Dream Pirate

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

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

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

Jumping for joy

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Down dark desert waves
Sweltering in blinding dreams
Miles and miles

Newton's Law

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

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

In Knowing

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

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

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