I may resolve to change my ways this year,
exchange old habits for ones I've not tried.
But there's no point in much of that, I fear,
for one's true nature cannot be denied.

Perhaps I'll vow to focus more on things
that increment the positive aspects,
but who knows what the future's bound to bring?
The lessons never come like you expect.

The truth is, all the seeds for next year's fruit
would not be useful now unless the ground
for planting them had been already tilled.

My only hope is that the land will suit,
and that the right conditions will abound.
Should that occur, my barn's already filled.

31 JAN 2004

By the time I got to it,
the clarinet was odd;
a quaint small instrument for guys
who never got the girls
(even the ones who played
and sat in the same orchestra rows
day and day, year after year),
who shuffled in the back
behind the trumpets
and saxophones.

It wasn't really a manly thing
at nine or ten years old
to play.
But that was after Artie
set it down, and Benny
stopped "Flying Home".

Used to be the clarinet was king ---
and guys who played it
led the bands that fellas killed
to get into. Not the "sweet" bands
(although even Miller's band cashed in
on clarinet by chance, with
Moonlight Serenade, and Welk's band
was the only place you'd see a closeup
on those nickel keys)
or the "money" bands, per se,
but the bands where you had to be
great to even get a note in.

To me, that was the reason why
I played that black and silver stick:
because of Artie Shaw
who even out swung Gene Krupa.

30 DEC 2004

When Obiwan Kenobi felt the end of Alderaan
it was as if a hole appeared and swallowed, to a man,
the lifeforce of each precious soul existing 'til that time
and twisted, perhaps frayed, the cord of which we form a line

I wonder, when tsunamis hit, when earthquakes take their toll,
how many sense the devastation wrought, and still console
themselves that these are unknown folk of far and distance lands
and do not feel the spike that drives itself in others' hands

In retrospect, we call it karma, God's will, or bad luck;
but are we all so ignorant, fresh off the turnip truck,
that we must have some writing on the wall to comprehend
or find a mystic omen first, and then assist a friend?

The world is what the world is, whether nature's realm, or God's;
but sadly, we each feel so distant from it, and at odds
with every notion that connects us to each living thing,
and every song that all life forms but us have learned to sing.

The lost, the dead, the wounded? These poor souls have passed the test.
There but for the grace of some God, we think, we live and have been blessed;
but blessed not with just life, but opportunity to grow
and prove our faith in something is of substance, not just show.

How can we ease the suffering? How can we stop the pain?
How can we more control the world so it won't hurt again?
A better question, one that might serve better those who grieve:
How long 'til each of us becomes what we say we believe?

30 DEC 2004

To accept one's karma and the responsibility for one's actions is strength. To blame another is weakness and foolishness. Let's begin by not advertising our ignorance. If you must blame what happens to you on your friend, your neighbor, your country, your community or the world, don't advertise it by speaking about it. Keep that ignorance to yourself. Limit it to the realm of thought. Harness your speech and at the same time work to remold your thinking and retrain your subconscious to actually accept this basic premise.

-- from Living with Siva by Satguru Sivaya Subramuniyaswami

There is something liberating about
waking up early. Not too
early, mind you. But earlier
than you need to be
awake; and if you're lucky,
early enough to see the
last of the night disappear
in the whitewash of the
morning sun, and to hear
the birds when they first
rise and start practicing their
songs, like violinists warming up
outside the concert hall for
a performance later that afternoon.

It's a sense of freedom,
definitely --- and an opportunity to
feel the earth's slow glow
as it stretches its muscles
and wipes the traces of
sleep from its opening eyes.

29 DEC 2004

for John Lennon

Too much of what the world has been,
and is, and still might be,
has as its limits what we call
impossibility.

We reign imagination in
and relegate its course
to doomsday visions, worst-case scenes,
and dissipate its force.

But the first step in making change
is picturing it grow;
if we cannot imagine it,
we cannot make it so.

When Lennon said, "Imagine",
it was not just empty talk,
but an instruction to our souls to crawl,
then try to walk.

Imagine that your point of view
is not all that there is
(to living, love or existence)
and you will learn just this:

That brotherhood and peace and love
were with you all along;
and required only listening
to one another's song.

28 DEC 2004

I will not write for other poets.

They exist to ridicule each other,
and failing that, to share inside jokes
on what words are or aren't clich
on poems written in metered speech
on lines that rhyme, even if well done,
on absurd show instead of tell
(as if a poem could only exist for its own sake,
without serving a greater purpose
than entertaining a few self-important snobs;
perhaps, I offer to such critics,
if you don't feel a connection with the work
you're either in the wrong profession,
the piece was beyond your frame of reference,
or just maybe the poem wasn't all about you).

And those who claim to teach, who write
in back rooms, sneaking off to slams on weekends,
lording it over a gathering of teen angst
and tossing their black pearls of wisdom:

How dare you offer as advice
"For God's sake, nothing before 1900"
as if what's new and now and wow
will be remembered even half that long?
Poetry is how culture is transmitted.

It's not just a mindless TV program designed
to inundate the captive audience
with strings of images.

It's a story, too. And sometimes a lesson.

And it's the way poets talk.

About what's important to them.

And if that happens to also be meaningful to just one other person,
let's hope that person hears or reads it ---
because the other poets also in the room
don't mean anything without that, either.

28 DEC 2004

Between the acts on the great stage
the green room swells with life;
like ocean waves the movement never stops.

Each spent performer, bathed in sweat,
absorbed into their entourage,
glows with the energy of the crowd.

Around the curtain's edge, those next
to play are bathed in the footlights;
their skins mirrored white phosphorus.

All are intoxicated with a sense of time
on the heady brew of ideas and wild talk;
each creates their own constellation.

It seems to me an India:
a festival begun ten thousand years
ago, with millions in the band.*

I came here as a stranger, long ago;
although I know the hour I arrived,
I could not say which door I used.

With jugglers, clowns, actors and saints
I've sung and played and swooned;
the stage is shared with all who care to dance.

Outside the street is dark; no lights
run down the path that leads away.
The door is open; no one stands in wait.

I do not know the ticket price,
nor if I walked or came by car.
It does not matter, either way.

The lights are dimmed, another song
from silence rises into form;
I know the words as if they were mine.

When will it end? I cannot say;
each claims their after-party rights,
as if this show will ever end.

I'll sing as long as I'm allowed,
and stay until its done;
there are fruits and wine enough.

And once I'm filled and all sung out
whoever brought me to this place
will have to take me home.

17 DEC 2004

* Bhagavan Das, in his biography, describes India upon his arrival in the early 60's as "a big outdoor festival that had been going on for 10,000 years, with 10 million people in the band."

The world goes on because civilized men exist. Without them it would collapse into mere dust. Though their minds are as sharp as a rasp, Men without human decency are as wooden as a tree. -Tirukkural 100:997-8

Excerpted from the Tirukkural, translated by Satguru Sivaya Subramuniyaswami. Copyright Himalayan Academy Publications, www.himalayanacademy.com.

(edited slightly for content and privacy)
Hey:

x

(and here's my response, again slightly edited)

Dear x:

While I am flattered that you think my participation in any organization devoted to the purpose of world peace might be useful, I am sorry I must decline. At this point in my life, I feel that organizations really make little difference if the individuals who comprise them have not "made their peace" with themselves and their immediate surroundings first. After all, of what good is a hypocrite who attends peace rallies and then goes home and grumbles about how loud his neighbor's stereo is, or yells at his dog? I think you get the point. All the organizations in the world will not do what is required, which is to change each single mind, one at a time? What that requires is that each individual who is interested in peace act peacefully --- and from that small ripple in the pond, echoes emanate endlessly to all shores. That is the exponential growth that is needed, I think. To start with an organization, no matter how noble its intentions, that does not have as its core that basic belief --- that individuals, not organizations, make the difference, is to pursue the wrong means, at least for me. And the means must justify the ends -- after all, they define it if, as in my life, the journey, not the destination, is the whole point of existence.

As for the Prince of Peace ... I have often wondered why such a prince would require such an extensive army. That seems to defeat the purpose. After all, peace-keeping is NOT peace-making. It is only punishing hatred with the threat of reciprocal, impassionate violence. And THAT surely is not Peace.

Thank you again for your kind words. I wish you well in your endeavors.

Happy Holidays.

The times when goodwill, peace and love
are praised are rare indeed;
and rarer still those instances
when thought translates to deed.

So in such seasons where these things
are found, take heart, rejoice,
and with compassion, grace and honor
add your hands and voice.

It matters not whose holiday
was borrowed, changed or nicked;
but just that at this time of year,
the bubble has been pricked

that splits us up in separate lives
and robs us of the sense
that we are all part of the whole
lifeforce experience.

So wassail, carol, hymn and jig;
let yuletide spirit reign ---
for sadly, it may be a year
before it comes again.

25 DEC 2004

It started out as hail this morning, but has turned to snow
Which happened last here in New Orleans fifteen years go
Those who came south for sunny climes are in for quite a shock
To see the trees decked with the real stuff instead of fake flock

Perhaps Heatmiser struck a side deal with his brother, Snow,
And somewhere further to the North are suntanned Eskimos
The children are all fascinated by the flakes of white
And burn up cell phone minutes squealing in peals of delight

While parents look outside in wonder at their cars and lawns
and at their poor thermometers, whose red has all but gone
Of course, it being Christmas day, the city's all shut down;
but had it been a weekday, you can bet that in this town

there'd be a halt to everything except the drinking halls
'cause no one here knows how to deal with sleet, and the snowballs
they're used to seeing are shaved ice with flavored syrup in,
and driving is peril enough --- wait 'til the ice begins

to set and fill the potholes. Then we'll see a wondrous sight:
folks who can't drive well normally out skidding Christmas night.
And it's a Christmas snow --- it happened only just today;
But it's New Orleans. Blink, and it will quickly go away.

25 DEC 2004

You'd better not pout, you'd better not cry You'd better be good --- I'm telling you why: Santa Claus is coming to town. He sees you when you're sleeping He knows when you're awake He knows if you've been bad or good --- so be good, for goodness' sake.

I just today realized the problem with the commercialization of Christmas. The point of the above song is that IF you're good, you will be rewarded. Conversely, if you're BAD, your actions will be noted, and your stocking will be shorted accordingly.

Yet, at the same time, we are admonished to "be good, for goodness' sake".

If we apply logic to this, that's the same as saying "art for art's sake" --- or that art is worth making simply because art is worthwhile.

That means that the song is saying that being good is its own reward. That it is the right thing to do. That's why one does it.

NOT FOR THE REWARD, or because someone is watching who'll provide some payoff.

On one of the communities I manage, someone made a comment that it seems like all the peace-oriented communities are pretty comatose --- not a lot of posting activity. This made me wonder about peace-makers, in general.

To me, a peacemaker is not someone who is all that interested in lamenting how non-peaceful other people are. In addition, they don't necessarily work in groups. Peace, after all, begins with the individual --- and anyone who is seriously interested in finding, and making, peace is always going to look at themselves first and root out in their own character, actions and psyche those violent or harmful impulses and manifestations which are antithetical to peace. That means, of course, a constant level of activity for the peacemaker that starts perhaps unperceivably (to the outside world) and radiates outward first to their immediate surroundings --- co-workers, family, neighbors and so on. There isn't a lot of point in organizing a sit-in half-way around the world if you haven't got your personal act together first.

Marx said it best --- the first step in any public revolution is the private revolution. Ramakrishna, talking extemporaneously about 50 years earlier, said it in a different way --- unless you have personally experienced God, you've got no business preaching or teaching God to anyone else. First, you've got to shut up and listen. In other words, change yourself and you have already changed the world.

So I'm not really all that surprised that the "real" peacemakers aren't clamoring up and down the "peace-oriented" message boards. After all, they're busy doing what they need to do, despite a world that doesn't value their efforts (and often doesn't even realize their effects, because they are assimilated by osmosis, not radical paradigm shifts). For me, it's enough that people interested in making peace have a refueling station such as peacetrain to pull into and share their experiences, encourage others and when they can, say just a word or two.

To sum up, to me you "make" war. You "spread" peace. The difference is that you can separate war, either philosophically or physically, from yourself.
With peace, that's not an option. The Creator and Created are One.

Any thoughts?

With each breath, opposites are reconciled:
like the unconscious seeping under the door
that the river makes as it rises during the night,
then at first light ebbs slowly away
as the sun's heat pulls it into its glowing bosom.

To dub the inhalation Da, to sense its quiet strength,
then name it Ma as it comes forth from the lungs,
its motion merged with infinite atmosphere,
warm tendrils seeking out atom by atom
the molecules that shape the space,
flesh out the illusions of matter
and the world's wide mask of being and nothing,
is to lower a string into a lake
and think you've split the water.

There is a moment, between sighs,
where there is only one expanse of air,
samadhi in a pregnant pause;
and in that instant what divides
a flame from its penchance to burn
becomes the only line between
the different forms of god.

22 DEC 2004

What is the sound that echoes in the ears
when all is silent and the earth, asleep,
leaves off its boisterous clamor and harangue,
its endless waves of wild, chaotic speech,
and in a mute and restful slumber dreams?

The world in such a chasm's wake was born,
its roots entwined around a primal hush
that swallowed nothingness without a word
and cast itself out like a spider's web
from shadow's body into space and time.

The frequency at which that first hum sounds
destroys the fibers of its universe;
each phase an ending that begins again,
a great abyss which endlessly refills,
reverberating in ears not yet made.

Infinity is but a moment's span
as worlds wink in and out like distant stars;
and time becomes an artificial guide,
a meaningless contrivance marking out
where one illusion borders on the next.

20 DEC 2004

There are no words to capture this
exquisite moment of pure bliss
between the grasp and letting go
between the thought and need to know

There are no words that can express
the soft caressing tenderness
of just a second's quiet peace
between holding and just released

Drowned out by a heartbeat,
its low murmur barely heard
below the gentle cry of stones
that wish to become birds

There are no words that can relate
the edge of time, the end of fate,
between the lines the phrases flow
and not yet sentenced, fade and go.

There are no words to ponder on
from hallowed texts, their marrow gone;
between each page, a film of dust
speaks what it can, to whom it must.

20 DEC 2004

In a week I will be forty. If my mother's right
it's time to get my act together and find more delight
in doing what needs to be done to build something to show
for two score spent in dissipation watching the grass grow.

For forty years I've wandered, aimless (if you read my press)
and how I managed to survive is anybody's guess;
but here I am an older man with little put aside
for rainy days and the malaise built up like muck inside.

And even though my mother (bless her and her dreams for me)
is likely to deny it or at best, just disagree,
the course for me is still unset, with mountains still to climb,
and wild paths yet to ramble left untraveled all this time.

I could have gone a different route, sought greater wealth and fame,
but had I come another path I would not be the same.
The stars are not much different in the sky as they were then;
they can be used to form new paths, not just trace might have beens.

And I have what I want, right now, though some would call it less
that what it should be. I seek out a greater happiness.
If I should last for forty more, undoubtedly, I'll find
that my boat will at last reach shore --- just where, I do not mind.

For ports and inns and treasure troves on wild, uncharted lands,
I'm sure will fade from memory like dry dust in my hands.
It's only knowing who you are that makes a difference;
and taking forty years to learn that through experience

instead of scanning manuals, taking courses, reading signs,
has built a life worth living. And the best part? It is mine.
So forty comes and forty goes --- it seems a lot of days.
All that was bad was my own fault, for good, I must give praise

to forces I've just glimpsed upon this often lonely trail,
that oft appear as wisps of smoke not some great holy grail.
I hope just this: the time to come, what's left to me this round,
won't seem like unimportant drivel, or just mumbled sound.

But forty's just a number; it does not mean all that much:
some measure of maturity to lean on, like a crutch,
or use to force my issues down some young and eager throats
who've just started their seeking and still think they must take notes.

So I will taste of forty (a respectable old port)
and try to make the next four decades of a different sort.
I couldn't do the same again, so what's the point to try?
I'll take each new day as it comes, and get there, by and by.

26 DEC 2004

Having been notified by Google Alerts that a new service is available that takes your original website and scours the web to check and see if your content is found elsewhere (that is, borrowed liberally without permission), I give another thought to what has to be my favorite take on plagiarism:

Lermontov: "...and remember, my dear Mr. Krassner, it is far more disenheartening to have to steal, than to be stolen from."

--- from The Red Shoes, of course

In another sense, poetry (at least good poetry, in which the author has said something from their unique perspective) is as difficult to pass off as one's own work, if it is not, as it is difficult to use someone else's driver's license and claim it is you. The fact of the matter is that driver's license pictures are purposely so horrible (I have yet to see one, from any state, that manages to even vaguely flatter its owner) and these photos are so unlike the license holder, for the simple reason that only the REAL and authentic owner of such a license would claim that the picture contained thereon is themselves. There is something to be said, in many respects, for the ultimate audacity of truth.

And with poetry, it is I have discovered the same. After all, it is only the most audacious explanation of a poem's meaning (and that is typically the one that is at the polar opposite extreme from any literary critic or literature professor's interpretation, although it need not be, which oft surprises both the poet and the professor LOL) that is typically the one belonging to the author. Perhaps it is too simple, perhaps too obtuse. But an imposter trying to pass off the piece as their own work would NEVER use that particular exegesis. And other poets (if not the caffeine-laden, vapid dilettantes who frequent readings and slams and/or think themselves by virtue of their own pomposity and inflated sense of gothic me-o-centrism to be the next Plath, Rimbaud, Morrison, Shelley, Bukowski or whatever) can tell the difference. In a heartbeat.

Sometimes, a word can have a myriad of meanings. Take "vidya" for example, which in Sanskrit means knowledge, when spelled with a small 'v', or denotes knowledge leading to liberation, i.e. to the realization of Ultimate Reality, when spelled with a capital 'V'. When I wrote this song, it was for a girl with that name --- I did not know of its other connotations. But reading it now, almost fifteen years later, some of that deeper meaning seems to seep through in what I said then.

Sometimes, we surprise ourselves with epiphanies that cannot be rationally explained. It is these flashes that illuminate a darkness, and can pierce shadows we didn't even know existed. For poets, I suppose, these are "Rumi" or "Kabir" moments, that result in creations that are intended as simple love songs directed to a single person, but in reality illustrate a devotion to something much greater than the individual subject.

Watch for me when you sleep ---
dreams can be masterful fortune-tellers.
There is no distance too great, too far,
that wishes cannot traverse as mountain travellers.

Think of me when you wake ---
there will be other fond remembrances.
Dreams cannot deceive; there is no substance
to your fears. I will come for you.

I will be in the farthest stormcloud.
Listen to the thunder --- there will be my words.
Look upon the mountains, unyielding to the seasons ---
there will be the rocks that turn to birds.

Talk to me in your wishes ---
hearts can hear where ears cannot.
Time is but an obstacle which can be overtaken.
Wishes will bring nourishment as if holy waters.

Watch for me when you are worried ---
dreams can be revealing sources.
There is no distance that is so far
that wishes cannot cross like hallways.

I will be as the waves on the ocean.
Listen to the thunder, there will be my words.
Look upon the mountains, unyielding to the elements ---
there will be the rocks that we will turn to birds.

27 JUL 1991

Tolkein's world of fabled creatures
did not speak to me
of my own sense of purpose,
or responsibility

and so its strange translation
onto film I did not mind;
except the Ents and Bombadil,
who Jackson left behind.

But Earthsea, in which my own life
found endless parallel,
and traced a journey like my own
through a personal hell,

when wrought onscreen seemed stale and trite,
its lessons left unspoke,
and mists around its message
lost, somewhere on a fake Roke.

13 DEC 2004

When grandma fried the eggs, she used the salt
so liberally its savor burnt the tongue;
and so my father grew to hate the taste,
eschewing through his life their bitter edge.

It seems to me this metaphor applies
to nuggets gleaned by some religious sects;
when taken from their source, the sea, in part,
they overwhelm the soul with acrid fire
and cease to flavor, but only repel.

Once taught to spurn the salt through overdose,
some go through life unseasoned, knowing not
of how themselves of this saline are made,
and learn to satisfy their hunger on
what tasteless crusts they come upon by chance.

13 DEC 2004

Joy in the world! The time is come!
Let earth reject all kings.
Let ev'ry heart give itself room,
and with all nature sing, and with all nature sing,
And with, and with all nature sing.

Joy in the world! No tyrant reigns!
Let men new songs employ;
While fields and floods, rocks, hills and plains
Repeat the sounding joy, repeat the sounding joy,
Repeat, repeat the sounding joy!

No more let pride's illusions grow
in wars that spoil the ground;
It's time to let earth's blessings flow
Far as all life is found, far as all life is found
Far as, far as all life is found.

To fill the world with truth and grace
We must make nations prove
The folly of self-righteousness,
And share justice and love, And share justice and love,
And share, and share justice and love.

A flurry of words assaults the ear
as she storms back in the room,
alto voice filling the space
left by the withering blast
of the horn; the false lull breaks

as the drum, relentless, kicks
forward the time, and her growl
bites off the bar viciously,
saying, listen close and learn -
you don't know my opinion.

No, no, that's my quick response,
block chords of the piano
trying to fix the segue,
substituting chord after chord,
as the bass beneath pushes

us ahead, red hot and mad,
working the room with anger;
the murderous notes fly wild,
burning away useless charts
as Miles and I turn our backs,

and say, "Never mind."

The head that began it all
now lost, deliberately,
only tensions and guide tones
suggesting of melody,
her alto pauses and breathes

as the snare drum snaps, alert,
finding the primal level
in our talk, the undertow
where the nothing we share breeds
and lets loose its dark malice.

A conversation, I think,
is not about streams of words
in space from a single voice,
but interplay of accent;
subtle questions in each pause

a spur driving another line,
or emphasis, amplifying
the other's words, pushing back
perhaps only with a breath
to change rhythm and the tune,

like saying, "So What?"

For the song is not possessed
by one alone; it weaves and moves
from alto to first, trumpet,
then to bass and to the drum,
brass bell, then ivory key,

as moistened reed gives way, back
to the brass, struck on its edge
by wire brush; each one pushing,
working off of each other,
waiting to get the last word.

Now she's back in the kitchen,
but her solo I block out;
focusing my quiet vamp
'til she sits out a chorus
and I can speak my own phrase

as she turns her back to me,
thinking, like Miles, of control,
giving me a bit of space,
with an irritating cool
that shows she is the leader.

The band says, "We hate that."

31 JUL 1994, revised 31 OCT 2001

There is in every madman a misunderstood genius whose idea, shining in his head, frightened people, and for whom delirium was the only solution to the strangulation that life had prepared for him. -- Antonin Artaud (1895-1948)

The play's the only thing, upon this stage ---
the one true line from which all tangents spring;
and if the actors move from joy to rage
in but a moment's span, or seem to bring

a touch of madness to their roles, perhaps
reel in some strange delirium's delight,
remember once the curtain's drawn, these chaps
must face their critic's mirror every night.

The lines that flow so freely from their lips
leave only bitter ashes on the tongue,
and in love's arsenal, faded applause
serves as a scourge, and accolades as whips.
No wonder they seem mad and quite unstrung,
and break along their human seams and flaws.

09 DEC 2004

for Rudyard Kipling

There was an idea
that grew in a brain ---
not a clean break, but rather
a troubling sprain.

It swelled up and shut off
the centers of speech,
thus remaining hidden;
and just beyond reach

it festered, fermented
and spread like a rash
along the poor cortex
which gave up, and crashed.

But that was so long ago ---
now the brain's learned
to shun stray ideas
lest its pathways burn

with even the memory
of strange and queer thought;
to be safe, it forgets
most that it's been taught

and so pretty thoughtless
it plods through the day ---
imagining it has
always been this way.

Now dearly beloved,
believe this is true;
lest you want ideas
to happen to you.

08 DEC 2004

The minutes drag and slow to just a crawl,
their tired legs turned rubber, and their hands,
so used to crisp precision, mime a drawl
that stretches seconds out like rubber bands.

Each sound becomes a dopplered wave, each sigh
a whirlwind swirling echoes in its wake;
and even the sweet words of lullabies
rasp in the ears like dried leaves 'neath a rake.

Beneath the skin, each vessel like a drum
begins in low vibration keeping time
and with a dull, lethargic creep drones on.

Through air grown thick and stagnant standing dumb,
their wings beslimed, ideas fight to climb;
and then the moment ends, and they are gone.

08 DEC 2004

For some reason, sitting out under the carport this morning in the rain made me think of a period during 1991 when I wrote about 30 songs in the course of 36 hours. It was a very strange Peter Gabriel meets Van Morrison kind of weekend ... just me, the computer terminal and the digital piano.

Blues for Elijiah

Ravenous, we turned our backs on civilized pursuits
in suits of woven rags and skins, exposed to elemental change;
No human chatter breaking forth, no spewing after-thoughts
of imperfect internal combustion.

Blinded by the word of the immortal beast of broadcast,
scarlet-eyed, star-struck, in cathode-ray imposed myopia,
we foolishly believed that we had found the new Messiah
and we called to him by name, Blessed Technology.

Cloven-hooved, through clover fields, we chased the dream inconceivable
Thinking we could make believe and make it more believable

Turn away from your television
Turn away from your radio
There are more things in Earth and Heaven
Than you'll ever know

Words are only words if they hold no other meaning
Symbolized interpretation of an unseen imagery:
The silence shouts out deafening; cover up your ears
or you might hear something important.

Hungry now, and rooting through the leftovers of history,
power ties no longer bind, yet cut off circulation.
Do you still believe that you have found the reasons for your presence?
Do you still hold fast to dreams that have no meaning?

Turn away from your newspaper
Turn away from your bulletin board
There are so many things escaping your attention
There are more rivers left to ford

With all your money, can you still pay attention?
Will all your bridges tumble into the sea?
With how much credit can you purchase my affection?
Will you be frightened if I love you for free?

Turn away from your television
Turn away from your radio
Listen to the music playing out in the courtyard
They're playing verses you should know

Turn away from your radio
Turn away from your magazine
There are things happening that are much more important
There are still wonders you've not seen

26 JUL 91

Fallen Angels

A monster's out walking the streets tonight
Devouring the city, cobblestone by cobblestone
A soul without mercy; and you know
pity is a lonely word, small and forgettable

Silent in mute screaming agony
Following the gutters down and out to the sea;
otherwise, without purpose, directionless,
void of apparent course.

Searching for fallen angels
Fitting them with dragons' wings
'Cause if this play falls on its face
We'll have to think of something

The monster in his guise, so human,
licks his lips, mastiff-inspired,
the scent of life, animal
caged words, primitive and sophisticated.

Alone in schizophrenic company
Following the sound of life around the corner;
no intentions, only expectations
of disappointment in the shadows

Searching for fallen angels
Fitting them with dragons' scales
'Cause we'll need more cannon fodder
When self-preserving instinct fails

A monster is stalking the city tonight
Devouring the pavement like lines
on a printed page, without mercy or pity,
which are lonely words, small and
easily forgotten

Searching for fallen angels
Fitting them with dragons' hearts
'Cause we'll need all our energy
Once the floor show starts.

26 JUL 91

At dawn, when I awoke, the rain
was but a mist that damped the lawn;
and then its whitewash strength increased
to rinse the night, 'til it was gone.

Its purpose served, it too then waned,
as greys began to blue
and dried the puddles left behind
to just a drop or two.

Yet on the breeze I taste it still ---
its cool and fragrant kiss,
that lingers in the morning air;
good days begin like this.

The wrens, at first asleep, or shy,
now venture from their shade
and low, take up their favorite tune
and start to promenade.

07 DEC 2004

This morning I shall try to set
my sights against the hypocrite
that dwells inside me, giving pause
to any who would praise my cause.

I seek him out, this two-faced toad
whose inner turmoil oft explodes
in fits of misdirected rage
against his keepers, or his cage,

and bid him walk with me a while,
to value substance, over style,
and for a moment to forget
those years developing regret

for dreams undreamt, and songs unsung,
denying that we are among
the smallest spots in life's design
yet claim so wildly, "mine, mine, mine."

This morning, for it's early stil,
there's time to catch him, and I will,
to, at least for an hour or two,
pretend that he's illusion, too.

07 DEC 2004

Quote from a currently running commercial for Cox Digital Telephone:
"If a million people are doing it, it must be a good thing, right?"

So, if a million people are jumping off of cliffs, to use a metaphor from my mother's playbook when I was a kid, you should be doing it too?

Or to paint with a much broader brush ... if a million people are racist, sexist, bigoted, uptight, boorish cads, then that's the direction you want to head in? If a million people support a fascist dictator with an agenda that includes decimation of people not like him (or them), that makes it a worthy cause?

Wow. Marketing never ceases to amaze me.

To paraphrase Ibsen, since when has the majority ever managed to do anything but ostracize (and that's the mild end of the reactive spectrum --- the other end would include thumbscrews and quartering or crucifying) its innovators?

Sometimes, in fits of restless pique
I lose the will to even speak
and listening to voices lie
reduces me to tears; I cry

not for their souls in peril, no,
but for a world that makes it so
worthwhile to bend and shape the truth
this way and that, a mood to suit;

And weeping, once the phone is dead,
I sit and wonder, seeing red,
why those who have integrity
must bear the brunt of infamy

while tarred and feathered by those fools
who will not play by agreed rules
but choose instead to twist and wreck
the facts. But then, in retrospect,

I pity anyone who must
rely on guile instead of trust
to count some coup against their foe
scoring them, one, everyone, zero.

06 DEC 2004

Parenting teaches, like nothing else did
that you pay for the bullshit you pull as a kid
the invoices rendered by children who ask
for clemency, extended curfews, and cash

Blow thou, winter wind, on my shutters and doors,
knock down happy scenes outside department stores,
and lay your hand over the acres of trees
picked before their prime and chopped off at the knees.

Set loose your ice knife blade and cut through the night,
send glad-handing carolers running in fright,
wreak havoc on fake snow and decorative sleighs
and overwrought, wasteful electric displays.

Blow on, winter wind, separate wheat from chaff,
and I will smile merrily, and even laugh
when your icy breath on the window panes rasps
and rattles lawn ornaments and dry bird baths.

Send all the leaves, dried out, their chlorophyll gone,
to rest on the self-righteous manicured lawns
of those who would well-wish just once every year;
Blow on, and once all of the garbage is cleared

keeping blowing until you have gusted your fill.
Blow ye most triumphantly, blow as ye will;
and then, when your efforts have cleaned off the swill,
meet me at the top of some sad, lonely hill

to lend me your strength -- let it fill up my lungs.
Together, we'll seek out new songs to be sung,
and gather fresh myths to raise our kids among
that see the world once more as vibrant and young.

04 DEC 2004

Two murders I witnessed in opposite trees
across the canal, voicing cacophony;
a trial of wills between territories
resulting in blackened skies, as the light breeze
of morning and rain brought a chill to my knees.

Not often such numbers are gathered this way,
suggesting an omen to christen the day
accompanying storm clouds hung heavy and gray,
their pregnant, expectant rough edges in fray
awaiting the hour when havoc would play

on all thoughts of picnics, or sunlit parades.
I watched as the black wings formed out of the shade
there in the tall cypress where their nests were laid;
and just for a moment, felt cold and afraid ---
then sipped from my hot cup of coffee, just made,

and drew on my pipe, let the thick smoke surround
my head, and then slowly, not making a sound,
rose from my chair, let my feet feel the ground
cool underneath me, and looked once around,
and thought of myself, quite small and unprofound.

Two murders I witnessed in opposite trees
this morning while killing time quite patiently;
and though it was quite unrelated to me
I pondered some moments on the irony
that such things should happen, and that I should see.

04 DEC 2004

Two saints of diametric views
one rainy Sunday morn, did choose
to spend some time in long debate
on gods and men and life and fate;

each sought to prove his deity
more just and great (such vanity)
imagining the sad world pined
for their opinions, wrought sublime.

While neither knew the other's gods
(or quite why they were at odds),
their hearing dulled and eyesight poor
each stood on their respective shore

with little buckets rimmed in salt
distilled from the sea, to assault
with proofs that just their deity
encompassed true salinity.

They splashed each other well enough
and neither one could be rebuffed
until both soaked through to the skin
they paused; and as the tide came in

a voice was heard above the swell
that neither knew (at least, not well)
and it said, "just act like the world
is not for man, but for the squirrels."

Then buckets half-lost in the sand
the two saints laid down, hand in hand,
and in the fading daylight's spark
saw the horizon's distant arc

and gained perspective, sitting there,
the ocean in their underwear ---
and laughed, because their points of view
were equal parts hogwash and truth.

Two saints went to the shore one day;
and from that beach, none went away.

When in the winter, I shall stand
a bare tree tall on frozen land
there may be some who choose to rake
among the leaves left in my wake
and into separate piles by hue
divide these skeletons. But who
can tell by looking at them from
the long rake's length, when the snows come
which were the first to dry and fall
without accounting for them all?

Which once green fans in spring were dropped,
and now are mixed with autumn's crop?
Which dried on branches now grown old
and clung until their sap ran cold?

Like placing blank sheets front and back
of chapters splitting the known facts
that populate a life's long span
in some great sequence, as if planned,
without acknowledging the whole
as mystery, beyond control.

And once so bagged and sifted through,
who knows if they are sorted true?
If such a task be done at all ---
one sack too full, or one too small,
tends to distort one's sense of scale
and in the end, can only fail
the way a footprint in the dust
leaves little sign, except it must
describe a path begun or ended;
not much else, or what intended
course was left behind or started fresh.

Each turning point leads but to guess.

For who's to say which precise point
becomes the branch's end, or joint.
Until the growth is stopped by time
there is no finite to a line.

But some will section off in parts
where one phase ends, and one phase starts,
and in some erudite display
explain a life in finite ways,
and capture facts with endless notes,
transcribe the tunes from songbird's throats,
fit each stray thought into some mold
where it can be cast, hard and cold.

I choose, instead, to linger on
those leaves now lost, blown from the lawn
by wind and rain, that will not be
included in the raked tally.

For these, the lost uncounted score,
describe the flesh that is no more,
but lines a garden bed somewhere
or turned to dust along a shore.

And the great naught that is their wake
needs neither sack, nor pile, nor rake.

01 DEC 2004