potential of emptiness

i lift my hand to gather up this emptiness,
all of this vacancy in the world, where water
leaves space for the air, where wind is silenced
and light grows tired in the shade.
these in between spaces of hollow rapture,
the tumult of the timeless, these are the seeds
of contemplative creation i collect,
preparing a garden where uninhabited dreams
can grow wings and feather their songs
with the form of their latent longing for fruition.

within my hands i caress the nascent gestation
of suggestive thought and action, a plenitude of possibility
and formative birth. i possess the keys
to a crossroad, unlocking potential and speaking
portents of prayers fomenting in the passing moment.

it is the emptiness of mind, absence of desire,
that feeds these flames of the future,
when the tide is slack and the wind is shut in.
within these moments of infinity i inhale the sky
and exhale the sea, i see the sky as my canvass
and i paint myself into existence reborn and renewed,
imbued with new old views to hold space for the void
to be invaded with fresh sensation.

love and nothing else

i love
but is there nothing more?
have i traversed these lyrical wilds,
roaming the jungle, thirsty in the desert,
adrift at sea, only to arrive
back at myself with worn shoes
and spent change, a bent
spine and tattered umbrella?

the bells of my journey have chimed,
have been rung by winds,
wrung out to dry after so many sadnesses
and salty storms, ringed with age
after so much triumph and passionate folly.

i return to myself, again and again,
wave and tide, smoothing each grain
of sand, grinding the stones of my shore
into perpetual sand, seeking
only this reunion with those forfeited
parts of myself.

i believe i have lived all this before, as if
i never left home, just dreaming of the world
outside my door, painting my imagination
with wild fantasies of amorous tendencies,
only to wander absent-mindedly
within my own halls, waking to myself
each time, finding my own personal
dream come true, so true and so real.
so me.

i love
and there is nothing more
until the sun rises and a captivating bird
sings to me, or a lone leaf flutters its way
at my feet, and i dream all of this,
dreaming.

learning to breathe underwater

here i arrive at the border of language,
where nothing need be said
that hasn't been said before.
there were all those times i wrote about
how much i loved you
like you were some exotic fruit or flower;
all those times i wrote about
how sad and broken i was without you
like i was some abandoned railcar in the rain;
all those times i had no one to love
except my confused and inadequate self
and my tireless yearning for some distant tomorrow.

happy happy joy joy lovely love fluff.
sad sad lonesome lonely heartachy guff.
marathon of longing and reaching for thin air stuff.

PUFF!!

here i declare my lack of words for such things,
my complete and utter disinterest
in that shambolic state of anarchy. and let's face it:
love, heartbreak, longing, it is all anarchy.
who can agree upon any colorful or even inordinary
terms for such trivial and trifling affairs?

no, today is much more than all of that.
i celebrate my woodstove with a glass of voluptuous wine
and the pleasures of hash-laden tobacco.
i welcome the frogs who keep me up all night
with their incessant echoing song.
i am enraptured with the revelations
of a saxophone solo falling out of coltrane's brain.
what else do i need? a lover with amorous eyes
and soft curves enticing me into her bliss,
or an ex-lover on my mind, weighing anchor
in my seascape, or the desultory longing
that accompanies fallow times like these
like standing ashore and wishing for some distant horizon?

please...i got a pen with green ink
and no words for such sordidness.
i want only to sit here by my fire and forget
all of that, at least for a day, a week, maybe
a month even, at least until
i can learn to breathe underwater.

caring, not caring

today, i do not have it within me
to answer the distress call of the aching sea,
i have not the energy for a search and rescue
mission for a heart setting, sinking over the horizon.
today, a brilliance of light and reflection
is emblazoned throughout the air, the sea
does not move. my heart is here, not out there,
and i need not move, to go off searching,
fleeing, departing.

there are days like these within which i float,
or i could tumble like a seed, smile like a child,
dance, or sleep. i know i'm alive, incorruptible
and innocent, yet prone to the folly of tomorrow.
i don't care, i only live for today.

departing

always there is this departing, this separation,
of rain from cloud, leaf from branch, wave
from sea, heart from throat,
clumsy words from these unspoken lips.
i depart from fire and ash, returning
to this root and stone:
i am left with this cluttered poetry,
this aimless rambling bird of haphazard feathers.

why is it that i tread a daily path toward some heaven,
only to depart those gates, returning again
to this vacant longing and restlessness,
slipping into a dream, waking, setting forth
on my daily sojourn, trying to remember,
learning to forget?

what part of it is missing? what sense of self
has also departed which i find lacking?
behind which gate, and with what key?
why can i not get the words straight?
is my heart turned inside out, or is it
my enormous head that bars the way?

why must this skin prevent me from erupting
into pure flame? when will this form
rise into its conflagration, an incarnate
carnation with carnal petals that spring
from winter's ash?

the ceaseless sea waves to me,
i ripple back, departing her door,
and i die with each wave,
rearranging the stones and dispersed time,
sands that sink by the hour, and still
i am left with this cluttered poetry,
these scattered shells, wordless words,
this departure due to arrive
according to its daily schedule,
returning me to my self.

killer wind

oh, these long and obtuse nights, evenings
with little cheer, filled with wine and smoke,
a hissing fire and invasive shadows.
tonight all the winds of the world
converge upon this land, testing the limits
of tree tops and threatening to scatter
even the stars from their impervious perch.

i am shut in, solitary
and confined to this hermetic duty,
watching over wrinkled logs who journey
toward their bones of ash.
the wind could kill me if it wished.

i could die and be reborn by the end of this poem,
broken and reassembled, torn apart
by this hounding hunger
and passed through the guts of despair
before emerging with naked wounds
and wishing for a new song,
wishing for you still, for an impossible spring,
a peace treaty with gravity, a fresh memory bank,
empty of desire, needing nothing.

careful folly

only now, at this time,
in these moments between breaths,
when it is i, the slow fire burning,
only now, when i see myself
within this oblivion, this orchard
of potential triumph, when i can
fully encompass this solitude, this
grand melancholic longing,
the unforfeitable desire
to embrace the grey wind
and the green tears of this
ancient tapestry.

i am moved by certain ailments.
maybe it's love, or passion,
or careful folly...careless ambition.
i am trapped beneath this
falling sky and swelling soil,
the sea marching inland to wash
my soul, to memorize my blood
so i can navigate these foreboding waters.

i am in this epic tale of wandering,
wondering where these pages end,
bewildered by these feathered clouds,
astonished by this abundant
decay and renewal.

and now, in the small hours
of dying embers, i raise my wine
and kiss the dream, kiss
the imminent future,
dreaming of wine and women,
fruitful desire, empty bottles
and nothing else,
nothing but emptiness.

poet's death

do not misunderstand me
when i speak of death.

forgive me, it is a poet who lives here,
someone in love with life,
but a book is not a book
without its final page.
therefore
my life is empty
without death.

i want only to hear the rain,
to understand why this land
weeps transitory tears, why
she tolerates so much fickle wind.

i want only the majesty
the sea will allow me to abide.

i was born by her side.
i live by her side.
forgive me, but when my terminal wave
departs, i will die beside her.

lusty tomato

my heart sits adjacent a ripe fruit,
a perfect delicacy of plump flesh, on fire
and singing in perfume.
a tomato languishes upon the kitchen counter,
voluptuous and on the verge,
bursting with insatiable desire.
soon, my love, these hands,
these lips, will traverse your luscious hemispheres,
and we will find bliss together,
unifying our flesh, solar and foliar.

old news is new

round and round and round we go.
enter the dragon, liquify the fire
and magnetize the salt, salinate these
oceanic emotional waves, watered tears
gardening lunar fruit, flow now
with passion toward a rebirth,
reborn.

this is nothing new.
this is completely new.
this land, this sea, this air,
these mountains and forests,
birds and beasts, friends, family,
lovers, this time and place,
a familiar tune with an evolving rhythm:
i have lived this before
and i will live it through again,
i will die within the framework
of this eternal song.

so magnificent, so precious,
so uncommonly worthwhile,
and all the while i am on the shore
with my heart and its roots,
i am witness and participant to this
highest lived moment.
i am forever growing inside and out,
declaring my love for this, declaring
my melancholy banner of personal ecstasy.

mirror moon

mirror, mirror
in the sky,
silver chalice
fill my third eye.

the moon chases
the sun,
capturing light:
translated and
transmuted
sunlight, muted
as transpired
daylight;
it resembles
liquid fire.

freaky

sit with liquid sunshine,
my cup runs over the moon,
bark like a hyperspace dog,
wag the tail wag the tail...
wind in the trees,
wind up the tongue and
lash out at the fuckers in the world,
crash out on the lawn,
crash the political party
going on the old news tv,
crash this shit come crashing down,
coming down after this democracy high,
get a capitalist hangover,
hang your head over the toilet bowl,
vomit your poverty into muddy waters,
sing the blues for lack of greens,
bills bills bills and more bills,
less bills in your wallet skinny,
skinny like those poor kids on the commercials
with the nosy flies all over the place,
all over like wall street chickens
flying the coop flying into a coup d'etat
but nah, what do we know about walls or streets?
me want garden space and wild shit,
unrecognizable wild assed boogie down jazz planet,
funk some shit up and blast the moon jams freaky,
dance like you ain't got no underwear under there
and dance like we're all watching
because we are all veeeerrry interested,
interested in live things as they were meant to live,
in living our lives without walls streets banks or
congress or progress,
we ain't in it for a petty revolution just so we can
rewrite history, his stories are done
and were all a lie anyway, so anyways....
we lie down in the naked grass and we smoke it,
smoke out the old geezer behind their smokescreen,
lift the curtain on the land of oz and
stay the fuck out of kansas, we're going
to the center of our being, in love with each other,
in love with all the wholesome freaky sinful unpatriotic
disobedient chicanery we can come with in order to
poke holes in the order of things just so we can celebrate
the way that political parties wish they could party.