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.