Saturday, December 30, 2017

In the Sunshine



In the Sunshine

I love life
I love the green in it
I love the peace in it
The quiet
The turmoil 
The dust 

I love renewal 
But it takes a death
A turning
A burial 
A yearning 

A burning
In a fire that never sleeps 

I love geometry 
The lines
The angles
The curves and libations 
Smiles and sadness
Profound rotations
Along a symmetry that never ends

I hear the sirens
They bring me back to an earthen space
I feel the longing pains for grace
That overcomes all my lack of reasons
I feel the air, I sense the seasons 
Are forever returning to the grand delights

No longer night




Tuesday, December 19, 2017

Meander



Meander
Don’t assume that everyone is as unfulfilled as you are
Don’t think that normal is your own
Don’t believe that every wish upon a star
Or every seed that’s sown
Becomes the thing you saw it to be
Sometimes it’s more
Sometimes it’s naught
Sometimes a drought
Sometimes a draught 

However things turn out to be
It matters how much it’s watered
It matters how much there’s light
It matters when it doesn’t make a difference
It matters when it’s day or when it’s night

Through all the patterns of the daylight
There is always a weaving and a rhythm
That is well beyond what we see, what we know
There is always a vapor in the starlight
There is always a purity to the snow
We often have to rest to feel it
We often have to still ourselves to perceive
We often have to keep climbing up the mountains
Deeply inhaling the air we receive

Either as if it is not quite enough
Or as if we must keep gasping for more

There’s a subtlety in the difference
I don’t quite know exactly what it means
I simply know in the act of the motion
I begin to see the mysteries of the unseen

In the stillness, in the motion
In the rivers, in the oceans
There are so many questions in life
Yet in them all there lies the signs to the Answer
When we choose to join stillness, not strife

So let’s meander

Sunday, December 10, 2017

The Parable



The Parable

In just a matter of moments 
The sunlight ascended right up the mountain 
It was nothing at all
It took no time at all
There’s a lesson in there 
For me and for you
In those things that seem impossible to do 
The light has already been there
To create an incredible view

Time to enjoy it....

Thursday, December 7, 2017

The Unknown


The Unknown
I stand ready for battle
Staring at the blank screen before me
My mouth agape
Ready to fire forth the arrows galore
Yet all I see is rain and mist and haze
I don’t feel or know the Gatekeepers gaze
So all I know is quiet and dust
Where do I find the Guardian’s trust
So that I may enter the fields of renown?
My head has been shaped for a victor’s crown
My feet have been shaped for the journey
My mind has been formed by the years and years
Of competing in the tourney
Yet no prize will I ever know that way
I will know no prize living in this fear, this mist
This life that knows no pain, no bliss
Just the abandoned memories of Costco and Sam’s Club
I go buying up all their pizzas
Is that the way I’m to be known?
Is that the battle guard I’ve always flown?
No, I don’t think so, not at all.
I suddenly hear a clarion call 
off in the distance
It’s a voice so distinctive in its strength
Yet universally renowned in all its gentleness
Was that Love I heard?
Before I can say one single, solitary word
My heart has leapt out before me
Now I must go chasing it down
Down into the Keeper’s Fields
The place where everything in my being yields 
To the ways and the means of Love who resides there
I hear the lions, I hear the bears
My mind is literally tearing asunder
But my heart charges full speed toward the wonder
The wonder we all call “the unknown.”

Saturday, December 2, 2017

Listening to the Wind


Listening to the Wind
Sometimes it’s best just to sit here listening
The sound of the Spirit moving in the silence
Anticipation in the air
The samplings of a gourmet chef
With all the smells and whistles
None of the thorns and thistles
But a balancing nonetheless
I break from far-off weary dreams
To embrace this quiet lull that seems
As nothingness is the norm
Yet the violent wind of storm
Awakes me to the difference
I listen, calmer, deeper still
While the windowpane is shaking
I carry on to the throne of God
Where everything is breaking
Where everyone has entered dance
Where no friend is forsaking
It is the best world of them all
For no fright is resting there
It is the greatest world of all
Only love is resting here
I am awakened to the difference
There is no end it seems
To this place of living, immortal dreams
Where colors are tasted
Great is delight
Where sights are mere wonders
Never is night
Except where sons do not shine
Once again, I am awakened to the difference

Wednesday, November 29, 2017

Into the Depths



Into the Depths
I have dived into an ocean
Now I realize I’ve gone so deep
I don’t know where I am
The only thing I thought I could do to save myself
Is see where the light is coming from
Then simply return to the surface
But now, where I am, there is light coming from all directions
I now have no idea which way I’m supposed to go
But I presume that wherever I go
there will be nothing but goodness
In whichever way I choose

Sunday, November 12, 2017

Monolith


Monolith
Running laps around the carousel 
Blitzing at American Dream speed
No time to think of why
Just churn out numbers until I die
I run straight smack into a monolith
It suddenly appeared right in my way
So massive, so resolute 
So beautiful 
I hit so hard my mind just stopped cold
I feared for my sanity 
I lost all semblance of bold
All thoughts stopped 
The words would not come
Silence allowed me to hear
The rhythms of the entire universe 
The ringing in my ears
Still screeches from the impact 
I hear the slumber of others
Their soft snores ebbing as the oceans 
I hear the cries of witches, warlocks
Selling their impotent potions
To the most delusional highest bidder 
But most of all I realize I have never been still before
I’ve never paused to realize the meaning of the floor
I’ve never seen such clear blue sky
I’ve never sensed the rain
I think the most disconcerting thing
Is I never felt my pain
This is why I’ve been so alone
I toss aside my humming phone
Looking up to the folds of granite 
I pause, I linger, I fold, I panic
At the thought I have to scale this
Yet even though I consistently fail this
I put all I have into the ascent
Which all I have is me
The fireflies begin to flicker, burn 
They begin to light a pathway
So though there fades the light of day

I still climb, I still ascend 

Especially when I am still 

Saturday, November 11, 2017

The Hope


The Hope
Poetry shouldn’t be forced
I’m not sure anything good comes from coercion
I’m so impeded, the words won’t come
They are there in my mind, in my soul
Yet there is this dark blockade
Anger, fatigue, self-doubt, irritation, impatience
These are the bricks in the wall

I so often wait around for inspiration
Inspiration is too fleeting, too fickle
I might be sitting on this rock for ages
Moss growing all around me
Growing on my face and eyes
While waiting to be mesmerized
The sun completes all its seasons

So I search for more, I look for reasons
Why all this is the way it is for me
Instead of resting along the trees
I wander off into the bramble
Thus the reason I mumble, ramble
Along the sidewalks of the mysterious plodding way

I still don’t know quite what to say

I still don’t know quite what to pray

Or how

I must go deeper than my brow
Maybe I must go higher
My skin has tired of these annoying briers
That daily scratch my skin
I wonder if my past, the lives of my kin
Have gone these overgrown life ways?

No, I cannot go backwards, that makes no sense at all
I set my eyes for the ambers of fall
Knowing there will be a winter

Christmas is coming

Thursday, November 9, 2017

The Way



The Way
I can feel the poems within me
Growing, moving, churning
Not yet ready to see the light
Yet building the light within me greatly
Sometimes I feel volcanic, ready to burst asunder
Sometimes there’s simply quiet, undercurrent
Moving the continents
One millimeter at a time
These senses are so subtle, sublime
Yet also they can be a sudden torrent
I don’t have my container ready to catch it all
The drops disappear into the warm, rich earth
Something will grow from them later
Something that creates a vast, deep crater
Too deep to see the bottom
Too wide to know the expanse
No droning lore or circumstance
Can describe or tame it
I can feel the poems within me
They grow, they move, they delight
They torture, they tense, they torment
All at once
All in a day
This is the way

Of the poet.

10/17/17

Saturday, October 28, 2017

Upriver



Upstream
I do not like walking around my neighborhood
It reminds me of how far I have not come
I never imagined my life to be this way
I lived the life of academic success,
Hard work
Be kind to everyone

Where am I?

Not where I was told I would be

Or maybe it is the way I’m looking at things
Maybe I’m not looking at what is really there
Maybe I’m seeing what I want to see

I do not know

That should be the title of all my poems

I do not know

That in itself is a place of panicked unfamiliarity
When I was young I knew all
I learned all
Everything was scientific fact
Not a speck of mystery in any of it
Though there was great wonder and order and beauty
No, not one speck of mystery

Then the oceans rose
The rivers came rushing in
Sweeping all of that away
I look back upon that memorable day
And wonder if I should celebrate
Or curse it
There seems to be nothing that can ever reverse it
The waters are always now shifting within me
Like the winds

So here I am
Another member of lonely land, the wilderness of millions,
Wondering why I’m here
What have I done
To be so fortunate, yet to be the one
That seems to never hit the finish line of destiny
Maybe there isn’t one
Maybe it’s in the running
The walking, the crawling,
Doing whatever it takes to continue moving forward
Never still

Never still

For in the moving waters, still is always moving backwards
Or forward if one simply yields
To the rhythms of the undercurrents
That flow within my very soul

I do wonder what is the definition of whole

I wonder more what it is like to experience it

I wonder if I'll ever know

I think I will, if I will only keep moving

Wednesday, October 25, 2017

Embrace



Embrace

I am not your savior for the day
Nor am I an expert in anything
All of these experts
I hear the future laughing at them
“Those thoughts are ridiculous!
Everyone knows that isn’t so!”
I just don’t want to be there
I don’t want to be in that group
Known for not just it’s ignorance
But for it’s obstinate arrogance in it all

I also do not wish to be amongst the ones
Who refuse to believe anything at all
Just to not be wrong
I cannot waver between correct and not
Trying to avoid the extremes
I must take my stand
Yet so it seems
The most reliable foundation of them all
Is the foundation I cannot see or feel

Can this be so?
Can this be real?
Do I set my life on something that is so bizarre
Instead of the universal comfort in ritual?

I don’t know

I cannot think clearly with all this noise
People blabbering nothings
Phones playing videos 
The Facebook and Twitter accounts brimming
Over the edges of the known universe
The trolls and horrific tales scream the lies
So loud no one knows the truth anymore

But yet there I go on a rabbit trail
No rabbits have been along here for decades
Only wandering, mumbling schizophrenics
Looking for their next doses of medications

I look up toward the sun’s rotations
And wonder when the next wonder will be
Will I even be around to see it? To know it?
Or will I have fallen asleep in the murmurings of my questions?

It’s been a long time since I’ve use any punctuations
I think that is a great sign
A sign I’m beginning to pause
A sign I’m beginning to pause and ponder the purpose of it all

A sign that I’m ready for the borderlines of an embrace