I take a picture
(absurd,
when you
think about it)
(take)
(a picture)
I capture
something
(the shutter shudders)
(the lens blinks)
and a reduction
becomes a memory
Tag Archives: Poetry
That Eye Unblinking (A Holden Lament)
Last year a wolverine broke loose, came slashing & gashing, ran up & down
canyons & cliffs & crittering quick up tree-trunks w/such fierce red claws…
Snarling & yowling the haunting roar raged, moaned & cursed w/such
hunger, such fury, that flurry of wood-thirsty teeth insatiable, free from hiatus
& running heart birthed straight from Their Great Altar There which purifies
all things w/Holy Fire so freeing, so cleansing…wafting austere like pure
Incense arising, in billows & plumes & ash, ASH, everywhere & in
perpetual Wednesday, marking the Cross on all things there…within.
the fire had time to make up…
One Hundred and Fifty years to turn…and it was said to be
A Great Mosaic Burn.
At last to feed its need to cleanse a forest fat w/care, beneath the watchful eye
of Moses there, beneath his rod extended, as if the sun stood still again,
& trees grew up & great in grit & girth like Children of the sun, see how fat
they had become…See them, their indifferent eyes unblinking, safe, satisfied &
self-centered & all together, such a stand of forest land, secure, untouched…
so sleepy, nodding off with rusty Time’s tock-ticking Heartbeat softly crooning
to ossified great forest stands so very grand that didn’t know they needed
Severe Mercies to come with fire and hot kisses from the Phoenix.
It had not chosen cleansing
It did not know it’s need
for resurrection, for refining
For fire comes to cleanse & make new everything it can consume
& challenge all it cannot touch to understand that TRANSFORMATION’s
the destiny of every-thing w/the courage to crawl out from underneath
the letter & run from rod & leave behind the tyranny of typical to the flames…
& walk away from Moses, into freedom in liquid-gold fireworks,
free from the cares of the world that cling so fierce & so easily entangle us,
choke our lives in hoary growth & lullabies lulling us fast to sleep,
a Sleeping Beauty Bride on her bower of soft & easy privilege.
She like an eye unblinking
safe in her cloister so fair
deaf to Her loud Divine Dare.
And (just like that forest or Sleeping Bride) there amidst that red hot bloody
conflagration set another eye, a forest eye, unblinking sightless eye & woke up
wide awake in terror tribulation, hushed in dread anticipation & fear & with
helpless petitions arising, not like incense but like signals…smoke signals…
to Moses? To God? To the Universe Fire come down to feed? Protected by
roads cut w/care & foresight, that Eye Unblinking sat there in fright…
& Holden its breath, leaning against a wolverine dread come at last to
consume the dead, to rip that forest wide open, slash woods to crimson rags
dripping bloody w/flame & red flurries…
wrapped in silver sheets reflective, shiny
(or were they merely space age burial shrouds?)
It never blinked, that Eye, & all was shrouded safe, cocooned within
& underneath the rod & the Letter, striding secure thru the Red Sea Fire
escaping the sharp teeth of wolverine the Eye remained preserved amidst
a work that renovates the face & gives a skin-deep makeover, but leaves
the sleepy years untouched & undisturbed on laurels long gone brown
with age & loss of life though all appearances would say that Holden is
alive & well & safe from that destructive hell of fire & fear…yet none
could name that something still so desperately needed a root canal of flame!
for all the Who’s in Holden sigh
for yesteryear, forgetting that it’s
the thief that steals tomorrow.
And this year, one yr later in the same Unblinking Eye I rolled in on waves
& wind (Charissa means “Grace” but named “Char”-issa, “Ashy-one”) seeking
to drink of the life that flows thru a village untouched by anything
that fell outside Mosaic burn no longer shrouded outside but just maybe
mummy rags still wrapped so tightly around a heart perhaps long grown
so slack so sleek & o so fat just like that forest was last yr before God gave
a wolverine to rage, feed, cleanse, renew…I saw History on display, windfall
fruit rife on the ground & satisfaction ruled the day, familiarity won the race
and wore her shiny tangy plumy purple tinsel crown…
Golden Apples, everywhere and casual and everyone was on the in,
societal, and fire roads cut secure and ohh soo straight.
So I said Hi and reached w/blinking eyes that squint into the light,
oft times in fright of storms & lightning flashing forth…& found
my blinking words rebuffed by cool & hooded eyes that had seen it all,
eyes satisfied & cynical cus been there done that, ho-hum…done much worse
I ran aground on fire roads & that Moses curse of long ago still Holden Court
over long hearts that found consuming fire fearful, dreadful & to be avoided
at all costs by any means…& thus she stands this very day…Holden Village
on cusp of…petrification?…or on that hot edge of the Phoenix Way!
Holden, Eye Unblinking, ensconsed
in the forest, last year just as this one,
in a forest cleansed to living bone, and Holden?
I heard the Spirit resounding The Word that Fire must fall on a village that
mirrors the forest that kneels all around, She said that She has a fiery crown
& Holden is that forest fat & ready for Refiner’s Fire, Cleansing Burn that
resurrects those vital dry bones waiting but she must choose that fate & blink
Yes, we must welcome Fire Fate from God & let the dead wood burn,
& blaze, & feed Mosaic Ways to the flame & trust the Good God of the Fire
to keep her safe underneath Their Name & resurrected, cleansed, renewed
& ever delivered from stain & shame!
Let the rod be cast into the fire hot and be consumed!
For Moses died on Southside, short of Zion is his tomb!
And find us Lovely on the Northside, once again the Spirit’s womb!
Letter cannot take us there, nor blaze of past great glory fair
We must eradicate those roads of preservation that we wear!
They trap and capture us and cut us off from Grace unhindered
so we, like the forest, turn dull and dry, reduced to deadwood’s kindred!
I see Holden cleansed by Fire, and crying Holy tears when Holy
Spirit has free reign again to fall in fires that restore
and interrupt Sleeping Beauty’s snore and dead trees gone,
that speck removed and blinking eyes await the Dawn!
And animals can come again now welcomed
and bathe released in Grace and Precious Holden,
His Eye now blinking free and shining fair in Jesus’ Face.
Oh Holy Lightning Strike like Griffin Swift
upon this yearning heart in desperate need
of Your Mercy Severe, Your Holy Gift
Give us Grace to Find the Phoenix-Way!
To rise in faith from Ashes and from death
to self and self reliance, come what may!
On resurrection wings and Spirit’s breath
alive again and all is well this night
that breaks and shatters with the rising dawn…
and not a single fire road in sight,
and what will be well it shall simply be
and what will not be well it will be gone!
Come Holy Fire, we answer Your Call!
and All Reborn, and Love is All in All,
“Someday…someday the snow will fall!”
That Sinister Lurk
Shine into the darkness
of brooding quiet forces
that do not want you there.
Radiate into those shadow grey spaces
that don’t claim the name of place
and thus do not receive or comprehend you…
shine on loudly into that sinister lurk.
Your bones deeply grasp
their independence from person,
place or thing…they embody
the stringy collaboration
with you and you alone.
They do not need anything’s
skunky permission to be
or to do or to sing into the
communion of the stars
of courage and anthemic
soaring adoration of LIVE!
Some would shine like the sun…
but you, like the moon
are magnanimous and magical
in your mystery and simplicity
and your goodness and gift radiates
in glowy glimmers and clear silver
beams bouncing off soft evening meadows.
They wait for morning, in
that sinister lurk, that cold
and sinister lurk, while you
mount up…big, bony,
beaming gentle in the soft
beautiful night…
that sable cotton brilliant
and gentle.
The Twenty-Five Hour Yesterday
I wrote this last year related to the events current…and this morning I am struck in how all that has changed is the temperature…which has gone up and up and up…
…and half our nation has lined up behind the likes of someone who truly believes they can simply fire the rest of the world…
For Little Mama, On Vacation
I think your heart is called by canyons,
you find them, or…do they find you?
But all across creation’s face
the creases, clefts give you their Grace.
You have left labors to themselves
and sweat and tears behind.
You put your nose into the wind
and cleared your clever mind
And headed west, west, west of West
to canyons once again…
but these are running, bloody, wet
with nature’s life blood pure
So sit…it’s called a river out here
but you know its bone-truths
It’s really still a canyon dear
So be renewed…be clear
We Lords of Tuscany, We Ladies Of The Meadow
At last we finally
have come down to it,
perched here on this edge
of sun-bleached splintery white planks
and darkly stained with shadows and blood.
I hear the wind winding
thru the distant trees wistful,
insistent and full of desire for
golden times long past and golden
songs sung oh so long ago.
It saws its way, the wind, it saws.
Forth and back, across again
that one long thin strand fixed just so
to that grey ancient, heavy beam
that I can barely see because
history’s speck embedded
in my eyes and clawing,
scratching them
and clouding my ocular
true blue vision.
But as I stand here, on the edge
of gone for good at last, and I
behold the hushed and held tense breath
of the gawking crowd…I remember
Tuscany and us
when we were young and ageless
and we ran the fields like wild-fire
in joy and wreck-less free abandon…
we ran…and ran…and
free we ran…
I recall vineyard embrace, green
in the cool night sprawled beneath
the glitter-glare of celestial songs
taken form and sight in night
and flying, shooting, never landing
never ending, never…
except in our hearts,
our ageless hearts,
we Lords of Tuscany,
we Ladies of the Meadow
And time it stood still while we swirled
and then somehow twas we stood still
and everything turned round about us
til somehow…now…
here at the end
in the hangman’s
clutching final
noose as the reaper
plays along upon
his shimmer-scythey harp
and the rope
relentless quivers
and croons and
begs me to
forget…
But I remember
Gold and Fire
and glowing embers
in you…
and in me…
We Ladies of the Meadow
We Lords of Tuscany
13 past 13
the cuckoo clock so pasty white, so dull
ticktocks its hands to point at the orange cull
and jumps out crazy, chiming, shrieking shrill
the wall is trembling in its echoes still
CUCKOO CUCKOO CUCKOO CUCKOO
(9 more it does intone)
and reason is a stranger, quite alone
*trumped* by gibbering stupid wallowing fear,
as the clock strikes 13 past 13, I hear
the slouching shambling hungry beast come near…
and something, something, something, something, something
is very very very very wrong
in this world
so off kilter
going
gone
A Spoonful Of Sugar
Can
you swallow
the bitter pill?
The pill that’s come
to dull our conscience,
cushion comfort, corners
nipped just so, sides longer
than tops and bottoms,
that exquisite little
emerald coffin-
shaped bitter
little
pill?
Life’s
fragility, life’s
impermanence,
life’s intertwinement
with imperfection and
disappointment—bitter
medicines (or are they drugs)
a realization of dread and
despair. I wonder if those
crooning songs seduce,
induce indulgence
in an orgy of
escape into
the haze
of
narcissism…
or if they masquerade as friends to draw close,
sidling up so near to shove those pills dry
down our throats in rough and rooting
thrusting fingers ripping without a
drink to help them go down and
we, our own spoonful of sugar…
until we lie in thrall to
those fell jailers…no
enthralled to
no one but
ourself
that bitter
little
pill
It’s The Blood Of Stars
and now it all melts
under falling skies
skies weeping
bleeding
it’s the shining blood of stars
dropping and everything
spinning and melting
down under just
one touch
one
touch of that stricken star’s
living draining dying
diamond
blood
and I wait
in mourning
hoping against
hope for morning
but know it in my bones
that everything’s sadly
melting, falling so fast
in slow motion away
swirling down to
that tragic
running
ruin
Hidden From Our Eyes
“…now it is hidden from your eyes” (Luke 19:42)
Can you feel it
bouncing off steel beams
ricocheting off raw stone,
the sound of gunfire
off in the distance
grim and getting closer
in cold grey shuffling
grave-steps clotted
and rotted
and ruined
it’s the sound
of relationships
already shattered
broken relationships bloody
gutted in the streets
and played out
before our eyes
horrified and haunted
we weep tears of disbelief
to the cold deaf earth
we sweep bodies like trash
into the yearning yawning earth
and yet we still will not
turn or
turn or
turn
in this season
in this time
and Byrds sing
desperately praying
it’s not too late
but we have chosen
rankly, rottedly
we have sung the zombie songs
and joined the charnel choirs
of the living dead because
we lacked the simple courage
to be the dead living…dead living!
we have chosen fear
we are drunk on distrust
we rave raw in revenge
we are sickened because
we ate only anger
and anger
and anger
and no one leads
no one guides
to whom shall we go?
who shall save us
from ourselves?
We shed another’s blood
when we run out of answers.
They shed Their own pure blood
as Their one and only answer.
We kill, buried in despair.
They rise, giving us hope…
but will we open up our hearts
and see Them shining in our brother,
hear Them singing in our sister
irregardless of skin color
or religion, creed, or dolor?
Or will we just sink away
and slink away and dwell behind
those naked fig leaves and all truth
hidden from our eyes?
Until All Can Breathe
It is not pretty
It is not comforting
Brace yourself…
for I rub our noses in it,
the hypocrisy
is too much for me
and horror, hate is
all I see this day
Go ahead…
after reading,
go to the parades,
the barbeques, the picnics…
go to family and friends
and fireworks and fun…
but go
with these words
stuck in your craw and
mashed down in your marrow,
and know that this is
the truth of where we are come,
where we have been led because
we will not lead and now we stand
on precipices and drunk upon our past
and deluded in our dreams of futures
that are just not real.
I am glad for our constitution
one of the major leaps
towards true liberty
in world history…
but omg just baby steps
and not a signal that we have
arrived and can stop walking…
we must see how insidious
we have been taught
to play the fiddle
to scenes of horror
that would warm
the cold dead bones
of Nero his ownself.
Extract yourselves
from the trappings
and tentacles that croon
to your swooning soul and seek
to pull you down into an addict’s
wet-dreamy tragic death
and make good your escape
while there is still a crack of time,
a sliver of hope milky moony white
and weakly glowing still
in this crashing night…
for it will break indeed
in tsunamis of terror
not brought here
from foreign lands
but homegrown in
these places we did not
attend to carefully
and mercifully
and compassionately…
and then…
there, tonight
upon your bed,
in trembling,
whisper a prayer
and ask that you be
just delivered of a sliver
of that silver privilege,
slippery that squirms away
and wriggles fierce to live like that
insatiable chest burster of Alien…
oh God
PLEASE DELIVER US TO TRUE LIBERTY
and do not rest until
all can breathe until
all can breathe
Danse Macabre (July 4th, 2016)
We are waltzing in this Danse Macabre,
spinning thru the fogs of night
while day is faltering in light
and our feet cannot stop or halt
but bloodytapping tripping faults
See the fog dense, packed with fear
see odium’s terrain drawn near
and each one drinking bloody cups
raised heedlessly and lifted up
against the screaming skies…
We are now there.
You must not
look away…
Dixie Land
is our Promised
Land…alas!
What is happening here at home?
In “America the Great”? We roam
the “Homeland” in this late
hour dolorous and dangerous
we have been washed away by hate.
What has happened to
“The American Soul!”
What the fuck is that, anyway?
Dancing maniac-ally
at the cliff’s precipitous edge
and the fall is long deadly
but we have no recourse.
We have no recourse
because the only cure
has at long last become a curse
disparaged in our danse macabre
and mocked by all our ringing words
writ long ago as cover for
the drinking cup, the bloody cup
we lifted up in “Freedom”‘s name
and filled with slaveblood’s cursed stain
and now here in this hour dark?
Reason bleeds to death before our eyes.
midst the fiddling of the powerful
and bodies littering the floors
of offices and restaurants
airports, clubs and nursery schools
and still we dance the Danse of Fools
How many families will be shattered
and offered up unholy terrors
on the altars of our dark god
foolishness? And how we lecture
constantly wrapped in our privilege
disguised as Amendment Number Two
(it’s number two alright)
and truth dies screaming in the night
morality and reason run
in terrified time and treason comes
to exterminate the drunken dancers
dead on feet dead to the horror
of the screaming suffering beings
that they dance upon and call it
streets of gold…welcome to hell.
Welcome to Hell.
That Perfect Nothing
the mountain
swimming in clouds
wreathing grey sheer granite
face, wedding veil lace
shimmering in the distance
and the river
sinewy twisty arrow
shot from austere heights
cataract-ing down
slim and yet so fierce
so present
yet framing that
place distant
that perfect
nothing
that defines all
Inside Dead Wood And Splinters
You
woke me
and I didn’t even
know I was sleeping
inside dead wood and
splinters waiting for
a spark or a coal
from Your
altering
Altar
The hate and ignorance
of the petrified forest
is matched only by
Your manifest mercy
and glorious grace.
And now I am awake
and walking free
in living flesh
Butterfly And Bone
I’m a butterfly carved of bone
white, bleached, sun-baked bone
my wings are just my lungs
spongy-red and wet but free
inside my chest is open space
soaring chasms awaiting light
butterfly, bone, breath over breadth
I’m a butterfly carved of bone
)
I am diamonds in the night.
Boredom
I don’t believe in boredom.
I think it is code for
something else,
and I simply
choose not
boredom.
I laugh when
I see people
cultivate a
“bored look.”
I hope
the only time
I look bored is
when I am laying
in my casket, waiting.
That Table Small
sitting around a table small
and caught by the heartstrings,
just a player on that stage, all
the rest again make up this gathering
of those who see the task as fencing
in, fending off, wriggling away
from what this Troubler of Israel is bringing
and defining her place, her place to stay.
I have not once been here…at this table
to be made glad over, to be thanked
or complimented or told I’m able
to do, to be, amazing…it’s to be spanked
that I am called there
to be yanked that I am hauled there
to be flanked by falderal there
sitting around that table
small
Scraps
those words
scribbled, jotted
scrawled across the
face of old envelopes
and dull
hearts
elements
spices sitting
poised to pounce
into a pot of poetry
or an essay or
an abstract
kinda makes
you think, wonder
where the meaning is
in the pot or in
the one who
stirs
To Feed You Evergreen (For Lil Mama)
you’ve been running canyons
looking for yourself
that beautiful wild girl
who sat there in the dust
and wrestled with that trike
while others just looked on
(they had forgotten joy)
and cursed you with perspective
above and to the right
that made you second guess
and work hard in the night
to be the perfect one
and get them off your back
for good, for evil too
but it just distanced you
and gave you space to run
in canyons made of bones
along your Sangre River
still looking for yourself
alive and free and wild
well, Baby, you have found her
she thrives though she is short,
and though sun’s rays are slant
they still can peek down deep
to feed you evergreen
I have always seen you
I see you still, here, strong
and still, delicate, fragile
and still indestructible
growing wild and free
I Await Your Sacred Steps
I dashed this off…
well, actually it just
shouldered its way
from my soul
and forced me open
and muscled forth.
No…
it is not polished,
or even much good,
but it is insistent
that it wants to be…
just as it is…
unfettered,
untamed,
unedited…
on fire and fierce.
let its blood
trickle across your tongue,
down your throat to infuse
you with starfire unquenchable,
with the seeds of birth that come
when nebulas collapse
so that new stars
can be born.
Will you let
something new
and unkillable
catch fire
in you today!!??
Will you rise
up unshakeable
though ye tremble,
undefeatable though
ye weep?
Yea, weep
and mourn,
grieve and wail
on the mountains…
and drink this philter
as you pour your tears
like rain upon these bloody
sands so desperately needing
the touch of falling stars to ignite
the birth of light again in this dark night!
Carry this fire inside
you, Prometheus returning
to those gods weak and beaten
and frightened in a pulsing night
cowering before their creatures
unfettered and held hostage
to hate and darkness…
bind it to your forehead
bright diadem of Hope
and going past the fallen
crumbled thrones of old gods
doddering and wetting the bed
of their comfort and ease…
and hail
to the Halls
of the Risen Lamb
slain and shining ever
in Love, our Sun/Son/Lion!!!
We march
on Saturday.
We march
on Sunday.
Friday,
though you be bitter
and seem so final,
you are nuffin to me!
I have fought
thru 5 decades
of Fridays
to get to this
time and place.
And
I see
Abraham shining…
I see
Martin and Martin
there, glim’ring…
I see
Susan and Harriet and Joanna…
Joan and Hildegard,
Thomas and Peter
and John…
I see them,
a sea of those
gone before
who beckon,
exhort…
Yes, weep…
pour it out,
and then
TAKE IT UP,
your tears now
jewels of fire
and precious
and eat them,
living coals
feeding the fires
of new stars
in your souls…
I await you
in the streets of life,
and I shall never
be silent,
I shall never
stop or waver…
forward!!
Onward!!
We have come this far by faith,
and we shall not turn back now.
See the enemy posture…
covering that cowering fear
as we loom, our faces bright
and fair with Love
and Mercy and Justice
our diadems and Mama
and Jesus Avatar of Love Eternal
our Sovereigns…
I await you.
This is your time.
Come out this weekend, ye privileged!
Cast your crowns in the gutters
so they can find purchase and grow
and their roots tear down
the walls of Massa’s farm.
Come.
Out.
Ye.
Shining.
Chosen.
Singing.
Ones.
I await your sacred steps.
Ode For Orlando
I saw the stars fall in the night
it was dark and closing in
as I lay paralysed and still
and shivering in deathly fright.
In waves and showers down they plunged
as sable curtains tore and trembled
in the hand of some great evil
threatening to eat the sky
But somehow, each one shot to me
and landed in my shaking soul
and burned within me fierce and fell
and banished fear and made me whole
Until I burned with stellar fire
and shone in gold galaxy gleams
my heart a starfield bold, untamed
for Mercy’s greater than hate’s schemes!
And so, though Nebulas collapse
let them fall fast to this earth
into your open mouth and heart
Not for destruction, but for birth
Of new stars brilliant, unshakeable
that shine with Justice and with Joy
Children born of grief and ash
Who rise above hate’s cruel slash
This is our birth, our ne’er turn back!
A thousand stars, a million dreams,
A myriad songs and voices shout
We burn bright…our light…
will never…never…burn out
From Provence To Salamanca
We had wine
rosé wine, pink
and blushing with
laughing joy in the midst
of a light crushing.
We were in Provence,
and it was warm and sultry
but not thick or sweaty
in that yellow light seeping
out of the ruddy dirt.
It’s a long time
to where we were
from here in Salamanca,
midst minarets and tall turrets
of sandy stone…
but I can still
pour rosé in glasses,
Provence in glad glissandos
and glory.
Into The Sacred Presence
It is the “Beyond”…that place we all know deep down in our core exists…is there.
To argue it does not exist assumes its existence in order to even have ground to stand on ontologically.
It is what I am striving to touch, pierce, and funnel back here in my poetry…and I call it “Poetry” with a capital P…and it is a place and a state and a thing and a flow all at once.
“In cultivating photography as a contemplative practice, the camera becomes a tool to develop our ability to see more deeply, clearly, and truly, beneath the surface realities of the world around us and into the sacred presence shimmering in the world.”
— Christine Valters Paintner, PhD Eyes of the Heart: Photography as a Christian Contemplative Practice
I Live Inbetween
look for me, search
in my solid words…
and you will miss me
in their sparkle-spazzle
and solid spunk echoes.
i’m in the spaces
in between my words
shining and shim’ring in
dance-implications,
deep in the rhythms
uneven and steady
rising and falling
walking the edges there
of what is written
and what’s merely spoken
just beyond the words
i sit in winds
i sit in winds
and let my shawl flow
loose around me
and lifted like wings
and as it unfurls
the hard ground exhales
and i become light
as i sit in winds
my heart rises up
when liberty sings
though limbs sit so still
though limbs sit in winds
the wings of my heart
soar high as the sun
and over the moon
there, sitting in winds
Unfurling From A Set-Free Throat
I still struggle to dig it out,
that splinter you shoved into me,
down my throat without so much as
a shot of whiskey or
a shot in the dark.
and you are so certain, sure
of how to walk the world
and all her streets unfurled
when really you are justifying
dwelling in your fear.
But you look so damn normal and together
while I am flailing in the maelstrom of myself.
Here is what you do to me:
Idealize
Exoticize
Misunderstand
Validate
Vindicate
Vilify
Victimize
Re-traumatize
Reframe
Take out of context
Murder mysteries
You lecture me, slay me with
hidden sneers and resurrect me with
empty scripts and steal my mystery…
and mysteries become stories
and stories become reality
and stories shape the mind
that tells and gives them shape.
stories about “them”
stories about “me”
stories about “you”
stories that isolate us,
separate and set us apart
from the world at large.
You simply have no clue of how
the mind can terrify, filled up
with anguish, upset, turmoil, fury,
the mind makes meanings out of shadows
and is too easily taught
to fear what it does not know…
And that is your biggest blindest blunder:
You do not know what you do not know
and thus you fear the healthy YOP
unfurling from a set free throat!
Your mind assumes what it cannot
make out clearly or take out easily.
It’s a survival tactic.
But it inhibits you from being open to learning.
It inhibits you from being students of life.
You’d be well-served to sit your assumptions down.
Living Origami
I feel your fingers
in my folds and
my fine feathers
ruffling, riffing
sometimes ripping
for your pleasure
folding me and
creasing me
until I do not
recognize
the shape
I’m in.
Turning this way
twisting that way
tossing hither
touching yon
then you show me
origami, I’m your
living origami
here today and
gone tomorrow
Prairies and Pearls
These days I cannot tell
the difference between
Lara Croft and Laura Wilder
Didn’t they both face mummies?
Didn’t they both raid tombs?
Didn’t they both find secrets?
It’s somewhere between
prairies and pearls
that the line extends
to connect their hearts.
Precious And Hidden
Ohh
how you
carry it gentle
in your faithful heart,
your treasure precious
and hidden from yourself
speak it out loud, exhale in blue
let your truth breathe, sing
of how its blood runs
true and rings with
with only ever
you
To Come Back To
it’s that moment
when lungs forget
how to billow in
and out faithful
when air is tangible,
shimmering silvery-alive,
right before our hushed
wide eyes
that moment when
we both know finally
that love is sacred
not scared
and yet the terror
wholly holy terror
towers tall within
and all around us deep
cus if we even move
even move a muscle
(let alone a molecule)
we will fall up and in
never to return again
for there will never ever
be a back again
to come back to,
back to
At Stanage Edge
Before the blizzard
sneaky beneath the rim
of the grey and trembly sky,
conditions at Stanage Edge
on Thursday were extremely
changeable and cold.
My heart like the sky
(but ruddy red)
my heart like the sneaky storm
(but only streaked with black)
my heart like the conditions
(but never cold).
I got out of the car.
I could see rain
developing over Mam Tor
to the right
(and a few miles away).
I thought that it was only
just building up
(inside these scintillating
winds of heart and skies).
I thought I would have plenty of time
to get to the millstones,
to get back to my car
before it came
my way.
How wrong was I!
Prelude hailstones heavy,
fine mini-millstones
gristed and ground
the ice cold winds
and soon had me retreating
back to the warmth
and glad for my bare
and unfettered neck
and the leagues between me
and the deep cold black sea.
This is an area I have visited before
I’m pretty sure
I will see it again
A Potent Surrender
Trusting is just such a powerful challenge
to lay down my life without knowing for sure
it will ever get picked up again…by…anyone.
a potent surrender to God (and to others)
that commends my only possession (that’s me)…
to the Hands and the Head and the Heart of all things.
A turning away from the will to possess,
from power and reflex to cling and to clutch
with brazen heart, hard face and bravado whistling…
afraid in the night of the Breaking Day Coming…
the willing embrace of a breaking that gives birth
to wholeness and health…well…trusting is just such
a challenge
Honor And Shame: Yes, All Men
Climb that hill you Sentient Beast
Burdened by your Greed, your pride
Haunted by your stinking fear
Rotted deep inside.
Carrying your mouldy loaves
Stolen from The Lord of Old
on the day five thousand fed
from His blessing told.
Shame is under your right arm
Honor carried by your left
As you sneak around, you snake
In eating you’re bereft
Four Natural Sanctuaries
East:
If you cannot hear silence
then it is not silence.
South:
If solitude does not keep you company
then you are not alone.
North:
It is in the eternal flow
that stillness is discovered.
West:
The cleanest complex binding
gives simplicity.
These Forgotten Stories Haunting
Hearing
stained wooooh
strained whooosh
rise, fall, push, pull back
quieting and moaning,
crying, sobbing, groaning
creaking and repose
the wind asks…
whyyyyyyy
whoooooo
whhhyyyy
ohhhhhh
sigh
It’s that question
that drives us skimming
across Lake Life edgy
bobbing in the troughs and crests
yet never to the sandy shore
and glowy fires merry.
It’s that rough splinter
in our minds digging
all the time and all around us…
why…
why
You see
Stories are descended from
on High like waterfalls and
we are born too, like
waterfalls flying
from the stars
cascading
down to
here
into this world
starkly unique
and populated
with stories,
pregnant with
multiple meanings
(us and this world/one not one)
Here I am on the edge
of the gleaming twilight
nudging, jostling my life
in waves and I’m still wondering
what it’s all about…
I think it’s about a Splinter from
some Bloody Beam so Ancient…
Our minds are splintered, peppered,
made numb with pressing inquiry
The first thing I remember
about this world
and I pray it
may be the last
is that I am
a stranger
in it,
at once a glory
and a desolation.
That’s the only thread
of consistency I can detect
in my lakey leaky life,
alone before a mind-boggling
array of options and
burdened by both
the responsibility and the authority
to reach some conclusion
that isn’t totally and completely
rooted merely in myself
(where’s the joy in that?)
Life itself is its own exile,
and its own inevitability,
but that does not lessen our grief
or alter the fact of us in the whirring
midst of that sighing windy whyyyyy
Life became history and history
becomes legend and legend
begat myth and myth begets
merging slowly with unknowing
and unknowing bemoans
“it was all forgotten…”
(which infers remembering)
“real but forgotten”
(real and forgotten)
and passed and past…
but the echoes
the echoes
echoes
the echoes of our distant past
and our essential vital nature
still call out to us in wind,
in wind and waves
in dreams.
And They are calling us in wind,
in wind and waves
in…
These Forgotten Stories Haunting
I Want…
I want my poetry to convey the Beauty behind the beauty.
I want to tell you of the Heart behind the core.
I want to show you the Sacred pulsing in all profane.
I want to show you the Meaning midst the random.
It isn’t enough to be pretty.
It isn’t enough to rub noses in ugly.
I want to scratch you…permanently…that you would ever then Bleed Desire and Longing for that Sacred Heart, that eternal Blood of the Diving running thru everything…always.
Beautiful and Meaningful.
Write that on my tombstone…but only if it’s True.
Hidden In The Language
I am tired of the surface and the shit, I am tired of facades and phoniness
I am leaving for the day, into myself. If you wanna know where, listen to this and follow the clues
Beams Like Bones Inside
see it standing there
feet in lavender and
head touching the washed
blue sky breathing in
the scents of grapes
and souls
a winery, a church
one and the same
the place of crushing
and filtration,
fermentation
maturation
the small and winding road
leads to the cavernous
inside, beams like
the bones inside Jonah’s Whale
and all swallowed within
who wish to become whole
but only in the crush
the broken shattering
can true wholeness emerge
in scents of lavender
and notes of bloody grapes
Clothe Me In Clouds
clothe me in clouds
wreathe me in smoke
let the fresh breath(e)
of the deep Universe
touch my dry skin
and let me drink deep
the water of Life
from the Wellspring
of Love
Bending Over Backwards
i find myself constantly
bending over backwards
to become the table
the banquet feasting table
that my enemies
come and sit down to
a meal that I serve up
before they rise and run
at me with their sharp spears
Across The Blooming Sky
i stand watching
that train rushing
flying by fast
and furious
ethereal
everyone on it is thin,
transparent and afraid
to just step off and grow
thick and green and
gravitational
spinning across
the blooming sky
and singing in
the solid dirt
The Breathing In Of Every Breath
there are the ones who claw
fierce at the universe
the way an anteater
claws at a log trying
to scratch out beauty in
small ant-squiggle pieces
about Twenty-Four hours
long, each one that long
then there are those who breathe,
who open their eyes and
breathe and blink in wonder
and awe because of what
they see made beautiful
in the seeing, in breathing
in of every breath breathed.
those who seek to consume
beauty and thus embody it
are doomed to dissolution
for flowers fade and wither
and end up burned and gone
but those who simply look
and look again in wonder
will find the Beauty flowing
within their eversouls
made beautiful
made beautiful
Medicine Woman
Medicine Woman Listen
to your truest self
clearer than new water
and your wisest voice
humming ‘neath the surface
to your truest self
clearer than new water
and your wisest voice
humming ‘neath the surface
Medicine Woman Trust
yourself with tenderness
softer than snowfall
and give yourself
the gift of grace
like tender moonglow
peeking thru
the darkest clouds
Medicine Woman Heal
in the shining
pregnant present
by walking thru
your shadow
hollow past
unafraid to
look into the heart
of this becoming
Medicine Woman Believe
in yourself enduring
like wind, your inner strength
like rain, your divine Know
awareness like the stars
the Promise of Beyond
in yourself enduring
like wind, your inner strength
like rain, your divine Know
awareness like the stars
the Promise of Beyond
Medicine Woman Imagine
your glittering goals, resources
diamonds, move toward them
in waves, sails raised
in those winds
creativity your calling
and your deepest well
Medicine Woman Celebrate
your Holy Years believing
your inner self, remember
your outer self as well
is beautiful like trees
that dance in glory time
with hands raised to the sky
in greens touching the Blue
Medicine Woman Love
yourself like mountains
love the clouds, the sun
and value vital friendships
of other truest women
all of your Bright Days
Nomad Wanderings
Nomad…such
a lonesome word
a wanderer, thru cold
crowded tangy deserts
drifting, homeless thru
fudgy thick neighborhoods
traveler in time and yet never
home in any singular moment.
Feeling like
the darkened sky
could swallow me up
in seconds, under silent stars,
I feel the same way “Nomad” sounds
I am a wanderer,
a refugee in this
gulag archipelago
of google connection,
a stranger in a homeland,
a foreign and yet familiar land.
I have a suspicion
we are living but
as aliens estranged, from
our thin past, from
our strained culture, from
our oh so tragic country, from
our neighbors (as ourselves), from
our friends and family, from
our deepest self
and from God.
Nomad…
walking in the silence
of an anguished lonely prayer,
lost in the distraction that
constricts and consumes years,
hopes and dreams annulled
by all that alienation welling up
within us…and yet…
*there is always an “and yet”*
and yet we wait
estranged and encouraged
in hope that all is not yet
as it will be, we wait in hope
Hoping in that blue Promise
that promises are real and full
and yet we wait
and know that Nomad
can only mean there is a home
we wander from and
wonder back home to.
Your Gates
open up your gates, gates of old, gates so strong
filigree and delicate gold, interlaced with song
let the daylight in, let it shine, let it in
thru those sacred living gates so old and strong.
I am waiting outside, by the barn, barn so red
under skies of tepid grey deep scriven with true blue
you can come to me, thru the gates, out to me
or I can enter in and come to you
Dick-tator
elaborate
intricate
wrought
invested
imposing
it’s still just
a brutal lock
and my subjugation
your only key
Your Masquerade
your finger comes at me
like you think
you are God
well, it would
if you actually thought.
but you don’t
think
you just assume
and instead of sparks
you give ice chips of death
yes, that’s it, you throw off
sparks of death and call it life
in your masquerade
The Back Of Forever
i long for it
the feel of that
soft silk, hot
from the press
smelling of spice
and hints of
far away orange
scrawling over scarlet
the summer breeze
which sings of forever
but implies coming sorrow
and hear it
there in around
the dry and straining
vines digging in
stealthy red earth
jory loam and chocolate
windblown loess laurelwood
and long
i sit long
for it,
that wind
from the back
of forever
and here and gone.
And Dogs Ran At Us Hard
we soared high on currents,
uplifts unseen by human eyes
but oh so visible to us,
we dancers in the skies…
ever young and long did we thus fly
until we tired and we had need of
landing, resting, manna sweet to feed our
honking hearts, our silky souls to
take wing once again, in skies…
we thought forever we would fly
until that day the clarion calls they sounded
and the promises of haven-rest resounded
to our ears, our listening ears though with our eyes
we saw nothing but blind…blinds…we just saw blind
and swooping sounds from where?
and so we flew, we glided lower, lower
and so the guns did bloom and boom
and shot us from the keening clenching air
in lead-packed punches to the breast…
that took away our very breath
until we died, and dogs ran at us hard
to carry us triumphantly back into Massa’s yard
we, feathers fouled in blood, in gore, in mud
our necks floppy and broken in that flood…
of death that finally claimed us as its prey.
Last Snow
A slow gentle snow
falls on cherry blossoms, falls
to the constant dirt
Charissa's Grace Notes 
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