A Report from the Silk Road

An elephant out on the road
Tiptoed around an old toad
He tripped on a bra
Then laughed when he saw
The pearls pouring forth from his load

Three Crosses

Three crosses rise above Golgotha hill--
Redeemer, thief, and thief--anointed one
Between repentant, unreprentant will--
One  bound for Hell is raised beside the Son.

As virtue is the mean of vice and vice,
Three crosses show the balance in your heart--
"Today you'll be with me in paradise"--
Through Heaven I from you will not depart.

Between the coward and the rash will rise
True courage, and the poet with Cain's mark
Shall sing eternal praise and take the prize
Of immortality--and then embark.

From Eve and Adam's hunger, love, and shame
We've come to play this complex human game.

Creating the Real

"You're just not living in reality."
In what reality? In whose? The real
That others make, or one that makes me free,
Creator of the world. The things you feel
Create reality for you, and mine
For me, to make the real emerge between
Us, be it terrible or be it fine.
To see the world in gratitude and hope--
To see it in resentment and in fear--
The one you choose is how you choose to cope,
It's how you see and taste and feel and hear.
Within the real, there's taking and there's giving--
You choose the human life that you are living.

Meditation Quatrain

I'm breathing in the peace, serenity--
I hold it in, the tension will unbind--
I'm breathing out all my anxiety--
I pause and, pausing, open up my mind.

Instructions:

As you can see from the quatrain, each line should be recited in your mind as you breath in, hold your breath, breath out, then hold your breath again. You repeat the quatrain for each cycle of breaths you take throughout your meditation. The use of iambic pentameter lines means each stage is approximately 3 seconds long. This duration is the same length of time of your auditory moment, of your short-term memory slot, and thus should help to keep you in the moment itself, since your every moment will be filled with a line of poetry aiding you in your breathing.

The Oppression of the Future

Suck in the fetid air
You're sitting there
Right in a chair
You look as anxious as a hare
You're glancing everywhere
Full of despair
Afraid because the world is unfair
You're withering beneath its golden stare
You fail beneath its silver glare
And wonder if you dare

Here is another version.

Forgiveness

You need to do something most difficult:
Forgive yourself for being human--flawed,
Imperfect. Yes, life is hard, virtue rare,
But love is best of anything and hate's
A waste of energy and time. Live full,
Imperfectly your life--always perfect
Yourself with joy and fill your life with dance
And poetry and song. The beautiful
Has never been the perfect--love the flaws
That make your life, all art most interesting--
Remain in awe of nature and the wealth
That you enjoy beyond subsistence, rare
In human history, and all the knowledge
The peace, the global trust that we enjoy.
And yet, because you won't forgive yourself,
You live in misery among abundance,
Condemn the tiny things, and seek out hate,
Anxiety, and fear, replacing all
We lost with our imaginations. Love,
And you'll be loved--give, and you'll get the gift
Of happiness--forgive, and live in joy.

God and Goddess

The moon is goddess of all poetry--
Except the poetry of Greece--the sun,
Apollo, stands surrounded by the Muses--
His is a poetry no light shall shun.

In other realms the darkness rules the verse,
The poet hides in shadows, hides in lies--
Apollo shines the sun of truth through lines
And in his wisdom everything defies.

Apollo's poetry is prophesy--
The future speaking to the now in rhyme--
It brings enlightenment and its warm glow
Will bring the mind beauty's fullness in time.

The Muses' poetry is Memory--
Plurality of knowledge--and sets loose
Great wisdom to make beautiful--
Such is the power of their father, Zeus.

But do not think the virgin goddess dim--
She finds her way into our rhyme and verse--
Without her you cannot give birth, your lines
Will be stillborn, delivered in a hearse.

The Still Life

What is this skull beside the cactus, white
Beside the epiphytic green--death-dry
Beside the succulent. In nature high
Upon a limb, white flowers will delight
Nocturnal moths out of the barren sight
Of empty eyes whose rigid bones should lie
Beneath the ground. This table will deny
The desiccating dirt, the airy height.

Has life and death been tamed by still life art,
Domesticated on our tables, chairs?
The painted orchids clipped from off the tree
They grow upon, beside the cactus, part
Of our desires, hold our fears and cares
In stillness--they are safe where we can see. 

Dance of the Gobies

To feel the music in your body--birds
Displaying fancy feathers, antlered elk,
The poets with their rhythmic, rhyming words,
And kings with purples from the ocean whelk--

All art is dancing, subtle glancing, dark
And light in most modest movement, necks
Exposed to bloodstained blades, the meadowlark
Up on the line will serenade your sex.

The fish is dancing in its territory,
It's showing off its colors just to chase
Away and to attract--you read its story
In Bach and Baudelaire, the Muses' lace.

A vase of genitalia shows I feel
The oxytocin dancing in my brain--
The colors, nectar bring the bees, unreal
As butterflies in heaven's deep domain.

The bird of paradise displays its feathers
And we display our minds in art and song--
We dance among anemones and heathers
To find a fellow soul where we'll belong.

The Gambler's Blues

Lost everything I ever had
Least wasn't that much to lose
And that is why I'm sittin' here
Sittin' here singin' the blues

I gambled all my money gone
I gambled off my house
I gambled off my dog and truck
My children and my spouse

I gambled off my clothing,
Except what's on my back
I gambled off my friends and foes
I think I'm losing track

Lost everything I ever had
Least wasn't that much to lose
And that is why I'm sittin' here
Sittin' here singin' the blues

My wife was always cheatin'
My kids took all my dough
My dog let burglars in the house
There's nothing left, you know.

And so I stand here on the street
And sing my sorry song
I promise I won't miss a beat
I swear it won't be long

Lost everything I ever had
Least wasn't that much to lose
And that is why I'm sittin' here
Sittin' here singin' the blues

With all the change from singin'
I bought this here guitar
Without the licks I'm playin'
I won't get very far.

Lost everything I ever had
Least wasn't that much to lose
And that is why I'm sittin' here
Sittin' here singin' the blues

Jittoku to the Postmodernists

I'll sweep away your reason

I won't give it a season

There's nothing in it pleasin'

To me or Michael Beeson

To the Decadents

You're living in an age of wonders, yet
Deny it all. Ungrateful wretches, all!
You hate your wealth, pretend that you regret
The benefits that hold us all in thrall.

The wider distance drifting from what you
Could be and circumstances will allow
Makes anxiousness, and deep depression through
The years will make you lash out, raise a row.

You're privileged, seeking privilege more--elite,
Unhappy you're not more elite. You cry
"Injustice" since you find you can't delete
All who would thwart your tyranny, your lie.

I am the future--and I'm thankful you
Are not. My poems sing of all that's true. 

Kanzan to Jittoku

I sit and read the wisdom of the world
Here in the shade of trees, here on the bench--
It's such a lovely bench, a red unfurled
Within the verdant green--a Judi Dench
Of benches in the park. Let's sweep away
The way we all unreason with our reason,
Pretending conscious choices every day,
Pretending we can plan each living season
When we pepper our prophylactic lives
With purple periods bleeding our blessings
Into the ocean-chasing streams. It drives
Us into donning dry and dirty dressings.
The world walks by and judges me insane
For reading blank pages--my mind will gain. 

Watch Yourself

You're on the phone, ignoring everyone
You're always angry at the world from work
You're finished but nothing has yet begun
Demanding more, and yet you always shirk

You're breaking bonds, insist you're ethical
You're envious, pretending you hate greed
You only push, but say you want to pull
You always speak, but never do the deed

Demanding justice, you're the most unjust
You hate all hate, but seek to segregate
You spread dark dissonance and deep distrust
You say you love, your actions spell out hate

Now ask, how do you think you'd act each day
If you could watch yourself in my next play?

Bare

Suck in the air--
You're sitting there
Right in a chair--
You look as anxious as a hare--
You're glancing everywhere,
Full of despair,
Afraid because the world's unfair.
You're withering beneath its golden stare,
You fail beneath its silver glare
And wonder if you dare.
You wonder if you dare. 

The Fountain of Vaucluse

The villa of Petrarch sits on a hill
Above the rapids tumbling through the rocks.
It's ruins now--the broken stones are clocks
That tick much faster than his poems will.
We fabricate his home to hold it still
While his verse blossoms like deep purple stocks
And his rhymes gather like ascending flocks--
We neither need his home nor feathered quill.

We cannot touch the love in broken stones,
And yet, we cannot help but seek them out--
We hope to find the magic of their art
Embedded in their ruins, scattered bones.
We're certain if we find ourselves in drought
An icon of them will make it depart.

The Misallocated Human Resource Blues

My mind is up for rent
But I can't find a taker
My offer's in descent
From being an art-maker

I wish it were not true
My mind is up for rent
But see the wind, it blew
Apart my woven tent

My life is warped and bent
Because you won't accept
My mind is up for rent
My value down has crept

My value is destroyed
I am not worth a cent
I cannot be employed
My mind is up for rent

Jaraik

The monkey spirit is aroused--
What do you now intend?
I'm safe, secured here in my sanctum--
My soul he will defend.

The monkey spirit will obey--
You cannot take the chance,
For he will make your spirit flee,
Your corpse your final glance.

The Abduction of Europa

When gazing down upon Europa's face,
Great Zeus was filled with love and lust. To lure
the maiden to him, he transformed--no chase
Was needed--to a bull on whom she'd pour
Her heart. She grabbed him by his hefty horn
And climbed on him and rode him to the sea,
The salty waves now splashing thighs now borne
To rocky Crete to bear for Zeus a three
From whom a king would rise to birth the West,
From jumping bulls to labyrinths and man-
Mad minotaur, King Minos would be blessed,
For that's when civilization began
In Greece and all the West that got its name
From beautiful Europa's bull-borne fame.

To the Entrepreneur

I'd like to thank you for the gifts you give
The world, solutions you provide, the wealth
The world enjoys. How many people live
A better life, a longer life, in health?

I'm eating grapes in winter, writing this
On a computer, air-conditioned room
In summer, art is everywhere--this bliss,
This blessing now provided to the tomb.

And yet, the selfish and the greedy want
The tiny bit we bless you with for all
You've done--providing nothing, they now hunt
You down to line you up against the wall.

For all the things you do to change our fate
The world should cherish you and celebrate.