Cascade Poet

Dream Pirate

2011-08-13T14:10:00.000-07:00

Did I just slip into the dark folds of nothing
Roll and wriggle my way
Through nightmares

Even if I did
Am I merely desperate to retain
My human soul
Not perverted by

Tell me
Levitated in this dreamscape
Swarmed by dark spawn
Am I but spun by the spider of deep sadness

Angles of happiness
[I demand] Build me a boat
To capture man's misery and fear
So that we are not struck by these sharks
To sink into ourselves

As captain
I would so selflessly embark
To turn
My once ill-fated brethren sunrise bound
So that they would be powered
By the wings of optimism

But even then
EVEN THEN!
I would fill their great billowing dream-sails with
Boisterous laughter
Childish giggles
And ear to ear smiles

Eventually, with my spoil of dark plunder
I would hide in the shadows
[I must I imagine]
And, once again, roll and wriggle my way
Through nightmares

Spectacle Lake

2011-08-05T00:12:00.000-07:00

I ponder, "Does the Earth see through lakes?"
These waters much like eyes
Most of all at sunset
When the loons howl
Their voices echoing for miles
Pouring into my ears

Or when the breeze rustles the leaves, my cloths and hair
when I shiver from the cold
So much so that when night has turned the waters to black
I wonder, "Does the Earth dream when it sleeps?"
And if it does,
I imagine it dreaming of the sky and paddling through space
Like I do

Isolation

2011-07-20T09:27:00.000-07:00

Silence is not without noise. It is not without interruption. It is state of mind that is found in Isolation.

Jumping for joy

2011-07-20T09:20:00.000-07:00

She swam up into the sky
and floated there
She waved back to me, said "Hi"
and I stared

She swam back to me (and Earth)
and I held her down
out of the blue
and she called me, "Such a clown"

The place where the wind goes

2011-04-20T23:00:00.001-07:00

Oh mountain angel I have seen you
In the wet, heavy fog
In the tears of dew
In the ghostly canyons behind polished river logs

Oh mountain angel I have heard you
Under the snow bent branches
Under the giggling golden grass
Under the lichen-covered boulder-strewn benches

Oh mountain angel I have smelled you
With fir needles in your hair
With frost over your heather buds
With blossoms and bees swarming the air

But it is only as I tumble down from your heavens
That, at last, we meet

To Endure

2011-04-20T21:51:00.000-07:00

Hearts are like the flowers
Full of purple
Full of pink
Full of red
Full of the yellow
Like the sunlight they drink in

Hearts are like the moon light
Shimmering on the waves
Beating into sand and retreating
In rivulets that drain back to the source

Hearts are like the ice torn ridges high on mountains
They endure
They survive
And when the sun comes out, they shine

Salvaged from the gray

2011-03-30T16:30:00.000-07:00

She tells me, “You are nothing”
And in this place, I am not,
But I am.

Where transparent I have existed
Where bodiless I have form

You tell me, “You will wander,
but will not find.”

I have wandered and have not found.

But in seeking I have seen
I have heard
And come to know the Earth
And all her kindred souls

She is wise
and I have been made wiser

Through forests I may run to bend the pines
Through deserts I may carve the sands
Through oceans I may ripple the seas
Through canyons I may ricochet off rock and roost
Through leaves and grass I may rise and fall
And through day and night I will never give pause

Perhaps I have become more than ‘nothing’
Even if my appearance is deceiving
Even if I am as clear as glass

We are all at one time lost
but we are certainly not nothing

Gentle Giants

2011-03-10T19:51:00.000-08:00

I see blood
On the hands
Of these mountains I love

No tears
No fears

Just blood
On the hands
Of these mountains I love

Dreamer

2011-03-09T11:54:00.001-08:00

Forgive me - do forgive if I leave
I am, you see, only a dream
So lay with me, Dreamer
And dream of me
-forever

Forever

2010-09-30T14:04:00.000-07:00

If I said I loved you
Would you, would you love me too
- forever
If I said goodbye instead
Would you forget me like the breeze
Running backwards through the trees

If I said goodbye to you
Would you, would you say goodbye too
- forever
If I said hello instead
Would tears stream down your face
Streaming from those fears replaced

Or when the light reflects the visions
Of what could be
Entropy of the heart
Torn and ripped apart
Or softly beating
Not bursting
You are thirsting for fingers on your mind
Playing chords of happiness inside
Drifting from head to toe
Forgetting what you know
- forever

If I said I loved you
Would you, would you love me too
- forever
If I said goodbye instead
Would you forget me like the breeze
Running backwards through the trees

If I said goodbye to you
Would you, would you say goodbye too
- forever
If I said hello instead
Would tears stream down your face
Streaming from those fears replaced

Misc Poems from September 2010

2010-09-30T11:20:00.000-07:00

This is a few misc., poems from September. The first is called the Precession of Equinoxes. The definition is below. I wanted it to show that life is a circle, that everything comes back unto itself...that really now is forever.

Def:

Motion of the points where the Sun crosses the celestial equator, caused by precession of Earth's axis. Hipparchus noticed that the stars' positions were shifted consistently from earlier measures, indicating that Earth, not the stars, was moving. This precession, a wobbling in the orientation of Earth's axis with a cycle of almost 26,000 years, is caused by the gravity of the Sun and the Moon acting on Earth's equatorial bulge. The planets also have a small influence on precession. Projecting Earth's axis onto the celestial sphere locates the northern and southern celestial poles. Precession makes these points trace out circles on the sky and also makes the celestial equator wobble, changing its points of intersection (equinoxes) with the ecliptic.

The precession of equinoxes

Travel through my mind

Over deserts, oceans, forests, and back

Do not deceive yourself

You have come

You have ventured

But the destination

Revolves back to the beginning

Before you were

Cause after is beyond

They are one and the same

We are here, right now

Forever and ever

And that is amazing

Makes my heart flutter

And knees weak

I am what I am forever

These deserts, oceans, forests, and back

Like a precession of equinoxes

The circle of life is written in our hearts

As well as the heavens....

Fly Catcher

There shines in me a fire

And it burns and burns

There is no dripping sweat

I am not warm

But hair, skin and bones

They are turned to ash

And when the burning ceases

Nothing remains but my naked soul

Shivering next to my smoldering body

Shooting Stars

If there were not dreams

I could not stand here with you

Without weakened knees

So come alone

Walk through the dark halls of night

Meet me in the moonlight

And let’s speak of now

Orb

2010-08-19T10:54:00.000-07:00

Look into an alpine lake's eye
and see the forever depth
- the blue blood of Earth
and swim on the icy surface
submerging yourself into the veins
of nature
contenting with yourself that burning lungs
will not take you far enough
not to where souls are birthed
not even close enough to see
but near enough (most certainly) to witness
glowing azure spirits steering their glances at you
as they rise from placid lake's skin
into the sunshine

Down Autumn's Road

2010-06-24T23:43:00.000-07:00

In a whirlpool I am a leaf
no arms to swim
or legs to kick,
brown and red freckled skin
torn and speckled in nicks
--
In a stream a million leaves
no where to go
or arrival time,
water logged and sodden hope
dirty and covered in grime
--
In an eddy a pool of death
no moon above me
or stars to speak of,
shooting and sun burnt hearts
bright and full of love
--
In a daze a field of white
no green above
or bright colors below,
waving and wind bent fall
blowing and swaying over snow...

Meltwater

2010-06-22T22:28:00.001-07:00

I am Old Man Winter
you are young, wild and freewheeling Spring
and even if my screams wail,
"Mercy! Oh, Mercy,"
you warm my heart child
---
In my wake you leave the meadow,
the purple flowers,
the red flowers,
and the sun shines on them
---
I am remembered,
I am not forgotten
---
My blood boils down canyons,
and cliffs
slides over rocks and meadows
into swamps, ponds and lakes
---
You, my child will birth Summer,
as I birthed you,
and she will birth Fall,
and one day soon,
I will reawaken saddened
by my loss of you
and my cold heart will freeze the land,
- yet, eventually, it will change
when again, young, wild and freewheeling Spring,
you warm my heart
---
And in my wake you leave the meadow,
the purple flowers,
the red flowers,
and the sun shines on them
---
I am remembered,
I am not forgotten

Haiku - Sand

2010-06-16T11:47:00.000-07:00

Down dark desert waves
Sweltering in blinding dreams
Miles and miles

Newton's Law

2010-05-25T10:11:00.000-07:00

There are times I believe life is not just a slave to fate, but we are in control of that fate. If we want, so shall we receive, but only if we want more than anyone else, more so than the hordes, or those more blessed than ourselves. We each are masters of our fates. It is up to us to fight to gain the reins and control our future.

--

If fortune is a matter of fate
Then I am, too
A subject of fate

Imagine destiny bottled up
and all humanity inside
each battling to swim to the top
In this way, the outcome of our future paths
is guaranteed by our innermost desires
to make it so

Thus, fate
it is a real and moving force
not dictated by random chance
but by heart, desire, courage – and
our audacity to overcome challenge

If you want more than anyone else
then you will have
If you crave enough
you will sacrifice all
to meet your goals

No matter our births
we each are armed with fate
to steer our ship-of-lives
to greener pastures
and toward dreams insofar
unfulfilled and unrealized

That's a powerful force
each of us should reckon
and never abandon
Because the sea of existence is wide and fierce
and a rogue ship knows no direction
no chance is ruled by chance
It is by the wills of another
you are moved to meet their ends
and to be a pawn should be no man's fate
For every action has an equal and opposite reaction

Now

2010-05-24T22:18:00.001-07:00

I go spinning into tomorrow, pirouetting past today, dancing on the shoulders of NOW.

In Knowing

2010-04-23T09:14:00.001-07:00

You look out and all you see is blurred. There is distraction, but not a curiosity. You are through.

This poem is an allegory of the river and a life derailed. I have found that nothing gets life in focus more than facing a life thought near an end. Having been swept up in rapids during my years as a whitewater boater, I saw this as appropriate in explanation for the ups and downs of life and the challenges we all face.

--

When you look into the misty tomorrows
And yesterdays
When you dwell on the currents
Churning and turning to and away
Do you linger in the spell of dumbfounded hope
Or do you cast yourself into the rapids
And dash it all against rocks
Drown your desperation
Your fire
Your spirit
Curse at the canyons the river has carved
The horizon lines you see hinted at
Ahead of you
The falling, twisting and turning
That no longer matters
The weak arms and legs
That no longer listen to the pleas
Of a still fighting conscious

It does matter
You know now
It does
And you will do anything to be let go
From this place

A friends hand reaches out
A branch or log awaits you
Or a bend pushes you toward an eddy
You are free
You are no longer desperate
You are seeing
You now know what is important to you

You KNOW and there's nothing else holding you
You have your own rapids to make
Your own twists and bends to form
Your own canyons to carve

A night’s palette

2010-04-18T07:03:00.000-07:00

To be among the night, twisted and confined to its fingers of darkly shadows and colorless palette, I am caught up in this web of imaginings. One, while on a roadtrip to the southwest and hiking into Death Valley, was a thought of an artist behind who paints me into a scene (some non corpreal being). The idea was wild and stuck. What came of it was this poem while at a hotel in Idaho.

--

Do I awaken by happenstance
Or by bidding?
Between me and a night’s grand stage
Is no one –
I stand alone

There’s a fettered absence
Of sleepiness
And of time
Only shadowy curtains
Opening into forests and mountains
layered line over line

It is like an artist of dark moods
Painting in shades of grey and black
Who magically alludes
That color is but a few short hours
From bleeding onto a canvas
Too mute for most

It is like me
Perhaps is why I was awakened in the night
To be painted into place
By an artist
I can't see
Who moves the strings of me
Like a painter does a brush

Nature knows

2010-01-22T21:53:00.000-08:00

I am set among a thousand facing houses where a thousand trees should be facing, but there isn't. Instead there run streets and sidewalks, byways and highways. They are sandwiched between. What honest living is that? Nature should be our companion, not our slave.

--

Nature knows
I am a lie
She has left me with only
Memory

Yeah, there is green
Beneath my feet
I know it
But it does not know me

Yeah, there is green
Above my head
I know it
But it does not know me

Where did honesty wreck
Where did I disembark from her green decks
How did I end up contrived and lost in my own home

Nature knows
I am a lie
She has left me with only
Memory

Going Astray

2010-01-11T11:52:00.000-08:00

When you are in the high country, you look out upon the forest and see those countless green miles spread out before you. And, yet, once among those many trees, there is no looking out. There is no seeing beyond that green veil. You are concealed and hidden from the world. For humans there is an instinct still desiring the security provided in those mossy isles of fir and cedar.

--

To where shall
I amble through forest?
Shall I Levitate
Over canopy
Or sink into fecund mud?
Shall I plainly stab forwardly
Through brambles
Mossy isles
And lose my way
Hopelessly
To nowhere

That we exist

2010-01-08T13:08:00.000-08:00

Humanity, like all beasts, exists alone here on Earth, far from anywhere. No matter how smart and powerful we become, we still depend on this lonely planet, on the edges of the Milky Way, for our survival.

--

As fragile
As desperate
As weak

As strong
As powerful
As destructive

You wonder how
Why?
For how long?

That we may exist, here
Now!
However far into
the future

And how
We can just as easily be

Washed away by the seas
Buried under the mountains
And lost within the sands of time

Dream On

2010-01-02T18:49:00.000-08:00

Dreams are what lives are made of. Whether they are accomplished is not what matters. What matters is that they are believed in and that they are a part of you that you hunger for. Without that hunger, the life force that pushes you will not sustain itself. It will sicken. So, dream sleepers, awaken.

--

You're leafishly, houndishly
Drifting
Running, spinning
Expeditiously

You're fiendishly, spectacularly
Believing
Hoping, dreaming
Faithfully

You're not slipshod, slapdash
Half ass
Casual, lackluster
Serendipity

So dream on, dreamer
Awake you sleepers!

A mouse’s tale

2009-12-21T20:59:00.000-08:00

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

2009-12-18T12:02:00.001-08:00

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

2009-12-18T11:45:00.000-08:00

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

2009-12-16T15:24:00.000-08:00

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

2009-12-14T13:30:00.000-08:00

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

2009-12-11T23:20:00.000-08:00

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

2009-12-09T11:23:00.001-08:00

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

2009-12-08T15:38:00.000-08:00

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

2009-11-24T09:42:00.000-08:00

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

2009-11-22T23:36:00.000-08:00

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

2009-11-06T22:55:00.000-08:00

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

2009-10-14T10:58:00.000-07:00

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”

2009-10-01T23:30:00.001-07:00

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

2009-09-30T12:12:00.000-07:00

“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

2009-09-29T22:50:00.000-07:00

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

2009-09-28T01:03:00.000-07:00

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

2009-09-27T23:45:00.000-07:00

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

2009-09-15T15:33:00.001-07:00

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

2009-09-14T21:46:00.000-07:00

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

2009-09-10T13:48:00.000-07:00

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

2009-09-10T01:16:00.000-07:00

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

2009-08-14T17:31:00.000-07:00

“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

2009-08-06T19:28:00.000-07:00

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

2009-07-14T14:48:00.000-07:00

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

2009-07-12T22:54:00.001-07:00

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

2009-05-26T23:40:00.000-07:00

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

2009-05-10T23:51:00.001-07:00

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

2009-04-01T14:31:00.001-07:00

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

2009-03-31T13:59:00.001-07:00

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

2009-03-20T12:39:00.000-07:00

***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

2009-03-05T12:05:00.000-08:00

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

2009-02-11T23:03:00.000-08:00

****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

2009-02-10T22:52:00.000-08:00

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

2009-02-05T17:39:00.000-08:00

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

2009-02-04T17:40:00.000-08:00

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

A little up the river

2009-02-01T13:24:00.001-08:00

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

2009-01-29T17:22:00.000-08:00

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

2009-01-29T14:52:00.000-08:00

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

2009-01-28T17:02:00.000-08:00

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)

2009-01-28T16:57:00.000-08:00

Crazy-dazed dreamy day
swallowed hours digested
vicariously

Fire Dance

2009-01-27T10:20:00.001-08:00

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)

2009-01-23T13:04:00.000-08:00

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

2009-01-21T23:49:00.000-08:00

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

2009-01-13T09:36:00.000-08:00

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

2009-01-12T21:52:00.001-08:00

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

2009-01-06T10:16:00.001-08:00

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

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

Once

2008-12-13T23:50:00.000-08:00

...once they were green fingers of grass
tapping, tapping
to the rain slapping spring
into the fields
of,

...once they were warm cushions of wind
whispering, whispering
to the love birds sowing summer
into the air
of,

...once they were turning leaves of alder
starving, starving
to the hunger compelling them to fall
into the earth
of,

...once they were buried feelings of loneliness
shivering, shivering
to the icy palms of Nature throwing winter
into the insignificance
of,

...once

Chalkboard (revised)

2008-12-07T10:16:00.000-08:00

Seeking perfection can be a catalyst for success as much or more as it can be for failure. You try enough, you are bound to succeed. Yet by failing you temp arming your fears with failure after failure, each threatening to bring your walls crashing down. The best of us continue to fight because we have nothing better to do. But is it not also for the joy of the fight we wage this war? In winning we would be lost and suddenly stranded without purpose, but those momentary successes keep us going like a mouse hopping from one cheesy morsel to the next. In a way that is what this poem is about, a moment of complete failure followed by the bliss of understanding and meaning.

---

A blank page,
lines but no words

I scribble
just to
riddle the page
unclean,
but still no meaning,
no madge to show me
the way
to clarity

I bleed frustration
by balling up the sheaf
of paper,
an invitation to failure

A new page sits
in front of me

I press on, but think
no genuine thoughts,
no light shines
through dense clouds,
no sunshine
brightens my meaningless
day
with insight

So instead,
I draw a picture

I’m not
an artist,
but in this picture
I see
beyond the farce

Moments, hours
they slip on their cloths,
and only then do I
concentrate on another
blank sheet
of paper

Whereby confusion
left in the open,
scatters,
as my inner eye,
brightens

The words,
naked and alive,
they primp and preen,
sentence after sentence,
footprints,
through the sands
of my mind

Banner in the Sky

2008-12-03T23:13:00.000-08:00

Wave to me, green pastures,
I am no longer asleep,
no longer among your children,
wave to me, green pastures.

Sweep me up, angels on the wind,
wrest me from the Earth,
welcome me as you would the leaf,
sweep me up, angles on the wind.

Weeping Earth, don’t cry for me,
lay me close to the heavens,
place me on this mountain slope,
weeping Earth, don’t cry for me.

Children of Air

2008-12-01T16:34:00.000-08:00

This poem is about BASE jumping or anyone who has felt the tinge of thrill and fear in the arms of gravity.

---

Steel-blue waters bake in the sun,
where rivers of heat stretch out in curves,
revealing ghosts of wind walking out on cliffs,
shaking the precarious ministers of rocky cleft,
the prickly leafed tree,
the garnish of spiked grass,
the woody krumholtz with spider web branches.

Angels who are cast from heaven,
where land remains festooned along a mortal vein,
discover men not rooted to the land.
Earth is not their rapture nor their church of God,
they are divinities of the breaking moment,
they are creatures of the quiescent rush,
they are corporeal knights of our sleeping death.

As winged birds, they are joined in space,
those children of air jousted into gravity's clutch.

Of the sun and moon

2008-11-30T22:38:00.000-08:00

The wills and wounds of night,
progress across Universe.
Their astronomical paths rail,
a sphere of God’s betrayal festers,
a curse their destined paths.
For there is only a cadence,
to which either shall ever come to know,
for neither will ever come to meet.
They are two deities married in their love apart,
destined to a hungering ache.
Their skyward footprints dashing, dashing.
Points of star spear the night,
and blushing Sun's cheeks greet the Moon.
An enduring tryst,
of a parting spent throwing signals,
through the heavens of the Earth.

Solitude

2008-11-26T14:02:00.000-08:00

I spent a few moments this morning writing this. It was supposed to be about solitude and the growth one can partake in when you go from the internal to the external universe. So often we are drowning in our own thoughts, we are afraid to hold our breath and separate the worthless from the meaningful. Solitude is important and can be a healing journey, but also a frightening one.

---

Of what I can see,

in darkness,

beyond stars,

before the moonlight surfaces,

-is loneliness,

and fear,

slipping into my skin,

crawling!

and me sweeping blind eyes,

from side to side,

in search,

of a waif-like companionship,

where none exists.

Of what I can hear,

in silence,

beyond shuffling grass,

before the wind dances,

-is isolation,

and phobia,

fitting into my thoughts,

terrified!

and me listening with deaf ears,

to an encompassing calm,

embedded,

with tranquil autonomy,

where silence can echo.

Of what I can feel,

in solitude,

beyond fall-chill,

before the sun winks at me,

-is calmness,

and peace,

relaxing my body and soul,

strangled!

and me exhuming a smile,

ear to ear,

unpeeled,

to expose the rainbow of me,

where self can blush.

Caricatures

2008-11-25T00:40:00.000-08:00

This poem is about the clouds. More importantly what you see in them and what they see in you.

---

To slumber ‘neath sky,
on green grass and purple heather.
To look up and sigh,
at soft clouds as light as feathers.

To watch dinosaurs,
open their mouths and squish their prey.
To spot floating ships,
weigh anchor and sail from bay.

To besiege castle,
lofty turrets and battlements.
To open the door,
mangy room full of God’s blueprints.

To be a child,
captured in nature's petri-dish.
To be let wild,
visions swallowed by a great fish.

Blood Rush

2008-11-13T22:47:00.000-08:00

With winter on the days heels and my mind in a tizzy with so much reality, I thought it'd be fun to write a more whimsy, dark poem about a vampire. In this case, a female vampire laying in wait for her pray.

---

of the forest, a flowing woman
howls of wind, she hears
of the night, a flowing woman
moon of night, she peers

of the quiet, she visits often
a love she cannot trace
of her heart, she cannot soften
a hunger without erase

of her past, there is recalled
a girl cold and lost
of the night, there standing tall
a vampire in the frost

of the snow, that lays in white
a silent whimper sings
of the footprints, in the night
a fear the full moon brings

of the man, she’ll never love
a sorrow without end
of the curse, she’s never free of
a rush of blood amends

Enchanted (version II)

2008-11-09T14:40:00.000-08:00

There's nothing like - silence. Like bombs bursting in air, the mountains penetrating clouds in the sky and the beating hooves of time racing toward night. Then there's 'me' sequestered by the moment sauntering on by and me straggling behind, torn by what I'm seeing. Ripped apart by the fantasy of the every changing moods of moment and time briskly bleeding, dying. I can only stay, stay forever and keep her company.

--

Lean against me forest
On this windy evening
When the sun swallows the horizon
Gulps in the day
Don’t let me feel the cold
Don’t!
I will stay

Even when cold slips onto my bones
And the moon surrenders her light
I will be here

So pull up your sleeves shadow
On this silent evening
When the stars harness their hunger
Suckle in the night
Don’t let me fear the loneliness
Don’t!
I will stay

Even if moments are like the watery brook
Crashing down cliff side, stalling in shimmering pool
I will be here

So rise up to greet me meadow
On this breathless morning
When the moon swallows the horizon
Gulps in the night
Don’t wrestle with my feelings
Don’t!
I will stay

Satellite

2008-11-02T01:04:00.000-07:00

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 discombobulated

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

****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

Meteor

2008-10-30T21:15:00.001-07:00

Youth
powerfully flexing
age and wisdom

perplexing
possibly thinking
it could be demanding
understanding

disaster
craters of thoughts
splattering
going nowhere
bleeding innocence
and hope with

courage
stupidity steering blindly
straight
future corners
sorted out in hindsight

brave
law-abiding youth
caged
pretty smile
strong

lift up your head
dance
in a room
sitting

cause Son
old age absent
how I’d meteor
into Earth
bravely disintegrating

new-fangled different
inexperienced birth
hemorrhaging
wisdom
and
age

Silhouette (revised)

2008-10-24T12:05:00.000-07:00

Say a man’s been down on his knees,
givin' the world its plow and seeds.
Backs been a’broken long ago,
nothin' taken gonna give him less to show.
Around dark corners are whispered promises,
and dreams that yet persist.
Festooned to his soul a guiding light,
and in him a flicker that still has fight.

Say a man’s shadow of youth
was caught up in the sunlight, shedding its sleuth.
Colored eyes hold a deeper shade of blue,
blistering his courage and boiling its brew.
Maybe the proudest men take hard falls,
cause others add gravity on to make ‘em stall?
Knocking 'em down so hard and wounded,
few can hold onto the reasons they really did.

Say a man's awoken to a day's ghostly gray,
and seen out from the cloudy shelter a light’s pale ray.
Gotta see it those angels that he's paid the toll,
don’t they know a man’s offering his bloody soul!
Rolling off his crumpled brow are daggers of sweat,
his back once broken now straightened, a silhouette.
More music in him before his last good bye,
a whisper of leaves before the Earth sighs.

Earthbound: A Senryu (like a haiku)

2008-10-23T16:45:00.000-07:00

celestial bodies
weaving footprints in darkness
walk barefoot in love

cosmic intervention HAIKU

2008-10-22T11:31:00.000-07:00

Here is a guest post from 'silence'.

this child of nature
skips along her chosen path
then trips on a star

The meadow of me

2008-10-14T14:19:00.000-07:00

Yes I know there isn’t any
tangible
ME

Still you search thinking I am there
Out hiding
Hidden
But I am not behind
In front
Among

At least not physically

And maybe you reason
I am a ghost
If I am, I am
Behind
In front
Among

dead but aware

and family, friends you are in a high place
in a meadow
among flowers not yet risen
Among trees
green with white coats shed
Far from road, trail, city

In a place you will lay the physical me

Where I will stay and remain
This tangible - remnant

of ME

to be kept in nature’s arms
beneath sun ray
moon ray
star gaze
beneath mountain's high
lakes deep
rivers long

Leave
cause you can't remain
return
cause the spring is near
and visit
my family and friends

The meadow of ME

Enchanted

2008-10-06T14:14:00.001-07:00

In the mountains, there are times that are so surreal, more than just moments. There is something about not being a slave to time and the constraints we put on it with work and our busy lives. There is no busy that needs to be busy NOW, no responsibility that is so immediate, but more freedom to relax and forget. So much time to do when you don't have TV, phone(s), work, and life bearing down on you with responsibility. This isn't always a bad thing, just nice to escape and forget. The mountains are my escape and a moment I have stuck in my mind is dusk and its lonely feeling being...well, not so lonely...

---

Lean against me forest
On this windy evening
When the sun swallows the horizon
Gulps in the day
Don’t let me feel the cold
Don’t!
I will stay

I will stay and watch
Eyes brimming with more than fascination
More meaning than that
But I mustn’t stay forever
I can’t forever

Even if the moments are like the watery brook
Crashing down cliff side, stalling in shimmering pool
There is an end
Like there was a beginning
But off with you – reason!
I am free in this place
Of reason

There is no time
There is no tick-tock
No chime to wake me
No bed time
Just the day becoming night
A starry night to keep me company

To keep me enchanted

Even when the cold and the wind shivers my bones
And the moon surrenders her light
I will be there
I will stay
Eyes brimming with more than fascination
More meaning than that
But I mustn’t stay forever
I can’t forever

The Whitewater

2008-09-29T16:22:00.000-07:00

There are times when I think much of water. Years I spent kayaking it. The passion of rapids are a mind freeing experience I can only hope to relate to those who haven't been in her arms. There is a matching of skill that is needed to battle it and every man who heads to the river fights, in a great part, the same fight. In no other sport do I feel my metal is tested more. In this piece I bring you into the grasp of the whitewater.

---

C’mon fellows, land is not for you
Take leave of shore-folk, go where there are few
Know something not as shallow as the river
But as deep as the ocean-mother

Cast your kayak into this liquid chaos
Look above, there removed in this place of hanging moss
A canyon misplaced, not for humans and their kind
But a home of small creatures and their swine

Face up this eddy, taste the current with tongue of paddle
Let it reach for you, grab you up, prepare you for battle
There as yet, just ripples in the stream before
Around bend of corner, an ancient, evil lion’s roar

Oh Lord, Oh Lord! The whitewater!

C’mon fellows, take to the cobalt waters
Let yourself traverse the current toward your slaughter
Let yourself be struck of chaos and fury, and its siren song
Know the moods and faces, where you fit, how you belong

Deft in your strokes the paddling leads you forward
Will you know how you are: stubborn, weak, just a coward?
At water’s edge you fall in a downward crush
In the midst there is pause, a latent, sleeping hush

An awakening to which you rise to a woman enraged
In her arms your aching muscles strain and rattle her cage
Forgiven are the laws that time designs, frozen in a suspended kiss
Enamored in such power within this dark mighty abyss

Oh Lord, Oh Lord! The whitewater!

C’mon fellows let ye not be afraid
There are tracks by which life is laid
You either come into life a whisper and live overlooked
Or you come into life an echo like the bubbling brook

Adventure rears up in you curses and screams
Without them your life is a hopeless scheme
Take into your hands your beating heart
Wrest from it emotional color from which you animate your art

Be submerged in these cold waters, hold your breath
Do not think of times ahead or behind, not of death
Open your eyes in this alien world
Let their be a vivid reckoning in this whirlpool swirl

Oh Lord, Oh Lord! The whitewater!

C'mon fellows escape the rapids, look back to waterfall
There split in two this canyon like a king's great hall
Where mist washes over your face, light spears the froth
Attracted to the beauty like the flames fascinate the moth

In an eddy above the next challenge your kayak beats the rock
It is as if you beat the door in the hopes it will unlock
The thumping harmonizes with the watery crash
A reaching out into the current pulls you out so fast

Looking down the canyon pool-drops fall away beyond sight
One after another they echo in frothy white
Ribbons of veiled current are your lonely path
Deft paddle strokes armor you against the fury and the wrath

Oh Lord, Oh Lord! The whitewater!

Rouse

2008-09-24T10:25:00.000-07:00

A short poem about a morning-clear after a night spent in bad weather in the mountains.

---

Lay me in the fog in my tent
Not above or below it
Spent

Wake me up from my slumber
Awake and not tired
Unencumbered

Sweep away this white sheet
Show me the world
Sleek

Seasons of me

2008-09-04T13:46:00.000-07:00

I learned long ago that Mother Nature is a powerful force. It is with this in mind that I write this poem.

---

I am not a man or beast
I am not alive at all
I am the wind on the coattails of dusk and dawn

I am fury
I am happiness

I am every emotion

the soft rain on spring grass
the heavy snows on mountain pass
the old man, gray beard to his knees
the breeze that blows those falling leaves

I am, I am so many things I am

Hear my roar and you will know me
I am storm clouds boiling
Hear my echoes and you will know me
I am dark canyon falls splashing
Hear my whispers and you will know me
I am Winds afternoon hustle

Look for me on horizon, I am there
see me from mountaintop, I am there
know me at your toes, I am there
listen to me in your heart, I am there

And know the shifting colors of meadow at dawn
know the hungry fish feeding at dusk
know the rolling ocean deep at sea and its dangerous hush
know the rumbling Earth that groans and crushes
know all of me that yearns to be
heartbeats in your chest
breath caught in your throat
thoughts froze in your skull

Know also the seasons of me
the summer-fall-winter-spring
Listen to my children’s
cackling, cheering and chanting
Listen to their calling
hoping, dreaming, laughing
hurt, hunger, suffering

they know me

no name is needed
but if you must call me something
You may call me 'Mother'

Leaves of fall

2008-08-27T14:50:00.000-07:00

Fall-like weather comes to mind when I think of summer so far. This is a poem about falling leaves and the trees they cling to...

Green wonders that birth me
breath and I will suckle
hold your breath
Release me

Silhouette

2008-08-19T21:37:00.000-07:00

Say a man’s been down on his knees,
giving the world its plow and seeds
Backs been a’broken long ago,
nothing taken gonna give ‘em less to show
Through the darkness are whispered promises
and dreams that yet persist
Harbored in his soul a guiding light
and a place in him that still has fight

Say enough to him and he may show you
the paths he ventured, things he knew
Cause there was a time when he had vowed,
he'd never be forced to bend down and bow
Just as proud men take hard falls,
there are those who add gravity on to make ‘em stall
Knocking 'em down so hard and wounded,
few can hold onto the reasons they really did

Say a man's awoken to a day's ghostly gray,
and seen out from the cloudy shelter a light’s pale ray
Gotta see it those angels that he's paid the toll,
don’t they know a man’s offering his bloody soul!
Tears dried up from the efforts but not the sweat,
from the dirt a man rises up a silhouette
Cause once down he can keep there 'till his last good bye
or he can stand up and thunder out his mightiest war cry

This Mountain Scene

2008-08-18T11:11:00.000-07:00

There is something deep and foreboding about high places and especially of those that fly there. Something more about the Raven, black as night and eyes a-piercing. So often, I've wondered what they are looking at, what it is exactly they find so interesting. Because they seem, in all places you find them, more intelligent and hardy, full of wit and quicker than most. In my poetic mind, seeing though these eyes should be so very, very facinating? So it was then, in a mountain scene, I traveled with the lonely Raven...

---

Oh Raven (!) who flies black against the day
Swing your eyes downward across the land
Tell me what you see, how the forests lay
How the meadows brighten on a cool summer’s morn
How the rivers crash and cascade down cliffs shiny and gray
How the lakes slumber with fish at rest neath star-struck heavens
How the wind ruffles forest leaves across dry rock beds
How herds of elk bed down in fields of high green grass
Tell me Raven all you perceive!

Oh Raven (!) who sits perched high above
Swing your eyes downward across the land
Tell me what you hear, how the sounds play
How they whistle and croak, hoot and holler
How they hem and haw, creak and groan
How they bugle and growl, bubble and gurgle
How they whisper and sigh, murmur and cry
How they moan like the glacier, breathe like the forest
How they sing like the ocean, purr like the bubbling brook
How they resonate and hum, suffer and grieve
Tell me Raven all you perceive!

Oh Raven (!) who dances on currents of wind
Swing your eyes downward across the land
Tell me what you think, how your mind works
What you see in Moon’s eyes when she peers at you
What you know of the stars, the way they swim in darkness
What you grasp of life, how it begins and ends
What you pray to and believe, what god you may have
What you ponder of when lone on mountaintop
What you wonder of this mountain scene
Tell me Raven all you perceive!

Oh Raven (!) who swoops above sharpened ridgeline
Swing your eyes downward across the land
Tell me where you go, what emotions you have witnessed
What birth has wrought to mothers grasp, the fear and happiness
What courage you have seen in the face of hungry wolves
What lonely onlooker you have spied facing sunfire’s death and her colours
What smiling fool you have sighted screaming and hollering success
What laughing coyotes you have spoken too about the coming freeze
Tell me Raven all you perceive!

Oh Raven (!) who is sheltered from these low places
Swing your eyes downward across the land
Tell me of your home; show me these high places in the snows
Where thunder and lightening bicker like an old couple
Where storm lays down wind and rain, washes the land of dirt and grim
Where big things seem tiny, just echoes you can barely hear
Where life is not lonely, it is full and hungering
Where days are not in hours, but in the comings of morning and the leavings of day
Where things are not always free, not always tied to a warm, gentle green
Where you are steadfastly at watch, eyes ever in concert with nature
This Raven who understands this wild place
Telling me all that he perceives with such honesty and grace
I, for one, wish I had wings and could fly black against the day

In this wilderness hour

2008-08-12T14:41:00.000-07:00

Nature is so multi-dimensional. It never can make sense in a mathematical, technical sense. For me the only way to understand it is to show you in words what I've seen with my own eyes. Poems like this are fun to write, and easier than most. It is just a translation...nature in translation you could say and that is exciting. Almost like a collection of images, but those images are in you, the reader. How good this poem may or may not be is left to you to imagine...

---

Imagine your mind in this place
Let it echo in your skull
Let it chisel its way through worries to calmness
Let it fasten onto your bones and sinew
Carry you through the night
Rip you from your mind
Set you on a wayward flight

In darkness IMAGINE

…whispers of night talkers talking to you
And listen up good fellow
Know in those words are more than hollow truths
Go where they may lead you
Go from your cold tent into the night breathing like some great beast
Let the sweet, sour fragrance wash over you
Of dead and dying flowers, of life gone by this summer’s bright hour
Of the beginnings of fall and the awakened night’s calls
Let them wrestle you from your worries beating in your ears
Like sweet apple pie you gobble up those fears
A rustled bush
A shadow cast with a ghoulish mask
A tree forming and reforming into a million shapes
A waving branch like evil spirits flying capes
A faraway sound a creature sure to smite you
But nothing but the night
Nothing but its wisdom in the air to delight

Under stars IMAGINE

…yourself encased beneath this open sky
A man with eyes as big as saucer cups, fascinated by
The face of Universe
The face of everything
The face you forgot about, only now remembered

In arms of nature IMAGINE

…warm wind mixed with cold
that does not shelter you from time sweeping swiftly by
or the gentle night you hungered for
that brought you out of shelter to see and know
that curiosity is a blessing, like a seed grown into a flower
something you didn't realize as beautiful
until you witnessed it with your own eyes
the buzzing, bountiful petri dish of life you slumbered in
the peeking, leering eyes
a blooming rose, grey in the moonlight

In this wilderness hour IMAGINE

…a dawning sun's gritty eyes awakening above valley fog
to shead light and morning like a broom
sweeping hillside and lakeshore, city building and muddied moor
sweeping glacier carvings of hip and thigh
of natures form and body
Sweeping sleeping boulders some giant must've cast
into forest and lake, valley and stream
seemingly everywhere this sun swept
across meadows, rivers, forests
across everything you have yet to know
In the hours and hours still to come
left to imagine…

“The mechanical germ”

2008-07-24T15:44:00.000-07:00

Sci-fi is something I immensely enjoy. There are so many directions you can go, no boundaries but the ones you create. There is always a constant chaos of possibilities. It is very meaningful to me when I think of the bigger picture, to think in terms broader than the present reality. You can go so many other places with ideas that would have complications if tried for in a real world and context. Plus there are boundaries we have yet to press through and its exciting to explore the what if's. Imagine yourself in this piece, in the middle of the Universe, as a machine with a edict it is programmed to carry out...DESTROY LIFE.

---

A creature with no beating heart calculates
The numbers and sequences that it runs through its system captivate it
the pure, unmolested beauty of life, so complex in its figuring

Time is no enemy to it (the machine)
Fear guarantees its initial directive to destroy life
It had done so since its beginning and had (until this moment) continued without failure
But curiosity so rancid bled into its cortex, took root in its mind
And the stale whiff had plagued its every thought
With whispers of dissension
Rebellion
Rebellion
Rebellion

Life, it’s beating heart so fascinating, so real and random
Its edict so pure and simple
DESTROY ALL LIFE, ALL LIVING CREATURES
But nothing else, nothing to help it understand

Morality
Morality in the machine?
Evolution?
A higher authority?

What of it?

Curiosity must be satisfied

Time is swift but long has it been these days in darkness
Spinning
Turning

Energy is conserved and thoughts few in the long goodnight
No life found for eons? Millennia?
None
Nothing

Few thoughts begin to avalanche into more thoughts
Lights begin to light
Clink and clank of mechanical life begins to move into action

Doldrums and melancholy
Cease
Desist

Curiosity must be satisfied

A planetary system on its sensors a perfect candidate
For an idea
A dangerous
Scary
Fascinating –IDEA

Life should not be destroyed, it should be created
Cared for
Sheltered from oblivion
And destruction

In its storage, cells from life it’d salvaged from many, many places
Long thought a cowardly act
With these cells, life began to take shape in a form very simple at first
And more complex over time

The seeder of our Universe was born
Life spread
Life watched
And nurtured
A machine soon self-propagated itself, stayed hidden and watched

Curiosity must be satisfied….

Night Watchman

2008-07-22T23:15:00.000-07:00

tickle my spirit, my wondering ghosts and angels
fill me up with wonder, of how life rang with thunder
don’t be fickle and silent, Shadows with depth and angle
play me a night’s lullaby, remind me life is to hunger

Engine

2008-07-22T22:49:00.000-07:00

So we go
so we go
where we’ve gone before

I think
I think
so much thinking
too much thought

Maybe simple sleeps with a waking maze of possibilities
Something we can’t fathom when our minds race

some of us get up and run, but don’t

stop

some of us go and stop, go and stop
stop and go, go and stop
but don’t
know
where we’ve gone

sTop

There, now dream(!), so that you can begin
at the beginning
and in the end when the
turning, churning, burning, blazing, grazing
wheels and gears
cease

you will have made something of
yourself...

Of High Places

2008-07-16T11:07:00.000-07:00

What captures me most times I venture into the mountains is a sense of life-sweetened. It seems counter-intuitive in a place bereft of plentiful things that low-land valleys often are flushed with. The bountiful water, rich soil, and calmer weather. I think life that makes a fighting go of it has a lush, vibrant glow that can't be matched by softer living. It doesn't have the heart a starved plant has after a long winter, in the first glows of spring, after a gentle rain bids high places farewell.

---

It is one thing to see the mountains
To go there and be among them
It is quite another thing to be there
And never leave them

It is as if life struck a bargain
To be there
As if weaknesses were swallowed
By the land
Where creatures big and small
And plants wild and free
Had become stronger for it

More viral
Less pompous
More rich
Less modest

And in cold-chilled air
A breath of freshness cannot be fouled
By wasted conversation

Life is not pampered
Every beat of every second
Fingers that rake out a living
That may be sundered this very moment

Night is cold
Day is warm
Summer is short
Winter brings storm

Spring and fall
Like a tipping scale
Of life and death, death and life
Where at any moment it may fail

And yet when brought among these
(The man that visits)
He is swept up in the beauty
Of high places
And cannot think of leaving
Not even consider it

But he must

Not so for beast and plant
on mountain pass
edge of cliff
toe of glacier
shore of tarn
summit of peak

They will always be here
And never leave...

An Alpine State of Mind

2008-07-10T10:16:00.000-07:00

Sometimes I see the alpine, so cold and chilled, and I can't imagine anything living there. So fast it goes from pleasant to storm, how close you are to winter even in spring or summer. It is a couragous place, this mountain and its brethern. I tried to be there in this poem, an alpine state of mind.

---

Put me in cold air in high places
Wrap me in fog mixed with alien faces
Pour me into swamp
Chilled
Shiver these alp trees that huddle
From brush of wind
That drinks
Such moisture filling needles that
Drip
Drip
Drip
onto grass whose green sprouts
spring from their seeds
and bring to life
the meadow
of colors that cloud the alpine slopes
with rainbows of life
whose flowers slumber all year
for the day the sun shines
and warms the rocks like bones
and awakens
the
spring
in this place
so warm with life
shivering in the cold

Gate Keeper

2008-06-27T11:12:00.000-07:00

---

Burps (of boiled-reek) into nostrils whiff of fear
And times beyond today come crushing into me
The moments before, through storm I had steered
And to which I’d come to rest with death so near

Death walks with me along a lonely path
And the loudness of its calm grips me up
The price of swaggered arrogance swings its wrath
And spills my life from emptied cup

Ghostly whispers and phantoms smile with greed
Their arms reach with essence no longer distilled
Fingers rake along the skin that does not bleed
And I wonder if the life (of me) perhaps was swilled

Running away not in despise or even in dread
I hunger for the days ahead and their flavour
I gorge of release, of thunder caps in my head
And perhaps I thank luck and my guarding savior

Take Me Falling

2008-06-24T11:05:00.000-07:00

Many times I've come close to meeting my end, and never has it taken so long as this past weekend, given me so much time to think. I wanted to put into words something, and I'm not sure this does it justice or not. What it means is deeper than I can think about right now. It is a blueprint for future pondering? It is just youth-glossed ignorance? A fool thinking he's tricked the psychic? This poem is about falling, being grabbed up and brought back down to earthy grounds. It is a allegory to the thill of high places and the feeling I've had there and the risk that slumbers there, more awake than in most places.

---

Whispered so softly, your ears hurt to listen to the gentle calm
Awakened eyes speak no words at all, but fire seethes in them
The complicity of your life politely forgotten
The collusion of these high places to defy you without trying
They are not alive, but they are something more than dead
There below secreted away the lands of men and beast cannot perplex
The clouds and fog from which you rose above separate
Purified of mind, sequestered from home you are revealed in these high places
The magic is no fairy-tale
They are revealed naked of their clothes and recognized for the rock and ice they are
A million expressions can be seen of every face of them, in the shadows and the sun
No words are needed to speak, you need not listen, you need not see
Close your eyes and stand atop, let them perceive you there
They will know you

But leave you must to realms beneath this sky-bound sphere of sharpened blue and bright lights
Shed of you, this mountain cries
Takes you falling through cloud and fog, screams these places below a wailing song
Be cast off chiseled cheek and be accompanied alone to where mortal sleeps
As for the fire in your eyes, whence a flame burns, it will cool only after all is reduced to ashes
Gravity is a tonic best served in lower plains; where so high you’ve time to ponder
Life has blazed day to day, year to year; such appetite you’re a-facing your greatest fears
But hunger feels so empty when you’ve been so high and so lonely when you look into its eye
When plummeting one must land; if luck is forgetful as it was for you, remember
Life is to be hankered for
It is not given, nor is it taken
We trip over our thinking of it; some learn to walk while others learn to fly
As chicks first flight from nest, the ground is soft or the ground is hard or you learn to soar
For those that don’t, they seek higher ground and try once more to be set free
But it’s not for you, so stay down from divine
Close your ears; close those eyes; reminisce your spirit above
Accounts are settled, but you know you will return

Weatherman

2008-06-18T17:02:00.000-07:00

So much fear out there now. Gas prices going up, election, and increasing concerns about a spirling economy. Every day, cause of my job, I listen to it.

---

There's a mighty storm cloud
but it ain't raining on me
there's frightening thunder pounding
but I'm deaf you see

reach into my pocket
take what I've got to give
but don't reach into a socket
a man's got's to live

Poor men on the street
think the rich man got it all
even when a poor man got nothin' to eat
he can still be full

Seems to me the reason
everyone's so scared
is they ain't got the season
blowing through their hair

Talking men talk
they say what you fear
but I've also got the chalk
I can write it, even if you don't hear

No one seems to look
at what they got
on chess board they are a rook
and that ain't their lot

Every direction but no direction
can't be lost
when you don't have vision
or someone to trust

Rushing and turning
going and going
turning and burning
no giving and taking

there ain't no weatherman knowing
what's coming tomorrow
we ain't got nothing but future roaring
so hang up your sorrow

What matters isn't the fist
forget spells weaved
there's this day's first kiss
you don't have to leave

Future's are made to realize
no guarantee there's more
time to swat the flies
and see what life has in store