poetry
Willing
Watch now,
as I brave the endless vulnerability of existence,
with a dance
a smile
and a vast faith that will not be denied.
Come with me,
dance with me,
for this place will only be joyful to the willing.
Thanksgiving
When I thank you for my daily bread, help me to share it.
When I thank you for my health, teach me to heal others.
When I thank you for my family, relieve me of conditional love.
When I thank you for my life, give me the grace to bless the lives of others.
From your harvest,
I have reaped so much,
and offer from my heart,
thanksgiving.
Walk
First I ran away.
Then I charged toward.
But not yet,
have I simply walked.
Right Side Up
Rain can't fall from empty sky.
Barren mind starves sentiment.
Upside down makes no difference at all.
Laying down to rest,
weary wings,
worn smooth from holding right side up.
Artists States
Artists are priceless and worthless
Artists are loved and hated
Artists are questioned and revered
Artists are trusted and interrogated
Artists create great works and frivolous things
Artists make no sense
Artists perfectly communicate for the wordless
Artists are stupid and artists are genius
Artists are fools and artists are profound
Artists are recluse and artists express the most intimate
Artists are the poorest and the richest
Artists hold place in society, but do not fit in
Artists mock and are mocked
Artist create treasures and junk
Artists turn junk into treasures
Artist show us that most treasures are junk
Artists are moody
Artists see clearly
Artists are vulnerable to sensitivity
Artists are mysterious and obvious
To live = to create
To Create = Artist
Artist’s are alternative
Artists are outsiders, living luxuriously inside
Artists are bold and shy
Artists care and can’t give a fuck
Artists are arrogant enough to dare and humble enough to submit
Artists get in the way of art but are the only portal to art
Artists are givers and thieves
Artists are historians and prognosticators
Artists are the best and the worst
Artists say it all without saying much at all
Thou Art
Walking along the halls of this huge city, my eyes search desperately for invitation to staple meaning.
The marks of those, just steps ahead of me, have already dressed the place in layers of dingy, sticky dreams.
A window now, I try to see inside.
But nothing is clear, my watery reflection is in the way.
Dumb-faced, it asks me why I think I might belong here.
But I can’t answer.
I walk on, that eager fool, gliding cautiously closer to his end.
And as I go, my mind lays colors over the canvas of it all, insisting on a levity that does not yet exist,
recklessly splashing crimson where it's never been,
the world gradually gives way its tyrant drone.
The violet surges through me and drips to the ground coating blades of giggling grass.
The blue and yellow land here and there, obscuring deep scars of struggle.
Glowing shapes and their spooky reflections displace tall buildings.
Hot-breathed street traffic turns to a magnificent serpent of ten thousand colors swimming the dark night-river.
The trees sway sexy with giant pink boulders of fruit that not even the greatest dragon could consume.
In this place, I get lost and find home. In this place, I belong.
And as I approach the end, walking up the steps to what must be my patio, you are standing there.
You know, somehow, that I am empty from the journey.
You know that the color has all bled from me.
Outstretched hands, I feel the tips of your fingers, and warm in the kaleidoscope radiating from your eyes.
It’s now I know your love is there to replenish me, that I might return to the corridors of the city,
only to paint it with every drop of my soul, again and again.
Retrospection
Gather myself from pieces of leaves and flower petals.
Let the dust collect in the outline of my shadow.
Let ice form on the disapproval of the world, and make a rigid prop for me to stand, look beyond, and see what awaits me.
Let the river’s edge carve the contours of my dreams.
Let the silt of memories coat the future with lessons, mistakes I will instinctively avoid.
Let the seasons change my perspectives.
Allow the cold, heat, wind and rain to bully each molecule of me to dance the rhythms they demand.
Let the flavors of each bite linger on the tongue, enough that it might change the way I speak and laugh.
Let the pain make the joy more bright, and the night give each day more light.
Let the dust of generations gather on me in the stillness of the early morning, close to me, I breathe in their spells and lessons.
Now protected by the thinnest film of everything,
a potpourri of moments, scents simultaneously known and unfamiliar.
Let the bird song charm three dragons guarding the hallway to my destiny.
There I’m but a character seeing it all happen.
Trapped between experiences and observations, time gifts me a finale,
my one and final reward for being.
Mother's Nature
The beautiful variety and indifference
nudges us
often so gently
sometimes so brutally
toward acceptance
toward faith
toward unconditional love.
Drip by drip
wave by wave
carving mountains for us to climb
lazy rivers to follow
wild rapids through rocks, where body and dreams are dashed
countless seas to navigate
and hot springs of renewal.
Carefree mother watches water rush from our eyes knowing she has given all that is needed
our tears will fill all of time like rushing waterfalls
eventually,
washing all away
leaving only space in our hearts
for everything.
North
From the day the fawn falls from her mother,
blades of grass point every way.
This way, over and about,
they are the first direction, crissing, crossing, but mostly they point up.
And so she obediently stands to meet the mysterious challenge of her nature,
oblivious to the odds stacked to meet her.
She is me, and she is you,
looking for a sign, given only the illusion of a choice.
Wet with wonder,
world waiting,
rubbing its hands, ready to meet her innocence.
She is special and redundant.
She is doomed and grateful.
She is me, and she is you.
That first wobbly step moves her somewhere not much different than before.
So many more to come,
cutting trails through thickets of possibilities, leading through years, dreams, loves, and loss.
She is me, and she is you.
Looking ‘round,
grasslands sprawl miles behind and miles ahead.
Realizing horizons never meet the ground, she bows her head to bite the warm green,
which waiting there, like that very first day,
reminds her gently to keep looking up.
To head north.
To walk on.
She is me, and she is you.
The Place Where I Become
Sometimes the light leads to new paths,
sometimes to steps retraced,
I turn corners to find yesterday or tomorrow.
The weight of expectation,
the pressure of a thousand nows,
pressed my bones to diamond.
So now I am unbreakable.
And as the journey unfolds,
I sweat tears of pain and joy,
gratitude and heartbreak.
Dripping to a pool at the root,
I grow on.
Tall.
Full.
Flowing in the breeze of will and wishes,
Arching to the place where I become.
Sounds Fall Softly
Sounds fall softly on my ears now.
Not like before.
Sounds dampened by layers of snow and blankets of forgotten thoughts.
Memories glowing under mounds of ash, begging to be discovered but once again.
Sounds fall softly on my ears now.
Delayed and misty, as the movie clicks along.
Familiarity all but stolen by the simple ring.
I snuggle into the arms of them.
Sounds fall softly on my ears now.
Before
Before, I wanted everything to be mine.
Then, I wanted to be everything.
Now, I just want everything to be.
Any Moment Now
There comes a time
that the full weight of nothingness
and the full blare of silence
become so overwhelming that I fall gently into their feathered wings,
dangling, disheveled.
That is when life begins.
When I am reborn into a universe I know is vastly empty, and dark and cold.
When I know that the miracle can end,
any moment now.
Diamond Dust
Day after day
I rely on a billion miracles to stay alive. Stacks of miracles
built light years tall,
crowd out room for any doubt.
Majestic beauty from every angle.
I spin spin spin spin and spin
to try and take it all in.
Random Maker too perfect here and now. I seek a small space to hide from It, and collect the diamond dust as it falls to cloak my endless imperfection.
Train Watcher
Days without identity
blaze quickly by
marking the path of my destiny.
The unstoppable power
propelling time and my breath at once.
It barrels relentlessly down the track, despite me.
Catching glimpses of the future only when I let it all blur,
I sit a child in the window.
Turn Back
I turned away, shed a tear
and walked until the trees left me to my own devices.
The little things mattered both less and more in my new-found wilderness.
None meaningful on its own, the way paper is light but a book is heavy.
The familiar songs we hummed together.
The words we said at the same time.
The sweet of the berry you handed to me.
The hug you held just a second longer than I expected.
All reminders of the space between alone and there with you.
These tiny threads kept my soul
from drifting off to a stark white desert of solitude.
Wind Dancer
This worn sheet blows in the wind,
flapping jolly with no choice at all.
Once a tidy solid square,
now tattered full of holes.
The wind blazing through each partially mended tear,
just so it can hurt again.
Like a kite without a string
and child’s clinched fist below,
flipping, falling effortlessly to nowhere.
Folding dream, over dream, over time
till the horizon line finally comes to provide soft landing.
Double Dare
Dare to be light
Dare to live life
Dare to take flight
Dare to be bright
Dare to do right
Dare to have sight
Dare to ignite
Dare to insight
Dare to delight
Dare them to fight
Be you despite
Learn to love right
Learn to fail right
Be the change right?
Live your dream right?
Beat your own plight
Find your own might
Try to eat right
Smile but I bite
Hold my girl right
Treat your boy right
Make her come twice
Left, that’s fake right
Shake from tech’s byte
Wake at daylight
Claim the sky night
Raise the kids right
Keep the bank tight
Climb to new heights
Always think twice
Blessed like young Christ
Fall though I might
I was born twice
Dare to be light
Dare to be light
Dare to love life
Dare to love life
Write your own code
Plot then explode
Bust then reload
Chill but be bold
Know the no nos
Stop n go go
Max your flow doh
Know what Bo knows
Walk on clean floors
Plan behind doors
Sun on black shores
Work while they snore
Haters ignore
Know the real score
Welcome detours
Laugh and breathe more
You in line right?
You got time right?
Droppin dimes right?
Time to shine right?
Come and get me
Bind and hit me
Know what’s creepy?
Still can’t hurt me
Dare to love life
Dare to love life
Dare to live life
Dare to love life
God.com
Wondering minds pass time on anything that shines.
Bare vessels eager to hold or be held.
They don’t age.
Someone’s birthday everyday, digital wishes made, but never a candle burns.
Falling souls cast falling gazes
on shards of wasted time,
silicon zeros and ones
stacked skyward into frail towers of blissful blinking vanity.
Shards of wasted time,
stacked 'round
a cage of fleeting moments, arranged neatly in timelines
while priceless mind is donated voraciously
to god.com
Owl Voyeur
"Hoot" was far too casual a call for this particular night.
Royal, perched, she spied effortlessly on tangled lovers below.
Their breath echoed far further than it should.
Giving 'way the hidden place where molten love was made.
Then, her feathers caught the warmth of their bodies,
and so slightly she did rise.
Just as they reached their heights.
Yellow eyes, turned emeralds,
as she floated back to perch in solitude.
The Road Bends
When young, big dreams and invincibility crowded my sky.
Exciting hum of possibility obscuring all around me.
But as the life walk endures,
the smaller things come into view.
Mundane pokes feet, now much more a massage for calloused soul-bottoms, than annoyance.
Tripping over them I might just fall into a peaceful moment of now.
Walking on life, dust flies,
a cloud,
a million forgotten memories
each more precious than the next,
our lone companion when the country road turns to bend toward the end.
Jump
His narrow grin said it all.
Laughing at me through those tiny lashes.
"You grew up.
Now you'll have no fun at all."
I looked back.
Not wanting him to be right,
I jumped and tumbled spitefully into the humid crevasse between reality and my dreams.
Where Wishes Go
Where do wishes go when we forget about them?
Do they turn to dust?
Do they fade and wrinkle?
Or do they fall gently with the first rain,
and land on unsuspecting foreheads?
Do they age like wine, and grow wise,
graduating to become promises?
Do they collect under our feet, unnoticed,
making us just the tiniest bit taller?
If they come true, do they burst like confetti?
Or collapse like the marathon winner at the tape?
Dear wish, what were you before,
and what are you now except everything that ever matters.
Beside My Heart
Laying there,
as one thousand thousand moons cast their knowing gaze over vast in-consequence,
I stare bewildered at your silhouette.
The still darkness can't mask the beauty you possess,
it vibrates thru the space between us.
Delightful memories join our breaths in somber unison,
and we venture slowly toward the hive of dreams.
Passing thru the last mist of here and now,
I wonder to myself,
how my heart found a way to lay beside me.
Impossible Remedy
Each day another page revealed.
To my neck, I pull the blanket made of words I no longer wish to say.
The shine of future once too bright to face,
I now squint to see.
He will not say the words you need to hear. She will not glance your way today.
How it hurts, to know so much of nothing at all.
Drunk with laughter, searching for the impossible remedy.
Home
The little things she does,
leave dew drops of love,
on the windows of my heart,
changing the house we share,
to home.
Stalemates
Date-mates
Playmates
Travel-mates
Bedmates
Consummates
Love-mates
Soulmates
Housemates
Acclimate
Castigate
Cellmates
Bunkmates
Decimate
Stalemate
Stale-mates
Songbird's Song
The songbird nestled into the straw she had collected.
Weaving dreams from memories of the tunes she'd spun.
The day ahead but a wind on which she'd once again,
make joy from nothing at all.
10 Feet Tall (freedom song)
Walked by
like I’m not there.
I’m different
so you stop and stare.
Control me, cage me.
You’re insecure,
Scars are deep
though marks are few.
Mock my dream,
so fun for you.
It’s alright, these dreams come true.
Steal my love.
Play me the fool.
I see you still,
I’m stayin' true.
Take my land.
Leave me no hope.
Test my will.
Think I can’t cope?
Dying young
from all the stress.
No not me.
Outlast the rest.
Doesn’t matter
what you do.
My light source
don’t require you.
Tried to make me feel so small.
But had no real affect at all
Kept love alive,
no I won’t fall.
Walked through the pain.
Now I’m 10 feet tall.
Walked through the pain,
and now I’m 10 feet tall.
Found some love
deep in my heart.
The life we lead’s
our work of art.
Tried hard
to make me feel small,
kept love alive
and now I’m 10 feet tall
kept love alive
and now I’m 10 feet tall
kept love alive
and now I’m 10 feet tall
kept love alive
and now I’m 10 feet tall.
Winter Stash
With the effort of a blink,
my mind finds thoughts of you,
and somersaults gently into memories of our embrace,
stored away for times like this long winter.
The kiss you blew to me, echos against the wall,
leaves graffiti on my soul,
then dances playfully back into the dream from which it was born.
I follow swiftly,
hoping never to return.
Changed
I have walked a path, virgin and dangerous.
I have filled myself with grains of sparkling essence collected along the way.
I gasped and gulped wishing for a truth and wisdom to grow in me.
And now I am unrecognizable to those whose wishes launched my travel so long ago.
From fire, silence, bravery, grit and chance, I become, and can not return.
Real change burns bridges to the past,
and has no remorse for sacrifice required.
Goodnight My Love
Ahhhh says the tree to the moon.
Ahhh says the bird to the blue.
Ahhh says the dream to the true.
Ahhh say my heart to you.
Goodnight my love.
Cage Free
Lines of light and steel conspire to erect a cage for my body and mind.
But these Conspirators will not have their way with me.
I rebel. I rebel. I rebel.
Finding spaces where I float and melt without constraint.
Where form does not compute.
Where direction has neither point nor power.
It is here that I belong without expiration —-The great infinite Black from which everything is born.
Flower
The seed was small
hidden from light
The sprout was short
stretching toward the light
The bud was eager
aching to burst
Now the flower is brilliant
the fruit and reward
Something for Nothing
Worked worked worked real hard,
so I could be something.
But real real real real soon,
I'll wish to be nothing again.
Looking
He was looking for a warm embrace
She was looking for a safer place
The fit was fast like fire
Hold him
Hold her
Heal her
Heal him
She was running from hurt and pain
He was rich of strength and grain
They were a perfect circle
Fill her
Fill him
Feel him
Feel her
They were familiar with needing
They found joy in giving
Their river flowed quite freely
She wants
He wants
She gives
He gives
But the mend they need
comes only from inside
Fools know rivers are only fed by the skies
They couldn’t do all the doing
He hurts
She hurts
He grieves
She grieves
He's looking for a warm embrace.
She's looking for a safer place.
Love Vow
The air makes a promise to the wind
The wind makes a promises to the water
The water makes a promise to the stone
The stone makes a promise to the soil
The soil makes a promise to the tree
The tree makes a promise to the flower
The flower makes a promise to the butterfly
The butterfly makes a promise to the bird
And the bird sang the future to me.
So now I promise
to the bird
to the butterfly
to the flower
to the tree
to the soil
to the stone
to the water
to the wind
and to the precious air
That I will love and cherish you until, and even with, my very last breath.
Lonely Night Air
Around me now, not even the walls pay attention.
The air is dark, thick with weight of this weary mind.
Sleepy chill spills over the trampled blades of grass outside my window.
It's clear, the quiet has no intention to be fair.
Despite the echo of another hollow day,
my lips rebel,
pursing to kiss the shadow that was once your edgeless love.
Here alone in my bed,
drenched in darkness skin to bone,
I breathe the words, "goodnight my love"
and wait anxiously for nothing to come get me.
Tiny Wonderings
The wind finds its will to blow,
tickling, tumbling, without a place to land.
The trees all green with envy, for they can not roam free.
They dance resentfully, beautifully compelled.
Secrets falls between the neck of every leaf.
Heaven’s story collects atop the ground.
And it is there we sit,
hand in hand,
the witness,
in the place where joy begins,
listening to tales and mysteries sent tumbling from the sky,
Fallen so gentle-perfect, to stump our tiny minds.