Lily's Pad

Lily’s pad floats freely

tucked in neatly, flanked

by friend’s pads en-mass

circular, shiny, sun catching

dragon fly acrobats aeriel

tourmaline teal toast grey not shy

visit Lily’s pad in couplets

Lily’s pad a reliable oasis where

the brilliant meet and hang out.

That lily pad green much

like those first bell bottoms

big bold crisp green leaves on white

worn too many days of the week

the only ones I had

with desert boots way to big

to give me growing room

I would never need that much of,

often alone as a kid,

wading in silent reverie

in the tannic stream of life

but in good company.

Naturally, as it must always happen

brilliance fades in the summer dusk

grassy fields of darkening greens

disappear as the dewy night descends

and yes! Out pops our fire fly friends

beep beep beaming little green lights

reachable stars kids trap in jars

tangible first miracles

take us through

those early darkest nights

till morning’s light

calls for new adventures

ducking the neighborhood kids

slipping silently across the green fields

with her fresh spider webs and bee busy clovers

to be dazzled by my pals at Lily’s pad.

February 2011

Blue Spruce

Blue spruce blue Christmas

Pine, beer and turkey juices simmering

atmospheric steam building

Nana’s hot kitchen

only for the hard core

blue smoke twists off the end

of three cigarettes gathering in layers.

It pays to be short if breathing is necessary

while stealing date nut bread

and its cool cream cheese spread.

Black and blues neatly concealed

special cut glass sparkles, table shines

lifting porcelain reflections

to the sublime laid to rest for us on

crisp pure white table clothes.

Don’t fear spilled gravy

or deep red cranberry sauce

we eat to live here and live to eat

and afterward

black and blues disappear

as red knuckles wring out years

of excess pain

bleaching and rinsing,

starching and ironing

the linens, all of them

layered in tissue paper flat

put away in dark drawers

that smell of freshness.

Sitting around with coffee, cigarettes and cards

the women argue over what really happened

none of the men could handle it

my uncle, the youngest son

in his 68 blue corvette

drove me to the pines of Mount Grace

showed me things pure and true

like spruce seedlings starting themselves

in the cool moist safe place of his refuge

just before he moved out West for good.

February 23, 2011

Bittersweet Blindside

Overhead dim heaviness

hunkers handsomely draped

around hilly shoulders

all the land white wedding

ready, sparkling and pristine

no sharp edges today

all rounded corners

all dampened and silenced

no point in fighting it

something seeps into

soul system and weeping

would be right at a time like this

but all is static and dry

silently falling hope fleeing

like the dwindling woodpile

unnamable everything both

OK and all wrong

not OK and not all wrong

what does this blindside see

that lies without form or distinction

so silently covered in this

beautiful bittersweet moment

that lingers in the atmosphere

like the sultry wood smoke layering

its dusky hues in the

sparkling relief?

February 2, 2011

Extravagant

Extravagant is what gifts should be

Those lovely extras beyond the usual

functional necessaries

of a lean self-allowance.

The special chocolate or hand made salt from afar

the golden bees wax candles that smell of the hive

the fine design, the greatest of the small satisfactions

of still being alive

the catapulted sensory lift 

from the impacts of time, gravity

wear and tear

and mostly, of the mundane

In a world of plastic and polyester resin basics

extravagance is anything natural, elemental

non-composite, non-genetically modified

unprocessed, unfortified, unadulterated

In my world of paycheck to paycheck 

and hey, I’m grateful to have one,

extravagant is anything beyond my monthly bills.

Its the quality upgrade or the handmade, homemade

of extravagant hours submerged in creative productivity.

Extravagant will be that row of garlic next summer

bending in the breeze long after frozen fingers

and stiff joints packed them into their little graves

covering them for the long winter’s night

with their blankets of leaves.

Extravagant is the sensory world

when attention is grounded

the deep cleansing breath

the long sighing stretch

the simple life well attended.

The extravagant life is the antithesis

of mental poverty and superficial wealth.

It is what is fine, sublime, beautiful, comfortable, natural.

It is the luxury of time and presence

and the richest of it inherent in simply seeing, hearing, feeling 

and smelling the natural world and making something of it.

November 22, 2010

Personals

Websites for hunting and fishing

for lovers, for love

faces, images brought forward

self projections, protections,

multiple exposures

Who, what are you really

behind the shimmering

mirage of distance

Silicone valley of love

lies just further than here

Monsters can be blocked

profiles pulled for invisibility

but you have to show

yours to see theirs

available for everyone

to view, imagine, compare, capture, save

In order to be introduced, seen, picked, loved

a virtual promenade – alone and out of context

no proud mother walking by your side

helping you pick, unabashedly telling of your excellencies

allowing you to prance proudly or humbly

in the dress that smells of cotton that has hung on the line

sweet breeze wrapped round you

displaying a hint of your true nature

No, now it means settling for two dimensions

and a lot of imagination

a conversation begins

lots of reading between the lines

without the reptilian wisdom

of reading body language, eye contact,

without checking the chemistry

without the mystery of divine intervention

We tell ourselves we’re free

to make more conscious choices

intellect over sex appeal

What kind of love comes

of the small minded self-will

that would feed someone

all of your best lines

all of your needs and vulnerabilities

so they can exquisitely tell you

what you have needed to hear

all of your life

words to fill the vacuum

of your soul

fill the deep abyss

of a heart with cracks

where love leaks out like a sieve

and beneath it lies

an ocean desert mountain

of longing, longing, longing

even while you are telling them

that you’re cool and have a great full life

and don’t really need anyone

The love void, soul hunger

only really filled by loving

self and others when trying to get by

during the inevitable lapses

of forgetfulness that we are always embedded

inseparable from Divine love.

Cyberwords important yes

but like drugs – no replacement for real life

or the love of family, friends,

fools and mysterious strangers

on line hunting and fishing

hoping to get caught hook line and sinker

netted by a great love

as each hopeful soul leers out

like cruising an adoption registry

from an animal rescue

yes there’s a few bad habits

but ultimately still loveable...

lonely late night hours spent

nauseated by the lecherous dirt bags

or titillated by the peacock like display

of all those great catches, trophy lovers

and wondering which of these am I...

For fifty-nine dollars for three months

Hope flickers and disappointment looms

in the potential for delivery by the great universe

from beyond the little circle that I live in

of that next great love

that isn’t meant to be this way.

9/19/2010

and again...

What is it that we really want?

...besides to be held and touched
in a way that anchors soul to earth
and not to be sabotaged, betrayed again
in the pursuit of a love life, a loving life,

no love knife flick of the wrist
casting off the dingy in the big rough waters
while you with your motor that always starts
or a perfect wind are already miles under way

and me, an expert by now in negotiating choppy seas
with only my own sheer will for oars will make
the best of being set free

totally free again to rebuild, redirect, resurrect
the holy mast of humble new beginnings.
Ever the beginning student of love - life...

October 2011

Pieced Together

So many years of driving
winding roads through
moose country blinding snow
storm squalls every
Wednesday night
only the guardrails
to keep you centered
nevermind the lines
these faded boundaries
invisible now.

All those years of weekly visits
followed by weekly phone calls
weekend workshops, week long conferences,
after years of graduate school,
years on the table breathing into feelings
phantom possessions
inviting the furies
to unleash their bitter tongues
then surprising them with healing
heart melting words and tones
and welcoming them back home.
Finally free.

June 2011

Making History

This much I know:

The Government (or the financially powerful behind the Government) here in America and Elsewhere, creates a Mythic Story in place of the Real Story when it needs to, to get what it wants.

They tell it to the Press.

The Press reports it as a real story, over and over.

The Press engages pundits and bystanders to report and debate the Mythic Story as if it were the real story.

There is an absence of questioning the story.

There is a culture of don’t ask, don’t ask.

The Mythic Story becomes history.

The Mythic Story becomes the platform of a mythic foreign policy for decades – for ever.

Politicians and intellectuals talk the talk and walk the walk of the Mythic History because they are indoctrinated by powerful allies with fabricated or spun insider “validated evidence”so they will operate with the Mythic Story as the true story worth defending at all costs.

There is a culture and practice of intimidation, out-casting, marginalization or elimination for anyone who effectively disturbs the status quo in any way.

The Myth makers tell the Press when to be silent and the Press then ignores any coverage of questioning or alternative opinions that could gain traction in dismantling the Mythic Story.

When a threatening challenge to the Mythic Story arises and gains a concerning level of traction, typically distractions like other moral dramas with a loaded emotional charge with either a unifying or divisive nature are broadcast as the next big story, obsessively repeated all day for several days or a week while simultaneously avoiding any mention of any other actual Real Stories or else a new Myth is created and sold to the Press in order to “handle it”.

Any catastrophe is a major boon time for the Government or the Powerful to get the things done on their agendas that may only be accomplished during the secrecy afforded by the world being consumed by the news and emotional reverberations related to the catastrophe.

To that end, Governments or the Powerful have a History of occasionally creating catastrophes when needing the benefit of secrecy, evasion and situational manipulation as well as the benefit of its either unifying or divisive impact on the society (whatever is most useful to the operation at hand) and this kind of evil is beyond the imagination or consideration of the average good person, making it unquestionable and ideal for Mythologizing.

This has probably been going on since the beginning of human time.

What’s harder to know, what I’ll maybe never know and will always be curious about is – What are the Real Stories?

May 2011

Manic Spring

High waters and still raining

squishy saturated earth

drowned worms    robin’s delight

Dormancy breaks slowly

over weeks of dark clouds

postponing the manic frenzy

of an all too short growing season

Even still, a young man on fire

has been up nights writing a new

constitution, rewriting will come later

ideas flooding swiftly with urgency 

to reright the country

he so loves, heal the only broken

mother and father he knows

no God to trust

no time for lust even

No one gets it.

He’s speaking in light speed fragments

and each one sparks clusters of revelations

critical to the revision

We talk of the pros and cons

of medicine meant to bring down

the idle speed enough to straighten

the thoughts and lengthen sentences

to allow paragraphs with coherence

so maybe he could have a good meeting

with the president

so maybe he could get this book out 

to the world so the good 

clueless people who mean well 

but just dont get it could see 

and things could be righted...

And we both fear the possibility

of the loss of it all, the silencing, extinguishing

of this passionate, well intended enthusiasm.

If he takes the medicine,

if he falls asleep it will take too long.

It won't be written.

While everyone slumbers in their anesthesia

tricksters will continue to ravage 

the integrity of his beloved 

this most magnificent 

and beautiful country

nobody is righting it and

in 2012 the World is said to end.

May 2011