Diamonds and Trees

Diamonds and Trees

I’m a whisper on this planet Earth

Here for a breath, then gone

So why would I want to be placed

In a rigid and frozen plot

A place where memory fades?

I would much rather be found in

A place where the blues and jades

Greens and hues

Continue on

Bringing beauty to the earth

Beauty to the skies

This is where I want to lie

When all my breath is gone

Here in the place of heat and stone

In the place where all my fallacies melt away

Now go and live this day

Do not worry about tomorrow

Simply Grateful

Simply Grateful

I could sit here in this pendulum hammock

Staring at the sky

I could sit down with my profound philosophy books

Asking the questions why

I could sit in front of my television screen 

Watching touchdowns and interceptions 

I could walk around like a homeless man

Seeking everyone's perceptions 

I could go and walk the mall and shop

Easing my pain with stuff

I could hitchhike my way to Washington 

To tell them I've had enough 

I could grow old in my rocking chair 

Pretending to be free

Or I could be grateful that in whatever I do

I am simply being me

The Deserter

The Deserter (of the American Dream and more)

I can only describe what is going on within

as a Civil War

Bloody, tortuous, hand-to hand combat

Me against myself

Not knowing who is who

Bayonets fixed

A full head-on charge

Fire, smoke, death, chaos

A battle hymn

A rebel yell

And all of this for something evil

All of this for something good

All of this for something beyond me and my little world

I am a mere statistic, panicked here on the death grounds

Yet I am told this is the staircase to glory

All I know is that my simple story

Is I came, I saw

I cried,

then died.

There is nothing glorious at all in that

Nothing glorious at all

So right here in the midst of this noisy din

This noisy din of impossible demand, command

I drop my gun

I drop my sword

I refuse to kill my spirit

I refuse to bury my soul

in the soil of greed and human selfishness

I look and see three geese, honking, flying toward their home

I believe I shall go there for my very own self

For I refuse to roam within this land of death and prison and hate

As I drop my gun, I see the gate

On the outer edge of the battlefield

And amidst the cries of the dying, anguished

I take my steps 

To freedom

Tilt the Universe

Tilt the Universe (A tribute to the artists)

Sometimes a person simply needs a pen

A blank page

A sound

A silence

One might write a novel

One might write a word

One might paint a masterpiece

Another might sketch and scribble

Regardless, there is life released

A living dream penned on lifeless and silent papyrus

Whether simple or whether complex

Whether bright concave or dark convex

The universe feels the difference

There is a new creation amongst the atoms

Something that did not exist before

The universe feels the difference

We all can feel the change inside

We all can sense the pain subside

We all can know the pace, the stride

Begin to move toward our peace, our freedom

Haste

Haste and gently do not waste

These moments you carry in your rhyme

These etches you imagine in your time

Your pen marks have made all the difference

10/31/16

Vacillate

Vacillate

It’s something that I simply do

Oscillate

Something old to something new

Then back again and back again

I search out for the intricate

Only knowing what is dubious

This shifting comes on, furious

Leaving me breathless, silent

Incredulous

Life should not be this way

But yet, it is this way

Maybe life should be this way

A coming, a going,

A yay, a nay

All in the same breadth of a lifespan

Wide as the needle’s eye

Narrow as the galaxies

This paradox will melt your mind

Or it will simply help your heart get stronger

I could go on, I could stay longer

Or I could just simply be

Metronome

Metronome

The clouds reveal so much more

More than we’ll ever know

All the while we sit on earth

Trying to force the poetry into rhyme

Trying to maim it into meter

The heart contains so much more than syllables

So much more than numbers and pedantic

I will not kill my soul on the altar of propriety

I will not bleed out my heart on the treadmill of the “arts”

Critics, hobos, and bankers all snuff their nose

But I see a lion in the clouds

Roaring along the birds of creativity and wonder

I see the sunset with the moon rising in the east

Though night has come

It is the full moon

And there is plenty of light for everyone

To see what the clouds reveal

The Poppy

I might be like this…

A colorful something amongst concrete and stone

A carefully designed something that sits all alone

Wondering how I came here

Wondering who I am

Not realizing that all is well in love and war

Not realizing that I do make a difference

Even if it is just for a wisp of moments.