Beauty

I

Dew sparkling everywhere
diamond-like tears
          of the early morning
a glittering carpet
          reflecting the sun's love;
This is beauty -
what sensuality strives to be
          and falls short of.

Short Thoughts

She was a rare thing
so fine and lacy she flowed
on the breeze or spoken word
walking about like a playful eddying wind
revealing its path in what it moves


Once the realm of the love letter,
the private call,
an intimate whisper -
electronic immediacy replaces intimacy


She was that beautiful
so that men's eyes would fasten upon her
as hands molding her form,
and I don't believe she ever caught on


Like Diogenes with his lamp,
I long for companionship
sans guile, that seeks not
a position of advantage.


The immorality of
his many lies
lay in the cowardice
the lies were
meant to conceal.


Black dresses and flats,
Black suits and shiny shoes;
death, like tennis,
has a dress code.


Frightening himself with tales
of catastrophic bliss,
he twitched, climbed into bed
with his question,
"Whatever will become of me?"


My holographic countenance
seemed to morph
from boyish to elderly;
thin, sweet-faced, then
stoop-shouldered and silver maned.
Another young man taken
by the problems of the ages.


Little glimpses
leaving hunger for more,
poetry draws me into
an other's life:
just because I wasn't there
doesn't mean
I can't recall it.


Heartbreak;
an epiphany that
is highly overrated.


In self-abandonment
was he overwhelmed
by recognition;
"It's important to her."
"It's important to me."


A full moon smirked as
the bay's chill blast
swirled pages and pages
of words through his mind,
like dead leaves off trees.


Before I could understand the words
the melody instructed me in how to feel,
old hungers transformed to arias,
each word winced out as
an apology for itself.


A non-entity with ambitions,
inured to my own strangeness,
being published gave an air of respectability,
the way squirrels are saved
from looking like rodents
by their bushy tails.


In process he found
a self-worth being, then
a self worth becoming, and
a self worth revealing.


May we attain sublime
through fierce devotion
to the required?


Friendships before me,
as a pleasant little stove
casts warmth
through a room.


Parents stewing over
sacrifices made
Children chafed by
saddled guilt;
Love, and generosity
kindled their hearts
to forgiveness.


From my perch
on the edge of distress,
the vista is of relief
from dreamy longings,
of sheltered harbor
and receding horizon
relieving sensations
of dispiriting routine.


In making an amends
what do I do
with a word like inconceivable?


I can go for days
with nothing to say
no, that's not quite true
I just can't say it
to you


It ocurrs to me
some things are not meant
to be undone;
have you ever seen an eraser
on a golf pencil?

And What of Love?

Love?
We've trained it like ivy
          to our walls,
baked it like bread
          (the staff of life)
          in our ovens,
worn it like lead
          on our ankles,
watched it like a Dahl's sheep
          in our sights;
and what of it?
I know not.

Haiku 13

eyes glinting portals
the vastness of starry nights
project light within

Homage to Beauty

What homage shall I pay
     to a beauty built to last
from inside out, executing the blueprints
     of resistance and mercy
darting flashing eyes in soft face
     and clenched fists on hips?

What homage shall I pay
    to beauty insistent on truth
knows that two are not always one?
Beauty that won't deny
     is itself an eye
will not rest under contemplation.

What homage shall I pay
     to beauty at my side?
Your spirits' gaze impatient
     to mark the possible,
     to disregard the improbable,
     back arched to the sublime
- I speak of these now.

Haiku 12

Salmon for dinner?
was his directed query
to the next hostage

Haiku 11

there was so much more
things that needed to be said
No was the answer

Had You Known Me Once

Had you known me once
you might still know me now
though in a different light and life.
And this place is not
          where you know me from
though it should not surprise you
          to find me here, un-concealed.
I feel no longer guilt,
nor shame, unable to hate,
freely choosing now love.

Finding One's Place

It's long, this journey
not measured by time,
distance, space or size.
And though an immense undertaking
is yet a resurrection,
of paths meandering through outer worlds
to reach one's inner place,
a gentle rap required on each door
to find one's own.

Emotional Dexterity

Watch his dexterous handling
of the situation.
That was close. He almost
exposed himself, baring soul,
not to play the role
but to be. . .
human;
to let them see inside.
within the confines of flesh,
the holes he claims to not reside
in a toughened hide.
His tears season a disobedient dream,
tacitly adding agitation
to tumultuous emotions.
Ultimately, all emotions
to expression come,
yet only despair will harden his eyes
and blind him to love.

Ransacking My Memory

I

Could my words rise to counterfeit
taste, or touch or smell?
Within the crucible of poetry,
ransacking my memory
free'd the need for temporal exactitude,
reading and writing, each in turn
refine my experience of life.

While Sleeping

I am sleeping in the next room,
dreaming:
          Enters a woman holding my brain.
          She does not look like a surgeon
          but has the stern, delicate face
          of the one behind her -
          the one carrying my heart.
The man in the next room is tired,
has spent an entire day:
          tilting at windmills,
          searching for Dulcinea,
          recording his emotions as a memorial
          against the forgetfulness of old age;
fearing the day when reading
must substitute for remembering.

Poetry

An eternal hunger is poetry,
ever striving birth from dust
carried on cosmic winds
and settled on lover's hearts,
those ocean's waves beating joyous drums
to the flower's kiss
and whippoorwill's call.

Recovery Verses I - XV

I

On rabbit-trail paths
through scarring brier
thought's value seems diminished,
it's office grudgingly performed,
and actions deliberately chosen
lead to fells impassable.
I turn home now
no stranger to trials,
endurance now enabled,
not contented to lie still.
What ugly feast my foe celebrates,
he will not have me today;
Rapacious creditor?  Indeed!


II

Born to flirt
and write light verse
he grew more gray
each passing day.
Ever adroit with words
and quick to pursue
some bohemian triumph
that would never have occurred
of women to value,
his self just didn't fit, exactly,
as a shadow across broken ground
in late afternoon seems a caricature
of it's caster.
Nimble with objects, less so with lives,
those areas he found wanting
his God began to heal
in a most merciful act of Love,
deeming him complete,
a man.


III

Being as a mirror answers,
yet still a chimera
in the dense companion
that is my mind,
getting to know my character
for its more pleasant side,
I can forget, momentarily,
a season when I hurt me badly.
Totally forgiving?
Would that I were.
I plague me still
but no longer call me bonehead.


IV

Who, now seeing her so happy,
can imagine her so lost,
so confined within disquietude?
And as for him?
Why, he goes on, too,
relatively unfettered.
The brute of epic nightmare,
having paid homage
to convention and law
can think himself humanistic
and see, again,
the natural poetry
of every relationship.


V

In Retreat from Reason
more correctly thought as
full flight from reality
he sees the world populated
by grinning black dogs
and sensible white sheep.
Still, in that unending waste of delirium,
so long ago in the language of the wounded,
even there can lucidity make a place
and come to call
as a small, blue bird.


VI

The film of my mind's eye
records human behavior.
But my vision allows for
interpretation of motive.
So judge not,
not that you avoid judgment,
rather that we never look
at two people
or one person twice
in the same way.


VII

The body weakens with age
but the soul grows stronger
and while the viper bite of alcohol
may kill a man, survived
the experience may imbue his spirit
with wisdom, too.



VIII

This passion of our kind
For the process of finding out
Is a fact one can hardly doubt,
But I would rejoice in it more
If I knew more clearly what
We wanted the knowledge for,
Felt certain still that the mind
Is free to know or not.


IX

He abdicated life with relative ease,
dismissed friends, rejected loves,
and on return questions,
"Why no celebration?"


X

Dispassionately taking in everything
the eye behind my eyes
does not weep
          yet registers pain
does not judge
          while acknowledging evil
does not forget
          and fights to forgive.

XI

The addict does what addicts can,
things improbable for Man.
But one thing well beyond his reach,
the addict cannot master speech.
And on a subjugated plain,
among the desperate and slain,
he stalks his prize with hands on hips,
while drivel gushes from his lips.

XII

Through an upturned bottle
past the crystal ellipse,
the sky bloomed blood-red fire
while thundering in my skull
like screams in a dream
as the wind shreds trees.
Caught up in disease
I demanded of God,
"Burn me incandescent
right where I stand!"
He chose mercy and healing
instead.

XIII

Had you known me once
you might still know me now
though in a different light and life.
And this place is not
          where you know me from
though it should not surprise you
          to find me here, un-concealed.
I feel no longer guilt,
nor shame, unable to hate,
freely choosing now love.

XIV

I don't know, one day
          to the next
from where it will come
learning how to make it happen
          day by day, 24 hour increments
each period an emergency replete
          with its own urgency.
Powerlessness. I can't make it happen
learning now how to allow
life to unfold.

XV

Here am I
destroying my liver
and you walk about
as if nothing has happened?
This kombucha I keep
in a refrigerated heart
and sip from whenever
the compulsion fails to start
is nothing more than
an imagined hurt
a resentment no more delicious
than the dirt
I choose to feed it.

Making Love With You

Flowing together weightless
a kelp garden between the sheets
I dive back to re-discover you
now whispering, touch me,
the moon pulling a tide of emotion
pent-up power expressed in gasps
streaming through filtered rays
spears of light striking bodies
riding like gliders in slow motion.

With My Eyes Open

Dancing to your beauty
hearing in your words
the accents of every where
I no longer see you,
still I come back every now and then
maybe so I can go again
maybe so I can still dream
with my eyes open.

Recovery Verse 6

The film of my mind's eye
records human behavior.
But my vision allows for
interpretation of motive.
So judge not,
not that you avoid judgment,
rather that we never look
at two people
or one person twice
in the same way.

Viper Bit

The body weakens with age
but the soul grows stronger
and while the viper bite of alcohol
may kill a man, survived
the experience may imbue his spirit
with wisdom, too.

WWW

I don't like what I see in me
how the World Wide Web
became the Weird Wired Wonder,
a sticky-toxic snare
sucking joy from tactile experience
inexorably drawing me away
from my Gutenberg roots.
Quantity versus quality now rules
as capacity for concentration
          and contemplation
 fade  slowly to black.

Fishing, Talking, Drinking

Having spent the day fishing
and talking and drinking,
now at my table to write alone
I'd choose to walk in the dark
solitary under threatening clouds,
their undersides reflecting Seattle's lights,
illuminating those thoughts 
I'd rather conceal.

In the following dawn's breeze
a vague sensation of my hands,
my feet and this ink
drifting, as I drift
above the clouds, above this flesh
in my shoes now soaked by dew,
is not weighed but buoyed 
by a few friendships, a few shared beers
and understanding it matters not
if we drift aimlessly
or go straight.

Addict-Speak

The addict does what addicts can,
things improbable for Man.
But one thing well beyond his reach,
the addict cannot master speech.
And on a subjugated plain,
among the desperate and slain,
he stalks his prize with hands on hips,
while drivel gushes from his lips.

A Smile

Lips set in a perfect heart
delicately curved and
pressed shut as if
holding important news
in a mouth eager to laugh;
her smile is more an explosion.

Distant Silence

Distant
in this not quite silent dusk
a sound so faint
it may be only silence itself,
and while straining with 'bated breath
a drifting scent recalls memories
of a place I've never been
and a time for which
I have no words.
And in that very instant
of this lost mad world
I will hear time itself
hold it's breath
and listen for me.

Purpose

To what end art
or music or poetry
but to frame a moment
and simply see something
of that moment itself,
ineffably ordinary and peculiar;
her seamed and wrinkled face,
a silence broken to uneven lengths,
the exact expression of love -
and in that moment have revealed
something you hide from yourself,
an ability to remove the frame
and still see the beauty
of His magnificent creations

A Drowsy Place

Not quite awake, not really asleep,
caught somehow in-between
in a state where I cannot keep
my opaque glance
off the mirror of mystery,
how I am wedged
'twixt that world of innocence,
with it's fancy new nakedness
and all dressed up with wonder,
and another,
where all play for keeps -
guarded and self-conscious,
ready to sunder anyone who'd straddle,
bearing eyes filled with secrets
they sense everyone is on to.
And still I believe
the child's delight
and court justice's sagacity
are largely indistinguishable.

Fulfillment

Hatred, being a cage
of personal choosing,
is a consumptive disease,
an act of volition
in losing individual freedom and self,
while love, in all it's prerequisites
requires lovers lose themselves,
to find themselves,
to become themselves.

Angst

I'm never alone in my dreams
or in my poetry
where I open myself to your inspection
but care not about your approval
yet my nightmares
find a lone soul
gasping for air in seas of rejection
while life ring words
glance off my fingertips
just out of reach.
But that's not really alone,
just a scarier version
of togetherness.

I Hope

While the likelihood
of my writing anything
of great social
or theological import'
is small
I hope someday two people
or maybe three, will say
"Hell yeah! I feel that way."

In a Picture

Juxtaposed to her charms
I examine my image
as a note of currency
held to the light for watermark
my smile suspiciously pleased
to have been caught
in the presence of beauty
the look in my eyes
one of apprehension
that the moment
was other than real
and won't be repeated

Thought for Today

It occurs to me:
God has placed billions upon billions
of doors on this planet
through which love may enter.
I am one

After Forty Years

Childhood friends and best men,
girls who slipped away
          or maybe escaped
meeting again after decades,
eating and drinking together
their talk a sparkling glitter in a glass
any passing would observe;
their babies having babies,
vacations, careers, retirements, dreams
lived or abandoned in favor of expedience.
Snow forming on heads
yet thunder still in minds,
laughter for dessert
as they pace the halls of their lives
from separate rooms adding panels
to rich tapestries depicting the prime of life.

The Weight of Thoughts

Measuring my life in lines
          of ink on a page
and thoughts thereon contained;
do they matter as much
as the web not yet spun
and still within a spider,
or the potential energy contained
in a single box of kitchen matches?

I've given up much to get here,
to this place
where I can freely question
the inherent value of choices
           made in a cerebral life;
the selection of words in a love poem
versus a morning spent casting flies
           to selective trout.
And does God really understand -
my doubts don't reach the level
           of disbelief.

Talking With My Self

One hand gripping the wheel,
one poised against my head,
for hours now (truthfully, for days)
reliving her reaction, what she said
and my thoughts surrounding
what now seems an illusion.
Who was I when I did those things,
or who I said I was,
or did I even wish to believe
or feel what I know to be
a proper response?

And my headlights cleave the night
as I retrace a journey,
maybe retreat to where I am from
as I seek the places I will be from.

October

October. Crisp sunrise. Clouds.

Jackets make brief appearances

to be discarded mid-day, and

re-donned hastily while shadows stretch

and the glow in the west

absorbs a descending orange ball.

Haiku 10

My field of lupin's

been replaced by dying grass

the trade's none too good.

Unfaithful Memory

A dull bit of foam

Swept on emotion's tide

recalls a kiss he's not received

one where souls collide.

Twenty-four hours coser

to the therapy couch, he

remembers an embrace yet to be felt,

where closeness sets him free.

One hand away from losing it all

the longing for something not understood

begs questions of what is real . . .

Can something be missed

          were it never known?

At Last, We Sleep

The evening arrives,

I look up and it is here,

bearing a net of stars.

Night settles gently,

a thick, soft blanket

drifting down like snow.

The day shall never end,

or so we thought at dawn;

but at last, we sleep.

At 16 I Cried

The priest explains that, being
brothers and sisters of Christ,
we rejoice at death, for we go
to mansions prepared by the Father
since the foundation of time.
It is stuffy in here and I feel . . . numb.
And the loss of my brother
is no cause for celebration.

Sometimes Thinking

Sometimes i get to thinking,

when we swore to each other
that our love would last,
that you kept right on loving
and I went on fine -
but the empty feeling
I know in your eyes
     and i know in your smile,
yeah, that you'll be fine for a while,
and I stare at a mirror-full of misery.
It's harder to hold
     what's easy to love.
It's not easy to leave
     what's harder to hold.
It's not as though my life
     ain't hard enough to do -
try getting over you.

O Moon

Pale blue and bright,
silhouetting the earth black
against its creamy face,
while rolling, gently bouncing along the hills;
an over-inflated beach ball
that sinks upward
'til it lies at the bottom of an inky sky;
go, and spill your beauty
on the laughing faces of happy flowers
blooming in every hue.

The restlessness you drag
as if it were a tide, lends itself
to long walks in mid-night
and sleepless wrestling's.
Incongruous and strange you shine
linking each to each without magic,
while the earth replies through the night,
a deep drum beat so people can't sleep.
Tuck up your trailing vestments, O moon,
booming softly through heaven,
and allow my kneeling vigil  'neath sparse oak
an end freed disquietude.

The Pendulum

Tick tock

Tick tock

Metronome sets the pace

Tick . . . . . tock

Tick . . . . . . . . . . . tock

Time condenses to moments

and the pendulum of emotions

swings again, zenith to zenith

Victim . . . . . . . . . . . . Assassin

and back and forth

to and fro

almost perfect perpetual motion

defying gravity until

exhausted by effort required

to sustain the lie

collapsing in sorrow

sighted yet unseeing.

Promises Signed In Spirit

The promises signed in spirit,
printed on the moon's pale beam
each effervescent letter
was stamped in a running stream.

Her faith proved light,
her word was broken
having sworn an oath
'twas but a token.

With her hoarse whispered prayer
it was all over,
quit a life now old to her
with just a shrug of cold white shoulder.

The story is thin and wavering,
this story often told;
the terse lips of abandonment,
the red lips that are sold.

Flint McCullough, Man's Man

I wanted to be Flint McCullough
with his ever-vigilant eyes.
Always out in front,
experience had made him wise;

Judgement, strength, well trained steed,
spotting danger, yet second to the lead,
showing the way, offering protection,
securing provision, unfailing direction.

My first man's man,
forward thinking, anticipating needs;
that dream's been refined,
this man defined by deeds.

He's a servant
     who makes mistakes
with courage of conviction
     and private fears.
He has principles,
     can't always measure up.
He's tender-hearted
     though often tough.

Still a genuine sinner
driven in large part
to be like David,
a man after God's own heart.

To Be Certain

To be certain
I detest religious argument
finding myself a worse kind of Christian,
though an honest malcontent,
wanting that all should come to desire
to live a plane higher.
And so, late at night
my pen wrestles with characters-
the M's, R's, E's, I's, ?'s, and ;'s of thoughts,
forging into symbol the beliefs,
questions, hopes and neuroses
of a different life
taking meaning from teaching
until this story I find myself in
becomes the story in which I find myself.

Haiku 9

Spoiler rushes forth
the proud of Sodom with glee
declare: "He is down!"

The Battle Inside

Never claimed perfection
     being but a man.
The battle rages inside
     both sides have their plan.

Couldn't promise flawless;
     may be good, likely sin.
Lines blurred and crossed
     the implosion rocks within.

Not good enough,
     not what they want.
Finding out too late
     it wasn't a servant.

I've looked at life all wrong
     expecting grace returned
just because extended;
     costly lesson learned.

Countdown

Three
      Two
       Once again there
Where pain and love merge
           into One

Not Haiku

The murmur of love,
the song of a bird, can lie;
plumage bright hides truth from sight.

After All

Battleship gray at the beach
     or is it gunmetal blue?
Living with myself
     versus living alone;
Incapable of self-love,
the promise of always
proves to have been too arrogant
after all.

Were I Him

I close my eyes
     begin to pray,
tears of sorrow streak my face.
     Love ended today.

Were I him
     whom I should be
my flaws might fall
     to let you see
just what I am,
     that I am me.

So walking alone
     even shadow deserted,
heart beat slowing to allow
     pain from what I did
to swell inside, growing
     to mistrust of those around
from whom now fleeing
     my life might ground.

A Tough Season

Drawn by time
inexorably to his winter
an ancient soul, emptied of life,
bound for the sacrifice
reflecting on just how hard the fall was
now that the hour glass
has been fixed to the table;
that was not his best season.

Making mistakes
for which there is no grace,
pain threatens the heart,
the life to which it belongs,
but shows not on his face.

Competing theories abound,
who's right, who is wrong,
now passing as ships in the night.

Haiku 8

Strange, and fearful sight;
her lips move, and speaking not
of descending sun.

Sometimes

Sometimes in the morning

I catch a falling dream

streak across my screen

and I think about a someone

that I will never see again

and now it's only me again.

Sometimes in the morning

I think I hear a phrase

drifting through the haze

from just out of sight

something that she said one night

before we went to bed one night.

Sometimes in the morning

I go back to sleep

trying hard to keep

my memories so deep

wishing she were near

whispering in my ear,

My Love.

A Little Bit of Rain

So I'll tell you how I am in poems.

Sorry they are so late and so few.

I guess I am much better.

My complaints?  There's nothing new.

And all those things I told you?

They're still true.

I wish I could have seen it through.

Are all those things you told me once, too?

As you request, I leave you.

Try to remember the good times;

     warm days filled with sunshine

          and just a little bit of rain.

And if you look back

try to forget the bad times;

     lonely, blue and sad times

          with just a little bit of pain.

And when I look back

I'll just remember good times;

     warm days and sunshine

          and just a little bit of rain.

Haiku 7

wasted so much time
fronted by another twist
living takes too long

An Image

Created in Our image

     yet incomplete by design,

     unfulfilled in monadic self

     in need of suitable help;

this being my story

     do I get to choose which part

     is His mirror?

Intelligence safely ruled out

     to ponder conscience,

     or consciousness

     perplexes-

the resonant need for connection,

     with God, with creation,

     with humanity

     (having a sexual identity that is good).

This being my story,

     fallible and failing

     striving and succeeding

     real and imperfect;

a sculpture capable of pointing

     awe-inspired

     to the Sculptor.

Tonights' Prayer

This hairless primate

     small twig on a small branch

          of the tree of life

Living meat with a three pound brain

     suspended by bone, packaged in skin,

          born naked and crying and afraid,

Maybe destined to die the same

and in-between self-impressed

     self-absorbed beyond all reason

only on occasion slightly awake

     to my smallness and frailty

          and dignity and wonder

while seeking to be so right

     that all else becomes reason for suspicion

and prayer seems unanswered

     by a god of contradiction -

No.  He is constant.

He loves whom He loves

     and hates what He hates.

And in that assurance I am elevated

     in my omissions and commission's;

Surrender does elevate.

Ocarina

Where love is played as a single note

become but that moment before

it is again required

it's absence leaves a tiny tear.

But in ranges of fives and sevens and nines

to blanket those odd movements

where only true love can cover a wound

the simple ocarina's tune

may swell and grow to symphony

where groan of breaking heart

here tied by fetter's clank

do blend to but a note.

And once begun to play this song

there is no turning back.

The Story Begins

(Part 1)

Let me present to you this boy

demanding answers at sixteen

pride coursing his veins as poison

nonplussed by this noose

for his apprentice neck.

Possessed of a great key

and seeking the lock it opens,

mumbling his confidence

while barking his guttural laugh

and wondering why

the world seems passing him by.

This man at thirty-six

suspect of past certainties

mis-steps forth anew

convinced he's meant to live

beyond himself (still that boy inside the man)

able to walk without watching his step

to talk without thought

to reach, having little to offer

to love, knowing no other way.

Sadness

Still and solemn stars assemble

     coaxed from daylight,

a lighted altar

     in unfirm firmament

to preside over shadows stretching
     to capture young flowers

          blushing of  whispered love.

The young, and poets

     have lingered here before

          staid in the knowledge

               these glories soon will be no more.

Lingering and sad, I sigh

     at thoughts of spirit born to shine

a watcher of night skies

those thoughts of joy and love

     come back again no more to me

          returning as did the dove

               naught in its beak, empty.

About Fairy Tales

In the catholicity of shared emotions
I find I am lost, swept along
as a sand dollar rolled by the tides,
by the astonishingly contemporary
the seemingly transcendent realities
of the choice before;
wonderful or awful,
or awe-filled.
Caught between, "Once upon a time. . ."
and, ". . .happily ever after."
lie the technological advances
breeding loss of intimate connectivity,
this being the stuff of the story
I find myself in.
Where, "All for one. . ." soon morphs
to, ". . .once and for all."
the sum of my heroic efforts
fall short of legerdemain,
the unattainable ending
fading from sight
even as I discover
it's been poisoned by fairy tale.

Watching Helplessly

From a distance
helpless and unsure
seeing all disintegrate
that which was holy and pure,
he, not willing to be loved
but how he wished to be,
she not wishing to love
but how he really needs.