The Big Freeze

This night is crystalline
In its silence,
A silence broken only by
The aching cries of the water,
Its bones being broken by
Winter’s hammer
With its shattering stillness.

In the sky
The Milky Way,
A dragon of a thousand icicles,
Remains perched
Motionless,
Reflecting space
As time is trapped
In a falling crystal.

Ode to Gabriel Garcia Marquez

He is a mountain
Encompassing the world.
His rivers spill over
Onto pages populated
By trees whose leaves
Are each his own
Unique and colorful form.

It is not enough for him
To create the magnificent
Countryside, to wring from every
Stone, every blade of grass,
Every cloud, a teeming universe,
He must make you understand
The secret heart of desire,
Of the anguish experienced
By his creation,
For he writes what we all
Secretly feel:
The crushing weight of being,
The feeling of death already
Eating our bones.

His words are mouthfuls of blood
Scratched from the desperate
Colombian soul,
Lifetimes of solitude and surrender,
Of soil soaked in blood,
Centuries that laugh and weep
With ironic tears.

Therefore, after traversing
His lyrical mountains,
One does not know
Whether to laugh or cry
Or to simply die
With handfuls of dust
And diamonds.

Always the sea

So near the sea
The days lose themselves
Since there are no numbered
Ways to measured her days,
To perceive her passage,
No way to receive her waves
Without losing parts of yourself.

Today could be yesterday
But how can I know?
Her face bears similar feature
To the gravestone of every year,
She shows cryptic resemblance
To ritual grieving, or
The periodic remembrance
Of catacombs for dreams.

Always the sea.
Always the sea,
All ways lead to her ceaseless
Increase and decrease,
Describing days,
Inscribing her fingerprints ashore,
Erasing the footprints of passing time.

snow

when fire falls off the air
lost in the tumult of atmospheric descent,
when the silence of the birds
is lost in the hushed whisper of imminent winter,
when the swollen sky's belly
loses itself in the enormity of november's gray,
and when what would be rain
is impregnated by the stillness of its joy,
then water is kissed by crystal
and the ivory feathers fall,
blanketing the earth under the smooth dream,
the furious placidity of the immense white wave,
the snow.

the air is silent, all sound is from within,
the multitude of falling flakes
reflect the inner quiet:
all things, time and space,
earth and sky,
are frozen for the long moment it takes
for winter to let loose its endless white-haired wisdom.

and the children sing, cry out,
let's go! for this order of tranquil perfection
is not to last forever when a child's boots come stomping,
when the sleds and mittens and imagination unhinged
are set loose upon these white planes.
the whole world is an amusement park ride
and the cold bite of winter's icy teeth
do nothing to slow the advance of children at play.

and when at last, through hunger or exhaustion,
or for steaming mugs of warm cocoa,
they take respite from their conquest,
the wood stove hisses from the icicles accumulated
on pant legs and scarves and hats
now hanging above.
skin gone red and numb now glow crimson
with blood rushing to reunite with warmth.

the day progresses, the snow continues,
the tracks are covered up, more feathers
adorn the winged crystal dream
of the hibernating earth,
and from inside the windows steam,
heightening the sense of this life we live
from inside an ever-changing
molecule of water.

the fist and the thorn, by neruda

it's been a while since i posted a neruda favorite...

it is not about forgiving:
the forgiven does not forgive,
nor is it about giving
because he who receives
remembers your kindness as a wound.

on what did it feed,
i ask you, your joy?
where did your eyes emerge
if they didn't poke them into you?
what makes one smile
and the wind dance
and a touch last
and on what does your song subsist?
inside the fist the thorn
wounds you to defend you
and the stone weighs heavy in your hand
or the revolver in your insomnia.

so, then, you do not kill anyone
when everyone is killing you
as though you had provisions
for the life they kill,
because the weapons are heavy
or the words are blue,
or because you must not descend
when you refused to ascend,
or because they do not exist, they tell you,
those who stomp on your head
or because those who proliferate
will leave to proliferate
or because you hide your pride
like a dragon of seven souls
or because if you are guilty
it's guilty of having been born, of growing,
of buying grapes at the store,
of giving up and of arriving.

for these myriad reasons
--or simply from sadness--
you coil up the evil they inflicted on you,
you gather up the stones of the damage done,
and you leave whistling and whistling
in the morning and across the sand.

unsure, to be sure

it is the early hour of the night
that crept through the sheets
and icy mist until it appeared as today,
it is the end, or beginning:
the end of a long fitful dream,
the off-ramp for distressed sleep--
or the beginning of knowing,
of remembering that which remained
after the kiss was consumed by flames.

i am not sure of these hands,
this hair, these percussive heartbeats,
i am unsure of the tide that leaves twice
and returns twice as many times.
why, i ask, do i need the bitter spoon
to stir the sugar in my throat?
is it absolutely necessary, i wonder,
to probe the wounded parts of me
with so much salt in the pumice stone?

when, in the course of crashing her waves,
does the sea reinvent the desire to cry,
to wail, to shriek weeping at our feet
when at other times she sings us to sleep?
had i not known i could not swim
i would not have left the shore
with a broken umbrella and featherless wing.

leave now, bitter wind, silent and invasive beggar,
stretch your arm to the next horizon
and take with you this lingering hope yet to be born.
i abolish my slavery to the chains of this unknowing,
here by this sea, by this sky, everywhere,
this i declare.

What I like tonight

I like this:
The warm
Wood stove,
The red
Wine lips,
The long
Soggy night,
The burning
Hash spliff,
The sleeping
Black bears,
The melodic
Mali music,
The dirty
Dishes piled,
And the poetic
Solo sojourn.

Autumn

Welcome now
The ragged
Tattered wing
That is autumn.

We call it fall
Since all things
Fall into ruin,
Ain’t it true?

Or is it leaves
Falling, leaving
Their blueprint
For spring?

This season
Descends like swift
Swords, sometimes
Like solemn sighs.

Mostly it surprises
Because last month
Became this month
Just the other day
And I still have
Yet to properly
Prepare for it.

Ode to Ali Farka Toure

He was born on the back of a donkey
At the edge of the world.
As a child the snake hypnotized him
And taught him to sing the songs of spirits.
He held centuries of African memories
In his rice farmer’s hands.

What he accomplished in seven decades
Transcends time:
He caught the echo of enslaved Africans
From across the Atlantic
And turned them into a gift,
Reuniting a broken family.

His music is not his music.
It is the spirit of the Niger River,
The soul of the Sahel
And the shadow of the Sahara;
It is a djinn that sings in a dozen languages
As it asks you to lay down in the grass,
To let the serpent look into your eyes.

He was a Grammy-winning rice farmer
Who toured the world
Only to be content to be at home
Tending his crops
Upriver from Timbuktu.

What he did was for all people,
For all people.
When will we in the West understand
This basic guiding principle?

*a djinn is a spirit in West Africa. they inhabit all forces of nature: the wind, rivers, trees, rocks, etc. they can be either good or bad and they are thought to be responsible for the order of nature and human relations.

Ode to Toumani Diabate

When the wind
Passes
Its hands through
Trees and soft grass,
When the river
Slides
Through the rocks
Slapping the banks,
When a bird
Flaps
Its feathered wings
Through the air,
And when his fingers
Dance
Like a fisherman
Walking on water,
Then a certain
Beauty
Takes on a life of its own.

What he does
Is not done,
Rather
It is merely a heart of gold
That has found its way
Into sound.
He tells a secret
Revealed
Note by note,
He tells a story
Centuries old
Yet never told
In this way.

He makes wine of water
And intoxicates your ears,
Unveiling a polished gem
That the colonizers ignored,
Mistaking the Mande musicians
As handfuls of Sahel dust;
But really he and his kind
Are the hands that worked
The unforgiving land into the priceless
Mineral and bone that is Mali’s legacy:
Its music.

summer passing

summer passes
as witnessed by
the passing of these
clouds
pressing their pitter-patter
drops of rain scattered
upon my roof.

i listen as rains
fall
like autumn
peeking around the corner
sneaking up on the equinox,
equating time's passage
with the passing of the torch:
the sun descending
steadily
seeking the lowest horizon.

ah, but it is a fair time,
a sigh between breaths.
the parched earth
drinks a toast
and bids good night
to the glories of the long day,
filling her cup
with the full sky
falling
as it is now,
stretched across the lengthening
night.

Gratitude

I am grateful for this day,
For this purity of air
Rinsed through the onrushing clouds
Embarking upon their perpetual
Journey with softness, with the cycles
Of coming and going, with the wind
Which grows within me,
Throughout me, throughout this sky
Wrapping me like a blanket of lapis.

Summer is always an explosion
And the morning rain reminds us
Of our reliance upon surrender,
Giving in to what comes,
What goes, and what returns;
What returns may have never left,
These clouds that pick up where they
Left off, returning from memory,
Describing clock-work: the secrets
Of seasons are written
By fluttering leaves and the prodigal
Water, secret messages carried
By flocking geese and butterfly
Armadas.

This Earth is our song,
Our flag of our solemn being,
Profound mystery and the only thing
We could ever love--
If such a thing were possible--
With her daily ritual
Waking me with this familiarity,
With this gratitude.

Summer Sun, Summer Moon

The sun and
The moon
Have conspired
This summer season,
Plotting
Their glorious
Displays
Of splendor
Causing panic
Within the masses
Making people
Crazy
With fever
And fun.

Have your way
With us,
Make us
Your slaves
And bid us
Fair days
And furious nights
Drinking in
The beauty
Of sweat,
Of skin,
Of smiles,
Of sin,
Of synergy,
Of laziness,
Of laughter,
Of alcohol’s light
And of celebration!

Leave us
Alone
Down here
To make sense
Of your gifts
Bestowing us
With the
Intoxicating
Recipe for repose,
Supposing
We were created
In some image,
Making magic
On this stage
Called summer.

Hope? Change?

Somewhere between
Blood and passion
There lies hope,
Stark naked and gaunt,
Scarcely recognizable,
For this world has died
Countless times in hope
Of being reborn.

Come colonizers,
Come marauders,
Come assassins
And come corporations,
Generals and presidents,
Kings and conquistadors,
Come with your vengeful swords
And your bombs of fury,
Come with your treaties
And your laws that bar
This weeping earth,
And like an afterthought
Comes this beggar
We call
Hope.

Hope for change,
For peace,
For a chance to bury
The dead,
To call out ancestors
Newly born,
For a chance to scatter
The flowers,
To mark life
With death in passing;
We hoped for change,
We at last
Hoped
Change
Would arrive
And not leave us
Standing at the station,
Waiting for a lone passenger
Yet to arrive.

Hope did change
From unfamiliar optimism
Back to familiar cynicism,
To the same old shit….
Change!?
More like
Changing the diaper
On this old man called
Civilization.
Hope passed us by,
Our votes cast by our hopes,
Passed by like a beggar
Getting only chump change
In a ragged cup.

And what of it?
We eat images of the dead,
We eat three meals a day
Accompanied by the filthy
Newspapers of the murderers
Who soil unknown streets
And invent new words
For murder.
The casualty of war
Has become just that.
Ain’t nothing casual
About becoming a
Statistic.

What is left
To hope for
Comes like a season,
Anticipated
Yet overdue
And never to one’s liking;
What is left
To hope for
Has yet a name
To identify itself,
Merely a distant object
Fading in and out
Like a mirage
Painting our collective
Dreams
That fade when we awake
And have to change
The diapers of our
Democracy.

Ode to Coffee

Since God is
An African
Woman
She saw fit
To bless
Her children
With her
Embodied vulva
That emerges
From fruit and fire
And assumes
The form
Of the sea
Like a bitter
Cowrie.

Rituals of fire
And water
Bring forth
Midnight blood
Rising with the dawn
Rising with inviting
Steam and aroma:
Aroma of companionship
Aroma of friendship
Aroma of comfort
And the union
Of bitter and sweet
Completes the coupling
Of divinity
Contained
In a cup of liquid
Sunshine
Fueling our blood's
Desire to perpetuate
The invocation
Of the caffeinated
Ritual.

Ode to Beer

River of bitter
Sunshine
Dressed in dark
Cloaks,
Laden with blonde
Hair
And wearing jeweled
Amber:
Alcohol’s amulet
Of crisp,
Cold
And refreshing
Sensation.

From the spring
Of my childhood,
Enjoying watching
My father enjoying
His working reward,
To the summer
Of my youth,
Discovering everything
Under the sun
And within my grasp:
Girls, cars,
Dancing, wilderness,
And you,
Motivator and chaperone,
Cheerleader and coach,
Gradually introducing
My brain to harmonious
Inebriation.

Beer is indeed
Divine.

For what other purpose
Could you exist, at least
For me, than to imbue
The human heart
With the capacity
To open its lips
And kiss liquid bliss,
Tasting the miracle
Of a metabolic yeast
And its metamorphic
Excrement.

Yes, it’s true that microscopic
Shit causes car accidents,
Makes a fist of rage,
Accounts for countless accidental
Pregnancies, eats human livers
And is twelve steps
Away from catastrophe,
But for me it will always be
Like water,
Like air,
Fire or earth;
It will remain
Elemental,
Akin to companionship,
A necessary medium
For the process
Of listening to the moon
And uncivilizing my mind.

north beach

this morning
the sea looked tired
half asleep
without the moon
to mirror
her fatigue

those ruffled
sheets of seaweed
strewn about beds of rocks
were the evidence
of a passing season
that lasted too long

the tears were shed
the salt broke over the waves
blood rained as
sorrow reigned with
liquid fire
and the desperate
struggle for understanding
was reined in by
the truth

what i knew
i didn't want
to acknowledge
i refused to
listen to
the mad
rants
of the seagulls
and the echo
of the crows
even though
i knew
they were right

so i lay it to rest
whatever was left
i left
at her fluid feet
and left
without looking back

poem for the flowers

with what
script
could i
describe
the colorful
inscription
of flowers
depicting
flaunted love
encrypted
in aromatic
gifts?

in other
words,
there are no
words
i care to
employ
in attempting to
employ
poetic metaphor
celebrating
flowers
celebrating
summer's flag.

snow day in august

some things
happen,
like a map
unseen,
like life
unforeseen.
so today
the work day
went away,
like
a snow day
in august
without
snow:
so now
i slow
down.
this morning
was a kiss,
an inspirational
bliss,
a witness
to the heart
of the sea,
her wetness
planted
upon my lips,
her dreamy
mist
crisp like
this morning,
not with snow
but rather
the slow
saunter
of summer
in (f)august.

Time and Age

I am dressed in leaves,
Sheaves of skin layered
Like time's passage through
My seasonal surrenders.

Every day I grow,
I age,
Add a grain of sand
To my castle piled up
Beside the sea who sees
Me inside a shell she
Shares with my shore.

Each day is a passage,
A ritual death
And rebirth,
It's a rite of passage
Into myself,
Sacrificing every moment
For the eternity of this
Momentary fire.

What I gain in time's advance
I retreat into
And diminish the passing
Shadow of the past,
Rationing reason to realize
The season of my daily surrender
Yielding to memory,
Yielding the fruit of emptiness
Embodying the embryonic
Fertility of finite futures.

Ode to Utah Phillips

No one could ever be so blessed
With the complete lexicon
Of an entire history,
The complete experience,
Of those whose roots
Are salt and coal,
Steel and timber.

Generations of working folk
Live inside his grandfather’s beard:
Their songs of struggle,
Songs of solidarity,
Form the solitary
And singular
Purpose of this library
Built upon a railroad.

His life was an echo,
A reverberating remembrance,
A bridge to the past
That he dedicated his life
To building,
Bringing years, centuries,
Life and death,
Together in unison,
Reminding us
That the past
Is still in our hearts
In song.

Ode to Robert Johnson

The awkward shy boy
Walked down the dusty road
And found his soul on fire
At the crossroads.

The smell of BBQ, brimstone,
Whiskey and sulfur,
Seasoned the howls
Of the hellhound on his trail.

He returned from his obscurity
With a bottleneck
Sliding along steel strings;
With a voice of copper mash
Piercing holes in your spine
He dragged the devil out of a guitar
And shredded his heart
In pursuit of salvation,
Trying to draw the shine from the moon
With the crying shout
Of his haunting heartache.

He tore the eyes out of despair
And scraped the flesh from sadness,
The shrill knife of his vocal lament
Carved a hole from eternity
That was flayed upon the flames
Of his smoldering strings
Ringing out across the Delta.

Ode to Susana Baca

Her throat is a loom
Spinning vocal fleece,
Songs like silk,
Milk and honey,
Sweet like surrender,
Giving in to the breeze
Only she sees
When parting her lips
To whisper her sensual
Secret
Softness.

Ode to Jimi Hendrix

Lightning
Liquid
And
Laughter.

Electricity
Only accentuated
Eccentricity,
It was all he had to do
To plug his brain
Into an amplifier
And let fall his liquid soul
Dripping from his
Octopus’s fingers,
Laughing that electric
Liquid laughter
So comical because
What he was doing
Was opening the sky
And letting his listeners
Glimpse the secret purple
Heart of the muse.

It wasn’t the LSD,
That liquid inspiration,
That only dissolved
The barriers of reason
That he kissed good-bye.
What was it he had,
What possessed the man
Like the devil had gotten into
His hands and was dying
To live upon the air?

What would you do
If you had the most beautiful
Woman
In your hands,
She who would do
Whatever you asked….

Music was not an art form
But love itself.
Six chakras strung upon a guitar,
He was the seventh, lining them up,
Dressed in flames,
Burning down the church
And making an altar
Out of the bed where he
Performed the divine sex act,
While he kissed the sky
And left a hurricane
Echoing in his wake.

Ode to John Coltrane

He comes dressed in scales,
Robed in blue notes
And riding a dragon,
Bringing chaos
And dragging order
In chains,
Reshaping the destiny
Of form.

At times
He seeks the purpose
Of the soothing seas,
Casting soft undulating waves
Creeping onto aural shores.

His voice through the reed
Trickles in like a stream,
You don’t know
What is around the next bend
But he guides you
Through the stepping stones
Until you arrive
At the waterfall.

And there waits the train
That runs ahead
Where none had dared venture,
And his voice becomes a sword,
A frantic assault on reason;
His instrument becomes a weapon
That tears into the consciousness
And lays waste to the calm,
Leaving you in tatters,
Wondering how something so terrifying
Could be so liberating.

Ode to Famoudou Konate

An ode to the man I consider my primary drum teacher. Now in his 70's, for me he is a sage that speaks with his hands. In a tradition like djembe drumming that has a hell of a lot of ego attached to it in both person and playing style, Famoudou is a djembefola ("one who makes the djembe speak") of both magnanimity and humble grace, a true master whose style merely accentuates the beauty of what he does rather than dominating the music.

Water flows from mountains
Rhythmically,
Merging sky and earth.
His is a wordless poetry,
Phonetic beauty
In beats.

If drums are fire
And drummers are lightning,
Then his purpose is water
Shaping the thunder.

Joy is simplicity,
His joy is simple:
Take what is already there
-the apparent beauty-
And make for it an altar
To exalt the dusty feet
Of the dancing earth.

Remembering Jigar

I wrote this the night my beloved maternal grandmother passed away in Los Angeles. It happened to be Memorial Day. Jigar is what my sister and I called her, it's Armenian for "liver," which might sound strange but it is a term of endearment since liver is a delicacy. In her life she lived through, witnessed, and was directly affected by two world wars, the French and then American involvement in Vietnam, radical Islam in the Middle East, and the Civil Rights struggle in America. Thus, to me it seemed rather ironic that after nine and a half decades of human misfortune she gave up her tiny body on Memorial Day. My mother and I were not present when her heart finally stopped, but we were there shortly after to give our prayers and blessings, my mother in her Christian way and me in my own way. It will always be one of the most profound experiences of my life. I will always remember Memorial Day for my own reasons.

May 29, 2006

This is a day of memories
Strewn red with blood
Under blue skies
Pasted over white skin,
Life fleeing from life.

This is a day of death-
Remembrance of those forgotten by god,
Those children who grew up too fast,
Sacrifices upon the altars of democracy,
The altars of communism,
Religions, nations, natural resources;
But you, dear Jigar,
You are my natural resource
And now I remember your depletion,
The completion of your life,
The cease-fire of your strife-
You have called your truce with pain
Your suffering is not in vain
So long as my veins carry your rivers
Until I too will merge with the sea.

The moon is a crescented bull horn,
A celestial megaphone beckoning your soul.
The sun will rise without you
And without your voice.

I will carry your memorial day
Until the end of my days.

The land is full of death.
Your ultimate breath fills the air
Pushing the circumference of a hospital room
With the warmth of your ethereal fire;
I see your tired body,
Spent,
No longer subject to sinking
Just floating
Waiting for the ashes to be brought forth.
For the last few years I have known
Only your eyes
And the primacy of your throat,
Long gone has been your voice calling me
-“Bala”-
Did you acknowledge in your silent way
When I finally cut my hair?
Did you realize your legacy to the world
In the flowers I presented to you,
Your great-grandchildren?
Yes, they are great and grand children
And they will know your name
For all it’s worth.

I wonder
Who came to meet you
At the crossroads?
Did you recognize their light?
Beyond ceiling tiles bleached white
And the mechanical lifelines,
Did you recognize your fatigue?

Only death clouds my eyes
Amidst the concrete and steel of this city-
The piles of trash and airless air-
I see flowers rich with meaning,
I see tropical abundance and life
In these plant teachers of the urban wilderness,
But only death clouds my eyes
The way life was a cloud in yours.
I see your mouth agape
Perched upon your head like a mysterious cave,
I see your body’s husk
A seashell adorned with the bells of death.

Still your hand
Grip tight no longer
Release the decades of your misfortune
Into my amethyst rocks
Rolling in amber tides.
I will watch for you this night
I will speak a spell
To illustrate the door of your departure
I will anoint your noble brow
With the oil of frankincense
And bless you where the world neglected you.
I crown you queen of the dead
And I declare this day for your passing,
You need not be a stranger amongst the dead,
Our ancestors have awaited you
And now a thousand eyes of a thousand years
Converge upon your crown
Flocking like hummingbirds to your Kali flower
Drawing forth your life into fourth dimension fruit.

Unnatural Disaster

The world’s greatest
Unnatural disaster is
Brought to you by:
The BIG PENIS
At British Petroleum,
Where we shove
Mechanical cocks
Into your mother
Fucking her into submission.

A bloody black
Oil spill is a nocturnal emission,
A sexual dream
Culminating in
Petroleum cream,
It’s an endless orgasm
That threatens all our relations
Like some monstrous
Venereal disease.

They wanted her to come
And here she is,
Kali has come
And death creeps
In slick sheets
Seeping from salty wounds.

What’s the prophylactic
For this climactic shift
That has opened a rift
In despoiled seas
Like a vagina
Whose virgin pleas
Wind up fucked in your gashole?

BP

BP--
Bellicose pompous
Brash penis
Belligerently pumping
Big profits

Blind people
Bringing poison
Building prisons
By propagating
Bullshit propaganda:
“Buy products!”

Bi-partisan
Banal politics
Bi-polar
Beyond parity

But please
Be proper
Before pumping
Big profits
Buffeting pensions
Belittling people
By proliferating
Buried poisons

Patriarchy defined

Patriarchy defined:
The attempted ownership
Of all the pussy.

What is a wife?
A piece of property
Propagating
Sons who acquire wealth
And daughters known as
Dowry.

What is a woman?
An object of desire
Designated as
Domestic,
Consigned to duty
Doing dishes and
Polishing your Polish sausage.

What is a mother?
An emotional complex
Complicating
A man’s need to spill seeds
In any moist garden,
Someone to complain about
Cuz you haven’t pulled them weeds.

What is the land?
Another piece of property
Partitioned
Into monetary value
And raped for all she’s worth,
And when she can’t put out
She’ll swallow the leftovers
Like a cheap whore,
But you’d just call it a landfill.

What is the sea?
A saline solution
Absorbing
Poison from upriver,
Rivers whose naturally curved bodies
Were carved into straight
Stiff channels that cram chemicals
Coming upon the sea
In wads of waste.

What is an emotion?
An interference with manly
Machinations
That are stillborn in childhood
When you learned quickly
That feeling things made you
A pussy.

What is a pussy?
The object of patriarchy
Prizing
Possession of power in the raw.

It’s something OB/GYN’s transform
Into medical maladies,
Something Proctor&Gamble
Insert bleached cotton phalluses into,
Something some chemistry dude
Made odor-free,
Something that mustn’t smell,
Must not offend,
Like the forest
With her unkempt hair,
Like the sea
And her wet fish.
It’s for sale and it’s on DVD,
It’ll put you in jail or set you free,
It’s a sin and it’s God-given too,
Don’t worry about heaven,
You’ve got a muff to dive into.

Patriarchy defined:
The attempted ownership
Of all the pussy
With no regard
For integrity
Nor gratitude.

Mother's Day

Okasan-
A river
Flowing

A peach
Blossoming

Okasan-
An origin story
In my veins

An ancestral library
Beating in my heart

Okasan-
A tabernacle of stones
Temple of beauty

Dreamer
Talking to God

Okasan-
Tiger
Wears mouse fur

Raven
Wears human hair

Okasan-
Sheet of nori
Swimming in my miso

A bowl of rice
Sticking to my ribs

Okasan
Mystic
Mother

Okasan
Elder
Woman

*"okasan" is Japanese for mother. it's what i call my mother and has more meaning and feeling to me than just calling her "mom."

Spring

Madrona
Scatters
Snowy white
Bells
Undresses
Its burnt umber
Bark

Cherry
Erupts
Delicate feathers
Petaled clouds
Tied to branches
Inviting
Dreamy fruit

Fern
Unfurls
Sleepy flags
Waking up
Remembering
Dinosaurs
Defying logic

Pea vetch
Erecting
Leafy ladders
Tendrils
Touching voids
Climbing
Seeking the sun

Lilac
Kissing
A thousand lips
Tasting
Tongues of bees
Inviting
Lovers embracing

Fir
Painting
Green splashes
Greener
Brush tips
Expanding
Needle fingers

Dandelion
Populating
Children’s imagination
Flowering butter
Floating fairies
Ever present
Like the sky

Sunshine
Radiating
Sprouted seeds
Coaxing
Sleeping life
Raining
Toward summer

Knife

The knife is a greeting--
It introduces itself with
Its silvery smile
Shining its sharpness.
This knife will part the skin
Seeking blood that opens
Like a flower upon the rock.

The knife is my menstrual cramp
When a spirit breathes within me
And aches to be born.
The precision of folded steel
Precipitates sacrificial flesh.

What have I to offer?
What have I to give
In recognition of my roots
Fruiting upon the land?
I trade blood for blessings:
Something to flow outward
Welcoming what flows inward.

Take not life in vain
But recognize this
Pain
As pangs of guilt
Subdued through washing steel
With life’s fabric.

This knife cuts closest
To the thin veil
Clothing skin
Over the eternal river.
It seeks the axis of symmetry
Binding past, present and future
Generations,
Bringing forth remembrance,
Sacrificial gratitude
And the liquid of time’s transmutation.

Women need

Women need
Men to bleed,
But not like this, man.
Women need
Men who bleed,
But not in the Middle East, man.
Women need
Men that bleed,
But not for oil, man.

Blood is red
But the earth bleeds black
Blood,
Red blood runs
Onto dusty concrete,
Trickles onto nomadic sand,
Seeping into oily soil
In arid lands.

Our men go fight,
Our men go die,
Our men go fight and die
Even they don’t know why.
Was it for freedom
Since Arabs have been oppressing us
With their cheap oil?
Was it for God and country
Since America is something
Worth dying for?
Was it for honor and pride and duty
Since we grow up in shadows
Not knowing who we are?
Or is it for WalMart and Texaco
And GM and Monsanto
And for the Joneses and their three SUV’s?

Women need these bleeding men
Like greedy men need needy women.
In the darkest dark
Our women know how far they are
From their hidden woman hearts
When they agree to send their boys to bleed,
When they can allow their men
To kill poor men and women again and again.

There are thousands of oil rigs
Littering the land,
Mechanical penises piercing the ground,
Pumping, up and down
Into a shaft in shifting sands,
Fucking, fucking, fucking,
Sucking, sucking, sucking
Black oily blood
For this fucking, fucking, life-sucking
War machine.
Hummers and tanks,
They fuck you.
Helicopters and missiles,
They fuck you.
They want to fuck you so bad,
They’re not satisfied
With your natural orifices,
They need to make more holes in you
So they can fucking suck
The life blood from you.

Come on, man!
How many times can you come
On your mother’s face
With this disgrace,
Draping flags over the nameless,
Placing the blame upon
Your own stupidity?
(we’re just following orders)
Boys leave home
Wanting to become men,
Bodies come home
In bags and become statistics.
Those body bags in exotic lands
Are the bloody menstrual rags
For forsaken sons
Whose pacifiers
Have become guns.

Our men are hunters
And our women gatherers.
Men go hunting humans
While women gather widgets and gadgets.
Here’s the difference:
Men used to hunt buffalo, reindeer, antelope.
Now they hunt Arabs and enemies of freedom.
Women used to gather berries and roots in the wild.
Now they go shopping for shiny plastic chemicals.

Women need
Men to bleed,
But not like this, man.
Women need
Men who bleed,
But in a sacred way, man.
Women need
Men that bleed,
But for honoring life, man.

my love life

Me is this:
Married to my reflection
Wed to this perfection
Of my self
Knowing I ain’t going
Nowhere
Without this temple
Of flesh and bones

I am born
To be me
I was born for myself
A perfect mate
Wrapped in the fate
Of loving this for life

When choosing a mate
Be sure you like the cooking
Clean up after yourself
Never say bad things to each other
And make the space
To be able to cope
With living
So near
Someone
In such
Intimacy

Venus

I found this after rummaging through an old box of papers.
It was written on a paper lunch bag.

Can Venus hips with honey lips
Subdue the ego trips of penis zealots
Encrypted in menial glyphs scripted
To strip-mine the flip-side of feminine mindsets?

Venusian lips with rosy hips
Will kiss the mouth of Mercury
Marking the beginning of the peace treaty
Between Mars and Earth.

When Venus mentions the Moon to Mercury
Men may have to behave more like men
And less like Martians when making amends
With the women of the Earth.

As Venus votes for peace on Earth
The Jupiter cyclops will stop spying on satellites
Spiraling toward collision courses with comets
Commenting on all that has changed.

When Venus rings the Sun then Saturn will phone home
To say he’s returning to check in on the hearts of men
Who have charted the Moon for their maiden voyage
Upon the Ocean of Storms toward the Sea of Serenity.

hours

hour by hour the day does not pass,
through its silence and its colors
the day goes on being its own eternity:
we, like statues shuffling around
upon different pedestals, pass through
the doorways, the curtains,
the alleys, the stations;
the day holds up a mirror
reflecting time, reflected in waves,
in drops, not going anywhere,
toward nowhere.

hour by hour the seconds count
the minutes, ticks tracking tocks,
clocks stacked haphazardly
flocking around differing strands
of moments, various bands of being
cling to moments in motion,
and the day does not pass,
the hours never die, they only
grow, they grow into the space
left vacant by a sigh, left dormant
within the eye of the beholder
of time's passing.

the back and forth

systole
i am alive with blood
diastole
i am bleeding to death
inhale
i am a bud on a branch
exhale
i am a falling leaf
eyes open
i am daydreaming
eyes closed
i relive nightmares
high tide
i am rising in fury
low tide
i am drowning in sorrow
full moon
i am bright and round
new moon
i am dark and empty
i am yin
i am yang

self-fish

forgive me if my eyes see
no more clearly than the waves
striking blindly at the stones that surround
the basin of the day,
that grieve over the scattered shells,
the rippled sand, the crying of the glass.

who am i that i return to the sea
with these eyes beholding
the monotonous song of a liquid sage,
a fluid dream sprouting salt in columns;
who is this who sees what the sea
sings in secrets?

what words does she hide from me,
why can i not find the answers
within my hands that try to caress
her lingering form that is never formed?
when will i learn to love,
to not love,
to live and not live--
to just look without seeing,
to just wash ashore and return
to oblivion, not understanding,
not needing understanding.
just silence,
only silence as the sea knows
silence.

sometimes i am tired of this charade,
this parade of thought processes.
i forgive myself this shell, this
selfish self-wish like a fish
dreaming of the open air.

beauty tv

the television
tried telling me
to envision
a newer
more beautiful
me
the me
that
can feel alive
again
with thicker hair
whiter teeth
smoother skin
better sleep
and an eternal
erection

i wish
i could
buy happiness
i wish
i could
purchase beauty
i wish
i could
pay for perfection
i wish
i could
splash that cash
i wish
i could
find it for free
i could
wish i
were perfect
could i
wish i
were beautiful
i could

i should
listen
to my son
who said to me
"do they
really think
they can
sell beauty?"

waxing

tonight there appeared:
antlers
in the sky,
a bull's horn
and a goddess
grinning.

the sky bled,
pierced
and cut open,
bleeding secrets
reflecting the sun,
promising newborn
fertility.

ode to cesaria evora

if melancholy
had a voice
it would
come
from an island
of volcanic
salt-ridden waves
cast adrift
like nets
floating
free of fish
and men

sadness departs
shedding scales
like notes
falling tenderly
rinsing broken hearts
with sands
of time
calling out to
the sea
forlorn
like the loneliest
lighthouse

blue has no hue
like mornas
a slow mourning
an aching honey
sunlit
dripping in long
drops stretched out
like an eternal morning
sailing
toward empty sunsets

*mornas is the popular music of cape verde, an island nation off the west coast of africa. cesaria is the most well known singer of mornas

night sounds

frogs make a chorus
chanting mantras
enchanting the mantel of night

owl speaks omens
asking who i am
tasked with hidden secrets of night

coyotes howl their approval
playing with cosmic jokes
praying to the blanketed night

what's it like being poor?

what's it like being poor?
ask your mother
who gave a lot
for little in return.
what's it like being poor?
try biting your lips
and chewing your nails
when the cupboard is bare.
what's it like being poor?
brush up on math
learn to subtract a lot
when the bills add up.
what's it like being poor?
take the yoga class
where you wait in line
to speak with someone who don't understand.
what's it like being poor?
become a collector
marvel over nickles and dimes
and cherish quarters like diamonds.
what's it like being poor?
ask your mother earth
the one who gives everything
for nothing in return.

Warships

Warships
Steel horses whipped
Across the sea,
Cutting through our maternal
Liquid
Blue and green blood;
Red blood spills
Where blue blood fills
Cash-laden coffers
Lined with coffins of poor folk

Warships
Ship sons off to war
As mothers wave white hankies
Waving to Yemaya
Pantomiming a ritual glory
Grieving with joy:
My boy is a man
Wearing women’s blue jeans

Warships
Storeships of silence
Spreading death upon the land
Like sprinkling salt
From the sea,
Striking from a distance
Leaving people in silence,
Dead:
Living tissue and bone and hair
A plotted coordinate on a map
Planning an attack on the earth
From the safety of the sea

Warships
Worshipped like
Sacred whores once were
Conferred with mystic power
Teaching men about flowering
Service;
Warships are women
Teeming with seamen
Flinging phalluses with fire
Scorching your mother’s pussy

I’m a warship,
Watch as I slip
Across the sea,
See me from beneath
I look like a pussy,
A slit
Backlit by the sky.
Warships are like razor blade lips
Cutting through swollen ocean tits
Sailing on a heading
Full steam ahead.
I’m a warship,
A metal goddess
Worshipped by seamen,
A whore stripped of my sacred.
My sacrament is fire,
A funeral pyre.
I am driven by the passions of men
Who hunt the globe
And return to their women
Waving their empty hands
(They left their kill behind),
Hands over hearts
Saluting a flag soaked in
Salt
Blood
And semen

solitude

"religion is for those afraid to go to hell.
spirituality is for those who've been there."
--unknown

scarcely can one recognize solitude
because when it arrives, at barren midnight,
with its caravan of mirrors and
echoing halls,
solitude reveals its hidden dimension,
its multitude.

count yourself alone, count your
self as one, but continue to count
as the numbers of solitude mount.
there exists a host of names,
a range of faces, pantheons,
ghosts and phantoms, these angels
and demons,
and those ancient whispers.

solitude is a multitude.

the business of hell is personal:
the personality of hell is business:
the company of one's self
and the workforce of the soul.
perhaps it is better
to bury oneself in work, in love
or in play, to consume all manner of things,
literature and entertainment,
or to be consumed by it.
some find it better to run,
running programs, courses,
running in circles or running
their endless, nonsensical mouth,
others run to church,
on their knees,
running.

if you're like me, godless and
averse to churches like the plague,
you welcome hell like healing herbs,
as a sacred sacrament to cure
the illness of our cultural solitude.
the best bread is baked
in the oven of hell:
the best way to confront solitude
is to befriend its shadow multitude.

Yahweh's fuck up

a coffee-inspired anti-christian rant

dense black bitterness of
immense caffeinated jitteryness
presses ground beans upon the
means of mental motion in
incremental compulsions to
compose constructs of
consciousness in synch with
the thinking mind behind
the twinkling of
a little star’s inkling for
making sense out of the senseless
rendering rational thought defenseless
leaving it susceptible to
irrational relevancy
immediately apparent under
the scrutiny of the inscrutable
intellect of derelict mindsets set
against the grain of a god whose
name is a vain attempt to
continue the corrupt bankrupt
judeo-christian fuck up
with which we are infected
through dysfunctional discord
disconnected from the reflected
shadow of truth showing proof that
a corpse on a cross is a decrepit
noose hanging around the necks of
nervous wrecks too afraid to
admit the reality of life without
a savior for the sake of
moral behavior that sows the seeds
of morbid prayers breeding
burial grounds for heathen children
for no other reason than to
cover up yahweh’s colossal fuck-up
concerning his inability to
masturbate into existence
that which he did not create

Parade of thoughts

this is inspired by Leonard Shlain's book "The Alphabet Versus the Goddess"

Procession of parading thought:
…..thoughts wrought from paradigm shifts
Within paragons of glyphs
Script gifts lifted to
The lips of prayers,
Rifting left from right
Hemispheric modes
When morality corrodes
Into component forms--
Models of composted constructs
Melting into molds of archaic folds
Flocking to the light of truth--
Truth
Blocking neural pathways of
Neurotic viral dogma devoted to
Dominant draconian denominations of
Faith enumerated by demagogic
Imageless gods
Typed in bolt face print
“Thou shalt not see my face”
But face the fact of factual
Fictional accounts of “something he said
So I wrote it down so you
Can read what I say he said
And lest you believe me
I’ll kill you dead--”
Ha! What an irony of the ages
As printing’s press upon pages
Harvests images of sages waging war
Upon image worship of
Goddess idols, full moon Earth woman
Whose warrior son wages word rearrangement
Spelling deranged tellings of creation
Accomplished by a bachelor deity
Who deceived the dusty nomadic
Tent dwellers
Into trading in their images
For the imaginary melange of
Manuscript messages issued forth from the
Mouth of the mother-killing
Monotheism maniac

Initiatus

Initiate
Initial
Initiation

Originate

A beginning
An entrance

Rite of secret
Wisdom

One who undergoes
Passage

Initiating
Initial
Initiation

Go Fuck Yourself

Someone once told me
“Go fuck yourself.”
Of course, at the time
It was an insult
Yet these days
I would take it as
A compliment.

Yes, I’ll go fuck myself
Make sweet love
With the honey of my own
Heart, a petal upon
The flower of my body.
I’m not talking about
Masturbating--
That would be boring--
I’m talking about
The kind of sex
That makes peaches
Out of pits,
The kind of passion
That leaves me feeling
Like I tasted the greatest
Secret
Secretion
Of my own sap,
Like a tree
Free from want,
Just watching myself
Growing.

The darkness

Just now, the darkness was a cave.
Outside, up the hill
A light shone from out a window,
Flying fast like light does.
Then it got cozy in the madronas
And paused by the grass,
Deciding it was too tired to go on.

The darkness was a cave behind me.
A dog in the distance barked a litany,
More like an announcement,
Declaring the depth of this cavernous dark
Echoing through the trees
Off the hill
In my skull.

That dog made me feel the aloneness.
The world slept while it barked
And I heard it
But didn’t call back.
I knew the darkness would swallow my voice
Just like it was eating that light.

I question why I must look in order to see.
I think sometimes I learn best
Ambling around in the dark
Relying on instinct.

Salmon People

Certain fish swim upriver
And plant their flesh
In the bones of the water:
Shimmering life givers
Bleeding their essential sacrifice,
Blessing
The belly of creation.

Forests become metaforms,
Life forms around the sea
And her metamorphic fish
Spawning in swales
Nursing in headwaters
Feeding in deltas
And maturing in the sea’s bosom.

For any animal that eats
Or is eaten
The smell of blood is paramount.
When mountains bleed their
Vital sediment, the scent
Of ancestral burial grounds
Sounds the season of winter’s egg.

Salmon people are like nails:
They hold this temple together.
Forever their blood is in our veins,
Rivers coursing to seas receding,
Revealing bleeding dirt
Birthing forests that make rain
For this peninsular altar.

Black Bear Cubs

Silas for silliness
Trillium for feeling this
Life expanding,
Handing down tools
Building
Flowering buds
In a black bear den.

Smiles come when
Smiles should:
All the time.
All the time in the world
For laughter
Unfurled
Like petals unfolding.

Uncommon kinship
Is a common virtue
For two peas
In this pod:
A clan destiny
Masked
Like raccoons.

The world is an oyster
And palms are for pearls,
Fingers curled, cupping
The sea
Carefree.
The earth is an altar
And children are candles.

There is an invisible mirror
Reflecting their likeness
Like myself
Distilled,
Filled with wonder.
So I ponder their nature:
They are completely natural.

There is no greater gift,
No greater joy
Than my twin boys
Sleeping, waking
Running or walking,
Talking in tongues
Teaching me about life.

My Mothers

I have mother issues
So I live by the sea
Surrounded to east, west and north.
My mother lives to the south.
I am surrounded by
My mother,
The one with many names.

My first mother
Had no name
No face
No specific shape,
Just a quiet liquid
Darkness.
Her primal
Primordial
Uterine waters:
Blood with purpose.
She is called womb.

My second mother
Brought me forth
From the depths.
She had the shape
Of a river with
A persimmon floating,
Flowing downriver.
And her hair was like seaweed,
A nest.
Sometimes I think I’m still in it
Somewhere.
She was a tiger
Wearing mouse fur.
She is called Marie Yoko.

My third mother
Had a dozen names
A hundred talents
And a thousand petals.
She grew like a scrubby oak,
Bent and contorted:
A subject of life in the old days,
Subject to the elements.
She was a woman
In a male-dominated century.
She was a woman
Who made her own damn world
Defied custom
Outran bullets
Married for love’s sake
Hand wove rugs
Spoke nine languages
And was 4’10”.
She could have conquered the world
If not for arthritis.
That’s my grandmother,
She made my second mother.
She is called Jigar.

My fourth mother
Is constantly pregnant.
She is continually
Nursing
Her countless children.
She is beyond description....
Her blue becomes green
Her green becomes brown
Her browns are yellow
And red runs below.
Her blood refreshes,
Her blood fertilizes,
Magnetic and dense,
Floating
Through the Milky Way
The Hammered Bracelet
The Path of the Ancestors.
She is a fertile egg,
A cloudy womb.
She is called Earth.

My fifth mother
Is a mirror,
She is what I would be
Without skin.
She is dressed in scales
Wearing seaweed for hair,
Her eyes are pearls
And her sex is apparent
With receding tides.
My mother is a storm
Turned upside down.
She is what defines
The land:
She has yielded
The firms
And blessed us
With salt.
She calls me daily
And she surrounds me.
She is called the sea.

My sixth mother
Gets between my toes,
Under my nails
And stains my pants.
She is playful
Childish
Wise
And ancient.
She teaches me
With leaves and feathers,
Her text is stone
And her words are spoken
By trees.
One would think her sad
With these rains of sorrow...
Few understand
Her need to quench this thirst
For remaining
Eternally green.
She is this land,
She is a dragon.
We’ll call her that.

I have mother issues
So I live by the sea.
I live upon a dragon’s scale
I ride a serpent
Surfing a planet
Walking a path
Strewn about the ancestral sky;
And this Earth,
Like me,
Emerging within
The shapeless
Primordial darkness:
This universe
The eternal mother.

I am not

I am not what I say I am
I only have what I possess
I
Am
Not

There are secrets of self
That remain hidden
For a purpose
There are secrets of self
To keep hidden
In order to believe
I am this

Long ago this happened
Yesterday I believed I was that
Today I remembered the truth
I am only what I tell myself
I am
But I am
Not that man

I am not that man
Who left as a boy
And emerged with a broken wing
I am not that man
Who was a forgotten bystander
And unwilling victim
I am not
That man since
I possess the truth

I am merely human
Driven by my mind
And its illusions
I am merely human
Guided by my heart
And its intuition

Let’s forget the old story
It always had a sad ending
Let’s pick up the new story
The one with the unfolding path

ancestral remedy

ancestors
anchors
chorus
of singing blood

see me now
hear me now
this heart beating
this sacrifice
fruiting remedies

in you i live
in you i die
offers of remembrance
carry these prayers
let them congeal
return them flowing

a sacrificial fruit
a sacrificial plant
a swirl of smoke
a circle of ash
a menstrual knife
a drop of blood
a prayer on these lips

what is my life
if not yours?
what is my life
if not sacred?
what is my life
if not a sacrifice?
what is my life
if not bound in blood?

them mens

Them mens they said yes
Even when she said no
Them mens, they wanted
More
Them mens,
They wanted
Menses
Odd senses of honoring
Those women
With intact senses
It wasn’t enough
To ritualize their own blood
They had to create
Their own creation
To replace past tenses

Old creation rained blood
Old creation brought
Impregnation
Old creation involved
The slow pangs of labor
Of evolution
The new creation was only spoken
Just creation
Six day’s worth of fatherly toil
Manly man sweat makes manly man soil
Make a man and take a woman from his rib
Man no lie
Man no tell fib
See, it’s written
And the cursed blood of woman
Lies in the apple she had bitten

Tell me brother
Tell me father
What’s it like,
Creating the world
Without a mother?
Do you bake some clay
Cup your hands and pray
But dare not say
The thousand names
Of faceless Yahweh?
(Don’t say the name,
Just say a word--God--
That’ll do, and Goddess too,
They’re just words.
Remove what’s “odd” in the middle,
And you’re left with just a “g(u)ess.”)

Them mens, they said yes
Even when she said no
Well, they said, we have to go
And make ourselves bleed
And for this we need
To breed our creed of the chosen seed
And with GOD SPEED!
We shall be the masters
We shall be the ones who bleed
Never mind your cursed blood
We shall shed it
For our father dwells in the sky
And this earth is our curse
We must repress it

Tell me brother
Where you come from?
Remember that place you emerged from the sea
Your mother’s yoni
The place of your dream?
Oh how you rape it
Drape it with fury
Hound for it with hunger
And curse it with despair
It’s sweet when it pleases you
But is bitter when it only teases you
It’s heaven when it creams on you
But fishy when it bleeds on you

Tell me brother
What is it to you?
A pussy, a snatch
A catch or a muffin?
A cunt, a cooter
A pooter or stuffing?
Oh how you’d like to pound it
Ground it
Grind it
Find it on your jock
Lick it
Stick it
Poke it
Stroke it on your cock
It’s just so pornographic
When it’s a pussy
And not a woman
--porno--
Let that word sit on your tongue
Roll it around and taste its blandness
--porno--
It just begs you to fuck it
An open space of vowels
Just make sure you come on your towel
And pray your mother doesn’t see you

Them mens, they had to say yes….
To be fearful of power
Is to be second best….
At least, that’s what someone thought
Long ago
And managed to convince enough men
To mutilate their dicks
When inspired by a burning bush

to the christians et al

if this life were perhaps
your only chance
to march to heaven
would you even consider
at a glance the small thing
we call a circle...
would you spend your life
with bent knees
outstretched hands gesturing
please, lord, spare me this strife
like life is a curse...
could you remove the lens
you train skyward
the eyes you pretend
that have the sight
to see inside the light
of geneses incalculable...
or is it simpler to view
life as two points
defining a line you try
to link to a hereafter
you think is greater
than the gift
we're currently defiling?

freedom

written in the early stages of the "war on terror"

dear friends, this is not our world
many "truths" are told
through the teeth of liars
what we are told is
that the world is our enemy
and we are united against ourselves

they hate our freedom
because we freely feed the machines of war
the bombs are not for free
yet freely they fall
free we are to rape and plunder
to kill and torture
our freedom demands human sacrifice
and a free hand we have
to enslave others and ensure our freedom

they hate our freedom to lie
our freedom to cheat
to freely sit in traffic jams
in cluttered freeways
freemasons freebasing on the blood of the poor
free to demand a place for our freemarket
get free cash back but "nothing's for free"
no free lunch in the land of the free
a freefalling catastrophe awaits
when freedom rings

maybe they're right to hate our freedoms
if it's freedom for us
and free food aid for mutilated children
they're as free to fly planes in skyscrapers
if we can freely bomb rubble into dust
they hate our freedom
because they never asked us to free them

the circus

this world
oh this life,
a circus run by the clowns
with elephants who
talk with donkeys,
mulling over their side show
pompous and bloated,
they flaunt their spoons of silver
like a royal scepter.

over the high wire
the world is walking,
billions of toes
gripping the tight rope,
monkeys and mice
of barren cages,
billions of them
eating peanut butter smeared
razor wire,
unwrapping lethal prayers.
my teeth chatter and my eyes lock shut,
bread crumbs and
cheap words stuff my ears.

the circus is a horror show
coated with cotton candy
and poisoned with strange flowers,
and there's a crazy odor
about the way the elephants talk
and forks fall out out of the mouths
of the donkeys
whenever they speak.

ode to the page

this page died...how long ago?....
once a living plant upon a planet
awash in green, then removed and
placed in a catacomb of arboreal layers
unfolding before me,
beneath the dagger point of this pen,
drawing blood upon the face of words
and ideas plunged deep into the flesh
of my mind, stabbing my thoughts
to release the slow spilling of speech
enshrined in the tomb of trees,
these pages, this poet-tree.

this page, now alive, brought to
animation by a magic plastic wand,
throbbing with the rhythm of thought sequences,
the staccato cadence of sentences
handed down from mind to fingers;
this page becomes a resurrected plant,
an ambition sprouting from a void,
a mission seeking an objective voice
telling of the union between that space
and this time; it is reborn from ash
becoming fire, burning the bridge
between rhyme and reason, it is
a reconstruction of life
patterned after the romance of seasons
peppering these printed scattered leaves.

this page is now a figured sculpture
of its own beauty, a monument to the moment-
this immediate being--it is a testament
to the tangible link between life and death,
between silence and breath, it is a reminder
that no matter is created nor destroyed,
only employed by the sculptor's hand
to turn mineral into bone, to churn water
from stone, framing thoughts into poems,
further forms of totems wrought from
all the things under the sun,
seen and unseen, heard and unheard,
known and felt.

this page becomes the map of me,
a maze inside the birth-death reenactment
trapped in a haze of ego confinement
released through the floodgates of
inspiration realizing the relation of a poem's
"creation" to its "creator's"
streaming conscious dream.

wine

red wine
crimson water
intoxicating blood
luscious lips of grapes
fluid of vines
sunlight's transmutation
kiss of tannic bliss
perfection of autumn
curved hips of a chalice
licking scents like sex
copulating fervent sips
trips to the moon
velvet coated tongues
under Dionysian influence
canticle of the fruit
budding passion
prayers of companionship
wash my woes away
keep my company
through the endless night

night

night
inversion of sun
mystery reigns
solitary
stars en masse
each one distant
solitary
mysterious

night
panorama of depth
darkness extends
eternal
reflection of eyes
wells to fall within
eternal
deep

night
immense shadow of earth
mirrors gaze
divinatory
prophecy of the past
returning to the present
light
shadowed

night
immersion in stillness
symphony of silence
contemplative
spirits walking about
secrets speaking truth
contemplative
silent

writing

blank rapture of divine rapport:
the word descends, pretends
to be inspiration, capture of sacred
breath, spirit inhaled,
pages impaled upon pens impregnating
trees with poetry, passing time with templates,
resemblance of life lifted to worship
through script.
blood fills drops like sips of wine,
like ink across these pages,
filling a crypt of trees,
words scripted
encrypted in semantic sentiment.

an old one

today i cannot write
as if words have gone south
wintering in unnamed poems
gathering feathers to adorn future pages
emotions flapping wings
following the sun
seeking the space
between
solitude
and
surrender