The Cliffdwellers

The topless natives in grass skirts. The cliffs

Where they have fashioned homes in wind-carved space

That overlook the canyon, petroglyphs

That spell out each dark spiritual place.

The neighbors nearby and across the canyon

All work together to etch out a living--

Dry desert farming and collecting pinyon

Nuts from this desert land, dry yet quite giving

For a century to those who would work

To leave their mark in this echoing place,

Now ghostly silent. Birds and lizard lurk

Here now, but nothing else, a slower pace.

These people now are gone--we don't know where--

But, seeing what they've done, none should despair. 

Mythogenesis

The lion prowls in shadows just outside

The edge of consciousness and the tree's shade,

The blond beast in the sun--it will abide

In our unconscious mind, where fears are made.

The hawk swings, soars above, just out of sight--

It's hiding in the gold-glare of the sun.

His shadow terrorizes, sends to flight

Ancestral fears that death kept at a run.

The serpent slithers, low on the dark ground--

He's venomous and hidden in the grass--

He creeps with crushing coils, won't make a sound--

He brings us fear that few could dare surpass.

Such fiery fears--our minds act as a flagon

To mix these fears and make of them a dragon. 

21st C, Salon

A cafe, black tables, fresh fruit, and wine,

People in black chairs outside conversing,

Surrounded by the thick, sweet scent of pine

That precedes even the flowers of spring.

I miss the salons, the movements, the thought

That comes out of like minds talking as one.

We've missed out on things that we could have taught

Ourselves about culture, what art has done.

The cafe brings us the promise of art

Lifted from the shackles of Heidegger,

Kant, existentialist angst. A new heart

Can now be born, flowering within her.

We sit at the black tables, lean in close,

Art's new medicine is the strongest dose. 

Shamanic Return

Where are the shamans that descend to bring

Up poetry from Hades--these new Huns

Cannot transform without the gift of art--

The world will desiccate in decadence.

A gold and emerald feathered serpent

To terrify us with its promises,

Convince us we must all at last repent

To gain his insights--shed, renew our souls.

One must descend in order to receive

The gift that will transform the pain and strife

We find ourselves in--we must now believe

In a new culture that believes in life. 

The shaman's poetry will heal the rift

That's poisoning our culture--that's his gift.

A Night Below

Where were your dark eyes when I searched for them?

I found a place, a deep, water-filled cave

Where I could lose myself for a time, stem

The expanding void--I knew I'd be brave

Among the bats and the mud and the stone.

Instead, I found echoing in the dark

Heartbeats of promise I was now alone--

I saw my life on a desolate arc

That would not vanish when I left the cave--

I'd stayed down so long, I now saw the moon

Lighting the forest that fractured the wave

Of falling rain beating out the same tune

Your eyes made in me when I saw them last--

All my love's beauty belongs to my past. 

Why Bother?

On those you love the most, your words fall silent--

At home you're just ignored, or seen to boast.

You know, but no one wants to know--you share

And no one want your knowledge, wisdom gift--

It goes unheard by those you want to hear

The words you wish to say. You know no one

Who has the ears to hear--as Jesus said,

A prophet is not without honor, save

In his own country. None who know you can

Believe, for those full of the wealth of knowledge

Of you cannot believe, and even have

A horror that you possibly could have

Within a wisdom that they don't, could not,

A knowledge to unhearing ears that's new.

Condemned

The old woman sits alone in her house,

dust filling the creases of her skin.

She now matches her clothes,

her furniture the same shade of gray.

She chose her place years ago, a place

where light has not sifted through

the soiled panes in soiled walls.

She no longer has the energy

to rock in her chair

or yell at children frightened

of the witch who lives in the spooky house--

children's imaginations the same

yesterday, today, tomorrow.

The same as the loneliness she feels,

having given up on the sun, preferring

the chill of the empty room, empty

but for her, as empty as her drawers,

her refrigerator, her closet, her cupboards.

No children to see her, to even miss

her calls or absence.

And now the smell has dissipated from the house,

the flesh stretched tight over her bones. 

For Roland Barthes

I

I am

I am so

I am so very

I am so

I am

I

I am

I am so

I am so very

I am so

I am

I

I am

I am so

I am so very

I am so

I am

I

I am

I am so

I am so very

I am so very bored

Are you, yet?

A

A poem

A poem based

A poem based on boredom?

Why?

Why not?

You accept Theory based on boredom. 

Voyeuristic Philosophizing

Voices on every side, saying

And meaning in islands of sound

Merging and emerging to mean

New things in my ear--

Channels to my mind until

I hear ideas and twist them in

My mind to thoughts now filtered by

Derrida and Wittgenstein,

Nietzsche and E.O. Wilson

Until they have become my own.

I philosophize on the sounds

Slipping through the air, across tables

And to and through my ear canals,

Translated to electric pulses made

Into meaning in my mind, twisted

To thoughts, new and reworded, forming

A new world view of fragments

Heard and read--

Philosophy by collage. 

An Elegy for Cathleen

When everybody's second mother died

Then everybody saw her casket, cried--

A tribute to her years of mothering,

Of giving children in the neighborhood

A place to play, a place of love and cookies--

Of homemade chocolate-chips that all kids loved

But me--a mother, warmly, to take care

Of everyone, to head the PTA,

To be a room mother for everyone

As much as for her own two dear-loved children.

Yes, everyone she ever spanked in youth

Came crying now to see her in her death,

For one last time, each wanting now to see

The one who, living, loved them so, so much--

No spankings kept a kid away--they came

Each day to play and, more, to feel her love.

The children she "adopted" coming hours

To see her one last time--more children came

Than any mother who had given birth

To multitudes. A funeral full of youths

To see the woman who had given them

A mother's love, enough to share with all

Who came--the bad turned good in her embrace--

All felt her equal and unequalled love. 

When everybody's second mother died,

Then everybody came to see her off

There were more youthful arms to carry her

Away from all the crying eyes that day

Than there were golden handles on her casket.

Man and Message

"People should listen to the message

and not look at the life of the man"--

A sentiment common, heard places 

other than from a young women in a coffee house.

Good art is--

form and content in harmony.

An unaesthetic sentiment above--

Unaesthetic : unbeautiful : unmoral.

Hypocrisy is--

form and content in conflict.

The person portrays the message beyond

syntactical, grammatical sounds strung together.

To be aesthetic: "People should pay attention

to the man who gives the message."

You have to live a life of style. 

Trying to Say

An endless series of poems.

An endless series of novels.

An endless desire for sex.

An endless trying-to-say.

And endless trying-to-show.

An endless series of paintings.

An endless series of sculptures.

An endless superabundance.

An endless overfilled cup.

There are those of us who try to find

That final thing which will still the mind.

But do we want desires to cease?

Do we want our active minds at peace?

The poem which finally says it all.

The prose which shows the finished soul.

The full-filling orgasm.

The at-last-I-have-said-it.

The at-last-I-have-shown-it.

The painting which expresses all.

The sculpture which turns all truth to stone.

A final satisfaction.

The cup is finally emptied.

A dream of death--

A dream of Hell--

A loss of breath--

A dungeon cell--

I must share, I must share my view

Of life--for my sake, not for you.

I never wanted this rare gift, it's true--

But now that I have it, I must confess

It is a curse that manages to bless

My life, transforming all the more from less. 

On Partly-Cloudy Days

The clouds clear out to an azure opal sky,

The blue patches white and gray we've seen for days--

The sun sits unseen behind the thick, slate remnant clouds,

But warm, felt at last.

I sit, sullen, in the shadows now--at least

There's sun shadows I can sit in, separate

The well-lit and shadows all the same, the dusty

Dull shade-colors same.

The clouds move above, the light expands, contracts

In life-pulses slow upon the gray-green ground,

And yet, every slow expansion of the light

Shines life-life to me.

I know clouds will soon depart, the opal sky

Transform, spread above in even shades of blue,

Give free reign to sun and sunlight--and yet I

Will miss clouds of gray.

Romantic Lips

I want to sing about your lips, so red

And thick and full. I want to part them, kiss

Them moist, brush them with my fingers, keep fed

Your thoughts I may have tried to lead amiss.

If the lips I speak of in this verse

Are those you use to kiss and breathe and eat,

I know that you would never think to curse

This as anything but a romantic feat.

Why cannot speaking of those further down

Be so expressed in all our poetry,

As this? Why must these lips bring such a frown

Of disapproval--they should be set free.

Beautiful, romantic, and not perverse,

Those that think not, it's their souls that are worse. 

The Baobab Tree

In the cavern we carved in the baobab tree

We awoke to the life we had created

In the openness cut out between the thick

Wood walls and branches.

In this space we can find a small place of peace,

A small place where we can separate ourselves

From the wildness we find outside these walls--

Out where leopards lurk.

The unpleasant heat of the sun stays outside,

All of the smells are replaced by just the one,

The cool, soft, heady, pleasant smell of the wood

Penetrates us both.

In here each of us can make a home of each

Other, the dark hollow of the baobab 

Is a place where our closeness can finally

Be felt most fully. 

Falling Stars (2003)

Above us, in a clear, blue Texas sky, 

Our heroes we forgot were heroes

Scattered out in a trail of white and sparks.

Our heroes in death, our heroes in life--

Where were we when those stars shot into space?

Why must their bravery become their deaths

Before we remember them as heroes,

To love them for who they already were?

Look up to the blue sky and understand--

From star dust we have come, and to star dust

They, who came closest to touching the stars,

Have returned to us as a falling stars.

Such brave stars rising into the heavens,

Men and women facing death on the edge

Of their own destruction for us on earth--

We, who proclaim the death of the hero--

We, whose lives are made better by their work

And their sacrifice and heroism.

Why must we act until it's too late?

Our heroes also return to their homes

On intact vapor trails of white on blue. 

Macques

In the steaming springs

The frost monkeys warm themselves.

Light sparkles the snow. 

How I Was Moved to Feed the Birds

The black grackle hopped

Up onto the patio

Its feet puddle-damp.

Untouched

My love will not be touched, like all my loves

I've ever had--my hugs are not allowed,

And holding hands with her, it just enshrouds

Us in a new-moon night. She'd wear her gloves

On both her hands and heart--cold unheard-of

Behavior for a lover?--such dark clouds

Reign over women now and only crowds

Away the chance of true love. Darkness shoves

Its way between lovers, women and men

Driven far from each other, yes, until

All contact's lost among most everyone.

Why must we taste this cold carcinogen

Called fear of being touched?--it makes us ill,

Alone and lonely--without hope or sun. 

Rebirth

The man I was, the child I've become

Are separated by the gulf of Hell--

A sea-voyage past terrible islands,

Into storm-tosses seas of chaos--without

The benefit of the taste of Lethe.

Surrounded by black flames and spirits I

Wrestled with the Devil until I won

The right to sail from the storm and away

From the beautiful islands of joy--bliss

Blew in from the west to carry me, cold, 

Up to the rising sun creating new 

Horizons of rosy-red, orange, and gold 

Spread across the sea--evening's rainbow sea

Shining smooth in front of me in blue miles.

Nothing can be the same for me from now.

I have returned to these stone shores, reborn,

A child once again, I'm living wonder--

A child returned from graves of living men--

A child with eyes that learned to understand

In ways the man I was could never do,

Blinded by my dark, preconcepted world.

Now, I see the world I thought I knew--dark

Is light. I return to these shores, reborn. 

Sorrow's Haunts

The cypress and the willow weep the pond full--

The sorrows of all they have seen slowly drip

Off their long, light, green branches and leaves.

Sadness fills the pond.

Dusk calls the loons to fill the sky with their calls--

Such sad calls from water's mirror surface spread

Through the woods and echo off the mountainsides. 

Sadness haunts the woods.

The evening's mourning doves give way to gray owls,

Whose deep, full, sorrowful songs cause cool shivers

To spread through everything small, creeping, and warm.

Fear fills the dark woods.

As morning breaks, I wander. beside the pond--

My skin is clammy in the dew. The crickets

Chirp their last, and I find that I still miss her.

Fear haunts my sadness.

Upon Your Leaving Me

The house is empty now and full

Of ghosts of all your works, the things you said,

The words which would delight and pull

Me out of all my sadness, gone

So long as you were there. And now you're dead

To me. The crescent moon at dawn,

The vanishing moonlight of night

Which I reflected from the sun to you,

It hovers over the sea, bright

For one last moment, and then fades

And fades into the bright, expanding blue,

The blue beyond the waving glades.

I walk among the grasses now,

Dalmatian by my side, scaring the birds

Before us--they fly up aglow

In the sunlight to carry high

The sorrows flowing out from all my words,

To carry them into the sky.

I stop and wish their lives were mine--

So simple, good and bad, hunger and thirst

So clear, obvious, and fine--

But such a life retards the flow,

We must refine and redefine the worst

And best in tragic high and low. 

How can a poet writing songs

Have base concerns like hunger, thirst for sex--

Should not the faculty which longs

For you be only of the soul,

And separated from my darkest X,

My animal lust, darkest hole

That wanted you now naked, under

My naked body, just two animals?

Why must we fail to be our wonder?

Our Dalmatian runs beside me,

And, neutered, happily is scaring gulls--

He acts we think our our lives should be.

The glades give way to sand and beach--

My boat rocks gently, alone at the dock.

The waves laps on the shore and preach

The love of the embracing arms

The sea can offer me, its loving rock

That makes me feel as one and warms

Me with the sameness of the clock,

Its regular tick-tock, its rhythmic feet

Which whirl me like a dervish flock.

I step onto my boat and wait

For my Dalmatian to join me and greet

Me joyful, ignorant of fate.

The sky is blue, the wind is up--

I set the sail and say into the sun

Which pours its light out of its cup

For me to drink deep into me.

Relaxing, I let my Dalmatian run

Around up on the deck--he's free

And, free, allows me to drop off

Into a revelry, and then, asleep

For I don't know how long- a cough

Awakes me, caused by falling rain--

The skies and seas were rough and gray--a deep

And flickering fear from my pain

Combined with the sporadic gusts,

Which tossed my boat between chaos and calm,

And made me, god, and boat mere dusts.

And then the gusts became a gale

And all the calm dissolved into a psalm

Of chaos that made me turn pale

With fear of the madness around

And deep within me--terror, terror, terror!

The sublime monster was unbound

And made the world around me dark

And everything vanish to nothing--error,

Nothing, and all the nothing's mark.

The darkness cracked into the gray,

And gale returned to gusts, which calmed me down--

The calms as beautiful as day.

My dog lay, cowered from the rain--

I feared the two of us would surely drown--

I held onto my rope and pain

And gradually released the last

As winds died, calmed and clouds drifted away

And clarified me to my past.

The sun has calmed the sea--above

The sea, the calm, the unity, the play

Of chance--even the sand I love

More now than I could understand.

I sailed my boat back to the waiting dock

And followed my dog to the sand.

I took a break and I felt hungry--

A meal was due--so what if man and clock

Said otherwise when there's an angry 

Stomach that's calling for good food

And drink--for nothing is wrong with the pleasures

Of the flesh, neither bad nor good,

Like sex with you-- I see it's true--

I see it now as one of our gold treasures

We shared--it was one of the few

We had together--food and drink,

And sex were all the pleasures that we had

Together--and our only link.

And now I see, I see so clear--

I see the thing which nearly drove me mad

Was this, precisely what's so dear 

To seeing how to be a man,

An animal more than an animal.

And, seeing this, turned and ran

Up to my hilltop house where I

Could now begin my new life, my new call--

Art, to ensure I'll never die. 

The Blemish

Beside you I lie and lean on my right arm--

My left hand massages the bare skin, so warm,

Of your back, until I notice a small charm

Of dark color there.

Did you know a mole is on your back, my dear?

It sits right where tail-bone meets the back, right here

Where you feel my finger--one place that's not clear,

So small, dark, and rare.

"What does it look like? Is it wrinkled and strange?

I can't see it--I'm afraid it's out of range

Of my field of sight. Will it grow? Will it change?

Does it have a hair?

"I'm glad you can't see it--that makes it all mine.

A small part of you alone--I'm sure it's benign--

That you can't see, but through me--a point, a line

To your everywhere.

"Rub my back some more and leave my moles alone.

And while usually I do not dare condone

My parts claimed, I'll let you have the mole I own,

To keep us a pair.

Beside you I like and lean on my left arm--

My right hand massages the the smooth skin, so warm,

Of your back, enjoying the sight of your charm

Of dark color there. 

Pro and Contra Fraser

Timeless light shines through the window, the day

Making electric the atoms likely

To bring every object certain to move

Into the life that feeds and breathes and breeds

With slight intention over organic

Ways of seeing those symbolic goals we

Have made into concrete houses for us

To turn over to history--or, no,

History actually precedes by far

The uniquely human, the social found

In all our ape ancestors, chimpanzee

Culture, ritual, even medicine

Bringing them closer to us socially,

Since social history precedes humans,

Each of us, loosely, was already us,

Social like other social mammals, not,

Thankfully, like the murderous social ants--

We have built a very different house,

One where love lives, a bright electric light.

There is no such thing as collective love,

As we can learn from the collective ants,

There is only found among them murder. 

Melina and the Serpent

The plush toy rainbow snake I bought

Became alive in your sixteen-

Month-old imagination. Thought

Took hold of you to make a scene--

An eye-spark warning, then--attack!--

You thrust the snake toward your mom

And hissed, expecting her to back

Away in fear. An insight bomb

Goes off in me--you know before

You're told that snakes are scary things,

And that your mom should be afraid--

Your spark belies intention, flings 

Away false theories. You have made

The argument for knowledge we

Were born with. Hissing snakes invade

And your Dimetrodon bites me

Across my belly as you grin--

You were not taught these things, but you

Use ancient knowledge found within,

Evolved to help us know what's true.

Melina's Infant Dreams

I clean Melina's mouth now that she's full--

My lovely girl in blue has blue eyes closed,

And now she'll cuddle close to me to sleep--

I love to watch her when awake or dozed

Off sleeping--so I wonder, does she dream

Of her beloved mother feeding her? 

Perhaps she dreams her future--crocodiles

And music, acting plays--dreams she'll defer.

Self-Organization

Listen, all you false life-lovers:

Consider your wise man who says,

"Look upon the tree, does it live

Off of the deaths of any other?

So, too, must you live your own life."

Such wisdom is such foolishness:

All life continues if the sun

Continues on its path to death.

Birth belongs in death's love-embrace--

Parents die so their child may live--

Antelope die in lions' jaws--

Leaves are ground in antelopes' teeth.

Humans, the most alive of all

All the more require the deaths

Of others as a sacrifice--

The simple making more complex

Human thought and life possible.

The foolish haters of all life

Reject change, embrace death

That makes the more turn into less.

Unchanging nature is this death--

Humans made into animals, 

Animals made mere chemicals,

Chemicals made into atoms,

Atoms made into energy,

And all of this aline, mere death--

This is the image of evil;

Creative growth is that of good

And why God sees it all as such--

As beautiful and just and true. 

Traveling Without Moving

I have passed from the past, I have moved

From science and history, traveled to

The realm of poetry and my story,

I have moved to the future, the void

That is the realm of nought, philosophy.

I traveled all the way by river boat,

I am rocked by the waves of its time.

I sink the screw into the water, churn

My way upstream, then lift it out again

So I drift once again in the frothy flow.

I seek at once both mouths and sources, sense

And dark nonsense and, between, a new sense.

Can I rule, be a hero, and a saint?

An artist, with each image that I paint?

A Song for Anna

I love my life

I love my wife

I love the home we made

I'm full of praise

For all the days

We've live and loved and played

She is my source of happiness

With her I feel most free

With her I feel I must caress

The life she's given me. 

I love my life

I love my wife

I love the home we made

I'm full of praise

For all the days

We've live and loved and played

Time Saved

An hourglass, its waist too wide--the sand

Falls through too fast--in seconds it is over.

What good is it to tell time for my trip?

I travel down the parkway, missing sights

On highways that would wander through the trees.

It's faster on the parkway. More efficient

Time saved. Time saved at the expense of beauty. 

For More Timefulness

I spend my days in constant study,

Finding how I need a more timeful life

Wherein existence becomes less muddy

And I've evolved to clarify this strife

Which lies inherent in this existence,

Where only small green buds may slowly form,

Meeting every new and old resistance

To such cool, open flowers from the warm

Buds from plants from sun and minerals came,

Complexity bringing forth much more time

Than we can at this low, bud-level name

Or understand or even start to mime.

And yet, I feel the pull into complex

New timeful levels than my mind reflects.

Mammon

A Prayer to Mammon

"I bow down and worship, ready to serve--

You are all, what I live for. And even if

I see no soul staring at me from my

Mirrored eyes, I will see no evil

In anything you make me do. For the promise

Of cars and planes and vacations

To places I have never been, I will turn 

Myself into your supplicant, manipulate

Every man I can manage to your ends.

All means shall be open, as necessary--

Charm and meanness, truth and lies.

There is no meaning but what can be purchased

By you who rules all. I will sacrifice

Myself, my friends, my family--

My happiness and joy, the growth of my soul--

To making more of you, my god.

With you, I can purchase all I lost--

Let my anger flair at those who stand

Between me and having more of you.

Amen."

The Happy Man Speaks to Mammon

"You are a way, and not the end

To which we all must aim. Things

Will not bring me joy--only comforts

Of life, clothes, a belly full

Of good food--good things one can enjoy

With family, friends, and wife.

You are a means to physical comfort,

Experiences, a relaxing life,

To books and music, movies, plays, and art--

May I never forget that is all you are."

Conjoined

Perfection is conjoined to death

Just as the soul is truly breath,

As to a carcass vultures fly,

The breath is gone, the dreams will die.

The vultures hop upon the earth,

Devouring what you are worth--

The worms that wriggle on their beaks

Will sound the soul's resounding shrieks.

Your carcass writhes--you're living yet--

Utopia is where you met

The onyx blade, hear beating still--

The vultures, maggots get their fill.

From chaos you can't order life--

From vulture bones you'll make the fife

That leads you children to despair--

Your beauty's one that is not fair.

Yes, you bring death, the vulture's meal--

The culture's ground beneath the wheel,

And you rise up--the Devil's son--

For death's conjoined to perfection. 

Contemplation

I'm asking you to contemplate

The meaning of the stars,

The placement of the planets, fate,

How Venus seduced Mars.

And I will contemplate your eyes,

The beauty of the turns

Of galaxies and fern, your sighs

That make sure my blood burns.

And we will contemplate the birds

That sing their mourning song,

And all the phrases and the words

That make us both belong.

And they will contemplate the two

Who sit upon the hill:

The moon, her mate, the sun, who do

For each the other's will.

The earth, well, it will contemplate

The life that makes it live--

The animals, the plants debate

The love that we must give. 

And you will contemplate, I ask,

These words I sing, the song

Declaring death won't deal its task--

This, love, will right that wrong. 

Speaking Poetry

The key to speaking poetry

Is practice, practice, practicing,

For then your language will not walk,

But take the music, dance and sing. 

The Golden Age

Was poetry revered

In some forgotten age?

Was rhythm, rhyme once cheered,

Each author seemed a sage?

Perhaps I'll sing a song--

That poetry's alive--

And you will sing along--

My words will then arrive.

Perhaps a future time

Will love mere poetry,

Where conversations rhyme

And rules make language free. 

Replicas

I climb these stairs, a replica of stairs

That are a replica of stairs the nuns

Would climb--yes, Plato'd be appalled. Each bears

The cares of children, artists, each one runs

Deft dewy droplets down the long, lined leaves

And waves in wavelets then, each dancing, leaves.

Perhaps great Plato's thoughts and dreams absurds

Our views on art that Aristotle cured--

A copy of a copy set in words

Makes voiceless every sweetly singing bird

That makes the poet swoon and rise and bow

And even love the seagulls on the bow. 

Why sail in seas and row on rivers rising

From deep, dark places in our souls, from death

Where deepest knowledge rise from our surmising,

Through our unforgetting, warmth letting breath

Communicate in complex chaos, life

In art, the beauty forming endless life. 

The Artist and His Muse

She lays across my shoulder, head--I lift

Her high--she whispers in my ear--I'll die

If I don't cede--my winged soul must shift

To take her sirens' song I can't deny.

She is a burden I must love--her beauty

Breeding more beauty through my fog-filled voice--

I love, I hate to feel her song--my duty

Is always to obey--I love my choice.

Beloved, there's no burden that can raise

The soul to realms of child-play--she'll prey 

Upon your feathered mind--yes, she will raze

It to rebuild, and to her you will pray.

The sirens are the sisters to the Muses--

Creation or destruction--each one chooses.

Salvation

A painting is a meditative space

Whose beauty lifts the troubled soul to grace.

Mind

The man-made cavern mind of coal and white

The monster dust delights the nose to cough

The blackest phlegm that yellows with delight

Our eyes and all the bowler hats they doff

The sigh wrens tiptoe on the tide abide

And do not know and dare not hide their scales

And teeth that tear their caverns opened wide

And blowing air that belly out the sails

The belly of the leaf is coral who

Has lectured us on pataphysical

Soft diamonds who speak every lie that’s true

And mark the world with every alpha bull

Akkadia is where the soul now rests

Assyria has eaten every heart

Behold the concrete nowhere and the breasts

That drag with chains the abalone cart. 

North and South

Summer sunshine in July

Darkness to December

Dancing in the turquoise sky

Nothing to remember

Paradox will drive the ox

Slowly down the field

Crashing, caught upon the rocks

Knowing it won't yield

Sex and sex and sex and sex--

Nothing, nothing, nothing--

See the sun, how it reflects--

The lake, the moon are bluffing

The Garden

Above the soil cracked by drying mist,

Above the river flowing, eddy-kissed,

Glass flowers bloom up on their stems of steel,
Their rainbow swirls against the earthy bricks
Refracting fractals focused light we feel

As heat that harrows off our hides and licks

The lemon, orange, the watermelon green,

Raspberry and blue--fruitful, true, and blown

By breath that bears the love of life unseen

Until the transformation to known

Unfragrant understanding is unwound

And fractured flowers do not make a sound.

Wandering Mind

I'm bored--I think of writing poetry

I'm bored--I'm thinking about you and sex

I'm bored--my soul is aching to be free

I'm bored--I'm drained down to my very drecks

I'm bored--oh, did I mention sex with you?

I'm bored--my mind is flitting, flying, fleeting

I'm bored--I have no wings, my feathers flew

I'm bored--the time has stopped, always repeating

I'm bored--I need some liquor and some food

I'm bored--I don't know what to do today

I'm bored--I visualize you in the nude

I'm bored--I want you in the bed to play

I am so bored that I've become perplexed--

So send me naked pictures via text. 

Careless Culture's Consequences

In this world's longest, widest, deepest valley

The world's tallest and strongest dam was built

And left to fill, and then forgotten. Silt

Built up as water filled. It drowned each tree

And bush and covered every tiny hill

Across the mountains' slopes, filled every cave,

Until the great dam could not longer stave

Away the weight of water, slit, until 

The waiting water pushed across the top

And cracked the concrete until it broke

And all the water washed, a single wall,

Downriver. Force, no force could ever stop

What they'd unleashed upon themselves--they woke,

The ones who could, to what destroyed it all. 

Stories Need Be Told

Postmodernism--voice of the elite--

Their poems reverted in the sure defeat

Of all the voices of minorities

Whose stories need be told. A story frees

The soul from Hell. A story will give birth 

To future paths we never thought were worth

The time to contemplate, perhaps a new

And branching branch of time. Each voice is due,

Each voice should sing its single subtle song

To show autistics, women, both belong,

To show that African-Americans,

Hispanics, Asians, all the world have plans

And goals and stories we should hear, are told

In lovely lines of lyric poetry

That free us all and make the blind to see. 

Metaphors for Vengeance

The vengeful cannot grow in love—

You cannot see in red

Each actions that your loved ones take.

Your feelings will be dead.

 

The vengeful cannot grow in virtue—

Machetes don’t grow trees—

Its scythe with harvest poisoned grains

For death’s all it can seize.

 

The vengeful cannot grow in peace—

They live in constant war—

The valleys flow with horse-high blood—

You’ll slip upon the gore. 

 

The vengeful cannot calmly sleep—

They toss and turn in hate—

They’re slashing throats and gouging eyes,

Distributing their own fate.

The Future Immigrant

The future immigrant is longing for 

A mystery, a hope, a future new

And so romantic--it's an open door

Into a meadow full of morning dew.

Dissatisfied with where he lives, was born,

The future immigrant will gladly pass

Through deserts, over mountains that adorn

The body of the earth. Her endless grass,

Her flashy flowers, forests full of fear

Are ways to gain the beauty of the way.

For all the future immigrant holds dear.

He has to go, although he wants to stay.

I must admit, his wanderlust I share--

I dream his courage, going where I dare. 

Philosophizing

What questions did you ask today?

Do you live in an ossuary

Of old ideas? Do you play,

Or do you lie with those we bury?

To play with Plato brings perception--

Accepting Aristotle full,

Unquestioning brings mere deception

Of understanding--it's its cull.

But challenge all the thinkers you

Encounter--even ancients bring

Insights--and challenge poets, too,

For there’s always new songs to sing.

Flesh out the bones of mankind's past

And grow in wisdom's sunlit day--

For that is how your mind will last.

What questions will you ask today? 

Steno's Lament

My sister raped by cruel Poseidon, sea

That swirled between her thighs--and I stood by

My sister--so I shared her fate. Men flee

Before my stare, for if they catch my eye

To milky marble they'll become--I stand

Them in my garden, stony sentinel

To warn away the wise and wary. Hand

Of bronze will bring my sculpture garden full

Of mutilated men. And yet, she's gone--

My sister, murdered by a mortal man--

Her scaly torso prone, the light of dawn

Reflecting in the blood that, headless, ran.

My gorgeous, gory garden can't assuage

My guilt, eternal guilt, eternal age. 

The Odin Within

Thought and memory are flying through the sky--
Black-clad ravens which will never die--
Over all of man this pair will fly,
Bringing knowledge to deep wisdom's only due. 

Skaldic mead has quenched my thirst for many years,

Bought by suffering, pain, bane, and tears--

Yet, this honeyed drink has sent my fears

Down to Hell--I brought back up the songs man hears.

Leviathan

The bigger it grows, the larger it looms
The more that our freedoms slip into their tombs.
Whatever is broke, it breaks it again,
Disrupting our lives with the stroke of a pen.
It tries to take over what we only do best--
It should only protect--let us do the rest!
It wants to remove our freedom to choose
Whatever we want, if we win or we lose.
We want neither help nor hindrance at all--
It only demeans, in despair makes you fall.
So, down with the big and up with the small
For more only means less freedom for all.
If it's freedom you want, then don't let them pry,
And listen to me, please hearken my cry!
We need less, not more, or whatever if gives
So push for it now, where each of you lives.
So, down with the big and up with the small,
For that way we'll get a fair freedom for all.

Why

Like cattle rustlers after dusk

Like walruses with just one tusk

Like statues baring just one breast

Like children study for a test

Like artists painting made-up places

Like fast neutrinos leave no traces

Like doves on gloves in love do I

Like all your mysteries of why

Self-Portrait

Perhaps you've read my stories, poetry

And thought you saw me. You are wrong. No song

I've written ever mirrored one degree

With any part of me. There's nothing wrong

With thinking that you caught a glimpse if you

Have read my mind's mere makings over time--

But everything I've written, it is true,

Is true, but not of me, except in rhyme. 

But have I loved? Oh, yes, I've loved--my wife,

My children, parents, friends. And beauty called

To me and set me free and freed my words.

And I have sung of conflict and of strife

And reconciled and called out what enthralled

My heart and mind like diamond hummingbirds. 

The Arc of Expecation

Frustration fills me--expectation lost
Will ground this ship upon the island sands
Or get it sunk beneath the seas, mind tossed,
From crashing on the iceberg. Love demands
Such understanding. Love demands you warn
With time sufficient or you keep your word.
I simply ask you do not leave me torn,
Instead release to know the snow-white bird.

The Oxytocin Blues

 Love's feeling's made by oxtocin--touch
Elicits loves across the brain--my skin,
Your skin in contact--I don't ask for much--
A hug, a squeeze where loves always begin.

And when you pull away, you pull away
From love and pleasure--say you would refuse
To feel as close to me--refuse to play
What oxytocin promises and glues.

Why fight the feelings oxytocin makes?
There's none too tired for love and touch, to feel
What makes us more through marriage--what it takes
Seems small to me, as feelings will reveal.

And yes, this chemistry that's in your head
Comes flooding more when you're nude in our bed.

Punctuation

Panther hiding in the trees
One quick leap you're on your knees
Death is hiding in the night
Death's the demon you can't fight

In the darkness shadows shriek
Strong or prideful weak or meek
All will fall beneath death's jaws
All will bleed ripped by her claws

Death will pad on panther feet
Soul departs you turn to meat
You can't hide in ditch or shrubs
You will feed her darkling cubs

Free Will

The world is full of mighty winds
That blow in each direction--
You choose your wind and set your sail,
Become  the sea's reflection.

The Fool

 A man sits and thinks
Seeing what we cannot see
Understanding what

We can't understand
Knowing the unknowable
We see he's insane

He's a fool because
He sees, he understands, he
Knows what we wish not

Behemoth

 For none to see, invisibly
The giant monster slowly eats
The universe, and ultimately succeeds
Until all matter finds itself
In singularity, enwrapped in space.
No time within, but time will pass
And energy is lost, until at last
The monster, it explodes,
And all will start again.

Liber

 Listen!
Do you hear the sounds?
Do you hear the cries
Of the impoverished,
Of the hungry,
Of the oppressed?
Oh, what we could do
If only allowed:
What they could do
If freedom were theirs.
Listen!
Do you hear the sounds?
Do you hear the cries of joy
Of the wealthy,
Of the healthy,
Of the free?
Oh, what we could do,
Oh, what we can do
When we are allowed to be free
To say, to think, to dream, to do
What we wish,
As we see fit.
But we are not yet free.

Morning

 The sun peaks over darkened hill--
What a thrill!
Slowly chasing dark and stars away--
What a day!
The birds are singing loud and clear--
Do you hear?
Life is up and moving around--
What a sound!
Dew glistens bright upon the grass--
Rainbow glass!
The darkness turns to brighter blue--
All is new!
Now, come enjoy the blessed day--
Let us play!
And enjoy each bright new morning!

Mall Walkers

 Walking around with no place to go
Some go fast and some go slow
Young and old alike go round
Seeing their friends, the old that are found.
Stories they tell, their likes they relate
Enjoying their talk, and rarely debate.
Their joy and friendship overflowing abound
Within all the walkers as they walk around.

Reductionism

As light reflected from her face's atoms
And entered through the lenses of my eyes,
The image was inverted and the light
From the reflection struck the retinal,
Transforming it from trans to cis, which made
A change in certain proteins in my cone
And rod-shaped cells that sent a pulse, electric,
Down to the optic nerve, which sent electrons
Through to the brain to process with its neural
Net through chemical, electric interactions
That, due to previous synaptic forms
Caused more electric signals to be sent
By neurons down the spinal chord to neurons
That sent a signal to the diaphragm,
Resulting in its quick contraction, breath
From lungs that filled with air, released in such
A way that low vibrations then were made
And passed across my tongue and lips that curved
By other neural pathways from the brain.
The oxytocin surged across my neurons.
This happens every time I see my love.

A Drop

A drop of crystal water hangs daintily
From the tip of the jagged, dark green leaf,
Slowly collecting molecule amounts
Of water until finally it pulsates
On the sharp tip before it can release
Itself to fall, an undulating sphere
Splitting the scattered light and scattering
Its colors across the darkling forest
Until it surfaces a leaf-lined pool
And scatters tiny droplet in the air
That come down crashing on the circle ripples
Spreading across the surface like your love.

Significance

 One cannot look into the deep, vast night
And fail to wonder. Who could ever know
Or comprehend or understand its size.
What is it that we see? What do we not?
How far to the edge of the universe?
How far to our nearest neighboring star?
A little over four light-years, so short
A distance--a little less than thirty-two
Trillion miles--distances measured six trillion
Miles at a time. One hundred billion stars
In but one galaxy--hundreds of billions
More galaxies just like it, each surrounded
By smaller galaxies that orbit, each
Containing billions more stars--systems strewn
In patterns of far greater structures. Here
We are, one species on a tiny planet
Orbiting a medium, yellow star.
Who are you in your self-placed, certain greatness?
Who are you in a cosmos where the center
Is everywhere and therefore everyone
Is the true center of the universe?

An Ode to Black

 It's not a bright color like jade--
As a matter of fact, it's a shade.
It's often found in the night sky
And oftentimes I've wondered why
The one thing I pull off the rack
Seems almost always to be black.
Black underwear, black socks and shoes
Black shirt, black pants are what I choose.

I love black cars and long black hair,
A beautiful black starlit night--
It's something that I love to share,
It brings to me such great delight.

For me, there's something you would lack
If you never wear fair black.

The Dragon to be Slain

The great white dragon--eating, devouring
All her children. Killing all she sees. Breath
As cold as ice, making cold too soon. Wars
Because of her, dying for her. Her great wings
Beat down, lifting you up, then dropping you
Down--forever, for eternity meeting your death
For your love of her. Her beautiful eyes
Tantalize while you are devoured, shredded
By her sharp teeth, pushed past her lying tongue.
Do her bidding, meet your certain death
At the crack of her massive, meaty tail.

Parrot Literary Corner - EP08 - Poetry and the World of Troy Camplin

Happy World Poetry Day!!!

To Live

The sunlight's glinting off the morning waves
Sailing across the mountain lake,
A gentle breeze guides them to the shore.
Eagle soaring, gracefully gliding
Dipping down on the breeze. One
Sails high, turns to plunge, hits the water
With a painful crack, breaking the peeping
Frogs. A few wet flaps to break the top.
Into the air. Empty. The other eagle
Soars around the lake. Twice. Thrice.
Another attempt is made. A hit
Of the surface. A beat
Of the wings. A fish
Is plucked up from the surface.
Upwards she flies--gems glisten
Off her wings. Proudly she soars
Toward her massive home, shining
Trout in hand for her young.
Through the slowly ending day
The other eagle soars. Deep
Into the night with never a try
'Til hunger fills her humble home.

Morality?

An original thought never once entered
The cloudy mass he called his mind.
Never trusting what he saw,
But always wondering why.
He never heard nor taste nor felt
Nor smelt to be what truly was
And thought everything around to be
Nothing but illusion--illusions of illusions.
The woman that he married and the man he doesn't know
Received the selfsame love
And in his life it shows.
Because he must, not that he does
He loves and gives and gives
Then takes from others what's not his
So he can give some more.
He saw each person that he helped
Increasing by the score
And forever wondered why.
But when he saw a fellow man
Who prospered from his brow
He vowed that he'd destroy him
Without knowing why or how.

Crinoid

A gentle ocean
Swaying the animal
In the watery breeze,
Jointed stem
Bending slightly
Under the flutters
Of its feathery head feeding.
A beautiful chalk flower of the sea.
I hold in my hand
And ancient bone
A stone
A circle
Beautiful
A ring in a ring.
All that remains of the sea lily
In the ocean
That once was.

Alone/Fear

Alone
We have found ourselves
Alone
Without loves or cares
Alone
With the thoughts of the wicked
We cannot take the future
Why can't you understand?
I cannot take the uselessness
The future brings us by the hand

Fear
Of ourselves, our friends
Fear
That we'll make amends
Fear
Of what our lives will bring us
We don't know where we're going
But it sure as hell won't be there
Where fear is made a virtue

Why can't see see the bright white light ahead?
The sound of the bell to bring out your dead/
We want to win, to take our place
Out in the front to win the race
To seize the day in every way
'Til there's no turning back from play.

Alone at Last!

Alone,
I find myself,
I know myself,
I have some inner peace.
I clear my mind,
Easily find
The thing which I am searching for.
Within a group,
Within a crowd,
The voices all become too loud.
I cannot think,
I cannot find--
The noises make me all too blind.
I cannot think--
A well of fear--
I have to get away from here!
I'm all alone
Safe in my home
I'm with my inner self.
At company
With only me
I'm finally no longer lonely.

Words

I sit here lying in my bed
While words go dancing through my head.
Where they come from, I don't know,
Only where they try to go.
Songs and stories, poems too--
Something old and something new--
Songs of others cloud my mind
While I try to find a rhyme.
And when I try to write a book,
New poems say to take a look!
I cannot think--it's all a heap!
So I will just fall off to sleep.

Poetry

My eyes grow weary and my mind grows dull,
And thoughts and feelings then begin to flow--
First slowly, fuzzily, then poetry
Pours forth, deep from the uninhibited
Soul, mind. All worries gone, all thoughts emerge
And all that's left is beauty, rhythm, words
Making beautiful sounds throughout my mind--
Released into the world as poetry.

What It Is

One must wonder
As one wanders
All asunder
Amidst the thunder
And the pouring rain.
Lightning flashes
Temples to ashes
Out he lashes
Away he dashes
Into the crowded street.
Where can he go
He does not know
Of if it's so
That he can throw
Himself into this work.
What's it about?
Is there no doubt?
Those that just pout
Will always tout
What is had for only a short time.
Where can it be?
Why can't you see
That it is we
Who must agree
On what it's all about.

The Death of Love

Resentment will devour you,
And it will make you see

Mere phantoms of things that, untrue,

Will make you want to flee. 

 

Resentment will eat at your heart

And fill your ears with doom.

At loved ones, throw the poisoned dart—

Love slips into the tomb.

 

Resentment is the enemy

Of love and listening—

They’ll hang, rotating, from a tree

Or die from hatred’s sting. 

 

Resentment is the death of love;

So, you should never blame—

Instead, release forgiveness’ dove

To fly above the flame.

Black Hole

A large, hot star is burning brightly in the deep,
Dark depths of space and nearing its inevitable death.
Slowly, gradually expanding outward, it gets hotter, hotter
Until it can expand no more and it goes crashing inward
Upon itself. Denser and denser it becomes, its core
Slowly increasing the gravity within.
The more it implodes, the more it implodes,
Until, at last, it can become no denser
And the gravity-wrapped space ensures that even light
Cannot escape, and time stops at the center--
The singularity formed. Event horizon, the point
Of no return for anything--everything devoured,
Slowly adding mass to the ever-hungry carnavore.
Invisible except the x-rays released at the edge
Of the event horizon, where matter
And its antimatter twin are born
Of nothing. One is devoured and the other
Set free, just out of reach
releasing a photon
Of x-ray
Light.

Where the Sea Horses Live

A black room with red carpet
Black obsidian borders
And black obsidian doors
Black window panes with red curtains
Black obsidian dresser
And bed with red covers
Next to a black obsidian nightstand
Where a blacklight lamp glows
On a table in the corner sits
A black fish tank with black rocks
And black coral with small black sea horses
The black closet opens
To black clothes and black shoes
Black belts and black ties
The lights go out
And all turns black

The Raiding Party

We sail forth from the heart of Krynn--
May no one think that they can win!
We ravage, plunder, maim and kill--
To hear our names, it brings a chill!
We kill for thrill, we kill for gold,
For riches vast, treasures untold!
Now, cower down before our feet--
You know we'll win--admit defeat!
We'll kill you all or take your crew
And put them in our cosmic zoo.
And if you fly in our direction,
We'll take your ship for our collection.
So, you in your ship, don't defy,
For we can't wait to see you die!

Nova

Ascending up toward the tiny
Twinkling, teasing light above.
Forever focusing farther,
Wondering what it's of.
Into the darkness, into the colors
Of every shade and hue
Surrounded by stone, surrounded by gas--
Perhaps a friend or two.
Big or small, or nothing at all
That can ever be seen.
Pulsing or glowing, nor nothing is showing
With distances in between.
Born in a cloud, glowing in life,
Death in a whisper or loud.
Cooler at first, warmer through life,
Then releasing its external shroud.

Flushed in Red

 Black crows flying
Vanish to the sun.
Rising moon
Reflecting back
Secrets that we hide.
Rivers flowing deep between
Grass-lined lips of the valley side,
Plunging deep into the cavern
It masks from others' sight.
Peaking high along the ridge,
Flushed in red,
A cougar screams and claws its way
Panting to the outer edge.
Climbing down, rubbing softly
Against the hard stone valley side.
Mighty rams slamming hard,
Rushing headlong with a smack
That echoes deep into the valley,
Past massive outcrops
Of deeply moaning rocks
To the lapping waves of the river below.
Caressing round rocks,
Protruding to points above the flowing water,
The river sucks and pulls its way
To its waiting mouth
The glistens in anticipation
For the water to come
And flow into the salty waves.

On the Element of Fire

Come in closer. Do you feel the fire?
Do you feel the building of desire?
Are you drawn in to the flickering flame,
Mesmerizing, poetic, and untame?
Beware the fires we build on the dry ground,
Lest it light each rhyme and rhythm and sound,
And the flames leaps out from mind to mind
As wildfires that leap out from pine to pine.
The forests allowed to naturally burn
Allow for rebirth and so do not turn
To blackened skeletons and dark charcoal--
Only cleared underbrush should be the goal
So new seeds can spread from the opened cones,
Stimulated by fire, the flame that loans
New opened spaces to previously
Tangled forests and minds that grievously
Had been impenetrable to the light,
A former place of shadows and the night.
The fire is either a hearth or a Hell--
Place of renewal or of a death-knell
For the too-sensitive soul, too-dry trees
Acting as kindling, ignoring your pleas.
The descent into the flames of abyss
Renew or destroy, dark death or bright kiss,
The only options offered, the red heat
Burns off impurities, or's a repeat
Of the Hell we all house within our hearts,
Until we relive all of the parts
That only destroy us and drag us down,
And fires give way to waters, so we drown.
So some in closer and feel the warm fire,
Give in to the rhythms, love, and desire.

Enframed

A fire spreads upon the sea, and the land
Below all these churning waves of sea and flame
Lies in surprising calm and silence as she
Sits within the frame.

In one hand we can see this seductive girl
Carries cool water, and in the other flame.
Yet, she's neither wet nor showing she is burned,
Sitting in the frame.

She once belonged to the artist who painted
Her with such inky shades, until this girl's flame
Spread out onto the sea as her hair set her
Face into a frame.

Her hand holding the water weighs itself down--
Her hand reaches out toward you with the flame
And asks you as she asked the artist and me:
"Sit within my frame."

I have sat with her to fill her with water,
To quench our brows of such a terrible flame
As we, you and me, find in her, claim to see
Bursting in the frame.

I have watched her painting long enough to see
Her hair and breasts, thighs and navel burst in flame
I wished to cool--but I used breath, not water,
And burnt up the frame.

Blood

Like fearful, anxious children
We have grown afraid of the dark--
We fear the sight of blood--
And look away, avoid its mark,
Avoid allowing such a sight to make
Us into better, stronger, more beautiful
People. Look closely at the wound
Opened in the soldier's bare chest, full
Of outpouring blood of brightest
Red, throbbing with a dark and terrible
Sucking sound with each slowing heart
Beat. Look into his unbearable
Eyes, their fading glimmer, fading
Hope, bringing to us in that glance
A new hope of our own to bear, stronger
Spines, straighter postures, and a chance
To recognize our own short lives
In his. Do we dare follow him, dance
Into the underworld, our knives
We protect ourselves with in fright
Left behind? It is a dark cave
And we're not carrying our comforting light,
But this dark descent is how we save
Ourselves from this terrifying night.
Our brave soldier guides us to the stream
Stretching a barrier between
The world above and the world of dream,
From all we know to all we mean.
He stands, stares, wants to know
If we are ready to go
Down to his new old world to bring
Up new and tragic songs to sing.

The Shame of Love Poetry

A thousand sonnets written by deaf men
To sullen women who refused to speak
The beauty of those lonely poets when
Those men could only think or sing or seek
In all those loves the beauty that still drives
The men to recreate all of those loves
In songs or sonnets, concubines or wives.
The poets see them as flowers or doves,
When all these muted women ever see
In these, their poets grotesque swine or goats--
Never their beauty, just the fatal flaw
Of sensitive souls, when no real man dotes
On women that strange way, for if he does
Something must be wrong with him--nothing grows
From such a weak and ugly, damaged seed.
Nothing but a winsome poem can grow
In the polluted soil of women
Who must be right, as this poem does show:
These men have poor choices for seed or pen.

For Anna’s Birthday

You’re beautiful and gorgeous and very cute—

I can’t wait to see you in your birthday suit!

In Brackish Waters

 Passions pull and repel--powerful prides
In this pair bring them blue love and cool pain.
Whenever high rivers collide with high tides,
Their brackish waters bring them little gain.
Sheltered waters are where they have a place
Discretely checking out the intruders,
The sociable climbers who want to replace
One or the other's quick-changing waters.
In the shifting salting world of tears
Where neither earthy flesh nor oceans rule,
Their passions doom them to their tidal fears
And stop them from seeing with eyes too cool.
But those with enough strength and energy
To maintain their display get victory.

Pleiades

Away from the palms,
the mountainous shores
with cliffs to the sea, crumbling
houses into waiting water,
everything's obscured.
Where are the stars? The Pleiades
are one, fuzzy. The stars
are clear in desert skies,
cold and clear. They almost forget
to twinkle. No clouds
haunt the skies. The cold
is frightened away during the day.
The heat hides by night. All is dry.
But the Pleiades!
All seven sisters are clear on such nights,
inviting eyes to watch them,
pick them out,
notice them one by one
instead of as one.

Apprehension

Something strange is lingering
Storms appear they may appear
Clouds in gray or white do not obscure
Sunlight from the noonday sky
Spring, the air full, flower scents,
Pollen make the air more dense
Than the winter's colder air.
Something seems to hide
Something seems to need to be uncovered.
Gray rocks, rotten logs we overturn--
Snakes and worms and rolly-pollies--
Musky, earthy smells as sweet, attractive

Bug Collection

A glass jar sits in the window--
paring knife air holes punched in the lid,
holes of thin triangles.
Gray-brown twigs, too young for white lichen,
brown buds hiding green new leaves
protrude past drying grass, yellowing,
coiled across the bottom,
sprouting throughout the jar
for the creatures captured in the yard.
Some are missing,
eaten.
The praying mantis now lies dead
among the husks of fireflies,
white pepper-winged moths
and their black and brown banded woolly bear larvae.
A walking stick, perched along a twig,
lies as still as the tiny branch it evolved to imitate.
One wonders which is which
without looking closer.
The only life left is a millipede, waves of legs
along its two-inch body, black and shiny,
not noticing the cyanide it secretes into the air.

Clothed in Forests of Words

All poems are on death--this dark art
Invites us into the forests--islands
Of trees that spread shadows on the trails
We tread on our short trips across
And through--beginning and end threaded--
Woven in brown and green--warp
And woof--I wonder where these woods will end--

We dress ourselves in dreary clothes
And wonder why the darkness wafts over
Our lives--dark clothes losing us
In the dark forests--fear surrounds us--
Why must we live in such morbid fear--
We are unable to see that in the absence of greatness--
Pettiness prevails--what poor lives
We have learned for too long to live--and to die--

All poems are on love--and live longer
Lives than the lovers--living their deaths
And showing that love creates the same showers
Of death-blood as wars and droughts--
The trees these poems are fashioned from trickle
With the blood of those hung from their high limbs--
Dressed--I hang highest in these trees--

To Find God

I had to cleanse myself of all religion
Before God could, would finally come to me--
He shined in through my eyes as beauty, love
And peace--the holy opened, set me free.

For God is one, yet not just one, He lives
By being many, too--as a true healthy
Body is made of many kinds of cells--
No one investment ever makes you wealthy.

To live in healthy holiness we must
Go out to fight all of the cancer cells
That threaten this hold world as it grows,
Sending branches up roots deeper than wells.

A single path is not a choice, one branch
Is not a tree. Cancer kills the body--
If we want a healthy and holy world
We need plurality in unity.

The strongest loves grow between different,
Unlike things. God is not narcissistic--
He does not want us all to be the same--
For in Him, and us, cancer makes one sick.

And so, I cleansed myself of all religion
So God could finally make his way to me,
And shine in through my eyes as beauty, love,
And peace, wholly open to be set free.

Back on the Road

 I must get out of here, away from all
The boredom, mediocrity it represents,
The boredom, mediocrity it is.

Shall I follow Kerouac on the road,
Sixty years too late?
In time for all my conflicts,
The nihilistic fight

Blows taken 'til we learn
If what they say is right is wrong
Then what they say is wrong is wrong as well

Let's go back on the road,
Go back to learn about ourselves,
Before we learned that wrong was right,
Before we gave up on the right
Before we found that we were dead
Soon after birth--and never learned to live

What will you choose to be your sure escape
From the realities of hate
Where creativity is scorned,
Intelligence despised

We must be trampled so they may feel good
Made mindless mediocrities
So they may feel secure,
Done with our sanction from our guilt
For being good

Let's go back on the road
To find ourselves
To save ourselves
From all the moral cowards they have med
With our permission
Because it was ourselves

Low Screams Unheard

 Low screams unheard
They never listen to our voice
Low screams unheard
They never let us have a choice
They'll hear us when we stone their ears.
Low screams unheard
When will they see our tears?
A voice they won't allow to hear
What do they have from us to fear?
Low screams unheard
The best we cannot surface
It cannot be allowed in any case.
It cannot be allowed to change this place
It cannot be allowed to join the race.
Low screams unheard
How do we terrify you so?
Our ideas, our thoughts, the things we know?
Do you fear the truth that we show?
Low screams unheard
What life will people know?
Your fear is all we see
Low screams unheard
Despite you all we will succeed
And you will be the one to beg and plead
And then we will be heard.

Autumn Dream

 An Autumn, warm and beautiful.
The colors, right and bright
Warm and wonderful. A cool breeze
From the north renders the day a joy.
I lay down in the yellowing grass, enjoyed
Autumn's company. The leaves rustled.
The birds sang. The clouds migrated
To warmer climes. A flock of geese,
Their honks filling the air, chased them there.
Her sweet caressing warmth filled me--
I closed my eyes to listen. I looked
Up at the sky. Familiar shapes were born
And disappear. Bright, beautiful, colorful
Wonderful, warm. I stood. Colors
Exploded in the field. Flowers
Bloomed, birds continued singing, waves
Rippled across the field. I felt pulled
Back into the grass. I lay among the grasses,
Took a deep breath. My eyes slowly shut.
I slept in Autumn's comforting embrace.

Enfolding Time

You will be reading this poem on time.
You are now reading this poem on time.
You have been reading this poem on time.
My reversal has placed things in order
Where we now question where lies the border
Where inside and outside are disorder.
Time occurs in endless repetition.
Time will never give us repetition.
Time circles linear repetition.
When will time rise into eternity?
When time rises into eternity,
Then time rises up to eternity.
More complex things are made through time's passage.
More complex folds are made in time's passage.
More complex folds make time's complex passage.
Changing time changes as changing space-time.
Folding folds folding in changing space-time.
Folding change changes in folding space-time.
Eternal return of the similar--
To know where you are, know once where you were--
Time's tasting of wine and smelling of myrrh.
Time is a rover that's flowing along,
A snake shedding skin and a lyre song,
A line and a spiral getting along.
Inside and outside are in disorder
Where we question the length of the border
As my reversal space things in order:
You have been reading this poem on time--
You are now reading this poem on time--
You will be reading this poem on time--

Omen

Lonely, lovely Japanese girl
Gliding slowly, gently across the kabuki stage--
She stops and stares at the audience, tense,
Her golden necklace seeming to float
Around a neck as green as the backdrop, gold
As gold as the golden lines around her face--
A startled action. And yet, she tries
To remain calm, alone upon the stage.
She hides her face under a pure white mask--
Her red and green and golden hair is stringy,
Flailing from the sides--her makeup makes a part
In her flattened hair on top--her severe
Part and flattened head of hair
A mask for us as well.
Red lips, green eyebrows, red edges
Surrounding lovely dark green eyes--

But can a Japanese girl have green eyes?--
The look upon her face is one of dull surprise--
And on her face the makeup dries,
The mask hides from all of her her truth and lies--
How will she fall, how will she rise?--
Yet, no matter however hard she tries
All we can hear from those scarlet lips are sighs--

Where is the lover she laments for on the stage?
Will he come before she gives up and dies?

Woven

 A pair of masks are separated, red
And oddly rootless ti plants grow between
The eggshell blue and red masked faces, lined
In blue and in maroon--this chiasma
Of peering Asian and worried Aztec,
Deep bags under its straight, stern eyes--a mask,
A face? What is each mask trying to say?
When Asia comes to America--Self
And Other of any kind make a mask
They present, hiding who we are--who are
We to anyone? Our loves or our friends?
Is this why one face is stern and angry
And the other pouting in the corner?
How orange are your feelings, red and blue masks?
Grasp the rootless ti plant sprouting between.

Weird Balance

Yellow two-faced bird blowing smoke rings
From blue chopstick lips
Taking the red-eye to cross the red mountains
Blue hills rise behind
Yellow birds, yellow sun, shining cheekily
In black space comets
Streak through the sky past haloes that puff,
Puff, Puff in tic-tac-toe,
An "O" picked up in tweezers that question
In white and brown--
Don't be cross, don't make a sound

In the Flower Garden

The cock's combs, red and wrinkled, rise
Above the leaves to lift the blooms
They hide up to the butterflies.
Crab spiders transform feasts to tombs.

The buzz and sip of bees upon the breeze
That brings the honeysuckle--yellow, sweet--
To both our senses--theirs more sensitive
Than mind--they smell the clovers at my feet.

Keep It Unreal

 I'm always being told I ought to keep it real
But that is not the way I think, the way I feel.
My life can turn into what I would make it seem--
Success will only come to those who dream

And live within that dream. And then, I can aspire
And take myself to task, make me make me aspire
To streets of gold and castles in the wispy clouds
To airy utopias hidden in the shrouds.

The real will drag my dreams back down to mountaintops,
A high place on the earth where we can see the shops
And crops and tabletops of human life at play--
But we cannot aim for them or we will delay

The possibility of growth, increase, and wealth--
To aim for mere survival will deny good health.

Vital

Read and know and think and learn and learn to love
For if you have lost everything, it's all destroyed
Or taken from you, when the things you own do not
Exist, then all that's left lies in the mind.
Love and knowledge build and satisfy the soul
They are the riches in your life.
Hate and ignorance destroy and famish the soul
They are the founders of death.

The Conception of Art

Conception is how all art's made

Creation's how it's growing

We weave and wrinkle and we braid

To more than we are knowing

Like all my children, art's conceived

Through Eros, love, and passion

We give from all that we've received

And never start in fashion

All art are concepts concretized

We must conceive the concept

All art's from what is memorized

From inspiration's incept

Yet creativity's true source

Is in our social living

And art can only find its course

With every artist's giving

The Word for Soul is Breath

The first thing that you do when you are born--
The inward breath will independence you--
The air, the wind, the spirit and the soul--
And in your independence you are torn
And dropped into a world that is worn
By rivers into canyons running through
The desert of the real, the final goal
The final outward breath--we're left forlorn.

The water and the air we need for life--
The flows that help maintain complexity--
The flowers, birds of paradise, and man.
The water and the air are constant strife--
The land is worn, eroding to the lea
The mountains, stones into the delta fan.

An Ode to My Grandfather

I cannot see a bumblebee
Moth hovering on transparent wings
Without being brought back to the field,
Now new houses, where I first saw them,
Buzzing bee balms while we watched,
Connected through nature, bird watches
In the winter where we saw
His goldeneye-hooded merganser hybrid
Floating on the Saint Joe River,
Taking me to see the upland sandpipers,
The round, brown birds whose nesting site
He had discovered on the very day
That I was born. Where else can I trace
My love of writing, my love of nature?
The strokes that weakened him just showed his strength--
And yet he chose to die before my mom
So he would never have to face her death.
To me, he is the man who found the nests
The upland sandpipers made, who raised
Raccoons, screech owls, cecropia moths.
The man who taught me to love birds and nature
And not to be afraid. He's who I love--
The one who showed me moths
That look like hovering bumblebees.

The Sea's Current

Storms bring the seal out to deep, the current
Seas filled with swarming fish, the sullen shark
Taking advantage of them, the pink shrimp
Its size, the crab its mood. The current now,
Bringing life even to the unpleasant,
Resisting as these fish against the shark
Swimming too close to the shore sand, who hopes
To scare up food, the fish afraid for once.
The moon is low, the shrimp and crab can hide
In rocks, in tight enclosures that secure
Them from the greedy, crafty mottled shark.
The fish is crabbed by what she sees and can
Not understand. The shark swims by and sees,
Yet leaves her there, untouched, unharmed, unloved.

A Soft Mud Rain

Your cheeks are wet as fallen forest leaves--
You're sad as rain collecting in the dents
And puckers, soaking soil, wetting trees--
And you, so melancholy and morose.

I used to stand and stare up at the rain
On summer days,those  cloudless summer days,
Enjoying silver sunshine with serein--
The water stung my cheeks and rivered down.

And nothing in the way you look at me
Reminds me of those happy days. Alone
And looking through the window from my book--
Formerly so cold, so indifferent.

But everything I see in summer rain
Is now just gray and damp and cold, so cold
And I wonder what caused the clouds and pain
That's rolled in over me--and over you.

The Misogynist

He is alone at thirty-five, a man
Alone and single, never married--he
Has heard from every woman every excuse
And reason why they will not date or love him.
"You think you're better than me," one said
To him, though not exactly true--repeated
More accurately by another when she said
She thought he thought he was "Too good for me."
He wondered why women saw themsleves
This way, in a shining sun that hid their beauty
From themselves, lighting bright the flaws he overlooked
Because he loved them (or, so he thought).
Others would not leave abusive men for him,
Loving their abuse (he thought), makeup used to mask
Unwell what they could. Too old, he heard
Another time, "You don't fit into my plans."
And when his friends would wonder why,
Without themselves trying to help him
Meet someone who would love him, he was alone
When he was, "Such a great guy,"
And "Such a good man," who would
"Make a good match." But when his friends
Talked among themselves, they asked each other
"If you weren't married, would you date him?"
No one would even lie--any more than she'd explain.
And yet, he knew that they all lied when they
Said they'd try to find someone good for him.
So, he was left alone at thirty-five
To wonder when the next excuse he'd hear
Was, "No, I can't. I need to wash my hair."

The Postmodern Generation

A generation beginning
Kerouaced in the head,
High road hippies
Goovin' to the music
Of The Beatles and The Grateful Dead,
Heidegger, Sartre, and Derrida,
A generation living hypocrisy,
Living the lies of their ideals--
Ultimate conformists
Masquerading as individuals
Now showing themselves
Now openly conformed
Set loose their collective crisis,
Psychoses leagalised and loves
To then be contended and cleaned up--
Not by them; no, never by them--
T0 question is to grow--
But by a new emergent order

Melina and the Origins of Art

When you first became bipedal
You held your arm up high
And spread apart, in movements which belie
Our orangutan ancestry.
And now you think that you can wheedle
Your way with hugs and kisses--
You bring me shoes to put on your feet
And point at the "bir" that sits in the tree
And toss your plastic dishes.
Your arms are loaded down
With bracelets of all colors and designs--
Yes, decoration is the seat
Of art, I see the signs
Of how we try to make
Things special for each other's sake
And not just for our own renown. 

Where the Vanilla Grows

Each step lifts you up to the arcing sun,
Above the jungle trees in orchids draped,
Bromeliads and ferns suspended, spun
With roots upon the limbs bark-, lichen-creped.

This pyramid is rising to the gods
Demanding sacrifice in chocolate, blood--
The priests who stood here we believe are frauds,
And yet we worship demons in the mud.

The emerald quetzal's call is sorrowful,
Its ruby belly is resplendent, king
Of birds, the feathers crowning kings who mull
Over their roles the jesters mock and sing.

The frogs are guarding the north, south, east, and west
As we are dancing, dancing without rest. 

The Leisure Classes

In idleness and boredom comes the song,
The music and the poem, every art--
In utter silence, that's where we belong--
In noise, cacophony Muses depart.

In idleness and boredom births the crime,
The theft, the murder planned and carried out--
The criminal must fill the constant time
The Devil gives him, dissipates his doubt.

In idleness and boredom every plan
To plan your life and subjugate your souls
Is found--they'll place the boot on every man
And you will live according to their goals.

Submit to crime, submit to awful duty,
Or live by virtue, justice, truth, and beauty.

Psyche

The butterfly is on a leash, a chain
That loops back on itself--the butterfly
Controls itself or it controls itself
And this is something only fools deny.

Sometimes the chain is long, or it can grow,
And then the butterfly is mostly free--
It flits from flower to new flower, tastes
The nectar, flits now to persimmon tree.

Sometimes the chain is short--the caterpillar
Can only eat the leaves of one small plant--
It chews its way along the leaves, pupates
Upon the food it ate in rhythmic chant.

The butterfly controls the butterfly
Upon the winds that waft it here and there
It must control itself upon the winds
It can't control to reach a goal, to care.

The butterfly does not dare blame the wind,
The butterfly does not complain it eats
One kind of plant or has to fly for nectar--
The butterfly shows beauty in its feats.

The freedom of the butterfly is real
Because it has to live with real constraints--
This does not mean no freedom of its will--
The only real restraints are your complaints.

Transmission

Who did you choose to die this afternoon?
The spider feels the web with its foreleg
And waits for the vibration as the moon
Refracts the silk to silver. None will beg.

The poison goes from fly to spider, bird
To snake to fox to cougar lying dead
Among the granite snowfields--nothing heard
Their deaths they suffered, all because they fed.

The empty roads, the empty stores, the poor
Who die in illness and abuse, who die
Of hunger and disease--behind your door
You're safe, you're always safe. Enjoy your lie.

Believe the beautiful--it's always true--
The test of virtue, showing what you're due.

Dawn

You look upon it and you stare
As nervous as a hunted hare
And, looking longingly, aware
That you have done
All that you could, and yet you swear
You need a gun.

If only you had done your best,
Enjoyed the sunrise's warm breast
Then you would not feel so oppressed
By riches earned
By others, making you a pest
With nothing learned.

You look upon it and you find
That all your life will soon unwind
Because you thought you should not bind
Yourself to one
That wound into the mind,
The rising sun.

You have not done the best you could
And now you won't do what you should
Despite the fact it only would
Bring happiness
And beauty, justice, all that's good--
You wanted less.

You look upon it and the glow
Of wisdom you will never know
Is vanishing in its clear glow,
Its fortitude
Defying everything you show
In attitude.