No Ship Will Ever Take You
Away From Yourself
Sunrise through glazed reeds.
Abyss washed clean by fathoms of mist.
Halfway around the world I wake
under a cover too thin, finish a poem, fill the pen.
Teapot nods its lid.
High crags shine in warm breeze.
Who is this man working through words
to find stance in the journey?
A foot taps up and down under the table.
A sudden gust turns the page.
Empty, it holds spring sunlight.
[from In What Disappears]
~
From the Publisher’s Web site (scroll down to see the listing):
Spanning the years since the 1995 publication of Heartbeat Geography: New & Selected Poems, these poems [in In What Disappears] traverse distant lands, as well as, the continent of the heart. In travels that take him through North America, Southeast Asia, the Himalayas, Viet Nam, India, and Mexico, Brandi engages the world with open eyes, ears, and heart.
John Brandi was born in Los Angeles in 1943. Since 1973, he has been awarded residencies by the state arts councils of Alaska, Arkansas, California, Montana, Nevada, New York and New Mexico to teach in schools, prisons, and homes for the physically and mentally disabled. Author of more than thirty books of poetry, essays and modern American haiku, he has received fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts, the Witter Bynner Foundation, and the Djerassi Foundation. His poems have appeared in numerous magazines and anthologies and have been translated into Spanish and Italian. As a visual artist he has exhibited his paintings and collages worldwide. He lives in El Rito, New Mexico, with his wife Renée Gregorio and is a member of the summer poetry faculty at Idyllwild Arts, California.