Wednesday, September 9, 2015

temporarily music

In the free world
Do we?
Live like undead slaves?
Do we only move as directed, never dance freely in a whirling wind;
never touch finger to foreign finger for a thrill of acceptance?
Never sing music assimilated within from all the painful days
swirled into revel excitement?  Do we not breathe and inhale airs
unexpected, strange and calling to arcane desire?
Such solemn sensuality.  Vibrant air lingering warm and sweet.
Music of heat rouses drowsy ecstasy.
Theater as intimate ritual.
Images that stay.  Music that accompanies a day’s montage of duties.
Dancers dance.
Musicians play.
Enchanting sylph narrates stories while seductively moving to sinuous
back beat, tick of chimes.  Occasionally emphasizes subtle percussions
with intense expressions, leaps, cunning stumbles, daring fall to crawl
into spellbound sound.  Scheherazade myths, archetypal passion
escapades, poignant weeps, salient shouts to power.
I engage with the power of music.
My passion, my friend, mystic teacher, seeker of meaningful
action, means before ends.  Feel each instant’s music move in tune.
Reach into balance within limits of room, laws of motion, draw of ecstasy.
No pattern to prove – extemporaneous.  Each mood enhances expressive
release, stretch for a piece reflective and deep.
Remade in music, not just while it’s playing.
Ordered vibrations cosset, hold like a heart-bound twin.
Sad biographies, personalities grandiose or subdued,
but delusions.  Substitute equivalent qualities sold as sums
that define identity.  Told how to hear or say.  Mere chatter,
in the way ideations whether profound or silly are spread. 
Sound from will, music imbues momentum,
interweaves with what keeps us who we become, overcome.




Do we? Live like undead slaves?
Do we only move as directed, never dance freely in a whirling wind;
never touch finger to foreign finger for a thrill of acceptance?
Never savor music assimilated within from all the exhausted nights
swirled into revel excitement? Do we not breathe and inhale airs
unexpected, strangely calling to arcane desire?
Such solemn sensuality. Vibration lingering warm and sweet.
Music of heat rouses drowsy ecstasy.
Images that stay. Music that accompanies a day’s montage of duties.
Musicians play. Enchanting sylph narrates stories to sinuous
back beat, tingle of chimes, subtle percussions, intense expressions,
leaps, cunning stumbles, daring falls, crawl into spellbound sound.
Scheherazade myths, archetypal passion escapades,
poignant weeps, salient shouts to power.
Passionate friend, mystic teacher, seeker of meaningful action,
means before ends. Feel each instant’s music move in tune. Reach
into balance within limits of room, laws of motion, draw of elation.
Extemporaneous. Each mood enhances majestic release,
stretch for a piece reflective and deep. Remade in music,
not just while it’s playing. Ordered vibrations cosset, hold like a
heart-bound twin. Will-fueled tonation, music imbues momentum,

interweaves, keeps up incentive to become, overcome.

Monday, September 7, 2015

time present and time past still progressing slowly

time present and time past
(a metaphoric walkabout)
 
 
I.
 
The trees are full of bitter children,
weaned on spite, whipping branch against rigid
branch.
Skylight dimmed to their struggles,
doubt of Sun, of cloud, of Milky Way,
our eyes adjust to follow fortune.
 
why is it realism to believe in evil intents prevailing
why idealistic to seek power of unveiling to find
we were half blind, the half that grows through kindness
left unseen?
 
 
Not interested in listening to the colour
of the bluesman’s skin.
Inebriated with the power of music.
I am that music, not just while it’s playing.
Ordered vibrations, spinal awaken, hold like a
heart-bound twin.
Designations, sad biographies, personalities
grandiose or subdued?
Substitute equivalent qualities, sums
said to prove identity.  Mere chatter, in the way,
day by coded day, matters profound or silly, are spread. 
Sound thrust from will, music imbues momentum,
fuses with ethos, keeps us 
who we become
and overcome.
 
 
 
infinitely adaptive
reshaping, translating
making things happen
 
 
Art as bridge of humanity.
I feel aloud so we can resonate, surround
in kind company.
All art is experiment in form and excitation --
how they intersect, and spark.
Intuition escapes:  where does she take me?
Am I ready to find out?
If I gamboled past dawn I’d have expectations:
pancakes and coffee
intense conversations
or seabirds whining tales of a glorious archipelago home.
 
 
 
a habit of thought poetic and questing
ever digesting ambient energy,
hoping for synergy,
expecting to fail
(or negate that possibility
by never quitting)
 
 
Not clever word play, not only that,
sincere approach to meaning.  Transcendent
and intelligent.  Solid details commingle with
celestial epiphany, choir of muses.
 
Beauty suffuses
a chemical bath of pure pleasure.
Intermittent miracles feed grace, temper service
to voracious forever.
No enemy.  No dark intrudes; just
silhouette pirouettes to dilute boring vicissitudes.
Serendipity, interstitial bliss but a moment
away.
Any moment, any day could find those
treasures, or blindly pass by in mad
pursuit
of tomorrows not promised, un-portended.
No meaning, no purpose assigned;
no ordained patterns pixilate in barbaric sky
before lines are drawn, memorized, given
power
of law – or power of awe.
 
 
 
When the owner class was more aware of
civility, more broadly educated, sophisticated,
self-assured
Economics of comprehension and balance,
macro and micro expansion preferred to mad gambles,
more likely occurred – is this what we meant
to conserve?
 
 
Post-defeat, back in the game penalized
points and their referent power.
Back to the base of the tower, low stall
in the square.
To rise over time, not give in to despair;
but again?  No escape without a plan
that transcends all past experience.
Duration is no old friend.  Out of bounds instant of clarity
attained, a desperate ploy that could destroy the game.
 
 
Let the profiteers leave, and give us back our
common earth.
Let them enjoy the angry rip of tribal sheathes,
repurposed scythes rising against colonial histories.
Let them eat the falsely filling cake of lies, forced miseries
that defile practical fulfillment, and
breathe the poisons they agree fit for our
common atmosphere, elsewhere.
Let us help them out the door, as we make
for ourselves a world worthy of all of our
lives.
 
 
 
We devised a game as drugless school chums,
dubbed “The Question Game”.
Each in turn would ask a question of a philosophical
nature – perhaps a question with which the questioner
had privately wrestled, or not.
Then we all played the question, speaking our instant
associations or tangent questions or answers or
hypothetical tests or suggested scenarios
or whatever we fancied.
Once we had nothing urgently to say, the question
had been played, the next person got their turn
as questioner.
Those for whom a session ended before their question would
begin our next.
We came to know each other very well – how each thought
and expressed, and believed.
We each learned about ourselves – what questions
spoke to us, what they said.
And the wide expanse of answerings.
 
 
 
II.
 
Words I carry, imaginary traveling friends.
 
 
such solemn sensuality,
vibrant air -- linger warm and sweet
music of heat rouses a drowsy ecstasy;
soft, moist, slip of merry grin in reverie's
anticipation
 
 
Know what matters
Plate calls batter
Crowds cheer, then scatter after the show
Fade into who they are alone,
between lines.
 
 
 
One reign to rule them all:
Thou shalt not aggress violently
against nonconsenting others.
 
Government happens.
Power differentials are natural.
Learned leaders attend to these matters
consciously,
rationally.
Hot heads, coarse tongues, flail of arm,
crush of foot, outthrust chest, rancorous
chants
lively show and tell --
Yes, such forceful yell might incite bells
ringing, choirs singing, outlandish pageantry.
After roaring Sun’s descended, crowds
disbanded to public houses, private beds;
lusty victories
or licking injured
histories.  No watch assigned
this twinkling of time.
Without law, there is no crime.
Without rules, no crown ascends
by common nod – but only by
all against all
in terrible squalls,
trial by games
scored in blood.
Believe all people peaceful
if you just let us be.
Walk among our brethren.
Tell me what you see.
If human kindness is our cure,
why do the poor stay poor?
Self-governing civility would
so obviously
transcend politics of costly malice.
 
 
 
We gather, clump in drifts like scattered plastic bags
in front of the Econo-Mart.  Trade pills and consolations
for scalding scenes exhaled on tepid walks, humid breeze.
So far from crash, burn immolation.  Periscoped nights
absorbed without remembrance.
Nothing claws.  Nothing whimpers.
Unsought trash – empty butts, bottles, unlamented
ash.  The only homelike space we may ever have.
No quest or plea when no answer will matter.
 
 
 
Compassionate people may
be calibrated to dear value at last
when we discover our robot masters
have no humanity, can’t provide these personal goods
we desperately need to survive.
 
 
Snark as salient trait
For what could that be best
practice? 
We never experience the same world viewed.
Does that mean we can’t agree to each see
as we do?
To say as we see, expect to disagree
without rancor nor remorse.  Each upon
a course, yet able to graciously greet
in the market square.  Able to retreat
to a private sphere where we may swear
at ease,
solipsist pleasure unconcealed.
Individuality as pathless paths revealed,
to explore.
 
 
love is not an absence
love is a presence that connects
judgment is not an act of ego, but of mind
love is not an act of mind, but a presence of soul
 
All is exposed
All is redeemed
All is sketched upon that outer eyelid.
Behind, the fiery wounds;
within the colorless expanse, flung in awkward fashion
upon the artist's face, the magician's mirrored countenance
 
 
neat psych trick -- blame the victims, who meant to be the good samaritans; 
explain the lie in places high and low and often until enchantment descends.
 
 
My passion, my friend,
mystic teacher, seeker of meaningful
action, means before ends.
Sense each instant’s music – move in tune.
Reach into balance within limits of room,
laws of motion, draw of ecstasy.
No pattern to prove – spontaneous extemporaneous.
Enhance each mood for expressive release;
sketch for a piece reflective and deep.
Too arid to weep, I adapt, revel in texture
of resilient sand with which I paint ephemeral desires.
 
 
In the this and that, here and there,
between Yin and Yang
a stair, a rising star, a mortal scare.
Shake out, sift those synchronicities,
unspoken intimacies, opportunities missed
that opened to gifts unimagined before.
Clues to puzzles yet to be posed.
Tales untold ‘til all their pieces meld
within a theme to be suggested
in this intersection.
 
 
I have been doing a meditation which seems to me to express the totality of philosophy -- our endless struggle to make meaning even within a vortex of change that presents as chaos. 
Archetype Saturn, an old friend in the way that long relation is often contentious, I have been seeing her as something of an employer, demanding with dour countenance her tasks to be done
yet in some wee hours letting her hair down for quiet intense talks about what really matters.
 
 
Beatific privacy, spacious fantasy,
Beauty’s secret sky.
Instant transport on beams of faery dust – pastel trails
fade languid to grand dissemination.
Welcoming wilds, whisper of orphic stories,
shelter of mothermoth wing.
Echoing, reflective pond plays soft consort to
twilight.
 
 
keep moving, any way I can, through the rubble and on to the next plateau. There is anguish, joy, ineffable grace, empty grey spaces, not triumph nor reward -- just poetry
 
Rhythmic movement
where will it take me
vibratory portal to outer dimensions
of inner space
 
 
The past nurtured roses,
long convalescence, blooming air,
roaming rivers.  Pretty parties
serving tea and pleasantry.
Slow acquiescence to strict formal
canon. 
Doubt doubles down to enforce insecurity --
prisoners not permitted to speak or gesticulate.
Days of droning whine when wheels were held in slumber.
Numbers solid like gold, like steel, like earth.
Significators of worth, as above so below.
What we know has always been known --
never let go, or let on.
Past escalates, readjusts by coded degrees.
Quickly, while no one looks, each piece ages
imperceptibly forward.
Pages lost -- unbinding glue, fade of integrity.
Under inexorable load
unrepaired pavements crumble. Buried in unrefined
entropy.
Will we learn to rise?
 
 
III.
 
 
The circus performance to score,
then the reward of ecstatic ritual.
Purposeful simplification, circle of
life.  When survival’s become too much
responsibility with no security
of prior success, or back-up chorus.
Ain’t no place to contemplate
complicated biological imperatives.
Just me and the magic of chemistry
in sanctuary of worship.
 
 
Are there places still where children play
uninhibited by hierarchy?
Space to be
gleeful, free,
happy to fling and tumble
in open air?
 
 
 
At some highway gas station quik mart,
in from gasping rain.
Stale coffee, sticky pastries
soothe,
warm, like friendly fire,
stories imbued in childhood, retold.
Overbrite aisles, angled mirrors
above expose unrehearsed glimpses.
Garish pop art products, labels like parodies,
plastic displayed sliced meats, sugarized treats,
major brand addictives, consciousless sweets.
Rain encapsulates, marks off this short chapter.
Random highway outside, varied encounters
before and after.
There’s a puzzle I’ve yet to discern.  Only
suggestions of spider fine hieroglyph appear
and fade as tantalizing traces.  Too faint to decipher,
translate for use.
If I believe this a sign of fate, will it be so,
slowly grow to reveal, to be home?
Will I allow my sight new eyes, new lines,
new answers, access to divergent figurations
restlessly closing in?
 
 
Spirituality, religion -- call it intuition:
the ways our minds learn outside our attention,
feel realities not assigned to language, create
stories of anguish and hate, love and redemption
to make sense of conflation of senses, with isms
 
 
 
Progressives desire inspiring leadership
Conservatives insist on protecting their interests
 
 
I always counted on boundless
energy, that’s now run down
to endless fatigue,
unable to proceed --
Not the present anticipated; not the
desired surprise legend gave to expect.
Witch me – crone of hooded eye,
cackling voice.
What you, given your choice,
would respond or retreat,
notice which focus
you attend.
Love’s sad soliloquy
never befriended.
The intimacy of you and me.
Which me; what you, how and when?
 
 
 
Too painful the damage, the losing, but
not only that.
Throbbing frame, inflamed fundament,
disintegrated foundation.
None claim victory for self-named
surrender, because compound cost
overcame destiny or will.
No promise with birth of a world worth
joining in.  Only one friend
(unless attached to your twin)
never leaves you behind.
Crazy to deny primary kin, soul mate within.
May your mindfolk be kind.
 
 
These are not my people;
yet they are my only people, only kin,
only tribe.
Far and apart, souls embark on symbolic
venture, awaken strings long frozen
to bandage stabbed bleeding heart.  I feel.
Weak, expended like tears, but tears stolen
untraced to this hollow eye, transient this
cadaver in waiting.
Journeys I say, they say – metaphor of a thousand
slips, a million poems, billions of lives.
There is no brave journey, no blessed moment
of arrival.  There is doubt with good cause.
There is lost and ragged, courage of now
because it’s too damned cold to stop
imperative motion.
Children in midnight corn fields.
Harmless pillage.
Drunken stairways, cemeteries,
vast acres of green.
Isn’t this a privileged scene, a kleenex drama,
diorama of cardinal confession before
dilating down.
No requisite form for dismissal, appearance denied.
Outside bounds of river or town,
riding vague shadows in exigent condition,
last chance plan to catch a stray scent of home.
 
 
 
Breathless elation.
Weight of enthralled head thrust
back into plush upholstery;
hood open to rushing air, kaleidoscope stars.
Careen madly through snow-tinged fields, cast of
evergreens.
Call out threats to danger, drunken camaraderie with fear,
demonic celebration.
Here.  Eternally here, you morbid fool.
That seaside Tempest – Caliban and Ariel
venerate Terpsichore in pagan fire.
Naught aspired to can achieve
serendipity’s wiles.
Honey child, virtuous innocent untaught
in sin, free of guilt’s web of strangulation,
transport me to primordial,
embroidery home, safely hexed,
soundly welcoming,
spiritually clear.  Limpid sphere,
immersed in sublime luminescence.
Past pleasure exquisitely
present, distaff of prescience,
circle brought full.
Ebullient riotous Moon, man or maiden,
sideways smile,
rockface gloom.
Profound – a word, a curse, encompassing
penetration; fragrance of swooning.
Corrosive salt water solution emits eerie whistle,
eats through porous bones.
Who listens?  Who responds with warm applause
or sideshow empathy?
Love, a seabird sigh amplified, cast wide through
wilds of safari winds.  Entrained dervishes ever touch,
sketch their spiral gate to Heaven.  Genetic weave,
strong silk cord self propels, cannot waver,
beckons to invite all who will consent
passage
on her glorious ride.
 
 
IV.
 
 
Our connected energies drain
Each individually undoing,
absorbing entropy like melt water
bloated with disorganization.
Disease, avidly welcomed consummation,
ravages rationality.  We can none of us
breathe, access sufficient air.
Rust, corrosive oxidation until no
usable material remains to repair.
Caught in coagulate cosmic dust.
Lost from differentiation.
 
 
Accept (I am as I am)
and flow.
Silvery sediment,
Grand glowing Sun
spread in glimmer on lustrous river.
Caressed by satin water
hot and cold
element controlled, ever forward.
River journeys
more sensual than air
more loquacious than Earth
more secure than fire.
We can discover,
transmute along enraptured river
never noticing how everything
has changed.
River run sustained rumination;
curvaceous, profuse flirtation with mysteries
we are born to yearn for.
Consummation may be our last reward.
When none (not even I) observe --
that’s always when it happens.
Ragged travellers alone or in good
company.  The river loves
in her own fashion.
 
 
 
All those words I
was so intent on
memorizing.  Lost, like the
wind and the love cry,
the barren sand, lonely
fascination.
All those songs, sad or
uproarious, orchestration
to impulse forward.
Jazz for imagination;
rock for consolation; blues
for mornings and nights as they
endlessly grind.
Where is that kind word
to carry like deep unburdening balm?
Where is the strengthening psalm,
the wisdom spell?
If you knew, would you tell?
No, you would already be gone.
 
 
 
Thick physicality of existence
weighs, pulls, shapes
obfuscates pure thought,
presses insignia into helpless skin,
dark message of sin.
 
 
A boat in a harbor --
What do I know of boats,
or harbors --
A boat in dark night under cold stars
above rhythmic sea.
The sea is for ships,
sailing for commerce
substantial and arrogant.
Shanty boats, be glad for your harbor,
or length of sand above the tide line
or anywhere but here, adrift in vastness,
bare solidity
drowning in ignorant waves.
 
 
 
I call forth, to continue, what story
will enchants for now.
 
Sing us a ditty, luv.
Pretty me in fluttery poetry.
Trumpets of thunder, drums of
antediluvian vulgarity.
Naught enough to dull peels
of pain. Rants to scattering rats
past midnight, trudging slick streets.
Stumbling in search of that secret ingress
to rainbow’s end.
To meaning’s dissolution, running down
rivers, oceans, galaxies.
 
 
taste the truth of breath
touch outward from inner strength
original peace
 
when seen from great distance of time and/or space
we are colorful ants struggling to emerge as individual players in a vast and ever realigning game.
those with a strong voice may have it heard; but will they hear what we meant to say?
 
there is great truth in illusion,
in tragic theatre of empathy,
in cosmic comedies appreciated through
personal imagery, regurgitation of youth and folly
The Truth is not eternal, not impersonal, not an object
of desire or disdain
It is the calm, the storm, the eye and hand combined
to create what emerges
 
to discover sibylline key, cryptic exercise
rambling in anger over the foothills of grief, of damnation
throwing off jagged rocks, ripped on splinter
torn skin along this emergent precipice
exhaustion overtakes effort, undermines spite
relax into verdant tufts of soothing weeds, dense fallen leaves,
earth's repose
sleep and dream; sleep and dream; dream of wasted energies
recycled, made real
in the way of storms and atomic reconfiguration
 
 
Muses dance,
explore motion.
Segue to and fro
two steps back; a flurry forward.
Satin cats, tails a’fling
swirl and twirl, scurry choreography.
No tomorrow.  No scheduled glee of
public contretemps.
Throngs a’clanging, impatient clamors
for unknown seasons.
Furious storm howls,
torrential,
sends tidings, murky repentance and
beard for tears.
Replenishes barrels for dipping, ritual
ablution, tribal hydration.
Savage tip-taps,
rhythms of
sordid flood,
ashen water, terror, bombardment, diluted
blood.
Storm warnings advise caution.
Cover yer windows and blinds.
Hide in cellars and pray.
Find salvation in fearsome colloquy.
Oh, Hell – give in!  Cave into slippery ground;
swallow and be swallowed.
The rains came, carried fortune to further shores
and supplicants. 
Long into unspoken tomorrows.
 
 
 
V.
 
 
He inhales deeply, as if taking his oxygen
from the burning cigarette.
Never forget.
How could you forget?
Nerves need their anodyne.
No matter what you say about
mindful mentation.
The Hope of Our Nation
is mass medication.
Let them smoke meth.
Let them shoot smack.
Let them eat pills in handfuls
like snacks.
Let them assume such consumption
is natural,
like a terrorist attack.
Not to detract from dramatic renditions
of sober reflection – every exception
still begs the question we lack language
to ask.
We digress from distressful suggestibility
onto more laggard path.  Does it matter?
To whom?
 
 
 
everybody out on the streets
waving banners displaying our separate beliefs
maybe a baby cries; maybe an elder dies
maybe we turn our eyes outward, to weep, to see
everybody out on the streets
 
 
 
Chasing Beauty
 
 
Love bequeathed from when that passion,
that energy
defined intention.
 
 
Specificity
Clear, imprecise imagery
Surreal in context, part
of a grander scenario.
 
 
Our physical dependencies require
interaction with evolving environment --
no option to survive inert, alone.
 
We can profoundly love
creatures of other species;
hate and vilify creatures of our own
divisive minds.
 
 
Dark urban streets
Yes, lamplight
Garish commercial lights
Traffic lights, head, hind,
mechanical commands.
But here, outside clear designation,
sign-less, solitary, unnoticed.
Bold instinctual walk, forward
in quest of inspiration or fantastic
display.
Fun as sparkly spirit, chaotic amusement
within any action,
forbidden challenge.
Subways, bridges, city bones upon which
to drum, to explore
rhythm and blues.
Magic shimmers dimension upon dimension
without pause for delineation – so skin
must compensate, strain for context to aural
ecstasy.
No flowers border soft frames of
child reminiscence.
Birds of prey, strong of eyes and claws,
fly in battle formation.
Damp birth at sunrise,
smell of fog, haze of weighted cloud.
Glass breaks, cuts, shouts
mortality.  Sand endures,
silently at ease.
 
 
 
merry meet, merry gambol as query of council.
shamanic revel spin into clarity, ecstasy of
celebration.
dazzle, delight, derive concordance
within, all through, exhortation and particular memes,
oracular voices sift dreams, expletives, most valued wishes.
Drunk, spirit sodden with song’s soar and dive,
all-ways finds revival, thriving, cumulative reach to species acclivity.
Soft vital rays, precipitate of lotus purity enriches
fragrant earth.
Notice, dust mote whispers, emergent leaves, scents sublime.
There is more fortune than fear, more leisure than pain.
Breath of gaiety, pleasure’s refrain lifts eyes, minds, hands.
Listen.  Hear exquisite sound measurement reverberate serene eternal
Peace
Touch grace
Crave and Be Blessed
Crave and wander, invoking supernal spell
Passion
Ease
Attention
Care
Essence
 
 
Ever eternally, blessing’s elegant precipice
just at the edge of view
 
 
As if there, then; here, now unanticipated,
unimaginable because so much has to happen
between.  Unheeded part of a well-constructed scene.
Urgent child, solemnly silent, trudges, traipses,
traverses.  Highways, decades, city streets,
crosses, multiple image absorbed and conflated.
What makes this important, impinging thought,
distant transport to this instant, this eternal place.
Brave in the style of a fool with all future to lose.
Intuiting, but without knowledge attained through
participation to be of comfort or use.
Brave, Fear that faithful friend for braggart boasts in
darkness so you won’t feel alone.
Search light calls adventure, restless agitation
insists on some elsewhere to go.  Thumbing
oblivion, rides with no sure destination.
Unlicensed vacation.  Break from nowhere
to now here undefined by named location.
Blue beach.  Polluted sand.
Morning won’t be stalled.
These are not my walls, my cage, my justice.
Clues, puzzle components, value to be found in
wider context if such becomes.
 
 
Obdurate iteration blinks
light to dark; dark to light.
Well past unthinking regard; far too familiar
(overplayed) to take seriously.
Jocular exercise of mind
and heart within aghast backdrop.
Explore the joke;
purposeless circumstance
wears and weakens,
distorts focus.
 
 
VI.
 
 
Struggling
to self-explain.
No, not War of all within all.
Not blind crawl for tactile sight.
Rising, tentative, toward expected bit of coded color
by breeze of odor, by siren sound, throbbings to distract,
puzzles to attract,
thunder to scatter.
Self-explain raindrop rainbows,
magical shine surrounds,
persistence of promise to
astound.
Ignorant destiny, porous well
absorbs atmospheric lethality to seep,
leech, become sacred secrets, hidden
tunnels of pitch, revered through ages,
weaknesses disguised as imperatives
to achieve.
 
 
Just folks.
Mostly peaceful, easy,
happy to do as needs, as pleases as
seasons succeed.
Ready to distrust or embrace what strangers
we meet,
as they provoke.
Tomorrows too far away to depend on
still must be considered, given their vote as
descendants of decisions.  Such practical
wisdom deposed.  Rationality realigned
to legends of end upon us.  Our day’s slogan:
“take what I can because time’s abandon
descends.”  Burn for one last wild night.
Die with the light.
 
 
Turning together
attention spun
whole of cloth woven in
colorful patterns we approve,
disperse, jump into like rainbow puddles.
Humanity is cruelty.
Enforcing God's Grand Plan.
Which God demands?
Such brutal sacrifice
to prove temperament to
command.  Mechanized paradise.
Steps locked in painful contortion.
Dance rather than flail or
be damned.
 
 
I have too endured sure frustration attempting
to engage in conversation with people proudly
fixed in ideologies, throwing words they’ve
vaguely heard like schoolyard curses, unswayed
or served by actual knowledge.
What scorecard game among their cohorts
makes adamant ignorance a desirable norm?
Is it a feedback loop of entertainment choices?
Are popular artists’ voices pitched to entrain drone
sensibility, skewed rationality, busy brutality?
Sentiment firmly enclosed to harness savage fire,
fuel the engines of self-destruction?
To what benefit?  I blithe idiot ask.  Too world
weary for your cynical blather.  I wonder off some
wastrel edge beyond.
 
 
 
We hate those we learn to disrespect
every day.
 
Justification for application of pain.
Clamor for humiliation.
 
 
That simple feral core.
Is it yours as well?
Called id, shadow, hell
or more than fearful mortal coil,
animus essence, what is.
Cellmates teach by example, survive
tricks of trade, consensual filing down.
Stealthy commerce, dependent on
confidant guesses, crafty assurance.
Grasp fair gossip – useful lies, sly advice;
naught to trust but all contribute truth.
So much to persuade this tide of youth.
When the pain of others gives too much
suffering to enjoy.
 
 
 
Religion is made of givens – science of mights.
 
 
truth is not narrow
it is infinite
the narrow way
is fear's, or merely a tunnel
within the thoroughfare to truth
 
 
Song of Sun and Earth
Driving beat of nature’s grand
choreography
 
 
VII.
 
 
fine, be a "hawk"
go to war with the other hawks
in a hawk war stadium
kill each other off
to cheering crowds
all the blood and glory you so
badly crave
 
 
people who like fear can find plenty to amuse them
people who like hate can find plenty to amuse them
fear and hate are not issues, merely distracting amusements
Make Peace The Issue
find a euphoric style
enjoy
 
 
do we?
live like undead slaves?
do we only move as directed,
never dance freely in a whirling wind
never touch finger to foreign finger for
a thrill of acceptance?
never sing from music assimilated within
from all the painful days swirled among
excitement of release?
do we not breathe and inhale odors
strange and calling to arcane desire?
do we not express, even if in catechized
expletives?
do we not wander, unsure but willing to
be amazed?
do we not wonder if a chance not taken
would return and ask again if we are ready
or wonder if we can become that well
of wishes swimming merrily, bubbling up
to burst, disperse, revise, make us wiser
in our ascent?
 
 
How does one act an age?
Expressive movement seed to tree.
Old tree creaking in midnight wind.
Mountain craggy and abiding.
Stars in transition -- novitiation.
Or soliloquy, interweaving dialog between
montage of generations?
Maybe we act out one age or another
Daughter  Sister  Mother  in relation.
Or still against a whirl of dust and cloud
act not aloud; feel internally ebb/flow eternity
act of evocation
 
 
How say this feeling?
Unreality, hypnosis memory,
numb tingle not of body nor mind.
Descending on breeze of dark dissolve,
no thing dependable
for consciousness to cling.
Always wandering fantasies outside
my window frame.
Awe lost in transit,
without resistance,
sans value.  Blind
air opens shady willow,
gargoyle gate.
 
 
A private symphony.  Lyric synergy.
Grandly orchestrates errands busy and drear.
Deft lift of merriment subdues mundane
anxiety.  Secret music, self-shared amusement.
Deterrent to drag of crowd magnified disillusion.
Energized from within, no meddling ears to consider,
disturb.
 
 
Images that stay.  Music that accompanies
a day’s melange of duties.
Reminisced fragrance of roses,
variegated rubies, outside, below,
some neighbor’s garden.
 
 
 
When Love is never the answer
When the quest is but a course of disasters
Kind acts and words
unwanted, unheard
only increase pain’s sum.
Placation with placards
repeating pious phrases
don’t make wish to be Truth.
In pursuit of shiny victory,
Moments melt ‘neath abrasive
assaults and ripostes;
random rain, drought, deluge.
Failing sight just when forecast aurora
intimates nigh.
Ignorance ever more manifest.
Colder solace.  Stronger calloused.
 
 
In an Afterlife worth After living
all stupidities (stupidly self-entitled assholery),
petty ill feelings will be done.
Everyone intent on the task we most love
with no stricture of time, or mortality.
No pressure to hold body and soul together.
No vengeful imperatives to get in the way
of eternal fun --
‘cause the opposite would be hell.
 
 
People exhausted – too much,
everyday never stops
no time to feel ... real.
Apocalypse, final judgment,
let it arrive, may none survive
to uncleanse the earth, death of
procreation, provocation to inflict
infection.
No sin, no power of remorse.
No predetermined course.
Responsibility a form of guilt.
And the guilty must pay, retribution.
Ruined life to ruined life until generations
cease.
Couldn’t we be friendlier, reach out in peace?
And risk ridicule, rejection, painful oppression
under gun, stealthy eyes.
 
 
 
Abundant hate for all,
exceptions few, on occasion,
who amuse for the moment,
or over and over.
 
 
As in unprotected wild, darling of parasites,
insidious predators within.
Siphoning lifeforce for a livelihood.
Eating pitilessly, weakening, diseased so no
noble foe dare deign to coup de grace.
Spat upon as spoiled goods despite
or because of inability to self-defend,
ignorance of innocence.
Slut without inebriance of sin.
Send from us, condemn harlots of fate.
Hate starts here
-- fear of contagion.
 
 
VIII.
 
 
And the sky.
And the breeze
wrinkling the trees.
And the red-pink-blue of sunset, so late
these endless evenings.  Spring, they say.
Dreams of younger days.
Terrified because no safe world awaits,
gives continuity.
A girl reminiscent of lilacs.
Sweet, subtle, succulent,
velvet and blue like secret sky scape.
Her awed adoration feels true.  A symbol
of innocence strutting so valiant, so brave.
Never to know or be known a moment more.
Awakening forever such sweet sorrow.
From what might have been if dreams could be engines
for transposition, magic doorways that might be forever closed
from that opening path beyond.
Apprehended by vision so vivid.
Breath and bone hold séance, decide how to align.
Aeonian background sounds, worries stuffed down to allow
flights of sanity to perform.
Ground to stand when ephemeral wings fail,
dissolve to clay.
“Who are you?” the stranger peers with glassy eye.
Hurry on, heedless of direction.  Bemused feet waver,
push off, rise.
And the sky.
 
 
 
Serene pool, mountain clear.
Idyll on sun-warmed, age-smoothed stone,
pure in replete wonder.
Seeking epiphany, purposeful wander through hallow
woodland allowed within civilized structured plan.
Moving consciously alone, to find quiet refuge.
Hidden, beyond foliage thicket, ambrosial vision,
blithe flowing river.
Immerse, swim, be --
perfection.
 

Wednesday, September 2, 2015

work in progress - time present and time past

time present and time past
 
 
I.
 
The trees are full of bitter children,
weaned on spite, whipping branch against rigid
branch.
Skylight dimmed to their struggles,
doubt of Sun, of cloud, of Milky Way,
our eyes adjust to follow fortune.
 
why is it realism to believe in evil intents prevailing
why idealistic to seek power of unveiling to find
we were half blind, the half that grows through kindness
left unseen?
 
 
I don’t listen to the colour of the bluesman’s skin.
I engage with the power of music.
I am music, not just while it’s playing.
Ordered vibrations cosset me, hold like a
heart-bound twin.
Names, sad biographies, personalities
grandiose or subdued, but delusions.
Substitute equivalent qualities sold as sums
that define identity.  Told how to hear
or say.  Mere chatter, in the way that ideations
whether profound or silly are spread; day by
dreaded day. 
Sound from will, music imbues momentum,
interweaves with what keeps us 
who we become
and overcome.
 
 
infinitely adaptive
reshaping, translating
making things happen
 
 
Art as bridge of humanity.
I feel aloud so we can resonate, surround
in kind company.
All art is experiment in form and excitation --
how they intersect, and spark.
Intuition escapes:  where does she take me?
Am I ready to find out?
If I stayed up past dawn I’d have expectations:
pancakes and coffee
intense conversations
or seabirds whining tales of a glorious archipelago home.
 
 
 
a habit of thought poetic and questing
ever digesting ambient energy,
hoping for synergy,
expecting to fail
(or negate that possibility
by never quitting)
 
 
Not clever word play, not only that,
sincere approach to meaning.  Transcendent
and intelligent.  Solid details commingle with
celestial epiphany, choir of muses.
 
Beauty suffuses
a chemical bath of pure pleasure.
Intermittent miracles feed grace, temper service
to voracious forever.
No enemy.  No dark intrudes; just
silhouette pirouettes to dilute boring vicissitudes.
Serendipity, interstitial bliss but a moment
away.
Any moment, any day could find those
treasures, or blindly pass by in mad
pursuit
of tomorrows not promised, un-portended.
No meaning, no purpose assigned;
no ordained patterns pixilate in barbaric sky
before lines are drawn, memorized, given
power
of law – or power of awe.
 
 
 
When the owner class was more aware of
civility, more broadly educated, sophisticated,
self-assured
Economics of comprehension and balance,
macro and micro expansion preferred to mad gambles,
more likely occurred – is this what we meant
to conserve?
 
 
Post-defeat, back in the game penalized
points and their referent power.
Back to the base of the tower, low stall
in the square.
To rise over time, not give in to despair;
but again?  No escape without a plan
that transcends all past experience.
Duration is no old friend.  Out of bounds instant of clarity
attained, a desperate ploy that could destroy the game.
 
 
Let the profiteers leave, and give us back our
common earth.
Let them enjoy the angry rip of tribal sheathes,
repurposed scythes rising against colonial histories.
Let them eat the falsely filling cake of lies, forced miseries
to defile practical fulfillment, and
breathe the poisons they agree fit for our
common atmosphere, elsewhere.
Let us help them out the door, as we make
for ourselves a world worthy of all of our
lives.
 
 
 
We devised a game as drugless school chums,
dubbed “The Question Game”.
Each in turn would ask a question of a philosophical
nature – perhaps a question with which the questioner
had privately wrestled, or not.
Then we all played the question, speaking our instant
associations or tangent questions or answers or
hypothetical tests or suggested scenarios
or whatever we fancied.
Once we had nothing urgently to say, the question
had been played, the next person got their turn
as questioner.
Those for whom a session ended before their turn would be
the starters for our next.
We came to know each other very well – how each thought
and expressed, and believed.
We each learned about ourselves – what questions
spoke to us, what they said.
And the wide expanse of answerings.
 
 
 
II.
 
Words I carry, imaginary traveling friends.
 
 
such solemn sensuality,
vibrant air -- linger warm and sweet
music of heat rousing a drowsy ecstasy;
soft, moist, slip of merry grin in reverie's
anticipation
 
 
Know what matters
Plate calls batter
Crowds cheer, then scatter after the show
Fade into who they are alone,
between lines.
 
 
 
One reign to rule them all:
Thou shalt not aggress violently
against nonconsenting others.
 
Government happens.
Power differentials are natural.
Learned leaders attend to these matters
consciously,
rationally.
Hot heads, coarse tongues, flail of arm,
crush of foot, outthrust chest, rancorous
chants
lively show and tell --
Yes, such forceful yell might incite bells
ringing, choirs singing, outlandish pageantry.
After roaring Sun’s descended, crowds
disbanded to public houses, private beds;
lusty victories
or licking injured
histories.  No watch assigned
this twinkling of time.
Without law, there is no crime.
Without rules, no crown ascends
by common nod – but only by
all against all
in terrible squalls,
trial by games
scored in blood.
Believe all people peaceful
if you just let us be.
Walk among our brethren.
Tell me what you see.
If human kindness is our cure,
why do the poor stay poor?
Self-governing civility would
so obviously
transcend politics of costly malice.
 
 
 
We gather, clump in drifts like scattered plastic bags
in front of the Econo-Mart.  Trade pills and consolations
for scalding scenes exhaled on tepid roads, humid breeze.
So far from crash, burn immolation.  Periscoped nights
absorbed without remembrance.
Nothing claws.  Nothing whimpers.
Unsought trash – empty butts, bottles, unlamented
ash.  The only homelike space we may ever have.
No quest or plea when no answer will matter.
 
 
 
Compassionate people may
be calibrated to dear value at last
when we discover our robot masters
have no humanity, can’t provide these personal goods
we desperately need to survive.
 
 
Snark as salient trait
For what could that be best
practice? 
We never experience the same world viewed.
Does that mean we can’t agree to each see
as we do?
To say as we see, expect to disagree
without rancor nor remorse.  Each upon
a course, yet able to graciously greet
in the market square.  Able to retreat
to a private sphere where we may swear
at ease,
solipsist pleasure unconcealed.
Individuality as pathless paths revealed,
to explore.
 
 
love is not an absence
love is a presence that connects
judgment is not an act of ego, but of mind
love is not an act of mind, but a presence of soul
 
All is exposed
All is redeemed
All is sketched upon that outer eyelid.
Behind, the fiery wounds;
within the colorless expanse, flung in awkward fashion
upon the artist's face, the magician's mirrored countenance
 
 
neat psych trick -- blame the victims, who meant to be the good samaritans; 
explain the lie in places high and low and often until enchantment descends.
 
 
My passion, my friend,
mystic teacher, seeker of meaningful
action, means before ends.
Sense each instant’s music – move in tune.
Reach into balance within limits of room,
laws of motion, draw of ecstasy.
No pattern to prove – spontaneous extemporaneous.
Enhance each mood for expressive release;
sketch for a piece reflective and deep.
Too arid to weep, I adapt, revel in texture
of resilient sand with which I paint ephemeral desires.
 
 
In the this and that, here and there,
between Yin and Yang
a stair, a rising star, a mortal scare.
Shake out, sift those synchronicities,
unspoken intimacies, opportunities missed
that opened to gifts unimagined before.
Clues to puzzles yet to be posed.
Tales untold ‘til all their pieces meld
within a theme to be suggested
in this intersection.
 
 
I have been doing a meditation which seems to me to express the totality of philosophy -- our endless struggle to make meaning even within a vortex of change that presents as chaos. 
Archetype Saturn, an old friend in the way that long relation is often contentious, I have been seeing her as something of an employer, demanding with dour countenance her tasks to be done
yet in some wee hours letting her hair down for quiet intense talks about what really matters.
 
 
Beatific privacy, spacious fantasy,
Beauty’s secret sky.
Instant transport on beams of faery dust – pastel trails
fade languid to grand dissemination.
Welcoming wilds, whisper of orphic stories,
shelter of mothermoth wing.
Echoing, reflective pond plays soft consort to
twilight.
 
 
keep moving, any way I can, through the rubble and on to the next plateau. There is anguish, joy, ineffable grace, empty grey spaces, not triumph nor reward -- just poetry
 
Rhythmic movement
where will it take me
vibration portal to outer reaches
of inner space
 
 
The past nurtured roses,
long convalescence, blooming air,
roaming rivers.  Pretty parties
serving tea and pleasantry.
Slow acquiescence to strict formal
canon. 
Doubt doubles down to enforce insecurity --
prisoners not permitted to speak or gesticulate.
Days of droning whine when wheels were held in slumber.
Numbers solid like gold, like steel, like earth.
Significators of worth, as above so below.
What we know has always been known --
never let go, or let on.
Past escalates, readjusts by coded degrees.
Quickly, while no one looks, each piece ages
imperceptibly forward.
Pages lost -- unbinding glue, fade of integrity.
Under inexorable load
unrepaired pavements crumble. Buried in unrefined
chaos.
Will we learn to rise?
 
 
III.
 
 
The circus performance to score,
then the reward of ecstatic ritual.
Purposeful simplification, circle of
life.  When survival’s become too much
responsibility with no security
of prior success, or back-up chorus.
Ain’t no place to contemplate
complicated biological imperatives.
Just me and the magic of chemistry
in sanctuary of worship.
 
 
Are there places still where children play
uninhibited by hierarchy?
Space to be
gleeful, free,
happy to fling and tumble
in open air?
 
 
 
At some highway gas station quik mart,
in from gasping rain.
Stale coffee, sticky pastries
soothe,
warm, like friendly fire,
stories imbued in childhood, retold.
Overbrite aisles, angled mirrors
above expose unrehearsed glimpses.
Garish pop art products, labels like parodies,
plastic displayed sliced meats, sugarized treats,
major brand addictives, consciousless sweets.
Rain encapsulates, marks off this short chapter.
Random highway outside, varied encounters
before and after.
There’s a puzzle I’ve yet to discern.  Only
suggestions of spider fine hieroglyph appear
and fade as tantalizing traces.  Too faint to decipher,
translate for use.
If I believe this a sign of fate, will it be so,
slowly grow to reveal, to be home?
Will I allow my sight new eyes, new lines,
new answers, access to divergent figurations
restlessly closing in?
 
 
 
 
Progressives desire inspiring leadership
Conservatives insist on protecting their interests
 
 
I always counted on boundless
energy, that’s now run down
to endless fatigue,
unable to proceed --
Not the present anticipated; not the
desired surprise legend gave to expect.
Witch me – crone of hooded eye,
cackling voice.
What you, given your choice,
would respond or retreat,
notice which focus
you attend.
Love’s sad soliloquy
never befriended.
The intimacy of you and me.
Which me; what you, how and when?
 
 
 
Too painful the damage, the losing, but
not only that.
Throbbing frame, inflamed fundament,
disintegrated foundation.
None claim victory for self-named
surrender, because compound cost
overcame destiny or will.
No promise with birth of a world worth
joining in.  Only one friend
(unless attached to your twin)
never leaves you behind.
Crazy to deny primary kin, soul mate within.
May your mindfolk be kind.
 
 
These are not my people;
yet they are my only people, only kin,
only tribe.
Far and apart, souls embark on symbolic
venture, awaken strings long frozen
to bandage stabbed bleeding heart.  I feel.
Weak, expended like tears, but tears stolen
untraced to this hollow eye, transient this
cadaver in waiting.
Journeys I say, they say – metaphor of a thousand
slips, a million poems, billions of lives.
There is no brave journey, no blessed moment
of arrival.  There is doubt with good cause.
There is lost and ragged, courage of now
because it’s too damned cold to stop
imperative motion.
Children in midnight corn fields.
Harmless pillage.
Drunken stairways, cemeteries,
vast acres of green.
Isn’t this a privileged scene, a kleenex drama,
diorama of cardinal confession before
dilating down.
No requisite form for dismissal, appearance denied.
Outside bounds of river or town,
riding vague shadows in exigent condition,
last chance plan to catch a stray scent of home.
 
 
 
Breathless elation.
Weight of enthralled head thrust
back into plush upholstery;
hood open to rushing air, kaleidoscope stars.
Careen madly through snow-tinged fields, cast of
evergreens.
Call out threats to danger, drunken camaraderie with fear,
demonic celebration.
Here.  Eternally here, you morbid fool.
That seaside Tempest – Caliban and Ariel
venerate Terpsichore in pagan fire.
Naught aspired to can achieve
serendipity’s wiles.
Honey child, virtuous innocent untaught
in sin, free of guilt’s web of strangulation,
transport me to primordial,
embroidery home, safely hexed,
soundly welcoming,
spiritually clear.  Limpid sphere,
immersed in sublime luminescence.
Past pleasure exquisitely
present, distaff of prescience,
circle brought full.
Ebullient riotous Moon, man or maiden,
sideways smile,
rockface gloom.
Profound – a word, a curse, encompassing
penetration; fragrance of swooning.
Corrosive salt water solution emits eerie whistle,
eats through porous bones.
Who listens?  Who responds with warm applause
or sideshow empathy?
Love, a seabird sigh amplified, cast wide through
wilds of safari winds.  Entrained dervishes ever touch,
sketch their spiral gate to Heaven.  Genetic weave,
strong silk cord self propels, cannot waver,
beckons to invite all who will consent
passage
on her glorious ride.
 
 
IV.
 
 
Our connected energies drain
Each individually undoing,
absorbing entropy like melt water
bloated with disorganization.
Disease, avidly welcomed consummation,
ravages rationality.  We can none of us
breathe, access sufficient air.
Rust, corrosive oxidation until no
usable material remains to repair.
Caught in coagulate cosmic dust.
Lost from differentiation.
 
 
Accept (I am as I am)
and flow
silvery sediment
Grand glowing Sun
spread in glimmer on lustrous river.
Caressed by satin water
hot and cold
element controlled, ever forward.
River journeys
more sensual than air
more loquacious than Earth
more secure than fire
We can discover,
transmute along enraptured river
never noticing how everything
has changed.
River run sustained rumination;
curvaceous, profuse flirtation with mysteries
we are born to yearn for.
Consummation may be our last reward.
When none (not even I) observe --
that’s always when it happens.
Ragged travellers alone or in good
company.  The river loves
in her own fashion.
 
 
 
All those words I
was so intent on
memorizing.  Lost, like the
wind and the love cry,
the barren sand, lonely
fascination.
All those songs, sad or
uproarious, orchestration
to impulse forward.
Jazz for imagination;
rock for consolation; blues
for mornings and nights as they
endlessly grind.
Where is that kind word
to carry like deep unburdening balm?
Where is the strengthening psalm,
the wisdom spell?
If you knew, would you tell?
No, you would already be gone.
 
 
 
Thick physicality of existence
weighs, pulls, shapes
obfuscates pure thought,
presses insignia into helpless skin,
dark message of sin.
 
 
A boat in a harbor --
What do I know of boats,
or harbors --
A boat in dark night under cold stars
above rhythmic sea.
The sea is for ships,
sailing for commerce
substantial and arrogant.
Shanty boats, be glad for your harbor,
or length of sand above the tide line
or anywhere but here, adrift in vastness,
bare solidity
drowning in ignorant waves.
 
 
 
I call forth, to continue, what story
will enchants for now.
 
Sing us a ditty, luv.
Pretty me in fluttery poetry.
Trumpets of thunder, drums of
antediluvian vulgarity.
Naught enough to dull peels
of pain. Rants to scattering rats
past midnight, trudging slick streets.
Stumbling in search of that secret ingress
to rainbow’s end.
To meaning’s dissolution, running down
rivers, oceans, galaxies.
 
 
taste the truth of breath
touch outward from inner strength
original peace
 
when seen from great distance of time and/or space
we are colorful ants struggling to emerge as individual players in a vast and ever realigning game.
those with a strong voice may have it heard; but will they hear what we meant to say?
 
there is great truth in illusion,
in tragic theatre of empathy,
in cosmic comedies appreciated through
personal imagery, regurgitation of youth and folly
The Truth is not eternal, not impersonal, not an object
of desire or disdain
it is the calm, the storm, the eye and hand combined
to create what emerges
 
to discover sibylline key, cryptic exercise
rambling in anger over the foothills of grief, of damnation
throwing off jagged rocks, ripped on splinter
torn skin along this emergent precipice
exhaustion overtakes effort, undermines spite
relax into verdant tufts of soothing weeds, dense fallen leaves,
earth's repose
sleep and dream; sleep and dream; dream of wasted energies
recycled, made real
in the way of storms and atomic reconfiguration
 
 
Muses dance,
explore motion.
Segue to and fro
two steps back; a flurry forward.
Satin cats, tails a’fling
swirl and twirl, scurry choreography.
No tomorrow.  No scheduled glee of
public contretemps.
Throngs a’clanging, impatient clamors
for unknown seasons.
Furious storm howls,
torrential,
sends tidings, murky repentance and
beard for tears.
Replenishes barrels for dipping, ritual
ablution, tribal hydration.
Savage tip-taps,
rhythms of
sordid flood,
ashen water, terror, bombardment, diluted
blood.
Storm warnings advise caution.
Cover yer windows and blinds.
Hide in cellars and pray.
Find salvation in fearsome colloquy.
Oh, Hell – give in!  Cave into slippery ground;
swallow and be swallowed.
The rains came, carried fortune to further shores
and supplicants. 
Long into unspoken tomorrows.
 
 
 
V.
 
 
He inhales deeply, as if taking his oxygen
from the burning cigarette.
Never forget.
How could you forget?
Nerves need their anodyne.
No matter what you say about
mindful mentation.
The Hope of Our Nation
is mass medication.
Let them smoke meth.
Let them shoot smack.
Let them eat pills in handfuls
like snacks.
Let them assume such consumption
is natural,
like a terrorist attack.
Not to detract from dramatic renditions
of sober reflection – every exception
still begs the question we lack language
to ask.
We digress from distressful suggestibility
onto easier path.  Does it matter?
To whom?
 
 
 
everybody out on the streets
waving banners displaying our separate beliefs
maybe a baby cries; maybe an elder dies
maybe we turn our eyes outward to weep, to see
everybody out on the streets
 
 
 
Chasing Beauty
 
 
Love bequeathed from when that passion,
that energy
defined intention.
 
 
Specificity
Clear, imprecise imagery
Surreal in context, part
of a grander scenario.
 
 
Our physical dependencies require
interaction with evolving environment --
no option to survive inert, alone.
 
We can profoundly love
creatures of other species;
hate and vilify creatures of our own
divisive minds.
 
 
Dark urban streets
Yes, lamplight
Garish commercial lights
Traffic lights, head, hind,
mechanical commands.
But here, outside clear designation,
sign-less, solitary, unnoticed.
Bold instinctual walk, forward
in quest of inspiration or fantastic
display.
Fun as sparkly spirit, chaotic amusement
within any action,
forbidden challenge.
Subways, bridges, city bones upon which
to drum, to explore
rhythm and blues.
Magic shimmers dimension upon dimension
without pause for delineation – so skin
must compensate, strain for context to aural
ecstasy.
No flowers border soft frames of
child reminiscence.
Birds of prey, strong of eyes and claws,
fly in battle formation.
Damp birth at sunrise,
smell of fog, haze of weighted cloud.
Glass breaks, cuts, shouts
mortality.  Sand endures,
silently at ease.
 
 
 
merry meet, merry gambol as query of council.
shamanic revel spin into clarity, ecstasy of
celebration.
dazzle, delight, derive concordance
within, all through, exhortation and particular memes,
oracular voices sift dreams, expletives, most valued wishes.
Drunk, spirit sodden with song’s soar and dive,
all-ways finds revival, thriving, cumulative reach to species acclivity.
Soft vital rays, precipitate of lotus purity enriches
fragrant earth.
Notice, dust mote whispers, emergent leaves, scents sublime.
There is more fortune than fear, more leisure than pain.
Breath of gaiety, pleasure’s refrain lifts eyes, minds, hands.
Listen.  Hear exquisite sound measurement reverberate serene eternal
Peace
Touch grace
Crave and Be Blessed
Crave and wander, invoking supernal spell
Passion
Ease
Attention
Care
Essence
 
 
Ever eternally, blessing’s elegant precipice
just at the edge of view
 
 
As if there, then; here, now unanticipated,
unimaginable because so much has to happen
between.  Unnoted part of a well-constructed scene.
Urgent child, solemnly silent, trudges, traipses,
traverses.  Highways, decades, city streets,
crosses, multiple image absorbed and conflated.
What makes this important, impinging thought,
distant transport to this instant, this eternal place.
Brave in the style of a fool with all future to lose.
Intuiting, but without knowledge attained through
participation to be of comfort or use.
Brave, Fear that faithful friend for braggart boasts in
darkness so you won’t feel alone.
Search light calls adventure, restless agitation
insists on some elsewhere to go.  Thumbing
oblivion, rides with no sure destination.
Unlicensed vacation.  Break from nowhere
to now here undefined by named location.
Blue beach.  Polluted sand.
Morning won’t be stalled.
These are not my walls, my cage, my justice.
Clues, puzzle components, value to be found in
wider context if such becomes.
 
 
Obdurate iteration blinks
light to dark; dark to light.
Well past unthinking regard; far too familiar
(overplayed) to take seriously.
Jocular exercise of mind
and heart within aghast backdrop.
Explore the joke;
purposeless circumstance
wears and weakens,
distorts focus.
 
 
VI.
 
 
Struggling
to self-explain.
No, not War of all within all.
Not blind crawl for tactile sight.
Rising, tentative, toward expected bit of coded color
by breeze of odor, by siren sound, throbbings to distract,
puzzles to attract,
thunder to scatter.
Self-explain raindrop rainbows,
magical shine surrounds,
persistence of promise to
astound.
Ignorant destiny, porous well
absorbs atmospheric lethality to seep,
leech, become sacred secrets, hidden
tunnels of pitch, revered through ages,
weaknesses disguised as imperatives
to achieve.
 
 
Just folks.
Mostly peaceful, easy,
happy to do as needs, as pleases as
seasons succeed.
Ready to distrust or embrace what strangers
we meet,
as they provoke.
Tomorrows too far away to depend on
still must be considered, get their vote as
descendants of decisions.  Such practical
wisdom deposed.  Rationality realigned
to legends of end upon us.  Our day’s slogan:
“take what I can because time’s abandon
descends.”  Burn for one last wild night.
Die with the light.
 
 
Turning together
attention spun
whole of cloth woven in
colorful patterns we approve,
disperse, jump into like rainbow puddles.
Humanity is cruelty.
Enforcing God's Grand Plan.
Which God demands?
Such brutal sacrifice
to prove temperament to
command.  Mechanized paradise.
Steps locked in painful contortion.
Dance rather than flail or
be damned.
 
 
 
We hate those we learn to disrespect
every day.
 
Justification for application of pain.
Clamor for humiliation.
 
 
That simple feral core.
Is it yours as well?
Called id, shadow, hell
or more than fearful mortal coil,
Sensual essence, what is.
Cellmates teach by example, survive
tricks of trade, consensual filing down.
When the pain of others gives you too much
suffering to enjoy.
Grasp fair gossip – useful lies, sly advice;
naught to trust but all contribute truth.
So much to persuade this tide of youth,
that stealthy commerce, dependent on
confidant guesses, crafty assurance.
 
 
Religion is made of givens – science of mights.
 
 
truth is not narrow
it is infinite
the narrow way
is fear's, or merely a tunnel
within the thoroughfare to truth
 
 
How say this feeling?
Unreality, hypnosis memory,
numb tingle not of body nor mind.
Descending on breeze of dark dissolve,
no thing dependable
for consciousness to cling.
Always wandering fantasies outside
my window frame, awed in transit,
without resistance,
sans value.  Blind air open
to interpretation, to shady willow,
gargoyle gate.
 
 
Song of Sun and Earth
Driving beat of nature’s grand
choreography
 
 
VII.
 
 
fine, be a "hawk"
go to war with the other hawks
in a hawk war stadium
kill each other off
to cheering crowds
all the blood and glory you so
badly crave
 
 
people who like fear can find plenty to amuse them
people who like hate can find plenty to amuse them
fear and hate are not issues, merely distracting amusements
Make Peace The Issue
find a euphoric style
enjoy
 
 
do we?
live like undead slaves?
do we only move as directed,
never dance freely in a whirling wind
never touch finger to foreign finger for
a thrill of acceptance?
never sing from music assimilated within
from all the painful days swirled among
excitement of release?
do we not breathe and inhale odors
strange and calling to arcane desire?
do we not express, even if in catechized
expletives?
do we not wander, unsure but willing to
be amazed?
do we not wonder if a chance not taken
would return and ask again if we are ready
or wonder if we can become that well
of wishes swimming merrily, bubbling up
to burst, disperse, revise, make us wiser
in our ascent?
 
 
How does one act an age?
Expressive movement seed to tree.
Old tree creaking in midnight wind.
Mountain craggy and abiding.
Stars in transition -- novitiation.
Or soliloquy, interweaving dialog between
montage of generations?
Maybe we act out one age or another
Daughter  Sister  Mother  in relation.
Or still against a whirl of dust and cloud
act not aloud; feel internally ebb/flow eternity
act of evocation
 
 
Images that stay.  Music that accompanies
a day’s melange of duties.
Reminisced fragrance of roses,
variegated reds, outside, below,
some neighbor’s garden.
 
 
 
A private symphony.  Lyricize in synergy.
Grandly orchestrate busy and drear errands.
Deft lift of merriment subdues mundane
dismay.  Secret music, self-shared amusement.
Deterrent to drag of crowd magnified emotions.
Energized from within, no meddling ears to consider,
disturb.
 
 
 
When Love is never the answer
When the quest is but a course of disasters
Kind acts and words
unwanted, unheard
only increase pain’s sum.
Placation with placards
repeating pious phrases
don’t make wish to be Truth.
In pursuit of shiny victory,
Moments melt ‘neath abrasive
assaults and responses;
random rain, drought, deluge.
Failing sight just when forecast aurora
seems potently nigh.
Ignorance ever more manifest.
Colder solace.  Stronger calloused.
 
 
Abundant hate for all,
exceptions few, on occasion,
who amuse for the moment,
or over and over.
 
 
In an Afterlife worth After living
all stupidities (stupidly self-entitled assholery),
petty ill feelings will be done.
Everyone intent on the task we most love
with no stricture of time, or mortality.
No pressure to hold body and soul together.
No vengeful imperatives to get in the way
of eternal fun --
‘cause the opposite would be hell.
 
 
People exhausted – too much,
everyday never stops
no time to feel ... real.
Apocalypse, final judgment,
let it arrive, may none survive
to uncleanse the earth, death of
procreation, provocation to inflict
infection.
No sin, no power of remorse.
No predetermined course.
Responsibility a form of guilt.
And the guilty must pay, retribution.
Ruined life to ruined life until generations
cease.
Couldn’t we be friendlier, reach out in peace?
And risk ridicule, rejection, painful oppression
under gun, stealthy eyes.
 
As in unprotected wild, darling of parasites,
insidious predators within.
Siphoning lifeforce for a livelihood.
Eating pitilessly, weakening, diseased so no
noble foe dare deign to coup de grace.
Spat upon as spoiled goods despite
or because of inability to self-defend,
ignorance of innocence.
Slut without inebriance of sin.
Send from us, condemn harlots of fate.
Hate starts here
-- fear of contagion.
 
 
VIII.
 
 
And the sky.
And the breeze
wrinkling the trees.
And the red-pink-blue of sunset, so late
these endless evenings.  Spring, they say.
Dreams of younger days.
Terrified because no safe world awaits,
gives continuity.
A girl reminiscent of lilacs.
Sweet, subtle, succulent,
velvet and blue like secret sky scape.
Her awed adoration feels true.  A symbol
of innocence strutting so valiant, so brave.
Never to know or be known a moment more.
Awakening forever such sweet sorrow.
From what might have been if dreams could be engines
for transposition, magic doorways that might be forever closed
from that opening path beyond.
Apprehended by vision so vivid.
Breath and bone hold séance, decide how to align.
Aeonian background sounds, worries stuffed down to allow
flights of sanity to perform.
Ground to stand when ephemeral wings fail,
dissolve to clay.
“Who are you?” the stranger peers with glassy eye.
Hurry on, heedless of direction.  Bemused feet waver,
push off, rise.
And the sky.
 
 
 
Serene pool, mountain clear.
Idyll on sun-warmed, age-smoothed stone,
pure in replete wonder.
Seeking silence, purposeful wander through hallow
woodland allowed within civilized structured plan.
Moving consciously alone, to find quiet refuge.
Hidden, beyond foliage thicket, ambrosial vision,
blithe flowing river.
Immerse, swim, be --
perfection.