enso

wu wei is no way.
wu wei is the only way.
do way.

is it a poem

if i say it is
if i use my mouth
to form the quiet words
in the silent space
of chirping crickets
and faded tv
from too far away
and music
from somewhere else
with the drum beat of churning laundry
in the washing machine
and the hum of spastic keys
struck with deliberate chi
moving
across the wide and open
space
of soon to be forgotten
is it a poem
if i say it is?
these utterances of moment
trapped in strange american words
spoken in the head of the poet
as she types the black letters
of an unutterable alphabet
is it a poem
if i say it is?
is it my poem?

one day while stumbling...

one day while stumbling i found write rhymes--and this is what i wrote:

here i sit
i be
i beat
here with wit
and need
and feet
i do not walk
along the dock
i still the out
from now
i will the pout
to row
and so the fighting
on it goes
with all the righting
of the woes
i see and sit
i write my wit
with none to share
beyond

i am still

starting
again
stepping
again
out on faith
sure of its foundation
that it is strong enough
in any air
to hold me
up
head above water
and when i bob under
and see what is there
i keep hold of that floating device
that faith shield
that protection
i am here
i am still here
and when i am no longer
i am still

up the loading dock

into the shadow
through the light
down the loading dock
unloaded
and ready

in this notebook

stories ensue
continue
explain
examine
express
this is *it*
life living itself
out loud
and overheard
and here, in this
notebook,
in this digital
camera,
recorded.

take care. i love you.

take care,
i love you
and the phone
clicks shut
here in
this
evidence
of now
flashing
bulb
bulbless
tulip
springing
forth
the winter
is over
we are in the
deep heart
of pollinated
spring
a ring
dadadadadadada
jen and the baby
are here.
aha.
now i know a name.
i'll call you when i get home.
okay
bye
a click of the closed
phone
my dad calls me
every day
she tells jen
the skinny friend
her own pregnancy
protruding
life has its
way with
all of us
a ring
dadadadadadada
some words of
love and explanation
the click
of a closed
connection
cut off?
released.
again. to
LIFE in the present moment.

LIFE living itself

one more
glass
of clear
water
to ascertain
teh half fullness
as i tip over
past full
i am in the
bliss
of this
easy
morning.
i am here
in the crepes a go go
sitting in my
corner perch
observing
both the
rose and
its reflection
baby girl
at home now
on the outside lap
of her already
skinny
mother
eathing
partaking of
crepe
a go go ing
nowhere
for just
a little
while
alive
in the
wide
joy
of entering
a body
exiting
a body
soul
aspiring
fulfilled
LIFE
living itself
AHHHHHHH

amputated imaginings

i stretch the tired
muscles
in my shoulders
arching the reach
of bones
forward--
as if that--
they--
were the only
arms
i have
i had--
i notice
the glory
of holding
the pen
aloft.

if i lost
these hands--
i would
carry it
in my teeth
dancing--
still and forever
across the
open book
of waiting
white
page.

A W A K E

the dangerously thin
red head
older than she
should be
greets ghimila
with familiarity
smiles a hello
in my direction
breathes a
breath of clarity
onto her lenses
and wipes the
wet fog
away
settles into
her book
comfortably
turns the
thin pages
crackling
the joy
A W A K E.

here and gone

here and gone
the long muscles
of the slender
young
terse
beauty
in and out
in a caffeinated
hurry
already
on
her
way

to where, so fast?

new life's cries

a pregnant blonde
carrying a baby girl
new to the world
her friend
brunette mother
is thin again
so fast?
the return to
before body?
how does one sweat
so much? so often?
amid the
languorous joy
of new life's
cries?

no j in arabic

ghimila offers to take my picture.
ghimila.
she takes two--
we don't have J in arabic--
and i ask her her name
we shake hands.

a.i.r. reflections

here, at crepes a go go
i lapse into poetry
mother and daughter
battle out
the inconsistencies
of service
ire
and money spent
hard times
traffic details
driving records
play their spinning way
today i am her
at this cafe
instead of my beloved
denica's
because i, too,
had to take my prius
to toyota.

again, connected.
through overheard
story, double mocha and crepe.

spinach, cheese, mushroom & turkey crepe + double mocha

i sit
enjoy
eat
take in the doisneau
reminiscences
am transported
to a crepery
there
tour de eiffel
rising from the papers they
are printed on
i am once again
in the rich memory
of prin temps
and my stroll
down the
champs elysee
sitting in outdoor cafes
lingering over $8 cokes
rejoicing in the
mishmash of
asian guitarists
bringing alive the john denver
song
take me home
to paris, love
with this crepe
i am ready
for the steps of
sacre cour
the joys of mon martre
take me home.

tuesday, may 13

here i sit
startled into joy
by the jutting poem
emerging as clear
inspiration
from the granite
sandwich.
i pause in the pausing
place
the bamboo worn
away
by impatient
footprints
wanting to get
closer
to the
miracle
of these
unexpected
words.
i read the gift of them
came from you,
dear tobi earnhart gold
age 9
from my favorite
bolinas, california
a river of words
contest
winner
how old are you
now?
and how did you
know
your
words
would give me
pause
to see this place
this glorious
walnut
creek
and cause me,
as you have
to spend some looking time
seeing, at last,
your grandmother tree.
fallen
as she may be
your words
have brought her
and indeed this
place
finally
alive
to me.

posterity

and so
the
soldiers
come and go
willing to kill
and die
4000 now
i'm sure its
more
a stunning fact
out on the
floor
her
son
is
one
has won
his way
to
long forgotten
trials
how long
goes on
this
list of
names
the young
to fight
forgotten blame
misplaced
upon
this
funeral
pyre
he reaches
for his
bride
his mother
to his side
she weeps
and drinks
and stirs the
soup of one
day unforgiven
her lover
joins not
the
family
picture.
it is understood:
she is not welcome to posterity.

moment momentus

here
sitting
in the
deep
yes
of this
collaboration
i come
to
this
shell
of
moment
momentus
here
i
be
a
poet
in
residence
residing
in
my
own
white
car.

overheard

the so and so
of soul
beauty
bearing
its
weight
in the
sunlight
of
forgiven
go in
without
me.
i've got
to change.

and so i come

and so
i come
i enter
i sit
i find
my mind
surfacing
to destroy
the act
of this
artmaking
making
itself
a
mask
promises
threatens
its
place
to hide
behind
to
enter in
to the
dance
beyond
this
body.

i
sit.

i
be.

i
write.

i
find.

i
come.

i
enter
the
offering.

i gift my gifted
self to these proceedings.

seeing

oh without
camera to
capture this
to spread across
the weight of
white--
to capture the
shadow of hand
holding pen
dancing
its up and down
undisciplined
in the rightness
of its letters
cast as they
are the medicine
of shadows
releasing
their contents
holding still
both writers
hand and
dancing pen
there is a world
a way--a
standing
in the way of
the light
that causes
them
all
to be
here
on this
page
this brush
of memory
this veil
of light
lifted
to expose
itself
in
these
red
words

a glimpse cast
and then escaped
there is no re-creation of this
moment
here.

i notice this

i notice this
the point of entrance
the space of spill
a clear point
a tip
a ball roller rolling
allowing the ebb and flow
of lifeblood
of red ink
to move past that block
that rolling ball
to pointed freedom
the promised land
of the blank
page
littered now
with the
thingness
of this
poem.

i begin

i begin
sitting
in the
art car
waiting
without waiting
to spill the shadow
breath
memory
onto this
waiting
page

the last time we talked?

we were doing the taxes
you were making it up
your mileage
but you didn't want to
just make it up
you wanted to look back
at the calendar
and calculate
just how many miles
you might have spent
traveling to the courthouse
and back
taking the back roads
like you liked to do
and we had worked
our way through April
and i couldn't stand it
anymore
the figuring
of taxes
without talking
about the refund
you were not going to be here
to receive
to put in 5% CDs
and save for the
retirement
you weren't agreeing to
me, wresting it from
your clinging hands.
and i started crying
just like a girl
and i stormed about
just like you taught me
and it shook you up
a minute
and we went to the living room
reserved for visitors
and sat down,
and you asked me
if i had any
questions...


was that the last time we talked?

i wanted something else

i wanted something
else
something different
something i couldn't explain
and didn't expect
adn wouldn't
absolutely would not
ever hear of
or even dream about
again.

i wanted something
from him.

and i didn't get it.

and still, we went
we go
on.

feeling our patterns in the lush

it was that one day
that one conversation
that one place where we usually
walked away from one another
to allow for the air to shift
the room to be made
the acceptance to settle in
to the craggy smatterings
of indecision and too much to lose
but we kept our feet rooted
our butts there on the red couch
feeling our patterns in the lush fabric
of maybe there is another way
we haven't thought about
readying its spill
onto the night
of one day
black ink
moving
its deep chagrin welling
into never
where did the thread go?
lapsing into laughter
and forgiveness
and something deeper and truer
than what we started fighting for
we do not have to know the way
nor even the destination
nor do we have to travel every single
square mile together
we just know beyond knowing
that no matter the road
or the journey
or the weariness of traveling
this night, this moment here
we spend it
and save it
by re-entering it
together.

when i deeply listen

when i deeply listen
past my ears and eyes
past the roar of my own welling up
adn spilling over into story
i can sometimes glimpse
the start--the very tip of a
whole iceberg waiting to be
explored under the ice of
getting to know you melting
off cragy bits above the
surface allowing for the
rich gesture of a simple
hand holding the solar plexus
you speaking about gray
and orange and dancing,
eyes sparkling my mind
awake with somewhere
not like katmandu
and hear the shaft
of light caressing the
not buddha and
causing me to rub
my eyes for phantom
floating cat hair and
the laughter yoga's
flowing truths
spilling an inner
niagra falls falling
onto sacred ground
drinking at the well
of a shared chalice
that brings the
dance alive the
fullness of movement
funning up the
memory of a
big rock alive
witht he promise
of an istanbul to
see with you if you
dare to let me--to
offer me some way in
to turkish delight
when i listen
deeply to the place
your singing voice
transports me to
when i occupy it
fully,as i can with
you, those talking to you
as a mother--i can
hear them too--
and i can taste
the bloody sidewalk
and find its precious
warmth and wonder
why you, my booty
friend, my blind
mouse, can know,
at seven, what blood tastes
like and
then beyond
where i have been
where i only dare
hope to go i hear
you tell me
there are no
stepping stones
in the everglades
but i am listening
for them, for me
i am listening
to the deep forest
and the taste of earth
and the maggots
maggoting their
cleansing way
through the
meat left
on the
bone
of
this
moment
i am here
i am listening
and in the listening
i hear
i see
i seek
i find
i no longer hide.

you have given me
cause to speak
and i will use
my mouth
to open here
in witness to
this miracle
this miracle
this miracle
manifested
here
in the
hearing.

are you amy?

it's a weekend of poetry
of course, you come too--
what did you do, say,
tell me? when you thought
this might be the last
moment with your granddaughter?
you knew julie, too--
why no poem for her?

are you amy? born just
as you were buried?
i
stay in the assignment:
an image:

i remember the blue dress
on the doll--the strange
shaped teeth, the eyes
that flapped open and closed
the ringlets of the reddish
hair--the strange covering
of things--the white cloth
body--not white--
aged cloth--even then
as creme like--
yellowed--as this
page of yours i write on.

i saw the butterfly--

i saw the butterfly--
the safe metaphor
full of florious
heaven and all promise
posing its questions
at the edge of
things--i trade it
for a cake pan--
round--the artistry
of your church work--
your fervent prayer--
your poetry there
at the beginning
of things.
i remember
being in the
other room
with you--
playing with
the caskets.
i was there
picking out
the stuff--
not picking
out any stuff.
i played with
your white comb,
with the gilded
edge, the gold
hairbrush and white
bristles. did you
let me play
with your
hair?

something of yours

something of yours--
your red tile--
your white kitchen--
no--yes--your cake pan--
i have a pan--
round--steel? -- it has a
wheel--a lip that pouts
in--a clasp that
tethers the two sides
together--a simple
bottom that fits
inside the ring
when its clamped shut
a space for cakes
to be made
the kind you made
for me--i taste
through the
pictures i see
the icing
the little
caricatures--
carousel horses
and striped
paper awning
you made
me 4?
or was it 5
cakes? with
your two hands.
did i help
you crack
eggs in the
kitchen?
stir the
batter?
lick the
spoons?
there is
so much
i can't
remember
that i
know you
did with me
those earliest
years--my earliest--
your latest.
were you right
about god?

what i'm doing here without you

it was the most honest
you could be
your angry "i don't know"
uttered in swear words,
in beer gulps,
expressed in cheap cigar
smoke.

you took your habits
outside when she
was diagnosed
bought garage sale
air purifiers and
littered them in
every room when
outside put you too far
from your locus of control
command center
under the yellowed lamp,
in the garage sale chair
your beer gut hanging out over boxers
you attention angled at the blue screen
of bloomberg every morning

in the end
it would be you to
die of the cancer
that tried to kill
her hust five years
earlier.

and as we bussed
the butts and crushed
the cans and filled
the dumpsters full
of your garage sale
mind there was nothing
we could say--
nothing we could do
with all you used to
hold off the swell
of i don't knows


###


dropping
down
into the
silence
of the
hum
of
breathers
breathing
in and out
the courage
contracts
expands
delighted
i cut off
from there
from then
i let it
fall--
all--
into nothing
again.


###


where is the center?
the breath breathing itself
in something
deeper
am i doing this
right?
where is it that
the line is
crossed
and i am deep
underwater
breathing in
and out
the stuff of
only my own
things
oh things--
yes
i do not
make
those.


###


hear in the long
since forgotten
woken with death
the trampling through
the late night
offer to walk
and discover
just what lay
there--gone--
without you
i wander--
should be
free of you
now
but you haunt me
or is it i,
keeping you
from some
prized
inner sanctum
in heaven
by my inability
to ever
really
let
loving you
go--


###


i don't love you.
i didn't love you.
i didn't believe
the things you
wouldn't sell
or trade on
scarcity and lies
to keep the
change beside
the cellophane
wrappers that
wouldn't seal
the stench
of yellow smoke
cheap cigars
you died from
bad lite beer
you died from
too much bloomberg
and not enough long
walks talking and
looking at the stars
and counting fireflies
you were every
strong thing
in this world
to me--
every false
belief about
poverty and
unworthiness
and without
you to push
against
i have
fallen in
to that
garage sale
chair
under the
yellow lamp
you could
never look up
from or
climb out
of --
except when
i came home
and you were
once again
alive.


###


did i kill you?
when i left?
or did you
start dying
before that?
with the first
born dead?
with the gunshot?
with the end
right there at
the very beginning
of things.
you prayed me
into being.
now--
i don't know
what i'm
doing here
without
you.

balls 3, for ms. c. e. moore

it is in the noticing--
the catching glimpse of the world
rolling its way down oregon street
on its way into the lake of merit
of yes, of still and how and in this
moment here and now
that captured wholeness
floating by
the real of wondering
wondering why
that reel of seen
forgotten still
that thing that's not forgot
a sliding foot
unraveling ball
a looking still
without a wall
a wonder not at this be true
a seeing still
through eyes of you
and yet
and still
and round
or flat
or even that the end is that
i wonder, yet,
is this still true?
they eyes of what becomes of you
i love the shadow
pinching
out
the real imagined
here
on out
and words
so luscious
rolling by
the ball to find
and wonder
sigh

it's 4am, where are my boundaries?

i am standing in a river of my own blood.
of my own making.
i am seeing my own babies--
my beautiful babies--
my beloved children
killing themselves
killing one another
killing each other
i am standing in darfur
i am standing in rwanda
i am standing in witness at the borders of america
watching, again, the walls
the berlin walls of separation
threaten, again, to go back up
i am watching
i am witnessing
i am attending to the death
i am attending to the ravages
unleashed upon this earth
i am standing in a river of blood
made from the leaky red stuff
pouring out of all i have made
to come here
to be here
alive
in this eden you speak up
here, alive in this world of love
i am standing in a river of blood
i am standing in the deepest waters of new orleans
i am standing in the crumpled towers of manhattan
i am standing with the women crowded under covers
of darkest darkness
causing them unspeakable pain
i am standing under the hood of my own despair
i am standing under the helmet of my own knowing
that all is beautiful, as you see it
that all is good and right
that all is all and always
and i want to scream
i want to scream my kali scream
i want to scream my angry scream
i want to show you your eden with the eyes of my scream
with what i speak
with the sound of all i hear
with what i know is mine
killing mine
taking mine
before my time for their time
and i want to scream
i am screaming from here
i am screaming under my veil of silence
i am screaming and bleeding
i am attending to the red river of death
that flows deep in me
when i can hear and see
the death
the death
the purposeful killing for your crucified god
for your abraham and his seven sons
for your muhammad
for your bible and your talmud and your torah
for your christ
christian love expressing
singing songs above the hatred
holding hands above the pain
making offerings above the in deep despair
the grief and longing in the way
in failure
in crisis
in homelessness
rampantly raging across this good green earth
this eden
this dream
of heaven
you, with your practiced words,
and you
you
you with your big gong
and its beautiful sound
and your practiced hand
and your stunning ability
and your expansive joy
and your generous heart
and your kindness extended
and your gifts bestowed
you are simply pissing me off.
you are beautiful, to be sure.
you are kind and knowing and good.
you are offering, truly, your gifts.
you are offering, joyfully, your words.
and i receive them.
and i love them.
and i am strengthened by them
in the way i am strengthened by a visit to oz
a visit to heaven
a visit through a dream
a promise
a truth i know is there
but at the minute, my son, my beauty,
i am looking through fun house glasses
and seeing what your eden is made of
the dead bodies and bones piled up
in catacombs
taking my limited time in france
away from the louvre.
i am crawling through the dead--
as you know, bone does not decay
in any of the regular ways
and it takes centuries to wear the stench away
of something burned
in ovens
six million
twelve
how many did we count before we stopped counting?
and what of israel now?
and the middle east?
and the threat and promise of threatened peace?
and the whirl of the sound of helicopter blades
and the damn postcards in the mail
marines taking my oldest son
not even back yet
not even here yet
from africa to war
i will not stand in the rivers of that blood alone
i will not stand, picking up the bones,
bending and burying and mourning alone.
and when i tell you that i love you--
that you are talented and good--
and that you make sure i see you
and hear you understood
and i know, i agree, i find you as the god,
you abdicate.
you go away.
you climb up on your cross.
and you, yourself, wad your art up
and trash yourself anew
and i am left here in this blood
now, too, attend to you.
and you tell me as you're leaving
that you've put all your beauty there
and of course it is my choice
but i go and gently care
for what you yourself have wadded up
you, yourself, have trashed
and take my attention, yet again,
to restore you
to hold you
to heal you
to prop you up
to find a space that's big enough
to fill what you have emptied
and i resent it.
and i know you didn't ask--
you were "happy" in the trash--
but you are beautiful, too--too beautiful
to leave all wadded up
and when you're in the bin and spin
you cannot help me
you cannot stand beside me
you cannot turn the tide
and make a block
and be a ride
a guide
a star in the sky
by which i can find my way
you are only there to grieve
you are only there to save
and i can remember
only just
what it looked like when you were you
there on that wall so beautiful
there on the wall so true
and i need that still--
or do i?
and the ravages still rage
and i need the needing needy stuff
no longer
now
what i need is play
i need you with me in the river
coming up, again, with games
and planting pretty bodies gone
in eden once again
and then a story, sweet and true,
that has you always being you
and never getting on or off
the crucifix of truth
i need you working in the garden
tending to the weeds
i need you working through the winter
helping me to gather pleas
i need you standing, sweet, beside me
picking up this mess
and stopping all this craziness
and tearing at my dress
i need you full of your sweet self
and glasses off, now, too
i need us seeing this same river
damning up the fools
that start the thing with hatred
and cause the thing with fear
i need you standing next to me
knee deep, head clear.

comment, balls 2

for carolyn moore


the shark in the world
glowing at the edge of the gutter
of the sidewalk
nearly not noticed
gleaming
from the bike
looking down
riding onward
noticing
the balls
to save
the one verse
the one word
the word of the one
explained
with explain nation
a tongue used to tell
a finger, ten maybe,
or only nine really,
and only one at a time
at any rate
yes-sharing
animating
shining
emanating
here.

gracias!

make an offering

enter your piece of peace
heal thyself oh writress
share the sharing parts
let go what is not offered

MAKE AN OFFERING

enter the silence.
you are here, together,
entering the dream
of being together
heal and grow
heal and know
this be that
forever

speak they name
speak my name
say it
what needs the
saying

then come
when you are
ready
we are always
waiting--ready--
for you

come.

homage to night

homage to night
against white
the moors, violet
of day, keening
severe, honest
at two or three or four
old women
worried about paying bills
they came, each one
and i ask you
if they did why can't you
if they would
why won't you
but you do long for midnights
shared around a fire
you, embodied spirit
telling tales of whispers
shimmering
silently
watched from a comfort
under blankets of dark
inspired by dreams
stopped dreaming
enter your peace of piece


be
your
piece of peace
only pieced together
happiness
quilted gatherings
sewn and stitched
over gossip
spread thick with
metaphors
toasting the needles
of schemes
yarns connecting
then and now
voices discarded
traded for the hand
dancing across the
blank witness of the page
after your words
and go--speak if you
must--through me--
to me--but torment
me not--
i have let you go
now, please,
let me.

could it be enough

could it be enough
that i know the power of the poetry
or is it that i must speak it, too
is it that i must stand and deliver
the silent words voiced and uttered
is that what can release me?
from me?
do i hate myself so much to keep
the truth from even me?
the mess of insecurity
spilling out in false bravado
the weight of all that's carried forward
into now.
what is it i bring with me?
all these bags of someday
wandering willingly through the
bump and grind of what is here with me
needing to be healed
will i carry it from this now?
or leave it finally in this moment?
when will i bury my dead?
and let them rest--a piece of the peace
they have become
if only i will stop resurrecting
my need to hear their voices,
feel their arms around me
reassuring me of my goodness
and right ot be here in this
womb.
when is it my arrival in this
world could be accepted--
by myself--by my soul--
as enough--
permission
to live.

for all the alchemy of form...

for all the
alchemy of
form

i find my way

through the space
of piles cleaned
up, shuffled,
rearranged,
i move the
energy that
lets you
surface

for this
moment
of stillness
still in this
presence
silent
i drop into you

and we
are together
again
for the
first time.

i want and then...

i want
and then
stop wanting
have
and then
stop having
speak
and then
stop speaking
give
and then
stop giving

in the presence
of witness
i be here

seen or heard
felt or imagined

i be here now
being


s t i l l

just one silence

just one
silence
shimmering
in the space
for maria
in cluded
here as
what could
have been
if the gift
of her
came wrapped
in human
packaging
to this
joyful
saturday
circle
of lovely day spilling inot
remem-
bered
silences
still.

i occupy a space--

i occupy a space--
as a being being silent
doing the nothing allowed
by breathing--but that is
not nothing--is it? inhale
exhale, padum, padum, swoosh
whoosh the waves waving
through the silent space of
being a being who bes

no buzz or hum required--
inhale, exhale, pa dum, padum,
swoosh, whoosh, ahhhhhhhhhhh

if i make a space

if i make a space
if i leave a path clear for you--or
even overgrown
if i sit, crazy in the emptiness of
without you or the full to overflowing
only you could get glose enough to give me
if i sit in the piece of now that's offered
quiet, silent, empty as the upright glass
and wait without waiting for you or
anything else--you or anyone--this
or anything--if i empty of self and
song and story and little pieces of sacred
paper or quiet words whispered to
the dead leaves in the ink that
flows when i hold the pen
is it you or me? left there as the
glass of emptiness? the vessel of
yes? the empty space of peace?
i am ready for emptiness--
i just can not bring myself to let go
when i go...
but i will go.

dearest yes maker

dearest yes maker
what holds me here?
in silent fear of fearful years
passing ever into gone?
i wander lost and on and on
forever circling round the thing
what holds me in this spiral ring?
in and out the dance and shout
of yes and no not now
but what is it that keeps me
keeping boxes stacked of weepings
weeping let it go to flow
dear river
heal me won't you let me know?
help me let it go?
beyond beyond in dervish
whirling
stop this digging up and
squirreling
letting ride the sweetest bet
take me home--yet not quite yet

i ask to see the daughter grown
the son of heart to come back home
the son of body dunking dreams
the husband featured in my seams
of all sewn up, fastened securely
here we be so of this worldly

wander just
the apple blossoms
leave the fruit
to drop
i come in season
to this yearning
hopeful here this
page now twirling
oft the shadow
here this night
a glimmer, flicker
final light this tide
does sweep out undertow
this weather sure to overblow
i come into this windy place

and ask my light go out
to face the
curtains call
courageous
bowing one
not stumbling
but allowing

here the winters wisdom turns
thee old now
one and all
go out now--
into fall.

for you

the one who gets the worst of me
on a regular basis
and the mixed signals
and the strange, un-voiced requests
that leave you ever guessing
every wondering
what it is i
REALLY
want
you
you
you
and all that has issued from my love
for you
and your love
for me
that continuously renews itself
despite the conversational utterances
of desperation and insecurity
raging hormones and lonely planets
orbiting the dark side
for the long moons
of an eternal seeming time
you
you
you
you
your forgiveness
your careful editing of bad behavior
your precious clinging
to a truer truth
beyond the fear
of words
so easy to say
and never mean
the meanness
they imply
you
you
you
you
you
you
you
you
you
you
you
you
and every single moment
of every single day
since i met you
and we became us
and us expanded the love
that crossed continents
and bound a white girl from kansas
and an african prince from oguta
together
for eternities
of time
that doesn't matter
you
and me
you
and me
us and we
he and she
ours and ours
now
thirteen years together
in an unfolding eternity
of love


i love you


happy anniversary.

a song begins itself anew

one finds oneself
on an afternoon spin
spinning in
spilling again
the wind
ahhhhhhhhhhh
and the wind
through the reed
does seem to do the deed
the wind through the need
does seem to take the lead
and so the deeper part of yes and no
lead the reed upon its steed
and song, instead
is still misled
in longing wanders
through the sound
of up and down
and down
and down
and long belonging
ringing round
the flutter of some shuttered gloom
released in flight around the room
a song begins itself anew
a world is born inside the tune
and so it comes and blows its go
and off to weary worlds ago
the last of what is only sound
stays deep inside the song
a gentle note sung loud and long
a window to a dream
i know
i know a dream
i know i know
and dream a dream to one day show
the wilting yes just how to grow
a deeper yes to root and show
that seeds that sleep so deep inside
in quiet times can only hide
but once the music calls them out
they stretch, unfurl and bring the shout
oh breath be deep
and note be long
the sound is longing
on to dawn

the poetry is coming

the poetry is coming
i can hear it in my head
the poetry is coming
let me go to sleep instead
the poetry is coming
i am not in the mood for company
the poetry is coming
i am not where i need to finally be
the poetry is coming
not now, i need a job
the poetry is coming
not here, i feel a fraud
the poetry is coming
i'm not ready, not today
the poetry is coming
not to me, not this way
the poetry is coming
i'm not a poet, can't you see
the poetry is coming
no, not to me. not to me.
the poetry is coming
maybe later i will play
the poetry is coming
i'm unwilling to get out of my own way
the poetry is coming
no the poetry is not
the poetry is coming
whether you like it or not.

poetic response to bucher's monster 161

a whale eye
left from the whale tale
once told
over a campfire made of
golden gold
a tongue got a waggin
and that made it happen
the legs of three
the dream of me
i start the journey
riding onward
thoughts of you
push me ever goneward
this the wind of
what has been
i see my spiral way
beyond the wait of wit
and thought of spit
i clobber long
beyond this song
of one six one
to know the fun
of one just where
one grows.

who knows tomorrow
what i'll do
or who will come
along with poo
to show the shoe
just what to do
when it is third
put
on.


see http://344design.typepad.com/344_loves_you/

up

up
early
before the sun
before the dawn
of the day
just making itself
inside this darkness
a blanket
of dreams
to cover up with
to cuddle under
i am here
awake
typing these quietudes
these shallow breaths
turned deep
i am in it
this night
about to become
mourning
in the morning
and i know
it, too,
is a kind of
birth
of what cannot
be born
on this side
of dawn.

love

the patient, kind, kind
the enduring, never fails kind
the kind i have
the kind you are
the kind i always forget i've bought
and go seeking to collect
again
from the wealth you have already
offered me
the not boastful kind
the never self-seeking kind
i forsake
in pursuit of seeking
myself
where do i forget to put
this wealth that has already
been bestowed
where?
in my pile of options
and wreckage
and loss
and failure
do i keep the treasure
of you?