A mouse’s tale

Did you see me
you winged creature of air?

You danced on the wind,
traced clouds with your arcs,
spun and shinned within god rays.
You bravely circled storm clouds,
rose up into her arms,
and from there you were vanished.

Through the squalls throws of passion
I stood watch,
but never saw you again
until the rains subsided.

You grabbed the tallest tree branch,
scanned the horizon and the lands beneath,
and looked outwardly into the vast fields.

To where I hid in the dirt, fascinated
between tufts of grass
and crooked arms of willow trees.

Starry Eyed

On this mountaintop, I am alone
I am not compelled to speak
To hide emotion
To entertain no other but myself
And if I grumble a word
It is a gasp!

It is here I am to be amazed
To be let out of my inside
Into the outside
Full!

I find too much just enough
and too little, a waste
I am compelled to gamble
To leave this mountain
So that I may return

As a starry-eyed child is fascinated
Like new is fuel
The more, beautiful
The less, satisfying

Stream warbles
Wind chimes
Forest hymns

Your mountainous eyes
so wildly feral
demonstrate to me
your true colors

I hum a song
as you glide to sleep
Me awake, imagining
You asleep, dreaming

Out beyond to the heavenly lands
The color of my eyes reflect
A million adventures
A million lives

What is Beyond

Life begins and ends, simply. Though what is simple becomes complex when you fight the reality of it. You can drown wondering why, where, how, when. But I'm comfortable with that. We all should be.

--

Blend into the gray earthly tones of the pond mud
Look up through those misty water-skies
Wind up your imagination
“What is beyond?”
Swim from shore to shore
Jump above the surface for a fraction of time
Before you are pulled back to the mud

Perdition

When something bad happens, it is often hoped that bad will dissipate, so good will reign, but that isn't always the case. Not knowing eats at you. This poem is about that lack of control and helplessness.

--

Raging windswept flames burn mindlessly,
Contorted engine of anger hurls the moment forward
To benighted hope

Egress, whimpering arms of salvation,
Entrance through your door beleaguers man, empty
To temper his heart

Vengeance visits the wounded and the weak,
For knowing’s peace and restitution employs reality
To visit him

Nativity

Without struggle you are nothing
without fear you are nothing
without emotion to drive you
you are NOTHING

Without pain you have no pleasure
without hope you have no courage
without life breathing inside you
there are no tears to blind you
no mistakes to forget
no wrongs to make right
Nothing, not a damn thing to hide from

No skeletons in the closet
little children to fear bedtime stories
no buggy monsters in the closet
no ideas or art; hell or heaven
because you are nothing

Only at birth do you become something
only at death discover your measure in life
until then you are nothing...

The Woodworker

A brave butterfly
flew into my wood shop today
and swooped down to my shoulder
to say,
“Good sir, good sir
can you build me a meadow?”

Who me, a meadow?
What do I know of fashioning
raw earth and seed?
My tools shape the wood
into long pine tables,
into fine oak desks.
How can I plane and chisel,
saw and hammer
as Mother Nature intended
a meadow to be.

“Mister Butterfly,
I am not fit to fashion
a meadow for you.
There must be another,
some other to do this work,
this magic for you?”

The fellow, he flew off without
so much as a word.
Perturbed, I continued my work
through lunch, through dinner
'till darkness enveloped
my lantern.

When finally I was done,
my fingers raw,
eyelids heavy,
I had formed and wrought
an exact replica of the butterfly
I had earlier met.

Wiping my brow,
I brushed dust aside
and placed it on my shelf
next to my other whimsical carvings
of those who had come before.

My favorites
- the gray wolfs,
great white bears,
and colossal whales.

I shake my head and utter,
“Now the brave butterfly
set’s out to build
his meadow?”

Leaving my shop,
I watch
a million butterfly’s strong
rise up from the land
by moonlight,
traversing warm currents of air
to fly south
in search of meadows I'm sure.

Eyes vacant, I sit by
and watch
wondering, too,
how I would carve them all.

Skeletons of our souls

I went walking
And dreams they are on my sleeves
I went far, far out to sea
And dreams they are sailing with me
Friends I haven’t met
Haven’t seen
But know I will

Cause I know for certain
That the world spins
On my fingertips
So young then
How could I ever trip?

It was with my dreams in my pocket
That I went to the city
There to get my due
But dues are met with past dues
So I went to the shiny towers
Where small men with bald heads cower
And big men with wide shoulders hover
To strike a deal

And if I’d known it then
The soul had been bargained for
That dreams are his to store
No dreaming man should be a pauper
Milked dry
No dreaming man should be poor
As I

Up in his castle
Found no longer useful
I am cast away
Dreamless, rotten, full of decay
I panned for dreams
And dreams they came my way
Friends I haven’t met
Haven’t seen
But know I will

It was then
On a midnight hour
I stormed the dragon’s lair
where freckled moonlight dancers
Glinted off coffers of his gathered wealth
And every bit of it I saw
a toll for dreamers
Gathered skeletons of their souls

I went walking
And dreams they are on my sleeves
I went far, far out to sea
And dreams they are sailing with me
Friends I haven’t met
Haven’t seen
But know I will

Cause I know for certain
That the world spins
On my fingertips
So young then
How could I ever slip?

Forests of green

It is easy to escape, easy to leave behind the weight of our social lives. There is simplicity in the actions of merely surviving and not burying yourself under the strain of existing within the constraints of work, city or town, and home. Easy to linger where there is no responsibility. You simply exist. Any temptation to forsake it becomes more and more powerful, cause you ache for familiar connections. In absence of them, you create others to replace. Less sentient, but in your mind, alive in these 'forests of green'.

--

It does not matter how
I came to these
Forests of green

For when eye peers through
foggy rhymes
into lucid features line
over line
I am rigged with awe
and allegories of dragons here
and magic’s I cannot break from

Of form and function I am
a man still
but my words
they are no longer - desirable
they are now images of
aromatic fragrances of
and no longer useful except
for recalling
what I was many, many moons
ago

This place has changed me
from what I was

I now meet and discuss ideas with
Elder Trees
Mossy Rocks
Crooked Streams
And Walking Meadows among so
many, many more like the
Lost Wolf and Shy Bear

And among all I am
known simply or not
so simply
as, “Snowbound Dagger
of Fire and Ice”

It was along this same track
I became lost
this track I travel now
and even if memories remain
I have changed too much to relish
returning
for time is a turning page
and my chapter is fixed
every word read forward
becomes magnetized backwardly
to the now I have languished in among these
shadowed and silent
forests of green

As swift as I loom over enlightenment
and escape
night's arrow of darkness hides my
way forward
and I slip back from this track I follow
back into the leaves
back into the moss
back where eyes do not linger
that do not understand
how I came here
or why I remain...

Paper bag of dreams

I've never been a fan of drinking, so much pain and suffering caused by those who look too deep into the bottle. This is a poem about alcohol and someone who did look too deep, where it took them, and what thoughts may be running through ones head, in thinking of their life and its worth.

--

Garbage, all of it

Take this city

It’s like the devil’s graveyard

No one wants anything to do with it

Only the worthless live here

No living at all

No death either

That would be thanked for

Life is a man’s living hell here

Starving

Freezing

Suffering from any number of ailments

The body rotting on the vine

And there I am

once something

now nothing

Whiskey in one hand -

My paper bag of dreams

Today the sky is golden

And the sunrise bold blazing

Like wheat fields back home

Reminders of living

When death wasn’t a knock away

And life was hoped for

As being long and happy

Now I only wished so I could be content

With this life now

The Alluvial Fan

Death Valley NP Dunes

***Definition of Alluvial Fan: the alluvial deposit of a stream where it issues from a gorge upon a plain or of a tributary stream at its junction with the main stream.

On a recent trip to Death Valley, I spent time photographing the dunes, exploring the canyons, and traveling through the desert. In a place with so much rock and sand, to imagine times when it was green and verdant is natural. For me, the high flying Raven's see so much. Birds, in fact, that may live over 50 years. No wonder they appear so witty and smart! Simply lacking our own comforts of home, it is rare we lived longer as hunter-gatherers. So who's wiser? This is a story of the wandering Raven speaking to the mountains.

--

Of the desert rides a bird of flesh and bone
“Don’t think of her alone,
but far from home.”
Out from the roiling currents she is carried
to the parched Earth

“Tell her oh Dunes of these effervescent mountains
in their vivacious youth!”

In the sand the flesh of washed-out youth
“But LOOK, look up and see
the mountains.”
black and beady eyes stare upward,
as feet crane as feathers are ruffled,
and what is seen is stark cliff
slapped against pale cheeks
and brow of old and elemental mountains

“Ah, but once they were green
and sculpting creeks ran through sculpted meadows,
basic units of beauty petrified
in those moments when youth’s thundering holler
was scattered by the scions of Natures brood
that roamed these precious crests of the Sierra.”

Reaching out, the bird gathers the arid breaths
of these thirsty, weeping denizens
whose anatomy has ground down the grottoes
like the stone that turns and turns
until it has ground itself to nothing
and sees what once was the Funeral Mountains
under seas of green and gracious trees,
isles of twisting and dropping rivers,
and corridors of broad and snaking valleys

“That which appears everlastingly
is as transitory as man,
as malleable by the drifting years,
as measured as her quartered seasons,
as day is to night,
the waning moon to tides,
we are all one day driven down the canyons,
shattered rock ground to sand,
and spread outwardly, an alluvial fan
beneath the sky of the Mojave desert.”

Turquoise under the moon

The sunset is a beautiful thing. Here I try to explain it and what it means to me.

--

as
stuttering
seconds
spontaneously erupt
in every hue
spatially entwined to

even as I peer outwardly
leeringly at
fin-AL-ity
clutching at my hearts rapture

I don’t watch the bleeding
martyrdom with eyes
of sadness
but the ephemeral beauty of
birth and smiling motherhood
expressing her
happiness and love

even in night’s lunar
wakening
the drama of
that magic
hour does not collapse
spontaneously

her soul is
not red and fiery
throwing flames
and flashing light beams
on waves of turquoise

there progresses the
fleeing shadows
pushed by
her dying breaths
enlightened by providence
and rebirth

The First of

The first wasn't the best
Except when I remember it
Like a dream it plays
Soon a rerun over and over I see it
And like film, I edit the facts
Play with the emotions
And make it different than it was

This changes me

Not my past
Rather my interpretation of it
And so while the first wasn't always the best
I remember the first of most things

The first day of school
The first kiss
The first date
The first car
The first day on my own
The first job
The first paycheck
The first day of College
As highlights in my life

They certainly were defining moments
So I remember
It is that alone that matters most
And makes you who you are

“Vermilion Skies”

Emerge from shadow through shadows
into wilderness isles and isles
where branch is folded over branch,
trunk into trunk,
grass into grass,
and starry night’s ambiance cast
by those cosmic audiences sparkling eyes
looming down long after
the death of vermilion skies
that illuminated the hours I wondered
along these forest lanes

Here now in ether of liquid coal
I wonder,
am I amid giants;
mountains with hearts as big
as these boulders I traverse?
Am I sightless
when subdued sounds
brave the cool, black airs
that imagination’s inks sketched
into omnipresent hues
of beast and ghost,
devil and demon?
Are my hands clasping the toes
of ancient tree,
masters of the groove
through the transitory centuries?

Or am I alone?

My heart herds fear and fascination
and it is incalculable
this nature
that thunders around me
and no matter my willing to grasp
and understand
I can’t help but yearn for light,
the buzz of bees and flies
and mornings of vermilion skies
for through and through,
the wolves that howl,
the elk that bugle,
the owls that hoot,
and the God’s that speak to me
in the spirit of tree
are too big and wise
for one not anchored into the soil
for the hours and hours
years and years
that wisdom needs to flower
and bloom

I am too hungry to wander beyond
where branch is folded over branch,
trunk into trunk,
grass into grass
to sink my fingers into the earth
to remain forever
among the isles and isles

Dream

“To work of ideas barely formed, one must dream to fill in empty spaces. It is important to build a foundation, even if mere wisps of airy dream are the brick and mortar.”

Randomness

I must do, I must do, I must do,
because if I don’t,
I will be done. Inevitable.

--

Truth is like a shelter
it protects you from the rain
lies are like the rain
one day you forget the umbrella

--

wounded slaves of nature
her wind, her rain, her snow
toil away this earth
wear away the rock
grind it down to sand
turn the day to night
and bend the trees with wind and storm but
lightening and thunder, mountains, earthquakes, oceans
and even the falling snow will wear
and yet life will continue on

--

Cold cold dark night
cold cold dark night
pull me through the darkness
into the light
pull me into your arms
and brighten

--

Waterfall

Characters they lookin’ at me, I know
A thousand different expressions in the snow
Don’t think I could tell what they're saying
Even if I could, would I want to know?

All that life’s got in the chamber is a shot
Your way through the storm you’re finding
There’s no light ahead, just waves that are breakin’
on the shores
of desperation, dismay and down and out
Cause I ain’t found my way
Ain’t looking to get nowhere
Just racing down the streets for a runaway dream
Hoping that a future will catch me up
And what I imagined is seen.

Return Policy

To be happy is more
the state of mind
than the state of being.

Rewind.
Relive.
Rejoice.

All is well, to be remembered well.

Peaceful lives

Common ground is not here
You are not the griever
You are not lost to me
Take your hands and raise them
Praise the life you live in
Make your way back home
Begin to feel a reason to exist

Stare down from that future
Reach back from that past
Feel the dirt at your feet
Hold it in your hands
This life is not a mess
You will do what you can
Now is not the past
The moment is yours to last

Tear up your excuses
They are lies that abuse you
Face up to your expression
It is you in reaction to everyone you know
To the world you glow
Don’t be sad, when you are happy
Mirror your soul
Slip it into your own skin
Let it walk with you
Be a friend, be a friend

You are not alone

Odyssey

The tears?
the fears?
the years?
I tear at!
Stare.

“Beware friend
have care when peering at the beginning
be aware whence begun one must beget an end”

So, I must end they say!
I must die they say!!
I must leave this place
like wind in my face.
Cold callus wind I taste.

Yes!
Death is there.
no fairness
Death knocks at my door Grace
I hear
but I don’t answer see

I live and breathe
day by day
I live and breathe the blessings of life
There is good and bad of course
There is chaos and calamity
I must admit
But there are happy times, too

Here at home
I listen to my thoughts
fluttering through my mind
and I know deep inside
I will continue through tomorrow
to the next day
Through sorrow
and happiness
I will pave my self
a story worth telling
one so full of emotion
all who listen will feel human
like me

Life is a potion
a facsimile of a dream
and we each journey it seems
across an ocean
through a sea of storms
and in the end
discover the world flat
and your journey
a one way trip...

Here to there

Where was I inside my mind?
Was I lost? Where was time?
I stood still, I couldn’t feel

The 'there' I will never know
The 'here' is my only road

Burn Ban - A lyric

You gave me a gun
Little bird tucked his wings in to dive
Pull the trigger man
Can’t leave him here to stay alive

Disposable nation pillage and plunder, wreck havoc on
Can’t live without it, gotta have it all
Commercialization on the TV, the world for profit
Trade in your life; give the man your balls

You sold the rights God
Gave man the credit to buy the earth
Call in the debt man
Can’t sell a shithole for half it’s worth

Magnificent nation divide and conquer, give it your all
America the beautiful, America the great
Devastation on the news, nowhere else I’d rather be
Sell your soul; let it pay for your hate

You taught me to win
Don’t plead with those lower than
Start a fire man
Can’t light the world with a burn ban

Total destruction awaiting orders from new management
Corruption eats from the inside, vote for me
Pandemonium on the stage of life, total chaos
Tear me from my addiction, set me free

You ran out of bullets
Give the little bird his liberty and justice
Distill the hate man
There’s free will, no need to be an accomplice

Disposable nation pillage and plunder, wreck havoc on
Can’t live without it, gotta have it all
Commercialization on the TV, the world for profit
Trade in your life; give the man your balls

You sold the rights God
Gave man the credit to buy the earth
Call in the debt man
Can’t sell a shithole for half it’s worth

Insurgent

“Speak Up,” I’m told,

“Perhaps you’ll be heard?”

But no matter my muttering,

no matter my “Excuse me sirs,”

no matter my screams!

No faces swivel in my direction,

with smiles and recognition,

“Yes, I’m here.”

No arms reach out in greeting,

“How do you do, my name is….”



So I don’t speak up,

I don’t!

Not to anyone,

But I nod at the tea party,

at the park,

at the schoolhouse,

at the pub,

at work,

and mutter some nonsense like

“That’s wonderful,

where will you vacation

next summer?”



But do not be confused here

just because I no longer,

“Speak up!”

Like a mosquito I’ve evolved

by feeding off my hosts

Who idly fill my ears with all I need

to know

to test the waters.

Soon fears will begin to itch

thoughts begin to buzz,

and blood begin to boil.

And I will be there;

they will hear me screaming,

“Revolution!”

A gathering place

White snow spirit;

sky blue, leafy green, black dirt,

placid lake, rosy sunset spirits,

swill my soul in your eyes,

and reveal to me your wisps of vivacious energies

vigorously gathering deftly

to sparkle, shimmer, animate,

bubbly, boisterously, bravely fascinate

every yarn, filament, grain

of my being.



Wise old withered Maple, Fir, and Cedar tree spirits

sweeping windy, slapping grassy, singing sun spirits

slide into my meandering thoughts,

twirl downward into my rot

throbbing, aching, yearning

for your calm, collective, peace giving

biting, blazing, breathing, thunder booming bravely

into and out of my soul

like the bloom of spring

blossoms from winter

and the quivering marsh, lumbering lake, shivering snow spirits

gather among all the others

for a celebration of everyday life

that ceaselessly rides forward

clutching, grasping, clenching

the futures theater

tirelessly acting

the scenes to come...

A flower in the meadow

By the way my feet touch the Earth,

it is me upon it,

not the sky on my shoulders.

By the way the wind brushes up beside me,

it is a kindred spirit,

always running, never slowing.

By the way a million stars

look down on me

it is 'I' who am alone.

By the way my heart knocks,

time is not second by second;

It is sadness and thrill,

fear and lonliness that measure.

By the way the sun locked her eyes with mine,

we were two broken pieces

made whole.

By the way each new dawn may rise,

it isn't merely the sun that lights the Earth

but all of us who brighten it.

Ink to paper - short poem

A story is a matter of words built upon words;
they can speak to you in thoughts,
tell of a life lived and died,
tell of a million tales of a million adventures;
they are the cherry blossoms raining from the clouds,
the nectar from every flower,
the salty tastes of every sad tear that ever fell;
they are a life imagined.

Subterfuge

Somewhere on the edge I adjust fear,
Sadness does not echo,
Happy does not pierce,
Fluid is my only vice,
I must move these feet and hands,
I must rise upward.

There is no action without reaction,
There are only sensory strings swarming my mind,
The smell of broken rocks acrid whiff,
The quenched thirst from a mountains liquid vase,
The sound of nothing human born - only nature,
The masquerade of wind and snow embodied together
in form and function.

Pleasure is writ in success and failure,
Determination is born of will and grit,
And in mountains there are men without disguise,
Life does not pretend to be,
There are no deceptions here,
We each walk in devotion,
Leave with a mind cleared like a meadow is of snow,
From it Spring will come
and a garden will rise from the cold
and for a short time you will flourish.

There is always balance!

Everything is bound to that,
Life and death,
Risk and reward,
I give credence to it all
and to my fears the most,
They are my boundaries shuddering and shivering,
twisting in the guile of desperation,
From them I learn to endure;
There are no smoke and mirrors
where man dangles from heights
and clings to cleft to escape gravity!

A wilderness may be my subterfuge,
My vial of emotional substance
that tempts me,
And motion forward may unbalance,
Yet, not everyone learns,
Not everything is fair,
but some learn enough
to balance in a world tipping.

Concerto

Even if I sit here
I will not hear your music
even if you play it forever
and I am here forever
- you can play it
but I will only hear the wind
or the birds chirping
I will only hear the rain bursting
on these meadows and their flowers
I will only hear a day’s independent tones
not the symphony of Nature
nor the beauty of her music

Abandoned

These lonely eyes that chase
the empty-cold erase
blind us from happiness
steal us of hope
dash us on the breakwaters
of endings we’d rather
wash our souls of.
---
Cannot our lives cease crashing
through days, years?
Would not every eye that peers
not see walls
too thick to break down,
too high to climb over?
---
If but a moment apart
could be released from realities grasp,
would not the gears of whirling lives
have an instant fractured
from hopeless veracity?
---
And if our lives
were not cast out into this
sea-scape of existence,
would not the callous-stormy moods,
burdensome-onerous hours
not pry our weary fingers
from the storm floundered boat of life
and but cease our existence
by removing us from it
either by choice or fate?
---
So if we must sojourn from this life
that is beget in abandonment,
do we not find happiness in between?
Is there not that satiating yearning of love,
that human-escort of desire
that hauls you aboard
when you seek the rails over-and-gone?
Is there not enough harmony to keep you rising
each dawn?
---
Perhaps we are not nameless faces,
or even lost?
Perhaps we are set on a course
bubbling-blushed with possibilities BURSTING dreams,
and it is up to each of us
to surmise our fate?
After all, perhaps God profits from our souls
battling to survive on the other side
in this floating reality we cling to,
cold and lonely,
shivering from that all-consuming shock
of existing.
---
And if it is our measure of determination
that lights the wick of our eyes
with the seething fires of emotional rainbows,
that which entreats the living being
with the longing to smile in the face
insurmountable odds,
then we will overcome merely surviving here,
and be happy
and never, EVER again,
feel lonely.

Valley Currents

Brush me aside
to murky forest depths,
lay against me
like the snowy steppes,
and dare to drop me
as the morning dew.
---
Taste of me
my night's breath,
of meadow-like perfume
whispering through bluebells and lupine,
and the wings
of whistling thrushes.
---
Clobber me against
stoic cliff-side,
drain me helplessly
through tranquil high passes
and traverse my currents
by way of verdant mountain cathedrals
and swim into me,
through and through.

This Dragon's Land

***The seasons are what captured me in this poem, winter in particular.

---

How crept in the warmth
of lucid thought
on this snow-veiled meadow
where summer’s rent is past due
and life’s impetus is bent
on suckling spring,
I cannot guess?
---
But imagine for a moment
life cast out
into winter’s clutch,
where treetops poke up
through snow,
where snow devils foxtrot transversely
through moonscape,
where the unyielding rock lichen
bite into cliff-side,
where jovial scarcity is enough
for life here.
---
Progress forward,
And winter is not lost
to those summer-imbued meadows,
for as fine as the mysteries I shift,
as desperate their dance,
I know any enlightenment
is but in mock abbreviation
to meaningful answer.
---
And yet are any necessary?
---
Let winds scatter,
moonlight shine down,
blue day fade to black night.
Give me a tangible body,
you milk-eyed, blushed-cheeked hope
and I will remember winter’s breath
in this dragon’s land.

A NEW DAY

This poem is about Dawn, as the name implies. I imagined myself traveling the world round with the Sun, always in morning, never in darkness, never truely in day.

---

Sit down my dear passenger,
- speak to me Oh Morning,
for as desperate the hours
of fluid darkness
spilling into my bones,
there exists in me a flaming furnace
that rages without rest,
without stopping,
without reprieve!
For all dreams
and expectations you have
rest in me
and my light.

So shore up your sleepy eyes;
accompany me Oh Morning
around and spinning
ever drifting into the world awakening.

Do not fear the smoky darkness
burning in my stead.
Out from it you are,
a new day
ever on the shores of crashing waves,
frothy clouds,
and sand-abundant shadow
of tree,
of mountain,
of city.
And the colors of our tryst
blooming, cursing, loving
they are my dear passenger
days fleeting…

Satellite - Version II

****This is a poem about life and death, but more importantly about God, a subject I don't tackle often. It is, really, about a man becoming God and God becoming a man. Also, it is of the birthing of one who is thought fit to replace God. And while I am not a religious man, I like to think I have an open mind to ponder the time after death and if one were to be a God, how one would exist. ****

A Satellite is defined as: [n.] a man-made object that orbits around the earth [n.] a person who follows or serves another [n.] any celestial body orbiting around a planet or star [adj.] Surrounding and dominated by a central authority or power

---

There were leaves
they whispered along sidewalk
perfectly trimmed
the trees creaked and groaned
and there at my door

I knocked

Nobody answered

I was not what I was before
I could not go there

What I remembered
wasn't remembered
not as I knew it
not as it actually was

It had come to me
that perhaps
I was dead

With eyes that were not eyes,
I struggled
to see

With legs that were not legs
I struggled
to walk

I was confused

I could not see
I could not walk

And what of my place
could I make out?

Nothing

Only a presence
that did not stop its march
as it rode into my mouth
into my throat
down into my guts
and up into my head
into every corner of me
it rode

Like oil I could not wipe away
such infringement

It is then that I discovered my place
was not terrestrial at all
but far from it

This was not
where I had come from

With eyes that could now see
I blinked
and what there was
of the presence I had felt

Not even an echo

We never did meet

And it was a long time
before I understood why

And seeing next to me
nebula's, galaxies
a kaleidoscope of light

And color
And beauty

Bursting

I remembered so fondly
that time long ago

My birth

And how, too, this man
would remember
his burgeoning consciousness
coming to life

What gifts I will have given him
what joys he is to feel?

For asleep, he shall now
be awakened

And what he was

Asleep

Time will pass
as he discovers this place

And I will not show him

I will not be awake
but asleep

And there in front of him
will be the Universe
where PURPOSE
and MEANING
they will be found

He will discover
that he can affect

Change

In ways he never
could've imagined

And once his eyes open
he will go to a place he's never been
and he will go to another
and another

In each
He will see
He will know
He will learn

He will be a satellite

Lights on my street

So why did I seek the darkness,
the lonely street?
Where did I think I'd end up,
who’d did I think I'd meet?

Each day these streets
they are lit
as I pass their lanes,
soon hidden away and forgotten
in my forlorn shame.

There I am kept apart
in the shadows,
locked behind closed doors
where none follow.

But if I'd watched
turned my lights on,
I would have seen her!
Noticed that smile shinning on me
and seen these lights
on my street.

Singularity

There is something
quite different
about today.
I feel like time
has stopped alluding
to the moment
ahead.

I feel like it has left
my senses open:
the city doesn’t close
in on me;
the cars don’t break
the calm;
the air breaths
into me
as I fill my lungs.

I am at a loss, though,
as to why this moment should
be special?
So even if I can’t
put a finger on exactly why,
- I’ve concluded this:

These moments you remember,
they are like those
childhood memories
of playing on your favorite tree,
of racing down the school hallway
or,
- like today,
of standing out on the street,
waiting for the traffic
to pass by.

They may not seem particularly
special,
but they are,
in my reckoning of it,
the singular moments
that define who and what
you are.

And right now,
what I have felt,
is but the very instance
- change (!)
disturbed reality;
the very moment
I became
more than I was.

***I lost most of this poem, so it was a difficult test to accept a different version of what I first imagined. And, yet, it is always healthy to try.

Open Road: Haiku

Passenger in time,
greets the hitchhiker of life
dirty cloths, thumb out.

A little up the river

The farthest sight I see just
a little up the river
where birds speak in tongues,
and rapids laugh in spite of
my eyes on them.

Where, no matter how
curious the eye,
it is the sights of
littered destiny dashed on
waves of frothy possibility,
that days are met in endings brought
rushing to a stop.

Because to have a moment not
spent shamelessly,
you must hold onto it,
so it is not thrown
under the wheels of turning hours,
but instead can be nurtured to
aged significance.
Where each moments
crooked back has been bent over,
beard grown long,
and the wrinkled force
of nature fractured
on the face of its
lived importance.

It is then the eyes I was born too
do not blink,
do not see what I’ve taught them
to see,
do not glance aside afraid of,
bored of,
saddened by.

There are no tears of joy,
no tears of pain,
no nothing to shield the hand of
Nature’s painted moment.

Brush to canvas,
I am left to see
around the bend,
further up the river
to the very source of stream and
all the way back
to where we beget,
to where my body rests
to where I had
disembarked from time’s train.

Where the moon reaches down
for a drink of water
and her hourglassed-reflection
shimmers.

Where the jeweled fish leaps
for wounded meal
and crashes to the water.

To the farthest sight I see just
a little up the river,
to where birds speak in tongues,
and rapids laugh in spite of
my eyes on them.

Sparkle in her eye

Had I kindness abandoned from above;
A sunray flung through stogy clouds from sun,
would I crumble impaled from your love?
Would I tremble in fear near-missed and run?

Not quite a man dressed in dragon scales,
I would go down running, an antelope.
No measure of heart would bear my wailing
if I were to yield to you and elope

So take your breath filled with sweet surrenders,
let it escape my heart and leave me sane.
There is no love preserved sweet and tender,
no yearning for the curse of empty pain.

But I can’t refuse the cast of your eyes,
they are complete with tears, and me, your prize!

Rabbit Hole

It was a full measure of fear;
were it to reflect like a mirror,
I would appear sideways, scared of
the reflecting form of his love.

Trembling lips, my knocking knees,
all courage repelled, sent fleeing.
Fluttering heartbeat, sweating palms;
nowhere near a sheltering calm!

Stare at me, well-set eyes of red,
fire stormed ilk-spawn, sickly-dead.
Deft of me to face you squarely
with brave-struck eyes set daringly!

Spirits

Though things may not be as they seem
I blind myself from this dream
I capture my life in a bottle and hide it
I drink from its spirit
so this day may be something of merit

Inspiration (Haiku)

Crazy-dazed dreamy day
swallowed hours digested
vicariously

Fire Dance

A cool wind blows
from the North.
The wisdom of the mountains high
have said,
“This winter will be fierce!”
But I’m afraid
we are no longer fierce.
Our strength left
with the herds
and our feet
failed to keep beat.

Our price is our doom?
The old? The young?
Only the strong will live.

We of the old ways will
rise up with the ash.
And today the fire
grows strong,
the heat radiates
off the faces,
and we sway in song.
As leader, I appeal
for hope.

“Decide oh great ones
that we,
who are your children,
who live under your guidance,
will follow you as we
always have.
Our struggle builds our muscle,
our strength is infallible.
We, your children,
Are capable!”

But death comes this night
from the beak of a bird
“Cacaw, cacaaaaaaw!”
And the beating of hooves
and the clank of soldiers guns...

Hitchhiker Man (Version II)

Slip away the hours that wander by

Take in the days you’ve ridden hard and fast

Rest back on milepost, let out a sigh

Know sooner or later you’ll reach the coast


Just stick out your thumb, you hitchhiker man

and hitch a ride through this wilderness land

Chase down that pickup truck, jump in the back

Watch road peel away like a raceway track


Life isn’t slow; hell life is a bit fast

Don’t try and see far beyond kicked up dust

Look downward; see what you’re movin’ on past

So much thrill leaves you adrenaline-rushed


Jumping out from truck and leather footin’

Up this burned out highway you’re a workin’

Take up all you got in this here world

and come to know life is worth a twirl


Come morn there’s your kind shadow, tall or short

Racing out, giving it hell, surely sport

Not seeing bounds like normal people do

just heading out, fading into the blue


An old truck driving fast ya understand

Getting on by, but you’ll catch it up swift

And stick your thumb out, Hitchhiker man

with gleaming grin, so happy for a lift


---


Slip away the hours that wonder by

Take in the days you’ve ridden hard and fast

Rest back on milepost, let out a sigh

Know sooner or later you’ll reach the coast


---


Wheat fields, lake shores, and wide mountain vistas

Towns and cities, wild cattle and horses

Trucks and truck stops, night lights and small farms

young women holding baby’s in their arms


All life shouldn’t be shut up in our heads

Got to give ‘er freedom, give ‘er wings

Life ain’t livin’ in the comfort of bed

It’s livin’ everyday for what it brings


Make your adventure when at a crossroads

Take the steep path you may fear, oft will loath

Stop workin’ for the man you’re a slave too

life’s for gettin’, so unpocket this cue


Just stick out your thumb, you hitchhiker man

and hitch a ride through this wilderness land

Chase down that pickup truck, jump in the back

Watch road peel away like a raceway track


Life’s just dust kicked up in the passing wind

kept afloat as long as you’re going fast

Can’t ever let the dust settle, my friend

Got to keep ‘er going to make ‘er last


…you hitchhiker man

Crushed

Along a lonely path rests a lone man

suddenly too aware

of time’s frothy splash

of this day’s running

of tomorrow’s silent churning

he’s come to find meaning clouded

by dreams sundered

by hopes floundered

by brilliant disillusioned lies

hopelessly wailing their own last rights



He’s found his measuring cup in life half empty

he's discovered there’s no longer

the urge to continue

beyond the lonely path

no effort left in him to spin once more

into a frivolous cycle

no way to clean the ills of a wasted life

too hungry to swim

too heavy to float

too crushed to care

Alpine butterfly

The wind spins tall tales. She is a sprite that harnesses the cool or warm air and tosses it over your head. I love the wind in the mountains, in the cities, anywhere.

Thanks to Silence for helping me on this one! And contributing a few lines. It wouldn't be the same without.

---

The wind,
she dances wildly.
Two steps up,
five steps down.

Her dueling partner,
the desert
crowds in on her,
on this diamond-clear night,
where shadow hives
of highland flora flirt
with buzzing lovers.

Morning dew
on fragile wing,
honey dripping
from green-feathered toes,
in a morning waltz.

Primordial winds,
out in blue-steel light
meet in fluttering unison,
like an alpine butterfly
joins the flower,
fitfully swaying to the touch,
of the desert…

Fuckin' Box

My room a box
my house a box
my world a box

I look out my window
at a blue house next to a pink one
I drive to work through cities of them
big ones and small ones

I work in a box
staring at a box
never thinking outside the box
a man who will one day die
only to be buried
In a fuckin’ box....

Relinquish - a haiku

A short Haiku I changed from another friend's version.

happiness with you
swaying in arms of palm fronds
my secret or yours