7/13/15

Muses dance,

explore motion.

Segue to and fro

two steps back; a flury forward.

Satin cats, tails a’fling

pirouette, scurry choreography.

No tomorrow.  No scheduled glee for

public appearances.

Time’s a’clanging, impatient clamors

for unknown seasons.

Rainstorm howls,

cleanses,

sends tidings, murky repentance and

beard for tears. 

Savage rain tip-tapping

rhythms and blues.

Barrels for dipping, for ritual

washing, for tribal hydration, replenishment.

Agriculture,

hunger, health, hygiene.  Sordid rain,

ashen water, terror, pain, diluted

blood.

Storm warnings advise caution.

Cover yer windows and blinds.

Hide in cellars and pray.

Find salvation in fearsome company.

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.

 

 

7/13/15

7/7/15

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 weed.

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?

 

 

Accept (I am as I am)

and flow

silvery sediment

Grand glowing Sun

eclipse on the river.

Caressed by satin water

hot and cold

element controlled, ever free.

River journeys

more sensual than air

more loquacious that Earth

more secure than fire

We can discover,

transmute along the river

never noticing how everything

has changed.

River run true rumination

murky, long 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.

Feel safe, alone or in good

company.  The river loves

in her own fashion.

 

 

7/7/15

Growing Out of Liminality

Growing Out of Liminality

Thirteen Wizards Shall Guide You, rotating in 7s,

to be chosen from a wizard test administered at regular intervals

to any who wish to apply.

Each wizard shall serve at his/her pleasure — until they decide to move on.

Any wizard may return by retesting and getting the highest score amongst

those currently in line at the time of a vacancy, like any other candidate.

The test to be devised by a wise pre-council to ascertain qualities of

wisdom, compassion, responsibility, integrity and clarity of communication.

The test may be reviewed and revised at any time that the full council agrees

to do so, based on evidence of better result to be gained.

The wizards do not make the laws.

Laws are made by direct democracy, after a sufficient period of debate when

an overwhelming majority of consensus seems likely.

Wizards do have veto power.

Wizards do not control the economy.  That is the province of the market.

The wizards do oversee the use and conservation of common resources.

They do oversee a social infrastructure that assures everyone a comfortable, secure

livelihood.  They do oversee disputes to assure that everyone is treated fairly

in the course of commerce, and in the course of community life.

They are not paid an outright salary.

They are given comfortable living conditions that their minds may be free

of personal want.

thots of Taurus 2015

I want a new drug to take me
where I’ve never been.
Make me believe, again
that adventure exists.
Myths suggest metaphors.
Touch, arresting scent, texture,
nuance of gesture,
uncertainty, grasp of mortality --
evidence of reality.
I need a wider consciousness
that includes more breath
opening views, vibrating hues,
bracing hugs.


Life is a marvelous adventure
for the human race to destroy.
We are the ogres, trolls, mean demons
(not so noble as dragons, so wise as
witches and wizards).


a less than 1 percent tax on all economic activities
to remind us we need this social structure for our
trades to make sense
to supply revenue for government functions --
to pay employees, buy and rent supplies to
implement programs deemed best managed in this way.


Unattached to painful past – too busy creating
a glorious future.


I embody archetype Artist.
She suits me, green and purple harlequin.
I catch stars, spin upon diamond precipide
to gather silken yarn, angora wonders.
See, below a spider bridge is spun
that I may capture hydration, sparkling dew,
lubricating stew of what befalls.
Awe is my fuel of choice.
Those who care, follow my voice,
deserve truth.
Beauty destroys to heroically mend.
Betrays to befriend.
She is not meant to be trusted, but beloved
by joy in immanence.



5/21/15




as if a haiku
brushstroke upon facing wall
captures bird in flight


5/19/15




Maybe not inspired, but inspiring


I've lived these rivers.
As well have I imbibed their rushing
advice, stagnant stories, magic of silent
poetry, flowing.

All of a peace, rambling bridge, abiding river, we between.


5/6/15


Disappointment
You’re still here.
A sour taste toothpaste won’t disappear.
So much done, without accomplishment.
Concept of fun lacks referent.
Entrainment in popular art to escape pain.
Less loss blessed as gain.
Who am I to complain?
Some fantasized morning when I’m
straight and sure
I’ll saunter through a door
I never knew existed.


may 2, 2015




Edie had to admit to herself a qualm, but only the slightest
atavistic whisper.  So she talked to herself sternly, and now
that qualm is gone, never has any existence more.

Marcus and Betty were innocents, babbling what to other
ears mere nonsense, amazed and relieved to just be in the
presence of someone so ordinary in a world of others who
were anything but.


I am a transfaith, anti-gender, alien lifeform in a human body.
Now what were we talking about?

Self-transforming darling art
deep, soulful conversation,
not social obligation
about putting intransigent folks
at ease.
Yes!  I passionately yearn for peace.
But not “Peace” as shackles,
as in “Peace at any price.”
Peace I crave demands mutual respect,
a right to thrive as I define, so long as
my definition includes respect for those
rights of each and every “I”.
(If we don’t spell out these rules, someone
always complains their issues were not properly
accommodated  --
as if we could poll all billions of members by name
and affiliation. )
What was I saying – lost in rambling digression,
giving expression to rants on my mind.
Yes, peace
and profound conversation.
Over libations.
Surrounded by sublime illustrations.
All’s well.  Pleasurable interval.



4/30/15




kindness to sadness
kindness to pain
kindness to sustain through unkind fates and
desperate foes
kindness to capture the flow of mindfulness
to find redress for all those in blindness
randomly casting stones of shame
kindness as last gentle spray to ease sleep of
convalescence
kindness as a blessing we may best keep in
ever opening expression


4/23/15

Haphazard People


Mostly pretty ugly, pretty useless, pretty ignorant,
not pretty at all.
But how can I discount them when unexpectedly
somebody kind, unreasonably wise, a vision of grace,
unbearably lovely.
How could we account for miracles, unlikely odds
coming through?
Random chaos is enough for human ingenuity
to engineer you or me, or any soldier joe
or social geek.
Who's to say which or any of us is the freak?
I like my women half-crazed, strong, and vulnerable.
I like someone to cry with.
I like someone who laughs me out of my blues.
I like that she could choose,
and freely cleaves to me.
Haphazard people.
Unplanned lives.
What are the chances we might get it right?


September 4, 2011



in the rhythm


Shell the peanuts.
Scrub and cut up the potatoes.
Knead the dough.
Pluck and chop the herbs.
Music in the fixing, in the mixing,
each practiced movement.
Music of each meeting,
each handing on, a dance.

Caught up in cogent vibration,
safe in sound, lightly bound,
guides to construe sense from sensation,
turns tasks into merry play.
Easy to commune with tune, tonality, glee.
Such fun these school days can be!

Back in the forests, the caves,
the glades,
elemental chemistries exchange,
sonic waves call wanderers home;
soothing night fears with lullaby,
comradely cheer.
Know us by our song --
music we've carried through
long brave trails, travailed years.
If the Word is our binding charm,
our song is our vow,
ever renaming our power.
Engaging, blending, restorative potion;
energy, purpose, pleasure of motion
enthused by
humanity's muse.

The people united
hanging together to avoid
being hung
one by one.
Growing their rhythm, get carried along in a
strengthening hum
tuned to common cause.
Shouting poetic, wrapped
together, in a banner of furious sound.
The people, excited, spring in their step,
clear on their ground, can not be kept down.

Entrapped, entranced
Who is to be gained
by loosening the ties?
What you remains
released into surprise?
Feel, beneath your eyes.
Ease into the rhythm.
Blessed familiarity --
heartbeat through pulsing memory.
Breathe, connect with the real --
the gift of air, of skin,
of night, of chance encounters,
of ringing melodies
strong enough
to call to potency
your most precious name.

There's always a child
dying
to play
loved and protected
through chilling curiosity,
worries over being too big or
clashing to fit in.
Little one, listen:
Condensed to soft-voiced
Song,
loving companion
on treacherous icy walks
in winter rain
embraces from within.
Play and be heard, protected,
assured of unsuspected glory.
Song imagines your story.

Surging through heart,
capillaries,
our ineffable beauty
sings.


September 2011

post-Nietzsche

It's not that God is dead:

God is irrelevant.

Some ancient ancestor who dated

your ancestress for a day;

then off, sailing the cosmic stream.

Even if that gleam in your eye,

the quirky way you smile,

were His,

they're yours now.

sept. 17, 2011

the media is the message

Drunk on koolaid.

Sputter junkie cultural jargon --

a separate, unequal, reality

you choose.

Soggy comfort of misery.

Slobby, whiney;

lobbing fouled barbs to amuse.

Cheap deterioration,

failure explained:

Not mine!  The way of the world.

Ascertain blame by direction

in which orator's stones are hurled.

Can't look back, or around

to track the blood on the ground.

Life seeps in pain.

Drunk in a pool of despair.

Left to sleep, unaware,

drowning in caustic rain.

The Revolution will not be televised

The Revolution will be online

Because The Times They Are A'Changin'

triptych medley [something I'm playing around with]

*karaoke of the inner theatre*

stepping out

into the night

hear my heart shout

feeling alright

 

All night long

we would sing that crazy song

believe the lies that destiny would bring to us

 

Venturing highways splashed in sunshine

where skies play the song, deranged and stranger

than moonshine

We're gonna go, I know, into the flow

 

dressed in moonlight

my cadence cradles me

waves sound their roar

crash onto shore

high flight

into mystery

without a sound

never touch down

 

Can you hear me, Major Tom

Is there anything that matters

before you send the bomb?

Before the whole world shatters,

do you have a final word

can anyone be heard

Are you with me, Major?

 

When the free wind tangles through your hair

And all the world is made of air

far beyond your dear despair

laugh exposed, without a care

 

Sometimes

when the mist surrounds

nothing seems real, or out of bounds

Lifted on a melody

Nobody knows

just how it goes

Suddenly

 

Outrider flying in the starshine

where lips are wider, stairways higher

than Alcapulco Gold

just let me touch that burn of open road

before my future's bought and sold

 

(to be continuous)

 

 

Quantum Quandaries

She has a delicate voice, redolent of secret inspiration, not often used.  There is the high-pitched panic that drones like angry bees, chaotic, insistent.  That voice is not hers, but of her demons, flaying, cackling, castigating, sizzling knives flown from angry hands.  She doesn't notice.  It is all done as pyrotechnic effect while consciousness bathes in restraint, senses restricted to calm, to cleanse, safe inside.

 

There is another voice, sure as ocean rain, forceful as gunshot on a silent night.  When we hear its tune, we listen.  Pure bell that sings only Truth, it is in our sacred core to listen.  That voice is rare and wonderful, the essence of beauty.  The more we listen, in awe, compassionate wisdom takes hold, we become attuned.  We become the voice of welcome, of familiar kind regard.  We become complicitous encouragement.

 

She is stronger more able, vibrant in song.  We are all learning to sing, dance, play, in this world we create, build in conversation, in turning conceptions from experience into a private wealth from each to each, teachers and students on the art of renaming.

 

 

Mobs of ignorant, angry people.  Too loud to hear anything useful.  Nothing to be done.  Leave them alone.  Find a free meadow under the sky.

 

Call for the cheer that carries carefree souls.  Stars far from here calling our craft home.  We've made our career a matter of energy.  Sing of Summer surf, held close to mystery.  Undersea caves cradle chests of gems, shining like starlight.

 

Watery imagery -- the ocean that meant to keep me so many years ago.  I become a swimmer, a survivor in the storm.  I don't know why.  It wasn't my idea to be strong.  I didn't think, just let my body work along from one plane to the next.

 

Addiction

 

Ending life of the day.  Descending into fetid disgrace.  Is that so attractive?  Is that reason to negate possibility of choice?  Choose to negate a life that is never truly yours.  Better the degradation than devil's compromise to consensual reality's unmeetable demands, measurements.  But, like suicide, unspeakably worse, a mortal sin, to give in to bestial temptation.  How can I explain?  One whiff and life as conceptualized in dayplanner delineation loses all continuity, protection from chaos, impossible to pick up such raveled stitch.

Lords of violence, long conjured into real enough fear again.  Pimping for Jehovah?  Sneer for the big screen.  We learn to fear from what attacks every day.  I don't accept being weak, self-protection demanding imprisonment to stave off temptation.  I elect representation, prescient shadows, to pay my penance, ritually claim my soul.

A powerful self-devised agent to promote my best interests.

 

Rats, spiders, assorted displaced vermin, semi-feral humans, scrabble through garbage, stagnant remnants of rain and refinement, to no good end.  Children grow consuming what is available, what is given or taken.  Revised as zombies -- no minds worth saving, subsisting on dead flesh and legendary fear.  How can dreams cope?

After brief eternity, given the designation "life," simple, mundane sensuality -- slimy tears dissolve eye grit; sore structural muscles ease into melodious jazz.

This peculiar Hades Bohemia reflects like jewel facets, bioluminescent charms.  Too bad those chained to arms, deprived of what arms can claim to feel fulfilled, seek release in arms defined to kill or to be killed.

Why should death's mystery entice so much more than life's?  What hope the best of men survive death's fiery trial?  Why insist, assume, the bond of flesh is blood consumed, all against every?  Where is ecstasy of hand touching hand?

 

It may well be about discovering one's ideals and working toward them.  It is certainly not about having it all together from the get go.

Yet, essence, possibilities inherent in living seed grown in potent mixtures (tinctures for violent bifurcation, strictures, intricate captivating lulls) for acculturation, captive imagination, long walks that suddenly awaken questioning:  "Where am I going?  Who is this "me" that has a destiny or merely flits along prevailing wind?"  That wandering devolves to slumber.  No one to remember, holding on to random sensory familiarity.  Don't trust the mirror.  Aging eyes have looked too far for reliable witness.  They love to lie, lazy, wistful -- if wishes could be more real than these fantasies, murals tied to greasy walls -- self-made Hell.