Conversing with Stones: The Collected Poems of Neil Baker

By Neil Baker

The poems in this collection comprise a unity of poetic imagination. The connective tissue between them is a union of both time and space. Poetrys aim is to cast light on human experience, and even though several of these poems consist of inanimateness, each poem is still endowed with a familiar spirit, a whispering demon, a meditated plan of action.

• Language: English
• Publisher: AuthorHouse
• Release date: Jun 5, 2013
• ISBN: 9781481713382

Neil Baker

Neil Baker is a novelist, short story writer, poet, artist, and world-renowned psychic. Neil holds a degree in Psychology and has been a psycho-dramatist for a private psychiatric hospital. He has also managed a theater, a candy store, a bookstore, a golf course, an all-night Seven-Eleven, and a motel. He has been a library page, a children's activities director, a senior citizens' activities director, an actor, a gravedigger, a Big Foot tracker, and a professional psychic and medium. Neil is also the co-host of a podcast, "The Neil and Kristin Baker Psychic Hour," and is currently in the process of writing his first non-fiction book with his wife, Kristin Baker. Neil has conducted over 100,000 personal readings and has accomplished this variety of roles while maintaining a somewhat questionable existence within the severe physical contours of the earth.

Book preview

CONVERSING WITH STONES

The Collected Poems of

148396.jpg

NEIL BAKER

Cover Design and Drawing

by Neil Baker

US%26UKLogoB%26Wnew.ai

AuthorHouse™

1663 Liberty Drive

Bloomington, IN 47403

www.authorhouse.com

Phone: [phone]

© 2013 Neil Baker. All rights reserved.

No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted by any means without the written permission of the author.

Published by AuthorHouse 5/20/2013

ISBN: 978-1-4817-1339-9 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-4817-1338-2 (e)

Library of Congress Control Number: 2013902650

Any people depicted in stock imagery provided by Thinkstock are models,

and such images are being used for illustrative purposes only.

Certain stock imagery © Thinkstock.

Because of the dynamic nature of the Internet, any web addresses or links contained in this book may have changed since publication and may no longer be valid. The views expressed in this work are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the publisher, and the publisher hereby disclaims any responsibility for them.

Table of Contents

Introduction

RAW STONES: 1983

HOME LIFE

MY MENTOR

ISOLATION NUMBER ONE

VACATION LITTLE TOWN

THE SILENCE

THE SAINT

DEPARTURE

LADY OF FORTUNE

ABOVE A SPARKLING BAY

SLEEPING UNIVERSE

MODERATE ZONE

VOICES FROM THE DEAD

IN A MACARONI YEAR OF PROCESSED-AMERICAN HOMESPUN CHEESE

LOST SOULS AND SURVIVORS

PERSEPHONE

THIS IS THE DAY

GIRL ON THE SHORE

INSIDE THE CITY

HISTORY’S CLIMB TO THE STARS

AND DEATH SO KINDLY

ON THE FREEWAY

EXTERMINATION

LIVING STONES: 1984

SECOND SOUNDS OF TIME

LATE IN THE CYCLE

FALLEN CHILD

BREAKING APART

TITLES AND CORONATIONS AND OTHER MATTERS OF THE SOUL

INTERIOR LOVE POEM

REJECTED SOULS AND MISTAKES OF GOD

GRASPING THE LEAVES OF MAY

THANATOS

THEME IN VALENTINE

THE INITIATOR

WE MOVE ON

QUARANTINE

IN DARKNESS, ONE STILL CAN SURVIVE

DEATH OF AN ANCIENT GOD

FOR ALL THOSE WHO YEARN TO REST

O.K., I’LL EAT THAT SUIT AND TIE OF YOURS

THE FIRST MISTAKE

TWO DETERMINED ARTISTS

THE EMERGENCE OF THE UNIVERSE

NUCLEAR SENSATION

E.A. APPLEBERRY

RETURN TO XANADU

HUMANITY’S WINGS

BURIAL AT SEA

THE GARDENER’S CRAFT

THE FALL FROM GODS TO KINGS

CHILDREN OF WAR

THIS ANIMAL THAT NOBODY LOVES

TWO TURTLES SITTING ON A SLAB

THE CAR POOL

PRELUDE TO THE GOOD EVENING

ON THE ISLAND OF GUADELOUPE

IN BROWNER PASTURES

THE EDUCATION OF WAIFS

DOGS

EIGHTY IN THE TREES

THE FAME OF THE COLOSSUS

TO THOSE OF US HEARTLESS FOR GOD IN WAR

GAGARIN HAS VANISHED

A SPRING WALK IN THE WINTER RAIN

OLD JEW

THE EXTINCTION

ETERNAL WOMAN REVISITED

THE MOST MYSTICAL STOP TO ATHENS

CREATURE IN RITE OF PASSAGE

BLOODS STAINS ON THE PEBBLED SHORES

RENEWED ON THE WINGS OF DIPTERA

THE DEATH OF ABEL

SHE CALLS HERSELF IN THE TUB

WORLD SOUL

CONVERSING WITH STONES

NOTES AND ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

BELLADONNA

FLEECE

UNEXPECTED GUESTS

PALACE OF THE KINGS

VALLEY OF ROAMING ANIMALS

HOME SWEET LIVING ROOM

A FORM IN LOVE AND SILENCE

ONE ACT PLAYS

IDLE CITIZENS

TO FOR WANT WITHOUT WORDS

X

AND THE MAIDS THAT GRIND, GROWN FEW, ARE IDLE

WONDERLAND

LUPUS AND THE DOG

UNION OF BOTH SEXES

STATUE OF OUR LADY

THE WILD HUNT

ARSENIC AND NO BLOOD

THE ARCHAEOLOGISTS

THE WITCHES HAVE THEIR SPIRITS

DISMEMBERMENT BY THE TITANS

SHE STOPS BY OFTEN

THE DRIVER

DESIGNER IN SEARCH OF BLUE AND WHITE

FARM-ER

AN INVOLUNTARY WINK

AN OPTION TO BUY MORNING IN MID-JULY

PERSPECTIVE IN DISTORTION

KA

THE CASTING OF HANDS

AN IMPRESSIONABLE FIELD TRIP

HOUSE AT NOONDAY

WHO RULES THE ROOST?

STICKY EJACULATION

FATHER IN SEARCH OF REDEMPTION

THE PATH OF PSYCHOTIC SPACE

A MILD THRILLER

SPIDER’S SEX LIFE

VERMIN UNKEPT IN FIELDS BEYOND ARMS

JASPER’S DAYDREAMS AND DREAMS

A PROPHET’S UNQUENCHABLE THIRST or HOW TO STOP LIVING AND LOVE THE SECOND CLUBBING

GIRL LOOKING AT A LANDSCAPE

AN INVITATION TO WANDER

RED CENTER

THE BANANA AND THE COCONUT

SOMEWHERE IN MOMMUR

KING THAT BLEEDS THE MASS

WAVES

WINTER WARMUP TO KILL THE CHILL

FLIGHT OUT OF EGYPT: A DETAIL

OURSELVES

A FINAL LOOK AT A MEAN LIFE WHILE STRANDED IN THE DESERT

AUTUMN LEAVES

THE NORTH-COUNTRY VOICES ON A CHERRY WAY TO END A DISMAL DAY

CLASHING GENERATIONS

BONNIE, CLYDE, AND FREUD

USE ME

GET OUT OF LATE, PETE

A-MER-I-CA

OUTSIDE STANDING IN A PUDDLE

THE BOMBER WILL ALWAYS GET THROUGH

ONE-NOTE NIGHT

IRON MAN PRESERVED

SCENES FROM A FUNERAL

DELIUS

WATER POEM TO A GIRL WHO HATES WATER

FAINT WORDS IN NAILS

LISTENING TO ALLEN GINSBERG WITH A DOG BARKING IN THE BACKGROUND

MAY, THE BOYS CRAWLING INTO MEN

THE SHADOW RESHAPED

NINETY-TWO SUMMERS AGO

FAN MAN

WHISKED TO THE NEXT WORLD BY A THIRD WORLD DOG

LOVERS DOOMED TO DRIFT ALONG WITH ME

RAIN STONES: 1985

A NATION OF THE TWENTIETH CENTURY

GODDESS IN FLESH

MANKIND

BACK TO BASICS

GOD’S RHETORICAL QUESTION

GRANDPA IN NEED OF DARKNESS

MARI ANNE

THE WAY IT ENDS

THE UNAVAILING GARDENERS

ONE-ACT

MYSTERIES AT NIGHT

HOLLYWOOD STUDIO MUSEUM PIECES

UNDERSTANDING OUR ORIGINS

AWARENESS

RICHARD’S INTIMATE JOURNAL

BY FORCE CONTINUUM

REINCARNATION

OUR DETECTIVE

A VERY IMPORTANT POEM ABOUT GOD

IN BETWEEN SOUND

ETERNITY

DUST

HALF MOON OVER THREE FINGERS

RESTLESS FALCONS

AN ATTEMPT TO COMMUNICATE

Z LAST PAGE

RED AND WHITE

STANDING STONES: 1986

AT PLAY IN THE POPE’S BACKYARD

LOOKING INTO LIVING QUARTERS

THE COFFEE MUG

THE MILKPAIL

ABADDON

THE ALARM CLOCK

THE MISSILE

CONICAL STONES: 1987

FUSION

FAMILY AT 3 A.M.

A CLEAN CUT FISHERMAN IN A PSYCHIATRIC HOSPITAL

EVERY PERFECT THING IS THREEFOLD

THE SCIENTIST

MERLIN’S CAPE

GRANDPA MAKES A CALL

GODZILLA TURNS TO CHRIST

TWO ONCE-LOVERS TRYING AGAIN FOR THE FIRST TIME

STANDING ALONE IN THE NORTHERN WOOD

THE MURDER

THE ANOREXIC

SONG FOR THE SABBATH

STATE OF A NORTHERN CITY IN WINTER

LEAVING TO RETURN

CATCHING A GOAT BEFORE BEDTIME

UPSTAIRS BOB

TO THE TIP OF OREGON

HER EYES WERE AS RED AS

ON CASCADE HEAD

THE BOY DROWNS

TOMMIE’S CAT

IN SILENCE

THE VERY LAST MAN IS CONSUMED BY A HUNGRY WOMAN

NIOBE

NINE–KILLER

GYMNOTUS ELECTRICUS

FURTHER SPACE OF TIME

VAMPIRE

TWO FATHERS

HESITATION

THE MESSAGE CARRIERS

DEAD SOLDIERS

THE CRASH

MENHIR: 1999

DEVOTION

ETHEREAL DIGS

ON READING BLAKE

PRECIOUS STONES: 2000

D.

EYES

CUBIC STONES: 2003

BY THE RIVERS OF BABYLON

GRACE OVER SWORDFISH

AMUSING WOMENHOOD

PASSAGE OF THE MAGI TEDIUM

ROLLING THUNDER

MOLY LORE

VESTIGE

THE DOOR OF APPREHENSION

OCTAVIA’S CONVERSION TO A TIRED MOTHER

TWO PAST AND PRESENT GREAT LIGHTS

IN SICKNESS AND IN HEALTH

SEVEN DAY NERVOUS BREAKDOWN

BETHEL: 2004

MAGPIE MANIA

QUAGMIRE

ANTIP’S DESTINATION

MINERVA’S BLOODY BED

ODOR OF SANCTITY

PISTACHIO JACKETS

CHILDHOOD NEGLECT

WAYFARER’S LAY

WESTLAKE WAKING COUNTRY CLUB

MULIEBRAL MALICIOUS

PERPETUITY OF KNOW-HOW

RHAPSODY IN WORDS

DESIGN

CEDAR LANE

THREE POINTS OF VIEW

DUBITATION

SOMETIME FACTOR

THE SCENE: VAPOR

THE SCHOLAR’S ACADEMIC SLIP

FALLEN STONE: 2006

LULLABY

TEMPLE MUSINGS

MAD IS THE TIME PAST

FOOLS CAN WIN

CLOSURE

SOLO

CHORUS

About The Author

I would like to thank Kristin Anne for her assistance in typing/editing Conversing with Stones, and also dedicate this book to her.

Introduction

The poems in this collection comprise a unity of poetic imagination. The connective tissue between them is a union of both time and space. Poetry’s aim is to cast light on human experience, and even though several of these poems consist of inanimateness, each poem is still endowed with a familiar spirit, a whispering demon, a meditated plan of action. In all of my years as a Professor of English Criticism, I have rarely encountered such harmony and grateful appreciation of the written word. Approaching a poem demands a certain discipline on the part of the reader. Language is structured, metered, and the application of metaphor must fit the precise structural format of the poem itself. Hardly can poetry be approached in a casual manner. It requires both a trained mind and a trained eye to fully comprehend and appreciate the full meaning of a poem’s grasp. The following poems in this collection have haunted my hours of solitude and have reminded me that my occupation as a serious interpreter of poetry is far from extinction.

The origins of these poems seem to well from the sort of place that beckons to curious minds and prying eyes. Whether the mood consists of wistful regret or cunning tenderness, they all exhibit a sincere coloring of continual vibration that acquires some force of consequence, as each poem unfolds to an often biting conclusion. Although I suspect that a fair number of these poems are a product of experience, I also surmise that a measurable number of them are veiled in a region of sheer ‘unreality’. I invite the reader to venture forth and, in affectionate silence, ‘Converse With Stones’.

Eliash Machbenah, PhD

Professor of English, Criticism and Interpretive Theory

University Of Thalia

RAW STONES:

1983

HOME LIFE

We are living within the shell

of a house.

Dead. Dead.

We are alone

though we exist in sleep.

We are alone.

Though we speak

over cups of cold coffee

We are alone.

We are alone.

Though we’ve spent a lifetime

and a half between sheets

of sweat and passion

We are alone.

Though we’ve split the bills

four ways and supported

one another’s bad habits,

We are alone.

Life. Life.

It’s intangible.

We are alone.

If we dare touch pain …

If we can touch pain …

We are alone.

Life. Life.

It is intangible.

We are alone.

1983, Lincoln City, Oregon

MY MENTOR

I always find myself back at home

after having traveled thirty-thousand miles

to freedom

and never arriving at my destination.

I always find myself back at home,

destitute, shamed, and embarrassed.

After having touched the pearls of my mentor’s

necklace,

who soothed me with lies that sounded

sweet and melodious at the time,

and coaxed me with fingers that led us

into dark and sticky corners hiding

bleached sheets that smelled

like carnal colors dangling on the line,

I always find myself …

Delilah with bumble bee eyes buzzing

in cups of cunning mercury.

Oh, I must say that in the end I

always find myself back at home.

Always, always a chained, changed

specter, a thousand and one directions

away from what I could have been

if my mentor had been true and honest.

1983, Lincoln City, Oregon

ISOLATION NUMBER ONE

You straighten up your place

as though kings were coming to dine.

You polish the glossy surfaces of

your post cards that are

hanging like convicted murderers

on the walls.

You don’t say a word but you

move like a bus behind schedule,

sucking like a leech on the

generic cigarettes you can barely afford,

but the government keeps you alive.

You wash a dish defaced with

macaroni sauce and you

rearrange the single room of your life

pushing a couch that’s losing

its guts against another wall

as if it really makes any

difference at all;

you don’t even hear the kings knocking

on your door.

1983, Lincoln City, Oregon

VACATION LITTLE TOWN

I used to know you

in a bitter sweet time of my past.

You sat hunched-style

on the second rotting step of your

front porch —

eating mosquitoes and butter,

praising the holiest of holies

with holly in your hand

and a needle three feet long

sticking out of your rib.

You told me God was on page twenty-seven

of your psych book,

and I told you I was looking for some chick

in New York City, holding a white

bitch on a muddy leash,

pointing her thumb somewhere

toward a Pacific Northwest

breakdown.

1983, Lincoln City, Orgeon

THE SILENCE

It was not a blinking of

an eye

that startled us from sleep.

Not a mumbled response

suggesting tranquility.

It was not a word, nor a movement,

nor a rapid, lustful beating of

a heart.

It was not a boom,

nor a clangor,

that woke us mad out of

slumber.

Nor a voice nor a grinding

of metal in the earth.

It was not a sad, forlorn call

of geese,

nor a sweet, melodious chant from

a temple.

It was not a restless suburb

at dawn,

nor a hissing of sprinklers

at dusk

that tore us crazy from

our beds.

It was the Silence.

Oh the Lifeless, interminable Silence

of the universe

that woke us all,

forever.

1983, Lincoln City, Oregon

THE SAINT

With seven children following me

I crept through forest-green splashed hallways,

taking care not to place my fingers on the wet

paint of early experience.

With seven children trailing behind me

like wet ducklings in hot pursuit,

I tread softly through certain darkened, deserted

corridors, trying not to offset the uneasy balance

of raw emotions behind me.

In tiny rooms of misguided intent,

I stalled and waited for answers that never came.

Oh, do I ask,

Oh, do I dare ask,

"What has happened?

What is wrong?"

Or let it rest and words be gone?

Seven matching skins scarred by walls breathing

fire and lashing serpents’ tails, wrapped around

thoughts concealed in shadows. In Liquid,

deep and dark.

And indeed, I, their Appointed Guide, should lead

them into brighter lights and warmer rooms,

not horrible, unreal figments of the mind,

inflicting pain.

But it must be real …

Seven children couldn’t be wrong

singing the same song,

the same tune.

Now they follow me every which way I go.

Do I elude them?

Should I dare?

Do I play the game of Hide-and-Seek and vanish

from eyes veiled forever?

Or do I face the toys, the tea and the cups, and

lick the moistened hair?

In chambers of certain and insidious doubt,

I wait and wait with care.

And wonder at the chatter of children, knelt

on knees in prayer.

I am no prophet, no teacher, no guide, no seer.

My head bears no crown

though I have wept and fasted and shared the

pain of Ice and Fire, and have consumed

artichokes on stale, brittle cookies.

And I have put big problems into small boxes

and flushed them to the sea.

But I have never changed a life in toil,

nor raised a loved one from the dead.

And yet seven children follow me

years past; I should have fled.

1983, Lincoln City, Oregon

DEPARTURE

At the end of the month,

October-cold,

Fall of dime store monsters and

gold-glitter goddesses,

I will quietly slip away.

In a late, dark muggy hour of the night

between heaven and hell,

I will ride over

empty bags

cracked leaves

and moon drunk moths

drowning in pools of rain and mist.

It all will haunt me.

I will roll the window down halfway

and witness the approach of winter

in the trees, and swerve to avoid

a neighborhood dog scratching misery

from its fur.

I will know the dog.

My friend will be asleep,

no doubt,

in oily blackness

or she will be

rocking

muttering

swearing

in flickering Fall candle light.

She will curse me.

In another October

my childhood love, my wife

my right-handed Queen

will be suffocating in a disemboweled room,

dried up

on the floor like a victim of the Holocaust.

In her final hours she will kill me.

Thank God I am in the present,

still intact,

but anticipation beats at my heart like a

Jehovah’s Witness at the front door.

I will answer the door.

‘Til death do us part, the priest said.

So death it must be.

But resurrections are promised us

in words

with acceptances made.

I will accept.

And in a vision beyond October my

God will come, fling open His arms

and hold me among the elect.

1983, Lincoln City, Oregon

LADY OF FORTUNE

She had eyes the color of men leaping,

women weeping.

Her smile was like a glacial thaw.

In bed she’d recite cryptic rhymes

and stroke you with her one

great claw.

Her breath was cold as coffee-stand,

skid-row corner salvation bands.

Her intellect, engorged with glue, would

spew out word’s that’d stick

to you.

She plunged into the hearts

of men,

clogged their valves and deadened

their beats,

then wormed her way down East River lanes

and poisoned all Fifth Avenue.

1983, Lincoln City, Oregon

ABOVE A SPARKLING BAY

Horror gripped her head

atop a bridge

overlooking

tiny boats in a sparkling bay.

Terror sliced her soul, though

she wouldn’t be specific.

She screamed without

uttering a sound

in the quiet dreamy heat

of a perfect summer day.

Her blouse was buttoned,

her hair was flowing,

her skin was smooth

as glass

but for a bead of sweat

clinging desperately to the

tip of her chin.

Softly gliding in the hot

afternoon, seagulls

dreamed in the air on their

wings, but

she paid them no mind.

She screamed and screamed

and screamed again

though not a sound escaped

her lips, and

again she screamed, and

again and again,

and every one and everyone

around her wondered at

her soul, atop

a bridge overlooking

pretty boats

in a sparkling bay.

1983, Lincoln City, Oregon

SLEEPING UNIVERSE

You ripped yourself from having to say

goodbye.

You took the easy exit and journeyed

a hundred

miles on a crowded bus, and spent the

night in

a dead-end room crawling with bugs. You

said yes,

and committed yourself solely to

avoid

the pain of my departure. You said

yes, and

confessed to voices swimming in your

head and

babies drowning in your ears. You said

yes, to

poking needles in your arms and shiny-

eyed tablets

dissolving on your tongue. You said yes,

to doctors

and nurses who kept their distance with

rules and

regulations and forms to fill out. You

said yes

to seclusion and diagrams and

prescriptions

for the brain, psychotic fevers

bubbling

from your lips. You said