Thursday, August 31, 2017

Melaleuca Morning 2

At the heart of it 
Perhaps we're all
Just tuning our 
instruments,

One pink sphere
Surrounded
By green leaves
Swaying in the sun’s

Music and a buzzing 
Soloist returning

Again and again 
For gold.

Wednesday, August 30, 2017

Melaleuca Morning

At the heart of it all
A pink sphere
Surrounded
By green leaves
Swaying in the sun’s
Music and a single
Bee returning again
And again for gold.

Wednesday, August 23, 2017

  Animal Appetite

In the dream a cougar

a street gray blotted
suburban light.

Alone strange
watercolor

bricks of hunger
in her gut

sifted fog death’s mute
taunts, hidden shrieks and

bullets hunting nighttime’s cover.

Shivered human
wanting

wonders, hoping
smitten lover
stumbling

drunken
housewards,


to taste that flesh, then rip into….
         Animal Appetites

In the dream a cougar slinks

along a street blotted by gray
suburban light. Alone she slides

through this strange watercolor
with bricks of hunger in her gut

like sifted fog or muted
death, hunting nighttime’s

kindly cover, hidden barely
from shrieks and bullets,

those shivers of human
taunting.

Perhaps, she wonders. there’s still
hope for sniffing

a smitten lover drunk and
stumbling housewards,


to taste that flesh, then rip into….

Tuesday, August 22, 2017


                                      Southwards in Song

did I say the time we wrote a song together in the old green ’51 Chevy driving down
to San Francisco? dad grinning at the wheel and I the big boy riding co-pilot
with great maps wrinkled 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, little sisters, brother and mom in the back seat, because
we all were too excited to sleep and so let's pile in the car and head south
through black night and the many miles into the magical city arching
through dawn as we cross the Golden Gate Bridge --

Oh! the Golden Gate, orange sun emerging strong and sudden from bluest sky over
infinite Pacific waters! and our chorus of song belting out ‘California Here We Come’
traversing the great span which seemed to represent pure joy, a kind of freedom
and play and goodness not known often enough at home —

and smiles, big smiles and laughter like a fountain bursting from us
in the packed car. Yes, I can hear these family vacations when screaming and
god-awful tensions at the dinner table where mom’s nourishing meat loaf and mashed
potatoes and our father’s blaming and mocking were on the menu and how

those screams and laments dissipated for a blessed week or two at a blessed time and I looked 
at him without fear breathing in my father's face and being, then even his eyes were soft, he 
was a good and safe man for this while who loved me and his life, which was not always 
the case back north in the gray unforgiving drizzle and the day to day of worry and wear and 
shoes left out on living room floors by seven-year old ungrateful bastards.

this may tell some of why I shall always love the city of steep hills on the bay
with its Chinatown, beatnik bookstores, Italian coffeehouses, Nob Hill cathedral
and clanging cable cars pulling us higher and higher towards a slice of heaven
where peaceful easy jokes and crooning together as family at the table over plates
of pasta, soft Italian bread with real butter and vanilla ice cream floating in espresso,

this place where we sit in smooth wooden booths nourished together 
without threat of punishment or shame.      
                                     .

Monday, August 21, 2017

   Nothing Less
Can you, will you, step
forth from
thought-stream’s
incessant distraction

to place both ears where
you hear a quiet
simmering, murmurs

of awakening from numb
slumber within this great
spacious Silence?

A shy meadow
where a limber fawn
grazes in early Autumn

nestles deep inside

the tangled bracken,
the golden forest of
your chest.

Today patiently awaits
your full unfurling,
wants nothing

less 

than your attention,
your blazing 

broken, 

wholehearted life.

Wednesday, August 16, 2017


August Snapshot

Decked out in red and blue shorts,
two or three boys cavort,

behind their pink skinny
legs and gesticulating arms

the bay rests, thin
as an indigo finger,

while high above
their rowdy shouts

an empty sky criss-crossed
by delicate fronds of pine
and branches of fir

eavesdrops the scene as trees
ponder in the breeze
what it is to be

young, standing in sand
with Summer's wet
barefeet, its sweet
unfettered boyhood.

Thursday, August 10, 2017

Starbucks, Thursday Morning


She walks with a slight limp,
her left hip moves through life
to a different drumbeat,

still wet hair glimmering against
a gray sky, iced coffee held
intently in the right hand

as she leaves the cafe and ambles
towards her parked car and today's
work. I wonder is pain her frequent
companion?

Monday, August 7, 2017

             From Europe, With Love

I wanted something, I wanted. I could not have it.
It was as close as that pint of ice cream is right
now in the freezer, the kitchen 15 feet away.
Instantly she’d felt like home. No, her third floor
apartment on a chilled November day is what
felt like home. The small kitchen overlooking
a church and field, the warm bath after the long flight
and drive, trout with beetroot soup, cherry wine and
homemade chocolate cake for our first dinner, how tall
and pretty she was in person at the bleak airport
that reminded me of a rust-belt bus station. I thought
“I’m glad I came.”  Here, comfort and belonging were redolent.

Weeks later, buying the card downtown, I was embarrassed
standing in line with laughing school children getting
afternoon snacks, old women with meat and onions
for supper. Over the blue bridge and up the long hill one last
time, placing the card on the kitchen table, then a couple
of beers our final night while she watched patiently. Two
weeks’ later my new underwear and socks purchased
for the trip arrived in a brown envelope, a small candle
and note tucked within, something about keeping the light.
I’ll eat the Italian gelato, not sure I kept the candle.

Saturday, August 5, 2017

Nearer

Tonight before dark

on my walk to the park

the air soft, mysterious and sweet

like a fountain soon vanishing.

On the way home

with our history in sight

your absence clear bright 

nearer than this risen white moon 

floating above Otay Mountain

in dusk's muffled lament.

Friday, August 4, 2017

Blessing of the New Year

May a sheen of tenderness sift through any shards of travail
or stones of disappointment as you travel your roads this year.

May a mysterious force of kindness sustain and nourish you
in ways that surprise, soften, and replenish you often in body,
mind, spirit and soul.

May the days of your being and nights of your becoming
know goodness and hope flowing from a well of strength
into the marrow of your bones this year and throughout
all your life long.

Wednesday, August 2, 2017

            Together

lamplight and a distant accordion
encircle six or eight old men
as day dissolves into dusk.

they sit in wheelchairs 
in a tiny park on this late 
Autumn afternoon,

suddenly a small boy bursts
into their circle giggling, ecstatic
he’s being chased by his chums.

the boys and men bathe in an orange glow
as the fragrance of music curls around them 
like smoke from a blazing campfire, 

and somehow veils of fear, of worry
open then drop as day surrenders 
its tattered flags of time, erasing decades 
of disappearance that echo and ache,

and aliveness, that good goddess, begins 
to urge and shimmer these men deep 
in their bones, 

now shining shouting like boys embraced 
in ageless beauty, in free-play emerging 
out of fertile ground.