Saturday, January 28, 2017

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

Wednesday, January 25, 2017

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

Saturday, January 21, 2017

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



Sunday, January 15, 2017

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

Saturday, January 14, 2017

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

Thursday, January 12, 2017

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

Monday, January 9, 2017

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

Saturday, January 7, 2017

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