WHAT I'VE DONE THIS YEAR

The crimson notebook,
thin silver spiral
of metal like tin
curling down its spine,
lays flat on the rectangular
breakfast table
where I sip morning coffee
and create poetry
each dawn from the tangles
and twists of my life
held in the gleaming arms
of these myriad days
and nights of mine.

Its red cover is rumpled
and cracked,
wrinkled color
of fire and blood,
sex and stop signs
encloses multiple pages
fat with poems
of a few scrawny lines
and of almost epic proportion
composed these past
many months
of disciplined
daily writing.

SOUTHWARDS IN SONG

did I say the time we wrote a song together
in the old Chevy driving down to San Francisco?

dad actually grinning at the wheel and I the big boy
riding co-pilot with great maps spread across my happy lap,
the day unfolding like a fan of peacock feathers
through the bug stained windshield,
leaving Portland at 3 or 4 in the morning
because we all were too excited to sleep
and so let's pile in the car and head south
through the dark night and the many miles
into the magical beautiful arching city
and the Golden Gate---

Oh! the Golden Gate, you orange sun
emerging strong and sudden
from bluest sky
over infinite waters!

and our chorus of song belting out
‘California Here We Come’ crossing
the great bridge which seemed to represent
happiness or a kind of freedom not known at home--
and smiles, there were true smiles,
spontaneous,
amongst us then in the packed car.

yes we had these family vacation times
when the screaming and god-awful
tensions of sad desultory songs at home
dissipated for a blessed week
or two at a blessed time
and I looked at him soft
and breathed in my father's
face and being,
a good and safe man
for this while
who loved me and his life,
which was not always the case
back north in the grim rain
and day to day
of worry and wear.

This may tell why I shall always love
the city of steep hills on the bay
with its Chinatown, beatnik bookstores,
Italian coffeehouses and romantic cable cars
pulling us higher and higher
towards a slice of heaven
where ease and joy
and even singing at the table
over pasta and bread with real butter
in the comforting wooden booths
of North Beach prevail
without threat of punishment or shame.

Stare, Weigh

Knowing her
was a slow walk
up a tenement stairwell
in dim light,
patchouli sifting through still air,
beautiful, disturbing graffiti
encrusted everywhere.

Each step arduous, uncertain
if the stone stair will hold
my weight and worry.

Finally, at the top,
breathing hard,
I find her door
a wall
at which I stare
and stare,
bolted tight
from the unseen
inside.

ORANGE BO'

"..but in summer there is everywhere the luminous sprawl of gifts." --Mary Oliver


Sucking the sweetest
juice, scintillating
sugary essence
from the cut
and quartered orange,
I heard these few
but tasty words:

‘be available to yourself’

and I say now
to you who hear
or read these lines---
an orange never was better
nor made me happier
than before this brief phrase
burst forth like the sun
from scented flesh
of a single fruit
whose amazing aroma
lays still and strong
on the calloused tips
of my buzzing
lazy fingers.

Farmer Couple

When the turkey farmers doff mud
soaked galoshes and tiredly push through
the injured screen door’s
strident squeaking,
a plethora of penumbras couldn’t darken
the old kitchen table laden thick
with lumpy green melons
and squishy gizzards
smelling quite bitter,
looking not
much better,
in the failing
dimming
Autumn light.

Old Mr. Hansen called to his missus,
“give me a drink from the frig real fast”.
She rose up quick on her creaky knees,
poured him a tall one from the top metal shelf.
His crooked smile met
the cold beer foam lace
while she re-tied her apron
and denied herself.

This ancient couple had built a life
of ignoring,
solely traversing stone
roads of silence,
working always and only
to tend their damn gobblers.

In this, their final chapter, had begun to falter.
The children they’d sired all moved to town.
Lonely times weighed big now,
cold heavy nights slowly pulled down.
She often dreamt of choking on salt water,
waking up gasping as if to drown.

He knew her not in her true honest ways.
Sixty years of marriage,
many seasons of history,
the birth of four children,
still neither seeing the other
in Autumns’ failing rays.

Breeze Pleases

the morning’s breeze moves these trees
in a mute symphony outside the window
of the soft-lit living room.

these lacey green leaves murmur
and sneeze
while the spirited wind
cavorts and teases
with her tantalizing
namedropping, her surreptitious
eavedropping and hip-hop
hip-hopping from oscillating
branches to awaken and please
brightly feathered bird life
tucked away in little niches
and nooks of concave
where the tenderest heart
can be quietly
at rest.

BODY, I WANT TO HEAR YOU!

Body, I want to hear you
without judgement or flight
into the opiate paste of DISTRACTION
of which there are ten thousand
darting delusional paths,
I do certainly think.

Body, I do not know how
to quiet my spinning mind
for very long
and hence the old sad stories,
worn-out yet potent,
once real as paste,
salty, viscous and white,
smelling of school children's
curious stubby fingers,
stiffen my spirit and separate
me and these cracked suitcases
of thought from you
and your wisdom,
dear old flesh and bone
held together by time's odd habits,
and the basic persistence of biological fact.

Body, may I love you simply today
with an attentive gaze
and focused sense
of fellow feeling
like an easy wind wafting
through dreamy birches
in thick stands
of ivory bark trees
next to the moist
sandy shore
on a cool lake
of welcoming.

As you dear body
converse with me
from cellular depths
of saintly patience
in slanted nuance
or searing noise
of your mysterious needs
about all that is felt
with your beautiful knowing,
your ten fingers blazing
as rainbows of light,
stretched up and out
into a seascape of sky,
I begin to allow
the sweetness of sensing
from down in my marrow
to penetrate this frantic brain
becoming slowly permeable
in its square stubborn envelope.

As an April robin
alights on fresh green grass
to feed from the earth
in Spring's golden warmth,
I, with felt certain respect
and not just
a bit of surprise,
enjoy the delight
of sudden coming to rest
in comforting oneness
without even trying!

A Moment

the sidling up,
an apparent sneak attack
actually,
targeted towards the bright red berry,
one tiny member of the crimson bunch
of little balls attached to the green
and prickly holly tree
situated like a shining sentinel
or rising emerald tower
at the top of our front yard
by one black cat
with the thickest fur
and taut true focus
was a moment
(for some reason or another--
perhaps time’s passage
and this another Christmas
me single as a lone stray creature)
meant to be appreciated,
to be felt in love’s
soft body
as unimportant
and yet still special,
and I guess you could say
in that way
I was there
and saw
one black cat
with the thickest fur
and taut true focus
do his part
one cold December
morning
in the ongoing
unfolding,
the sweet
sad
dewdrop
state
of all
things.

TOASTING PRESENCE

The taste of rich morning coffee,
the soft feel of the bathrobe
cushioning my seat,
my beautiful vibrant paintings
throughout this small home
are emblems of my life
being lived out
in the open
today
right now,
true joys
and minor marvels,
sensuous,
replete.

Not always easy
to toast gratefully,
the moments of our days
with the complete
panoply
of yes and no
and the gray
in-between,
so breathe in deeply
wherever you sit--
taste slowly of your life--
the vague edges
and hidden center,
the underneath
and tongue savored,
the shine of what’s seen,
and know that
this rare gift
of intimacy’s threshold,
gleams here
for you
to mindfully enter,
become love,
thus renewed.

Thrushing the Thrasher

“It seemed good, the clotted darkness that came everyday.” John Ashberry

and what was, or shall we say--- is, so fucking good
about the coagulated black smudge on the teapot thrung
or flung on the peat moss of the Scotsman’s small forested
backyard smidgen of space, I queried the stumbled poet down
on his knees and luck, as we lumbered into the spout of far-fetched
forsaken verse and what is worse, thought we knew what was being said,
within reason, of course….

the pillars of ante-bellum mansions
were all tumbling
while the stomachs of writers
were rumbling
with undigested slivers of night..

cashews like caramel
colored crescents
scattered over the broccoli
and corn,
gave good crunch
and such substance
to Friday's tasteful,
simple meal.

Uncles and Aunts of a Certain Ilk

the apple was almost
avuncular
in its roly-poly
quite specific
roundness,
you, on the other
good hand,
reminded us
of family gatherings
at the spinster
aunt’s in Seattle,
perfumed, slender
and bookish.

the event’s effect
was to be social
without pretense,
and related in fact,
yet disconnected.

they’d gather before dinner
in the drawing room,
snifters of brandy
held aloft and so gingerly,
while cartographies
of worlds once believed in
defined talk of faculty appointments
and politics
as they wondered where
they’d perhaps wrongly chosen.

you’d listen as long as possible
to the drone of this polite-ish drivel,
until backyards and fences
couldn’t hold you---
now romping in the tousled outdoors
beckoned and begged
for your strong boyish vigor,
even rain
couldn’t restrain then
your gleaming.

No, not rain could restrain
then your gleaming.

the pungent fragrant sage
after the storm
subsides.

my hands grip
the steering wheel
so cold,
all the self-control
your sweet memory
now provides.

Mumbled on the Subway

the boys in the band wore blue,
as me and her and you
twirled on the dance floor
and shouted for pasta and wine and what’s more,

and what is more, is more
is more

and I began to sputter right out like flypaper flutters in air,
you didn’t say a thing and drank your coke from a cup
which was visible but not hardly there.

the back became tenser than tense and the rabbits and roosters
sat on their backs on opposite sides of a fence.

where we had a map, we motored and napped,
all the way to Alcatraz Island, yet the city of Francis loomed
like a librarian about to swoon, in the distance of vision
we ended the derision and the girls in newspapers spooned.

It’s dangerous to love, swooshing tires spout,
as they slide across streets rain wet
in daylight’s tangled traffic,
radio announcers broadcast multiple warnings
of caution against opening
one’s pink heart too fast or often,
although these words are garbled in code
heard only by few on the outskirted margins
of the listening multitude.

Even crimson apples gleaming and piled in pyramids
on supermarket aisles shine out,
as acres of fruit stridently shout:
“if your true core of feeling greets the world’s
wildness and woes and steps out of, or sheds,
its cushion of clothes, things unspoken,
unknown shall emerge without question
from the black shadows unseen.

Life and her fellows may buy you outright,
pack you up and tight in a brown grocery sack,
carry you off and away to god knows where-
perhaps a small cottage on a blue misted lake
or an art studio upstairs many months and more miles
from where you began.

And in a sweet daze, bewildered beguiled,
if lucky or blessed,
you may slowly hear music
played by a curly haired child,
and decide to allow what is now here to unfold,
as if there were free choice in love’s ancient story
re-told.

Upon Reading Issa and Gary Snyder

be-bop
hip-hop
dew-drop,

may po-
etry
itself
take refuge
in the dust…..

and still

rain song, plopping swooshing

plop plop plop swoosh swoosh
plop plop
swoosh swoosh
plop plop plop

morning skies empty out
completely
onto earth’s open hand,
wetness everywhere,
we wait,
count drops,
get soaked.

no umbrella can
fortify,
keep dry
in rain such as this
today
under which
we stand.

plop plop swoosh plop
plop plop plop
plop swoosh swoosh
plop swooshhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh


Peter J. Lautz December 17, 2008

Slept Through Enlightenment

The meditation sit
was a worn-out fight
with afternoon fatigue,
in a few mere minutes
the bowed head persevered,
became my plight.

Nodding right off,
I slept,
I dozed,
chin hit chest
more than once.

My neck slipped from
its erect pier
in the sea of consciousness
and began to bob
like a marionette afloat
on a stream of thought
at a Buddhist retreat,
or unmoored satellite
lost in inner space.

Esconced in the moment
and place of here
within power of now
staring right at
your white and bright
computer screen,
you might read my attempt
to write this more or less
accurate account
of a slept-right-through
spiritual unawakening
in the torpid temple,
the clogged cathedral
of my fog-filled brain
and over-tired body
where was undertaken
a not too mindful,
yet well intended,
contemplative orchestration.

Family of Origins

one daughter is a dark wooden table half-hidden in trees, heft of her grain sheening moist with dew;
the other a solitary bird, lover of sky, not catalogued nor seen by ornithologists for years;
the son is a rainbow under snow covered cliffs where young women and men jump and fly,
burst with glee, fulfill dreams of daring.

Snowflakes drift and plop softly
like a half written poem
from infinite blue,
cover the table,
the bird feeder, binoculars
and intricate map
to the mountain pass
where children of all stripes
play music of feeling
and eat furtive sandwiches
cut in diagonal halves.

Their smiles don't lie.
They lay on silken mats,
wear raincoats from Paris,
wait for jolly prelates
and pranksters to sing
of innocence and rain
for weathered old pennies
or quarter glasses of blood-red wine.

The painter mourns his lost children
who may have been traded
for promised adventure
during those pestilent years
of long war and fear.

His art is black and cracked
by persistent thought,
a topography laden
with strokes of thick color
heavy as mineral,
stiff and chilled,
yet resilient,
like a type of steel
used to repopulate
French families
in villages flattened
during forlorn battles
wracked by flaming siege.

Three children stand now together
in an empty pool.
It's noon under sun
and they rest
in quiet.
Each is a flower
a force
come full circle,
a thin reed waiting
to birth its own sound
composed for a father
adorned in rags
not of his making.

Sky Riders

A Foursome on horseback rode
in blistered torrid heat
along the path of dirt
bisecting a wooden town.

The tall sky was not a friend.

The riders wore broad black hats
shrouding heads of hair,
smiles were hidden there
underneath those grim
cold covers
like a far deep night
holding zero stars.

And the tall sky was not a friend.

As I stopped to greet them
near the smithy’s shop,
sky’s silence was cut
right through
by the helicopter’s blasting
buzz.

(A chainsaw sliced a wedding
in trees so green and moist,
where all guests had traveled far
from the Spanish town of Guernica.)

As we flashed like smelting iron
from unconscious reverie,
we SAW the path of dirt,
the hats so dark and glum,
strange riders on four horses
who now knew the sky’s intent.

Hoofs continued
their clop along
in sound surreal
and solitary :
terrible trails of dust and blood
with memory’s awful song
afloat in fiery wind.

No, the tall sky was not a friend.

SIT

"....and the sun poured in like butterscotch....." Joni Mitchell





to watch and slow the torrent of thought
might dissolve the tyrant of ought.

entering the kingdom of now,
we sense sweet bliss of wow
wow wow
wow wow..
wow wow.

in this moment no need
for answers or questions
of how.

to sit open and still,
ever simple, never easy,
joy's road, a trek
taken
often alone --
not for the lazy
nor queasy.

Fruition

a pomegranate can be said
to be somewhat like a Christmas tree.

little seeds tucked tight
inside round red fruit
are gifts wrapped gaily,
stacked tall together
under a decorated fir,

each in their respective ways
represent life new so sweet,
a bright true dream,
arms outreached
beyond the enclosed self--
where tingling taste
and unwrapped surprise
may open all
to their hopeful
and cozy
child's heart
gleam.

Sunday in the Park

It’s early, yet the day’s in pieces.
Night came fast,
sucked light from the flowers
in the big park.
The green is gone for now.

These long sidewalks are straight
as Kansas in August,
seem to spell out
ancestors’ forgotten names
in Swedish and Croatian.

As the slivered moon emerges from its lair,
I can’t stop thinking of her
and her thick brown hair.
Even gas stations won’t take
this pocket of counterfeit coins
under acres of neon glare.

Parking the tired car
with its empty tank of fuel
on a silent side street,
I re-tie my shoe laces
and set out into the dark.

Rain descends
like holy water
from the black
infinite
sky.

HOW HIBERNATION WORKS

First, there's the faintest
shimmer inside
translucent rays
of gauzy moonbeams,
as this sky-hearth
of pristine encircling
warmth
sashays us
home,
where delicious images
forged in fire
slumber
and simmer
in cratered kettles.

Then, like clockwork,
tumblers and jugglers
who know
their magic,
slip into sleep,
and in quiescent rest
become fat dark bears,
snuggling in thick drifts of snow,
while the awakened mute,
skin zinged bright
in freshest air,
yelp out loud
coherent thoughts
of beast and man,
archaic,
purposeful,
and kind.

How Hibernation May Work

Shimmer within translucent rays
of gauzy moonbeams
as this sky-hearth
of pristine encircling
warmth
sashays us
towards home,
where images
forged in fire
slumber
and simmer
in cratered kettles.

Tumblers and jugglers sleep
like dark bears
fat, snuggling
in thick snow,
while the awakened
mute yelp
out loud
coherent
animal thoughts,
archaic, purposeful,
and kind.

PREFACE TO PERHAPS

If I can't stop looking with fascination and bodily joy at my 2 new paintings, especially the larger one over the tv set with the black and white commingling aliens just touching lips to forehead in a gesture near tenderness, then perhaps all my obsessing about her and her art, her painting really which from the very beginning delighted and amazed me, and then the loss of her sharp and sudden like a steep unseen cliff where you step stupidly a stride beyond any semblance of a secure edge and freefall for good, forever, down to the scrabble and fragments of geology far far below, then perhaps this craziness is the wind thinning off a desert mirage or the distant ring of fading bells sounded by thirteen nomads riding white horses over shape-shifting dunes of sand and sedge, and then perhaps my absorption in painting last night or the morning before or whenever the fuck it was that I finally pushed past the deep cut of this depression and smeared color with camel hair across an already completed rectangle of canvas has given me something of a return to warm mud and leafsprigs of flowering azaleas and the fragrance of wet Douglas firs and Spring in Oregon, and if I'm real lucky, home.

Yes, the paint and the night in solitude, air saturated with the chemical smell of bitter turpentine helped me feel placed, complete and safe, like home even in the small funky apartment with dirty blinds and poetry books and birthday cards heralding both a new era and our mortality filling 2, no 3, shelves of this one slender packed bookcase. Home.

White Horse

in the unending quest for attention,
a white horse calmly grazes
in lush fields for hours,
all the while knowing
its true food
lies obscured
behind forest
and rock
on the rugged
mountain,
there.

OLD MAN, SATURDAY

He straggles
into the coffeehouse,
one bad leg half limp,
eyes turned down
towards floorboards
and drags strong
on his cigarette~
for friendship
for solace
for nicotine's
trusted zing,
then opens
the screendoor
where black coffee
awaits his
small bird's body,
something to take him
under its wing.

Slowly, morning's
dim eyes
begin to see again,
then sipping to drink,
they flutter,
blink,
engines of soul
fire right up,
surprised ourselves
we hear
his percussive mutter
awakening us
as well as himself
to be here
embodied
together,
and with one
dawning voice,
risk losing
false separation
‘tween us and him,
beneath surface difference
we’re aroused
and enlivened---
somehow united
and peopled---
to feel
and to sing.

Night after Thanksgiving

Sitting still
after multiple
tasty slices
of Luigi's thin
crust pizza ---
ricotta melted
topside ---
from just down the street,
followed by fresh green salad
tossed at home,
with my daughter cozy,
home from college
this first Thanksgiving,
across the small room
from me,
her dad.

She's donned
a lemony yellow
sweatshirt, perched
on the brown chair
circa (around) 1960
from my parents'
disappeared
Russell Road home.

She's half-hidden
under canary bird
cotton hood,
intently texting
new and old friends.
The moment creates
a light of treetops inside
living room sky,
a leafy quiet
seldom heard
in the din
of my often loud,
anxiously
sturdy self.

I desire to raise
my voice in silent
song of gratitude
for daughters and fathers,
friends and lovers,
neighbors and
each and every
denizen of high rise condo
and wooded cabin,
for everyone fat,
comfortable and
pillowed asleep
or partly awake
or today thin
and stranded
in unwanted solitude
on our difficult
abundant earth,
so they and we
may from scalp to sole
be blessed and birthed
for all time golden,
re-created,
shining with gleam
of radiance
durably healed,
thus enduring,
we are completed
and in this dear moment
deemed made whole.

ART

Take thick gobs of paint,
rich and streaming,
a’swirl in hot tongues
of burnished oranges
and browns,
and find a swerve
mere to the eye
where curve and circle
rankle across
long fields of vision
and clear headings
of silence…

And then all shall go down
into hues of autumn
where serrated leaves
mosey on water.

We the artists,
your riders on air,
are pushed and pulled
further along
by curbside waves
where sit and wait
the masculine streets,
difficult,
murky and dank
as old stone cities
and strong white highways
of cold wedded
memory.

Li's Voice

Li-Young-Lee's voice
is like listening
itself,
a small soft bird
alights,
just touches
golden plum
liquid amber leaves
with his feathers.

Honey mellows
and clarifies
the moment
in songs
of sorrow
and such loss.

Parents straddle continents
of feeling and memory
with imperfect courage.

Apple blossoms float
within an eastern breeze,
as the rascal sleep
enters
a small room
where two boys
through an open
window
dream of clouds
and skyscrapers
and hot dog
carts.

Li's First Voice

Li-Young-Lee’s voice
is like listening itself,
a small soft bird alight
just touching
golden plum
liquid amber leaves
with his feathers.

Honey mellows
and clarifies
the moment in songs
of sorrow and loss.

Parents straddle continents
of feeling and memory
with imperfect courage.

Apple blossoms
float within
an eastern breeze,
as the rascal sleep
enters a small room
where two boys through
an open window
dream.

Last Poem of My Sixth Decade

These few lines
comprise
my final poem
of six decades--
these years and months
of plenty and drought--
a plump pillow
composed
before sleep's
fat restful magic
transforms these 59 years
onwards, upwards,
over the hillwards....

I'll go to bed quite soon,
awaken in the same
square room,
yet will know in
these old/young bones,
I'm sixty exuberant
years' old this day,
singing this semi-bright eyed
fresh tune,
woven from
shadows,
fragrant pears,
and notes curving
towards greater silence
on silver morning's
thrice enchanted
floating loom.

Fog bound,
tongue tied
or clear headed,
I'm still me.
A man often
in flux,
non addicted
to spending
big bucks,
I'm mostly true
as can be
to myself,
a smiling weaver
of surprise,
solace and sorrows,
thus, I'm free!

PETER'S BIRTHDAY SONG

Becoming older isn't all bad,
now that I'm 59 plus
a hefty tad,
there are myriad options
I've never had.

Discounted movie tix
tickle me glad,
while the thought of AARP membership
makes me quite sad.
On the other hand,
age spots and all,
senior transit passes
come so cheap now,
it's grand,
this abundance of benefits
is completely rad!

Yet this turning 60 isn't merely fiscal,
other facets matter,
mental, social and spiritual,
as well as the physical..
truth is most days I feel 17
or at most close to 40--
as per my dear daughter
sometimes I act too youthful,
frenetic and kinetic,
and can be embarrassing
in my frisky cavorting.

I've noticed this as I wend my way
through decades and places,
we're on this adventure alone
and together,
touched by all times
and multiple spaces.
As we mysteriously travel,
if we can know ourselves well,
be loved by a few,
love others too,
forgive without forgetting,
let go with a glimmer
of grace
and live with real purpose,
mere aging cannot
our souls unravel.


So thanks for joining me
here at David's tonight.
You help make my lifetime
shine golden bright.
My wish for all of us
is a life richly a'glow
with family and friends,
small acts of pleasure
and kindness
on which the strong
open heart,
vibrant and benign,
may forever depend.

Golden Hill Gleaming (Yes), November 4, 2008

I met two women in line today
at my neighborhood polling place.
Ana from Mexico City shines
when she tells me this
is her first time voting
in America
and she is hopeful,
she is scared,
she worries
that Estados Unidos is losing
its middle class like her beloved
Mexico where the thin sandwich
of wealth and stealth
from the poor
is the main meal.

Yvette from Vietnam,
clarifies that her parents
are Chinese,
she sparkles like moon
on black ocean
and tells us her dream
for our sad lost country
which must drop down
onto its knees
and dissolve the crust of arrogance
within and without
so the cracking world
can breathe easy and slow
with its heart full, vulnerable
and brave once again.

I listen to these strong clear women.
I sip good coffee from my neighborhood coffeehouse.
I am grateful walking forward
in the November morning,
dropping my ballot
through the narrow slot
inside the plebian cardboard box,
my voice resting on all our voices,
as I thank God
for these women,
these fellow citizens,
this dawning of tomorrow’s
sweet fragile possibility.

SHE SAT

She sat soft and round toed
in the meadow of day’s
green and gold,
slightly obscure,
gloaming.

My thoughts were red trains
on curved tracks and bridges
fearless and far off
rambling,
evermore roaming.

The sun peered from earth’s edge
as spirited breeze blew coolly across,
her hair tangled and ready
for an eve of rich,
oh so sweet, loving.

We walked over ground large
spread out between us,
spent sacred from months
of hopeful sad yearnings.

Grasses and insects rejoiced
in the twilight’s glad opening
of sheen,
as joyful utterance completed
and bathed shining clean
this exuberant,
once thought impossible,
scene.

UNDER THE VOLCANO (for Malcolm Lowry)

The choice to sit
in the heat of noontime
under the volcano of love,
as wet beads of fear sweat
slide down your neck
onto the road dusted
with puddles of oil
and orange scent
can be made in a flash
of lightning
or like a slow turpid jaunt
towards a blue lake,
full of glistening fish
and slippery memories
of breath all aswim---
as we hike in bright sun
up to a crater,
where nothing and all
gratefully mingle
amidst the crazed cracking
of noise, fierce fury’s
compassionate rim….

….Slowly it dawns on the leader,
that we all live down and inside
a purplish cacophonous din,
where peace and her sweet
sister beauty are gems hidden
precious as twins.

FRUITLESS 2

I haven’t had fruit in the frig
or lunchbox for days.
Tables at home are covered
with bills, papers and paints
from projects completed,
quite past
yet too present
in gloom's disarray.
Photos on walls tip off center,
appear insolent,
almost drunk
with neglect
or the unseen passing
of time’s several seasons.

If I smoked cigarettes or drank whiskey with lust,
these would be the days of addictive bust,
but I don’t imbibe to any extent,
life without fresh ripened fruit
or pink fat steak
and this generalized mess
is how my loss shows its disguise.

Breathing slow,
deep, opens
the stiff body
to maintain mere balance
of thought.
With hope,
full feeling might
one fine day
(or sweet night)
be back brought
into this life of mine
right now so still
seeming dried out,
a long brown drought
of becoming---
and being distraught.

Fruitless

I haven’t had fruit in the frig
or lunchbox for days.
The tables at home are covered
with bills, papers and paints
from projects completed, quite past
yet too present in disarray.
Photos on walls tip off center,
appear insolent, almost drunk
with neglect
or the unseen passing of time.

If I smoked cigarettes or drank whiskey with lust,
these would be the days of addictive bust,
but I don’t imbibe to any extent,
life without fresh fruit or thick steak
and this generalized mess
is how my loss shows its disguise.

Breathing slow and deep opens me
to maintain mere balance of thought
with hoping full feeling may in time
be back brought
into this life of mine
right now so still,
but distraught.

SOUTH FORTUNA PEAK, SATURDAY

The top of the brown mountain seemed
forever far, until my bones rested
in thanks on a boulder tipped,
and sky on my sweat meant
quiet and sleep
hovering blue and brightly,
edged next to a cliff sharp and steep.

When I awoke from daydream’s
porchfronted pouch,
the gray rock facing me
showed a man’s one-eyed pout,
which soon revived me
like Jesus enlivened
a girl dead
in her parent’s house,
she awakens to his command:
‘talitha kumi’,
‘little girl, wake up!’

Then on the dry ground lay
a black shell of beetle
left empty and brittle,
the crust of the self,
uncovered flesh had slipped away
into new silver light,
these transformed apostles,
numbered twelve.

And I knew in that moment
so pure and precise,
that she is worth
complete sacrifice.
Peace of salted body
and sweet fruit of calmed mind
walked slow and strong down
that great mountain,
where all and nothing
were buried behind.

My Images Come

My images come from where
we are not born as of yet into body.

My toes lift off a wooden floor
as dream particles swim and churn
and wildly simmer to shore.

Washington Square park sits wide open
while Chinese elders swing to silent music,
Tai Chi mystery meditation ensues.

Can two places at once give us hope?
How strong is the desire to be free?

What nonsense brings forth
may be true,
may save us even from rue,
while mere vapid words
never shall reach
our heartcore's deepest
and dearest blue.

Transformation

The Elk majestic
on high green hill
gazes into and beyond
the world of form and fact,
while Snake sheds skin
after skin,
after skin,
earthbound,
silent
and simply
intact.

In The Midst of First Month’s Loss

This bruise is no ruse,
her face a rose
unforgotten,
placed along
a path
in a broad canyon,
out of reach like sixteen
year old friends
eleven hundred gray miles
north of wherever you are,
newly uprooted, alone
in this land worshipping cars,
not in the old neighborhood
anymore, ready for catch
or mischief of moment’s
beckoning call,
as a trusted key
in a lock opens us
for more, even more.

My pink lungs and sore breast
miss you this morning
and in the blue ache
I long for any wrong
to sift down in cool soil,
decomposing in time
to fertilize the sad ground
where gladiolas may grow tall
and bloom oh so gaily —
and then a vase shall appear,
perfect,
proportioned
for your altar
of becoming,
this fragrant beacon
of forgiveness
and joy
beaming forth
its rare bounty
of beauty’s
true colors.

RING OF RESONANCE

inside the small shop of used goods,
on shelves, in cases of consignment
or for pawning,
a woman owner and one customer
besides the two of us—
who buys my old unused
engagement ring, symbol of love lost
years and years ago,
and time who turned around unseen corners
or barely hinted at through fog
of need,
the scripted unlived hopes of family formation,
now the ring is black
and she purchases it for her lover..

.. and where and who is he I ask in silence?..

The darkened ring hides pure gold I know.
The new owner, ignorant of the unseen beauty,
allows me to scrape and bring forth the shine inside,
scraps and flecks of midnight ash fall off
as bright metal shows itself
almost new, hopeful, ready for their
engaged committed life ahead.

And oh, the thought—‘how much my share
of the price she paid?’—
as money takes its prescribed part.

We walk out and down this street,
closing doors behind us.
Steps lighten as a welcoming of new stories
begins, a felt relief, this wholeness,
this ring of closure, an encircling tale
all loss and gain must eventually tell
in life and in dream.

These Things

hope, that thing with feathers,
lay on the asphalt,
baked hot
under Indian Summer sun.

rage, that thing of hellfire
and torn promise,
smoldered within bracken
on highway’s littered edge.

acceptance, that thing of soft
mystery~worn moments,
floated past stretching
fingers’ flailing grasp.

Meeting My Un-Maker

The metal folding chairs were cold that day
which was not dark nor light.

The room held but two of us:
myself and a wild man,
unkempt,
years older than I was then.

We sat across the space between
and stared straight towards wide,
worn clearest eyes.

I feared him, yet was drawn as well
to his power, strength and presence.
His longish hair straggled down
and the beard was of a bum.

Then quickly it began to happen,
fear rose through my skin:
the chilled brown chair on which I sat
began to move towards HIM.

While he sat still, I vibrated left
slowly over open floor.
Aware of others
outside our space
who watch and judge
this mystic movement;
yet, self-consciousness could not efface
the animal attraction between us.

My vision steadied by such transforming force,
his disfigured right arm
hanging down
came of a sudden into view---
‘twas lopped off clean,
well above the wrist
in plain sight for all to see!

My gasping soul jolted
with a thousand volts
in this electric chair
by a mystery man,
hewn of stoic muscle
and silent, blueish hue.

Economic Weather Woes

Lightning sunk orange teeth
clean through earth’s fragile
green epidermis, raising communal
concerns of contagious
bacterial frenzy
uncontained,
fast moving,
and what’s worse,
apathy’s slow wet seep
under the garden hose,
stiff and plastic,
where only rank mud
and scattered tulip petals
persist across
late afternoon’s
waning
light show.

MARCH 8, 1991

I remember the day in Spring
when my mom died.
We so dazed walked outside
into glare’s warm
March sunshine,
the hospital parking lot unreal,
gray pavement
emptied out,
spectral,
surreal.


death, no words define
or detain you now,
I muster the muscle
to march on
somehow,
the body feels dull pain
and absence’ sting--
an invisible wound
pure, unclean.
Fortified by who
knows what--
we step and inch
between
our goals ~ our hope ~
and the massive
unforeseen.

Liminal Life

May the interval we call life
between the secure ground of your being
and the hope-filled sky of your becoming
emanate spaciously abundant blessings.

Sitting Still After A Storm

I stood within
the stormy spray
of Niagra Falls,
where days and days
of chilly,
half--refreshing
mist
did not
my heart
assuage.

The roar of waters
spilling over
a cliff that reached
to heaven~
filled my soul
with passions wild,
intoxication
far beyond
words' well reasoned,
truest
best expressions.

Then before I knew it
upon dry land I sat,
upstate,
upstaged
a bit,
part wet, part dry
and sobered up--
(downside
up
somewhat)
is where I find
I'm at.

RECONCILING FLIGHT

Roll along towards
the great broad bridge,
stand straight, strong
on time's razor
sharp ridge,
go beyond
transcend
dirt floor hut
Croatian lineage,
while two white doves
float soft,
newly born
to soar aloft
over Colima's volcanic
crimson morn
where a white steam
funnel pushes up,
adorns day’s promise
of one’s own
solid parentage.

Earth’s depths exalt
in grand song
and penetrate
infinite sky
with glad sound
and smoke
revealing
your true
unpredicted
marriage to hope,
life’s flow of rest
and flower,
sun and shower,
uncovering forever
this invisible
flying carriage.

WRITING LESSON

Steam rolls off black coffee,
women’s voices rise
from next door,
then wane for a moment
while I wait for my muse,
apparently AWOL for days
or at best lazing
wistfully in a field
of brown summer grass
and fifty year old squat
palm trees sprinkled sparse
like minimalist art
at canyon’s broad bottom,
far beyond reach
of this pen
this paper
this man’s mind.

ORDINARY MAN

I am an ordinary man
with many foibles,
living hidden in fables
fashioned from ancient
forgotten hurt and hope.
I long for love’s soft
white arms, slender
warm around me now.

At times unforeseen,
from no doing or being
in my power,
grace’s tender
sweet touch
enters this space
called me,
somehow.

Sunday’s Journey

Access what brought you here in the first place.
Feel further than father,
go where most mothers cannot,
find your feathers where no one else
placed anything worth flying over.
Sense with all your openings
and THEN the mutual parade of our lives
can wind its way downtown, out
through the empty suburbs with gates
and maids and Tundras all muscled
and obscene,
towards the two trails
leading to the blue-green
waterfall ( perhaps a red barn covered
by a brown shake roof hides over hillsides ahead)
where we fell nude,
were cooled,
enchanted and enticed by grief’s confusion,
surrounded by boulders
of obduracy and fluent moments
within our baptism of tears,
our embodied wet birth, this sad sad end
into liminal spaces beyond
what’s contained in books or words to say
where we are in ALL,
acts of measurement fade,
dissolve in sweet water,
what is here now,
the dare of unknown
calls quiet and clear
over the rocks and stairs:

ascend and descend
ascend and descend

towards another new day
and recondite whispered promise
of night’s mysteries,
dark and golden,
molding and unmolded.

Taurus on the Mediterrranean

Pomegranate soup,
transparent seeds float
in crimson viscous
sweet water
high above the Amalfi
coast.

Birds soar like floating cliff
faces, stretch us awake
in the pungent herbed air
of dear Italia.

These sheets were so cool,
so calm, shimmering our tired
bodies replenished
through the starry night.
White and fresh we stir
and mix together,
languish and linger
slow into love.
Later, coffee and more,
below(often) and above.

In good, easy time
our amazement rises
from this wooden bed,
through the thick unpainted door
we step to emerge,
gazing over the ancient
stone wall the ocean appears, shining
diamond in morning sun.
Today the earth’s birthday
arrives with pomp
and luster, she asks us
in our new language to laze
and lay with her in play.

We roll out into the day,
romp and bluster
like stallions, mares
and colts--
legs high,
eyes wide in smile,
hair flies wild
in grand celebration
of la vida,
each moment a seed
of life beginning,
nourished in sea air
and moist ground,
embryonic,
peaceful,
fine.

PEARL OF THE GARDEN

Hold longing close
in sunshine and fog,
appreciate this absence
of full presence, don’t be
down-bogged.
Wait and watch how
stillness flows
like spring rain
on and on,
when we move with
no effort
to see~smell the rose
once thought past gone.
Stand here silent, strong
at flowerbed’s
welcoming edge,
where Wisdom’s humility
may right a garden
watered with wrongs.
Open and brighten
with glad hearted
fresh afternoon song
the dewdrops
of reborn green
eyes,
diaphanous,
sight fresh,
clear and long….
….See now
translucent
pearl petals
where we shall
surely belong,
hidden quietly
here
deep inside
earth’s oyster
rich loam
all along.

Lost (upon reading 'The Odyssey')

I am
lost.
Night surrounds my empty
solitary footfalls
in midst of amorphous,
tentacled Los Angeles’
skidrow.

Echoes of nowhere
return to tired ears
from brick front warehouses
and inexorably sad
seemingly uninhabited
buildings, stretching
old, departed,
catatonic,
like battle-fatigued soldiers
back from months of mayhem
and monstrous scenes.

Space fades……
fails to comfort
or to orient my steps,
confused I walk on
in gray mist faster,
frenetic almost,
the four directions a puddle
of melt, of inept concept.
My head spins in search
of one definite marker,
a lone touchstone of hope
or friendship
to point me home.

Poetic language lingers
and touches
the tastebuds of time,
then rises in rhythms
of smoke, sound and rhyme
towards sky
and cloud reaching
higher and high,
yet

in
simultaneous
scintillations
of one
essence alive

goes way
way down,
sweet green sea water
seeping into,
right through,
fresh fertile ground.

Why I Do Griefwork

Feet placed flat on wood floor.
Back straight against brown couch.
Fingers hold slender black pen on blank page.

Thoughts of mom extend far beyond me now.
After yesterday’s sudden rainstorm of tears,
images of her return in a circling I can see.
Pictures penetrate my left heart space
where warm feelings solidly sit.

A massage of the core of my being begins,
includes our whole relationship
through time, her sad childhood wrapped
in grief’s shawl and the feisty strength of laughter
shown as well.

This completion is soothing,
forgiving,
fully accepted.

Feet flat on floor,
the room, the day,
my life, open
once more.

STREAMBED

A field of green appears in moment’s expanse.
An animal or two saunters, crosses right past.
It is unknown if a person is present.
There are rolling soft hills and a house in the distance.

Smoke wispy rises from a brown brick chimney.
Thoughts of a woman come into mind.
Descent into love is not often easy.
Cottage windows sparkle clean,
shine bright and clear.

Mooing of cows in early morn
wafts through cool air
like silken music.
The few trees scattered
across hillside's cover
offer solace and shade
for my heart’s tenderness.

Alone in nature, I’m calm
and at peace,
like a stream of blue water,
my life flows easy.
Ongoing stillness
moves me to tears.

With two feet on God’s earth
and gold sun on my face,
a lone river of truth does reappear,
grounded in deep Silence
in one’s soul is seared,
all in time’s shell
surely disappears.

IN

In reverie
it seemed to me,
true art of life
must welcome strife
AND
sweetest peace,
thereby seeing
clearly, kindly
sculpted spacious
heart~mind being.

MARY JO and RENEE, August 3, 2008

Two women stand strong
and soft together
in front of this happy noisy group
of friends and family
to shine their lives complete
like sun and moon replete,
filling up the sky.

Their wedding sparkles,
enlivens all,
this room is lifted high.
They sigh, they cry,
they smile with joy,
as we gratefully feel
pure peace so sweet
of their pledged love
for the duration
of all time.

Morning Moments

Cat fight shrieks sliced,
knifed me from sleep,
then ceased quickly at once,
what’s left, awake, torn silence.

Bath tub’s stopped up,
full of black stuff.
Josh the young plumber
down drain drove snake,

first try, struck out to no avail,
next day, tub sucked dry, open sail,
thank god, hop aboard, liquid bailed!

CAN YOU?

Can you hear at the heart
of our lives
a ROAR incessant
and blue, a tulip
of sound bloomed true,
a Sunday church picnic
of desire, tearing and pulling
apart these edges and views
of life's squandered fires
known as normalcy
by the many asleep
in row after row
of desultory pews?

Partner Dance

The Greek, black of hair,
smooth and clean
of olive colored skin
stands erect and strong
on slabs of rock quite thick,
flat sea cover over the azure Aegean’s
open arms.

On occasion, liquid foam
spurts fast and high,
breaks through a crack
a crooked seam in the grey granite
towards infinity’s sigh.

Our youth is essence of solitude,
single under the blazing blood truth
of orange Mediterranean sun.
He climbs high into cerulean sky
like Icarus or a dark masculine
hawk preparing to die to self’s
confining small story.

In synchrony complete,
across far continents,
Georgia O’Keefe creates
herself as sunflash
and moonflow alone
and whole.
She climbs, cradled in courage,
through striations of colored cliff
stained with women’s story,
sex of slender stamen
penetrating secrets of light and shade
and the music of poetry
in the vast New Mexico landscape.

Female and male dance on earth’s skin
and wrestle as worthy foes,
hearty co-creators
absorbing life’s woes,
opening and closing, making
their days, each eve treasured
seeped seen anew
in love’s all compelling
salted great oceans
and dried painted deserts
of deep human wonder.

THE SUM OF DIM

Some days poems dim,
right brain gated shut,
thoughts limp proper
and prim,
the mind slows down
stands so still,
like birds on a last
fatigued leg
of long migration.

Some days and nights
dreams are vague,
if at all they are,
and waking is silent
and gray
like stepping out
of a rental car,
Ford or Toyota,
(does it really matter?)
in Denny’s
parking lot
in Alaska or Nebraska
on Tuesday
torrid with swelter,
sweat and mindless
chatter
of late August
regret, yes
even trees are sadder.

Yes, some days
are breathed
and sensed
(if at all)
in a daze
of blue smoke
and red haze
where fat greasy
men abide
and speak
of nothing
but markets
and gain,
AGAIN
AND
AGAIN,
interminably
inane.

'The Can't of Three'

A trinity of catalclysms
(albeit unpredicted)
cannot truncate,
delimit
nor create trite
our time true together,
quite tasty and bright,
and admittedly I'll state,
so completely right!

‘Ah, a Wish….Perchance to Doze’

I wish, I thought
to myself quite awake,
unrequited in rest
as a raucous rooster
or long distance
driver of trucks,
on the cliff edge
of an early clear morn,
that I could slumber
and linger in bed
like someone else I do know
(and love I’ll add for truth’s sake).

She, the heretofore unnamed,
lazes and wiles away these seconds,
a tender sweet dumpling a’doze
within cirrus clouds
of soft cozy sheets,
while I instead sip
strong coffee with cream,
sit straight on the couch
and write of calm’s
deep sea
which eludes me,
this precious sweet sleep
I long for so much,
and in this yearning,
do seek.

Bowl of Kindness

Kindness is a bowl
of cherries a’glisten,
short quick brown fingers
pluck round rubies,
kids on a mission.

Kindness is a bowl
whose contours include
war torn Iraq,
an Indian from Peru
who grins at a gringo
in shorts,
her teeth few, far between.

Kindness is a bowl
where burnt morning oatmeal
reminds an absorbed poet on the porch,
multi-tasking ain’t his forte`.

Kindness is a bowl
resplendent and shining,
room enough for sorrow
and splash sounds
of laughter lilting,
where in a smooth pool
clean and cool
at waterfall’s bottom,
schools of bright fish plunge,
leap and soak,
wile away the day,
in love with these curves
and dreams of fine friendship.

Kindness is a bowl
in which weighty fatigue
is gently massaged
by the tired man himself.

Kindness is a bowl
under our earth—
a surround sound of ‘OM’
emanates from depths
offering all birth.

Kindness is a bowl
brimming with poems
underneath ancient maps
pointing us home.

PRISON BREAK

(“Let the lamp affix its beam.
The only emperor is the emperor of ice-cream.” Wallace Stevens)


Three round cartons,
a holy triumvirate
of the richest creamiest dessert
sat tempting taste buds
and silver spoons to riot
tonight at your long table.

When the burly surly guard
took his brief break,
I squeezed between the bars
of the cell which confined me
and with a grin
of newfound freedom
hovering above my chin
ladled three flavors of ice cream
lustily,
repeatedly
onto tipped tongue,
waiting like a glistening dolphin
for nourishment
near shore.

Life’s sweet promise
puddled and saturated
the receptor cells
of lips and lingua
with an almost spiritual purity,
golden childhood glee leapt
and turned like a dervish in trance,
my mouth happy and young,
one with it all.

The man in the stiff
starched tan uniform returns
to the scene,
his sour sad face
and holstered pistol
dominate the moment.
Smiling with sticky chin,
I offer a full fat spoon
of soft vanilla
melting the bad dream.
He doffs his high hat,
loosens a wide black belt
and thankfully
reaches for lost
boyhood again.

No Poem, Poor Coffee

The day before lacked new verse,
for this deficit I’m regretful
of course,
and what is worse,
this morning’s coffee fell short
on a core component,
half-and-half.

Sure, I’ll substitute the powdered stuff,
but the brew’s full flavor
is absent thus, and to some degree
(you ask why this fuss?),
morning is difficult to savor.

BODY OF SPIRIT

I stumble sleepily into wholeheartedness
while jasmine wafts its sultry perfume
on wings of delicate sparrows
and garbage trucks smash their wantonness
through back alleys of the snoozing city
at six am like buffalo on a rampage
or adolescent grizzlies foraging the local dump
for discarded food, or better yet, tourist flesh—
the final photo on the Kodak roll a white
man’s severed hand protruding from the greedy bear’s
oral cavity, crimson fluid drips like melted candle wax
across dense coarse fur of chin and chest.

Oh body, old paint, my amigo my dear dear sojourner
on this gypsy path, can we caravan tonight under a black moon’s
tent with smiling friends and waves of soft music
to lift and tremble us whole again?

Raucous productive truck, fragrant penetrating flower, base
grizzly hunger, wild buffalo power, communal gypsy quest,
the seeds under the flower beds and weeds
under the words---
these comprise a world of continents afloat in sweet sea water
linked by tectonic plates of language patter
and earth’s sinuous curves, hallucinating,
insinuating us towards our Ithacas,
our dimly remembered islands of courage.


Something shifts in my cool bed,
a ship entering shallow harbor,
perhaps?
Feet step gratefully, one by one,
onto attained shore.
Night air now truly tasted,
spinning wind simply savored,
intertwined elements of sky of clan of ground
of true home welcomed and loved
in the chested silent center
of my being.
Transcendence incarnate
again.

Below the arc of shared language
reclines a goddess of languor.
She breathes a shine of gold light,
knows the night like no other.

Fruitful Feasting

Apple, I want to rip into you
with my teeth like knives,
lips curled fangs bared.
I want your juices now
dripping up
my grizzled chin,
murder for hire,
in African rain
sky perspires.


Animals linger and stand
at edges of pond water,
dust everywhere.
I chew you,
each bite crushed
on purpose, tasting
savoring sugary
goodness —
it goes down,
all the way drizzling
down.

Meditation on Mother Death

The morning after the day
my mother died
I awoke in the dark
and stood outside our bedroom
at three o’clock sobbing,
‘She’s not on earth
anymore!’.

No spiritual kool-aid,
no shrunken paradigms
of pie-in-sky
could quench that lostness then,
that squelched thirst deep
in the throat’s torn cave.

GLAD SONG

Glad song rings strong
inside our souls,
greening and burnishing
from edges inward
towards places we’ve
not been,
yet knowing these unseen
presences are great as mountains
and simple as dirt
or a sudden laugh
shoots wet yearnings’
sweet spray
rising,
a shower ever rising
to the stars,
beyond the circling
elliptical planets
of our first giggles,
those early delights
mapping us for good
for life’s travels
and travails
written large
on ancient rolled papyrus
and mother’s imperfect love,
grateful for cartographers
and those far vistas calling,
listening with each sense,
we enter transformed
into great silence!

day we met

Karmic stuff got kicked up
the day we met
inside sheets
of summer rain.
We may have met
for the first time
and yet,
we may have
just met again.

It can’t be solely ascribed
to boy meets girl
as simply straightforward
as that,
when lightning strikes twice
in bright gold swaths,
burnished earth rising
across the sylvan plain.

Keeping the Multi-Purpose Powder Dry

When my good bud Doug
sprinkled Desenex
like an Okie dust storm
under Southwestern
bible belt you straight to hell
if’n you ain’t born again
cloud canopy
and into the blue bowl
full of Aunt Claire’s
seven minute creamy frosting,
I knew the cat was a keeper
not just some slumbering
Rip Van Winkled
lazy ass sleeper.

Juxtaposing confectionery sugar
with athlete’s foot powder,
creative prowess
stirred and mixed with
financial consciousness,
a combination sublime,
finished product
delectable nectar
feeding the gods’
incessant cravings,
fungal remover for the toes,
throat and pink soles,
taste buds made whole,
bake and shake
angel food cake,
sing along strong,
Oh, My My
JELLYROLL!

It Takes Two

The trouble for me
(perhaps you too as well)
with relationships intimate
in scope,
is that future cost can
exceed by factors of four
or more
any profit potential,
which is clearly preferred
by both romantics
and accountants,
of course.

VISITATION

The sky fills with seahorses.
Fathers who mother unborn
to life
float across
our field of vision.

They bring bright joy,
surprise us completely.
I awaken,
happiness
the only word
I know
or can say.

'Not Never on Sundae'

Another Sunday evening,
I’m not yet ready
for bed.
I sit down in a dull brown chair
from my parents’ home,
in the corner of this
small living room.

A caramel sundae dessert,
warm sauce in a bronze puddle
melts three scoops of ice cream.
Afterglow lingers sticky and sweet
on my tongue and my lips
as I think wistfully
of you.

I’m alone in my place,
somewhat content,
when the woman next door
for the first time in years
starts a slow moving moan
then rhythmically erupts
in a juicy wet she-devil roar.

An involuntary voyeur,
I lick sugared lips
and quietly cheer
(in spite of some envy)
‘yes, yes hooray’,
I’m happy for her!

Santa Ana Weather,Torrey Pines Beach

Sun scatters sea-spray.
Salt air sparkles and shines,
flies skyward.
A scintilla
of fine
spindrift
effervesces,
escapes in space.

This luminous day
opens
like glad song
or good food
freely given
to all
who ask.

‘A Mother’s Virtue in an Altared State’

Fatigue, where in hell do you hail from? You pelt and ice down the day, in slow motion uplift, outreach delayed. Were too many hail mary’s pushed down by authority figure others to be parsed then muttered from pure throats tight in former life behind borders of countries not my true home?
Have Catholic guilt and penance unstrung like rosary beads spilled on Titanic’s tipped deck morphed into bulky burlap sacks of sharp rocks bending my back, sapping my verve, draining reserves?

Didn’t I pedal in night’s grim middle, ride fast to the nuns, my red Sears and Roebuck bike down steep Regents Drive? That gray stucco convent scared and stifled me so. Thick cotton wads of contrition, joy’s contaminant, wrapped the boy’s heart on cold dark mornings painted fogbound.
A mass eked out in small muffled space, breath held within, assisting the black sisters apace and the sacrificial priest, regal, nearly aloof from all life.

Pleasing my mom, a convert herself, was not my main aim. She pushed hard like Hera above for her first born son to be an altar boy, to redeem the family with no color in its name. I hopped on the bike against my own will, stung between my pink thighs by the icecicled crossbar. Stood at Portland’s wintry threshold, soul shivering/half-crushed, shrinking into myself with no person there to crawl beseechingly towards.

Nobody saw me so small and afraid, no mirror reflected me altared back to myself, no one dared look except ragged fatigue behind metal bars, ready to suck boy life out through my pores, to feed its desire, to leave me to worry, become undrunk dry, a husk of conformity, a so-called “good” Catholic boy, ordained to never fly too high.

THE CALL

Ithaca beckons me via dream’s call ~
summer’s returning inside green woods,
to her long-fingered lake
and her Buttermilk Falls.
A large white man standing up tall
knows in his bones
and sure strong heart as well,
tells me true words clearly aloud,
Ithaca is where
he can be
at his best.

My ex-wife and I speak of this place
and our time here together
drinking her beauty.
Those decades ago we can still embrace,
tho’ now with separate homes
we’ve travelled far differently.

The fresh sweet spray of Buttermilk Falls
and the hike upstream slipping in water
which coats and flows over smooth glacial rock,
enliven my body, my silver spirit in gladness
as homeward I point towards
dear Ithaca!

Entrance to Their Quandary

let’s close bright eyes
lightly,
invite warm welcome,
remember ourselves
at true best.

walk consciously
down eroded
sandstone hewn steps
into these
canyon/koan
sheerest of cliffs,
they shine red
in the blazing
orange sun,
soft blue
in the quiet
half moon,
and shall never
by us be ig\
norantly missed
nor blindly eclipsed
again.

led by the wind, a river
of air flows above
pungent mesquite
and stony silence of rocks,
perplexed and stymied,
we allow time present
to be what it may,
to hear what it talks.

like entering a trance of bronze
at the door of a monastery
high on a gold hill,
not knowing where or how
we may go next until….
but in the wild English garden
and spiraling labyrinth outside,
the two of us breathing
standing so open and still,
waiting for knowledge of which
grist is best ground
by which of ancient mills.

The question offered
by an old monk
dead for ten years,
“If I stay buried
in this canyon
for ten more,
what shall you each
choose to do with yours’?”

Migratory Animals

From the Irish pub to her bed
we took a quantum leap
quite unled,
while all along the watchtower
astonished poets scouted
unmapped lands fertile and teem\
ing with layers of meaning,
unlike the unsaid words stuck
in my head
writ with invisible ink
by a metaphorical pen.

Amphibian transformation
takes a bold jump
through fear’s fires
and the loss of sweet clarity
for innovation’s bloody birth
on the mattress of relinquishment.

Levels of being, distinct domains
multiple and murky,
are slowly integrated
as one webbed foot
soggy with seawater senses the other
coated with earth’s sacred dirt
like cinnamon sprinkled
on a warm snickerdoodle.

Wondering aloud from watchtower’s heights,
can true leaping transpire
and historic dusty structures
(some perhaps outmoded)
gently exhale, expire
before steps strong can be taken
by complex creatures so shaken
to be reborn recreated
ablazing earthward and higher
in life’s amazing orange fire?

Poets and Crooks

Bi-coastal Kerouac flaked out fast.
Thick wads of greenbacks
changed hands in a flash,
like always some poor freak
paid straight through the nose.

The jewelry joint heist worked like a charm!
I’m sitting in warm sand
one quite content crook,
cool daiquiri in hand
thinking of Jack
and his black rusted out
Pontiac.

The Catholic sacraments bloom
beauty and magic
while the big bad church
has been damn tragic.
Poets and priests,
thieves and healers
which life will you work--
con artist of dark muck
or shining lover-feeler?

from the field

I felt him here today.
Today, this morning actually,
early in bed awake
he arriving home
in the center of my flesh.

Slowly-- paying subtle
particular attention, like now here as well,
what was empty except for dread
became alive with specific form.

Geometry birthing in my belly
a trapezoid persisting,
energy pulsing,
moving from the middle
of the body’s bright field.
A young boy’s life unburied
opening into presence
out of soil’s fertile darkness,
perhaps unearthing now
in morning’s golden song.

The End of Obduracy in the Torrid Quiet

Today, this morning actually, the soaring seahorse
feels more like a fallen rhinoceros.
The savannah in summer is harsh,
heatwaves rise from cracked earth
in hypnotic columns, waves of rigor
and dessication abandon earth’s hold.
Parasitic flocks of onyx colored birds
circle my fat leathery flesh, today.

Those ancient pains from decades hidden
in rock caves and submerged under shallow
pools of oily stagnant water
roam my tired defenseless body
like pygmy warriors on the hunt.
Drumsounds incessantly pound my passive form,
speartips threaten this sinister stillness.

And the sun, oh the African sun!
It, no longer golden, blinds
my slitted opaque eyes
and sears my skin raw and pink.
I cannot live here now,
this I know for sure.

THIS IS KNOWN FOR SURE.

Let me stumble down to the ground
on one wrinkled creaky knee
and slowly breathe my last
into the calming brown dust.

And now, in the time
of true descent,
dozens of purplish hummingbirds
baptize this sad crumpled bulk
with tiny encircling blessings,
incantations of fleeting beauty
vibrate within
the morning’s
torrid quiet.

FLUENT, OBDURATE

Watch the river: it’s a torrent downstream.
A fluency of tongues
penetrates and liquifies
this liminal umbral.
She expands and swells
like a wild pregnant animal
and climbs steep embankments
towards the city above.
Sparrows and herons fly
through the light mist
with wind blue on the wing
they drift up, move away.

In the humid night air
your voice meanders
around
then right through me,
although the day we met
may yet disappear.
Oleander washes the evening
softly awake and fragrant
while distinct, floating voices
distract our six senses.


Crowds of rocks settled
down on the bottom
don’t move easy
under acres of water.
If a flood comes strong and fast
stones may tumble and roll,
our time together
solid but weightless
as a cloud of green feathers
or grain of fools’s gold.

SEAHORSE~ PICNIC

I sit on top of a wooden picnic table
feeling dazzled by blue cerulean sky,
next to this woman, my friend,
who’s a masseuse and a colleague.

Both of our mothers will die from cancer,
hers’ before mine by a couple of years.
Mine with red hair who loved people
and picnics on the banks of Lake Murray,
baskets of apple and blueberry pie,
German potato salad tasting
of vinegar, crisp bacon
and hard boiled egg.

Acres of green lawn spread out before us,
vivid with color and so alive,
the sky and the grass create magic and joy
as seahorses playful
astonish,
swim clear through the air.

This day, this moment
emanate love
as full presence surprises
and nourishes well,
all life’s elements
familiar being
happily here,
becoming themselves
in their particular place.

PARTS OF SPEECH

I've not yet met a preposition
whose fat pert lips
and sultry pout
did not compel me
to plant a wet one
(if grammatically the gesture fit)
over up about for through and down,
as love at first sight in the midst of black night
did paint quite bright the once pale town.

Alone On Uneven Cobblestones

Her eyes may shine, she is Guatemalan, a woman with glasses and a smile. My eyes hurt, weary with blur. Everything moves whichway inside black and smoke on the rise in the plaza. People pour out of the yellow church like cool thickened buttermilk or translucent wasps bound together. I wonder what to make of the happy frenzy here. Funereal in form and parade like in process, the event takes shape in time. Incense perfumes the November afternoon and I stand alone on the uneven cobblestones. I alone on uneven cobblestones.
The cobblestones and droves of brown people plunge forward on pilgrimage with Christ on the cross carried on their strong walnut shelled shoulders. My inclination is to follow wherever, and this is what I do on Thanksgiving’s first Sunday, searching for some thread of gratitude to grasp or hope to grab soon, or if not, perhaps later at least in the throng. At least some grateful thought for later like a small dessert in Paris at night. Egg custard, caramel and cigarettes pervade the restaurant air. Crème brulee brought and served for one. There alone as well.
There alone in Paris as it is in Antigua today. Guatemalan cobblestones contain memories of centuries or more I’m sure. Though stones so uneven won’t remember me whether Paris, Prague or Antigua. Of this I am quite sure. Horns blow bluesy over these stones reminding Paris of Prague. They remind Paris of Prague, pints of beer and the girl in gray beside the fountain with flowers in her hands. She held white flowers in the mist.
The wasps have all flown far, blown by the day’s final breeze while this buttermilk has been drunk and thickness is no more. And what remains on the cobblestones right now is what is left of Christ, as he breathes and heaves his last. Bows his head and dies. His head bows down, expiring.

My Moods

My moods can shift like sweet sea water
or a hot brisk breeze at noontime.

One moment I weep reading an ancestral poem
by Lucille Clifton
as she names her slavery story,
the next I’m brimming overfilled
as hope and fear spill forth,
from this well dug deep, unstill.

I write down these words to register my life
as slowly surely a little more learning
to love the present,
no matter what
no matter what,
makes its place inside me.

THOUGHT PROCESS

This cool quiet breeze kisses
my neck through an open window,
a teasing tender lover
enters with her refreshing
caress. She, a stealth bomber,
showers beauty,
such soft landings,
onto my earth.

Birds chirp \sing-song\ back and forth,
women call out to each
other next door,
and cherries--
why are 2 round
shining red cherries,
a green stem,
and the old backyard
where not enough
occurred,
still necessary,
even now?

True Voice

Li-Young-Lee’s voice
is like listening
itself,
a small soft
bird alight,
just grazes
golden plum
liquid amber
leaves,
feathers aloft.

Autumn
afternoons
clarified
honey,
mellow
and rich,
liquified
silence.

Border Patrol

Eight painted white, pointed
fenceposts stand straight
as stiff sentries,
protect the yard gratefully
from miscreants,
perverts and truants.

Most prostitutes and the destitute
are perfectly exempt however
and might enter whether atheist,
Christian, Buddhist, Shinto or
not part of a private sect.
Yet what they encounter in\
side these gates shall stay
unsaid at present.

MORE TEETH MARKS

My little brother sits smiling
on a curb next to his best friend,
innocent and cute as a soft kitten
or a red kite alight
on a breezy hot afternoon..
Suddenly, he is a wild cat
with killer claws flung,
corncob teeth plunged
into Ricky’s bare abdomen,
this shocking attack a biting response
to a girl named Becky invited inside
their tight corner,
this intimate world of blood brothers.

Warm blood flowed that day
from a boy’s pink belly.
The friendship would not be
the same. Too late to control
his impulse, showing no restraint,
indelible crimson stains
scarred both the bitten
and the biter
in that sad assault.

To this day, when my brother walks
in the room (even if just to greet),
I may flinch and brace
for a potential animal attack.
I remember how the cat might yowl,
shriek, spit and tear innocent flesh.
The desperate bedlam
of violence collapsed
into chaos of flying fur tuft,
acidic fear and oh so lonely
deep abandoned howls
again ensues,
again.

TEETH MARKS

The bite of mitochondria,
hurt repeated past and present,
this multitude of tiny gluttons
in tight formation on parade,
hardly pleasant,
for days and days
and days,
until you and I in short are mute,
dissuaded from that great stone voice
which called out our twisting fates--
eventually sated our emerald choice
with craving for store bought
polished agates,
and now all but jaded this
our once and late good taste.

Celebratory Ditty To Keighty Upon Graduating, June 12,2008

Hats off to Keighty!
Toss them up skyward!
Crack the champagne and
Pull out all stops!
My girl has done it,
She’s definitely tops!
Amazing quite true,
From jazz club to Panama
The end of high school!

Hats off to Keighty!
You’ve done it!
We’re proud!
You’re a graduate today,
You stand out from the crowd!
Four years of hard work,
You’ve climbed up this mountain,
Now rest here, enjoy
Your success’s cool fountain!

Seasonal Suggestive Disorder

Does it
feel
like Fall
to any of you?

Does light
drift down
and float
leaf-like,
sideways?

Do shouts
abound
from school
yard grounds
the first
full day
of class?

Do feelings
fill
your heart
with hope
or longings
far
from still?

Does it
feel
like Fall
to any of you?

Morning,Neighborhood

My neighbor’s front door groans
open, then

their screen door clangs
shut

while a birdcall, an airplane
landing and the wooden

mobile out the kitchen window
form a musical mélange.

Voices of children
soft, below me
in the alley,

make everything
Autumn.

moment

One blue leaf
drips down
the tavern door,
the pink
cheeked girl
bows
her head,
almost
imperceptibly.

MY DINNER WITH PEDRO

A white plate heaped with broccoli
organically grown
giving tasteful nutrition
for our skin and our bones.

Frozen burritos
all curled up with beans,
‘stick to your ribs’ fare,
busting these seams.

An absence of ice cream,
no dessert--oh shucks,
now we’re in trouble,
shit out of luck!

Perhaps all is not lost,
this bowl of red cherries,
tempting tonight,
promises sweet juicy puckers
for after supper delight.

Wallace Shawn, Andre Gregory
theater people yes,
but together they’re not,
latest rumor has it
over dinner they fought.

"THE END OF THE LIFE OF RILEY"

I still grieve my cat Riley. The little feisty fart disappeared more than a year ago and there’s been no trace since then. He was almost nine years’ old at the time. Soon after, I received one phone call from a stranger who had read my sign describing his disappearance on a telephone pole up here in Golden Hill, my neighborhood. This guy’s phone number had a non-local area code, one I didn’t recognize. That seems to be getting more common these days. Sort of an example of globalization I guess. I appreciated his gesture, wherever he was from.
He thought he may have spied the rascal roaming in the thicket outside of the downtown San Diego post office one day. The old one, I’m sure you know it, a fairly big building, interesting architecturally, and across the street from the funky, totally outmoded central library—a library which I find personally embarrassing for such a big city. This is about ten or twelve blocks from the apartment where we lived, so I figured it was possible.
I drove down there with Ola who I’d been dating for a few months’. It’s such an unusual name—Ola, that is. She sat in the car while I looked in the bushes, if I recall. It was nice to have her moral support, but we didn’t have any luck, although there were several homeless people milling about out on the sidewalk who seemed friendly enough.
So ya, I miss him sometimes and this grief is mixed with definite guilt. True confession: I put a big dose of flea killing chemicals on him for the first time a day or two before he never returned home here. Perhaps I overdid it and overdosed him, although I’ll never know for sure what happened to Riley. I have to live with that.
At any rate, it wasn’t working out for the both of us. The place was small and he was very messy with the cat litter and way too aggressive. He bit me hard, scaring the crap out of me in the middle of the night when he would leap on my bed like a maniac, one too many times.

Good-bye dear crazy Riley. I did love you, so did Keighty.
Good-bye.

Morning Musings, Too

Surprise!
Wet streets,
cancelled meeting,
time to write.

Lifted
posture
spells
success.

Most
folks
prefer avoidance.
It’s too
hard
to live
easy
otherwise.


Granted,
these sirens
spell
social
compact—

but so
early,
so
strident?

Morning Musings, One

Rain,
men’s voices
in the alley,
an unusual
day in May.


The pink hand
of a soft girl,
morning
Spring rain
sprinkles San
Diego.


That certain
smell of some
library books---
where has
time
vanished? ....

WHERE DOES TIME
VANISH?

Slowing down
the mind,
something
else
being
sensed,
perhaps far
away so
close.

REUNION

Listen Now!
Listen Now!
Those three muse-keteers,
those holy Trinitarians
sing tonight on the silvery street
in the fine rain
and soft cool air.
We’re riveted right down
to the bone.

Walt, Kerouac, and Lorca stand
together
inside moons of in\
effable speech
and tender kisses,
kindness and wildness
shine from their black eyes,
heat pours from their
strong receiving bodies.

You men of the earth,
men of the city,
men of the dry
Andalusian
plains, Civil War
killing fields
and interstate highway
manic roadtrips,
we honor you,
and are thrice
blessed as our bare
skin tingles
electrically.

You faithful
to the taste
of blood oranges,
sweet melon
and white peaches,
give us this day
your nourishing bread
of shared time, and deep
and deep,
bluest night’s
dearest breath.

June Evening

Although I am sleepy as a wet dove,
there moves within my heart
a cool softness
breezy and awake.

Gentleness pervades
the night, the neighbors
talking, the absences around
me now.

Full of not much
is how and where
i like to begin
this tender
song
of sleep.

Pillow and fresh sheets
await the pleasing
of my body
my mind
my oh so easy
letting
go.

LIMINAL QUESTIONING

Can eyes close tight,
image a treebranch?

Would this treebranch,
if you sight it,
have fruit dangling
from its tip?

Has that tip tucked,
pointed moonwards,
extracted milk
from far planets?

Could that space-place
please us fully,
memory’s itch
satiated suchly?

Why THIS treebranch
shining spacious,
blooming rightly,
coaxing smiles?

Have two persons
unjoined pre-birth,
discovered union,
shared our earth?

How may greenthings
thrusting lifewards,
spill forth newness
thru time’s threshold?

Poetry Reading--Pacific Beach

Tonight I sat at the steep foot of a green mountain for hours,
just blocks from the California ocean,
eight waterfalls crashing and splashing to my left
with seventeen species of forgotten birds chittering and swooping
high above my open head, where once was bony skull now soft pink
membrane buzzing with nano-neurotransmitters, unknown as yet
to scientists or researchers.
This fleshy new mind feeling the cool whispers of pure night air, gathered the necessary reverent detail and wholebodied music of these ten to fifteen poets playing and plying their wheres and whyfors in this large room
here,
here in the high altitude evening of song with me!

Don’t ask me what was happening to my right, don’t do it---
there was nothing there in that direction for these three hours.
And, I was there. We were all present
for the green mountain,
wholeheartedly present, the circling birds,
the poets and their listeners, the fresh water falling
like ripe apples in an ancient
orchard of powerful purifying sound
and redolent smells,
sprouting nourishing
surprising meanings
in the damp sweet soil.
of sainted witchcraft and meandering wordplay felt
as light, its beam focused on life, truth and yes,
I’ll say it now, beauty,
it was a night in honor of beauty!

A night in honor of beauty.

Leapt, Again and Again..

Astonishment leapt
from my heart
as a single firefly lit
the moon
in a dazzling poem
of a moment!

Astonishment leapt
from my heart
as one firefly supped
from the moon
in a dazzling poem
of a moment!

Astonishment leapt
from my heart,
seahorses swam
through the sky
in a dazzling poem
of a moment!

Astonishment leapt
from my heart,
seahorses soar
in the sky
a poem
dazzling the moment

Astonishment leapt
from my heart
in a poem
dazzling
the moment!

DOMINGO, ANTIGUA--GOOD FRIDAY IN NOVIEMBRE

A smiling bespectacled Guatemalan woman
covered in a black shroud holds a picture
of the Christ bearing his cross below her bosom.

She stands with many others floating in clouds
of incense above the cobblestone square
outside La Merced,
this grand old yellow church
at the top of colonial Antigua.

They too are dressed in darkness
in the November afternoon. People gather together
to celebrate or to mourn in this small plaza,
(which is not clear at first, perhaps both)
as Christ crucified is lifted high
on Indian shoulders onto the narrow streets
in a slow moody procession which weaves
through the beautiful sunlit town.

Mournful horns like dozens of milky doves
sound their sorrows as believers suffused
with smoky fragrance carry Christ onwards.
Silent crowds grow thick. Men and women,
the old and young, stand in doorways along
this trail of tears, reverent and watchful.

I, the gringo, well, I am sobbing almost uncontrollably
in my private pilgrimage amongst this throng.
A sudden unplanned trip up the steep slopes of Mt. Calvary
may help to grieve the relationship just dead days ago
in the Mayan village of Jaibalito where perched above vast,
azure, surreal Lago de Atitlan and its three looming green
volcanoes, we died, were not buried,
have not been resurrected.

Orange Rind

A dried scrap of orange rind,
a smidgen of tinfoil stuck to it.
Suddenly, the bright sharp fragrance
of citrus intoxicates and bursts through
this ether, happily invading
the nose, eyes and skin..
I am transfixed again.

Waste is not wasted
when everything is saved
in a prayerful gesture of slow
ease and attentive listening,
like a summer’s day at the shore
complete with books and drinks,
snacks and open senses receiving,
smiling in the splashing clean
afternoon of laughter and waves
and toes squished together
in their own private mischief
buried under the damp sand.

HOT CEREAL

Remembering to add cinnamon to the coffee
today, I am back in time in other mornings
in my mom’s kitchens---
in the eight or so homes we lived in---
on the white stoves are silver saucepans brimming
with hot cereal, brown, bubbling, gradually thickening,
Wheatena or Roman Meal most likely,
my favorites.

Mom wears an apron tied in the back. We’ve a game
where I sneak up and untie the strings while she’s stirring
the pot with the big spoon. Laughing, she seems happy here
making breakfast for her family on chilly November
mornings.

We sit down to big bowls of thick hot mush
and watch the dollops of brown sugar melt,
slowly spreading over a fat island
of coarse grainy wheat afloat
in a pond of pure milk.

The first bite is so sweet, so warm
and calming,
the cereal laced with dark sugar
tastes like molasses,
‘stick to your ribs’ comfort,
satisfaction for the school day ahead.

I know now these full vessels
held food for our hearts as well,
meant to sustain and protect
through the storms
and struggles she
could not prevent
and yet surely would visit
our family and home.

SURPRISE SHOPPERS

Allen Ginsberg, Allen Ginsberg!
What are you doing here
perusing these stacks and stacks
of fax machines, cell phones
and printers?

Have you sold out,
bought stock at Staples?
Or, is the existential emptiness
of shoppers going nowhere ,
credit cards their crack cocaine,
wandering aisles of legal pads,
paper reams and paper clips
at Office Depot more to your liking?

Dear Allen,
don’t you know Walt Whitman,
Kerouac and Lorca,
those three muse-keteers,
are next door at Starbucks
gawking,
checking out that cute
kid with the crew-cut
who foams and serves
your scrumptious
cappucinos?

GOOD TEETH, GOOD NEIGHBORS

I noticed this morning
first thing in the mirror
a tooth has shifted a bit,
like a fenceboard
knocked out of place.

It now protrudes slightly
from its neighbors
thus creating an unevenness,
not unseemly at all,
just a spot
for my tongue
to play indoors.

Change in the Weather Report

Some folks fear storms and brace against weather.
Others can’t wait ‘til big winds blow bad
and rain screams toward earth as everything’s frenzied,
black like a stallion, wild with no rider.

Crack! Crack! Crack!
Golden spear~ bursts
of lightning
shatter,
brighten the scene.

Another Weather Report

Some folks fear storms and brace against weather.
Others can’t wait ‘til big winds blow bad
and rain screams toward earth as everything’s frenzied,
black like a stallion, wild with no rider.
Spear~ bursts of lightning crack open the scene!

Job Description

Bearing reality simply,
sensing my one
inescapable
life,
moment
to
moment
IN THIS BODY,
with all these aches and astonishments,
undone work and regrets,
closings/openings,
hopes, strains
and sweet
impermanent
pleasures,
is the true
task
at hand.

WEATHER REPORT

Some folks fear storms and brace against weather.
Others can’t wait ‘til the big winds blow bad
and rain screams toward earth as everything
goes black and frenzied
like a wild stallion with no rider,
lit up only by spear~ bursts of lightning.

Weeping purifies,
Waterfall tumbling to earth
Washing clean grief’s face!

A SIT

You sit down on the brown couch, bring
in the day as a mosaic of sound.
You write a poem and drink strong coffee,
notice your breath and the mind’s
subtle sway.

The feel of this moment, embodied and clear,
nothing to finish now,
no one to fear.

There’s a sense of yourself, composed
and composing, rich with time’s gift,
free from supposing.
An ephemeral flowing,
a river so blue, this easy sense
of full presence,
which cleanses and cools.

Endurance

I feel these bones and muscles sturdy,
running while rooted
in the cool breeze
and clear mind
of myself.

Earth Day

I am going to live for once among these
enormous roses praying to the moon at midday
and I will smell with all my powers of concentration
their pink and orange edges
while rolling in the dry dirt covered by thorns
and serrated greenish leaves.

I am going to shout god’s four hundred and twenty
names through these warming tears of beauty, burden,
and loss and not stop looking straight into the mirror
until the real rest of quiet overtakes the day.

I am going to remember sitting tall with Blake
on the faded leather stools at the drugstore soda
fountain counter, Redi-Whip in hand, and
aerosol fresh, we once more spoon the thick golden caramel like pure Heaven onto this white girl vanilla ice cream and past our fat greedy pursed lips into our hypnotized mouths, laughing as boyhood lust fulfills itself again.
I will walk or ride to the drugstore every afternoon in a ritual of communion, not worrying whether my bike stays safe on the near side of Prescott Street away from my mother’s fear of troubling traffic.

We will steal his mother’s money straight from her black purse to celebrate and feast forever like rich pimps or thieves on the lam in Baghdad.

LOAFING INTO LOVE

Lazy Moon,
why are you

so ripe
so round

as winter
approaches?

Beautiful black
Moon, is

your whole
being blooming

and beckoning Love?

"DANCE OF LIFE!"

“And You Garcia Lorca, What Were
You Doing Down By the Watermelons?” (Allen Ginsberg)

The young lithe Spaniard thumps
these frutas verde, muy grande,
muy gordita, these pregnant sandias,
like ancient Arabic drums
found in dense dry chapparal
on the Andalusian roadside,
blessed under a virgin’s black moon.

Music imbued with gypsy songs
of our invisible dead, sweeten
these days blazing with joy.
The hot clear air is pungent,
smelling full flavored
thick with saffron and thyme.

Lorca licks his wet lips,
and for one grateful instant
by God’s good grace
every fascist in Spain
takes up a pistol and shoots
himself straight through the head.

The poet and his people dance in the dirt,
rejoice aloud in strong praise
of the life~giving Sun.
They drink wine from the hills
as white blossoms of words,
honey from beehives deep
in the heart beguile
and liquefy the night.

Shiny black seeds spit forth
from the belly of fruit become
the wise, foolish twins holding hands:
MADNESS she grins, BEAUTY he shimmers,
TOGETHER CREATION CONTINUES.

Stepping Towards Transformation

Come, step with me
into the waterfall….

Come. Part this wet curtain.
Breathe in the moistness here.
Feel inside watery molecules.
Fall freely into liquid goodness.

Generously radiate this cool
mist of yourself
into the damp soil
and soft fresh ferns.

Give the enduring firs and alders
deep drink
of your life.

Come….

"News Piece" (Questing for Home)

There was a news piece
on the radio this morning:
about people displaced from
their homes for many
many months now after
the destructive Fall firestorms
in Southern California.

They all possess such heavy disappearances.
Gone are favorite chairs and bedroom doors,
cherished notes from friends or grandmothers,
dressers full of socks and secrets,
smooth well worn banisters,
the reassurance of neighborly connections,
grade school artwork and
cardboard boxes piled with photographs and buttons.
No longer are the easy familiar
smells of cinnamon toast on Monday morning
and roasting chicken on Sunday
redolent in the air of home for them.
They sense the absences of floors feeling just right
beneath the stepping foot,
and have become a kind of nomad floating
in the suburban drift of San Diego.

It can occur sometimes that a person
or whole family loses home due to disaster,
job transfer, gypsy wanderlust,
or necessary migration,
and although may live later
tidily under a tile roof within four
sturdy walls in a house well stocked
with warm beds and blankets, a silver
toaster on granite counters, and a large deep
bathtub, they might wander forever in a subtle grayness,
unplaced and unconsciously forlorn.

Searching,
not quite rooted in the real,
their calloused tired
or soft pink feet
have partly
forgotten
the sacred touch
of the safely known
ground of particular,
pleasurable being.

And so,
may all such persons
who inch along
such a meandering
hard packed path
find in their hidden
mourning and seeking
small havens of time
warm with comfort,
the goodness of place
and true belonging.
May moments of grace’s gaze
leaping between them and a found friend
proffer a new dwelling
for hope, clarity of sweet
waters running strong
from every forest,
and a returning
some where
so welcoming,
as in the center of a circle
of love and memory
or
quiet
human joy.

Sudden Victory

In the middle of our bruising break-up,
me all in a tumult of fear and grief,
in the midst of her small kitchen
in the Guatemalan cottage tucked
back in the jungle above the blue
vast beautiful lake,
I suddenly saw ‘VICTOR’ boldly
printed on the label of the brown
liter beer bottle.

I’d meant for the alcohol to anesthetize
our pain, but when my father’s name leapt
at me across the messy table in my sorrow
and confusion,
I knew in a flash of sobriety
we were through,
completely through,
stale beer in a broken vessel.