End of September

End of September

This is the summer that is never ending

The autumn came 3 days ago

But only on the calendar

The days are still warm; hot, even

It seems they are waiting for something to change

Something to change before they will change

Sounds so familiar to me

I pass by a local maple tree

Its leaves know it’s the end of September

The last time I felt, I don’t remember

The meaning or the beauty of it all

I think the answer to my levity

Is I am focused always, forever, on me

That is such a finite pool to draw from

Though I sense the waveforms of the eternal

The autumn came 3 days ago

But only on the calendar

These days still warm, still far from tender

Are waiting for something to change

Sounds so familiar to me

9/24/19 kdc

Chase

Chase

Chase beauty and it will find you

Give out love and you will find it

Watch the palm trees sway in the autumn winds

The change of seasons is coming , as it always does, 

And everything is new again

Stop trying to measure the meter

Stop trying to match the rhyme 

Stop trying to know all the secrets 

Listen to your heart speak, sublime

The winds make the waves on the waters

Directing them where they will go

The waters make sounds on the borders

This is the edge that we know

Yet the beyond is calling

9/16/19

The Races

The Races

I sit on the back porch

Night

Cool breeze stirring in its freedom

The crickets chirping all around me

An occasional change in their rhythm

Rarely a change in their rhyme

The waxing moon rests above

Saturn in her gracious clutches

Peace, tranquility, good

This is the realm beyond time

Off in the distance I hear the roar of the engines

The race is on

Another car goes down the road

Roaring

Fast, furious, growling

Loud

Obnoxious even, trying to drown out nature’s sounds

Blistering speeds

Conquering time

Driving on for that one precious millisecond

What a perfect picture of our world

In a hurry to run in circles

Raging on to get nowhere in particular

Enslaved to the clock

All the while the earth rests in quiet peace

And will continue to do so for a long, long time

Just listen to the sounds of the rock

The crickets are chirping all around me

There is so much power in the quiet

9/7/19 kdc

Life's Essence

Life’s Essence

We think we’re so smart

Yet we really don’t even know what life is

Sure you can boil and pipet

You can microscope and experiment

You can hypothesize, theorize

We can discover

Oxygen, carbon dioxide, glucose

Neurons, mesons, electrical processes

DNA that tells us everything

Fourteen complex reactions for every photon

Processing it into vision

A hammer and nail, tapping morse code

Turning it into electricity and then to sound

We know all of this

Yet we can throw it all into a bucket

And not have one nanogram of life in the mix

All the ingredients

Simple, complex

But not one ounce of spirit

All of this material can exist in a corpse

But cannot regenerate itself anymore

So what is life? What is it for?

The scientists and philosophers have their own ways of knowing

But I like the poetic answer:

We don’t know

But it surely looks and sounds and smells and tastes and feels

Like love

8/24/19 kdc

Creatives

Creatives

Artists are  a lot like God

They come up to a great nothing

Blank and void and empty

They begin to see

They begin to draw

They begin to paint

Layers at a time

At any given point

You can hear the whispers from outside

“What is that?"
“That makes no sense”

And the ever present and inevitable, “Oooo, that is so ugly.”

Yet you are not done

You are not done at all

More tones, more colors, more light, more depth

A song, hummed in quiet peace

Artistry unfolds

Magic happens

When the finished product appears

There is nothing but awe in in the whispers

So it is with you

7/21/19 kdc

Pressing

Pressing

I need to write

I’m not sure why

All I want is to touch the sky

Yet all I do is squirm through the earth

I don’t want to hear all the caterpillar metaphors

I see what happens to the earthworms

Food for birds

Drying out in the hot sun

Dying on the sidewalks

Eating, eliminating, pushing on, dying

This surely cannot be what this parable is all about

I try to scream, I’d like to shout

But the sound doesn’t go past my canines

I sit here and stare

I’d like to wonder,

But I sit here and stare

I hear the sounds of children

Running, playing, talking, meaningless chatter

But everything means everything to them

Maybe it should be that way with me

Instead of worrying what is worth my while

Coming to the conclusion that all is meaningless

Maybe I should assume all is worthwhile

Embrace it all with wonder

Even those things of dark charades

All of life is simply a game anyway

Except there really are no winners and losers

That’s why the whole thing is a great mystery

For those of us seeking nothing but answers

We swim in an ocean of disenchantment, disappointment

For those who simply love to live

They splash in rivers of delight

What is the secret to leaving night?

I forgive myself and all who have known me

All who have left me out to dry

I hear the sounds of splashing waves

7/18/19 kdc

Resilience

 Resilience

Everything beautiful about you

Has been cut to the ground

The lines of the years now on your face

You feel like you are just one small disgrace

In a great big universe of order and shadow

But I see something

I see where everyone thought you were dead

Yet you are alive

You are branching out again

You are alive

You are wondrous

You are resilient

Anniversary Haiku

Anniversary Haiku

Marry me again, Love

Everything you touch, beauty

Our Love forevermore

Broke the rules again

Eight instead of seven there

Freedom is magic

Marry me again, Love

All you touch turns to beauty

Our love forevermore

A true haiku

kdc, 6/26/19

Grateful

Grateful

Ah, for so long I have tried to be the poet extraordinaire

But, alas, my books just sit on the shelf

Not going anywhere

I made all sorts of excuses

It’s the modern day

No one reads poetry anymore

There has to be a video

There has to be a meme

Vacillating from one to another extreme

I have finally realized

I’ve tried too hard to be someone I’m not

Do that for too long and your soul will rot

To the point where even you notice the smell

The stench, the pain, there is no gain,

The wrench

That finally breaks the bolts from the tightening

Then comes that feeling that is all too frightening

The feeling of panicked disarray

The feeling of floating in outer space

Knowing you’re a million light years from anywhere

And nowhere is where you’ll always be

Sure that floating feeling is free

But freedom without any boundary is nothing less

Than death by lonely wandering

And that death is very, very slow

How do I get past this vaudeville show?

I do not know, I do not know

This seems to be my favorite answer

More and more popular it becomes by the day

I’m told to read, I’m told to pray

Yet silence has forever greeted me

I wish I could be more upbeat

Instead of this deadpan sullen

Yet there are days where these perceptions must come forth

There are nights where the soul is broken

There are lives in which living is not seen

I think it’s time to find the green

The life that comes from seeking light

But I’ve said that all before

It’s almost become a daily chore

Not the majesty and the mystery that it should

I sit and stare at a piece of wood

Waiting for it to save me

Can I find true life within a tree

Is it living

Or is it dead?

These voices go on and on inside my head

I could probably go on like this forever

So before I drone on into a cumbersome blather

I am simply going to stop

To say

Thank you for this day

kdc, 6/8/19

Dead Amongst the Living

Dead Amongst the Living

I’m no longer writing poetry

I’m not sure why

I sit here on the front porch

Looking at the sky

And that is all I do

These thoughts are many

These thoughts are few

I just don’t know who I am anymore

Stillness can be heaven

Stillness can be hell

And often I cannot

Will not

Tell the difference

These dichotomies have created judgment in me

I don’t want that anymore

But this place where I sit amongst a sandy shore

Feels very unsettling to me

All I wanted was to be free

And all I got was imprisoned

The train blows shrill across the chasm

It’s a warning instead of an announcement

But he seems to be having fun letting it loose

Over and over and over

I look down at the struggling clover

That is surviving this summer heat

Nothing else here questions its existence

Nothing

So why do I?

Why do I sit and stare at sky

And wonder why it is I’m here?

To sing a song, to drink a beer

To play a game, to work a day

To walk on and on in this merry way

That leads to both great joy and brutal heartache

I hope that those that attend my wake

Will be there to have fun when they greet me

kdc, 6/2/19

Rain in May

Rain in May

The biggest lesson of today

A day of rain and cold and quiet

Is to enjoy

Yes it’s the midst of May

The time of sun and warmth and flowers and green

Yet

Those things aberrant are often the very things we need

To see our lives in a whole new way

I take my last drink of my peppermint hot chocolate

Thankful for its warmth

This cold sits foreign against my skin

Yet I do not ask just why or when

Things will go back to the way I’ve known them

That way may never be known again

This rain is a good friend

5/18/19

The Center

The Center 

The Center is clear

Everything that radiates from it

Blurs and blurs

No color is lost

Still the center is clear

And all that align with it

Even the peripheral

Even the immature

Even the things never noticed

They are clear when they rest at the center

So it is with you and me.

This is the best of trees

Musings on Sunday (Unfinished)

Musings on Sunday (Unfinished)

We often feel we must have something to say

We must have this profound wisdom

This answer

And we must have it now

Give it now

Know it now

Yet we really live in the midst of a vast universe

Unknown

Untouched

Never experienced

Still we think we know it all

We know nothing

Nothing at all

Our knowledge and our opinions are infinite

Yet they are a microscopic drop

An atom

A proton

A quark

In the midst of millions of galaxies

So who am I to judge my brother

Who am I to tell my sister she is wrong

Who are they to tell me who I am

Who I am not

None of us have the right to judge another

None of us hardly know ourselves

Much less what drives the heart beats of all the others

See, I live in the midst of great distractions

I can’t join one thought to another

Without an interruption in the mix

It’s a miracle these sentences come forth

These thoughts born right in the middle of chaos

Might simply be a picture of how life really is

I try to shut down the noise

But the noise is just too voluminous for me

Waves come crashing in from everywhere

Now my thoughts are lost in a sandy mix of dark frustration

Grating against my soul

Creating thousands of pearls

I put on the piano music

Listened through the earphones

So that I don’t pay back evil for evil

I consider the others

Even though there is no consideration for me

It’s the way I’ve always been

It’s the way I’ll always be

So here we are

Alone in the world again

I know life is meant to be lived with others

It’s not to be lived alone

But I can’t take all the delusions
I simply want to live in my home

Being what I am supposed to be

Where was I before all of this droning

Who was I before all the stoning

My broken bones and bruises might be healed

The memories still reside

I think I must make the journey inside

To see the one who walks the earth

The one who sees the heavens

The one who lives in the both and the and

The one who sees the purpose in the sand

The one who sees the emptiness of the time

And all its fullness thereof

I don’t think this will ever be finished

4/7/19

Etiology

Etiology

The source of all my troubles is comparison

Comparison always leaves me wanting

Or it leaves me full of pride

It has never placed me in the streams of peace

Never has it put me in the fields of love

Never has it let me sleep the night away

In dreams of wonder and awe

Everywhere I go now

I am judged and compared

I can’t sing like the one on the radio

So I forever stop singing and meekly listen

I’m not beautiful like the one on the gilded screen

So I don’t place my ugly anywhere in the world

Even where it is desperately needed

I can’t write like the laureate 

So I drop my pen

The poems are never born

I can’t dance like the ones on the stage

So I am still

Winds of joy never move over the earth

In other words

I compare

And I die

We wonder why there is such a despair in our world

It’s time to live

It’s time to stop comparing

To stop quitting because I don’t “measure up”

To hell with your ruler

To hell with your rules and measures

I am me

There is no other like me

Never will there ever be

I was planted in this world to grow

That is exactly what I plan to do

To grow right where I am planted

And not worry about the weeds around me

Or the weeds within

I will look to where the sun is

Ever growing toward the light

I will sing

I will laugh

I will dance

I will be who I am

And Life will permeate the earth

I will no longer compare

3/17/19

Rose Garden

Rose Garden

There is a real hope

And it hurts.

To lean into it,

No, to dive full on into it

Is the destiny of humanity 

But there within its living form are so many thorns 

Painful, hideous thorns

Disappointment, disillusionment 

Failure, rejection

These are the thorns on the roses of hope

And they are perilous, 

So perilous indeed

So what do I do?

Do I merely admire from a distance 

Or move just close enough to know the scent?

Or do I take the biggest risk

Put my hands in the midst

And grab hold

Not just to grasp it for me

Maybe never just for me

But in order to give it to another

My hands are bleeding 

It was worth every pain

2/26/19

Great Ones

Great Ones

There are many great ones on the earth

Not because they are known

Not because they are wealthy

Not because they are influential or powerful

But because they care

Because they love

Because they live life the way a human being lives life

Loving one another

Loving those that cross their paths

Whether that be another person, an animal, or a tree in the forest

These people are the ones that quietly move about

Changing the earth one moment at a time

They are never applauded

They are never written about

Most may be never noticed

But they are seen and known

They are honored and praised

By the lives of all, by the land

Let’s give these folks a hand….

2/23/19

Winter Blahs

Winter Blahs

It’s difficult to write poetry

When you’re dead inside

Everything is lifeless

Everything is irritating

I’m not sure how that happens

Feeling irritation when you’re dead

But that’s when it seems to happen the most

Every little thing

Is like a huge boulder

Dropping on your toes

Over and over again

In some kind of cruel repetition

I hate writing things like this

I hate words like hate and cruel and irritation

I don’t want those kind of contrasts in my life

I don’t want that dark background

Making some supposed light seem brighter

I simply want to enjoy the sunlight again

I simply want to feel the air against my skin

I simply want to feel, feel something

Besides all of this negative bombardment

All of this shrapnel of violence irate

All of this smoldering backwash of hate

I want to feel something besides this

So maybe a death is quite necessary

Maybe a death to all of these things

Will bring forth a life where everyone sings

Everyone plays

Everyone dances

In love and war and long romances

Everyone is who they are to be

Not stuck up in this hollow tree

Hearing nothing but the sound of me

2/18/19

Beautiful

Beautiful

Life is beautiful

Whatsoever is beautiful is life

Transformation is seeing the beautiful

In the mundane

I love eagles soaring

Hawks seeking

Falcons diving

All of these are majestic and powerful

All would agree to their beauty in the skies

Yet today the raven

Drifting in the wind

Falling, dancing, flying

In all of its blackness

In all of its common ways

It is beautiful

I would have missed it if I had been seeking otherwise

The beauty I see, this magnifies

By billions fold

I’m not sure I can handle all of that

And I’m not quite sure I’m supposed to

Life is beautiful.

2/2/19