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?

We are the good guys!

We don't torture?http://www.truthout.org/docs_2005/121705C.shtml

Spirit Post Mortem

What was this unarticulated joy
that beat inside my chest?
That was both expected and is past,
reflected numens chanting
to my spirit, as if subdivided
in my superconsciousness--I may not
have borne them as a whole
though holy they may be...one mystery
selects a lifetime as its drum
and makes the years crescendo
poco a poco from its infancy
unto the crashing storm of age
when breath itself implodes.

I think it is too much--
a joy the mind at quest must know
and not to be endured.
I think a man must shake his fist
in protest as Beethoven did,
unable to sustain it to the end.
It is the depth and height of ecstasy
of which its single aim
is to expire.
~

This too, shall pass

There is an unseen magnet in the lure
of solitude. I seek it hungrily.
In it, I draw down silence as
a cover, insulating truth, but I
deny the need for joy. For as a boy

I sought too often, all the places that
my friends avoided, sanctuaries that
would give the groping spirit in the heart
of me some rest. Of all my friends it was
and still remains, the best. Yet finally

as age invades this shell, the mind has learned
to swim in consciousness, to question and
to laugh, to know that truth alone,
while still supreme, will also reach about
in love, and also with the cosmos that
it rules, may celebrate its restless peace.

I chase down thoughts, and wrestle with them now.
I make them work; they may not get away
with merely tantalizing fantasy.
They are the mortar of a spirit house
I'm building from a curious design
some spirit architect passed on, but it
is mine, and will bring smiles, I think, at its
grand opening.

The years are good, the friends as well, for as
they came along I saw at once that they
were not a mirror for my greed nor just
a sounding board for some vain homily
my ego had prepared--no they were sons
of God! I laughed again, but now the joy
is sung in concert in a universe
without an end.
~

To December

Racing in to us, dull season
short on daylight, long on endurance,
that for once I do not dread,
although I do not know
just what severity may come--
I laugh at old presumptions,
tattered hopes,
sophisticated fears
that seized their own close skies
and pulled them down like shrouds
around me...not this year.

A wiser soul may welcome cautiously,
arriving wnter,
tolerated for its piquancy,
its stinging air,
enough to foil the colorful bravado
of the schoolgirls' scarves,
uncompromising skirts
and blushing, sensuous knees.
And should that soul retreat to kneel
before some stodgy saint in penitence,
the stuttering shame it bears for looking
may become salvation
if indeed its god still smiles.

Mine does.
He understands old men like me
who suddenly, like frosting on the years,
will notice pleasure seeping in
between the breath of one more tomb
or its cessation in the death of gloom
that mortal skill alone creates...
Audacious men, indeed,
who sit at wizard keyboards
punching out the will of God

...and graciously forgiven.
~

For Children Only (revised)

The gentle monsters
live just over there across the hill,
and there are those who will attest
to their unerring skill
in the selection of their kill,
for they are kind, and wise and good.
Their weaponry is sanguine sweetness,
eyes upon the prize of triumph;
burial is for another's tears, not theirs,
for buried consciousness is quite enough.

And though the stain remain
upon the yellowed pages, there is more,
for war in constancy insures
a generous, perpetual supply
of heroes.
~

My Impossible Dream

To find and elect leaders who will not lie to us. Is that unreasonable? Is that too much to desire? Here in the land of the free, what kind
of freedom is that?

Reflections on Spirit Reality

If life is just what it appears
and that which we may test,
then we are just the lonely ones--
looking out between the bars
of bones, and dressed
imprudently in softest armor
spun of flesh.

A spirit may not laugh
at such a spectacle--
may not collapse in tears
as wonder such as this
is contemplated...years
of such illusion form
the phalanx of our refuge,
make our outer gates secure.

The camp is pitched upon
the edge of darkening days.
The loss of sunlight only marks
the end of fading time; one may
crumble it between the fingers
as grave dust, and turn away
to consciousness like reborn youth
inside unending day.

Perhaps we need not turn away.
It may be just remembering
that we are visitors upon the earth,
each one a changing chrysalis
beneath the light of changeless love.
Another metamorphosis is ours,
and ours again to be.
~

Molokai

I'm an island,
though aware that old John Donne
would never treat me so. He didn't know
that there are particles of me
that I would never show to anyone
...could not; the sacrifice
may not be contemplated, now
or even then. I happily
maintain the sham
that is this body, fondly gathering
my little evils deep into the nest.
Once bursting forth, they rest within
until I call them, dressed again
in camouflage.

Do not molest my island, for
not I, nor you could bear it.
Let no priest, no lover probe
beneath my skin where sepsis lies
protected from the truth,
and let no friend believe
when some seductive creed
flows trippingly across my tongue.

I am an island, here for you to love--
you who are above
a superficial loyalty,
you whom I can count on
to see past the scars--
not to look at me too closely,
never to possess me as I am,
but merely hold the fantasy
of what I wish to be.
~

To my son

The signposts come along much faster, now.
And I fear most of all not my own death
or even your own sense of loss or grief,
but my betrayal, for I cannot go
upon the road to everlasting life
that you will travel, reaching for my hand
and at the close releasing it as I
release your paper lord--and then I die
without your blest assurance
that I made him mine.

You cannot understand the god I breathe,
the one who breathes in me also-- the one
who holds his peace and thus enables me
in dying, to inflict more pain, for if
I make an honest life and then in death
deceive, I do not pull away your prayers
but neither do I then impart the love
I hold within my chest. For I do not
beneath this tent address your god or your
devotion; and thus become for you
the merest husk to blow away.

How may I speak to you of mystery?
How may I share with you
a cosmos that embraces all--a love unstoppable?
If I could creep with you upon my knees
into a throne room in the stratosphere
that our old fathers fabricated in
their heads, then I would plead that you
perceive a later portrait of
transcendence.

Then will you let me grieve with you
that you must grieve eternal loss?
(while in my heart I know with your
same certainty the opposite is true)
--That I remove the father of
the lord we love, as I suffuse a
deity beneath that canopy of truth.
I might explain forever what I know
of that supreme and drowning ocean,
overwhelming fear--but knowing inwardly,
it is what you may never see.

You own a most capricious source
of immortality. Of after life,. I do not doubt,
but see it through another spirit lens
that you have spurned, as I in turn
have laid your own aside.
There is double dying as the price
for glad reunion, and for one of us
in--creed-able surprise.
~

The Legacy of Helen Keller

We thought to care for her, to give her life
inside her tomb,
surrounding her with sound and sight
though second-hand, with all the light
of knowledge and the color of our joie
de vivre. We would create in her
a channel to a world she couldn't understand--
then revel in her gratitude.

What irony, that she, the partial woman
that we playful gods created
showed her partiality to other suns she knew
that we did not. Outrageous!
She the teacher that we had to teach
to learn? She, the one who found serenity
in that rich silence unoccluded by
the lightning swords, the battle hymns,
the marchers' vanity called truth.

No, Helen's sight emerges from a realm
that we, encumbered by the ear and eye,
must be denied, lest she let us in to see...
lest she share with us the symphony
upon her private stage, and via
some miraculous device that she
would like to give away to us who wear
our blindfolds much too readily.

I must confess to jealousy
sequestered in my shadowed room,
upon my little bench, and wishing
that I knew what Helen did, and had
resource to reach into my dark
and bring out light, too magnificent
for me alone to keep.
~

Revelation

Inside the chamber in the earth
the darkness teaches,

never ceases, though this whirling ball
sets forth its glory in a thousand frames.

Pain is the carrot on the stick, sacrifice
and sorrow just the stuff that will not sell--

yet through the stifled sobs, it resonates,
and though it gives us tears

it is the spirit provenance
that lets us travel back upon the years

and find humanity within-- locate the self
distorted, broken, brother to the adam

and the eve scarcely able to remember
paradise. The newer heaven and earth

is said to leave behind
the sorrow and the sighs

but they are gifts that mold us still
and hammer on our consciousness

that we who seek the new Jerusalem
will find it in the shroud.

I saw the broken men walk from the mines
and when I saw their eyes, I hurt like them...

I loved them, then, the black upon their skin.
I loved the knowing that they never would

grow old, their dusted lungs would be my own,
their breath grown shallow, drowning me...

that from the gift of tragedy I was enchained
within those other hearts, admitted without test,

without a crumbling document
to certify my worth before the fellowship

of those repulsive soil-stained arms
embracing me.

There is no choosing grace like this,
no pain accessible, no paradise

to promise sweetness,
for of all it is the gift most free...

down in the chamber of the earth
where wisdom hides within the dark

beneath the guise of agony.
~

Dimensions of Love

I thought to analyze this basic stuff
that is existence...taking love apart,
identifying every alias
that I could name. There was compassion and
humility; there was romance in all
its ages, and upon its fringes lurked
desire. But that must now be cast aside
as faithless, though there was compulsion deep
within, that may not be denied.

My vanity in such an exercise
was clear enough, although there was a man
named Paul who wrote a letter to his friends
in Corinth--could as well have stopped it just
as greatness loomed to crown his song about
a word, for with unconscious eloquence
he crowned himself with need of nothing more.

Old Paul knew how to say unlovely things
and seldom held his tongue,
but in this thirteenth chapter there emerged
the poet's saint, a mortal's dawning of
creation's mortar--quintessential truth.

In those post-lightning years he was no less
irascible, but bore within himself
an overflowing heart sustained by that
one ineluctable constraint that holds
us all together in a spirit sea.
~

Listen

Paradox is singing
sometimes, when you choose
to be alone.

If silence is ineffable,
there is contained within it
sadness, too...never understood,
but nourishing, feeding on the quest--
as if to widen its dimensions,
color it with that most proper dress
that makes solemnity a mode apart.

Perhaps it is the hovering
of that unconscious self
which rules us all, reaching back
to distant moments when mortality
first introduced itself...
a calm, insistent friend that we
were not yet ready to accept.

It is only now, it has become
a well of resource never dry,
the sweetness of regret
and who within its reach
escapes unbound?
~

Dream Ocean

The breathless seas expire across the shore
as if still more to dramatize decay,
as if the spirit realm were threatening;
unseen the children of the day who swim
within reality you cannot touch,
who bear no name, who are the aliens
encamped upon a planet floating in
a world of dreams.

As such, it is illusory to read
the ink upon a non-existent page,
for lucid reverie is ours when we
can touch this fleeing fantasy of skin,
and see just how it molds itself around
our skeleton, creates the apertures
that let us see and hear, the brain that lets
us stop and wonder, and the tear that takes
the moment into memory.

In such a night alone, the love we share
is just a gentle brooding shadow of
beneficence that hovers over all
the stones, the souls in flight, the messengers
of light. It is the commonality
to which we cling, and some of us
will call it God.
~

The Grace of Cowardice

Finally
I sent it off, and knew

you could ignore it,
set the piece aside, and just forget.
You could skim it, dutifully,
perhaps become enraged,
or only choose to be amused.

But no, we chose to stand together,
you and I, among the others,
in our silent tribute
to the shivering emperor

and to the noble walrus,
to the end, discreet.
~

Author! Author!

Ideas gleaned from poetry and books
should be for sale in little boxes, that
were optional at extra cost--and I
would find inside, the little people there
that I could set upon my desk, and shake
my finger at them, questionning without
offence their origin, or their descent.
And as a gentle Gulliver, perhaps,
remember to remark upon their zeal.

Of course if I found feedback from the air
that bears my voice, or from my friends who care,
I would. But yes, it is too much to ask,
and much too little to depend upon.
No wonder that the wee ones live for us!

Beware, my tiny leprechaun, for we
are scavengers who would invade the night
to capture you, for you are rare indeed.
Within your packs, the wonder drug, insight
to know, to understand, embrace, believe!
~

Look to your right for a moment

You will see that the Iraq war has now cost us over Two Hundred Billion. Do you think we have our money's worth?

Last full measure

There was Mike's famous creeping smile
and then the punch line
spoken slowly, in his style...
we laughed, and felt the pressure
in our chests, saw his hands thrown up,
and in an instant, saw him die
and that was it, no interim,
not a single second of respect
to get us ready.

Then when we came home
we couldn't say to anyone
that he was more a hero
than the rest of us; you know
it doesn't seem to be
quite fair.
~

August 16

Ignition...on
and in an hour, it was over.
One slash of time made ridicule
of caution, for the silence that he chose
was not enough; he hated it,
chose death instead,
and that without regret.

I wonder just how long it was
the engine poured its fumes
into his ambience,
and he beyond a care...
how many passed just yards away,
how many chronicles raced
past the brute unconsciousness
of the undead, as they sped by.

It was a double silence that prevailed
upon the darkening day--
a double irony as that frail candle
smoldered when its destiny
was light.
~

Please... no selling on my site!

This is a blog for poetry, opinion, and discussion of current issues. It is not for the promotion of someone's commercial blog. All, of course, are welcome and very much encouraged to leave their comments here, and visitors make it better, and more interesting. However, of late, some have left commercial "hints" publicising their own money-making activities. That is not what this site is for, and I hope this shameless activity will be ignored whenever you come across it.

His last concert

I wasn't there to hear the choir
though once I sang with them,
but I still think of Holliday
at closing--cadence coming up
and his conducting stern, impassive
just as always
with the same authority,
demanding and receiving
absolute attention,
pulling them along .

What were his thoughts, I wonder,
'mid those final measures of polyphony
when glory filled the room?

When as the homophonic chords
resolved in the "amen"
his gaze still far away, aside,
just before the cutoff,
then he turned, perhaps,
to look directly at the singers
--that faintest hint of smile appearing,

wrists in last release,
the frame of stillness introduced...
his hands suspended...
four seconds of eternity
and he stepped down
to face the last applause,
what then?

Through all the years thereafter, I am told...
they offered him the podium as guest
and he, as always
quietly declined.
~

My Higher Self

I sense him watching with amusement
at my foolishness,
though I have need of him
else I would run amok.

Yet sometimes I resent him for his caution.
Let him play within his spirit world;
for mine, though just a fantasy
outranks his in its solidity.

I must admit it is the best
illusion I could ask;
for though I know that time
may only trickle out at my life's close--
the world is on a suicidal binge,
whiIe I may stay the game

if I remain within the present, cling
to it tenaciously; mine is not
the gloomy prophet's role. I am
the celebrant, the last remaining lover
quite as much adored and unrepenting,
thank you, as your bleeding Lord.

No,
I do not mock him as do those
with ears which will not hear
or hearts that will not bleed.
I mock your truth...and as I speak my own,
that too is just a hollow creed.

May I instead look up,
enabled (not at all enlightened
by pure truth) rather by desire
to sense its fire within,
where words may never
win the day.
~

Eccles...2005

Still there, amid the change,
the girl was speaking.

There was something
in her voice as she explained--
something
blanketing her fears
and yet revealing them
for those who wished to know
...something stealing softness
from between the words
and leaving gentle crusts of doubt
within her hand, seeds not of hope,
but resignation.

It was time to celebrate the wave
that crushed the innocent, the lost,
the weak that could not stand aside.
The truth she spoke, could never be denied.

It was time, assuming power at day's end--
a time that crushed remembering.
No seamless victory, perhaps, but still enough
to make the dead capitulate.
It was time to hate.
~

Evensong

Each day at five o'clock
the shepherd leads his flock
across the bridge,
the waiting traffic in suspended time,
serene, yet unaware
that they are gifted by
uncommon grace.
~

At the Gate

He walked beside a wall that day
and knew its silent stones
held something back,
no thing that might compel him,
yet he was compelled.
It was the opposite
of everything he knew,
a state of nothingness
that even God obeyed.
Someday he would press through,
engaging it with echoed stillness
of his own.

He walked the edge
of his own consciousness
with that suspended,
ever pristine void of the unknown
beyond--another blessed question
waiting in its paradise,
the answer in its hell.
~

Earthbound

It is the night that brings the spirits forth
in some ironic twist of the mystique
for they know only of eternal day,
and play upon the dark side of the moon
as readily as frolicing at noon
on some outrageous court we cannot see
with stuffy eyes in stuffy bodies bound
in time to contrast their eternity
.
It is no wonder we compare them with
the stuff that hallucinogens promote--
that nether world of dreams that science dares
to waken from a state of fantasy,
forgetting yesterday is but today.

Some say that life is just illusion; may
I then convey my deathless gratitude
to every soul who may come by to see
this new reality I made?
~

All the reasons

why the wrong president is in office. Anyone who does not agree should be prepared to explain why the reasons are not true:

(after clicking on the link below--scroll down a bit for the actual article)

www.projectcensored.org/newsflash/voter_fraud.html

Pernicious Insight

"Oh, the kitty, the kitty, the kitty!"
my litle sister cried,
as the screendoor closed behind me
on the kitten's neck.

Regrettable, I thought.
For what at ten I knew of death,
was like penumbra
on a cloudy day,
and little more of her,
at three.

Her state of shock and grief, however,
threw the flashing sun at me
and I, amazed,
could see how poignantly
I loved her.
~

In my Studio

I know that I must not exist

in synchronicity with you

nor may my soul create

within this lumbering

and evanescent form,

an odyssey of light,

no, not alone--

it takes a higher self

that I do not remember very well,

to make it swell

within a breathless chest--

that this is art!

That search within goes on,

for what is there that speaks?

What tiny cell is fired,

freeing up the stuff to change

a universe?

Or is there mystic sperm and egg uniting

there within a spirit womb,

there in a microscopic cosmos?

Might there be a spirit bishop

or a phantom God

to launch the swarm of particles

in Botticelli's mind?

There go my children,

fending for themselves

and never looking back

upon their hollow birthplace.

You and I are equally

without a clue to where we came from,

how or why, or what the process means.

And when I graduate to death,

quite willing to forsake my breath,

not wonder, (for a heaven of answers

surely is my hell) I'll not neglect

as my last opus, to create

a gracious God who may

receive my gratitude.

~

Connection challenged

I just remembered.
It nearly got away from me...
the day you died, nine years ago.
Even then, you let 800 miles come between us;
you are closer now
than you were then--

you simply died at your own hand,
and that was it. That passageway
is now as filled with rock.
I heard you call just once
although you typed hellos,
i love yous, notes like that,
and then the probe comes through
once in awhile.,
getting just a little better.

I will wait
and further store my love
like bricks of gold
stacked in the vault
somewhere near that damn tunnel,
800 spirit miles
of instant flight for you,
solid mystery for me.

I have time.
I'll wait.

From a better poet than I:

"Show me the suffering of the most miserable;
So I will know my people's plight.
Free me to pray for others;
For you are present in every person.
Help me take responsiblity for my own life;
So that I can feel free at last.
Grant me courage to serve others;
For in service there is true life.
Give me honesty and patience;
So that I can work with other workers.
Bring forth song and celebration;
So that the Spirit will be alive among us.
Let the Spirit flourish and grow;
So that we will never tire of the struggle.
Let us remember those who have died for justice;
For they have given us life.
Help us love even those who hate us;
So we can change the world."
~Cesar Chavez

Read what Cindy Sheehan has to say

http://www.lewrockwell.com/sheehan/sheehan10.html

The Inner Circle

(Thanks to Barbara Mades for the inspiration)

I've learned to deal with funerals.
They celebrate a history both far and fresh,
cementing it with closure just as earth
would close a grave.

There's not much room for victory,
despite the words of triumph in the rite.
But all the faithful ones
who could and would be there,
looking at the moment of departure
saw transcendence
at the bedside or the battlement
and drew upon resources
that they never knew they had--

not I, apart, spared from
the crisis, glory-drenched,
that turns good-bye
into transforming art.
Not I, the chosen one
to see the flight
to timelessness.

It is this tiny brittle stone
in shattering
that marks the apex of a pathway
that humanity or other
walks no more.
The confraternity of those
who walked with them until the end,
alone will understand.
~

Some words we need to hear

"A Feast of Death "
By William Rivers Pitt /T r u t h o u t Perspective

Now thou art come unto a feast of death. - William Shakespeare, Henry VI

On Tuesday, some took solemn note of the fact that the total number of "Coalition" fatalities from the invasion and occupation of Iraq had reached 2,000. On Wednesday afternoon, that number blurred upwards again to 2,015 dead soldiers. 1,821 of those served under the American flag. Fourteen US Marines died on Wednesday when their vehicle was shattered by a large bomb. Six other Marines were killed together on Monday, and a seventh is reportedly being held hostage. Two more Marines also died Monday, both from car bombings in separate locations. We are only three days into the month of August, and 22 US soldiers are dead. 54 died in July, 78 died in June, and 80 died in May. The occupation has lasted 868 days. More than two thousand soldiers, almost all of them young American boys and girls, have had the life blasted out of them because they were sent by their commander in chief to find weapons of mass destruction that did not exist. Those soldiers who remain, those soldiers who have been redeployed into the war zone two or three times already, wait with grim resolve to be brought home to their families whole and sane and safe.

Acclaimed novelist E.L. Doctorow has penned some words about George W. Bush and his understanding of death and this war. "This president," wrote Doctorow, "does not know what death is. He hasn't the mind for it. You see him joking with the press, peering under the table for the WMDs he can't seem to find, you see him at rallies strutting up to the stage in shirt sleeves to the roar of the carefully screened crowd, smiling and waving, triumphal, a he-man. He does not mourn. He doesn't understand why he should mourn. He is satisfied during the course of a speech written for him to look solemn for a moment and speak of the brave young Americans who made the ultimate sacrifice for their country." "But you study him," continued Doctorow, "you look into his eyes and know he dissembles an emotion which he does not feel in the depths of his being because he has no capacity for it. He does not feel a personal responsibility for the thousand dead young men and women who wanted to be what they could be. They come to his desk not as youngsters with mothers and fathers or wives and children who will suffer to the end of their days a terribly torn fabric of familial relationships and the inconsolable remembrance of aborted life. They come to his desk as a political liability which is why the press is not permitted to photograph the arrival of their coffins from Iraq. How then can he mourn? To mourn is to express regret and he regrets nothing."

The occupation of Iraq is almost a thousand days old now, and as the self-serving justifications for invasion wither in the desert sun, as the neo-conservative "Bush Doctrine" collapses in a swelling flood of blood and total failure, as more and more people see impeachment as a moral necessity, as those who stand in opposition wonder what they can do to thwart a corrupt and crazed administration that exists entirely without checks and balances, there remains one act of defiance and strength and solidarity that cannot be ignored. On Saturday, September 24th, there will be a protest in Washington DC. This gathering could possibly dwarf all previous demonstrations against this administration. That weekend will see far more than a protest. On the 25th, Progressive Democrats of America will host a wide-ranging strategy session at the David A. Clarke School of Law on Connecticut Avenue. The purpose of this gathering will be to prepare progressive legislative and electoral strategies for the 2006 midterm elections. That Monday the 26th, activists will be walking up and down the halls of the House of Representatives to lobby congresspeople to demand a withdrawal of troops from Iraq.

That is for September. This very weekend will see another gathering in Dallas, Texas. The Veterans for Peace are holding their national convention from the 4th through the 7th, and will be celebrating their 20th year as an organization of military veterans committed to ending war, and specifically to ending the occupation of Iraq. Among those who will be speaking in Dallas will be Dahr Jamail, the courageous journalist who spent months in the most dangerous places in Iraq so he could tell the world what is really happening there. Michael Hoffman, a lance corporal in the Marines who participated in the 2003 invasion of Iraq and returned to form Iraq Veterans Against the War, will also be speaking. Cindy Sheehan, whose son Casey was killed in Iraq, will be speaking as a member of Gold Star Families for Peace. Those who would defend Mr. Bush and his deranged war policies are fond of labeling dissenters as unpatriotic, un-American cowards. In Dallas this weekend, there will be a journalist who risked his life over and over to report the truth of Iraq from within. There will be a Marine who fought in Iraq and returned to organize against the war. There will be a mother whose sacrifice and sorrow is beyond description. There will be hundreds of veterans who have served in World War II, Korea, Vietnam, Iraq and elsewhere, who stand now for peace and the end of the occupation.

It has been a hot summer so far, and this feast of death continues in Iraq with no end in sight. The Veterans for Peace, the Gold Star mothers, the Iraq veterans, the journalists who have seen the reality of Iraq, and the hundreds of thousands coming to Washington in September appear to have every intention of making this summer hotter still.
~

An Odyssey Untouched

In the beginning was the truth transcending
Alpha and Omega--too dazzling to catch
the human eye.--too patient in its vigil
through the trillion years of night. And
there were gods aborning, fanciful creations
of the creatures from the sea,
who learned to breathe and watch
the warfare in the sky and finally to write
about the wonder of it.
.
Then there was El, Baal, and Elohim,
Astarte, Gaia, Artemis
and hundreds more
upon their heavenly thrones
who played among the dust and lust
of Earth, and made the Nephilim
to rise from bones, and blood, and art.

So humankind cherished their gods
and goddesses, but at a decent length...
it would not do to genuflect too much,
to bare too much of angst
before the peerage bar, to tremble
as one more is turned away
short of the mercy seat-though justice
cries somewhere, and that lament
is strained.

And there were some who looked beyond Olympus
to the trees, the starry trails,
the ether of another time,
the silent void that speaks of worlds unseen--
and some are watching still.
(Some look back at them as quanta flash
across the ether, forth and back again!)

There are no heroes in this self-effacing song.
No dragons slain, no perfidy one may lament--
A boy in wornout coveralls may see the glory
his allowance could not buy...but then, alas, forget.

He sees his counterparts and wonders.
Do they wonder too?
Do they look back before their birth,
ahead beyond the tomb?
Do his feet retrace the prints of wonderers
who walked the timeline, knew they did not walk
as prisoners alone,
both breathing and creating history?

The boy sweeps up those sixty-seven years,
departs the stage
and violates his youth with wisdom
no one wanted, a breath of history
that no one understood, and few regret.

Souls have their day upon each earth home.
Some reach out when interfering eyes have closed,
creating mystic openings they never knew were there.
Others feed on prayer...alone.

Then It is All Souls Day
and time is but an artifice
that lets the work be done;
it is the enemy of little boys in coveralls--
of high school graduates like you.
Remember?
You seized the little summer there
before the car was loaded for the trip
to academia...the precious time
for meadow basking underneath the clouds,
the time to entertain regret
for words you did not speak
to that shy pretty girl who smiled at you
the day her life crossed yours.

You were the one who wondered.
You were the one to store up lifetimes.
You were the one to cast out gods,
creating new ones, fallible
but somehow more enlightened,
more accessible when awe, not fear
is the transcendant path.

It is a day for souls to gather.
It is a day for songs, and weeping,
looking back and forth along the timeline,
unashamed to introspect.
It is a day to know salvation never was
an instrument of God, but of ourselves.
It is the heaven only we create.
~

Just for fun

Unique

Were I inclined to be
a double personality,
I might impart to such a phantom twin
the power to create within
a prototype of his own self,
and then there would be three
or none at all,
if you may follow me.

Such magic maunderings
do have their way of teaching
that the quality to be unique
that may be present in the mind
quite possibly defeats itself
by replicating, don't you see?

...and finally, perhaps to sigh,
to draw it all within
and disappear.
~

Another Road Less Traveled

They are nothing
if not taciturn--these spirit travelers.
They do not shock, or ridicule,
for they are single-minded in their quest
for timeless realms where magic dragons play
and roar for joy that cannot be contained
unless they are ignored for brighter flames
that drown the seas around their mystic shore.

They are not much
for words or diadems of thought to sway
the psyche, win the day, or call to arms
a soldier, surfeited with war or from
a restive peace. Theirs is the steady breath
to leave one breathless, voiceless, more removed
from what a dawning day reveals than they
had ever been before, and more in tune
with universal song,

although they do not sing,
for their metier is listening. and that
is quite unspeakable--they do invite
us yet, to take their hand and come along.
The journey is not wearying , and rest
awaits the patient ones. Vacation at
the cosmic level is the prize received
unending and forever new,
~

Challenge me!

I am an independent thinker. While I am no better educated, nor more sophisticated or knowledgeable than the average person who has been to college, I do have very unorthodox opinions about God, society and politics. It is highly unlikely that anyone who comes to this blog to read, will find all of those opinions compatible with kira own.

This being the case, why don't you raise an issue or two? When you disagree with me, tell me why...or at least ask me why I take that position. Tell me about yours, and why you take it. Invite me to argue with you. (I promise to be polite and respectful). This is the only way I know of that each of us may grow, may learn, and may ultimately be better informed. If we go about as little islands that no one else may visit, how do we impact the world...how do we express what we believe. How do we encourage thinking? As for me, I hunger for this. Is it not worthwhile? May we not grow together, and perhaps ultimately influence someone else as well?

You may respond to the blog directly, or contact me by email...read down to learn how. Will you come out of the closet? And, no, there is no implication to the question. :-)

Further thoughts on meditation

Openness, it seems to me, is the primary ingredient in producing a satisfactory meditation. Obviously success, positive benefits, or at least gratification are the goals of any worthwhile activity. However, in meditation, one may not concentrate on those goals in the actual process. If ke places kiraself in a postion of assertion, there is no room for the benefit to "get in." Only a faithful confidence that one is doing the right thing, has any real hope of producing satisfaction. This seems to be true, whether the inner journey is truly into the self, or an opening to some sort of divine intervention. Obviously one must be committed to the concept of meditation as something desirable, but as soon as one starts looking for revelation, or immediate fulfillment, the opportunity is lost. When I can tell myself (and then forget the effort of telling) that a deeper immersion into the realm of the spirit (however I may define that) is in itself worthwhile, that is when I become open to the often amazing experience of transcendance. It doesn't seem to happen to the same degree every time, but I seldom emerg from my period of meditation without some very positive impressions of the experience. For the novice meditator, it is worth "hanging in there." Meditation has become my way of praying. It is not a time for self-examination, valuable as that may be. It is a time for wonder and awe...the numinous in action.

My religious faith--as of 7/10/2005 (not a poem)

Universal Mind is my God, and I am part of it. If dualism is wrong
(and every indication of it points to that.....friend vs enemy, good
vs evil, God vs Devil, white vs black, right vs left, truth vs
deception, we vs they, ours vs theirs, public vs private, sin vs
purity, triumph vs surrendur, moral vs profligate, loyalty vs
betrayal, justice vs license, procreation vs lust, power vs
appeasement) and God is not a being (if he is, biblical
descriptions of "him" make him a lousy one)...then Unity is the
order of the universe (anything else is incomplete) and UM both
surrounds and is inside all that is. It is love, and nothing else. It
is what captures me and captivates me. I do not pray to it,
although I do express my gratitude for the state of order it rules.
How that state of order was created, if it ever was, is beyond my
understanding, or ability to define. For me to try to approach such a concept would bring us right back to dualism again. It is I,
and I, in a state of incompletion) am it. It is the only God I have.
Yes, call it the spirit of God if you wish, and in that sense,
Genesis was correct. Spirit--Universal Mind--moves over the
face of the waters. I feel it groaning...inside me.

Quizas

Across the universe a quantum flashed
"Hello" to resonate a billion, no
a billion trillion miles behind the plane
on which I stood. I missed it, but the one
apart did not, and dialogue began,
perhaps a son of man saw flames leap out
a billion ages hence. Perhaps the spark
that eyes could never see ignited war,
or peace, or some outrageous fantasy
within the newborn mind of God.

Perhaps the quanta still flash forth and back
in that same frail, persistent prototype
of love.

Perhaps we miss it still.
~

Prologue to Eternity

I draw into the artificial womb
and travel from the day upon my breath
until dimension fades, a silent shift
occurs, and there is no more self to pad
the absolute, yet from the depth emerg
the wonders of an ambience that I
shall only know in full when breath is gone
and I slough off this cumbrous body for
a flight of some flirtacious fantasy
which I perceive is hovering, perhaps
in readiness beyond the mist.

Until that time I long to tell you more,
but cannot, but to say that even this
is more than words or wonder will allow--
no god I ever met would try to speak
of it, nor lover of the truth reveal
that which I daily see. and know, and feel.

What tumult lies within the thought that you,
the reader, may elect to come along
one golden day--or let it slip away!
~