I Like My Bike

I like my bike

I’m goin on strike

against my car

gonna see how far

my bike can take me

before you waste me

cause you’re on your phone

while you move your ass

with your big four wheels

and your expensive gas

I’ll be ridin my bike

my b b b b bike

in the rain, in the night

legs aching with the might

looking straight at you

and you hate my sight

cause I’m turning left

and you hate to wait

but I’m a bandit on my bike

passing cars and runnin lites

to my next meeting

and my next date

and if I leave a little early

then I won’t be late

I can take my bike

my b b b b bike

I’m goin on strike

against my car

won’t you join me

out on the tar

and take it back

from those big ol’ cars

the road is ours

you might steal my bike

but its not special

its got a basket and a lite

its just a simple bike

I like my bike

my b b b b bike

I like to hike

but its faster on my bike

and kinda fun on my bike

I learned to peddle

through the turns

I wear no helmet

so kill me if you hit me

that way it won’t hurt long

It doesn’t take my cash

I might pay

with road rash

no plans to crash

but accidents happen

I watch my ass

I know the code

I’ll let you pass

I like my bike....

I like my b b b b bike

I know its queer

to roll my pants up

so the chain won’t

fuck the dance up

as I rattle and roll

the breeze in my hair

oh so grey now

I don’t care now

I’m still on strike

and goin’ far

without my car

I like my bike

I like my b b b b bike

the seat still hurts

the hill still kills

I squeeze in spurts

breathing harder still

my chest slam heart fills

pounds my head and ears

only got three gears

I’m still outta breath

hafta walk it to the crest

but its OK

I still like my bike

I like your bike

I like to see you

on your bike

lets stay on strike

lets do our bikes

I like my bike

I like my b b b b bike

I like my bike.

Windstorm

A wild wind blows here

through the empty pockets

of my soul, dogs howling

ghosts walking in the dark

every bang a stranger

at the door of fear

knocking loose every

unthatched idea precariously left

hanging leaving hollows

of whistling, rattling space

tattered dreams all strewn about

come daylight’s vision.

Hints and Glimpses

I don’t know about you

but I have these

strange moments

hints and glimpses

of the something else

the great unknowable

as if Gaia or God

dreams us up

we exist constellated

into substance

for a quick minute

in the stretch

of the infinite timeline

much like our own

ideas or children

consciousness manifest

in substance

Someone dreams

of walking and talking

things happen

dream thinking they are awake

Someone walks and talks

things happen

I say “You are awake,

I’m here, this IS happening.”

He looks deep into me

and asks in earnest

“How can you tell for sure?”

Somewhere a wise old lizard

hundreds of years old

crawls through the dream time

of a long life, perhaps many lifetimes

I too can recall some times

back then back when

things seemed so

real, certain, fixed

many lifetimes ago

The best and worst

of times all just ideas

in my mind pictures

in boxes with some fading

and tint changing

old tapes movies

of us back then

documentation

life really happened

as remembered and forgotten

Other life times of

wars, betrayals and loyal heroics

lovers, children, fortunes lost 

and remade days and nights 

of heaven, hell 

and numbed indifference

a dream to the demented

or the built in forgetter

inherent in human nature

allowing repetition repetition

disappeared in the day’s doings

re-minded, re-membered

re-lived in reveries

flashbacks, dreams

“All the live long day”

shifts in consciousness

hints of glimpses

walking and talking

the cosmic dream of real life

lives us.

Equinox

At times between midpoints
not sure if I'm coming or going
staying or leaving, feeling or knowing

welcoming or dreading
all hangs in the balance
time flowing into the next fullness

dying or birthing, dying or birthing
be still, be still while the world turns
on its axis in its little orbit

its homey little pocket of the universe
I imagine its vastness is endless
unable to comprehend any edges

time and space dissipating perhaps
to the nothing of starless darkness
where no light shines yet

billions of years later -
Returning now back toward life
local time lapses this musing

like a swirling eddy spiraling off the edges

of the strong current a digression away

from the inevitable entropy

the natural progression of every summer
summoning the next big push of life energy
spent and the next time out of every winter

each fall asking - So how’d it go
How did you live, what did you sow?

Do you weep or will you reap

enough to get you through?
And if you make it through another winter
another ending, another change

would you do it all the same?
All this reflective mental game
one more hand to play

a house of cards 

in the absence of blowing winds

before dreamy sleep

or balmy walks in fields of wheat
or snow so deep

my heart to keep

her universal primal beat

keeping time in a treasure chest

marked time moves on – it doesn’t rest.

Burb Kiss

There in suburbia

space is bigger

so walking between

cars in the expensive

healthy food store

parking lot seems oddly

forced by the tight rows

of spatial efficiency

a man of practiced

unnoticability sits

idling in his nearly

invisible suburban

car looking more

and more nervous

as I pass between

the rows of cars

toward him

a couple of rows

of anticipation

bringing us closer

there will be mere inches

when I pass his car door

with my shopping bags

heading to my trusty

metal steed.

What if I turn on

my heals fling open

his car door

and kiss him

really, really kiss him

and look very deeply

into him holding

his gaze so he sees

that he has been seen

his channel locks

starting to spring open

then suddenly

I am in my own

innocuous gold sedan

catching the green light

out of there

just barely escaping

all that is suburban

Axis of Evil

 Tired and complacent working

too hard to lift my head up

speak up, push up against it.

Its just how the two percent

of the world’s wealthiest

people want it

running governments

and business and guns

dictating the use of resources

creating little wars

to settle scores 

mafia-like familia tantrums

seems inescapably, densely complex

powerful, uninhibitable

invisible yet omnipresent

running the whole show backstage

while we act out the rage

of our lives, working, worrying,  

showing up for our day

jobs, for life

or for war and death

taking our orders

from boardroom generals

oblivious and out-resourced

unable to keep up even

as we see we are

losing the freedom, the liberty

to edit the script

rewrite the lines, alter destiny.

But why worry?

Yin to Yang. Yang to Yin.

May take 300 years - maybe less.

In nature it is never

high noon or midnight

longer than that moment -

a reassuring and terrible thought.

Who knew

Woman with child busses it
bag on back, stroller folded
toddler stands on seat
sweating it, sweating zipper open
no where to put coat
no extra hands to hold anything.

She tells toddler stories
of back home of their
someday home, home for now
in her back pack, in their hearts
in her dreams
there is a field with a brook
on the way to the school
a store on the corner
a bed and a room for each of them.

Who knew when she left home
at 15 it would be like this?
She imagined the party house
party life where everyone stayed
and hippie moms made healthy food
vegan yogic music magic
ends with bust, eviction.
The bus squeaks and rocks
its grey and timeless, like
it will always be like this.

Who knows maybe someday
the dream house, the husband
the golden retriever and chickens
the Subaru and library story hours
enough socks, some new friends
skin that’s not too tight
no more jumping out of fast moving cars
no more blue lights, night sweats
nightmares – toddler offers
drunk woman in old clothes
cheese cracker – it’s their stop.

The Right Clothes

Wear the right clothes and no one knows
right away how far you've gone
say the right things and enough truth rings
right into left brain making sense rein
down muddy truth but nothing you can sink
your teeth into overnight and better not
to investigate or shed light on what wasn't right
when we've got the left hopeful and everyone dopeful
and momentum chugging downhill fully freighted
a few elated mostly related clans and blood brothers
who's druthers are the free expression of economics
without any ethical or moral constraints
that's the first amendment we bloody well die for
no amends necessary to those harmed their sacrifices
are glorified as the poor boys and girls like lemmings
over the cliffs go to their demise group mind despite
what's in front of our eyes
Someone said conspiracy theory can't be right
they're too stupid to do it right without fucking it up
so then Conspiracy is the word
that lays the turd to bury with the dead
and words are worked like the right clothes to cover
the rotting evil corpses of the military economic corps
that fears no evil, sees no evil, hears no evil
exchanging words to turn life upside down, make heads spin
the other direction in the Northern Hemisphere as they are flushed
with fiction with excellent American and BBC diction
the Western world is so full of itself the buttons are popping
off it's shirts and there's still money to be made and there's still
enough votes bought and paid for to keep nice coats hanging
in the family closet where one nation under God decisions are made
and right to your face they'll tell you
they Will go to any lengths to kill
health care, and kill work programs and education
because the taxes are killing us
don't you know and you don't know what you'll never know
just how out there it has all gotten
that politicians in blue suits and white collars
gave the nod to rough shod reasons to go to war
to look too stupid to be able to speak proper sentences
too incompetent to save 1600 people from a hurricane
all the gray and blue suits getting busy signals
dismal plays of avoidance impossible to imagine
evil could be that intentional, systematic
and that controlled, well dressed, well oiled.

Melted Rubber

Company is coming and the house
needs cleaning for the hostess to be seeming
all intact. She does in fact feel better
when its done and this device is one
that works to move her when one to many
weeks have passed and the miles of piles
have outlasted her will to rise
to the occaission of cleaning and still
she'd distract herself with some other obsession
her wasted time could fill miles or mountains with little
to show for all she did without the pressure
of having guests to bring all the pressure to bear
somewhere to start and then lost in the miles
of piles hours pass in the rediscovered
archives of life, the unfinished,
the way laid till there is time
or presence of mind to tackle that task
that note, that filing, that bill paying
that sorting of images, that review,
that research, that phone call, that thought
it is a time of reckoning
no shoulds, no coulds, the time now is of will
or won't it goes in the kill pile
or the do it now or next pile and after awhile
there's a need for food and coffee
and a trip to the store for preparing
the meal to be shared and returning home
a little late to be starting the meal and still
needing to vacuum and clean away the last
of the clutter which takes precedence over
prepping the decadence and half way through
the vacuuming the fringe on the rug gets caught
in the twisting spinning brush and there's
that nauseating smell that she knows all to well
means the last belt in the house has broken
the vacuum has spoken - forget it -
who were you really kidding anyway?
But progress was made this day
with the miles of piles and now
to the cooking and the emptying
of all the concerns and hassles
to make room for smiles and the reception
of guests and so the meal is in motion
and the house smells savory for the first time
in recent history and evening approaches
the warm light not highlighting the unvacuumed
after all...thank goodness it broke when it did
to break the chain of obsessing on the endless
self-centeredness of not good enough
of the multi-generational compensation
of old shame resolved, redirected
and repackaged by way of cleaning
at the expense of being available to be
human and just simply among friends.

The Things They Carried

Mind draws blank hours
before therapy anxiety towers
giant walls between facts and feelings
talking of things unanticipated reeling
in lives and lines of history, herstory
where does it all come from this allegory
carried 24/7 unbeknownst to thine own eye
Secrets carried, secrets promised
till the day they die expressed
as blown out knees, ruptured discs, fatty liver
busy lives, busy minds, self-neglecting awesome giver
guilt says you don't deserve any better
denial says you can't remember why your guilt was sent
Its just been that way forever - forever.

In meditation open throat she cries
it springs from some unknown place,
no lies no knowledge of it
and no catching the throat
not making it stop
the way she usually does won't
hurt a thing, really
its scary at first and then a marvel
to behold and the same with shows of tenderness
she'll travel to the place of emptiness
that fills with acute longing
or when the native drum beats while singing
tears interrupt her strong voice keening smoothly
till all that is carried is handed over soothed
by vibration cleansing and clearing never nearing
knowing for sure if what is carried there
is hers or theirs or if the witnesses too
are bearing each drum beat airs all knowing
carrying each heart another mile beyond burden
till all singing brings on dancing
feet moving all transforming
all that was carried shape shifts
to spirit feasting on slights and griefs
till only ecstasy and communion carries each
to the great beyond again.

Unscripted

Living life live
moving all moments
into how it is now
mind opened free of past
habits gone like sand
slips through fingers
free of all self-consciousness
completely available
for what does or doesn't come
of anything or anyone.
No pretensions all
possibilities exist within -
the laws of nature
keep every atom in it's orbit
dependably no need to worry
every pattern in nature discernible
to pattern readers
yet the variety of circumstances
brings creative complexity
even lawlessness shows a pattern
predictably unfolding forward
so what chance is there really
of failing so miserably at anything
all that lives, lives till it dies
some wheat lives browning at it's crown
a long, long time - no rains come
and for others the lush green blue
lives for you - for your bread
and cows as you walk waist deep
singing songs from some soul force
forever unscripted that emerges
while musing crossing streams
between fields entering and exiting
the stage, percussive under bare feet
houselights dark, stage spots hot
as she casts out her fiery lines
shaped by distance and intimacy
stories of love and war in her neighborhood
and among her own kin
she spits out stones of damned indignation
sliding into long velvet gloves
of glory day-dreams
like a slide projector changing images
entire gestalts projected out of her
unscripted lines of rhymes, punctuated
by foot stomps and giggles and the occasional
moment of silence as the world hangs turning
strobe lit into solid technicolor
you recall yours too in those moments
unscripted in which the dance of life
unfurled you beyond the shelter
of your porch and that kitchen
those towns people and the dog that sleeps
under the truck into the high
rise job interview, into vows, into apologies,
into love letters. into newscasts, into poetry,
into every choice that is this day
becoming this night becoming this week,
this month, this year, yesterday, last week,
last month, years ago.
Epitaph: unscripted lines left open
lilac drifts by just now.

Fast Pitch 2

She was on her third drink in the second hour
at Charlie's place where it was crowded on the dance floor
and the DJ was bumping steady house rhythm, irresistible
as it was for moving she was still on her stool at the bar
contemplating, wishing and dreading what might or might not
be walking through the door any minute now but she'd lost
track of time after the second drink and was no longer
even hearing those thrusty bass lines, she was in her head
repeating the last conversation they'd had over and over
and so she was almost jolted off her seat when
Mr. Slick slid up behind her, hands on her shoulder
index finger on her lips, looking her over, there was no
fast pitch going on here - the move was already working
the whole dynamic into antilogic love madness, she knew...

There is both

Not enough love
and the kindness of strangers
not enough time
and things taking too long
not enough freedom
and boundaries that are too loose
no end to it
and certain death
not enough money
and I just ate very well thank you
not all of you
and almost enough of you
my emptiness
and my fullness
cold dark spring rain
and warm joyful spring sun
Mom's brain cancer
and stereoscopic radiation surgery
long full stressful days
and short not enough sleep nights
moving all of my stuff again
and sitting still right now
politics, spin and divisiveness
and coming together once in a while
too much bureaucracy
and a need for regulations
endless ways to lose ourselves
and plenty of signs and directions
more than both, duality
and all the in-between.

Pathetic

All of me yearns
aches to stay open
to love

By way of need
is always a path
to love

Resenting so much
need disappearing is the path
to love

Tending to give
too much not enough left
to love

Expecting to be betrayed
my back turned
to love

Tears fall in spring
here's to life other than
to love

This turn of the wheel
the fates find us lost
to love

In a tragic film the Great Actress,
Great Goddess settled for less
to love

"I did what I had to do" - she says
there are no mistakes made
to love

Adored is not loved,
young is too shallow
to love

Love and death
Death and love
Love to death
Death to love
and still I ache
to love

My heart broken early
significant damage
to love

Still love with a limp
struggle to keep up
to love

Frequently fall behind love
miss the bus of love
experience love foreclosure
homeless heart
wanders, wonders
and regardless, here - here is
to love.

Bodymusic

From the contrast

of no touch

and used to it

to the recognition

of all that was missing

registration opens

oceans of deep letting

in as your body presses

the length of mine

hands gliding skin smoothing

rounding rolling muscles

tugging articulations

elbows shoulders hips sinking

into bony hollows

soul doorways to the big

exhale sometimes sighing

moaning breathing into it

no, not sexual yet

sensual all sensual

all senses on

listening in

the tactile kinesthetic world

eyes closed to go

further no more thinking

the world is somewhere

who cares when goose bumps are

rising behind the gentle

glissade of tuned tips hitting

all the right notes

bodymusic entrained

relaxed rhythm

as primal as oceans

and evolutions

of the sun this feeling

of being held and brought home

to these bones safe

and familiar

old new friend

timeless for right now.

Fertile Moon

Full moon fathers follies
fertile women rage
like the swollen spring river
the momentum pushing
laboring women to birth
new babies, new selves
girls become women
ready or not
full moon fertile women hot
and locked in the tower
take their daily walks
broke slipping baby things
into pockets, no one kept
them forever worn in lockets
they are a sheltered scattered lot
some sweet and innocent, some not
some mama instict strong
some Mama stuff severed and gone
so try again and again
phantom baby pain
never goes away
always feels like its still there
so who's crazy, who's lazy
who cares today; some go to jail
some go back to violent lovers
some stay in the tower
till rescued by themselves
many moons later.

Business and Pleasure

That the joy of sex

leads to childbirth wrecks

so many marriages

in the years of carriages

for those who are challenged

with business and pleasure

balanced askew

business weighing down

heavy not much sexy now

lots of frowns around here

unless the heart can steer

past the myriad of lists

and the lover inside insists

and persists to pursue and woo

the diamond hidden away too

precious and wasting its light

because beauty seen right

creates a lust for stealing

moments and looks and feeling

so right and ripe for the taking

dawn sparks love-making

before the kids are waking

and will hear how with tears

love has come with sex and years

of loving diamond hardened strong

and nothing here is really wrong

and business and pleasure

one’s carriage holds together

and the joy of sex

makes all the better.

Restless Soul

Always moving
Nomad woman
there's no place
like home
is where your heart is
sweep the hearth
wash the dishes
return there
after dark
alone
this temple
to thine own self
be true
a construction
an assemblage
of moves
Gypsy on the fly
portable alters
truck full, pots clanging
plants, cat, me
adjusting again
finding North for my pillow
each time
big mother E
is where I'll lay
in the end
final rest home
nomad soul
will move on.

Spring in Burlington

Spring in Burlington
blossoms and fragrance
so beautiful it’s painful

pent up deliberation
warmth and deliverance
so urgent, so delightful

thawing confusion
unfurling destiny dance
so rich with potential

growth is vocation
a calling, a romance
so certain, so natural

green field explosion
clean new expanse
so forgiving, so impartial

Spring in Burlington
maybe one more chance
so opening, so hopeful.

Wait it Wasn't Real Leather

Those first cowboy boots at about fifteen had a stacked heel
nicely tooled, deep brown, but wait they weren’t real
leather, they were just like me – all persona

Like Naugahyde back in the 60’s and 70’s
like Frank Zappa’s plastic people
it had all gotten so unreal, so unnatural

That one month stay in the psych ward in ‘72
they had real leather in the arts and crafts room
I laced cigarette cases and fashioned myself
a large brown leather satchel
I started to get real

It was just an initiation
that same year what got real was so unreal
I still can’t figure it out all these years later
But I do know the difference
between being it and wearing it

Wait – I don’t want to tell this same story now
maybe its not real leather means nobody died
that year – no sacrifices had to be made
for me loved or outfitted or seated
in reality – comfortable and styling. A good idea!

But – he is dead its true though it seems unreal
It’s a weight, a secret and a mystery that I hold
and I’m not waiting to meet him in Heaven or Hell
the scene was faked and they never will tell
My suspicions don’t fit with the story I was told.

It broke my heart, and nothing seemed real
dissolving blow by blow - no love left in me
I took your bodies for your company
and gave you mine if you had lines,
till the trading deficit left a poverty
that made faux leather boots seem fine and haughty.

No wonder people climb the material ladder
trying to get back up
but I’d rather one nice broken in real thing
I’ve learned to work and cry and laugh and sing
I’ve been fooled and stung and loved and blessed
since then a son and much of life has come and gone
I’m not a cowgirl, those aren’t my boots
no need to blow it all up any bigger than it really is,
these poor old lines are fine enough, they’re really mine.

Uninhabited Woman

Empty.
Running on empty.
The lights are on
and she’s orbiting Epsilon
but nobody’s home
her cell circuits roam
she’s on the take
on the make, all lies
taking you in
with her distant eyes
Empty.

Running on empty.
She’s a goddess
She’s a star
Whatever you say she is
right you are
a muse, a nymph, a mystery
she’s running from her history
her body paradoxical
show stopping sexy
amazing, metaphorical maybe
for you
but for her
it is a distant hunting ground
seen from a ridge
through too much time
to make it out or bridge
from body to heart
head to toe
uninhabited woman
no way to know
how to live in her skin
or be warmed by the sun
or be loved in safety
or to have run and won...
Not yet.

Seeing in the Dark

The attraction to photography
is about its reversed paradoxes
the negative is what you strive for
a good negative makes a good positive
these concepts were lost on me, metaphorically
till recently...
hanging out there a long time
you see that you can see in the dark
that it too has information
that can register as helpful and orienting.
We strive for having details in the shadows
a little something in the clear thin parts
of the negative.
One of my favorites is that you need
a dark cloth to see
to focus with the 4X5
too much light, normal light –
and you can’t see to focus at all
and with the 35mm you really
can’t focus well in the dark...
I love shooting at night
and learned to give myself
depth of field
to focus by knowing
rather than seeing
Its stuff like this
that taught me how to survive
the impossible logic
of my complicated family.
Delivered by a visiting mailman
a stack of the undeliverable
a new world of perception
arrived suddenly the year the music died.
I needed to make friends with the dark
because that’s where I lived for a time,
eclipsed.
It wasn’t that I was locked in the cellar for years
to live like an animal by my crazy parents exactly
but there was the month in the psych ward
and being grounded for a year and a half
for trying to escape my entrapment
up on the mountain at Field Stone Farm
which says just how fertile that place wasn’t
growing up an oxymoron
with alcoholic annihilating sadist
shadow masculine
and the requisite passive aggressive feminine
not what I respected, expected
in my coming – of age.

I came to having walked around entombed
in the fortress of myself for years and years.
From behind the polished ground glass and hard metal body
I could meet you, tolerate my proximity to you
have some control over how it would look
how things would develop between us.
I could handle seeing you in two dimensions.
I could start to see what was really going on
but my images lacked emotion
had a flatness, a detachment
that made it something other than art -
which requires feeling.
I loved
the technical aspects
machine printing...processing
the magic of chemistry
in tanks, trays and in my blood
customizing titrations for the right effect...
got me by for the next dozen years or so...
and then it all stopped working...
Light, dark, chemistry, mechanics,
all paradox and false imagery for a while.

Years later it’s a different world.
Heart opened, self restored, revised
strength and knowing
in touch, listening, vibrational fields.
I still love the light, the textures,
the raw beauty of the physical world
am all the more curious
about the dynamics of proximity
the movement between souls
between times in life
dancing the cycles of the year,
seeking only love and truth.
Freedom is to move about and among.
Eye to eye, seen and seen, known and known
selective internal armor
only when necessary, not all the time...
Seemingly secure and self possessed
Secretly to this day preferring to walk about at night
Inconspicuous, quiet, less stimulating, less invasive
leaving more room to enter and perceive the world
compared to the bright busy light of day
that is just so full of itself...
so exposing, illuminating, of everything.

Love You To Death

Love you to death darling, Promise!

Death to you love, Cheers!

Some love death, difficulty, discord....

not much left for love life

the star of your own death-life production company

a cult of the gothic neopathetic...

Long live cutting flesh and malnourished bones

rotting teeth under beautiful new caps

face botoxed to kill off the nervy lines of pain

pain erasers essential for this cult of beauty

Beautiful death, beautiful pain.


Love you to death darling, promise

there’s no room for you to live with my love

my love deadly, never leaving you ever...

Don’t bother trying to run honey...

you can’t out run this love

that keeps wraps on you

and has your back.

Death to you love, Cheers!


Your deadly love killing me daily

killing off whatever I would or could be

so you can be in your love cult with me

loving to the point of obliteration,

out of obligation so as not to offend

those who raised us to love and honor commitment...

I love you to death darling, Promise!

Our love feasts infused with unintended poisons,

no rage, no ruffled feathers, no resentments

look at what a great couple we have always been

and will always be, right darling?

We’ll consume each other’s damned, sweet offerings

our self - neglect invisible behind facades of looking good

we’ll be cheery and polite as we cut

each other down to bite-size bits

to maintain the status quo

the hours, days, weeks and years roll by

neither of us ever really lived

but we loved each other to death

didn’t we darling? Cheers.

Possession 1/09

Possession

You come
dark as the night
bright as the rising sun
looking to instigate, incubate
seeking and seeding psychic change
open up the mind gates
via spontaneous passion

and pose the question
framed in a memory
“I remember what you said got you to stop -
you said it was when it just wasn’t fun anymore.”

And you’re thinking, hoping
maybe this time you have finally arrived
at this realization for yourself,
that the last couple of times
were definitely not fun
that this shit is getting old
and you’re getting to old for this shit...

Possession is 4/5ths of the law.
Possession requires exorcism.
Possession is how tight
that complex holds you
till you negotiate
fighting and surrender.

Even though this has happened over and over
since the beginning of time
it’s still like the first fight between lovers.

Addiction is complex
complex is possession
Add- iction
the kind of adding that gives for a while
then takes away till you’re used up
not just empty but in soul debt

a complex mathematics
of self annihilation
then when it’s taken everything
or taken enough for now
enough again this time...

Not adding that thing
gives more and more.

Complex – exorcism
breaking the spell of possession
in the worst cases may take extreme measures.
Life as you know it may come to an end
but often by now it already has.

New shoots and leaves appear
poking up out of the shit pile
or the smoking embers.
That’s a fact of life,
as long as you are still alive
and not currently dying.

Sometimes it’s really simple
and sometimes quite mysterious.
It’s always the silver bullet of truth.

Perhaps it was the prayers of the old women, your ancestors
lighting votives every day for the stricken. For you.

It may become your own
obsessive prayers, new steps, new everything
using the opposite hand for all mundane tasks
brain retraining, rewiring, new habits
so when the head says “to the left my brotha’s to the left...”
well heeled feet go right this time.

Complex. A captivating entity
with its own protective defenses,
bent on keeping itself alive
mistaking itself for the real you,
and that part of you thinks it can only live
the way the complex spins it.

All can be going very well
and suddenly you are aware it has happened
realize you were just caught up
possessed by innocent invisibles-
a certain light of day
the smell in the air, the season
the way the forbidden lover
tilts their head and holds your gaze
the music, the jazz
entrainment, hypnosis...

we join engine and caboose
because now suddenly one plus one
makes no sense
and all that you’ve worked for
is instantly cut loose
till a part of you that’s seen it all before
remembers how it’s going to go
heart whispers “NO!”
and the ancient reptile at the lowest seat
in the back of the great theater
grumbles...mumbles “that’s enough...”

This wise old turtle speaks in low subtle tones
and that complex is always in a big hurry
wants what it wants
and what it wants
is always so urgent.

Part trickster extraordinaire -
may have even saved your ass before -
but the next thing you know
it’s loose in the hen house of your soul
and so good at distraction and ruse
smoke and mirrors obliterating
all concerns of any self deception
and concealing from you the theft
of your own golden eggs
and the old subtle wisdom
that you left in your haste
and keeps getting over on you
till some part of you realizes
that you’ve just been robbed
while you were mesmerized by the
I wants of that wily player
that is also you.

When trickster sleeps
as we all must do
well heeled feet having practiced
go right this time
to a safer place, a different space.

Meanwhile, that Complex feels
and acts like a disappointed
hundred some odd pound little kid
feels like its gonna fall apart
and for spite throws the full blown tantrum,
still wants what it wants right now
like the stubborn wayward child that it is.
It can’t let go, obsesses and won’t be redirected...

It hates those well heeled feet
It makes such a scene
that it’s hard not to get caught up in it,
and give in to it, to sooth
it’s seemingly inconsolable raging
only to find out that it settles right down
when given what it wants but the price we pay
for cheating ourselves out of real sustenance
is poison and emptiness – and so we love
our children and ourselves to death
and hope trickster will wake up soon
so we don’t have to see it or feel it
because we don’t know how else to do it.

The bad parent part of ourselves says hurtful things,
does violence to the beloved/wretched thing,
maybe tries to kill you off
but not have it really look that way
by failing to protect you
or setting up dangerous situations.
The good parent part still loves you,
knows that you’re just a child
and patiently contains those big scary feelings
and consistently redirects you
to do the next right thing:
take a nap, eat something healthy,
sweat at something constructive,
till the energy is spent,
makes you do your chores
and your homework
does their best to raise up
a well healed self.

So - while trickster sleeps or eats
or is otherwise enchanted with itself
the old reptile turtle parent part of yourself
annoyed but unphased
takes you by the hand or the scruff of the neck
to a meeting, to therapy, to a healthy friend
to a warm sunny rock
or if it’s raining,
takes shelter under a protective ledge
listening, watching, meditating
and eventually it shifts!

In the light, it’s alright again
and it’s like it never happened
like another life time
a different person, different planet.

The paradoxical truth is: that you –
even after all that you have fucked up
are worthy of life
of being conscious
that beauty does balance the ugly
that spring ends the winter
dawn ends the dark night
that love heals pain
the math gets simpler
you become more whole
more at peace
more alive -
then - you can keep it simpler.

Complexes fade with inattention
unwatered they dry up.
If you don’t enact the spell
you don’t call the complex into being.
If you find yourself already in it
just step back out
come out from behind the curtain,
leave the levers, smoke and mirrors
and admit who you really are.

The spell is the complex,
the child and the parent
are just the child and the parent.
Break the spell.

Water your heart and soul
let well heeled feet watch your steps
catch the lie, listen loud and wait
for the low slow cadences
of your own old wisdom
and really live before you die.

All Boats are Sinking 2008

All Boats Are Sinking


All boats are sinking
everyone is dying
all the time
all bets are off
everyday the sun sets
we’re all going down
all planes are landing
or crashing
gravity and death
always do what they do
drunk at the bar
numb in our cars
a regatta of the broken hearted.
All hearts are sinking
and some days
my heart sinks with them
down and down and down
breathing lower and lower and lower
past the tears
past the tightness in my chest
my gut
my sexual place
my feet
down further
into the deep subterranean place
that awaits
till everything previously known
and believed in has fallen away.

Coming back up
it is never midnight forever,
just for that moment)
I consider
sinking down into a hot bath
steam rising, tension lifting
and relaxed, refreshed
sinking down into your arms
down into you
the lushness of sinking
into the perfect nest of my bed
of sinking into sleep
into dreamtime
into nothingness
into everything.

Blue Hour

Its election season

the big money is swinging

heads turning this way and that

the blue light

of TV’s flashing

blips of spin

strobing its secret

subliminal code

into living rooms

bedrooms and bars

around the world

all hours of the day and night

blurring my senses

as my bodymind entrains itself

to that strobing pulse

I come down

into nether sleep

then suddenly realize

after hours of mindless possession

that I can’t stand

the weight of the cat on my legs

one more minute

can’t stand

one more senseless observation

of the he said “she said what she said

because he said what he said

someone else said that she said”

even though the speech writers

for her fund raisers

say what she says

and she says it

stay on message

stay on message

stay on message

the reporters saying too much

about what was said

not reporting what happened

the real deal is eclipsed

vanished in partisan hyperbole

in full view, in hot studio lighting

in too much make-up

histrionic rhetoric ushers in

the blue hours of consciousness

and the part of the message

spun over and over

strobing flashes of light and sound

effectively bluing out

all natural thoughts

all questions and curiosity

till finally tossing off the cat

and turning it all off

the TV blue

the lights

the chatter

feeling numb and irritable

in desperate need

of an attitude adjustment

I go about

the dependable rituals

of bathing in candled moon light

sipping the muses mead

eating two of Santa’s cookies

making amends to the cat

praying for a wisdom

a will to intervene

that is loving and helpful in light

of our collective

self-centered stupidity

that will help us see it as worth while

to confront our own short-sightedness

amend our corruptions

and enable us to find

the resources and fortitude

to work our way through

these difficult blue times

of a strange dream

we can’t wake from

followed by the insomnia

of another long restless night

awaiting clear morning light

with its pinker yellower hues

a new day begins

let’s skip the morning news

and rejoice that there are still birds

and some milk for our coffee

as we head out

into the living room or the world

trying to focus on the tasks at hand

in a world where politicians

balk at taking a solid stand

and if they do they are marginalized

distorted, destroyed by the strobing blue 

lights till bored by lies aimed more

at leaving us annoyed and resigned

than outraged - they disappear

back into the void of forgotten history

and those left talking the talk

might as well be the one’s left running

and voting is picking

the lesser of two evils

if there is one

or the favorite darling

of the last two puppets dangling

angling with our hopes

and let’s face it

they see us as dopes,

duped and doped

that’s how we roll

that’s how we vote

if we do 

and so it goes

in these blue hours

of American history.

Coffee 2006

Coffee

Post butter making
there’s no cream
for today’s coffee
just the thin skim
watery grey milk.

Its like the coffee
politely accepted
at the home
or campsite
of strangers
dreaded then unexpectedly
much enjoyed.

Complacency 2007

Complacency


In my oppression
I am tired and complacent
working too hard
to lift my head up
speak up, push up against it.

At times the oppressor
the two percent of the world’s wealthiest
people running governments
and business and guns
dictating the use of resources
and creating little wars
to settle scores
mafia-like familia tantrums
seems inescapably, densely complex
powerful, uninhibitable
invisible yet omnipresent
running the whole show backstage
while we act on the stage
of our lives, working, worrying,
showing up for war duty
taking our orders
passively surrendering
losing the freedom, the liberty
to edit the script
rewrite the lines, alter destiny.

But why worry?
Yin to Yang. Yang to Yin.
May take 300 years - maybe less.
In nature it is never
high noon or midnight
longer than that moment.
A reassuring and terrible thought.

Down to the Bone Fall 2008

Down to the Bone

Down to the bone
bereft and alone
no stone left unturned
my heart singed and burned
still beats out its optimism
as eyes look with pessimism
about the possibilities
left for love.

How many times have I given up
on looking for love, still wishing
it would interrupt
the rhythm of my days, insisting
on itself – after all, no one would
look away from love
but one too many broken hearts
can turn a heart to stone or wood.

Stone endures and wood will burn
still something there that’s solid and warm
after all, still more to learn
some part of me longs to go arm in arm
down streets and through time
not that I can’t go it alone
but it’s a crime to miss out on the sublime
harmonics and timbre of love’s tone.

Down to the bone
bereft and alone
no stone left unturned
my heart singed and burned
still beats out its optimism
as eyes look with pessimism
about the possibilities left for love.

Dreamtime in a Parallel Universe - prose

Dreamtime in a Parallel Universe

In the reverie of writing, its like I’m dreaming it, as if I actually believe in fact it is possible, could be possible to be understood; that the words could fit together in streams of concise consciousness that are understood by everyone, anyone, easily accessible – even if not agreeable and that once awake one would remember the revelations or little tidbits of useful stuff and use it somehow to live, like food eaten, it would be taken in and transformed into what comes next and what’s not useful is let go of and so it goes.

In the reverie of reading Its like I’m dreaming it, as if I experience in fact that its not possible, impossible to be understood, that the words despite their lovely brilliant arrangement, their rhymes and rhythms, everyone nodding along enchanted but the words though concise streams of consciousness are not in fact understood by everyone, anyone, maybe and especially not even me, as I turn each phrase 15, 30 or 90 degrees and it alters the meaning of before and after, the revelations that come or little tidbits of useful stuff were like that time coming down from tripping when Cerise said “Oh God, I can see it all so clearly now – if only I still knew what it was!” And so it is unusable, ungraspable, can’t get it cross that blood brain barrier, dissolves like water running through my fingers I try to hold onto it and despite my best efforts it alludes me, alludes my listener, my reader and so there is nothing useful or nourishing to take in. Like the movie Ground Hog Day where the drama repeats, repeats, repeats and is forgotten. I and the whole human race remember and forget, repeat and forget... The reading part of me says – there, it’s in those journals and note books and history books – unopened, forgotten, I mean really, history’s boring.

The reveling writing part of me says quiet now, quiet, Ok...GO – and from somewhere, comes either truth or distortion depending on the universe I’m in and when I look at it - it can be discerned - but it has to be looked at, heard, attended to – and often, in the reading universe the attention span, mine, yours, ours is too pressed to pay attention.

Jesus said stay awake with me! Won’t anyone stay awake with me?! But no, he was surrounded by readers who drifted off as we do in our reading reveries.... Buddha says awaken to your own true nature, breathe in and know that you are breathing in, breathe out and know that you are breathing out – and sometimes I am in that world and knowing it and next thing I know I’m not. I’m not knowing and have forgotten even this simple pure thing.

Normally after thinking like this for a while – this too is boring and my attention wanes to something in the next stuff of consciousness. All day today – since last night it has troubled me that these are the limits of my attention in either world.


C. H. 1-22-08 Burlington Writers Group at Parima, Burlington, VT

Fifty 2007

Fifty

Fifty feels like the heats turned up on life
so much to do and say about life and so little time
Fifty feels like there’s no room for any bullshit,
just get out of my way, get out of my face
and don’t waste my time
Fifty feels like I’m not settling, I’m not peaceful,
not passive and not depressed
Fifty feels like a betraying body could undermine my plans
and force a hand I didn’t mean to play
Fifty feels like a different planet from thirty
and after 20 years of being clean and sober – at
Fifty I’ve grown up to about 30 now –
and no longer have to be so in-control to prove I’m not out of control
Fifty feels like love’s still possible
and lovemaking is even more divine, more direct, more intense,
more natural than in my 30’s and 40’s
Fifty feels like a devotion to beauty is blooming perpetually
in my senses, gestures, being
Fifty feels like it happened so suddenly
this more salt than pepper hair still startles me when I see it
Fifty feels like its gotta be just right or better or I’m not interested
so I moved my home 4 times this year and my office twice.
Fifty feels like the world is open and I can just go in if I want
Fifty feels like the hard work, the pain and suffering
the competency established in the daily practice of living
affords me some legitimacy and credibility
Fifty feels like I’ve had enough hard time in the school of life
I’m broken in like my favorite pair of boots
Fifty feels like there’s finally some substance, some weight, some gravity
that the laws of physics apply even to me.
I’m not terminally unique or invincible just a regular gal
Fifty feels like it’s OK that it has been what it was and is what it is
and it’s necessary to grieve or be glad for what wasn’t or isn’t and after grieving I’ve been glad to still live and love more
Fifty feels like grasping the fact of my own nature and yours and honoring it and making it all the more so is one of the big mystery keys
Fifty feels familiar with dancing with destiny
and the good and evil actors upon us and within us
and refining our true nature means doing this dance with both discipline and practice to get the moves down just so and then abandoning all that and letting the world music move my heart and soul as it will and trust that even in the dance trance of abandon there’s still consciousness pulsing aplenty
Fifty feels glad for friends who are still older and wiser
Fifty feels OK playing the fool now and then and isn’t mortally wounded by your disapproval anymore

Fifty feels OK playing anything now and then once in a while –
can slip off the regalia, the encumbrances for at least a few minutes here and there
and loves to be invited to play
Fifty feels pretty sure that humans personify God
and that’s where mistakes have been made -
that human minds hearts and souls
channeled the Bible, Koran, Torah, Sutras
and the highest of human beings are indeed
the most direct channellers of human wisdom
but they still convey it through human language
and it suffers from human projections –
but it’s the best and all we have
for archetypal wisdom books to study and reflect on
Fifty feels the truth is always recognizable
whether it contains dread or relief –
it’s like the tumblers of a big lock
all aligning and opening – a clear opening
Fifty has been beyond the horizon
and though it looks like it goes on and on forever
knows it’s just a round ball after all
and if you follow it you come back to right here
Fifty knows that theses are all just ego concerns –
nothing more and that ego concerns are necessary
for living well while incarnated in a body
that still makes use of the world
Fifty knows that when the body
can no longer make use of the world
none of this or that will matter,
and if I can’t let it go as the death road approaches
mercifully dementia will loosen my grip.

Financial Security 2008

Financial Security


I’m not quite broke
and have most of what I need
in debt to meet the gaps
and living week to week
nervous as a bunny
trying to make
enough money

The rituals of work
on a good day
seeds some hope
in humanity
sorting sacred
from profanity
high aspirations from vanity
truth from insanity

While the commercial world spins
deals, seals fates
digitized porn
in the absence of dates
computers interface
communicate, transmit
stimulate, data entry
spreadsheet, spread my legs

what’s my rate?
wanna date?
tell me then-
what’s your credit score?
you can have more
if your lookin’ good
they bleed you less
let me tell you
its expensive to be poor
in the trap
in the vortex
in the death grip of greed...

To meet my basic needs
I have to outsmart
the smart mouths
that tell me
till my ears bleed
what I need
to have a chance
to seem OK, to feel relief
to find romance

that I gotta have this
that I really want this
better fill my cart
better fill my empty heart
give my kids a head start
fill my empty head
fill my empty bed
reward myself with pleasure
work myself to death
starve my soul
ignore my nature
make my money

Hey! Maybe I can
make it smart
make money art
I work for beauty
I work for love
that’s what I treasure
that’s how I measure
that’s how I feel
it’s a spiritual deal
I’m keeping it real
as best I can.

And if it all goes down
and all the banks collapse
from the emptiness of greed
and inflation’s loss of substance
means money disappears
in ether mists of corporate losses
What did you expect?

And when the market is leveled
things will be more real
hunger, thirst and homelessness
will make it pretty clear
which they will use as terror casting
so bail them out in fear.

What if the giant money movers
had to reap what they sowed
they’ve gone to daddy
and cried like babies
about losing their bonuses
and their big profits
should we treat them
like they treat us
if we make a late payment
and raise their interest rates
to the max allowed by law
enjoy the finance charges
then tell them
Oh, by the way you can’t
declare bankruptcy anymore
when your all strapped like this
because wasn’t it you
that changed the laws
so drowning people
could only ever stay under???
Sorry - you don’t get to go home
and reinvent yourself
you gotta drag your ass around
and keep up those payments...
What? Now that we’ve garnished your salary
you can’t pay for food and daycare???

Gee that’s a problem
but you owe us this
money and you earned this
interest rate by being too poor
to pay your bills on time...
Gotcha!
Greedy mother fucker’s
just a gang of instigators
getting rid of regulators
legalized organized crime
should be in jail with no bail
for all they did to undermine
the public good
and the cohesion of the nation.

Anyway,
we’ll either take it on
like grown-ups
and take our medicine ourselves
we’ll get real about our means
and pay our bills at least to the
local businesses we have ties to
cause if we act like them
and there’s no face or name to that
debtor and that loaner
it will feel like it doesn’t matter
if we keep on getting over

So, we’ll make it right
or we won’t
and the world
will keep spinning round
regardless of this mess
and whether we have more or less.

Foreigh Affairs 6/08

Foreign Affairs

The oil derby is on...

and here they are now folks
and comin’ around the bend,
it’s the US with a sizeable lead
when all of a sudden out of nowhere
it’s the European Union,
No! Wait! On the inside rail it’s
China moving up fast
and don’t look now but
here comes Russia closing in,
the US fatigued by her deficit
and a recent round of dirty politics
doesn’t seem to be able to regain the lead...


Pity the little countries
that have oil
or anything else “of interest”.
The Big Boys of the World Banks
and their puppet girls (like Conde?)
set the traps
stage the infidelities
and will divide and conquer,
by mediating the tribal divorces
the natural consequences
of the he said she said,
this one’s in bed with that one...
at home and abroad,
spinning enough drama
so nobody will realize
how they got ripped off
till the next chapter
of history is written.
Now there’s some
foreign affairs for ya.

Civilized nations make
themselves out to be
educated, elegant, refined
free from such gross moral impurity
as we have seen of late
as we agitate the middle east
to weaken cartels
over UN feasts
of feigned disagreement
they poo pooed Iraq
but it was our turn again
because we’ve got the power
and will invest the dollars
without shame
we’ll risk lives
kill civilians to make it so
but they too
like vultures will hover
above those desert sands
looking for deals in tents
that will play out over time
and the countries that hold
what is needed
whether oil or gold
may survive or not
not much has changed
in these primitive times.

Well, regarding this
competition for oil
Wanna bet
that the lofty G8
can’t negotiate
or make do with less
in a civilized manner?

What alignments will
eventually be
made and what will the moral
arguments be
to divide the world
to keep the us and them
differentiated enough
to project shadow enough
to create fear and hatred enough
to feel justified and OK enough
to take theirs.
Or them ours.
It’s all the same
unless its
not all I – Me.
It’s Us - We.

Wanna bet
that in a hundred years
all foreign policy
will be domestic policy
in an ever smaller world
When the ice melts
the land shrinks
the food can’t grow
the fresh water is salty
and we all gotta squish
together like over crowded gerbils
you wanna bet
its gonna be tough
to be civilized
unless we run
a different kinda race.

Human nature will prevail
but my bet is it won’t be pretty
cause its happening right now
be we don’t see it
We’re still all in
in the wrong race
and losing not just our face
but our place
busy little children that we are.
Rigidly focused on the shiny toy
and unable to let go
or see the big picture
of what’s coming
and what could be.
Unless it’s not all I- Me
It’s Us We.

Good People

Want what we have

hate how we get it

on the backs of many

who sweat and bleed

for nothing

that’s how we get

what we need

we can’t afford

to pay a price

that’s not robbing

somebody, somewhere

caught in the mad web

of making ends meet

there’s a split

we can’t help yet

the veil is opaque

the pattern complex

the organized chaos

the choices made for us

the spin that directs us

to want and need what we have

to go into debt

and struggling to pay it

too distracted

to look around

that’s how it goes down

and no one vote we cast

will get us past

this global mega-boss

getting scroogier by the day

Most Americans can’t yet say

When – How did this happen?

We were so on top of our game

but like an uh oh - check mate

we’ve been tamed

we’ve been played

and the rules have been changed

allowing money to make laws

elect puppets, hide evidence

wear down foes

to keep it the same

till the people in numbers

feel enough of the pain

not to just mask it

not to stay lit

but to actually call out

and take care and get fit

and with a feverish pitch

call themselves to order

in towns, cities and states

even though it seems late

to force the players

in the House and Senate

to negotiate

till votes and laws

are the people’s again and

honest is legit

and money and people

are more joined than split

and shared the way

good people can do.

Good people make

deals that are sweet

and care for each other

and it isn’t a bother

and the motivated

may be richer

but not by

robbing or raping

the land or our neighbors

of their oil or whatever

the some bodies everywhere,

caught like most of us

no kidding,

in the mad web

of making ends meet.

Lonely and Longing for You Angel 2008

Lonely And Longing For You.....Angel


I’m lonely in a peculiar kind of way
for a particular kind of attention
I’m so demanding in my tastes
I ask too much, so much.
And when it comes together just right
it’s so satisfying, so good
and it can happen, does happen
but not all the time, not every time.

Like trying to live and work in a creative state -
is there some alchemical mix
of food and drink, light of day,
fragrance, music in the air
of people milling about and of solitude,
of movement of the bodymind and stillness,
of movement through the moods
that brings the change of dynamics?

I’m longing in a peculiar kind of way
to give a particular kind of attention.
Oh..... the necessity of loving
of having a place to put that energy
ask of me what you will
but don’t ask too much
so much of me every time
but yes, sometimes
I do miss wearing my heart on my sleeve
and I do love the spectacle of carrying the torch.

I’ll run with my torch to you – and light your fire
and we’ll run our torches to you and you and you
and the people of the land in relay will not tire
and the words pronounced upon arrival we’d want to inspire
in that peculiar kind of way
and get a particular kind of attention
as we each one grasp the message of the day
and are moved to make things right upon reception.

And making things right is asking so much.
Too much?
Is there some alchemical mix
of food and drink, light of day,
of fragrance, of music in the air
of words and actions that are true
that gives us the heart and conviction
to get things started and keep it right by me and you
Does the mood of fairness require protection?
So fragile a state this better side of us
What angels can we call upon
to help us hold it day and night
this particular state of creative sight
of heart full of might, that falters not
of fear or insight
and helps us hold dear
the victory of that runner with the light
and not mistake the tower of shattered mirrors
as a sign to kill the messenger
during the dark of night...
and to guide that messenger with words of style
surprise, rhythm and delight?

I want to feed and bless those angels
that wear their hearts on their sleeves
that carry torches, lighting fires of desire
and who speaking truth will inspire
more conviction and compassion
move the bodymind and woo the moods
that brings the change of dynamics
the alchemical mix, the creative sight
that wills strength to live and do what’s right.
.
I’m lonely in a peculiar kind of way
for a particular kind of attention
I’m so demanding in my tastes
I ask too much, so much
but when it comes together just right
it is so satisfying, so good
all seems right in the world
for a few moments and I
find myself somewhere
in the divine intersections
beyond you and I
beyond worry
beyond loneliness and longing
even for you - angel
and it reminds me just how big
the cosmic repertoire really is
that acts upon us
as we spiral through
our times of these times
since the beginning of time
there was no beginning of time
and it does happen, it can happen,
but not all the time, not every time.

Muddy Waters, Clear Skies 2007

Muddy Waters, Clear Skies



I love the metal legs of that table
in the window near the sun
lions feet in ribbons of metal
not about to come undone

writing in coffee shops
now includes a voice that harps
how pretentious, how vain and purposefully eavesdrops
while coaxing out that inner voice with it’s flats and sharps.

The music in coffee shops
helps guide the brain flows beyond
the stubborn gaps of stalled movements then hops
synapse to synapse, lyrics and conversation, good props

passers by the lion’s feet beyond the glass
characters of a life entertained, a mystery
to me and so I love to watch the class
as much as the teacher, read their faces, learn their history.

In the clear afternoon light its like watching movies
projected on a brilliant screen of the downtown wildlife
a company of strangers in the comfort of strangers, these reveries
in this home away from home - a brief hiatus from strife.

This is one of the places I haunt – where I find in once in a while
that precarious balance of comfort and angst, focus and interruption
that bumps the mind through stuck points and influences style
and hanging out in the neighborhood gives my soul a little traction

‘cause I’m living here in the Queen City with and without resignation
still feeling a step removed the way one does when showing
up alone but is not alone in a dark room no need for a reservation
to get a good coffee and an anyday B-town viewing.

beats staying at the office stewing
about what I think it is I’m doing
with this precious life I’m living feeling
on hold and at the same time screaming

time streaming, mind reeling, death nearing -nothing new about that one –
but the urgency welling like that orgasm you just barely miss sometimes - fading
and next you find yourself wondering about that next line, a little undone
in feeling and in life. How long have I been here - at the window writing.

Muse I 2007

Muse I.

Wars, fighting, bleeding
death, mayhem
distruction, grieving

craziness
whether purposeful
or faking it

till you make it.
Greed machine
moves trillions.

Fear, numbness
resignation rules
weighing down many

minds and hearts
the selling of souls
takes its toll.

Enter the Muses
USO
traveling show

girls, free beers, laughs
Bob Hope?
big bands blast

past tears in eyes
tears in skin, wounded
beyond sight.

Back home they’re
working at keeping it
all going

going out Saturday nites
fine tuning TV
Ipod minds, NOT Musing!

going, going, gone
so nobody knows
anymore
not even you
what trouble
you’ve seen.

Muse II 2007

Muse II. Invoking the Muses: Some Unsolicited Advice

First off- you’re supposed to:
Work hard. Play hard. Do what’s right.
Fight the good fight.
Feed and raise the kids.
Be an interested, patient and generous lover.
Pay bills. Pay taxes. Volunteer after work,
be a good neighbor, bring in the wood
get the news, remember to vote,
read something useful, change the oil in the car,
weed the garden, take the trash to the dump,
answer the phone and e-mail, collect the eggs,
walk the dog, get the stray cow back in,
do the laundry, fix the broken, clean the dirty,
and put in the hours to invoke the creative genius
to write, draw, paint, carve, pot, sew, sing, play music,
study, invent, design, cook, theorize, philosophize,
politic, mediate, organize, attack, surrender,
deconstruct, reorganize, police, pacify, obfuscate,
agitate, motivate, evaluate, medicate, doctor,
hawk, cop, wrench, fix, build, fund,
meet, drive, pray for the world,
and all the other 10,000 things
that makes for a rich and rewarding incarnation,
then get ready for work tomorrow,
hope bombs don’t fall tonight…..
Carry on with conviction.

Next thing, is to be a little bad and do nothing, spaciously.
Let the senses be
up front timelessly
if just for a little while.
Now let the mind relax and spacious be
as nature there flows endlessly.
The Muse’s mind spring
knows the words
to all the songs
the Universe can sing
and will make perfect use
of your destiny and give direction.
Sleep soundly. Dream. Dream. Dream.
Then dream up the dream
in words and images each morning.
Ply psyche’s gifts of wisdom, warning,
correction and affirmation.
Live accordingly. Pay attention.

These simple things one needs to know
for a balanced life and creative flow.
But its one thing to say and know alright,
another to live each day and night.
Too much work or too much play
It’s OK - vacancy or pain
will point the way to correction.

And another thing -
for this unsolicited advice
is almost spent for now.
Though your work might be
rough before it’s elegant and nice
you’ll be blind and deaf to her inspiration
if too busy obsessing about perfection.

Just live and love well enough.
Just begin it, let yourself be teachable
evolve, and pass it on
to whoever’s waiting in the wings.
Be used up gladly by the end.
Does it matter if you’ll be worm food,
invisibly enlightened,
and loved that way
or famously celebrated by your people
or publicly crucified
and readied for resurrection?

Historically, the wise ones have said
look, here is how it works:
If you work hard and are industrious,
and you also take time out for Musing,
The Muses will inspire you,
energize and direct you
in the execution and delivery of your passions.

And remember -you never get to BE the Muse,
It doesn’t come from you it comes through you.
Even if you are the greatest channel
of Muse seductive genius,
it all disappears if you start thinking
you have in fact become that divine yourself.
One has to make the proper offerings
to the Muses, remain in correct relation
to receive their benevolence
because history has shown
if you directly put your own greatness
to the challenge of any god or goddess
Muses included - you miss the point
and you and your inspiration
will die miserably – no exceptions.

So bring mead, bread, milk and honey
to her alter in the lush green fields
near the bubbling springs of the wood.
Meander, day dream and play there
in the midst of all of your works
and your best work
will be all of your life.
May it be so - and amusing too.

Muse III 2007

Muse III.



Memory Mom made Muses.

Muses, meliorists make moxie - mirth mix
mollifying madness.

Muses make men magnificent
madams maenadic
moments mythic.

Meaning maybe moving mourning masses
milking minds, muscles mending,
meandering, mesmerizing, marveling
merely musing...

Meaning maybe music marries movement
melody, maieutic mind,
memory makes marvelous moods...

Meaning maybe manic meddling
mediating mayhem, misery
might meet merry muses
making monumental majesty
mixing moxie mirth
mollifying madness, mythic moments...

Meaning maybe merely
musing mints masterpieces.

Playing Me 8/08

Playing Me

Last night , as I was sleeping, I dreamt - marvelous error!- that I have a bee hive here inside my heart. And the golden bees were making white combs and sweet honey from my old failures. Antonio Muchado


He said:

ummmm baby, you look so......
I mean you just feel so.....
you are so.....
there's so I much I want to talk about.....
so much I want to do with you.....
the way you.....
just saying it makes me feel so......
moves me deep down inside so......
you mean so much to me....
we're going to be ok, we really are....


She said:

Darling -
your technique is flawless
so much precision and passion
you play me
like a Stradavarious
the way you hold me firmly in place
your fingers on my heart strings
teasing out, slamming down,
urging thru engaging,
finding, calling out
playing every emotion
and I deliver
a tone, a breathiness
a resonance
my action
the tension
the vibrational distance
just right
to glorify the way you slide and glide
and punctuate each note
the vibrado sustaining
those heart wrenching dynamics
quiet little meditations
foot stomping door slamming tantrums
rampaging furies
angelic soarings
hearts raised
beyond the sun
to the cosmos
sudden turns of motion moving
from outer orbits
to deep inner chambers
to the labyrinths
of all human experience
from the beginning of time
till the well
anticipated finale and rest.

All this in your words, your poetics.
You con me into opening again and again.

Darling -
these are dangerous incriminating words
words that feed a soul hunger so beautifully
words that queens inhale
as they proudly walk to their beheadding
if they weren't made to her by her king
if the king was a walking deadman
who thanks to her
infidelity is finally enlivened
enflamed again by jealousy
not that it returns anything kind to her now.

All of us who have been deceived
know words like these
can not be sent
without infatuation's captivating spell
hook, line and sinker
we take it
run with it
then fight for our lives -
some of us break the line
but are hooked for life
when you're starving
you take the bait -
thats just how it is.
Possessed by demon, angel or daemon?
A cycle of seasons sheds light.

Regardless -
its fed the hungry lions
of my soul for now
and they rest in that warm sun
that is breaking out in my heart
that hasn't noticed
it has rained every day all summer.