Category Archives: Poetry

A Treasure Made Trinket

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i clothe myself in wonder
for you, wrap myself in night
i am your pirate plunder
you can have without a fight

the milky way my shining sash
the moon my pendant true
and cricket song my lingerie
i give myself to you

you there, so strong, so brilliant
straightforward as blazing suns
your ready laugh, your brewing storms
the way your rivers run

from mountains high, jagged austere
you flow into the sea
for you i wait, indigo here
for you to give you me

we…night and day bonded and true
and joy our wonder-fates
you wrapping me, me inside you
Eternity awaits
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It’s In Rivers (My “Work” Response In Godly Play Training”

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Yesterday I did a training for a method of faith formation in children called “Godly Play”.  What happens is that you hear/see a bible story and then you do “work” related to processing the meaning of it.

The story I heard was that of Abram and Sarai…and when asked where I saw myself in the story it was immediately evident that I was with Sarai…in the back…in laughter…before seeing the promise come true.

Obvi I made a poem…but the opportunity to do it the way I did was SOOO freaking gratifying.

I hope you enjoy it

It’s In Rivers

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The Rustling of Those Wings

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I always thought vultures
slept at night, devil-red heads
bulbous on scrawny leather necks
tucked under fetid wing and pinion.

I was wrong.

They never sleep
but circle
endlessly
always

gliding around the dying
the rotten and discarded
waiting for that last quick breath
and then they land nearby
and hop like feather frogs
to their last supper never ending

I stick my head
out in the night
and cannot see them
but I know they are there
by the way
the rustling of those wings
echoes in my hearttumblr_nulpidcDV91utvlmvo1_500

Like Sunlight, Like Fog

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I’m often told I’m confident
(like the march of blazing sun
across the hills of night
awakening each day)

I’m told I look like rushing waves
that roll in from the sea
and pounce upon the sand
in joyful swelling sounds

This makes me laugh inside my heart
because I’m more like fog
that silent moves unsure
which way it wants to go

But still committed to the march
inexorable and slow
to be true to myself
in soft embrace sold out

to be completely there
and wrapped around all things
I cherish in the hug
of insubstantial presence

there, and yet untouched.tumblr_ntubpx3qIm1qm86t3o1_1280

The Birth of My Fourth

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it’s a crushing weight
tangible presence
part and parcel
of the essence
of this thing

just like red is
the truth of blood
and copper is
the air exhaled
by laughing lungs

it’s the love I feel
for your fire-self
your glowy soul
alive and strong
and destined here

to speak with laughs
to laugh with song
to sing in truths
to love in speed
to linger ever

as the crushing weight
here in my chest
upon my heart
this bloody living
love of youaaa

Forever In My Bones

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The echoing of silence
implications of ashes
a song inside my tears
a signifying bond
the moan within my blood.

The writing of a moon
engraven on this water
and carried by the winds
into your heart beyond
the reach of tongue or pen…

this is my ever burden
my sentence that I carry
forever in my bones

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Louder Than Beethoven

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She talks like cliffs,
speaking words of grey granite
and loose limestone that
stand against blue skies
and grab onto puffy clouds.

She’s exalted over valleys, far distant in chasms
between the green and the happy streams
and places there beside her words
where eagles spin and scream
and echo in the sunset’s gleam.

She is low meadows laying soft.
She is all signification, all there
but you must have faith to listen
because she speaks in silence
louder than Beethoven.

She is not easy or attainable
but she will not hurt you, just
make you count the cost
and if you don’t, then rest assured
you will hurt yourself.

I love her in the mountain air
and in the meadow mist
both lively and lazy.
She is my best friend, and
more solid than all the earth.
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Pearl of Great Price

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what do I
do with all
the loss?

I never knew
the absence
of things
could weigh
so heavy,
could loom
so large.

Truly the Pearl
of Great Price
does indeed
cost everythingtumblr_nlh0bryEtH1tc258so3_1280

Walk Like Grace Kelly

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The other day I was marvelling
as I thought about Grace Kelly,
floating above the surface of the earth
with every step and every glance
and every smile.

She was timeless,
she was a rock and a river
all at the same time,
such redwood-tall poise
and ocean-depth intrigue.

She was full of herself
in the best of ways,
Grace.

And here I sit breathing
this same air she might have breathed
and wondering what chance in hell
I have if death actually managed
to pull her feet down to earth.

Nevertheless, I hop
each stride I take,
kicking one foot out and up
to step on that invisible riser
like Grace did…

and I try to walk like Grace Kelly,
on the air like Christ
on the waters.

In This Fresh Forever Air

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after a storm the air
scrubbed and electric
and crackling with ancient
newness, fresh like a goddess
reborn in wonder and at home
moves across my face
and into my lungs
like eternity alive
and shouting
singingtumblr_nsmq8vCOoe1u4jpboo1_r1_540after we clear the air
and our words sparkle
fresh, cracks highlighted
by tears like raindrops
offered in falling curtains
of feeling, of love, of joy
lingering slightly stained
crimson like liquid crystal heartstumblr_nlh0bryEtH1tc258so7_r2_1280it’s then we see each other
again for the first time ever
and our hearts say hello you
while our eyes scream missed you so
and our voices twine again in song
like the sound of rivers
with the light of mountains
in the fresh forever air
in this fresh forever air32a2468b7da296b817b109c7db52c231

That Awkward Moment…

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it lays there, bloated
in between when you
and the other person
connected and laughed
(or that’s what you thought)

and when you speak
and your heart falls
out and open
on the floor
with the inscription

would you like
to come over
for dinner and wine?

eyes narrow,
furrowing brows
and glance off
to the side
and it shifts

and it’s game over
flowers fade
the smell of smoke
and burnt cookies
lingering

File_3174, 2/9/15, 4:46 PM, 8C, 6508x8606 (708+960), 100%, Art Scanning-1, 1/40 s, R65.7, G31.1, B51.5

100 Times

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I’ve been thinking about
repetition and returns
and things you get
to do all over.

Heart beats
breaths
sleeping
waking
thousands, maybe
even millions
of times?

Watching seasons change
Solstices turning
Great storms breaking
Epic bike rides
and train trips
down the perfect
silver tracks gleaming
like a brilliant arrow
shot into the golden
distant beckoning horizon.

Christmases
Thanksgivings
Birthdays
vintages of wine
harvests

You might get
100 trips
around the sun
if you are lucky

if you are lucky

100 times

and we treat
each trip
like it’s a heartbeat
or a breath
or a short night’s sleep
when it’s really
that train trip
down the silver tracks
into the golden end

100 trips, alas
100 trips, oh glory
100 trips so gladtumblr_nmp3is7zVY1r4pkz0o1_500

This Place of Living Bliss

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a foggy night in late summer
seems like such a strange thing,
seeping up from the ground
like bathwater draining in reverse

we go walking in this cool
clammy oddly warm chill
orange under streetlights
and red under starlight

and I sit and watch us walk
away thru the rising mist
and wonder how we got here
to this place of living bliss…

The Center of All Things

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I sat down by the fire
in the middle of the roses
planted all around
and fragrant with buzzy bees
so busy in the dusk.

The air shimmered
as you approached
skimming across the grass
like a clipper ship
under full sail and
high on the sea.

And when you sat down,
beside me there in
the crackling fragrant
breezy busy air
it was like the entire
universe had come home
and I was at the center
of all things.tumblr_nsobtj0n6y1qbjv4ko1_1280

Waterwheels and Wonders

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I’m pretty lonely, now
that I am not in
the juggling circle
with all your other eggs
tossing around frantic
and always on the edge
of splatting on the stones.

I just got tired of the suspense.
I got bored with the panic
of will she catch, will she miss
and that somehow miraculous
growing of another arm
there just long enough
not to hold but to toss
back up again spinning
in the cool bracing breeze.

And the worst times
when I hadda catch myself
and then pretend that you did
so you wouldn’t drop you
splatting on stones
and seeing that a huge
quantity of love diluted
by a huger number of recipients
is just about like no love at all.
So…I sit now…watch you juggle
and see the eggs move round
and occasionally I snatch one away
so you can twirl just the most important.

I can’t do that thing anymore,
where I am something to be
managed, parcelled, watered?
I wanna be ground to your feet
soil to your roots, sun to your leaves!
I want you to be breeze neath my blades
and rain on my petals and sun synergistically
all around me and warm.

So go ahead and keep in rhythm,
there is nothing over here, don’t reach.
Eggs hatch, and become real,
and you can quit imitating
a windmill and become instead
a waterwheel and wonder turning you always.
born

Unplanned Grief #4

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Across the ocean, you,
there without drowning
and I don’t know how
that happened, because
I grieve and take on water
in sputter-gulps and gasps,
dog paddle-fighting every wave.

But this your journey you have chosen
alone and must…choose alone.
I regret so deeply that you also choose
to live this life alone as well.

But I have choices too
and I choose Spring
even though my favorite
season is Fall.

I will always be right here
to offer you swimming lessons,
yes, always and forever…
but I will not drown with you
because how could I see Spring
return to claim her crown?

So instead I sit and watch waves
in this unexpected storm, this fat
cloudburst of grief unplanned
and out of budget.

I grieve the living when the living lie
in tattered shadows of what could be.
I wish it were different, but nonetheless,
I am okay, in spite of all these griefs
unplanned.tumblr_nth3mqRDE01s5neh1o1_1280

Unplanned Grief #3

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Thus shall I let go
(like trees release their breath
and birds release their flight)
of all that keeps us bound.
Blood by blood
and hope by hope
and I swim, harder,
faster now.

Because my grief
is my life boat,
I know I cannot drown.
But I still hurt for you,
your loss your sadness
crumpled, misshapen
in all this…and this,
most of all I hurt
for the aloneness
of your journey

you unmoored
from past and future
dark and just beyond
the curvature of your
moon so dark tonite.

But tho I hurt,
though I have
no tears left
I am alive
and I embrace
my own life
as my own
and mindful,
vested in
this journey
that I take
and undertake
at last.heartwild-e1439930587744

Unplanned Grief #2

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Waves in steely oceans
of sandy sorrow and me
bound by blood and bone
to you alone, forever
in red-stains wrapping white
chains soft and firm with
my gallant foolish choice
to summon forth
a fragment of God.

Before I know it
I’m on the edge
of another wave,
silver, falling green
wave of grief
when I recall
you have never
died…you are here,
struggling to get
through your own
waves, and…searching
for the way
to survive into
your life in spite
of me.

Those dreams I held for you
(I hold them for you)
they keep me in that still place
and I fight it when those feelings
blow away as easily as my breath,

They were my dreams anyway,
not yours, and life — yours —unfolds
under your nose, a mole emerging
from our messy lawn of dandelions
and daisies and bluegrass…and your dreams?
I dunno, they taste like a conjured normal
new and unfamiliar to us bothtumblr_ntboapcTuc1s5neh1o1_1280

Unplanned Grief #1

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I hadn’t planned on grieving.
It just sorta happened, sorta blossomed
like a small grey cloud appearing
against that impossibly happy blue sky
while life scurried by, rushed across
the intersection of Existence and Vine
and the fluffy cloud became clouds
and clouds and they clawed their way across
that untouched sky so blue so blue,
bluer than my heart or my breath.

Your body is still warm
(but oh so cold inside me)
your mind whirring on
(but seized-up inside my soul)
your voice chatters (in my mind)
like squirrels or gears
in someone else’s ears,
while your lungs billow
poisons and false memories
in out in out in out in

and my grief sucks in
and my grief blows out
and so on…tumblr_neh6qd5wIg1qg7ipyo1_1280

Othered Once Again

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it’s like the instantaneous arrival
the spontaneous appearance
the epiphanous eventuality
in one thunderous moment
of dull leaden light that clashes
and smothers and chokes out
everything else…

that moment when fear
puts on its mask of hate
and joins the ritual circle of death,
eyes wide shut,
and I am othered
once againtumblr_ndypq0jxEy1r7aeyoo1_1280

no melody down here in sight

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it was eyes,
everywhere each one
attached to a beak, each beak
trilling so shrilly, chattering
in clakkety chirp-chirruping
in brackish raucous screams

loserloserloserloserloser

this forest was once a place
of wonder and the night
so full of promise but now,
it’s like the stars have fallen
from the sky and become
these birds, these birds with eyes
and beaks and nothing to sing,

just screams in a trackless forest
with a past turned out to be a dream
and a future that’s just a strip mine
yet unzipped, undug, yet torn open
and a present consisting of merely
the sound of these eyes so sharp
and beaks blunt just like red clubs

and no melody down here in sight

Come, My Love

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Come, my love…
walk out in the river with me on waters
still and soft beneath our souls
and slightly giving underneath our feet

the surface dips and we will sink
but never past our ankles, just deep
enough to get our hearts wet, soaked
in mysteries of our journey-dance

and underneath the Moon-Glow Glance

and we will carry our essence there
into the river deep and swift
and we upon the surface light
and walking in this river night

upturn your cup!  pour you out quick!
and I will do the same with you
and mingle…waters, breath, life
time, no time…mingle, ever mingle

oh love, my love
walk out in the river with me on waters
still and soft beneath our souls
and slightly giving underneath our feet

Do You Ever Think About Whales?

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how they spring from waves
like weasels going *POP*

slamming the waves
like children splashing in *puddles*

and then how they beach themselves
like angry sad *prophets*

telling us something
in suicide swims

onto the wet beach
and gravity’s grave
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The One Who Waits

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I am the one who waits, the one in love
I cannot help but be the one who loves and waits.

Sometimes I want to be the one
who does not wait, who never hurts

I want to play the part of never waiting.

I try to get there late, busy myself, lose track of time
but I always lose this game and forget my lines.

When I go elsewhere I find myself here,
punctual, always on time
(or even ahead of time)

that’s saying something, being ahead of time

and nothing to do but be who I am,
the lover…the one
who waits

(inspired by Roland Barthes)PersonWalkingAway

 

Gives Me A Lump In My Throat

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Every single time…

Here is the deepest secret nobody knows
(here is the root of the root and the bud of the bud
and the sky of the sky of a tree called life, which grows
higher than soul can hope or mind can hide)
and this is the wonder that’s keeping the stars apart

I carry your heart (I carry it in my heart)

— E.E. Cummings

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Bickering On The Bike

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“I’m dead” she said.

“Dead?” asked her honey?
“What do you mean?”

“I am slain at last
in the icy grip of
your death hand glare,
and solo icicle silences!”

She fairly dripped martyr blood
from every precisely chosen word
weighted just so and
freighted with layers…

“Ah” her honey replied, nodding.

They peddled on in silence
each one a universe of laughter
inside the heart they share.tumblr_mlmzwwh6nq1rc8sbto1_1280

Down Here

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and down here
in the glimmery dark
and soft among the reeds
and rushes, by the river
i’m surrounded by these
soft and liquid sacks
of living light that float
right by me in the night
and hide behind the day

while i sing the song
of being, everlasting
it thrums deep in my bones
and calls out to them there…

…floating in the air
in the glimmery night
and soft in downy dark

Least Of All The Past

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Mostly, people don’t realize
time is a living thing, a tree
whose roots stretch back
to the beginning (and before?)
whose branches reach high,
broad and all around into
the “what-is-coming-what-may-be”
and we the fruit hanging there
swaying in the breezes
of the breath of Jesus
and Mama at His side
and all creation spinning out
inside this circle dance…

see, the past flows up, into the future
the future slides down, slides deep
sinks into the roots and makes its
transformations silver, shining
or is reclaimed and overcome, choked off
and laid, still born into the red dirt slick and packed.tumblr_mapuluSGB71ruq5t7o1_1280and fruit?  tossed and kissed in space and growing
in the currents from beneath and from above?
fed by rivers subterranean, drinking from
the rain that falls down from the clouds
of all that lies ahead…

we fruit are sweet, or bitter, or savory
in the grip of God and how the past is eaten
does predict the future…

but what the future holds
can quickly change the past
in just an eyelash twinkle
and we all are changed!!tumblr_nsshklpRmr1qat5pio1_500Ahh…I hold to the past
and cling tight to my future
and throw my arms wide to the sides
and hug all “what-may-comes”
into my heart so soft, so strong
and thus shall my heart ever sing
the song of great becoming
and the song of all forgetting

do you get it now?
nothing is “just itself”
nothing at all,
least of all the past. tumblr_nsqbo2iD9x1qafxpco10_1280

Your Tender Thumbs

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take your tender thumbs and softly
brush my rosy tear stained cheeks,
tears tender, like moonlight dripping
silky down the screen of night.

touch my face in quiet splendour
electric under starkissed eyes
and hungry for your sighs, your breath
oh Love, deliver me from death

and wreath me in your smoulder-heart
and cushion me against your breast
and hold me close and safe and sound
oh touch my soul, me, lost but found

and cricket song will fall and rise
and breezes kiss my yearning thighs
so softly, take your tender thumbs
and make time stop, oh, strike me dumb.tumblr_n4sg5dkmYn1ri8ligo1_500

For My Friend

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those pieces you gave me
so jagged, so bitter, so shocking,
and time faithful and patient,
and your heart time’s ally
and washing them in your tears

(those pieces)

until they’ve become worn
and smooth, savory, building blocks
and yeah, badges of honor to a heart
broken and rising?

*those pieces*

see how they fit inside me?
see that place with eyes all around
and ears attached to eyes
and hands cradling, treasuring,
and no mouth in sight?

__no_words__

see my heart welcome them,
those pieces?
they have joined my treasure room.
and written above the door they live in
is this word:

Precious

ima walk beside you
and carry them (you)
and give them back to you (them)
as you need to spend.

sometimes buying forgetfulness
sometimes buying remembrance

im so glad to be your friend
my friendtumblr_mrclidmzMC1s43k2mo1_500

Selective Hearing

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We live in a world full of flaming individualists,
flailing consciences lashing out everywhere
except where it really counts!

It’s that individualistic ear,
at once so very deaf and yet
so quick to hear!

Deaf when thunder sounds towards us
but oh so sensitive to all offense
or lightning lash at others!tumblr_nsmq0xJbLN1qat5pio1_500

This is perhaps why the prophets had to weep
and yell so loudly.  We might be listening…
but only for someone else.

Our selective hearing leaves us dull
and blind and deaf to everything
except the symphony of self.

And yet the words still echo
down canyons of time
Prepare Ye The Way of the Lord!gggggHA!  How does one do that!?
Prepare the roads for God?
How does anyone do that?!

Make straight the paths of God?
What does that even mean?  Roads?
Make Straight?  Prepare…

Can you picture men and women
preparing roads *effective roads*
that bring God down to earth…

Bring God down to earth,
and who needs that more?
Them or us?tumblr_ns8q1lWXI11rr74i9o1_1280

Prepare Ye The Way of the Lord!
Make Their Paths Straight!

All the great promises, early/late,
reversals we anticipate
fulfilled because Their Presence here?

Beauty springing from the ash
Mourning turned to lively dancing
Waters flow from wilderness

Streams cascading from the deserts.
swords beaten into plowshares
spears transformed to pruning hooks,

wolves lying down to sleep
in fields with soft and peaceful sheep
and lions and lambs in love knee deep

justice rolling down like waters
and righteousness ever-flowing streams
the desert blossoming like dreams

the blind seeing
the lame at dance
the lowly lifted up

the hungry filled up with good things
the Road of God, my heart still sings
when I can hear that cry so clear

May we be cured, delivered from
our terminal affliction
Selective Hearing.tumblr_ns4zf4tBCu1s5neh1o1_1280

 

Pressure & Time

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Geology is the study
of pressure and time.
That’s all it takes, really…

pressure and time.

Psychology is the study
of pressure and thought.
That’s all a function, really…of

pressure and time.tumblr_np0l2kYa261qkb10mo1_1280Theology is the study
of pressure and Word.
That’s all it took, really…and

pressure and time.

My heart is the study
of pressure and grace
occurring in space

pressure and time.

flowing thru time
possessed by the Word
thoughts under pressure

pressure and time.

inhabiting Word
Gethsemane sleeps
and diamonds…at last.

Pressure & Time

The Blindness of Unbelief

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when He walked in dust thru the dust,
when He crested that hill, and looked down
and left onto the far side
of the valley in which He grew…

when He started down the slope
all the way to the bottom until
He was sitting in the barrel
of the synagogue to teach…6a00d8346998ff69e201b7c76f23e9970bwhen the common folk were amazed
and the ones who “knew Him when” astonished
and offended that the Jesus they knew
would act the wise man instead of the fool…

when the preachers and leaders felt His stick
and recoiled huffily, sniffing and smelling death
and their own breath breathing threats to cover
as they questioned His authority and mighty works…tumblr_n46wrjRIdA1roemwgo1_1280when the fires banked so low and unbelief rose so high
and Honor moved by hiding Her eyes ashamed
because He was in His own country and blanketed
in their judgements there…across that river…

when Jesus of Nazareth marveled…
and night fell blindly once again.Image 009

So Beautiful It Hurts

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“A song from another time
survived with me.
It follows me wherever I go.”
— Dunya Mikhail, from “Song from Another Time,” The Iraqi Nights (New Directions, 2014)

tumblr_nrc5tfv2NO1qas1mto4_1280

oh america

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oh america, alas for me
once blind but now, alas!
I see…what I could not see before
safely ensconced behind my placid doortumblr_nlzzm3QWBV1sq9drqo1_1280of hallels, proverbs, judgements
assumed and (not) asked and answered
while Perry Mason spoke for me
Paul Drake got me off
Della Street hid me safe.

oh america, you hid from me
your bloody dungeons, grisly gore
your carrion teeth hungry for more
I weep in agony, I never saw that side
of you, rapacious, avarice-infected, ravenous

alas for you
alas for metumblr_ns93u6y7WJ1qllucco1_500oh america, alas for me
once deaf but now, alas!
I hear…not pop songs, jingles
and bubble gum ditties
but klaxxons and outrage
and death-dirges arising in cities

writhing in flaming hatred and strife
sirens screaming and bullconner bullhorns
in the tramping of jackboots and protests for freedom
I hear the desperate pleading for life and liberty
their chains rattle like thunder
but america, you hear only dice
rolling on your green table
of gambling and greed and
just be oh so nicetumblr_miy2lmQQy11qb5cdqo1_500I wish I could just rip myself
straight outta me, tear that
born and bred into ease
from my arteries, and my
narcissistic “I’m so vain”
from my veins and be fresh

be free…oh america…alas for you and me
as I watch our best, our brightest
still chained in our simpering
lobs of “be nice, calm down, be polite”
lobotomized and safe in facebook internments
prisoners in consumer kraalstumblr_noeogvQoQI1qas1mto5_1280and poetic deftness flees me
abandons me in this hour of my need
oh grace deliver me from selfish greed!
oh Mama let me run to truth so clean with godspeed
I lose mastery in the horror of this hour

alas, oh america, I lament for me
alas…I lament for thee
and do not know if you will find the courage
to face yourself in the mirror of your victims
the ones you killed and ate and burped
and called it good.

oh america, oh america
God have mercy on thee
and trip you up and toss you down
and take from you that gory crown
of racism, racism racism racism
from sea to shining sea and in betweentumblr_npxxyrZeCO1r38hk2o1_1280may God remove that hood that blinds
you to brotherhood, to good, to kind
give you eyes to see (oh god let me see)
give you ears to hear (oh god let me hear)
give you a heart at last and courage
to look at what you’ve done and left undone

oh america
oh america
oh america
oh america
oh america528483-Depression-1364630455-842-640x480

“I am torn in two but
I will conquer myself.
I will dig up the pride…I will take a crowbar
and pry out the broken
pieces…”
— Anne Sexton – from The Civil War

Making Me Airtight

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Gold threads thru green fields
lead me on to yonder mountains,
this path beneath my feet
so friendly, so familiar
even though I’ve yet to walk it.tumblr_nsevvhl7sz1thfeewo1_500I am finding my pack
rests easier these days
though I still chafe beneath
those goddam toothy straps!

It is full of certainty and truth
but which is which…well,
of that I am uncertain.tumblr_n1h7bjMfIv1rcw6xko1_500No matter, that curtain
of friendly fog’s gently parting,
dancing on the merry winds
that tug, that tousle-tickle
frondy fiddleheads and firs
and I press on towards
those lofty looming heights.

Night approaches and I sleep
I whisper to myself in dreams
of secrets in my unknown heart
so certain and so true…

“Follow! Follow!” I sing to myself.
“Run in trackless wilderness!
Dance in virgin meadow green!
Find Her waiting…beckoning,
drawing out your fecund longing
into solid living flesh!”tumblr_ns2yd3nlx81u3uzjzo1_1280I am knowing that when I sleep
I like to go barefoot in my dreams,
I walk without blinders on my knowing feet
so they can see…no boots upon these eyes!

Then I wake and see muddy footprints
glowing brown, leading to the door and then
just disappearing into…When?
Or where…somewhere…like
the pregnant bottom of a well
the throbbing mystery of a cave
the trembly throat of a fresh spring…
somewhere.tumblr_ns6zneQsD91rr74i9o1_1280Maybe it is in my tears
and in the ocean and the wind
that blows the truth into my face
and from my heart, a living knuckle
where those two worlds join and pivot
in the light and in the dark…

and those muddy footprints are a map that I must follow
but only walking backwards and always loving forwards
and then return the way I came while walking forwards
and my love is flowing back to beautify the things I passed

beneath its tender touch…my love, my touch.Clare-17This journey’s making me airtight
even though I seep, bleed love and weep
in the day and thru the night,
thru the blood and in the bread,
with the babies and the bones,
in my tender waiting womb
all my yearning tears and groans…
It’s this heartbreak that atones

and that path shining golden…
and the mountains…
nestling me home.tumblr_ns1nl2rq0i1szrg39o1_1280

Just A Word

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…and just like that
with just a quick word,
a pea-sized hard pebble
nudged over the edge
and tumbling down
the beckoning slope
and picking up steam
and skittering bouncing
off rocks and off hearttumblr_ngn4uaICOj1s6gw9vo1_1280the slide starts unstoppable
the whole slope is sliding
en masse, sorta slithering
and chunking and pouring
and ka-bunking til nothing

can be done but just try
to survive the earth leaving
disappearing ‘neath my feet
and keep my balance
and surfing the wave
of disbelief made of
stones rather than watertumblr_nsoybcYvjf1qat5pio1_540then i am that pebble
pea-sized on that mountain
and falling away from
my fellow climbers
as they watch me bounce
on the rocks down below
and tumble so quickly
my white skin scraped red
and my heart cut so raw
on the jagged scree falling
around me like raindrops
of stony and ancient
hot volcanic weeping.tumblr_nrp4dlCcno1r2zs3eo1_1280and the bottom is waiting
the same place i left it
and the summit is laughing
so high up the mountain
silhouetted against
the bright blue sky quiet
and gleaming in light
underneath my companions
looking down where I lay

so near, yet so far
untouchable always
and never crossed over
to join them on high
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That Moment Boundless

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It’s when the grey wind
blows warm across
cinereal waters and
picks up pearly moist brushes
to push ashen stiff clouds
outta shape against cerulean canvas
of sky and space

It’s when dark grasses
and yearning branches
and leaves and needles
moan in jealous longing for
the fingers of that grey whistling
wind tasting of granite and glacier,
slow flows and sunlight
and dappled fruit quick
and sudden

It’s when I sit on the porch
and think of those times and spaces
and I remember your faces and my own
grasses and branches
and leaves and needles
stand on end stiff and electric
to catch anything…anything
blowing across my waves
in the grey wind

What I Am Trying To Say

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“Between Voice and Thought,
between Thought and Voice,
between Presence and Absence,
oscillates the poetic pendulum.”
— Paul Valéry, from “Poetry and Abstract Thought,” The Art of Poetry(Princeton University Press, 1958)

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A Purposeful Work

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Ho!  You who are broken
in your maddening, modern conformity,
squeezing into the oh too tight tenny shoes
that pinch your toes and chirp at your soul!18302092788_3558d38c2e_oListen…take off your shoes and wander.
Aimlessly. Abandon agenda!
Give up your goals (just for a moment)
wander with no purpose on purpose.andrc3a9-de-dienes-nu-1949-via-liveauctioneersAfter all, there is so much to do
that you cannot afford to not wander
away from the overflow days
and the many demands on your time and attention!
Toss out your check list and check yourself instead
and spend time pursuing
the unplanned quick moment

right now…in some eating, and drinking,
and wandering…tumblr_ns1w85ECR51qas1mto3_1280…from paths and from business
and rest, and withdraw
and pray with your passage
from boardroom to garden.

See the fat flowers
frolicking violet
hear the bees rockin
in time to the wind
listen for stories
and look at the birds
and see the white lilies
give life and give strength
and thus rescue your being
delivered from doing!tumblr_nsccig7Euk1sooy9go1_1280Stop to notice
let your thoughts
prayers rise and fall
with your breath
and your step.

Wandering is
purposeful work
without purpose
done on purpose.
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My Bucket List

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The other day?

I heard some men yammerin and scratchin
an sniffin each other with words and noises
and hey hey ho ho how bout them Cowboys hearts!simp2They were talking about bucket lists.

They didn’t know I was there (I was in a dress so I was invisible).

Well…a bucket list.  I didn’t have one.
So I wondered, I wandered, and I decided to make one!
Yaay me!  See?  I can keep up with the boys!tumblr_n1h7bjMfIv1rcw6xko1_500So check this out!

Mrs. Reety-Doe has a great bucket!
It’s new, shiny, and oh wow does it sing
when her high pressure test water
shoots from that shiny raygun nozzle
and splashes its cymbalic sides and bass bottom
and then when the pressure of the water spilling in
gets so great it sings higher and higher and higher
and sounds decidedly like it hasta go poddy!!solbwqjke2bk8lq3civiMiss Fuzzy Gyrtle, now her bucket is wood
with metal bands and soldier staves all regular
but gentle curved and carved just so,
cradling the water gurgly and gentle inside
as its contralto hums and hugs the wet contents.tumblr_n4bm5qdPvL1spq83no1_1280Ms Tidy-Hand, tho…wtf is up with that bucket!??
It’s really nuffin more than an oversize porcelain diaper pail!
Remember that sorta crazed ivory shiny dull white sheen
with the thin blue Germanic stripe around the bottom
that just comforts with its defining authority?
Thick, heavy, awkward…but so solid that dirt
just sorta gives up and leaves and when it drinks
from the hose it sounds like lederhosen in alpine
and beer steins clinking contrapuntal
to clakking autumn clogs.Image 002But my favorite was old Granny Walker’s
worn out rusty bucket filled with holes
and memories and flowers planted in each.
Half-buried and cock-eyed and full
of Black-Eyed Susans and Pansies rioting
and ready to blow that chicken coop and run
for Tidy-Hand’s oh so ordered beds
and dig their toes into her perfect compost
like tourist ladies toes in Jamaica Brown Sugar sand
and stretch out ta rest…

Oh Granny…you know sumfin the rest of us
have forgotten we ever knew, don’t you?tumblr_n22860yx8C1s2z59jo1_1280

So yeah…I have my bucket list now, so I got that going for me!

But I think
I will just keep on hiding in my hobbit wonder
beneath the magic cloak of unnoticed and smile to myself

thinking about
those neighborhood buckets
and the containers they use
in their gardens.

Zizzzi Gloucester

Zizzzi Gloucester

My Other Hand

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My one hand?
It’s what you see here
on the page making funny marks
that become funny meanings
in your musing mind.Image 003But my other hand, well!
It reaches outside in the smoke on the wind.
It gropes in the night for a dear not-here friend.

it touches heaven
it waves at eagles
it feels the raindrops
and cries with seagulls
while the waves tumble in
and in…it is washed in them too

my other hand,
well it awakens you
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Check Out My Hair

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I lead face forward, my hair trails behind me,
smelling of all of the longings and seas
that evaporate in the hot sun of the rest
who think playing in shallows is safest and best.

My face is my sunscreen protecting my heart
in the winds and the rays of a place where it seems
that people don’t care and are not really there
and call daily connection dumb fairy-tale dreams.

It lets me go out and look normal and fine,
it lets me get by in a style called “all mine”
and it holds my eyes steady, they’re seeing and seen,
but my hair’s smell hides my secret “what I really mean”.

My hair holds my longing, it carries my ache,
my hair holds my grief over those who just take
and it doubts those who promise that they’re truly there
when it reaches to touch their face, but just gets air.

It’s perfumed with desire, and fear, and some hope.
It is curly and flies around, feels like a dope
because it tries to cross chasms on that taut tightrope
of belief in belief or some other dumb trope…

but that feeling of authentic being…that strength
of choosing a style that is me come what may,
when my hair is undone and is free in the wind
but still anchored to me, well my hair is my friend!

I am anchored to it! I think my hair is me!
It’s my soul’s silver banner unfurled by this sea
of humanity streaming and nose to the ground,
my hair pops in the wind and brings heaven around!

So be circumspect when I walk by you today.
If you wanna know anything about the way
I think or I feel…or I purpose to be?
Jus check out my hair…if you wanna know me.
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And in Honor of Amelia Earhart’s Birthday Last Week

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I simply haffa reblog this. I won’t blather about how incredible it is…that much is obvious even to turtles who haven’t peaked out of their shells in a month!!

writerspilecki's avatarbuildingapoem

 amelia

So I wrote this admittedly brilliant little poem in a white heat on the train in to my summer job many years ago. It is one of the few poems that I only sent out once before it got published. Sometimes the magic just happens. I originally wrote it as a prose poem and that is how it was originally published. In the coming book it will appear as free verse. I like it better this way. There is more nuance with real line breaks. It is rare that I get chills reading something I wrote, but this one is special.

.

Flying Lessons with Amelia

.

I met her the day of her first crash.

The stars in my eyes reflected the flash

of the cameras, the sun kissing her

silver pocket compact. The photos,

shades of grey, didn’t do her justice.

Storm clouds only capture spring

by…

View original post 895 more words

Singing To The Bones

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Speak to me gently…

I am listening with my bones,
instruments of hearing
my companions…

I listen by the fire.

Speak into my soul with touch and glance
while I walk to and fro and spread a feast
that’s fit for angels to consume and dance
under stars and with the silky moon.tumblr_nrwiwkeKcl1rcf4reo1_1280Bone-music vibrates
from my bone-core deep,
emanates from my sternum,
surrounds me in its sticky grasp
and to its gentle bosom I am clasped…
in drum, in harp, in whistle call and
in that dance on puffy clouds in fall.tumblr_nqgtlmEydT1u051b5o1_500Hear its cry in my heart’s every pulse
and I must answer or I will remain
bereft and longing, agitated, always

and seeking in snows aslant and serious
and in ocean floors murky mysterious
and in that desert deep and in the forest strong
and beneath the breath of emerald wind’s ever-song
tumblr_nsbugs8L3B1t5g5c1o1_540Finally, I simply rest
sitting in the shifting sands
and singing over long-dead bones,
my song arising, flying here and there

and hear the song of mountains and
the thrum of reefs against the waves
insistent, fresh and ancient
in the days, these days

that I am

Singing to the bonestumblr_nnz1apfjc11sqc6b1o1_1280