the Morning

High in the Mountains

Yesterday

Bobcat Poem

Swimming at Night

What I Saw (And What I Didn’t See) This Evening

Grace in the Mountains

October Night

Chinese Full Moon

What Better Way to Spend My Day

What I Considered

Remembering Yesterday

Another Day

The Misfortune of Chancing into the Museum During Art Night

This Morning Gray and Still and Wrapped in Clouds

On This Monochrome Day of Business and Clatter

Another Day Without Sun

These Days Are Dull

Getting Tired of It

Walking in the Canyon in the Morning Sun

I Love the Starkness of these Bare White Cliffs

Inspiration Point

I Am Made of Light

Undead

Autumn in the Mountains

Litany

Friday Night Swim in November

Part IV       Shelter

I Keep Thinking…

That I Can Sit Here at My Desk So Calmly (More or Less)

I Have Been Turning This Way and That

I Want You to Know

And This I Know Is True

Your Message on Saturday

Sunday Walk in November (With Picnic)

I Have, Somewhat, Returned

What You Are to Me

Hiking in the Mountains With the Weather Changing

Canyon Trail

Night Falling Fast

The Full Moon

Night Again

Vampire’s Kiss

What I Said

Late Autumn in the Mountains

And There You Are Again

Nothing to Be Done About That

Another Day in the Mountains

A High Wind in the Mountains

Abgesang

Do Not Forget

Worship all you can see, and more will appear.

–Peter Shaffer, Equus

These Pages Are Dedicated To

MLS—who helped create 2 decades worth of fuel

ML—who set it all on fire

BB—who led me out of the conflagration

WBB—who, years later, keeps showing me the reality of water

Introductory Note

These poems, read in the order in which they are presented,

form a narrative whole.

Part I

Speaking the Body

The Gesture of Hope: Telling Stories

Poised lightly on this farthest shore of your life

You speak and you speak

You speak and words like jewels

Spill from your mouth

You take them up and

Weaving language into shining strands

Studded with the dark gems of the unsayable

You fling the dazzling net into a world

You imagine inhabited.

Meanwhile

You keep moving.

If you stopped you might drown in

What rises from

Within.

Coming Untethered

When I was sitting in that room across from you

Suddenly:

Something happened.

I looked out of the window.

Sun slanting down.

I looked at you.

I recognized the feeling and I

Left abruptly.

Then I forgot.

Later, there you were:

You thought yourself in me.

I read your words.

What dangerous ground: as if

I did not always know that words precisely

Will undo me.

So now:

How to stop this upsurge of

Desire?

How not to stop it?

Speaking

It is not your words

It’s that your words fall into me

Calling forth words of my own.

It is not my words

It’s that you take my words

Replying with more.

It’s not that I say it.

It’s that you hear it—

And speak back.

About Me

I must tell you what I know

(However limited this knowing is):

There is little levity in me.

There is only I.

A beast among beasts

Beset by speech.

Tired

I am so tired.

I wish I could just drift on a river

Glinting green and golden in the light

Shadows of leaves dappling the murky waters

And the smell of mud and the sounds of life that is only

Concerned with itself:

Little spiders in the arching foliage above