I wander this world ghost-like
in poetic places, like a phantom
passing thru unseen, unfelt.

I wonder in the presence all around…I see, I feel…
I dwell in mists, resarciate revelation,
in the clear and frosty glow of iridescent knowings
and I vibrate with the rhythms and the meters of forever…

and yet…and yet…and yet I have no body to encounter anything.

How it is that I cannot touch that rock, that tree, that river?
Oh it’s not for lack of trying!  No, it’s not for lack of crying out
until my throat is torn and sundered by the torrents of
poetic whispers midst the thunder booming in the heart beat of the ocean!

Blue and silver tinged in crimson rushing furious from deep
inside my belly and into the deserts stretched around me desolate…
and bleeding wet across the dry rocks stacked in careless ruination
like a giant game of pick-up sticks, I flow…
I water this ground thirsty, this land burnt and deaf and hungry!

I see dwellers in the dust and so I run to them
in glad and eager assignations, to speak waters cold and clear
in dulcet tones delightful…but I’m stunned, disheartened and confused
because my waters glad, my torrents true blue in their striking mercies
simply pass right thru them, as if they were ghostly manes,
mere spirit rivers, haunted waters!

I have no solid being in this non poetic world!
I am eidolic without body! I am eidolon!
And I rush at them in hot frustration, I fly at them with fists poetic
windmilling the haunted air like stinging butterflies and then
I see that glass jaw of untruth just jutting forth in pride,
I see those flabby dull and paunchy souls and rain down blows
like honey bees dive bombing wooly bears below…

and stand and watch in horror as my fists, my quick poetic fists
of thunder-boom and stormy rant

(and lightning laced with baby breath and MamaSong)

just pass right thru…without a trace.
That’s when it hits me, I’m the phantom in this place!

I’m a ghost poetic without body,
save my words which have no presence
save their spectral wraithy breeze
as they pass thru the dwellers in the land of Nod!
And then I weep, and see my tear drops fall straight thru the carmine earth
and out the other side to float in space like stars unhinged from Mama’s eyes.

…But once in a while I hurt my hand!
Because I see that tree, that rock,
that mountain, that sea and I swing
with all my might so desperate
to make contact, connect but glum
expecting that it will be just
another sickening stomach churning
free-fall thru and without touching
anything that makes a difference
and gives me substantial presence
that I yearn for unrequited,
always unrequited…
…Once in a while…BAM!  That tree is THERE!

And oh, that mountain in the air
hits back with all its mountain might
and I break open and pour poetry from knuckles
barked and ripped and dripping bloody meaning.

So I walk, proceed with caution and with people,
careful not to punch with fists, but swing with kisses blown poetic
and with whispers strewn so pretty in the paths of maybe-solid
peace that feet can walk upon and crush the petals
of my life poetic, thus releasing such sweet fragrance
of that Mystery Lurking Beyond Wonders.

And while I walk, I have been wondering…
what if I am not a ghost?  What if I am real, and walk
a world of trees so solid, mountains stark and clouds so soft,
so touchable and trembling singable and trodable
in skies so blue and thick with skin like opal seas?

What if it’s not me the wraith but everything around me
that’s unsound and apparitional, haunted, insubstantial?

What if I’m the solid one and live inside a singing body
solid and substantial in its meter, rhyme and rhythm?

What if I walk a world of ghosts within this body poetic,
and with dactylic soul still singing ever in exquisite
anapestic harmony and twine my song with river-chorus
in the currents of the Milky Way so high and flowing ever
from my Mama’s ruby loving lips?

What if it’s because my fists’ poetic swinging, punching,
on the rocks relentless pounding on the trees
until they gain their being solid and substantial,
bit by bit and flake by swing, whiff by hook they reel
into reality and become present, incarnated to wear atoms
for their royal robes piled high and gold with poems now glorified?

What if my words, passing thru them like the winds wind thru tree branches
leaving something solid, something real that feels good to inhabit,
what if my heart poetry is giving walls and floors and roofs and doors
to enter in and stay and take on body, soul, and spirit?

I am a ghost poetic,
I’m a poem in a ghost world.
I am a song unseen and spectral,
I am heard in opened ears.
I am a difference that I long for
and a solid longed for morsel.
I’m a river in the desert
and a cool cup of sweet water
and a riddle-paradox
of ghost-words become manifest
and incarnated in the bloody
hearts of listeners and hungry
mouths of singers
and the happy souls
of Mama’s children.