"Istanbul Beckons"

"Fabric Awaits"

"Venus Up a Tree"

"A Grand Twirling" -- New Painting

sacred art by HH

liquify

Jumping Ship

I stand on the gray edge
of a huge aircraft carrier
in the middle of the sea,

a sailboat is pushed off
the massive metal barge
into the ocean far below.

It spreads wings, floats
downwards like a strange
plane or man-made bird
into the water’s huge expanse
waiting to receive this offering,

now I'm here alone on the gun-metal edge
of the ship and gaze towards the small boat,

it’s now a tiny blemish on infinity’s face,
and tell myself, ‘it’s only 29 feet to fall’,

gathering enough courage to step off
the ship into empty space, I’m falling
floating flying for what feels like minutes

through this void where people do not
go, down and down and down and now

watching myself from the deck above
I know this is many feet higher than 29,

it's dangerously far above what is there
underneath, more like a 10 story building
from ship to sea

but I splash into mother ocean
with no apparent injury, a kind
of fool's miracle

that I’ve landed safely ( i think)
next to the sailboat, what is next
i do not know for certain,

it does involve braving deep waters
and a willingness to live within
elements other than dry land.

"TASTED, BUT NOT FORGOTTEN"

one simple red fruit,
fat and glorious

(hopefully tasty)

so swollen in its own
juicy pink
floodwaters,

picked today
under scorch
of high sun

in a dusty dry,
almost infinite
field at the end

of a twisty rutted
road,

and I can't help
but smile lustily

as my impatient lips
smack with pleasure

and my hungry
enlightened tongue

invites the pregnant
strawberry-

this sugared
ruby-

bite by perfect bite,

seductively

notoriously,

down into the dark
appreciative
dampness
within.

....then the diminutive nun....

"....then the diminutive nun, beclouded in her repressed lust and dark drapery of thick black flowing garments, hoisted the gleaming hatchet, smiled grimly and crossed the Venetian footbridge in fog, a holy predator on the prowl for the sweet misguided blood of the laity...."

Waterfall Economics

it’s a fact that stocks can suck
the dough right out
of your once fat wallet,

deflate your bottom
line like a sad collapsed
balloon drifting in a gutter

and piss off your reeling
crippled ego while

a nightime Niagra slams
and crashes your
flailing hopes
for freedom:
 
a used-up styrofoam cup
flies weightlessly

over the treacherous
granite lip

down deep into
the swirl
and boil below.

free speech

A free speech in the spaciousness
of the public square with the slant

of Autumn sunshine softly
illuminating all corners
of wild wondering
imagination

or the honest meandering
conversation late at night
between old friends

after long day's 
work is done

enliven the heart and open
us to the embodied vibration
of welcomed,no longer

thwarted or confused
contradictions:

the lone traveler, weary
and aching with hunger,
is greeted with a smile
at the oaken portal

and served platefulls
of hearty food before

falling into 
the well-earned 

embrace
of bed.

Consecration

Nothing,
No thing,
Can be
Elevated

Until it has mastered
Descent’s quirky
Humbling call.

No soul without body
No spirit without soul
No body without spirit

No reality without imagination.

That sharp-angled rock
On your small wooden
Hearth speaks

A language
All its own,
Carries the mountain
Still

In its red bones
Like a cougar
At the kill.

It wants you
To put down
The pen

And listen.

Now.

splendor

fire of heaven

Mayor of Kauai

a new direction

SEASON

The October night sank like an old masculine sun
under the leafy new season it did dissolve into dust

while a wrinkled up woman in a tattered wool shawl
wrote love letters, mailed one by one into the shrill wind

and as the ancient birch porch creaked in the dark
she cleared her thin throat for the last time,

stood high on the warped boards in the thick
Autumn cold where her twin girls had stored
sugary treats decades ago.

She raised her bony tired red hands and as
strong as the full moon shining bright and so
long down onto Blue Pond

spoke her true simple words which
in the end were her heart's mind.

I guess you could say before her
brown eyes closed for good she

had dined slow and chewed well
at this lush feast of life

which to my open, half broken ears
did say it all.

what lurks for you?

the beautiful mundane

Lean Down

Lean down into
the one true story

of your own slow,
sure uncurling

and taste with eager
tongue Winters’
silent soil

where silver seeds
of ‘thanks’ and ‘yes’
are somehow born
again,

these twins conceived
in hope’s warming,
obscure light

among the tangled
weeds and stones

of your jagged grief.

Hiking Otay Mountain

i slipped the day-pack off
my sturdy shoulders,

and, smiling with the day,
lay flat on my back
on a small soft patch

of green on a steep
boulder strewn hillside
far above

the slender seductive
gorge beckoning
below.

i gazed up as in an easy
dream, the clouds

grazed lazily across
great fields of sky

and i offered my puny self
to the wondrous
silent moment

and the tantalizing promise
of rain, a scent of
wetness in the wings,

nourishing and
freeing for
all that is

or will be

on this
amazing
earth.