Specter

Specter

I am a specter of my former self

Holding joy at arm’s length

Often further

I do not understand it

When there is disease and poverty and hate and death

Dealt out with pain so harsh it steals one’s breath

Yet maybe joy is how I deal with it all

Laughing amongst the killing fields

A flower thrown in amongst the shields

Which defend all sorts of un-imaginables

These things, this lore, of what is not tangible

These things are so difficult to grasp

I have to open my hands, open my heart

Open my ears, accept the dart

Of tension and paradox and mystery

This is the way to jump into the fray

And still dance all along in the fury

I might just not be 

I might just not be done with this wonder

This is the seemingly torrid truth of it all

I never get to the answer

I always dive deeper into the question

I never dream, I never dance at the ball

So full circle I’ve come

Full circle I’ll go

Until the gravity fields pull me right out of my row

I have looked upon all this circumstance, 

and found

This is not where I dream, that is not where I dance

I must learn to be kinder to myself

I must learn to take hold of the unknown

Cuddle it like a puppy sleeping, safe in my arms

Knowing one day it could grow up and be vicious

But it could also grow up and be bold

Beautiful, warm…

If I’ll only love, if I’ll only love…

I’m not sure I am any longer a specter…

1/28/17

Five

Five

I don’t have time to play these games

This phantom world has been rearranged

Now everything is so very out of place

Even in the mirror as I see my face

I do not recognize this one I see

I look to the sun, the moon, the skies

To anything where I am mesmerized

Yet the sustenance never happens, wasted

This time of life I have chronically tasted

This taste seems always bittersweet

Bitterness seems to be the great anathema 

That every living being inhales with great drama

A fragrance lifting from the skies

Yet not the heavenly skies, these lies

Seem to be in the midst of all my fragrances

There is also a hint of jasmine in every one

A delight from the light of the glistening sun

This one thing reaches to the core of feel

Fulfilling all I wish to be real

This wonder is so much more than skin deep

This joy seems to have its very own vibration

I drink it deep in such an intense libation

That music weeps from the great divide

It soars and pours and flies and glides

Right into the very being of my hearing

Everything I sense is love

Time

What time is it 

What is the date

I've wasted time

Now I'm so irate

It really, really seems to me 

I’ve lost our sense of poetry 

I’ve constrained myself

With this thing called time

I’ve lost the rhythm 

I’ve lost the rhyme 

In all the hurry

I’m sad to see

I’ve lost my touch

Of eternity

Resting in the Embers

Resting in the Embers

I’ve grown tired of this introspection

This circumspection

A rambling on about emptiness

Seeing everything

Feeling nothing

Putting it all down on paper

Wanting to crinkle it all up

Throw it all away

Yet the digital age holds on to everything

So it seems I can’t let anything go myself

Thoughts placed here in the memory banks

Blitzing through the silicon

Making way through the binary codes

A million decisions at a time

All of them seemingly ineffective

Or maybe even just plain wrong

I’ve heard I get to decide the path I’m going

I’ve heard I get to fight on until the end

Yet it seems to me there truly is a game

That never names me as a friend

That always sees me as an enemy

A botulism

That takes all their power away

So stay away

Stay far away

From this land of milk and honey

I drone on

Like a honeybee drunk on vesuvial cyanide

Making up words that don’t even exist

Simply to fit into the rhythm,

The meter, the beat, the blinding heat

That makes all else just meaningless apparition

My god, I never knew such deep ambitions

Could lead one to such a dark and quiet meadow

I’m told to hold on, I’m told to let go

To the point where my sagittal suture is splitting

The time it ticks, and keeps on ticking

Yet I don’t own the newest Apple watch

So I drift out into the sea

Never to be heard from or seen again

There I go, there I go again

Turning all of this vitriol into all about me

It’s no wonder I drift out onto the open sea

With nary a life raft to help me

I wonder how long it will take me to sink

I wonder more who will even notice to miss me

Time for another drink

Time for another still

Time for another evaluation of my will

To see if I have what it takes to simply get off of this couch

And plant my feet onto the carpet rug

I am pushed, I am pulled, I am torn, I am tugged

By these millions of mere distractions

My hope, my will, my faith, my actions

Are all upon the judgment stand

I open my heart, I lift my hand

I place it all on this paper of an altar

I watch it burn

Only what is beautiful will stand

All I see are dying silhouettes of grave clothes

Drifting through the night skies

I often wish I had closed my eyes

To these things that seem to blind me

I look back to the fire that is ember now

I see a faint glimpse of beauty

That I have not ever seen before

I see a coal, an open door

That rests inside the embers

The Void

The Void

It is strange to think that emptiness

Can carry such significant weight

How can it have such a powerful impact

Dropping boulders so heavy and great

They leave my heart a crushed up mess

Like grapes trodden on the ground

My heart it yearns for any sound

That would bring some purpose, some meaning

I’m so tired of trying to force the rhyme

I’m so tired of trying to play the rhythm

These damned distractions do so hinder the art

The art of the effortless beauty

But sometimes these fanciful ideas are myth

They contain a truth,  a touch of bliss

But in the end they always fall short of the filling

So I must move on to find the truth that is fulfilling

But still I have yet to find it

I know these facts inside my head are inadequate

They have no colors to paint the hues of the masquerades

They have no tinctures to match the escapades 

Of the ones who live life so completely

But I believe most of these are dead

The skies are dark, the blood is red

And I just sit here in this meandering state

Frustrated more than ever that this heaviness within

Cannot be described with mortal words

Or mortal wounds

The dog is yipping in the bedroom

Reminding me of the mundane

The ritual we all walk, insane

Doing the same thing every day

Without any vivid recollection

Maybe it’s time to stop the vapid reflection

And instead point my heart to a source

A source of everything the universe is made of

A source of everything we’ve never, ever known

We speak of it all as dark matter

Yet we cannot even measure it

Much less give it an appropriate name

Whether we see it or not, it is all the same

For it makes everything in the universe to be different

Diffuse, unique, mystique, eternal

Whether black or grey or red or vernal

I know not

All I do know is that even in the discussion

My emptiness is no more

Time to soar

My Focus

My Focus

Like the great and mighty redwoods grow 

As they go higher, the weeds below

Have not one prayer for their continued existence 

So it is with me in firm persistence 

I will focus on the light

Not spending energy on what against me fights

But rather spend all on reaching  what's above me, higher

I continue to seek, to hear the lyre

The music of the skies

I embrace the truth, I ignore the lies

Simply growing in the rain 

Despite all loss, despite the pain

I keep on reaching again and again

For the sunlight is always before me

1/12/17

Hope

I see a land of blue skies

White clouds

Just beyond the lands of smoke and plume, beyond fire and lava

Steam and flame

This place where no one knows my name

Nor does anyone care to know it

I see a land beyond

Yet

These ancient trees stand at the entry

They speak with arms all outstretched

They say, “You cannot pass. You shall not enter here.”

I feel an old companion, fear

Begin to rise up inside my chest

I look to the ground, I take a breath

I realize there is always another way

I look up to the trees, leafless, barren

I speak

“There are things one sows, those same we reap

I have sown love and passion and honor”

As I smile, I weep 

and say,

“I will see the lands of my ancient fathers.”

The trees they scoff at such a line

They do not budge one inch.

I hear the calling of the finch

I begin to walk to the singing

“Where do you think you’re going?”

The gnarled garrison barks in unison

“I am going to the song.” I reply

And I leave them in confusion

My feet are anxious to walk in the newly fallen snow

My heart is anxious to begin to grow

So that it might hold all the beauty that is before me

1/9/17

The Dance

The Dance

I often get so frustrated

That there isn’t an infinite amount of poetry in me

I know I need to write it

I can feel it in my chest

I can feel it even Deeper than that

I can feel it in the places where spirit and soul do flow

Yet there is no bridge between here and there

There is no way there I know

Or is there?

Could it be that infinity really is within?

Could it be that there is a creativity that never has an end?

It could be

I guess anything could be

That’s why we have words like “paradox” and “tension”

That’s why there’s so many unknown dimensions

Things that even quantum physics has a hard time describing

I have the choice to be stone solid or imbibing

The deep red wines of mystery

I have the choice

So though I might not have a language for what is within

I can keep dancing with it

I can keep going back and drinking from the well

I can keep breaking out of this small prison cell

Named, “This is the way it has always been.”

I can make the choice to be wild and free

I like this dance with eternity

1/7/17

Grief Bomb (Diffused)

The Grief Bomb (Diffused)

Got a grief bomb going off in my chest today

The heaviness is remarkable 

I guess one cannot know love 

Unless one gets to know pain

They seem to be inseparable 

My head hurts too much to think about it 

My heart hurts too much to move on

So I guess I'll sit here and sing a song

To drown out the sounds of dark derision 

I can sing much longer than grief can cry

I don't even have to know an answer why

I just know the music will make all the difference 

Blue Lands

The Blue Lands

I'm not used to this enduring cold

This absence of heat

This growing old

I'm not used to this sadness 

But yet I am familiar 

I've let it rob me

Of being a man

And even greater still 

I've let it rob me of being a human 

So like C3PO I stagger about

Encompass everything's nothing

I spew and I spout

Yet have nothing to say

To bring colors to the flowers

I go on in my knowledge 

About hours and showers 

Yet never bring rain to the sun fields 

I creak and squeak and groan, my shields

Have protected me from the very lifelines I needed

The singing of the birds I've heeded

It is there I shall find out some answers

The sun,the moon, the arts, the dancers 

Will point me to the way

I go on writing and throwing this day

Into the building of mortar and bricks 

These stones, these shells, these rocks, these sticks

Were never enough to save me

So, though all living may skin and berate me

I will choose to rest on the battlefield 

Because I am weary of the blood, the limbs, the smoke

I am weary of the words that make me choke 

I just want to see the sunshine

Through dance, through song, through sound, through rhyme

I enter into the blue lands beyond all time

And I jolly well plan to stay there

The Tree

The Tree

I see this person that I’ve become

Most seem to mourn this aging

I have come to see it as a stark improvement

Over the ridiculous ignorance of my youth

I was much to sullen

Much too serious

Now I see the world really doesn’t depend on me

Now I see that to taste the free

I get to dance in the world of going lightly

I get to allow my neighbor to walk so slightly

Upon everything I ever believed in

Still I nod with respect

My heart and soul I do not neglect

But rather I go on in the making

I go on with the sifting, on with the shaking

Enjoying this one hell of a ride

I take the hurts and the pains in stride

I keep on walking, I keep on learning

I keep on hoping, I keep on weaning

Myself off of this very drab lore.

I know not what there might be in store

For the rest of the grand delusion

But I do know there is love and there is goodness

For I have found these things are truly eternal

So I like this person I’ve become

I know no answers

Only questions

I know not the length of any gestations

I simply know that I’m growing into myself