inspired by reading William Wordsworth

There are so many minutes in a day
that it may not seem much to waste a few;
yet these small fragments, worthless as they may
seem, once they are exhausted, life is through.

They pass without much notice, or remark,
absorbed in larger, more important things;
but when you spend them, sleepless, in the dark,
you hear the quiet song that each one sings.

Seize hold this song, and learn each phrase by heart;
for this tune is the soundtrack to the script
that you write with each breath and every move.

Like letters forming words, so small they start --
before you notice, paragraphs have slipped
across the page, and once writ, don't improve.

30 AUG 2003

They say the way is often well-paved and leads
down along the map. But I have wondered, lying listening
to the constant rain, about the benefits of concrete
and steel until it dawns on me.

The say that Mecca is to the east or west,
but when you're on your knees, the direction is down -
to me, that means the South.

The sins in the cities of time are alloyed
from two parts innocence, one part greed and often,
a helping of guilt for good measure. Opportunity,
they say, canvasses more limited neighborhoods
than he used to. If you ain't on his route, he won't
knock.

But I know this - real chances don't wait; they don't
stand at the door and look in the windows. They'll slip
in the kitchen by the screen, 'round midnight, like a thief,
and your wrought iron gates won't help you none.

And further, when the sun won't as much as shine
there's not much chance of seeing the light, you dig?

You can sit here in darkness and cold, if you like,
But maybe you'll be doing it alone.

I say, "That's Hell."

As for me, I shall move down to New Orleans;
and when the wind blows heavy with sweat I shall laugh -
for although rumor and sense might otherwise indicate,
the actual gates of Hell are located
much further North.

1995

at one a.m., when sleep won't come
and my thoughts ramble, loose
in my head like marbles in a tin can,
the night air still oppressive and thick
under the carport where my cigarettes
call out their siren's song,
silence and the cicadas drowned out
by the abrasive whirr of central air units
next door, down the street, one block over,
my body falling down with tired
that my too-wired mind
refuses to acknowledge:
these are the manic times, the hours
that stretch out until dawn and burn
what wax is fresh and virgin clean
from the candlestick that moves
this weary flesh from stock still meat
to animus. in a minute, these few lines
will finish -- then a smoke on the front lawn,
a cup of chilled green tea,
a half-assed yoga pose to tease
my weary bone-tired joints,
then off to lay in bed awake
and count the minutes
until they blur together in a hazy
alpha state where no new dreams come --
they are afraid to disturb,
to start anew the wheels of cognition
that so obviously need
the lubrication of a soothing slumber.

29 AUG 2003

Inside me is a shadow
That waits for days like these:
When small things blossom into
catastrophes, its seems
to swallow up the sunshine,
and linger, like a fog
there on the steps beside me
as my feet slowly move
into this house, where love lives
and life is sweet and good.

It follows me in silence
and fills my mind with fears:
that I am not worth loving
and will just disappear.

And then, it bites in anger
at my protesting self,
sapping my strength and motive,
so I can barely think.

A dark, foreboding takes me
from this fair world of light,
and in its grasp I flounder.

No hand hold to be found
nor peaceful thought of beauty
there in that place of woe.

I lay no blame on others
for this, my wretched state --
it comes upon me, sometimes
and will not dissipate
until its passion passes,
and leaves me, sore and tired.

There is no rhyme or reason,
save I am uninspired.

And is this lack of sunshine
the fault of those I love?
No, it is just my shadow,
half of what I'm made of.

28 AUG 2003

When you think of all the time spent constructing a life,
each scene cast in its fragile plaster mold
and then carefully chiselled and sanded away
so the finished piece can find its own path in the world

out there beyond the workshop's doors, where it
will age with elements outside your control,
sometimes you dwell on the dust that settles
on your tools and sticks between the floorboards

like a heavy mist. But you cannot stay in that malaise
and have your work succumb to shadows;
The record of this day you must too erase,
where those two sets of footprints,

yours and your life's work
smudged there in the pale grit at the door,
lead out, and only one set, yours,
returns. If not erase, then at least sweep clean

the way; else the memory of those last moments,
when the art must leave the artist's hands
to seek its own workshop, build its own
reputation, will lose its deeper meaning,

and leave only a marred and ruined foundation
upon which the work of the future is lain.
This great work of art, so lovingly made,
is ready to be shown.

The sorrow would be greater if it were not so.
These tears will wipe the dust away,
and cleanse the heart anew.
And your work will come back, and will say

for all your effort, thank you.
So find no sadness in the plaster,
no remorse, no great disaster.
The piece is finished, and is good.

But it is not the only art inside you.
Build on that great store -- you can, and should.

28 AUG 2003

For one of a number of reasons, you have stumbled across this journal, and there is some likelihood that you are interested in reading it.

Perhaps the title intrigued you - a title that suggests to you a subject matter in which you have a level of interest. However, I must warn you that you are probably going to be greatly disappointed, if you are looking for some great answer, or if you are one that expects the single grain of sand that contains the key to enlightenment to somehow be sifted from the entire beach by someone else and handed to you as an unearned, but expected, gift. But before you abandon your quest for answers within these entries, before you click past this journal unread or send the link as a gift to someone you dislike, stop for just a minute and take stock of your situation. Remove, if you will, your greatcoat and hat of preconceived notions. Set aside your baggage, emotional and otherwise, that ties you to your current worldview. Then pause, gently close your eyes, and simply breathe.

Now, let us talk about magic.

Not legerdemain or slight of hand, nor "the science of modifying reality to your will." Magic, true magic, will not in and of itself bring you love, happiness, wealth, fame or power, although some would suggest that these things are possible. It is not magic to get want you want, when you want it. Closer, perhaps, to a true definition is that magic is learning what you really need to learn and putting yourself in a position where instruction can be found. Further, Magic is not something "to be done," in the sense that one can write a poem, sing a song or paint a picture, although there is a part of magic in each of these activities. Rather, magic is something to become, to be.

Please, if you think that you are in need of power over another, or that Your Will is the key to the unraveling of life's mysteries, dark and latent secrets that may bring you dominion over the realm of senses and a private door into the treasure hall of truth, consider the content of this journal as the description of an alternative goal, and not a method for achieving such things. If you are not willing to believe that the greatest part of the destination is in the journey to find it, then perhaps our friendship and this journal is not for you. That is neither good nor bad - but it is probably the first and last truth you will be able to take from these pages and apply effectively.

But this is not a "how-to" journal, anyway. It is a "what-if and "why-not" sort of thing - which is probably not what you were looking for to begin with. In that case, bright blessings and good journeys to you. Our paths may cross again.

Anyone still here at this point? Wonderful. Then laissez le bon temps roulez.

1993

after Robert Burns

for Starlight Dances, born on Burns Night

My love is like a red, red rose
that blooms one day in spring;
its beauty fills the world with awe
and wonder, but the thing

itself will fade and turn to seed
bring forth some future flower
and by its death, though sad indeed,
live on through endless hours.

Its petals fade and fall to dust
lose their warm glow and luster;
and those who simply feel they must
preserve them, only filibuster.

For love is like a red, red rose,
it cannot be contained -
and though its pattern few may know,
the truth is clear and plain:

The world is filled with wond'rous things,
that show themselves, then go.
Each moment gone, another brings,
in one unending flow.

And love, to grow, must also change
so it can bloom anew -
Thus, like the rose in different seasons
is my love for you.

28 AUG 2003

This is the soft hoarse whisper of these times:
its cup full of succulent summer grape
no longer laced with Being's false treason,
the braces of its skull bone corset bent,
unloosened to the warm, wet wind that seeps
across its throat with a caress of steel.

27 AUG 2003

A few years back, when I was living out on 89 acres in middle-of-nowhere Ohio, I decided that I needed to write a series of songs that clung together in the same way as Bruce Springsteen's Nebraska. As is the case with any venture of that magnitude, some of 'em worked, and some of 'em didn't. The point was to capture the essence of that population 8,900 small town that was 12 miles down the state route, where 20 years prior I'd gone to elementary and junior high schools, riding the school bus for over an hour each way through endless fields on concrete, then blacktop, then stone-tar, then gravel and finally dirt roads. My cousins still lived there; so did a lot of people I knew. Many had moved away, but much later in their development than I did. Most that moved away never came back, leaving their parents and grandparents (and their way of life, too) to die in that backwoods place (home of the National Coon Dog Field Trials, BTW). Some things had changed, but a lot was very much the same. When we moved from Ohio to California, that part of Ohio was dying. When I moved back, you could still feel that lingering death in the air, and like any long-time sufferer will tell you, there are parts of the daily pain that you just have to put up with, and others you block out entirely. I had traveled many miles before I returned back to the family farm; along the way, maybe I learned a few things. And maybe some of them were worth learning.

BTW, if you're a Bob Dylan fan, you can sing along to this one, kinda. It has the same verse structure and rhyme pattern as (Just Like) Tom Thumb's Blues from Highway 61 Revisited.

If you're lost in the rain in Juarez, and it's Easter time, too / And your gravity fails and negativity won't pull you through / Don't put on any airs when you're down on Rue Morgue Avenue / They got some hungry women there that'll sure make a mess out of you

There's also a bit of Tom T. Hall's The Ballad of Forty Dollars in there, too:

The man who preached the funeral said it really was a simple way to die / He laid down to rest one afternoon and never opened up his eyes / They hired me and Fred and Joe to dig the grave and carry up some chairs / It took us seven hours and I guess we must have drunk a case of beer

Or maybe Willie Nelson's Me and Paul:

Almost busted in Laredo, but for reasons that I'd rather not disclose / But if you're staying in a motel there, and leave, don't leave nothing in your clothes

Now, Councilman Zeb Davis says that tourists are the way to save this town
Never mind the unemployment and the high school where the scores are going down
And the factories that close, that's an element we just don't need around
'Cause misfortune is attractive when you pass her by but don't take in the sound

Now, the Holy Rollin' Baptist preacher says the choice is Heaven or to Hell
Never mind those that ignore the call, they're lost and so we'll bid them fare thee well
And the north side is place where all the comfortable Christians care to dwell
So don't mind the local greasers and the factory boys and focus on the sell

Now, the cemetery's full of conflict's heroes and the town's claim to its pride
Never mind that's it's still killing and there's never proof that God is on your side
And the trick is not to have to walk when you can find a bandwagon to ride
'Cause the further you are from the ground the better off you'll be when He decides

Now, the local boys are drinking and the local girls are plastering their hair
Never mind the ozone layer, when you're looking good and everyone will stare
And the trick is to forget there's no one watching who can take you anywhere
'Cause the ride to love is free, but the return trip's where they charge you double fare

Now, the smiling politician says his mandate is new jobs for everyone
Never mind that it takes three or four apiece to take the place of one good one
And the skills you need to get ahead are never taught to any farmer's son
'Cause the city boys have learned a briefcase works a whole lot cleaner than a gun

Now, the trains roll by the station for there's never anybody coming home
Never mind the old folks dying or the brother sitting waiting by the phone
And the high school sweetheart pining 'cause you promised that she'd never be alone
'Cause the world outside is promising to show you things you never have been shown

Now, the board of education puts its trust in the community of saints
Never mind the harsh reminders that the golden dream could use a coat of paint
And the faded football heroes selling cars without a murmur of complaint
'Cause there ought to be a better way, but everyone believes that there just ain't.

Now, when Councilman Zeb Davis swears that tourists will revive our village square
Never mind the unemployment in the '70's that left the cupboards bare
And the looks from all the local boys that tell you there's nobody living there
'Cause this kind of spirit only comes out with a lot of fasting and some prayer.

1998

An Allegorical Response to Christian Exhortations and Concerns

We stand together on the shore, you and I, watching the night sky.
We both agree we are land-bound and each pines to know the sea.
In our hands we can hold some sand; to me, yours looks the same as mine -
just tiny fragments of the whole, in numbers greater than ourselves.

You use your sand to draw a line between us. As it trickles from
your hand, I wonder why you mark the boundary there and not out
there at the ocean's edge, where we both see our path's limitations.
Instead, you tell me that my grains are false and you cannot use them.

I wonder where your few handfuls, that I saw you scoop next to mine
(made of the same small hard stuff, broken from the same giant whole)
became so different from the rest, when you had time to sort these few
in the short time we both had here, how you learned to separate them
from all others on this great span. They are just grains of sand, my friend;
there are millions of them out here, but alone they are not the whole.

Only if placed here together can they make a way for we two
to trail our toes in the vastness that is the sea, from whence we came.
But you reject my small quartz bits, and claim the beach in your sand's name.

You come at night and wreck castles built of other grains, and on the spot
construct some great monstrosity (that uses some of my sand, too).
By day and night you guard it well, thinking it achieves all that sand
was ever meant to do or be. You cry that your castle weakens,
that when you look, evil sweeps down to brush away your great design.

Sometimes you sound insane, when you insist yours is in fact the only sand
there is, even as the rest of the beach clings to your feet and hands;
Sometimes, when the wind blows strongly, and the air fills with the surf mist,
I see you try to rub the salt from your eyes, cursing the ocean.

Not evil, but the sea itself fights you. For your sand grains are stained
with blood, and the walls of your shrine are tamped with hatred and deceit.
That must be why your sand differs from the rest, and why so many
others, when you offer to share, choose from grains that you have not saved.

26 AUG 2003

So, there I was ... taking my 2:00 p.m. lunch break (I work from New Orleans on Pacific Coast Time). Here is the scenario:

I am sitting at a table under the carport that is covered with books, catalogs, flyers, etc. Bearing in mind that it IS 2:00 p.m., regardless there is a candle lit, and to that I add some Quan Yin incense. I am in my usual work uniform - jeans, t-shirt, birkenstocks. In my mouth is a cigarette. In one hand, a small green apple upon which I lunch. In the other hand, Jorge Luis Borges' Collected Fictions. It is almost 100 degrees Fahrenheit, the humidity is about 97%. The sun is bright and there is no breeze. Above my head in the fluorescent shop light fixture, a family of wasps are coming and going, feeding I assume their young. Not a damn thing other than that is moving on the street or in the air. The house is also quiet - Starlight Dances is taking a short nap, and the Troll Queen (TQ) is off at school for at least another hour.

Just another few beautiful moments spent in what the TQ calls our "All Night Buddhist Pub".
Ford's in His Flivver, and all's right with the world.

Continuing the discussion regarding rhythm, here's my latest exercise result - taking an increasing number of feet with the anapest foot (da da DUM) in progressive stanzas:

When the world
is so full
that it fails
to react
to the tears
of a child
it has lost
any hope

And when cries in the night
go unheard and are lost
in the noise of the street
we have shut out the light.

There is much that we don't understand
yet we claim that we know truth from lies
with our words, we explain many things
but the truth is that we are not wise.

If you look out your door, seeing just friend or foe
You will find battle lines in each new place you go
And you'll fight, wrong or right, without end 'til you die
Without knowing real peace or true friendship at all.

Yet a smile will repair many wounds, and may bring back the lost
from the dark, foul abyss where they wander and suffer in pain;
and they may find their sense, and return to their lives once again.
If a small thing like that can restore humankind, do it now.

25 AUG 2003

This is my confession of faith:

That which is real is wholly real
and fills even the gaps between
what I think seems to be real
and what I am incapable of
imagining it might be.

To divide one thing from the next
based on my limited viewpoint
denies that there is something else
capable of containing both.

What I think is the possible
limits what I can understand.

Energy does not fade away;
It changes form, perhaps, and fills
some things now, and others later.
The filling up is called living.
The emptying for another
purpose is called dying.

When I am thirsty for the truth,
a mirage does not satisfy;
but truth's lake has different sides,
and the water from one shoreline
(though called by a different name)
is the same as from another.
It is one lake, although I can
only see the spot where I now stand.

Awareness of ability
comes with responsibility.

If I can understand this fact
but refuse to heed its lesson
I have no advantage over
those more ignorant and unable.

Without direct experience,
it is not possible to know
whether the things I have been taught
are useful or are even true.
Real meaningful experience
is rare, and always personal.

Hypocrisy means living life
as if what I believe does not
apply to me - by my actions
proving that it is not the truth.

The only sin is thinking that
I see the truth of everything.

My eyes are not that wide.
My mind is not that wise.
My heart is not that big.
I am smaller than I think.

I am less important than I would like to appear to be.
I am not in charge of everything.
I am not placed above anything.
I am exactly where I am supposed to be.

I am only made of fuel.
Something else will need that fuel when I am finished with it,
and I will give it away gladly,
having no further use for it.

This world is not a proving ground for somewhere else.
This world is not a possession to be dominated or stewarded.
This world is part of the sacred whole.

So am I. So are you.

There is no Other.

25 AUG 2003

I guess there are SOME advantages to having to get up at 5:30 to take your daughter to swim team practice. Offhand, however, only being able to see clearly (due to both the fog in the air and the fog in my brain) during the return trip certainly puts those advantages in doubt.

There was a strange quiet to the morning air
before the streetlights blinked their last, and the
pale moon still shone from its place in the sky.

It was already warm and wet, the dew
rising from the ground only a short way
and then sagging back to earth as the weight
of the motionless dawn lay like molten
lead on its shoulders. The birds had not yet
left their nests to forage in the first light,
and only a single car, its windows fogged
with the settled damp, pierced the slow ether
of the muted world as its driver gunned
its engine passing over the dark levee.

The night had done little to cool the hot
earth, and it lay bathed in its sauna steam
that clung like a low-lying, feral fog
to the drooping branches of the live oak,
elm and magnolia trees. Then, as the dark
of evening lost its hold to the coming
sun, and the dirty yellow glow of the
streetlamps seemed to be swallowed, extinguished
by the soft, hazy grip of the greasy
light, I lit a cigarette, its rough skin
like mine already made limp and sweaty
by the humid and cloying atmosphere,
and watched as my exhaled smoke gently hung
there, and then disappeared, as if absorbed.

25 AUG 2003

La lutte elle-même vers les sommets suffit à remplir un coeur d'homme. Il faut imaginer Sisyphe heureux.

"The struggle to the top alone will make a human heart swell. Sisyphus must be regarded as happy." -- Albert Camus

Each has their Sisyphean task;
There is no lack of boulders
Blocking the upward climber's path
That any attempts to move are
In vain. But that's perhaps the point,
To build your strength on thoughtless rocks,
pitting your will against dull foes
that feel no pain and cannot bleed.

In that pointless struggle, you learn
the sad uselessness of brute force;
discovering an inner peace
by repeating, like a mantra,
trudging up and down the same hill.

24 AUG 2003

I hear the highway calling, but I will not catch a ride;
Where I'm bound and where roads lead never seem to coincide.
For interstates link places that are pretty much the same,
and each draw certain travelers, like moths drawn to a flame.

The maze of concrete that connects these places on a map
(A strange device that makes you think the world fits in your lap)
Can make your journey quicker, but that's never been my quest;
For me, often the detour is the route I like the best.

Besides on those big four lane stretches cut across the land
It takes a certain frame of mind and quite a steady hand
To keep oneself alert while in a sedentary state;
And too, each traveler is required to keep a certain rate.

That doesn't suit my motives, nor my wishing to explore
but gets me to and fro again, and really nothing more.
For me there is no timeline to discover where I'm bound,
And direct routes are typically not where it can be found.

I much prefer the rural route, where no dividing line
splits up the coming and the going - that path suits me fine.
If I must take the big roads, then I feel my fate is set;
Besides, often my turnoffs don't have lighted exits yet.

The open road calls when you're young, when you can travel light
And live on junk food, drive on fumes and stay up half the night.
But as you pass through town and city, each place starts to blend
into the next, and soon you long for that strange journey's end.

I've crossed this country now four times, and each trip made it clear
That there's no difference where you go, your past is in the mirror;
By truck or car or motorbike, weighed down or flying free,
It's not the road that moves you on to where you want to be.

I've heard it said that all roads led to Rome - a source of pride;
But once arrived in that fair city, you must then decide:
Can one place be the final stop? Of this, I have some doubt;
For every avenue that comes in also leads back out.

24 AUG 2003

For many years, my father's name
Followed Rich Little's in the book
"Who's Who in America"; and
There were times I wondered aloud
Whether it might have been better
To be a different man's son.

Only a few lines of blank space
Seemed to separate these two men
In their listings - in many ways
So much alike, and there in print
Their record of accomplishments
Took up equal lengths of the page.

But my dad did no impressions;
Although truth be told he left some.
In the end, though, I've found it best
To follow the second man's way,
Even if for a while it seemed
The harder path, the tougher row,
Leaving a much more private mark.

Because at some point in this life
I learned the cost of mimicking:
Even the most valued tracing
Pales next to an original.

23 AUG 2003

To see the stump there in the yard,
Its edges barely higher than the grass,
You'd never know the tree that made
A stand in that spot for so long.

You might, when seeing flowered sprouts
From that dead trunk, imagine it;
But unless you'd seen it growing,
For you there would not be much tree.

Imagining is not knowing.

To know, you'd have to see the way
It stood, for years, attempting height,
Pushing its branches to the wires
That crossed the lawn from street to house;

And one time, just to keep it free
From in the electricity
A man had come with a ladder
To amputate its reaching arms.

But it was already half dead,
Thanks to the efforts of a boy
Who'd swung a cruel baseball bat
Straight at its chest some time ago.

And though it bravely put out blooms
In spring and then again in fall
The termites finished up the job
And hollowed it, primed it to fall.

And then, the hurricane rolled in.
Although I could have with a push
Snapped its rotted wood, I did not.

It was the wind that brought it down,
With a loud crack, right where the car
Might have been, had we not pulled
It off the drive, safe from the rain.

I had to saw it up and lay
The pieces by the curb as trash,
Shave the split stump down to the ground
And stuff the hole left with spare sod.

Sure, it was dying, or near dead,
But it made a nice bit of shade
Against the kitchen windows,
And colored our bit of front lawn
With bright fuschia-colored blossoms.

Next to the old stump, a young tree
Is growing; we planted it there
A spring ago. It will not shade
Us all that soon, but when it does
We will have a far greater need:
For as it, like the myrtle did,
Reaches out to touch the bright sky
We will be slowing down and old.

It will be quite nice to sit down
In the shadow of that dogwood,
And remember the crepe myrtle.

23 AUG 2003

Once upon a time, long time ago it was (a time of innocence / a time of confidences?), I was a parishioner at the Mennonite church in Bluffton, Ohio. In addition to being volunteered to teach youth groups about the Mennonite martyrs (which gave birth to the great memorization tool -- thumbscrews, blunt force, burnt at the stake / severed tongue, rack-stretched, drowned in the lake -- to remember the order of demise of the major participants), I also participated in a young adults study group where a number of interesting exercises were indulged in and then discussed. One of these exercises I provide for your edification and amazement below:

Take a piece of red construction paper and cut out a heart.
Take that paper heart and rip it into several pieces.
Using scotch tape, repair the heart.
Now, describe what that tells you about love.

Here is a paraphrase of my response:

First, the field from which the heart is cut illustrates that there is much more to love than we admit into our own perspective.

Second, the heart is a fragile thing that can be easily damaged and broken.

Third, the heart can be repaired. What repairs it is the adhesive bond of friendship and community, as well as sticking to it and believing that the "center will hold," despite Yeats' vision to the contrary.

Fourth, if you take the repaired, taped heart and handle it, look at it closely, you will notice one very important thing: because the ripped edges do not meet as closely as they did when the heart was a single piece of unmarred paper - it now includes a little bit of space between the parts. Your heart, thanks to the rending and breaking, and subsequently thanks to the added density of the tape which now holds it together, is bigger than it was before. In fact, it is perhaps even bigger than it would be if fitted into the original piece of red paper (the field of possible love, you'll remember).

Finally, because of the tensile strength of the tape used to make the repairs, it is now much more difficult to break along the same lines. Yet, because only a single layer of tape is required to mend the broken heart, it is still as flexible as before; and its color and character, because of the transparent nature of the healing medium, are relatively unaffected and no less red and vibrant. In fact, it may be a bit shinier (and attractive).

If I say I want to change the world

without asking first its permission
without asking the right questions
without first accepting my limitations
without wondering about my own role
without looking beyond my own hard science
without recognizing the status quo
without battling my own personal demons
without watching first, and listening
without staking my reputation
without risking seeming foolish
without figuring out what I am willing to die for
without doubting my own abilities
without seeing the possibility of loss
without shaking the roots of my faith
without wanting to be amused
without having second thoughts
without giving up what this world gives me
without reaching beyond my grasp
without rejecting some kind of immortality
without changing myself

what kind of revolutionary am I?

Only in a world that needs changing so desperately,
it clings to any prop, regardless of whether or not that prop may float
where those who populate that world
do not ask those questions of themselves,
without my prompting,
would such a revolutionary be followed.
I would not follow them, myself.

In that kind of world, there is no revolution,
only the illusion of rebellion,
a paper tiger tossed by an apathetic hand
into the glowing embers
of the same old song and dance.

How many revolutionaries does it take to change a light bulb?
One, if the light bulb wants to be changed.

22 AUG 2003

Back in the 90's, when I was exploring the way things sounded and how that affected the meaning of a thing, I experimented quite a bit with alliteration. Here's probably the best example from that titillating time, that explores the juxtaposition of an overtone (i.e., the pitches above or below a given pitch that resonate and add depth to a sound, that tend to reverberate for different lengths of time from the original sound), with the tone in someone's voice when they truly and deeply feel that a situation is at an end (called, for naming's sake, the "it's all over tone").

screaming silent slipping southward
where in words that wind their wayward whistling
i am lost in linger's longing
catalogued with her voice each time
i heard it

almost anger aimed against it
how in hums that howl their heated hallows
i am slain in sorrow's searching
memorized with her voice the times
i heard it

and all the things she never said
and all the hurtful hearing spoken
and all the dreaded mindful hauntings
spoken in the overtone.

wishing wasted windtorn wanderings
there in threads that tread their trembled thimbling
i am washed in wanting's whispering
covered with her voice the night
i heard it

hardly hopeless here i hunger
now in notes that need with knowing names
i am found in fallen flying
drowned with her voice where once
i heard it

and all the songs she never sang
and all the careful cries in softness
and all the never minded hearings
spoken in the overtone.

still there is yes in this unspoken
still there lies in hope the trembling
for in all the unvoiced things
she never found the overtone.

FALL 1993

perfect rhyme

Each thing that starts must have an end
For every wax there is a wend

near rhyme

And once begun moves to its finish;
every birth has bury in it.

eye rhyme

As the moon face cycles through
and new leaves sprout then leave the bough:

half rhyme

things initiate and finish,
come to light and then must vanish.

masculine rhyme

As with nature, so with man:
We rise and fall in a life's span

feminine rhyme

and fight against the start of dying -
constantly, 'til we die trying.

end rhyme

In this circle is no starting
or conclusion, loss or parting;

internal rhyme

it seeks out no foot or head
but instead, peace and acceptance.

21 AUG 2003

aimed at Chuck Palahnuik

My world is not so grim and stark
nor my sea so wrought with foam and rage
that I must seek for guidance
in the words of an alleged seer for today
that paints the times with a bitter brush,
and cyring woe, bewails the fate of man
while of solutions says very little
and finds conspiracy behind all locked doors.

For those would dehumanize this place
just reinforce the status quo;
nothing more than etching your initials
on the shackles we have come to ignore.

To epater le bourgeoise?

That game has been long played
by far more clever hands than these,
opposed to far greater and immediate evils.

It is not so simple, to mirror society's flaws
and in a skewed Fiction, favor those
that best suit your thesis on primal cause;
for wolves rely on their eyes as well as noses,
and out of courtesy, will not object
to your vocal rejection of their hunting style,
but know that your rebel stance reflects
a blood stained claw, and hungry smile.

No nihilistic view survives and dies a natural death -
it must at the end of the day, devour itself
to maintain its own integrity, and live up to its press.

So, what's on your plate tonight for dinner?

21 AUG 2003

This is the way the world is:

Drunk, strung out on the euphoric smack
Of its own illusions of history
Sucking down the bitter pills
Like tapioca pearls stuck in the bottom of bubble tea
Strained through flavored watered-down sugar
Dressed in an exquisite facade
Crumbling at the edges like an old whore at the Parthenon
Waiting for another savior to crucify
Fighting the signs of age
Its revolutions caked like rejuvenating facial cream
Or dried semen on a dried and cracking diaphragm
Pierced and tattooed with disappearing ink
The sickly sour smell of henna hanging like a green cloud
From its clogged and distended pores
Drinking from a specimen cup its nasty medicine
While saying it loves the taste, but wishing it were less filling
Relishing the savor of bile and old phlegm
Dead and gone to seed to fuel a new regime
Of diet fads and infomercials promising improved performance
Its kindling clear-cut and fed to friendly fires
Thinking it is not in free fall
Just because the cliff from which it jumped is so high
The bottom is not yet in sight
Raw and bruised, its shoulders red and swollen to the touch
From refusing to share the authority of being
Among its myriad of creations

This is the way the world is:

Mouse and trap entwined as one mass of writhing matter
Lost because it thinks it drew the map.

21 AUG 2003

We have killed two decades with our lives;
Clocks and pocket-watches, notebooks and meetings
have spoken to us in the language of Ur,
a Babylonian-Chaldean moonmist frenzy of words
and tired metaphors.

In twenty years you'd think I might've found
some calling, or at least a claim to fame,
instead of still wide-eyed, casting around
without reknown or fortune to my name.

But life is how it happens, more or less;
the roads you travel lead to different ends.
To me, the truest measure of success
is measured not by wealth, but by your friends.

Now, I have made acquaintances and lost
their names and numbers; others I forgot;
for memories too accumulate a cost,
and keeping all means more space must be bought.

It's not as if I don't have extra cash to spend
(though extra is a matter of degree)
but rather that I try to live now, not depend
on sentimental hopes or history.

Right now, they're meeting in some suite ---
those people that were my old high school mates ---
and rather than by their standards admit defeat,
I choose the world that is, and trust my fate.

For what is it they want, some way to reminisce
while failing to acknowledge things have changed?
That window to the world that no longer exists,
and peering through that dark glass seems so strange.

I cannot walk a backward way, and seem to not have grown;
the world from where I came holds me no more.
Besides, in this new place I am not here alone,
but have a life that is worth staying for.

20 AUG 2003

They call themselves Republicans or Democrats
and formerly, styled themselves Whigs or Tories;
but it doesn't take imagination to figure that
they bend like willows in the wind, and change their stories

to suit the temper of times, and fan or tamp the fire
depending on their own design, as suits their own desire.
They claim to represent the people and to do their will;

I am their people, yet they only know my name
from voter registration, or my letters 'gainst some bill
that a staffer reads and replies to, a thousand just the same.

Constituents, a power base, a funding source to woo -
the mayor, judge or congressman sees there in me and you.
Do they share our neighborhoods, our streets and public schools,

Or with their lawyer's salaries, shop the same thrift shops?
With diplomat's immunity, must they play by our rules,
or are the ones that make the law beyond where the buck stops?

There is a line that even diehard populists don't cross,
that separates the gleaned wheat from the useless dross.
I get their vain pronouncements by the post at intervals,

assuring me that they are on my side, though they can't know it;
none have walked in my garden, nor will they take my calls --
if they are of my kind, they have a strange way to show it.

And worse, their people call and have the nerve to flub my name,
then pass it off as ignorance; I listen, just the same
Whether they claim to be the Greens, or Independent men,

for I know that behind the voice their stripe is all the same
dependent on my interest and the dollars I can spend
and quick to point the finger back to me and place the blame.

What's worse, they rarely bother to ask what I'd have them do --
so I am left misrepresented, just like most of you.

20 AUG 2003

Before you take your child's education into your own hands
think about what you are qualified to teach,
and what formal education rarely provides textbooks on:

tolerance of the intolerant
equality before the law
appreciation for the little things
rendering unto Caesar what is Caesar's
listening to both sides
the importance of being earnest
how easily trust is broken
the value of a dollar
making up your own mind
following your bliss
aging and death as a natural part of life
seeking your own level
standing up for what is right
looking out for the little guy
that the real world is not me-o-centric
the intrinsic value of human life
the intrinsic value of all life
truth is a pathless land
just because you can do something, doesn't mean you should
being sorry for doing a bad thing, not just for getting caught
figuring out where you're headed before deciding who should go with you
one voice, one vote
every spiritual path has at least one grain of truth in it
a beach is made of millions of grains of sand
money really doesn't buy happiness
want what you have is better than have what you want
nobody lives your life but you
finger-pointing and name-calling never fix anything
symptoms come from causes
you are responsible for everything you do
nobody gets something for nothing
even free love has a price most people are unwilling to pay
people die
people have sex
people steal, cheat, lie, pander, manipulate and coerce
people don't have to do those things
sometimes you lead, sometimes you follow
a smile takes less muscles than a frown
life is what you make it
revolution starts within
you choose your life, your battles, your goals, your enemies
a calm sea produces no great mariners
there really is not an easy way
you can't hate for peace
every person matters
the ends never justify the means
you might even get in reading, writing and some math and science.

19 AUG 2003

Every young child is home schooled

you are teaching your children something
watching TV reality, escaping in drink
cheating on your taxes, refusing to think for yourself
letting the little things get you down
not leaving a tip for a good waiter
tearing up a parking ticket
forgetting to vote because the weather is bad
paying more for entertainment than education
using a false address to get them in a better school
not saying thank you for small favors
cooking only with the microwave
looking for love in all the wrong places
never reading a book unless you have to
replacing things before they wear out
keeping up with the Joneses
dressing to impress
keeping a sweet thing on the side
breaking the speed limit
holding grudges
looking for somebody else to do the dirty work
not saying a word against the war
taking somebody else's word as the gospel truth
putting your personal gain above the common good
talking trash about your neighbors
turning right on red when the sign says not to
building stronger walls instead of bridges
listening to music that offers no solutions
poisoning the earth
not forgiving those who've done you wrong
letting someone else do your lawn
perpetuating stereotypes
trying to get something for nothing
not taking personal responsibility for your actions
letting someone else take the heat
jumping off that bridge 'cause somebody else did it
blaming the government
for a poor education.

19 AUG 2003

The heavy August air sits like an insolent child
sulking under the carport where the breeze
can't get to it, if it even tried to do so
down the fractured street that no longer even pretends
to be the straight and narrow

it clings like a moldy, mildewed straitjacket
against the concrete and staggered magnolias
no one strides the sidewalks in this town
there's a slow, undulating saunter
that even the uptight Metairie folk employ
to let it roll on the avenue

when the afternoon downpour doesn't come
the next door neighbors crank up the stereo
and let the stale cool air from inside
seep into the afternoon swelter
while the young punks across the way
their cars parked across the desiccated lawn
rims shiny like a beacon that cries out
illegal income, get your groove on here
sit languid and lazy on the front porch
sipping cold drinks and waiting on their cell phones.

You can hear the locusts swarming on the levee
as the lubricated air relaxes its grip and settles down
for the night.

18 AUG 2003

Let's take a detour off the interstate ---
The roads are straight and intersect endless rows
of soybeans, seed corn and winter wheat.

Besides, if we get lost,
and spend our evening the only lights on this road
perhaps we'll learn something important
(or at least we'll think so in the morning)
about our selves, about our past
about a night sky we never get to see
from an apartment in the city.

Let's take a slight pause,
which we have been taught to call a caesure ---

What we have translated from Latin
to describe the natural order of things
could fill more volumes, more rows of books
that would reach from here to the moon.

Besides, if we take the time,
someone else may mind these crops:
the shopping malls, the parking lots,
the cement and steel that surround us,
unfeeling and ever-present
stealing from us our pioneer spirit
by concealing the night sky
from our apartment window in the city.

Let's take a detour from our books and things,
and venture out into a world we don't experience ---
unless reading bucolic poetry
from limited editions that cost more
than you'd like to recall.

Besides, the roses are not the only things
we have forgotten, their scent lost
in a carbon-monoxide haze that fills our lungs.
There is new-mown hay, clover and straw,
and there are flowers and wild plants
that we have only seen described
in pristine, crisply covered field guides.

Let's take a slight detour off the interstate ---
the roads are straight and intersect endless rows
of clover, soybeans, seed corn and winter wheat.

Besides, if we get lost,
we might learn something.

10 AUG 1991

In Memphis, where the gypsies come to hide their dead in earth
and I too seeking burial for past mistakes learned the blues
hoping to hide my sense of misdirection like Elvis
there along Madison Avenue two blocks from the Western Steakhouse

and fell in love only to marry for another reason
learning to obfuscate and blur the truth with cold beer
shooting the shit with Wonderful Wanda
and a myriad of characters that also knew the darkness

there at Green's Lounge sitting in with aging bluesmen
also worried about the metal detector at the door
who knew the next generation wasn't going to help them die
where I learned to like the sound of my own voice

regardless of the words it spoke
and all the endless hours of mindless drudge
that some smart words about politics or drug culture
could erase in the echo of a microphone

where I stopped doing Elvis impersonations
because they got to be too real.

18 AUG 2003

The Amish said they'd raze the barn for scrap;
the other buildings nature would unbuild.
As for the rest of it, all useless crap,
new owners can do with it what they will.
When we moved there, my father tried in vain
to make do without livestock for a while;
but ninety acres' yearly crop of grain
was not enough for us to live in style.

At nine years old, I spent the summer's back
behind the tractor, clearing fields of rocks,
to keep the plows from jamming in their tracks,
and played at night with pebbles in my socks.
The kids from town looked down on the farm boys,
whose business kept their parents' stores afloat;
they had all kinds of new and fancy toys,
while we had rabbits, and wore cousins' coats.

It got to be too much for mom and dad,
whose upward mobile attitudes died hard;
and then, the blizzard winter years were bad ---
the final hand that dealt the losing card.
We moved to California for the sun,
and 'cause the schools were better at the time;
a culture shock, for sure, but once begun,
we grew up in that world into our prime.

But we were different from our urban friends.
Our parents were much older than theirs were,
and maybe not as hip to all the trends.
There definitely were differences, for sure.
They kept the farm; dad's brother worked the land,
and shared the profits and the loss each year
We went back "home" for funerals and planned
someday, for one of us, a farm career.

After dad died, I moved back for a spell,
and tried to make that rural place my own;
but once again, the winters were like hell,
and things had gone to pot, or overgrown.
So now, since no one else expects to move
back there, we're letting go of all the land.
Let someone else who's got something to prove
Take over, and from that place, make their stand.

17 AUG 2003

This week (and for the next few weeks) the emphasis is on rhythm. The exercise was to write a poem using iambic feet, with each successive stanza adding an additional foot (first stanza, monometer, last stanza, heptameter).

IAMBICS:

Until
the world
returns
to sane
I will
not fail
to write

These words, though just
small things, can burst
through walls; there must
be words of peace.

Inside my head the world
is pure, and thoughts, like rain
that falls to earth in spring
can cleanse the hearts of men.

To me, there is no better act
than this: to heal the wounds of hate
by writing of the joys of life
to feed the hungry soul's delight.

Upon the page these words seem small and weak,
but in their pale disguise they hide a strength
that breaks the bonds of man's insane desire
and lifts aspiring minds above despair.

How can these words release the world from strife and woe?
With what strange force does language stele our broken hearts?
A glimpse of hope for future times -- strong poet stock
that with their arts, seek beauty and forsake the dark.

Perhaps it is just wistful whimsy, still it could yet come to pass
that the bold rhetoric of failure is replaced with song
and some new speech of love and beauty may dethrone the damned
expression of the cynic's pen, and rule a juster race.

TROCHAICS:

Quiet.
Can you
Hear that
Sound?

Pound the drum, and
Light the signal
Fires! Tonight we
Fight for freedom!

On the field of valor
we shall triumph over
all that come to meet us.
Can you taste the glory?

Never mind the pain and bleeding
Suck it up and just keep swinging
Listen, if you stop, you'll hear it --
Celebration for the victors.

Find your rhythm and stick to it bravely
Cowards never taste of life so fully
Just remember all your children growing
They shall take your torch and keep it burning

Don't cry out, the enemy is drawing nearer
Bite your sword, the metal will revive your spirit
Give me your long knife, I'll cut your tunic from you
And your family seal, I'll give to your proud widow

They will toast your deeds there by the hearth fire's glowing embers
Your young sons will lift aloft your bloody battle armor
History will keep your name alive and in our myths and legends
Longer than the seas are wide, until the mountains crumble.

17 AUG 2003

I sang a song for sixpence in the streets of Harvard Square
Like Tracy Chapman did -- I needed food
But you need some extravangance to make your money there
Most likely, all you'll earn is attitude

I tried it in the subway, on the Blue line, heading back
and got a few more pennies in my hat
Enough to pay the trainfare, but not more to end my lack
A Boston busker's seldom sleek or fat

And on the Green line, give it up, that's penny pinching land
For people listen, but give up no dough
Your voice will ring and echo, for the reverb is quite grand
But the rate of earning is so very slow

The Red line from JP to Alewife, that's a risky route
through Roxbury deep pockets are not found
And often the performer there is looked upon with doubt
If there is not a subway cop around

Through Chinatown, the Orange line is overcome with noise
There's not much point in playing down that track
And visiting the strip-clubs, often poncey college boys
Will need to bum the fare on their way back.

My favorite spot? Along the Charles, despite the rotting stench
that floats above the river like a cloud
You may not get much money, but at least there is a bench
where you can sit and play, however loud

In short, there's not much money to be made just playing songs
Unless you are a juggler or clown
And even then, you'll draw a crowd, but not a paying throng
It's never been an all that giving town

So sing for sixpence if you will. And me? I'm now employed
With cash enough to grocery shop and dine
If I see you on the street, I will be overjoyed
And to your meagre coins, add one of mine.

17 AUG 2003

A recent discussion on the triolet reminded me of a poem I wrote in 2002 after a brief interaction with the folks at The International Library of Poetry:

a triolet

The letter informed me I'd won an award
For a poem of great style and merit;
A copy, but "personally" signed by the board,
The letter informed me I'd won an award.
And if their symposium we could afford,
Ten thousand bad writers could share it.
The letter informed me I'd won an award
For a poem of great style and merit.

2002

If you were to ask me, say, how to make it in the Music business, what you needed to know and where you needed to be seen, heard or known, I could probably give you a pretty intelligent answer. Likewise, if you needed advice regarding a career in information technology, although my training there is mostly on-the-job and catch-as-catch-can, I have enough of a formal foundation there to be of some use.

But with writing, and Poetry, being completely self-taught as I am, I feel at a great loss. Sure, I deconstructed Poetry in high school (20 years ago now), and could blunder through the basics of theme, presentation, person and character. But I've never had the advantage of a complete college education in English, say, or the plus of a BFA or BA that seems to form the underlying knowledge base of a "real" poet. Maybe that's a misperception on my part. After all, I've been writing Poetry for almost 30 years now, 12 of those years pretty immersed in self-study and volume production. So I've learned SOME things. But it's like that last year of a four year degree in any "artistic" field - that's when you learn how to present yourself, how to organize a collection, how to put together a resume, etc. Up until that point, you're just working the mechanics of it, learning the language.

So where does one go from here? How do you know when your work is good enough to submit for publication? I mean, there has to be a certain point where you "know", regardless of whatever feedback you may receive from friends and family, that what you can do is either schlock, average, typical, pretty good, great or genius. Whose opinion do you trust?

Maybe I'm just stuck. I don't know.

for Robert Leroy Litzenberg (1928-1993)

My father was a Gemini.
To some that may serve or suffice
to explain him; and to deny
it as a factor is a lie.

For those signed twins are often twice
as hard to know or understand
compared to more singular signs,
and often this polarized land
leaves surefoots, like us Goats, unmanned ---
that fate could have well been mine.

For we often failed to see things
eye to eye; his moods were fickle,
and lead to hot shouts and fist swings
then quickly bounced back, on cool springs.

I wouldn't have bet a nickel
On the way he'd take awful news.

Sometimes it was good to be gone
or failing that, sickly and wan;
Either way, you'd end with a bruise
or a sore rear end to sit on.

But despite his faults (he had them)
and the years I hated his guts,
I realized he wasn't dim;
so after school I worked for him,
tho' that might seem to some quite nuts.

Because I'd never heard him lie,
or hold another man's beliefs;
and not a single year went by
when he didn't work hard, and try
to give us a chance for less grief
than he'd had growing to a man.

Of all the things he gave to me
so few are more than grains of sand,
or memories of a quick backhand,
except for his integrity.

03 SEP 2003

How clear the lens of retrospect
illuminates the distant past,
and brings in focus now, so fast,
foolish acts we'd rather neglect.

It is not always a kindness,
this sharpness of review;
one can easily misconstrue
an earlier bliss as blindness,

and waste so much precious time now
justifying a lack of sense
or imagining a defense,
forgetting not just when, but how

we came to learn from our mistakes.
What we are is what resulted;
and each time the fragile heart breaks,
future selves are not consulted.

No wonder then, this glass is so clear;
its academic and dry glare
sees history as cold and bare,
and stumbles forward, its eyes rear.

16 AUG 2003

While you still have your youth
is the time to find out
your version of the truth;
as you age, fear and doubt
can crack the careful clay
of all your work and play.
Then in a heaping pile
of broken pottery,
you sit waiting to die
or win the lottery.

15 AUG 2003

In Boston, where I cut my teeth
on the raw meat of delusion,
and watched myself in disbelief
live penniless out on the street,
my college days found conclusion.

There on the green line, Brookline bound,
I took a job dispensing meat,
catching the train just above-ground
where the fare was free, and found
my way back home on snowy streets.

I lived on brown rice and boiled beans
(having not the funds to acquire
the steaks I hawked) and sorted greens;
and turned my hard earned meager means
over to an ex-friend and liar.

There were many ex-friends those days,
all concerned that I might impose,
asking a spot to store my clothes
watching the clock during my stays;
there were better guests, I suppose.

Not like the early summer time,
when I first moved into Beantown
and thought to turn my life around --
in Berklee's halls to find sublime
music, and perhaps write it down.

But who you are will seek you out
despite your best efforts to change,
and every granule of self-doubt
you own it will bring out, and flaut,
making your thoughts crazy and strange.

And then all you can do is leave
behind those tattered dreams, that place,
knowing yourself no more deceived.
Then, in memories later retrieved
there is no point in saving face.

15 AUG 2003

Listen! It murmurs softly underneath
the constant ebb and flow of dulling noise
like brackish water seeps into a clear
crystal pond, its briny fingers reaching
from a sea that constantly must expand.

In that muffled shape of sound sheathed
like a dull dagger in a blanket of chamois,
the tones so low that only the spine hears,
cries a single plaintive voice beseeching
us to find a prop against which to stand.

Listen! It whispers, between its clenched teeth
like a sandpaper rasp on corduroy,
as if its own sound were too much to bear.

There are no words to this shadow's teaching,
and very few attempt to understand.

15 AUG 2003

Old myths teach us to see
great gods each equipped with
a thousand arms and eyes
facing all ways, seeing
all directions at once.

Each hero has my face,
and yours too; what we find
good in ourselves is there
in the wrinkled high brow,
the steady gaze, strong chin.

Old myths show us the way
that humankind evolved:
a thousand hands, each one
five fingers connected
using a single palm.

15 AUG 2003

I was thinking this evening about Starlight Dances and Mars Tokyo - the latter's empty nest and the former's soon to be emptying one. I wrote this poem for them, and all the other parents on my friends list.

She used to turn to wave
a few steps from the car;
and when the journey off
lasted more than a day,
I'd get a short phone call
when it was time to turn
off the lights and say 'nite.

But now, her turns take more
time; and often, she fails
to blow a last kiss back
as her beau's car rolls them
off. This month, she makes one
more turn, her sense of self
spinning larger circles
beyond the range of my
door; as she grows each day,
turning heads when she smiles
(that bright smile that used to
melt just my fragile heart)
I feel her turn away:
she turns eighteen so soon.

14 AUG 2003

I

There is no better thing,
I guess, than to believe
that my good thoughts take wing
without a by-your-leave
and find their way to where
they are needed the most;
that way, I do not care
if they remember their host.

II

There under the carport
in the sweltering heat
of summer, it made sport
among the sticky sweet
passion flower petals,
its dusky wings beating
against the fence metal
in a brief and fleeting
hope for immortality.
Top that reality.

III

The box is there, outside --
if you look, the edges
may be visibly spied
and looked past, like hedges.
Don't try to muscle past
taking them for granted;
for they will hold you fast
'til the day you're planted.

IV

I walked outside last night
while moon glow splashed the street
and the reflected bright
warmed my still earthbound feet.

V

Some faith is a madness
not often criticized;
Without questioning doubt,
it is too polarized.

14 AUG 2003

Three hours into a heated discussion
on how entropy is unavoidable
in most applications of modern philosophy

having drunk down to the bitter dregs
black coffee laced with chicory seed
and double shots of expired yesterday creamer

hand calloused from holding cheap pens
like vise-grips on a burred bolt

watching the casual observers roll in about seven
as they try to avoid walking by the corner table
where the ashtrays boil over, still burning

then the loud click of the amplifier
as the mic, ungrounded, fails then passes
its tentative check - the gathered throng murmurs
as the cash register punctuates like a meditation bell
and the same old welcome, call to order is issued

there is so much bad poetry in the world
like scenes from terrible highway accidents
so many seem to want to share it
and they do
punctuated by short glimpses of beauty
a whirl of words, from wanderlust to whimsy
then for a brief span of moments
there at the mic, barely looking at the freshly inked
page, it comes out brash and loud and wild
like a panther from behind the brush
it catches you by the throat and pulls
your strength and suddenly the caffeine is not
enough, then too much, shaking with it
hanging on to the mic stand for dear life
knees weakening as your mouth dries
like too much cocaine and that metal taste
of seizure
and then you write another one.

14 AUG 2003

Here's something that regardless of your worldview and spiritual/religious persuation, it is useful to bear in mind:

If there is a way to overcome the suffering, then there is no need to worrry; if there is no way to overcome the suffering, then there is no use in worrying. -- Shantideva, A Guide to the Bodhisattva Way of Life

UPDATED to include URLs for the poems (and man, that was a bit of work)

Here's my list of twenty or so (oh, how limiting), in no particular order. Poets, what are yours?

1. Howl, Allen Ginsberg
2. The Lovesong of J. Alfred Prufrock, T. S. Eliot
3. The Stolen Child, W. B. Yeats
4. Auto Wreck, Karl Shapiro
5. The Men That Don't Fit In, Robert Service
6. Richard III, William Shakespeare
7. A Season in Hell, Arthur Rimbaud
8. Gitanjali, Rabindranath Tagore (I know it's cheating, but they don't have individual titles)
9. The Double Room, Charles Baudelaire
10. Fiddler Jones, Edgar Lee Masters
11. America, Allen Ginsberg
12. Song of Myself, Walt Whitman
13. Directive, Robert Frost
14. Faust, Johann Goethe
15. the cambridge ladies who live in furnished souls, e.e. cummings
16. The Book of Thel, William Blake
17. Fern Hill, Dylan Thomas
18. The Moonviewing Party, Basho
19. Chicago, Carl Sandburg
20. Evangeline, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

for Tasha

talking about america growing old while we watched:
between lying and sleeping
(during which thrown about like helpless pillows
we wrestled our thoughts about each other
and pinned them to words)
in the ashtray the ghosts of our lips
met between us.

talking about america going out but not being seen:
between sighing and stretching
(during which lain around like breathless corpses
we whispered our thoughts about each other
and hid them in words)
in the darkness the tongue of a kitten
shared us.

talking about america burning up while we thought:
between sharing and painting
(during which pushed against like restless fear
we sought our thoughts about each other
and wasted them in words)
in the shadows the smoke from our lungs
embraced.

talking about america losing time while we watched:
between smiling and laughing
(during which crawled about like searching beacons
we held our thoughts about each other
and formed them in words)
in the doorway the rest of the morning
separated us.

talking about america feeling lost while we looked:
between drinking and eating
(during which crept about like sleepless soldiers
we created our thoughts about each other
and pressed them in words)
in the kitchen I warned you we were
writing a poem.

1994

About 10 years ago, I was fascinated with both stream-of-consciousness and cut-up, randomized writing. In that fertile stream bed, fueled by endless coffee cups and unfiltered cigarettes, I lay for a period of about two straight years. There was something in me that wanted to cross William S. Burroughs and Henry Miller, and somehow end up with a statement about modern culture. Did I succeed? Who knows. Looking back on that time, it was a frenetic time of perapetitic cavailing. Talking loud, and much, filling in the spaces between words with more words, wild gestures and constant barrages of noise that passed for Music.

Boxing the compass like Muhammad Ali we're all made from the same Cassius Clay, you know and all along the watchtower once you let them in the door you've got to listen to their churchbell's spieling and somewhere a voice in the darkness cries out: "Quiet on the settle down comforter while I get my thoughts together we stand divided by five gives the solution pi in the sky!" and meanwhile clouds are forming and we've got to get inside under the canopy beneath the umbrella situated below the awning. Somewhere along the river in a club where no one goes except to pick fights or china patterns or their noses, Old Blue Eyes is singing a James Van Heusen tune and no one hears him, no one knows the words, but it goes like this: "It's a quarter to three, there's no one in the place but me, listen, Joe, I've got no place to go, but make it one for me, one for my baby, and one for the road."

Happily we leave this scene of unrequited, unreturned, unmitigated, and unforgivable love and move along Union Avenue through the desolate streets where traffic lights are holding their breath in remembrance of Hendrix and the wind still cries, I suppose, but its tears are from laughter and as it passes the hospital it seems to say wake up wake up you're not dead yet but sleeping only sleeping in the thousand years of sleep.

"A mastodon once shit where you are standing!" Homespun cries.

There's a history of the spot you're in, the fix you've created, the world you've denied, that even James Michener wouldn't have the guts to capitalize on. Visions of sugar plums dried and disgusted turned to weary ancient prunes in the scathing light of summer's hatred fade to black like those bananas waiting to make bread like all the rest of us who punch the clock and keep hoping the bell will ring and the round will be over.
"Cut me, Mick," shouts Gravity, "I gotta see. You gotta cut me or I won't know where I'm standing."

And so we let ourselves be wounded in battles that have lost their significance and even their ritual charm. It's been so long since my last confession I can't remember how much I miss the flail, the rack, the Chinese water torture, the hail storm Mary fighting traffic down the Angelus highway looking for a friendly face in a well-lit truck stop who'll hand me the key on a cement block and the rain can fall down like water in the porcelain altar where I have prostrated myself in service to an alcoholic kingdom. You cannot serve two masters, it is said, but they never said anything about tequila and whiskey. The piano's out of tune but it plays on anyway, you just keep your feet moving and eventually the keys will dance and maybe you'll pick up the beat and find the words scrolling by your right hand me going down for the last time I don't know return to sender my love is the seventh wave goodbye and tell me that you love me tender is the night prowler and the lights just keep on passing by like stars in the sky or big rigs on the interstate and wish I may wish I might I wish I'd fall asleep tonight and I've tried counting blessings instead of sheep - it cuts down on the shit lying around in dreamland, but like Ben Franklin said about fish and houseguests starting to smell after about three days, the bountiful cornucopia that seems to have erupted into my mind at my birth is going like gangbusters or a busted sewer line and where it all ends, nobody knows but they act like they do and you don't and that, my friend, is where it all begins.

1994

What makes me more significant
than a full-grown elephant
or tiny crawling ant
or a blooming potted plant
help me, for I really can't

figure out what makes me more
gives me rights worth fighting for
earns me wasteful things galore
lets me throw trash at the shore
help me, my brain's getting sore.

What makes me worth more than you
education or IQ
all the things my brain can do
the size of my grown-up shoe
help me, I must think it through

who said my species is best
better than all of the rest
and in spite of that, depressed
what makes mankind so damned blessed?
There, i've got that off my chest.

13 AUG 2003

In my youth I sought for truth, and studied law and sense
bringing to bear my youthful air, but no experience
and now, much later, perhaps fate, or some wild freak of chance
finds me still seeking, although creaking, in this lifetime's dance.

The fire still smolders, though it's older, and gives warmth and light
by which I cook, and sometimes look out to the stars at night
the world is full of so much bull, but beauty lurks there too
you find the clues, if you so choose, in everything you do.

12 AUG 2003

PONTIUS:
"Against you, I have great legions arrayed.
Your brothers even call out for your death;
yet you smile and do not waste your breath
with pleading, or seem in the least dismayed.

I hold the power to end your short life
Here in my hands, yet you refuse to speak
a word of self-defense and like a freak
just stand there, stretched neck poised against the knife!

What is this strength of spirit you possess
that gives you peace in this, your time of need?
You are just flesh and bone, you bruise and bleed.
Do I not speak the truth? I must confess

I do not understand your plan, or stance --
please, if you wish to live, this is your chance."

YESHUA:
"Of power and might what is it you know?
Can you bring a new life into the world
while grasping at truth, your hands tightly curled
into a fist? That kind of strength won't grow,

but fades and withers with time. As the wind
comes down across the desert and will eat
both solid iron and soft flesh, it defeats
and crushes greater foes. Look, you will find

there is one source of strength here on this earth.
It fuels all things and does not subdivide;
how it is finds use or form is not decided
by you or I, who cannot judge its worth

nor guess from what dark place it manifests,
despite our measurements or endless tests.

The whole we see and know is our small part;
outside that range lie strange and useless powers.
What good to men the grace that blooms in flowers,
or the great force that keeps the stars apart?

What you believe is there within your reach
is shared with every other thing that lives;
and what allows your breath, may also give
its form to each grain of sand on the beach.

And like that speck of dust tossed in the sea
is the small portion of strength in our flock,
yet it may a move a mass of solid rock,
once you become the rock, quite easily.

For more than this I do not ask, or need.
Can such a tree grow from your mustard seed?

16 AUG 2003

Where did you find the most inspiration,
as each line cut like a diamond-edged drill
through layers of effluvia that still
the seeking heart? Was it your frustration

with a cold and unfeeling world, that sought
to silence any expression of joy
in the blossoming soul of a young boy
whose only sinful act was being caught

worshipping beauty in ordinary
things? Was it a way to battle against
each day's regimen of daily dross,

the hardness that can infect one's very
core and so cheapen the experience
of living that its end is no great loss?

10 AUG 2003

rime royal, or Chaucerian stanza

There is no good in a war of revenge,
which at best requires its combatants cold
while for its public approval depends
upon hot blood if it is to be sold
(and hue and cry, if the plain truth be told,
is of no use when seeking for amends;
it only serves one's foes and fickle friends).

Yet vengeance (the Lord's, still we seek it too)
is the rallying call that excuses
much evil; a feeble pretext or two
can always be found, if one so chooses,
to spot dark designs even if the news is
unclear at best. For war, that which is true
is easily perverted and forced to

serve those who would usurp the common good.
Of course, then it is verity no more -
for those who speak out plainly, or who should,
are quickly lost in propaganda's roar,
while the conscripted ignorant and poor
(the ready kindling for armed conflict's wood),
trained to be mute, speak volumes with their blood.

The war machine thrives on retribution,
and so perpetuates its forward thrust;
it seeks for no permanent solutions,
knowing well that any measure of trust
would serve to crumble its dreams into dust.
For vengeful hearts, bloodless revolutions
cannot satisfy or quench power lust.

But a war of revenge cannot succeed.
Its end is not justice, its goal not peace;
and the public support on which it feeds
soon fades. Those that are so quickly fleeced
must, to guarantee their votes, be policed,
lest their swayed minds return to other needs,
and the savor they found in war will cease.

For a war of revenge is a lesson
in mindless carnage and in pointless waste;
and those who counter naked aggression
with its kin, heated anger, have misplaced
their sanity, and with their own acts, erased
shared humanity, and made confession
of their own blind greed and mad obsession.

10 AUG 2003

This life is but a whir of endless dreams
made into concrete that never cures, and
set against a mad rush of marching time
that blurs each second into the next. Its
seemingly solid instances are but
illusions; under scrutiny they turn
to small clouds of worthless dust, or crumble
in your sweaty hands like sculptures of salt.

With each new breath the world is fragmented
and reformed; a moment holds a million
tiny deaths, and gives birth to fresh legions
of galaxies that exist only in
that small span of temporal space between
the impulse to blink and the act itself.

Yet in that minute fraction of being,
before each fragile cosmos is destroyed
to make way for another one to come,
there is an opportunity to seek
beyond the strict confines of what is known
and discover, in a fleeting glimpse, in
the silence between inhale and exhale,
an infinite pause where chronology
fails, where the hands of clocks are motionless.

In this gaping chasm, our wistful dreams
suit themselves in the armor of whole flesh
and spend entire lives in the passionate
embrace of their own imaginative
perceptions, chasing their own chimeras.

And in between each dream's breath in that place,
as with our own, there is an endless space.

08 AUG 03

The edges of his shoes were scuffed and nicked, and a layer of dust clung to them. The sound of a pebble as he scrunched it underfoot made him look down and notice, each step stirring up a small cloud of dust as his feet met the ground, one after the other. It was a dirt road, and he had been on it a long time.

He looked up from his feet and his gaze returned to the horizon, where the road ahead disappeared over the edge where the clouds met the now graying sky. Against the fading light of the day, there were a few trees dark and lonely seemingly scattered at random, breaking the long line of sight that extended ahead to the right and left, endlessly.

His legs were tired from the day's journey, and his back throbbed slightly from the weight of his pack. Not too exhausted to walk another few hours, but then it would be dark, and harder to find a suitable place to make camp. Better to stop now, and start again before dawn tomorrow.

To his right, past the edge of the road, an endless expanse of flat land. On the left the terrain was pretty much the same, but he could see a few slight rises here and there, the beginning of hills that slowly gave way, in the far distance, to a range of low lying mountains. About a hundred yards off the road in that direction was a large outcropping of rocks that seemed like the head of a giant statue buried neck-deep in the spare and sandy soil. What might have been a nose hung out about halfway up the formation, giving a bit of protection from the sun In its shadow. If it rains tonight, he thought, that might be the driest place for miles.

As he picked his way carefully across the stretch of unpaved earth towards the rocks, he casually gathered what twigs and dry grass he could carry. Standing under the jutting rock overhang, he glanced back at the road, then lay down his bundle of sticks and weeds. Then he circled the rock formation, which was about 30 feet across, three times - looking for signs of animal or insect life, anything that might indicate other users of this spot. Seeing no evidence of recent activity, he returned to his stockpiled fuel, kicked a small circle of earth away to form a hollow in the ground, and filled it with the dry twigs.

04 AUG 2003

The world is often close around, its taste upon our breath
filling our dreams with noble schemes of unknown width and depth.
It gives us of its bounty and leaves us deep in a debt
that we must somehow then repay, but sometimes we forget;

and in a blur of flurried action, we race and we build,
improving transportation and keeping our produce chilled.
We change the summer's heat to cool, and deserts we make wet,
and though we know there must be balance, sometimes we forget.

Around us all the world is changing, still becoming born;
and in the face of our extinction, we become forlorn.
Some look for change to right all wrongs or some learn to regret
the inconvenience of our past, or sometimes we forget.

And despite our advances in the arts of sport and war,
we leave behind the slower paced, the hungry and footsore,
advancing truth and righteous causes on a palimpsest
that we all know will fade to naught, yet sometimes we forget.

In quiet times of desperation, each of us may pause
and wonder why the world won't rally there behind our cause.
We speak in words meant to disguise our selfish reasons, yet
sometimes believe in common good, still sometimes we forget.

And in our speeches we say freedom and personal rights,
then by the grace of others' toil, we pine for vain delights,
crying out "'tis oppression" when we must earn by our sweat.
We know the means define the end, but sometimes we forget.

02 AUG 2003