One World View

It is at best a silent teacher
this pin-point of reflected light...
this ball of blue and green
floating on the cooling rock...
this eminence that time congealed,
and in its wisdom
drawing forth the questions
as a heavenly grace,
eclipsing answers.

It has learned more than you and I
for its frail shell of atmosphere
will not repel the titans, always,
and embracing them, thus wounded
weeps and shudders,
storing up within itself
a heritage one day released
to all its children deep within the womb--
and then across the star trails, roaring
once again upon its journey
when there is no one to hear.
~

Meteorogeny

The snowflake crowd,
unlike John Donne's amorphous hominid,
inclines itself to glorify uniqueness,
standing off the main on frosted islands,
festooned in crusty, bigoted, uncommon
droplets soon, alas, drawn back
into the sky
.
Thus I, soaked by degree in rising heat
to my more common skin,
am pressed most hard
to locate loveliness, distinction,
or implied bravado
in a tiny, arrogant and disappearing
hexagon.

It is enough for me
to tramp the quasi-tropics of my island,
brush the fuzzy flakes away,
and dream of non-distinctive lovers
on the main.
~

Executioner's Song

Three walk the path to darkness on this night--
one to embrace, one to observe, and one
Deus ex Machina, a travesty
of the divine; the role is mine to serve
as I create. I am death's man.

There is a fissure in the earth
and I must stand alone
upon the other side
against all time.
Though on another day I might
perform the hero's art,
there is no part of me
that may be left to be redeemed.
I am death's man.

It matters not that my commission is
but once or many times--
that I am sweet and fair,
that I may laugh and lust
and forswear luxury before
all humankind,
I am death's man.

There is a shell around me; though it is
invisible, it still may hide
the gaping wound upon my heart.
It was my choice to be unique
although I could not know
the ultimate perfection
of that dull inchoate dread
which gathered over me
when I became death's man.

And do I pray, you say?
No hope, no penitence
may reach the void inside of me.
My smile alone is alien
and unreflected in return.
It is I, you do not know,
nor may I ever fathom you.
Now stand aside.
I am death's man.
~

Rx

Inside you
is the universe, entire
and in each instant
glorious and perfect,
shining as you feed the sun
with cast-off yesterdays.

A man called Jesus knew.
To he who has completeness, more is given.
We saints are destined to inherit every part
for we are works of art--
the golden orbs that flash upon the earth
and bless its kings with light.

That which remains for us
is just a word
--our "yes"to ratify the thunder on the path
--our dialogue with consciousness,
to laugh and celebrate
the measureless domain of God
. ~

Mystic thrall

Within you, do you feel it,
that compulsion to create?
Break the bands of mindlessness,
take up the song
that like a river surges
to the mothering sea.

Throw off the gait of common dreams
that plod the midnight hours
still mired in sunsets; spur instead
the silver crust of every restless dawn.
Each sends its wild "halloos"
across the moor to better fantasies
that speed the traveler home.

There is surprise upon familiar ground,
waiting for the moment,
an oasis of delight to celebrate
or pass on by. Listen!
There is tumult in the stillness;
there is a fearsome peace
you'll never understand,
yet in its tremulous embrace
the last descending God
would never be the same.
~

Lunaverse

The last alive upon the earth
sat down upon
the moon-illumined plain
to make an entryin his journal, knowing
that there was no one to see,
no morning yet to be.

Though madness raced
inside his brain
he chose his written words
more solemnly for they would be
the legacy of humankind
in florid, timeless script,
the declaration of a war.
~

Execution chamber

Execution Chamber

OK.
The priest just went out the door.
He didn't have a clue what I needed to hear.
I wish I did
.
All right guys, the straps and tubes are fine.
Fine? Yeah...bastards.
Midnight's black crow is flying at me.
Must it pull the shadows so close behind?
Please, a few more minutes?
Those faces behind the window look like corpses.
What do they think this is, fuckin' church?
Is that Harry in the second row?

Nobody understands.
Why is it so damn quiet in here?
I'm scared.
I'm cold.
I'm
~

World without End

It was on a day quite ordinary
that the stream of consciousness
bore gifts of green and white
and frozen silver
where the old ones walked.

The mind, about to turn away,
is captured. Something
not quite rising as a memory,
though brazen to presume,
thrusts in upon a reverie

that here a boy
took hold of dreams
and saw that past is bound
to tumult yet to be--
still hails from out of history;

its blood, not stanched
but flowing still. He climbs
the stockyard fence to watch
the mewling ghosts
hold sway once more, while

just beyond the hill,
the pines are sheltering
the little owls who never sleep--
their wisdom tractable
and flashing from their eyes.
~

Impressions of Cezanne

The light's remembering
is just reflection of its boistrous birth--
each pastel plain laid down recalls
an echo moment and a liquid sun
at play, for with his brush
he sculpts the earth anew
and sets the theme's array.

His view is of the time,
the friends, the gardens
in their softness taking memory
as dialogue within the mind,
creating that which may
not fade away.

Each yesterday returns
to lay its twilight down again
and on the soundless streets of town
we know
the purple rain is falling.

Portrait, sacred and profane

A heart quite overpoured is mine.
It replicates the breath
inspiring purity and art
with just a piquancy of lust,
expiring endings of romance
and promises, of wisdom in the dance
that holds decorum back
and celebrates the wilds
of fancy, balanced by
excursions of the moment
into love.

Two natures reach
across the table of my life,
and at the moment they are friends.
They vie for some ascendancy
but give no thoughtto final victory;
it is a badinage with no superior
but forthe instant flashing of reality,
the fleeting smile of tolerance,
the protocol of dreams.

And then the desert wind comes up
and passion flares. Sirocco dares
to cross the sea and steam my body,
yield, invoke the sanctity of art,
and bowdlerize the arcane glory
of desire. Thoughts of transcendence
intertwine the carnal heat, and I,
aware there are two men
who ride the storm within me,
am finally at peace.
~

The Crux of Hope

The crux of hope

Eight billion billion miles away,
the asteroid grows colder
as the one inhabitant
who has no god, falls to his knees
and blows upon the spark of light
he sees from one retreating,
distant star.
~

You ask where I am from?

A recent contest on another site challenged us to write on the subject, "Where am I from." I didn't know my entry would center on my mother, but that is the way it turned out:

You ask where I am from?

I am from a woman
who stretched out her breath
upon a hundred years,
and strikes upon this day
a distant voice,
a thunder tympanum advancing
low across the sky,
a heartbeat rising from the earth,
more eloquent because she is and was
a symphony without a score...
a dialogue of resonance within
that stretches out the years instead
and makes their number meaningless.

I, a part of the premiere,
partaking of the air that left her nostrils,
of the milk that drained her breasts,
am from a heritage of love;
a quiet patience that was her bequest,
adorned her like a jewel
too lovely to display its fire
but from her open heart.
~

Errant Scalpel

Delighting in my bliss
I split my personality today
as if to look aside
and find an argument
that I could follow through,
and win.

Alas, my adversary
had outsmarted me
and also sliced himself
in two.
~

At the Mountaintop

I asked the wisest man I know
just what it was beyond the word.
"Could it be God?" but he said, "No.
We used that up, millenia ago."

"But I have seen it,
heard it,
tasted it, not with my senses,
but with more!"

"For awhile, it seemed I died.
but then I realized, the I
behind my eyes, just didn't matter
anymore...the universe
was magnified, and all I knew
was love."

My mentor looked at me.
"For everyone, it is a secret
ke may see and not describe,
nor understand--not you,
not I,
nor may it ever be."
~

Elegy

A man stands on a hilltop, weeping.
Come and see.

For he has watched a nation unaware,
chipped away to just this memory.
We'd found that we could meet a war,
and through a sacrifice to find its end
and then in one obscenity, (a burst of light)
attended with our souls the foetal cavity
of madness--gave to the world
a blood-besotted flag,
and yielded up its ghost.

His tears come hotter, will not
be assuaged.

It was where love existed.
Beauty quietly confirmed itself
before our eyes; we had a god
and ate his flesh, and drank of him.
And once we lost ourselves in moonlight.
Once we sang.

We may not turn away;
such grief is unconsoled
and ever shared.
The man has tears enough for us.
The nation, swept away by greed,
left us this hilltop.
Come, and let us weep with him.
For all eternity.
~

To Reminisce

To Reminisce

It was as if the old ones re-appeared
to die again, to write the words within
blank lines-- to show that history
had carried on beyond my sight,
where vapors moved aside, made way
for breezes daring to intrude
upon a hot, dry summer afternoon.

How many stayed behind,
to age as upstarts, unconscious
of my wanderings, keepers of the town--
and then the one from college
modeling with his fingers
on the faces of the dead?

I sit here, looking for a reason
I should make a journey back.
They'd look at me, and not remember,
nor would I, but then perhaps just one
would look again

and for an instant there's that vapor
with its strange caress, the steeple clock
just chimed as school let out;
he'd see me step across the street
with my familiar gait,
and entertain one transient thought;
have I seen him before?
...No, let it go; it's late.
(I too, would never know

we once flew kites together,
made milkshakes at the time for rest
and always were the very best of friends.)
~

Childhood Tree

He was supposed to be there still
in forty years when I returned,
but then of course, a boy's home town
is metamorph and tolerates
old maples patiently until
old homes come down and new ones rise.
I'm glad I wasn't there the day
my old friend could no longer kiss
the skies, but fell and shuddered
on the earth, and bled in green.

Though not unique, this grandiose
old fellow was my first true friend;
I mourned him more than any human
that I knew, and though I hold
no faith in spirit trees, I was aware
when I came back, of his success
in taking part of me away, as well.

It is forever I have lost
the sostenuto of his loyallty.
Forever that his thunder of lament
is still...in heaven's now
and in the glade of hell.
~

Omega's Death

What have I done--
to crash the dome of heaven
upon the head of sweetness...
to turn a loving moment into pain?
It was a time to stand alone,
creating evil on the universal page
of paradise; I would not see
that there was no retreat.
Instead I seized the power
to banish innocence,
and by myself ignited
all the fires of hell.
For this, a pennance is too late;
no thought of magnitude
may temper it to save
the devil in the sky,
for he is I.
~

China God

Homo erectus, from the moment
that he looked into the dome above
and knew he could not stand to be alone,
raised up "El" in his own image,
let him step between our weakness
and our fears, then prostrate,
groped in vain to reach a new reality
that seeks escape as its device,
that glories in the niceties of elegance,
of twists and swirls,
baroque enhancing of an argument
now creased with time.

And vanity it is, all second sight,
all flowers in the night
that we had breathed before
and loved,
and fell upon with tears.
It is these pinpoint moments
flashing at us, that contain
a universe, a glory
to sustain a life, an era
made of breath, a now
that may not fade away.

The hunger does it...the holy lust
that drives us to ascension
in the mist of morning,
some kind of rapture
we were called to,
back within the cave.
~

On growing deaf

Each year
my world is muffled
just a little more. I watch
the ones I love, whose pique
grows more transparent
when I ask them to repeat.
I see them drifting somewhere,
and I know that I may not presume
to go along.

Behind the spongy walls
around my mind, I watch
this process of invisibility
that comes with my retreat...
how soon will they be unaware
that I am even there;
the ease with which I fade,
now sets in sooner, cued
by changing leaves not welcome yet
to crowd upon September.

No, martyrdom is not for me.
This padded universe affords
too much of spirit realm
to carry in despair. I leave you
bit by bit, abandoning my cares
with every crumbling sense
and thus prepare to navigate
the larger world within,
and there take refuge
in the silent consciousness
of truth.
~

Another plain

defies relating, near as breath,
as far as imagery capitulates,
and no one knows who has not visited
the is that cannot be,
nor ever seized within.

I touched its edge, full knowing
that it could not be contained,
or grasped, or even sensed
in its completeness. Nor
would begin to satisfy,
else its embrace might be defined
as love, or truth, or God,
or any such shortsighted blasphemy
our tiny words might throw.

No, it transcends all that
and if there be an end
we shall not apprehend
the roaring comet's rest
or find the consciousness
to see it sweep away the stars.
~

Directed by

We are illusionists, you know:
each molding fantasy
on opening night
for an indifferent crowd,
but mostly for ourselves.

That's not good news.
For when the curtain falls,
the morn will bring us no reviews;
the critics' faces will suffice.
How nice.

But I can try again...
this time.
~

Why

I never greet discovery
with all the joy
that it deserves,
for standing in the way is fear
that I will violate
its pure integrity
.
I may thus become aware
of danger
that my own protective shell
grows thinner still
when others look at me,
and fear to see
my own endemic sores
contaminate the world.
~

Closure denied

When they ask, I tell them,
"Yes, I have three sons--
and two are still on board."

Ten years are past,
and I may speak of you with ease,
with the knowing still inside me,
you are more alive than they;
more thoughts of you are churning
in the day that never ends,
in such a time that is for you
forever disappeared.

Point present is your heaven--
earth, the love you spurned.
Your spirit being
crowds upon my consciousness
as if to say that endings
may not cede surrender
to the falling dust frail fingers
will release--may not celebrate
eternal peace as if it were
their rite as well, to die.
~

A personal note

A beloved friend died yesterday unexpectedly. He was a
priest, a poet, a superb homilist and teacher, and a
loving man to everyone. The following is not a very good
poem, but expresses how I felt at the news, since I had
never realized how hard such an event can strike.

Richard

Yesterday you took away too much:
your eloquence, your passion,
and your love, but then today
you gave me something quite tremendous
that I never had before--
that certainty of knowing,
just how much I cared.
~

Horizons

I seem to be a malcontent;
my restless eyes scan to the East,
across the plain and then beyond the hills
to where the night beats down,
to where the past surrenders
to the winding earth.
But then the throes of agony,
create the day.

There is some irony
in such a gaze upon the past,
hurrying tomorrow--
some parallel to every warrior's
pleading for the coup de grace
to set it all apart.
There is the I-ness, I forever own,
the consciousness we share,
that I may never dare renounce.

No darkening wisdom, here,
likewise no flashing joy
from the transition.
There is no spirit reticence,
no fear of time, or death,
or loss. Not for me
the sunset of a cross,
the headless tumbrel ride
back from the guillotine;
it is the East that draws me
through the night,
and may within its grace
requite the day with still another
gracious birth.
~
~

Insight

Perspective has that gift
of being present when,
though nothing changed,
and it is not,
then everything has changed.
The quiet started and
there are those strange
interstices between awareness
that how like a butterfly,
permit the gentle resting
for the moment,
of a non-existent thought.
~

~

Time Out

What is it?
Something stirs within
and while I look upon a scene,
then I become aware-- emotions roil;
memory kicks in, nostalgia follows,
the raw material for poetry is there.
No event has called it forth,
but still there is that tightness in my belly
that I may not throw aside.
There are no words as yet,
no formula for wisdom,
not a mountain waterfall or tear.

The scene itself is just device.
There are thousands of them,
all of one reality, blending in a moment
and the call to consciousness
becomes the phantom muse.
Somewhere a quantum flashed,
and in its tiny universe,
a bold electron jumped its orbit
'mid a festival of the unknown
to make me turn my head
and see.

So that must be.
And I must write,
not of that which I may know
but of that microcosm never stopping
at the field before my eyes,
for it is singing exaltation in the dance,
its antiphon surprise,
its destiny, romance.
~

Castles in the Sand

Gray warriors entertain
the myth of pride in victory
or sacrifice of love drained out
and running red into the ground.
Tradition's heroism.

There is a way to settle it.
There is a way of timeless honor still available
to set upon the course of peril--
a soil to stand on, still unknown.
It has the purity of loss,
and is pristine enough to foil
the hypocritic sands of artifice.
Sometimes.

I dream of sands that will prevail
to mold upon the crust of earth
a work of art, a restless texturing
to make the spirits cry in ecstasy,
to resonate with every heartbeat
from the deep, awakening
the serendipity of joy
.
Direct your longing out beyond the cliffs
where all the winds begin;
where that which sculpts the earth,
that mothering, may speak of elegance,
that everyday enchantment from within,
proactive as the benefice of innocence
from royal children frolicking
upon the beach.

How many feet will race the tide,
first to efface their handiwork?
How many tears will still preserve
the matrix of the insouciant sand?
~

Water World

There is the constant danger we may drown.
One learns
to take a promise with serenity
for waves of bliss in any victory are short.
Events move in
like unexpected flood tides on the islands--
pressing on attention,
stealing from contented images
built in the past,
demanding burial at sea.

And we must let them go,
for were there not an ocean there
to hide the present to the moment
when it suddenly appears,
there is no voyage,
no suspended triumph
and no thrill of doubt.

Will you drink with me,
the wine of God?
May we celebrate uncertainty,
the ports of call we may not see,
and yes the turbulence
that we ourselves create
in transient souvenir.

If that is not enough
there is the fury
of the rain,
the tempest,
and the blood
diluted in the deep,
the gift to sponge away
the curse of time...
before the tide returns.
~

First Day of College

The syllabus was likely to arouse
vain sentiments of a nobility
he never felt before.
Eight o'clock on Monday morning,
books and pencils not yet burdensome,
and down the hall, the classroom
where he hoped to be inspired,
would seize his body and his mind
and shake them, make them scorn
the adolescent scampering,
and he still not aware.

How dare the prof presume to teach him
how to take his notes...
how to detect his nakedness.
So much for sociology--
so much he did not see!

And that is what it was to be,
the years to dawn aware
of cavities, not knowledge,
wisdom just to contemplate in awe,
nor in presumption dress
yet late that night
six tender new-born men
will sit together in a tiny room
and speak of Rabelais and Eckhart
unconcerned about a rest
surrendered to the looming day.
~

Oblivion

The flight is past, the crane is gone
and there above the silt and clay,
the scattered reeds and sticks
of sheltered birth,
the precipice and promise of a life
are disappearing, soon to leave
no trace of the wild delta's mothering,
no echo of the cries of flegling hunger
tearing at the heedless skies.

She will return another year
to co-create her own;
her semi-conscious faint remembering
begins crescendo of the urge within
to gather once again
the transient nursery
to host a miracle, and fly away.

The delta too, endures
the smolderings of consciousness,
it also throbs within
to host its god of genesis each year
and then to watch him die,
to feel the sterile winds
clear everything away
in their escaping irony
without so much as a goodbye.
~

Another Way to Grieve

Is a memory less real
than the event that it replays,
or the video that seized its light?
Death trifles with them both,
powerless,
not of itself twice born.

I see a picture of my son;
the image on my brain sees life
unfading, and I may
immerse myself within that vibrancy
assuring me that death
becomes the more elusive lie
though as I sift
his ashes through my fingers.
I know he did not die.

There is no past, no future,
and the present gone
before my consciousness accepts it--
this photograph performs
the thin totality that shines
upon my mind
through each forever,
giving birth within an avalanche
of still another trillion worlds
behind.
~

Poet's song

It is in the first of morning
that I sense my magnum opus--there
among that which is most mundane,
and like a ghost that I
may never see or touch--
of which I know no thing at all,
except that he is there.

I said it was not fair
that he should haunt me,
said that he is mine;
let him emerge from shadow's shell
and ride my lips,
my mind, my passion,
then release from spirit realm,
no matter how diaphanous,
another breath of truth.

I know.
As Adam felt a universe implode for him
within his consciousness
and as his sinews formed,
he gave us God
creating in the endless dance
among the stars,
co-creating in our midst
while light shone down

his own magnum opus,
(and for me as well)
a pathway for retreating night,
and all the painters, sculptors,
physicists called out for light,
became aware of texture
and the price of tears...
and time and years
could disappear.

He is my friend,
this little formless god
who plods along with me,
not big enough to share.
Come on, a little farther,
there is starlight here, he says,
and you
have not yet learned to dance.
~

Aware of Awareness

That I know,
that I have insight
is a grace, so I am told.
But how much more
may wonder yet abound
when I become aware
that I have known the world
to stretch its shore for me,
disclose its mystery
behind the mists
else I should be
confined forever
in cold certainty.
~

Taking Stock

Three years to go
and if I fill them all with breath
eight decades will click in, complete.
Already I may pinch my skin
and see the ridges stay
when I release.

It is a curious thing that I observe,
not at all my self, this body
dancing with old twigs, smooth rocks,
and closet skeletons.

I don't hold much
with praying anymore,
would not reclaim decaying youth
when I was much too dull to see
that every now is all there is,
and all there needs to be.

Is that not risible?
That life may not afford
another hope at all? Shall I
one moment after death
be loathe to die?
~

Fantasies

Do they invade our consciousness,
or are they merely mental paintings
of our unfulfilled desire?
Always, the happy endings
add cloud fluff, and drift away
a little while until we call them back.

Little comedies, they are,
for just an audience of one.
No budget, no critique,
no lines to memorize,
no little boy to stand outside,
his nose pressed to the glass
and wondering.

Just now, however, I am looking back at him
and wishing, oh so very much
that he were really there
to watch these pictures all go by
and share his insights
molded from the womb, sparing me
the dark-begotten gains
of my sophisticated greed.

Move on, young fellow.
Flirting with the dead is not for you.
Here is your brush and canvas.
Go on and paint for us reality--
paint only what you see.
~

The path behind my eyelids

The path behind my eyelids

The inner course contains
a happy irony.
for as I seek the higher self,
I see the breakaway
of little pieces of the I
and there is no regret,
for even self
is locking up his empty house,
content to evanesce.

There is no question of nobility;
no self-effacing sacrifice.
There is no loss,
for though the all we know
be just a child of mind
it is complete forever;
you and I are none
that may contend, are one
to consummate a universe
without an end.

There is a single refuge
from the storm, the fire, the enemy.
There is a single element
that will surpass desire,
to place reality beyond pretense.
It is the only certainty I know,
the antidote to strife,
for love alone one day
will take me by the hand
to cross the bridge of death
from life to life.
~

A stitch in time

Somewhere the watcher sits
upon the instant moment's edge--
there, where spirit smiles, as if
to punctuate the order of the day.

And all the while, the breath is pending.
All the while, the heart rests,
time dissolves, and God may sleep
upon a throne still etched in light.

Might that one trillionth of a second
mark a new eternity? The concept
dressed in fantasy, becomes fair game
and I must step within.

Any photograph will do.
A present simply gifted,
storms the battlements of history
with just the turning of a page.
Enter
.
With a click of will there is created
life forever, sweeping down
upon complacency, a Narnia
upon a timeless stage
to touch, to resurrect,
to catch upon the air another now,
another living tapestry
of consciousness--quite enough,
I think, to fill a restless soul.
~

Meditation on Love

(Canto I)
It is vision, not desire, that moves us.
It revels in its glimpse of each eternity
All that is real may flood our eyes
and feed our hearts--a universe
our hands may never touch.

It is the priceless gift of weakness
we may cherish now,
not in ourselves alone, for need
provides love's moment
as love's catalyst--
rushing in upon us suddenly
as if it were a wave
to drown our cloying peace.

The well of tears is deep, compelling,
offering the draught of memory
so soon released before,
so set aside for laughter's sake,
so alien to the desert's rootless plain.
There is new joy in weeping here.

Then feed upon such love as this.
Breathe it as each quantum particle
may catch and send its spirit light
between millennia--translate the longing
in each chest for loveliness
and weep with me
among the wounds of innocents
that cannot heal.

Weep, and rage, and pound
upon the thunder in the sky
that speaks of love unable to return,
that speaks of loss within soft rain,
forever unredeemed.

The wound is open when the love crowds in.
Somehow the irony of joy and tears
must dwell together;
tragedy must marry triumph.
Ke who celebrates undying breath
must cling in kira love to kira death.
~
Canto II
Though love may be the bond
that seals the universe,
it may not be defined...
not created, nor brought to an end.
Unseen, untouched, unjudged,
it may attenuate its fire
but never die
despite the cooling of desire.
It is the blessed tie that speeds
its "yes" across the emptiness
of loss, and of the darkening day.
~
Canto III
My mind swept through
the gamut of analogy
to teach what love is.
Only one who knows
may understand, for knowing
of itself is undefined.
The promontory made for leaping
is unreachable--love's gift remains
the mystery creating all the world
of this unending now.
~

And there was evening, and there was morning--another day

Aware of light beneath the eyelids
clinging to the world just departing,
folding silently away,
I feel but slight reluctance...
as if the final chapter of a book
were too soon taken from me--
is that what death is like?
Is that the way the spirit I-ness planned?

I think these shifts of consciousness
are slivers of the pie,
surprise rehearsals
for a laudable adventure
in transition soon to come,
when breath is softer still
and with the barest touch of sadness
drifts away to die.
~

The Invisible Man

The Invisible Man

My thoughts keep coming back,
reflecting on the hour glass,
and knowing with the bottom mostly full
and darkness closer by,
the thing I was supposed to do
is undefined, retreating
in the now descending dusk,
a most sardonic eulogy, indeed,
for I shall never even see myself!

There is a cadence beating
as I turn within. It echoes
as the truimph's hollow drums
would sound beneath the pines
along the Appian way, a counterpoint
to whispers that thou art a man,
a shell, a fallen leaf thrust by the wind,
accountable the least of all
to some invented pride.

There is a song within such turning,
that is unsung, unending,
like a silent god, an unobtrusive,
still insistent art in parallel
along the corridor I walk.
It is the spectre that I also do not see.
It is the consciousness I share
unborn, undying,
and the I-ness that I do not dare
to touch.

And were I then to reach for it,
would you as well?
And are we not dependent
on the swell of every soul fulfilled?
Upon the hope clean ecstasy
may bring to sing at last
when all the silence bursts
upon us...

Come, and bear with me
the crashing of the sea,
the fire emerging from beneath,
the planets crumbling,
the blackened sun--for that
we shall espy
within an endless cosmos of the mind
that cannot calculate
the way to die.
~

ParaDieu

ParaDieu

Time floods my consciousness
with pretense of reality that like a mist
is faithless, vanishing,
exchanging slavery with me.
That which I know, I am;
that which I see is merely me,
an object over there, apart
from unity.

Yet all is one. Subject, I am
and which I am, is not.
And was it not a God we heard
to claim to be? I like it not
to be a God within,
without a trinity
I cannot fathom--one
I surely cannot know.
Empty, therefore,
may it ever be
that I am not?
~

From a Christian in Exile

From a Christian in Exile

Do not think me cold of heart
if I decline to kneel before your God.
For I may pass within my mind,
into another room
and find its walls have given way
to vastness such, that if a man
before a throne were there, then he
would draw his hands before his eyes
in order not to see--my ecstasy
is by default...the rooms,
the rooms give plunder to the heart.

There are mansions in my father's house,
and still undreamed,
prepared by still another Lord
who will not wait for death,
imparts no benediction, just a place within
where time will drift away, and love creeps in.

The Savior knew about the lonely place
--led us there in life, and not by dieing;
(There were crosses quite enough
to teach us all of sacrifice) our salvation
trumpet sounded on a silent shore
before a stranger kingdom
than the one we knew,
before the outrage of a second birth,
before the blazing tumult
of a Galilean peace.
~

To Doctors Murray, Minor, Furnivall, and all

To Doctors Murray, Minor, Furnivall, and all

The breaths of sighing are time travelers
that draw one hundred fifty years up close
and reify old ghosts who will not sleep
between the pages of a history that they created.
Setting self aside,they died
with only slight regret, aware
that they would never see the end, yet knew
the glory of the OED* in birth.

Look back at them, who saw ahead to us
and breathe your sighs in concert, for you are
fulfillment of their dream to prowl the earth
beyond the breadth of England, or the sea,
to hold a candle high above the page
of humankind that speaks from every age.
~
*The Oxford English Dictionary

Come, let us reason together

Come, let us reason together
It was at the gate we waited
hoping that the wind would change,
and still within our hearts that cavity
of sure despair.
It was denial that sustained us,
and the flame of rhetoric
that threw its light upon us;
mutatis mutandis we shall win!
And we do not.

The war grinds on
and victory dies at the breast;
mother love is its undoing.
Second hand, her own sustaining
feeds our weakness
and preserves our infancy.
Most certainly it is the toys
of adult contrivance that we hurl
out of the motherland,
out of the treasure store we filled,
out of the crib of hate
we cannot understand.
~

Confessions of a Panentheist

Confessions of a Panentheist

There was no tearful parting from my God.
I merely saw him pale before the light of truth,
and fade before me. It was as if he knew
I didn't need him anymore, although
he didn't need to say goodbye,
for he was everywhere.

How can it be, his love is stronger still?
There is no "he," no icy realm,
no flame within his breath
to ward off beasts,
engage the penalty of death,
or thunder from the mountain
as we cower in holy fear.

No, we created those,
and they were phantom devils
masquerading in egoic foil
to all the weakness we might gather
to our prayers, all the feral predators
beyond the fire at the door.

The love is just for us,
the taproot of that true reality
that groans within us.
It is the stuff of Namaste
that snuffs out darkness,
re-creates a spirit peace
within each minute particle
someone forgot. How may it,
in its quietude,
rage as a storm around us,
as a hurricane within?

In truth, there is no object
to its furious assault. It is us,
in wonder absolute that this strange wind
blows to and from infinity,
and yet still bends to our control.
This cosmic mind is such
to speak in whispers,
yet it spans the curvature of time and sky
for listeners like you and I.
~

Quixote Lives

Quixote Lives

What tablets yet await our opening eyes?
What murmers through the ether rise
and coalesce on stone and slate and monitor
and on a consciousness transcending art
with but a thrust into a calloused heart?
A single year or a millenium times ten,
one prophet dreams to see a nova ray of truth
exploding o'er his longlost grave.

Feeble eyes are open,
gathering energy and filtered light,
not theirs alone.
For as a savior and his ragged band
upended sense forever after,
it is not the stalwart phalanx marching
to proclaim a magnitude of grace
beyond a bloodied beach.
It is the flaming chariot Elisha saw
that throws its light on all the history to come
when time is lost. It is the steadfast search
to offer up the blood of life,
the glistering ghost upon the mountain,
precursor of a spirit light
that floods all humankind.

The door is for the entrant,
lock unknown. The feast in splendor laid
beside Siloam's pool, Zaccheus' tree,
or the lordotic leper's bed;
Teresa's cup of water turned to wine
that I would sip after the beggar tastes and dies.
Alleluia! Alleluia!
~

And as for me

Out of the sodden earth
a mystic truth arises,
out of the frozen tombs it flies
to salt the morning air,
for there is nothing fair in mindless axioms
or second-handed loyalties
compressed within cliche.

What parentland became
a favored childof God?
What ravaged forest
may invite the honor to become
its sanctuary? No, I shall not
profane my heart with some vain
gesture of obeisance
to a bloodied flag. It beats
within the ground
where those true patriots
who only gave of life, not took it,
lie with honor.

I pledge forever, my allegiance
to the spicy breath of day
from which we came--
the spirit breath of all that is,
and all that we may ever be--
the soil caressed beneath the rain,
the passion of the dead
beneath our feet
who feed the day with love,
that we may not forget,
may not forget.
~

Molly is angry

and it's about time! We need some anger these days:
http://progressive.org/mag_ivins0306

Full emptiness

We poets ought to shy away
from homilies concerning love.
What manner of creative thinker
might presume to take a single step
in front of all the ranks of millions
who have wept out tired or inspired
words to probe its depths
or sail upon its turbulence?

Yet here am I, the foolish ingenue
compelled to sigh again,
compelled to co-create a god
up in the sky, or some seductive muse
upon the shore, inclined once more
to let me maunder through the swampland
of bathetic sentiment before a world
still too polite to say "enough."

Somehow a love is least bereft
of purity, when left alone,
the lover sans beloved, never lost.
When form or wit or lovely face,
much less a deity, a sunset or an art
is gone, the one who sits apart
may still, enraptured, know
the flow of love is its own source
and its own silent grace.
~

Second sight

Did you see it?
Something blurred the air that day
just as it does sometimes
above the asphalt
in the heat of summer.

Two souls, I think, in discourse,
roiling energy in passion,
sent a tiny spot of cosmos into chaos--
in contempt of time, and for the moment
let us in.

For us, we would not have known
that Love has its insidious side
reaching forth from places
that seemed not to give a damn--
the little tragedies of yesteryear
that never were resolved
still lodged within the earth.
There were fragments of rejection
that we left there when we knew
they couldn't stand alone
and the years that pounded down on them
could never heal but only
make the hurting stronger still.

Some god gets blamed for over- parenting,
for all the better motives we acquire.
Some scraggly, gruff old fellow
out in space, who keeps an eye on things,
and shakes his finger
when we do not think to love,
finally will sigh, and tell us it's ok.

I'm sorry. That is not the God for me.
This guilt is one I own alone,
the one I cannot fashion to adorn
the man upon the cross.

The human creature thrives on fantasy
and rises from his bed each day
in discontent to face the glory of the wind,
the hints and shreds of change
that were not here before.

His state of bliss is unaware
the ocean at the door in silent raging,
poised to flood his consciousness
with seas of a reality he never dreamed,
is an insistent guest.

No. There is no rest from this.
No flighted messenger to sing
an alleluia. No, I think we need
our scourges and our chains.
I think we need the air that trembles
in the day, reminding us
that love is never free
and only perfect eyes
may know its clarity.
~

As others see us...

" I am astonished each time I come to the U.S. by the ignorance of a high percentage of the population, which knows almost nothing about Latin America or about the world. It's quite blind and deaf to anything that may happen outside the frontiers of the U.S." ~Eduardo Galeano

From the Cradle

It seems I have just found myself
not in this body, rather in the wind
where I have always been,
and lost to grimy fingers
scratching inside out in wonder,
chasing old identities,
and not quite happy with the latest one--
who joined his greedy fellows
at the trough wiith thoughts of lust
and later, rusty arteries, and death.

I much prefer the breath, the spirit ride,
creation's thrust returning still again,
the journey through a cosmos
that a man will never touch with fingers.
Suddenly I am aware that one is born
when he is old--must be, as we were told
by one they called the son of God,
but then it never dawned on us

that all those blinking particles
were playing games,
and in the changes that they wrought,
proved quite immortal--you and I
behind our eyes, looked out
and saw it all.

And it was good.
~

Meditation at Ebeneezer Church

Martin and Coretta knew
how straight the road ran
through the wilderness. They knew
that some would stray
and turn across the meadow
toward the woods.

They felt the love rise
from the aging marchers,
knowing when they too would disappear,
the road goes on.

The knowing is
that they shall not return--
and still the road goes on.

Will newer marchers fill the ranks?
And will the flow of love be strong?
And might the breath
beneath the song prevail
unto this joyless day
that we may overcome?
~

Quintessential sobering thought

"From 1945 to 2003, the United States attempted to overthrow more than 40 foreign governments, and to crush more than 30 populist-nationalist movements fighting against intolerable regimes. In the process, the US bombed some 25 countries, caused the end of life for several million people, and condemned many millions more to a life of agony and despair." ~William Blum

Naked soul

Do you want to know what I search for?
Totality, nothing more.
And would a man content himself with less
he would embrace a cinder for a sun
and turn his back on love and light.

To see beyond his vision, something looms
that he may never touch, a symphony
that he may never hear, a love out there
that races by in parallel,
one not to gratify, but rather hold in place
the all that is, and was, and is to be
and feeds the dreaming of the still unborn

forever, is my muse. I shudder
at that cold wonder of it.
~

An Awakening

A sliver of life is all it was.
Someone was crying,
caught me there within the moment,
made me wish profoundly
that it were not I
who needed to be strong.

It was those tears that overpowered me,
wrested me away from all the safety
of my observation post,
and in their weakness, gifted me
with some strange love--
a gift I could not stand.

It was another's pain
that offered a release
for my compassion; there was I
confirming it was not enough--
this looking out between the towers
of my little parapet, as lord;
I needed to become that agony

My fortess stood upon the moors
as on an alien sea, and I the alien,
the prisoner bereft of suffering
had nothing that I could return.
Disarmed and disingenuous
I knew and understood the certainty
of absolute despair.
~

A thought for today

"Violence as a way of achieving racial justice is both impractical and immoral. It is impractical because it is a descending spiral ending in
destruction for all. It is immoral because it seeks to humiliate the opponent rather than win his understanding; it seeks to annihilate rather than to convert. Violence is immoral because it thrives on hatred rather than love." ~Martin Luther King Jr.

On Aging

Taking stock in my 70's, I think,
Foo, I'm the same fellow
I was at twenty,
with a bit less energy,
somewhat more certain either way
about my shrinking future--
dead and uncaring,
or transcendantly alive,
a spirit properly incredulous
and grateful--not a bad deal.

Everyone my age wonders
where the time went;

I know where it went,
preoccupied with number one,
and constantly denying it.
We called that sin, but now I think
I really missed the point
when I forgot to look inside,
behind the skin, to find
the spirit there already, looking out
upon the world I made,
manipulated, then laid out
for visitation that I hoped
would mercifully be brief.

Such is not the case.
A man gets patronized for what he is, compromised
for what he wants to be.
We dodder, so we're told,
a point against us on the scale
of worth, of dignity--wise we are
when we are called to be,
and otherwise when passengers
upon our cosmic ship are not
so well equipped with consciousness
as we, and mindlessly
race off to war.

So let it be.
So let the ages line us up
by phalanx in the quest for life or death,
and we shall march to our last breath
as some imagined victory we could not
set aside, loomed much too far ahead,
and we shall march,
and we shall march...
never looking back behind our eyes,
yes, we shall march.

The Eyes of Saul

He walked along the country road
suffused with guilt...the archetype
of arrogant despair
bearing unknown void
as some monstrosity ballooning;
thus encumbered, saw the gloom
take on decay, Damascus fade
and then upon his solemn march

a grace appeared; he saw no more.
His hands were warmed
as one who understands compassion--
suddenly may seek to let it heal.
Reality wore different dress;
allthough there was duress
that still prevailed--a wretchedness
confessed within a new holistic fire
created endings for a man
faced with a birth that centuries
beyond would celebrate.

He would see again the choice;
the restless rest exchanged,
he would attain quixotic glory
in the pain that he could own,
and thus refreshed,
would make it known
across millennia.

Hard-pressed without a doubt
for kira self to find serenity
inside the passion of this
feisty little man obsessed
with lightning and with love,
the one who from the darkened path
had stumbled to a martyr's paradise
enabled by the eyes of God.
~

From My Corner House

Looking out enables me
to see the world in microcosm.
Those who travel in an opposite direction
now for me are doubled,
now to stray from one straight path
is cordially invited and encouraged.
Indecisiveness and sometimes fear
are common traits, and warning signs
are commonplace..

Snowplows clear one surface,
and in process fill another;
now the chance of hazard
grows by increment.
My vantage point surveys both double joy
and double sadness
in an avalanche of tenderness,
I'll never understand.

Like legerdemain, the passing colors
weave their fantasy of crosses,
while inside the cars
metallic voices, disembodied, blend
with those from flesh, enough
to rival Pentecost. In the drifting ether
all around them, oratorio
and slamming rock guitar will coalesce,
and are no more.

I, however, choose to be deceived,
aided in my madness by the silent
churning scene beyond my window.
Gifted by a mantra for the eye,
I lift my world, and gently turn it
upside down to watch the snowflakes fly.
I see them settle on my corner
as my neighbors find their driveways,
caring little for my shrinking world,
minding little that it is too late for me
to step outside, and enter.
~

"If" ......by Robert Steinback

12/27/05 "Miami Herald" -- -- If, back in 2001, anyone had told methat four years after bin Laden's attack our president would admitthat he broke U.S. law against domestic spying and ignored theConstitution -- and then expect the American people to congratulatehim for it -- I would have presumed the girders of our very Republichad crumbled.Had anyone said our president would invade a country and kill 30,000of its people claiming a threat that never, in fact, existed, thenadmit he would have invaded even if he had known there was nothreat -- and expect America to be pleased by this -- I would havethought our nation's sensibilities and honor had been eviscerated.If I had been informed that our nation's leaders would embracetorture as a legitimate tool of warfare, hold prisoners for yearswithout charges and operate secret prisons overseas -- and call suchprocedures necessary for the nation's security -- I would havelaughed at the folly of protecting human rights by destroying them.If someone had predicted the president's staff would out a CIA agentas revenge against a critic, defy a law against domestic propagandaby bankrolling supposedly independent journalists and commentators,and ridicule a 37-year Marie Corps veteran for questioning U.S.military policy -- and that the populace would be more interested inwhether Angelina is about to make Brad a daddy -- I would havecalled the prediction an absurd fantasy.That's no America I know, I would have argued. We're too strong, andwe've been through too much, to be led down such a twisted path.What is there to say now?All of these things have happened. And yet a large portion of thiscountry appears more concerned that saying ''Happy Holidays'' couldbe a disguised attack on Christianity.I evidently have a lot poorer insight regarding America's characterthan I once believed, because I would have expected such actions toprovoke -- speaking metaphorically now -- mobs with pitchforks andtorches at the White House gate. I would have expected prouddefiance of anyone who would suggest that a mere terrorist threatcould send this country into spasms of despair and fright soprofound that we'd follow a leader who considers the law a nuisanceand perfidy a privilege.Never would I have expected this nation -- which emerged strongerfrom a civil war and a civil rights movement, won two world wars,endured the Depression, recovered from a disastrous campaign inSoutheast Asia and still managed to lead the world in the principlesof liberty -- would cower behind anyone just for promising to``protect us.''President Bush recently confirmed that he has authorized wiretapsagainst U.S. citizens on at least 30 occasions and said he'llcontinue doing it. His justification? He, as president -- or is thatking? -- has a right to disregard any law, constitutional tenet orcongressional mandate to protect the American people.Is that America's highest goal -- preventing another terroristattack? Are there no principles of law and liberty more importantthan this? Who would have remembered Patrick Henry had he written,``What's wrong with giving up a little liberty if it protects mefrom death?''Bush would have us excuse his administration's excesses in deferenceto the ''war on terror'' -- a war, it should be pointed out, thatcan never end. Terrorism is a tactic, an eventuality, not anopposition army or rogue nation. If we caught every person guilty ofa terrorist act, we still wouldn't know where tomorrow's first-timeterrorist will strike. Fighting terrorism is a bit like fightinginfection -- even when it's beaten, you must continue the fight orit will strike again.Are we agreeing, then, to give the king unfettered privilege to defythe law forever? It's time for every member of Congress to weigh in:Do they believe the president is above the law, or bound by it?Bush stokes our fears, implying that the only alternative to doingthings his extralegal way is to sit by fitfully waiting forterrorists to harm us. We are neither weak nor helpless. A proud,confident republic can hunt down its enemies without tramplinglegitimate human and constitutional rights.Ultimately, our best defense against attack -- any attack, of anysort -- is holding fast and fearlessly to the ideals upon which thisnation was built.Bush clearly doesn't understand or respect that. Do we?