Guanajuato

An empty plaza except for two stray dogs sniffing promiscuously, romping

across slick cobblestones, rain like fresh pillows drifting down from a featherbed

of gray sky and van morrison’s ‘brown-eyed girl’ lush, swirling towards us

from inside the yellow church with peeling paint, a homeless man asleep

on concrete steps and Don Quixote astride his gallant steed out front.

 Paradigm Lift, Twist And Shout

Instead of that afterlife idea

Espoused by some if not many,

Or the equally believed articles of faith

In either a murky nothingness or a certain

Return to the planet as a new character

In a novel plot, I prefer to imagine

A very big room about the girth of Nebraska

That’s filled with the dead, the living

And the not-yet-born. This motley trinity

Sweetly shuffling together in stocking feet,

Sometimes raucously, at others' silently

Across a shimmering vast dance floor.

They’re telling corny jokes, laughing

And beaming, this wild inclusion their core meaning;

Feeling so much lighter now, they twist

To Chubby Checker, fox trot to Sinatra,

And waltz to Mr. Mozart. Past hurts,

Let-downs and betrayals one day

Surely to transpire are released completely.

Even wallflowers blossom here in the sparkling air.

Smells of freesia and alyssum swirl,

Entwined with tendrils of night-blooming jasmine
Kissing pregnant air; my lips can feel babies

Kicking. When I’m quiet I hear our breathing

Softly wafting as we spin and sashay round 

And round without perspiring

To lift each other up in tender spirals

Streaming high and higher—

Beloved past, bright-eyed future

All embraced by those now present,

Without clocks ticking.

And everyone is gleaming….

Incarnation's Mystery

Right here on mothering earth:

pregnant with stone, soil,
sky and soul,

a vicissitude
of infinite garments-

such strange beauties!

....All being in their becoming
    redolent and woven

by Love's

wide ranging

One Weaver.

May a palpable tenderness
Emanate from ancient silence
To nourish and bless you
Through all your wandering
And your beautiful mistakes
Towards this primal pool
Of thirst-slaking well water.

Paris, Texas-Scene 1

the man is grizzled red, scorched
by sun and wind and twisted time.

he staggers through sand and scruff,
snakes that slumber as if dead
and handcuffed cactus

underneath a blaze of noonday demons.

he dreams of ponds of water,
his somewhere child only lost,
and redemption found in cement
cities years' beyond.

No Knowledge Without Wonder

We live in a time of ants
And heat seeping through
The walls of our dwellings
Like the cries of crows
At dawn or the amazement
Felt that day sky’s canopy
Descended once and for all
Making, finally, everyone equal
And thankful for skin, blood and bone,
The mystery of dreaming, grapes
Fat and purple on the tangling vine
And how the seasons turn and turn
Bringing everything to fruition. 

Tenderness

glistens and gleams from the front seat floor of my car. She's a beauty and blonde, ravishing,
she ripples standing still like that lighthouse on Lake Michigan beneath orchards
of cherry and peach, although she's curled up below me where ripened fruit awaits its own
devouring. Her smile lures mischief out from blue eyes that tempt in erotic cartwheels and I know she's God on a mission tickling and teaching me to relinquish the steering wheel, wake up
once and for all, dump these stiff seat belts as we unbrace for the ride of our lives to vanish
out through dreamtime's fog into the clarity of a hot July night underneath the cacophony
of such vast and noiseless stars.

    God Rides Shotgun

The passenger grins mischievously

as she lowers herself onto the floor

of his car, blonde hair radiant

and flowing as she curls into a friendly ball,

and with eyes gleaming dares him to break

his rule and drive further along the road

as they are now physically comprised.

Down here hiding where she shouldn’t be,

the woman challenges his need to stay

in the driver’s seat as her spirit of play

infiltrates, tickles, tempts and awakens

his loosening grip on the steering wheel

and this illusion that he and a seatbelt

can protect them from all harm.

Or refusing to be compromised and listening

to those strident voices of pragmatic edicts

that we all traffic in, does he order God

off the floor and, with seatbelts firmly fastened,

motor soberly onwards into the day, perhaps

now safer, less anxious, yet less enlivened?

In the wings, she waits and is smiling….