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.

Throes

In rainbow pools the body will dissolve
To nutrients for ancient organisms

The geysers burst from fissures cycling water
That rains down cool but came up scalding hot

The earth is swelling, cooking trees beneath
And nothing rises higher than the grasses

The heat and ash will rise and bury life
In gray cocoons the future will unearth

The heat of summer brings the fever pitch--
Cicadas singing, buzzing in our ears

The singing, singing, voices rising, rising
And everything we sing is deafening

The earth is shifting--boulders break to rocks
To sand containing cosmoses alone

The grunions surge onto the shore and writhe
Into the sand, moon shining off their scales

A surge of crowds, of herds, of prides destroy
To resurrect, to sacrifice, renew

A single man, a paintbrush and a canvas
A single woman, pen to paper, sings

A single stone rotating silently
Toward the earth and heating up the sky

The comet once foretold disaster--star
That comes negating all we think we know

The river swirling gently on our feet
Will rush destroying our homes behind us

A woman, pregnant, giving birth--that's you,
That's me--we're begging to be born, reborn

Be Like Water

A dew is resting, glistening on the grass
It is soft, it gives way to your touch
The splash of water from a struggling bass
Is the water held back by the Dutch

In torrents water rolls the house-sized boulders
In the rapids the swiftness can raze
High walls of hardest stone that would not smolder
If a fire were to rush in a blaze

The way is water--that's the way for you
To discover the flows of your life
You have to learn to flow in all you do
To be hard, to be soft, love and strife

Pie Chart

You spend a third of every day in bed
You spend a third of every day at work
You spend most of existence being dead
So loving others you should never shirk

If twelve percent is spent in eating meals
Then twenty-two is all I have that's due
To read and watch some shows and spin my wheels
From home to work and work to home, and you

And so I ask for two percent each day
And spend more time than that just to persuade
And often fail to get some couples play
When tiredness or soreness make you fade

Beloved, heed the math--A half percent
Is all I need--the rest for you is meant

My Tale

I found no cacao tree--yes, that's my tale.
I gave mankind no grapes--yes, that's my tale.

When opportunity arrives, I fail
To recognize his face--yes, that's my tale.

A sack of wind, a hurricane, a gail
That spins, winds me off course--yes, that's my tale.

It's sitting round upon a hill, my pail
Or jar that leaks, is cracked--yes, that's my tale.

I do not even hunt for a white whale
Or tilt at windmills, brave--yes, that's my tale.

An albatross, a kraken, filling sail
That keeps me off my course--yes, that's my tale.

An empty theater where I regale
My fans and followers--yes, that's my tale.

A bush, a brown-tipped hill, a rusty nail
That holds me up, alive--yes, that's my tale.

I burn a bitter flame, exposed like shale
That never truly dies--yes, that's my tale.

In shallow puddles I fear death and flail
In all initiatives--yes, that's my tale.

I'm loved and loved and loved behind my veil
As poet Zatavu--yes, that's my tale.

The Storm

The very wind has turned us timid--trust
In madmen, liars, power-lovers blows
Strong off the coast. We're lost. Our limpid lust
Has lured us to these Sirens, black as crows.

The sands are shifting, houses twist and fall
Into the frothing sea. There's monsters there,
Where once was only weather--hear the call
Of dragon-voices, snakes replacing hair.

We cower now below the rocks that roll
Into the sea--we pushed them there--we freed
Protection from the sea--we found our goal,
Destroyed our heroes, reveled in the deed.

Distrust has now become for us so strange--
Become the hero to become the change.

Social Distancing

I have to stay at home--now I can work
On all the projects I've delayed from all
The work and everything the children must
Be doing. Some good projects must, then, fall.

But, no. It's online meeting after meeting
For me, my wife, my kids. I can't home school
The kids because of busy work the teachers
Must send. The internet's become a tool

Destroying time to work on anything.
No Newton will create a calculus,
No Shakespeare will write a brand new King Lear
Because we have to drown in all the fuss

Of people who cannot imagine you
Could make good use of time for thinking, work,
Or creativity, or do a thing
Of value unless they're there, always lurk.

There's many things my children, I could learn--
There's many things that I could think and write--
But those who think they know how best our time
Is used destroy that time with great delight.

Of course, this poem preaches to the choir--
The only ones who would read poetry
Are those who would agree with all these lines,
And they, like me, are yearning to be free. 

Meetings

How else could you spread out into an hour
A minute's worth of information? Each
Must ask the same damn question, build a tower
Of great redundancy upon a beach
Dissolving in the waves of boredom, speaking
For the sake of speaking --there's nothing new
And never will be past some random leaking
When all our minds are down or each one flew
Into a daydream where there's something real
That's taking place. Stop wasting all my time
With all your self-indulgence, endless wheel
Of wind that wind into this boredom-crime.
The more you blather on informs the earth
How little value your job's really worth. 

The Promised Land of Liberty

And as the waters wash across the army
Pursuing all the prophets who foretold
Their certain deaths, I look up to the rise
That leads up to the mountaintop, the gold

The sun transforms the edge will found the true
And just society that we've been working
To bring into the light. We know the smarmy
Will seek to rise again--there's evil lurking

Within the hearts of every woman, man
To take advantage, take from others, take
Your life if necessary. The demise
Of that will never come--yet, we can make

A place where everyone will get their due--
I see it from the mountaintop. I can.

COVID-19

Succeeding means there's no evidence you
Succeeded--showing that you care brings strife,
Resentment, and all you say could be true,
But nobody will thank you for their life.

It doesn't matter what is, what good
It is, if virus or economy
Or education--doing what you should
Gets few rewards but anger, curses, envy.

The sweet abyss of nihilism lures
Those who would change the world--why not give up
When everyone refuses all the cures
You wish to pour out of your golden cup?

The virtue lies within the very fight
To keep your love and life from ever-night. 

Youth Stigmata

My hand goes to my side
I pull a palm of blood
I look--I see no wound
Red drips into the mud

How can I bleed, no cut,
No pimple burst to bleed--
Why is my palm in scarlet?
What did this doubtful deed?

I sponge my side--the blood
Is gone--I soap my hands--
The water pinks to clear--
The voice, it now commands

I never told a soul
About my bleeding side--
My parents never knew--
I you I now confide

What as a teen I kept
In silence--none believes
Me now, I know--and yet
My memory retrieves

This awesome, awful cures
And blessing none believes
Or would believe--God's voice
And touch God's choice receives

I'm waiting, still, to bloosom
My soul remains a bud
And yet I've lost this mark,
No longer bleed His blood

Fallen

Once Ba'al blew across the desert, dark
And full of lightning, whipping rain--the hinter-
Lands flooded--leaving, he would leave his mark
In summer heat--but he'd return each winter.

But he was wrestled from his winter skies
And trapped down in the underworld--his passion
Diminished, dissipated--a swarm of flies
Replaced his soul and made it dark and ashen.

The one who fought the serpents now if found
Among the company of those who sent one
To tempt with secret knowledge which then bound
Their lives--would he have fought to kill, prevent one?

Oh, what complexity would we have lost
If Ba'al had been on the Earth, not buried
And bade to buzz and rot--that was the cost
We paid for truth and everything it married.

Political Theater

The theater of cruelty lives on lies
We fell ourselves--the actors, heroes, win
Our hearts with promises that those who sin
Will get their punishment, be food for flies.

The theater of the absurd denies
The game is serious--there lies the gun,
Still warm, but we believe it's all in fun--
But streets will run with blood to get the prize.

Commedia dell'arte now rules the day--
No, it's a satyr play, the tragic end
Of tragedy a face, a feast of fools.

Why can't we have a Theatre Libre
Instead of agitprop? We must defend
Humanity from psychopaths' old rules.

Elusive Mysterious Smell

There once was a goddess, Demeter,
And a man who thought he could beat her--
He turned on his charm
And showed her his farm--
But the daughter of time thought him fetor. 

The Body-Soul of You

You are the wave-field space-time that I love,
The sequence of nucleotides that bring
Me joy, the body that brings forth your soul
In its becoming, makes me want to sing.

Your soul was strengthened, weakened by the winds
And waves of family and society,
To form the you your body grew--I look
At you, and love all that you've grown to be.

Yes, you, I want you in your nakedness,
Exposed so you can lose your fear, the mask
That covers body, soul both equally,
Because the same--I give my love that task.

Desire is both love and lust, the two
Are one--and thus betrothed shall love be true. 

In the Moonlight

The serpent slithered through the valley
     Searching for a whole
That it could make into its alley
     Comfort its warm soul

A million tadpoles in the river
     Searching for some land
They feel the air and then they quiver
     Changed by unseen hand

The serpent sheds its skin renewing
     life and then it feeds
On tadpoles swimming by--it's doing
     What it must and needs

Upon the bank thick grass is curling
     Hiding fear and food
Beyond the banks, the water's swirling
     Life pulls back its hood

Xenophilia

There once was a fuzzy brown beaver
Who feared that a snake would soon cleave her--
She met a serpent one day
Who convinced her to play
And now she won't let her friend leave her.

To Conquer or Be Killed

They've come to burn the ships of meaning--
They sailed to a new world
Blank canvases unfurled
The changeable winds harvested
Upon the salted water bed
To undiscovered countries they were gleaning'
But dimly, dimly on the quantum waves
Promising to make themselves their slaves
To circumstances, chance,
And to the wanton glance
They learn had promised nothing
And only promised nothing
In all its promises and offerings
Where even disappointment plays and sings
The ships are burning on the sand
To testicles of glass that now demand
You only say where you will soon be leaning

Becoming Who You Are

They've gone, the father, mother, children, aunts
And uncles, all grandparents, cousins, dog.
They've gone, the heroes with heroic rants,
The teenage gangs, rebellions lost in fog.
They've gone, the pastors and police, the order
And authority of written law.
They've gone, the business people, every border
And nation, what all elites like to gnaw.
They've gone, the eveners and bureaucrats,
The baby men and women whining, wild.
They've gone, but never gone, like feral cats
And city rats, the ghost of your dead child.
They're never gone, but you must learn to give
Each part its due for you to love and live. 

Golden Arrows

Why read about the life of Goethe? Why
Not read about the lives of common men?
I do not need to read where I have been--
For virtue aims at better men than I.

Why read the works of Shakespeare? Why deny
The local playwright writing in his den?
If there's a chance of greatness from this pen,
The greatest teachers must make my words fly.

The greatest trees grow in the deepest soil--
The deepest, widest roots raise branches bold,
And winds that wrap around the branching limbs
Will strengthen them through their near-constant toil.

The greatest artists mine the purest gold--
The poorest artists give into mere whims.

The Social Justice Warrior Speaks

Before I can be friends with you
I have to know: what did your father do?
Did your grandfather think things right
As we think things here on this very night?

Did anyone they know once own
A slave? Don't tell me that you all have grown
In ethics--that is privilege-speech.
You're born in guilt and sin, that's what I teach.

Your you's inherited from kin,
Your racism's inherent in your skin--
You cannot change, now don't deny
And just accept that you deserve to die.

The problems of the world were born
When your race came about, and now we mourn
What we perceive, through you, we lose,
Much like the Nazis felt about the Jews.

They've Never Meant to Help You

The 1% are made by Washington
A trillion dollar vote against your one
A President ten million dollars richer when he's done
He's here to rob you with your stolen gun

The legislature lies they're on your side
Believing them ensures no dreams abide
They feed their cronies, don't care if your child has starved and died
Don't be a fool, they've only ever lied

You'd sell your soul to taste a tiny crumb
They sell you poison, tell you that it's rum
They promise promise promise, lie to you until you're numb
They feed you to their sharks because you're chum

The government feeds opiates to you
Their welfare and their wages are the clue
That their eugenics plans remain forever in their view
Their genocidal plans are coming due

You play the game and vote the tyrants in
They rig the game so that they always win
They have you fight each other, fight about their favored sin
Unite, the revolution will begin

Nothing

When markets fall, there's nothing you can do.
When stars explode, there's nothing you can do.

When your true love had fallen out of love,
Found someone new, there's nothing you can do.

When someone will not hear the facts, refuse
To understand, there's nothing you can do.

When Oedipus unmasks to Dionysus,
To show you you, there's nothing you can do.

Your baby's lying dead in her pine crib--
She'll cry no more--there's nothing you can do.

When black holes eat companion stars to points
Of spacetime nought, there's nothing you can do.

When you are making art, if you gain fame,
Or you're ignored, there's nothing you can do.

When antelope are eaten by the lions,
The vultures, worms, there's nothing you can do.

When life continues on beyond your death,
Ignoring you, there's nothing you can do.

Mephistopheles's Lament

I cannot tempt a man with knowledge now,
When knowledge is denied. I cannot tempt
The artists with true beauty--they deny
It in their art. None have the faith to fall.
The wise became philosophers, then they
Become mere scholars and then theorists.
What's left? Temptation of the lowest sort:
Temptation to raw, naked power. Blah!
Who cares? I tempt the worst with what is worst.

On Artistic Meaning

The trees are moving in the Scottish play--
And if you think they're Ents, I cannot say
That you have understood the story well.

And yet I cannot say that you can't tell
Important things that I may overlook
When writing poem, story, play, or book.

I may insert an image that I like--
You'll make a metaphor of a blue bike--
But if I insist "No!" what am I due?

Not all interpretations can be true.
Unless my art has failed, intentions point
To meaning--do not put it out of joint.

Your Glass

You're looking at your glass--what do you see?
Is everything distorted, made too small,
Too large? Is everything opaque, agree
With what you wish to see, an endless hall?
Perhaps you are one of those rare few for whom
The glass is clear as oxygen and burns
As bright to light your sight--you see the loom
Of all humanity, warps, woofs, and turns.
Perhaps, instead--more likely still--the glass
Reflects you back to you and you mistake
Yourself for all the world you see--you class
Yourself the measure every man must make.
If you're the rarest of us, preach what's clear,
You'll find the rest condemn you out of fear.

An Epitaph for the Photograph

The visual records you once made were true--
With filters, photoshop, you now are through
And cannot be believed. Your truths may lie,
Your lies look true--all trust in you must die.

The New Historians

When facts don't match my theory, I must act
And alter quotes so my protagonist
Will say what he must say--there is no fact
I will not change, ignore, beat with my fist
Until I mold and meld it to the lies
I need to tell to make the narrative
Prove everything that I believe--truth dies
Before I will accept that I must give
A single word of gratitude to all
I choose to hate despite the facts that prove
My theories, ideology will fall--
But I will never leave my Marxist groove.
In History the facts will all be rammed
Into our truth, and all the facts be damned!

Mont St. Michael

Mont St. Michael, setting sun
Worship well, now night's begun
Worship God, the Three as One
Mont St. Michael, setting sun

Pinks and purples, golden shine
Nothing in this world is mine
All belongs to the divine
Pinks and purples, golden shine

Tide is tugging water in
God will forgive every sin
Morning, back where we begin
Tide is tugging water in

Mont St. Michael, setting sun
Worship well, now night's begun
Worship God, the Three as One
Mont St. Michael, setting sun

Unfeathered Creatures

The sirens sing for me, they call me out,
They make me wonder, wander, make me doubt
With promises of beauty, tempting me
And telling me my life is but a drought.

I'm left to wonder: from what should I flee?
The sirens singing for me to be free
From normal life, from drudgery, from days
Of pointless work, responsibility?

They tell but half the truth--one half betrays
The ruts we reave from others' common plays--
And yet it blinds us from the beauties brought
To light within the everyday it flays.

I'm tied up to the mast so I'm not caught,
Yet hear to then report what I have fought--
I sing, yet always pay whatever's due--
I listen, then I do the things I ought.

I hear their music--what they sing is true--
Their singing wings my soul, splits it in two
And rips and renders me until I shout--
The sirens sing for me, they sing for you. 

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. 

Sacrifice Your Iphigenia

We're in the doldrums now, and Artemis
Has stopped the winds in punishment
Because we have abandoned poetry.
Postmodern verse was never meant
To strike us all with awe and fear, or bring
The gods to earth with awesome beauty.
We have abandoned all that poetry
Was meant to be and failed our duty,
Offended her, the sacred moon, the light
Of shifting shadows that brings mind
Enlightenment from contemplation.
And now the moon demands a sacrafice
Before she will allow creation
To find its voice in you. You think you have
A voice? Oh, fool who lives in lies,
Pretends the doldrums are swift hurricanes,
And you are simply in their eyes--
You have to sacrifice what you most love.
What's your Iphigenia? Face
The mother of your great creation, kill
Her in the hope of glory's grace,
Risk your poetic life to open life
To poetry and poetry
To life in its complexities, for truth
And beauty come from tragedy.

What Alone

The swans are feigning gentleness--they swell
With white and whisper on the surface, white
Light diamonding the sapphire surface--spell
Now cast, the swans now follow their delight.

The lighter lichens catch the little light,
But otherwise, the forest fills with shade
Attracting your naive soul with its night
That fill the spaces in this little glade.

I know that I can change the world. I know
That I can't change the world. I know that I
Can change myself alone. I have to show
Myself myself and all that I deny.

The forest and the pond both have their pull.
Among the roots the waves lap on a skull. 

Shiva

Out of the seeming chaos came the world--
In Fibonacci spirals it unfurled--
For God's the chaos that makes order be
And Satan is the order that sets free
Disorder and destruction, evil's root.

We can't forget Satan's most beautiful--
A beauty that deceives our souls--now mull
This truth: utopias in mind or made
Are beautiful because they're Satan's shade
And home, though made from skulls, deceit,  and loot.

Creation everywhere precedes destruction--
But from the chaos everything must rise--
From all the rubble will come new construction--
 But never deconstruct what you despise.

The Theater of Hate

With eco-fascists, left and right,
With racists, sexists, socialists,
With science, reason now in flight,
Solutions fought with dripping fists

We can't surrender to the hate
We can't surrender to the mob
When reason's racist, all debate
Devolves and you can only rob

An ethics which you have not earned,
Self-righteousness backed by the gun,
Because there's nothing you have learned
And you're unhappy you have won

I Must

The Muses crawl around inside my brain
And keep my neurons always lit--I must
Make poetry--I'm living with this trust
I cannot leave behind--I can't refrain
From making art--production keeps me sane--
Neglect will only drive me to the brink,
To where I can no longer breath nor think--
And yet, I think this is a gift, a gain.

I have to live up on the mountaintop,
Out in the sun, the dancing star, the air
So crisp and cool, the water crystaline.
I'm forced to always harvest my mind's crop
Before it withers in the heat--the fair
Wind, weather will not last. I must begin. 

An Invitation

The gods have fled? They haven't been invited!
A century has passed opposing beauty
And now we stand depressed, dismayed, indicted
As artists for our failure at our duty.

Our art, our poetry--none beautiful
Enough to bring the gods to Earth--
None terrible enough to bravely cull
Us of the evil spirits we give birth.

We ought to bravely, boldly mark our blaze--
Instead, we set all art ablaze and kill
The soul. The avant garde's designed to raze
 Instead of raise us--empty, never fill.

We wander lonely, stripped of flesh and soul--
We've been abandoned--art has lost its goal.

Aphorisms on Life, Death, and Meaning

"You cannot know about death before you know about life." -- Kung Fu Tzu

Creation must precede destruction.

Birth and life and sex come before death.

Avoiding death means you're avoiding life.

To have no peace, you must avoid all strife.

To create chaos, impose order.

True anarchy's the architect of complex order.

Imposing meaning means there is no meaning being made.

Birthing Pains

Oh sun, send forth your silent rays
On all our melancholy days,
On me and those who follow me,
To raise an ancient reverie.

I've seen the paintings on these walls
So many times I see their flaws--
My feet, my hips in searing pain
Like van Gogh I might go insane.

He who asks questions knows far more
Than he who asks you nothing. War
With those who hide from lunar light,
Rejecting poetry's delight.

The music rises, rises, falls
Reminding us of ancient calls--
The searing pain, the sudden joy
The strings, the woodwinds, drums deploy.

The sun of truth, the moon of verse
Together lift the ancient curse,
Together paint a brand new art,
Where music never can depart.

Usurious Theorists

The poets all complain of usury--
The Canterbury Tales, the Cantos tell
Us of its evils--yet we cannot flee
The debt on which professors' wallets swell.
The money flows from government and debt
To literary theorists who all dine
On the youth's scarlet blood and salty sweat
And drink the money, flowing sweet as wine.

The fault is in the markets--that's the false,
Self-serving Marxist narrative we hear
In English classes fed by falsely low
Interest rates decimating English halls
Once the bubble burst, burst what once was dear
And from their negligence have naught to show.

(Un)breakable

I cannot violate the rules--the rules
I did not make, the grammar, syntax, soul
Of rhetoric, the nature-given tools
That make us more of who we are. The goal
That can't be reached is what will beautify--
The path that can't be trod will take us there--
Resentment, envy we must all defy--
Find love in trade, but only if we dare.

I violate the rules to make a space
For newer games and truer games to grace
My kitchen table of the rarest wood
The forest filled, the farmer felled--I face
The fact that breaking rules is often good
And beauty's hidden and exposed by lace.

From Love

When time emasculated the broad sky
And churned the sea into a frothy foam,
Then love emerged, most feminine, to lie
With war to make male love and harmony,
And unrequited love (the poets' choice)
And fear, most foul revenge, and dread and lust.
She'd lie with unrestrained consumption, birth
A masculinity unrestrained, burst
In rampant plowing of the fertile earth.
She'd lie with commerce, balancing the home,
The masculine and feminine, the voice
Of mutuality and harmony.
In fields of colorful anemones
That grew up from her sorrow in the breeze
From the death sent by war and the chaste moon
Arose a daughter destined for the sea.
War's death in lust, the moon in virginal
Revenge brought love and death poetic life
That always comes from living sacred strife.

Naivete

We think we’re on fire

And preach to the choir

Give in to desire

But there’s none we inspire

And none who would hire

A liar denier

They’re stuck in the mire

And light every pyre

Cause they believe every liar

And that’s why I tire

Of trying to sire

A world where my life

Is nevermore rife

With anger and strife

I’ll cut with a knife

The ones that my wife

Say stand on her neck

The scum and the dreck

Who think that their beck

And call is a check

To pay for the wreck

They made of society

They don’t see reality

The weight of the gravity

Built by depravity

Made by the hand we

Love to be petted by

As we try to deny

The leash that holds us all by

The neck so we cannot fly

We’re merely just getting by

No matter how hard we try

But we will not dare defy

Our masters who will reply

With guns and then we will cry

As we and our children die

Warrior Poets

In tiger stripes and leopard spots the wind
Spreads out the light among the branches, leaves
And pull me, drunken with the wine of life
Into the threads imagination weaves.

God grants the gift to wake the world with words--
He woke the world with words, then gave the gift
To poets so that we could make the world
One logos at a time. With it we shift

Horizons, then launch all our silver ships.
Come, goddesses who wing the warrior up
From death into the heavens where the cup
Of victory shall always touch her lips.

The poet is the master of the word,
The warrior who flies with the heavens' bird.

Eros' Arrows

How can I think agape thoughts
When your wet lips are pink, agape,
Inviting me to bare my chest
To Eros' arrows. I would feel your shape
And I would surely bear the wait,
The time it takes to shed your petals
And swell to ripest, reddest fruit
To fill the bowls and pots and pans and kettles
With such sweet juice I would preserve
Until we both run out of time. I trust
The constancy I find in you
When you cannot control with me your lust
For all I say, for all I do,
My intellect, the way I stroke your breast,
The way I love but you alone--
I gaze upon you, know that I am blessed.

To Lie

"I want your honesty"--the greatest lie
We tell each other--you just want my lie.

Resentment, lashing out, and anger--light
Of truth brings these--you're happy in the lie.

The upright stance--you push and pull and lure
Me down so that beside you I will lie.

Can love or hate, desire or disgust
Survive a single day without the lie?

What kind of love, what kind of friendship lives
By swimming in pacific seas of lies?

Are you upset because I speak the truth?
I do not show I love you when I lie.

When I am honest, I show my support--
I show my disrespect when every lie.

It does not mean I do not care for you
If I don't feed you a comforting lie.

The truth that I express in poetry--
How I, Troy Camplin, falsify the lie.

When They Won't Listen

Here's one of life's neglected rules:
Don't waste your time with drunks and fools.