Refractions

Refractions

Are You only found in simplicity

Or is it only in complexity?

Could it possibly be a “both” and an “and”

That brings us to the touch of a Father’s hand

Could it be my eyes are so close to me

That I cannot see the good that sets me free?

I sense the fears, the angers, the distractions

Not knowing the hopes that release the refractions

Sending the light in tens of thousands of directions

More colors than I could ever know

Whether I take it in, in its glorious context

Or whether I take it in fully without

There is still a hue, a vague, a shade, a glimpse

That brings a bright spark back in to my DNA.

The Voice

The Voice

I dream of days, I dream of ways

Where I do not have to enter into this incessant wandering

This amassing of graves between worlds of reality and fact

And the realms of reality and truth

These things I have wrestled with since my youth

Seeing the dragons get all the stronger

I still face them though I wander

between the place of courage and of fear

I sit amidst the lovely violets here

Just watching from a distance

I seek a grand but notorious gaze

a Voice that lives amongst blue-green eyes ablaze

These stories wrap around my mind

I cannot grasp such things sublime

Yet grasp them is exactly what I do, I must

Reach deep within to find the vessels of trust

That lead me to my pleasures

These things are so much more than treasures

They are rather more than things

Rather more on angels’ wings

They fly beneath my feet to greet me

All the while I look above while seeking

Those things that cannot be known or seen

I hear the whispers of gentle giants

I feel the tethering of a meek compliance

Knowing I cannot meet these ways

These ways that just lead all astray

Yet promise a sure deliverance

I also cannot yield to happenstance

Nor can anyone else for that difficult matter

For space is nothing but mindless chatter

if it truly had no beginning

I see the red roofs on those distant shores

The winding, writhing tales and lore

which break into my musings

All hair, all skin, all dark accusing

Just bristle in the sunlight

To speak of love so forthright

Is the answer to all these breathings

I cannot come into the forms and worries

Yet I cannot leave them ever since

I yield to the mysteries of unfathomable furies

With not a skip of heartbeats hence

I yield to the mysteries of unfathomable furies

With not a skip of heartbeats hence

So where does this all lead?  So where does this all go?

I think it goes where no one knows

But it does go into the knowing

The place where our listless souls are growing

In the green room of our past neglect

The pictures of our contorted wrecks

are turned into sound and life and beauty 

This happens right before our eyes

We listen and are mesmerized

by things we cannot hear nor see

In the listening I am free

It is in the listening I am free

I hear the Voice

Alight

I posted this poem in 2013 but I felt it was a good day for reposting. Hope you enjoy it!

Alight

I’m ready to float right out of this universe

Alight onto another 

Far more distant than this one

Yet closer than the breath of my lungs

I breathe the same air as the warlords, the bright ones

That spread love and peace and happiness and battle

The ones that make their swords all rattle

As they drop them into the ground to plant some life into it

Beings placed Deep into the brown, soft earth

Reddened by another’s blood

Watered by a steeping flood

Of submitted will and alabaster

The full moon just fills the fanning window above my head

Reflected light overpowering the lingering autumn darkness

Leaves unchanged as of yet

Yet we know that all is coming

To the sounds of soulful lutes and lyres

The coolness brings the smell of fires

And a thousand thousand drops of rain

I lift my head again and again

To see if there is yet any difference

No matter how many times I lift my head to see 

It is my heart that feels the breezes

I am reconciled, I am reconciled

Like a favorite blanket to a crying child

There is a restoration forming in this quiet soul

That is surrounded by harsh and disruptive raucous

Yet nothing but stillness deep within

A stillness so deep, unfathomable, restless

Its movement changes worlds

Its vibration lifts the earth

Setting it, vast, into a different place

Where freedom never dies

An inkling, a nature, a persistent cry

Does drive us into that galaxy wide 

That is so narrow many miss the smile

Could it be that we are all so worthwhile

That on us love alights?

I foresee again, I foresee again

The friendless and forgotten do know a friend

Who smiles again as does a brother

Whose embrace is that of gentle mother

Simply warmth and grace and good and love

A place where I can truly know enough

Where a reality exceeds my expectation

Is there ever an end to this disrupting frustration?

Or is this simply the fuel that feeds me on?

In all of this weakness, through all of this brawn

I simply seek on for the firelight

Realizing my alabaster wishes have pierced the night

So the sky is overwhelming in its shadows

Clouds so immense they dance

with the movement of the moistures

They grow in ever increasing cloisters

Bringing a realization into the mix

Could it be that we are so worthwhile

That on us love alights?

Lost Creek

Lost Creek

A brooklet is a wandering poetry

Constant in its direction

Yet fluid in its ways

An ever changing constant, aware

Of the fickle winds and weathers

In these moments all these come together

Creating the magnificently peaceful masterpiece

This constant power is being released

Changing every rock and form

The sunlight becomes just a little too warm

So I’ll move my path’s direction

The blue-black fly lands on my crease

Interrupting the serene reflections

But the autumn wind whisks it away

The winds speak of the coming snows

No courage can the creeping thing muster

It hurries on out of my natural space

A memory like this cannot be erased

A  forever monument is forever created

In the midst of this wandering way

It is a good day

Push Ups

Push Ups

I hate pushing against this planet earth

Straining with all my might

No matter if I work all day and night

Its spinnings never seem to give way

Time never, ever seems to sway

One micron from its mortal purpose

Though I’m getting bigger and stronger

My strength could never stop the traveling

These fibers continue their stark unraveling

No matter the drive or the purpose

So what is this strength

Amongst all of these galaxies and dust?

The greatest strength of all is trust

Maybe it is time for me to use that strength instead

To lift me above the path of death

Into the place where time does not exist

Where I ignore the watch placed on my wrist

Maybe it is time for me to use that strength instead

Maybe it is time for us all to learn to use it

California

California

Welcome to the land of the poppies

Welcome to the land of the sun

Come in to the land of the waves and the sea

To the place where life is lived on

In a way where we all get to live it

Despite our differences, our opinions

We welcome the blue of our skies

We allow each one to ask their why’s

We allow each one to find the answers

We see tattoos, we admire the dancers

The artists, the surfers, the genius, the songs

We cherish the mountains, we relish the prongs

Over an open campfire on the beach

There is no dream that is out of reach here

It is the land of greatest opportunity

Sure there are those with quite the impunity

To wall us all in with their flimsy regulations

Yet freedom springs up from the very soil

We have fruitful work that banishes toil

From ever tainting our living revelations

Every smile, every breath, every sun-filled sensation

Will break forth and move toward the sunrise

Will open doors, will mesmerize

Those who have lost their way

Those who long for a better day

Will now know hope again for the very first time

No wave, no curve, no forbidding sign

Will take away their joy

For they have seen the lands of the fruit trees

The mountains, Yosemite

Speaks of eternal steadfastness, glorious

The redwoods, an ancient wisdom will always be here

The land of love will banish all fear

Only wisdom will grow there

The salmon, the whales, the cougars, the bear

Will still move along in their tapestries

The beauty will still bring the mortal to knees

And we all will relish in the land of golden goodness

Live on, California

Obstacles

Obstacles

No matter these random obstacles

The water still will find its way

To its measured destination

Without a sigh or marked frustration

it will sing on until its very end

Where actually there is not an end

Just a cycle of deep and infinite mysteries

Mystery

Mystery

Light and shadow

Reflection and reflections

These can be a mystery

They remind us there is more than materialism in all its disarray

They remind us there is another world out there

A world where darkness and light collide

And the light always wins

And even when our material world tries to block out the light

It simply makes the light even more striking and wondrous

Reminding us even more resoundly

There is another world out there

Where light always wins

Interruption

Interruption

I have interrupted the plans of the grayling bird

I sit here amongst the waterfalls, the creeks, the mountains looming

The grayling bird he does his grooming

But not without a wary eye on me

He is confined to the tree

Where he and his mate do flutter

They twitter-twatter without a stutter

They speak of their change of plans

Another couple walks by the brook

To take in the wonder of the place

The birds say, “When will this end, when will this end?

“When will we not see a predator’s face

But instead we will look upon freedom

Knowing no fear at all?”

At least that is what I hear in their call

All the while wondering the very same thing for myself

It is funny how the books on nature’s wide shelf

Can often make just the right difference

Philosophia

Philosophia

It seems I’m always trying to write the greatest poem

The world has ever seen

Yet to me that is quite ironically impossible

When I know what nothing means

This postmodern world is a quagmire

Of needs and wants and thoughts

But no one knows the reason

Why for anything at all we’ve sought

I’m often trying to tap into beauty

In a place where it’s said not to exist

A place where cold space has the answers

A place of hard, brutal fists

I’m not trying to dry and depress you

I’m not trying to give you despair

But if there is no known standard of beauty

Then there is not anything, anywhere, there

And what sort of world is that?

What sort of place would that be?

It almost makes sense to ignore the facts

And let imagination set us free

I know that all seems irrational

But what the heck else is art for?

For if there is no existence of beauty

Then what ever is there here to live for?

Love can list a thousand things….