Whispers of Truth

Who is John Galt

2005-04-04T13:05:00.000-05:00

There will always be men of quality
Men who take nothing unearned and expect even less
Men of integrity and character whose word means a damn
Men who love their lives and their deeds and their wives
There will always be men of insight and thought
Who do not take the responsibility of opinion lightly
Men who honor their gifts and admit to the knowing
Men who know that when there is light there is darkness as well
There will always be men of courage and vision
Men who ignore the whims of the press and the times
Men who strive for the heights that most would not dare
There will always be men to prop up the rest
Men who’ll push straight ahead though disaster is looming
But now
The looters run loose and their numbers are booming
Who is John Galt?

The Night I Almost Died

2005-01-13T15:47:00.000-06:00

I was not ready to die
To cede my light to the night
Surrounded by darkness
and loss of control
My heart
slowing and racing
slowing then racing
Sleep called me home
with an wicked voice that was my own
But I would not die this way
By mine own hand
conceding the gift to the fires of the void
So I fought that gray boned hand of death
with intent.

Sleep beckoned
I awoke
Paralyzed
I forced my hand
Tired
I begged for sleep
for hours, for hours...
And then
at last the morning light
That shimmering dawn of the rest of my life.

The Poet

2004-12-28T18:06:00.000-06:00

The poet is gone
He has left my life
I catch sight of him sometimes
down the road in shadows
or staring through the Alders

I have moved on
and I wonder if he misses me sometimes
There are times
when the sky is just right
and my heart remembers
I’ll wait for him to come

To bring those gifts that prose forgets
to waken in me that room forgotten
and open the doors to treasures there

But it seems that now
I’m too old and slow
and lazy to receive the flow
or too angry to just let him grow
and return to this embittered soul

Why North

2004-10-12T18:05:00.000-05:00

My thoughts wonder elsewhere
to a brackish back lit cove.
Light
dances through breaks
in this vertical world
and burns relentless on the rust stained
rock
left here naked and open
to the whims of the skies
left
long forgotten by the fickle recession
of the ice laden hand that held the up here.
On my face
there is heat
it is wonderful bright
and the light trickles down
and touches my heart.

The calm, lazy lavender sky
hangs unperturbed wide and silent
in my land of the midnight sun.
But my mind is drawn back
half a world away
where that same tired sun
blinks through these clouds
and lights a Friday afternoon,
it’s face echoed clear in the color of grass
that just now
is favored with a late April rain.
And it comes to me then,
like this shower to Spring-
that it is not that shining, life-nurturing orb that draws my mind to the North
for it shines as well
here
in this land I call home.

White Crow

2004-10-12T18:01:00.000-05:00

I.
My name is White Crow
I christen myself
for who can know better
the dreams
these eyes have seen
and the moments
that make up my life

If it were a choice of my own
I would never have chosen the Crow
My pride would vote sure for one more grandiose
The sight of the eagle
or the charm of the wolf

But the signs still appear
on the sides of these roads
in numbers sadly mostly odd
they answer the prayers asked only through thought
with arrows pointing toward the right

The signs they are there
as thoughts that strike true
in the words that are read
in the lines from the song
that still ring in my head

And again
the signs are there
in memories
that meld with ideas
and build
the foundation of truth
based on the character
and the traits of that bird.

II.
As a young boy I recall
as if in the fog of a dream
at my grandmother’s house
far South of my home
through her tiny backyard
a boy could easily see
a chicken wire pen
surrounding large trees

with a frame built of wood
just past the property line
in a yard that they said
was owned by a witch

In the pen
as my Grandmother told me
which of course I found hard to believe
as I’d always been taught
and seen with eyes they were black
“lives a crow with shining feathers of white”

And as a boy is to do
I was excited and quick
to steal a glimpse
of this oddest of birds
And if my memory
is not fooling me now
it seemed
the first time I ran out it was gone
But late that day
from out the backyard
came the voice of my young brother calling to me

And there
in a chicken wire pen was a bird
with feathers of snow
and the head of a ghost

As a boy I saw and heard
many strange things
but as I recall
-maybe a memory’s trick-
the great pearl bird called
directly to me.

III.
It was our first trip
to the far up North
on a break one morn from scaring the fish
on a smooth rising bank of torn glacial rock
we sat sunning enjoying our lunch
I noticed a flash on the bank of the lake
just across and left from the bank where we were
Through binoculars I found a Bald Eagle had lit
and like us was at rest enjoying his lunch
I watched for awhile as he tore at a fish
and was surprised then to see another bird land

on a log on the shore
within feet of that great bird of prey
a Crow had come down from the pines up above
to challenge
for the dinner himself
as I watched the scene before me unfold
the Crow became bold and hopped just a bit
nearer the Eagle who hopped just away
Then again
the Crow a little bit nearer and the Eagle a little further away
Then the Crow spread
his brazen black wings
like the night spreads over a moonless lake shore
and flew headlong
at the powerful taloned bald bird
who then dove into the air and straight up to the sky
leaving lunch and the shore to the Ebony bird

Those Eyes

2004-10-12T17:59:00.000-05:00

I.

Your eyes-
that’s what I’ll remember-
different from those
of a living man.
I’ve asked myself how,
in my quiet empty evenings,
that could have been the case.
And my brain tells me
“Of course it must be
that they lack the movement of life.
Or, better yet,
the salty tears that lubricate the machines of sight.”
But I know better
somehow I just know
that it’s something,
something else.
Even now as I poke at this cold and plastic easel
the slippery twisting truth
staggers home.
Of course
it’s because
Your soul was gone.

II.

Before I’d seen those eyes
I’d known you only in violence.
Your drunken anger and my childish ego
all we’d ever had in common.
And I’d forgotten
you were a person
until that moment I saw the knot
until that moment I saw those eyes.

III.

And you changed me
I know that now.
The only thing you’d owned in life,
your anger,
was given as a gift
to the last man you’d known in life.
But, I say,
it was no gift,
although I think you knew that.
It was a curse.
A curse.
And I can feel it on my skin,
my skin, in the times
when the heat rises to my face
and that awful knot
twists in my gut.
You’ve cursed me
and I have no
living way
to seek revenge.

IV.

Those eyes
I can still see them
in the darkness of my mind.
What did they see
in the last split seconds of life?
Gray stained walls
and cold metal bars!?
Oh, what did they see?
Those eyes-cold and dry
and empty and blank.
Half open lids
and a stare
into
nowhere.

The Spirit Water

2004-10-12T17:56:00.000-05:00

In the shallow end
of a blue cement pool
I stood water up to my knees
when a thought
like the first drop of sweet Spring rain
from the sky
fell into my mind
Of suicide
of releasing it all and falling into the deep
Which I did
in a moment of little regret
submerged in my watery womb
around on all sides
the water of life
held aloft by walls of sky blue
Then
something changed
it was
a movement at first
then a shape built of water and light
like a liquid comet
it was
swimming to me like a snake
with outlines and just a hint of a form
it surrounded me in a flash
I felt no anger or intent to do harm
yet I froze

I froze
on a bed unable to move
in a room I did not recognize
it had the feel of the French
or better
the French Quarter
and the woman next to me
her face old and black and asleep
awoke and he told her not to be afraid
he would stop her pain from now on
And she did not know him now
as she had before
He spoke with my voice
or better my words
and that voice found it powerfully important
to give comfort to a lonely old woman.

The Shortcomings of Imagination

2004-10-12T17:54:00.000-05:00

I will never lie
for years
in New England,
see the colors of its leaves
dancing in brisk autumn air,
Nor
will I
ever hole up
in and Arctic ice bunker
through the coldest
of winters
waiting for the summer sun
I fear
I can only dream
of a walk
through the tall twisting mountains
on the ancient forged stone
of the great Chinese wall.
And what of a life
in the rainforest
with the heavy wet air
and a life lived in vertical lines?
Its days it seems will never be mine.
Is it right
that I shall never know
the Aztec word for ‘mother’?
How sad
that she
could not tell me herself.

But I am here
and I am now
And at least I’m given the Dream.

The Question

2004-10-12T17:53:00.000-05:00

I.
Sometimes in moments of silence
cutting questions pop into my head.
Like fireflies
they appear
bright against the blackness,
and unless I reach out and grab them
they disappear
and dissolve in the dark.

But big ones,
the ones that can hold the most pain,
they seem to last just a little longer,
seem to wait a moment more,
just to flirt with my concentration.
Until…

I grab one!

II.
“What is a Man?”
I heard him scream…
“Where does he come from? Where should he go?”
Like a madman it seems he has to know…
“Why is he here? What must he do?”
If only I were a man who knew…
“Why does he love? Why does he hate?”
No answers come while I await…
“Why does he live, why does he die?”
Who am I to answer why…
“Why are we different? Why are we longing?”
My brain, it aches from the questioning…
“What is the Truth? Why do we lie?”
I hope to know before I die…
“Why are we cursed to all be alone?”
The answer was there but now it is gone…

My head aches
yet he will not relent
in the end it is a dark portent
even when with an answer
his question is met-
He begs…
“Why are we always destined to forget?”

The Pen

2004-10-12T17:51:00.000-05:00

I bought a pen
to write with
I believe it’s magic
It sets my mind to sleep
It is silver
with ornaments of gold
It was Erato’s pen
Have I told you it can talk
It speaks
only to the empty page
And sometimes later
when I awake
I listen to its words
and wonder.

The Night I Met My Muse

2004-10-12T17:50:00.000-05:00

She was blind, you see
and blonde and beautiful.
And she
promised
to take me for a ride.
An antique, she told me,
built by her own hands
with craft and skill and care.
And it never once crossed my mind
how she could drive-
a woman in her condition.
We have to wait
before we go, she said
and lifted her right palm to her head.
Was it lemon? that she squeezed
whose drops fell into her eyes.
Then-
“We are ready,” she called
and as I turned to look in her eyes-
Mine opened.

The Nagual

2004-10-12T17:48:00.000-05:00

On the road
on an afternoon
of a gray speckled day
something touched me
My body could feel it rise
from the fields
and from the roads
and the trees
Like the heat
off of blacktop
in the sun
in July
it rose to touch my hands
Like the spines
of a parade if inchworms
It flickered
just above the earth
And the sound
was there a hum or a buzz?
I cannot say
for my words
seem now
like prehistoric tools
beating the point
when they should
just caress it
And my senses
for all that I’ve said
seem like whispers
in a valley
from lips
in distant mountains
And I question
was what I felt even real
or the trick
of a caffeinated mind
But to answer-
I have to say
I do not care
if these senses
I felt were really not real
For me it is enough
Just
that I want them to be

The Moment

2004-10-12T17:47:00.000-05:00

You know the moment
-when conversation touches your heart.
when the words of another
light a fire in your mind
and time slides to somewhere it rarely ever goes.
your thoughts pour down like water down your throat
and your words have the sweet taste of truth.
ideas bounce like echoes,
and for a few moments minds intertwine
and dance
to a song
written by God.
You know that moment
-oh, I really hope you do.

The Master-Time

2004-10-12T17:46:00.000-05:00

The green wave rushes forth
pushing ahead of it
the contaminated snow
to a place so far north
I know I’ll never go.
Time has circled round again
to summer
Robbing me of yet another year
and Life has pounded me again
such that I am beginning to feel
like an old Everlast
held together with silver coated tape
left swinging
with each bright new day.

The Loon and I

2004-10-12T17:45:00.000-05:00

Whom shall I tell
of the loon I saw on Thursday
in February
in mid Illinois
It might as well have been a jack-a-lope
or at least a kangaroo
For a glimpse was all I’d caught of him
too far to catch his scarlet eye
His throat was ballooned
his black head pulled back
his ebony beak was held high
as if the muddy waters
of this flat land river water
were beneath his regal tastes
I’ve heard
this storied
stoic bird
needs half a football field
to break on his wing
Not more than that
of open river
rippled here
‘crost his freckled chest
Still it brings me smile and wonder
that some bizarre connection
drew him here to this place where I pass
and daily glance through cold empty trees
to ease the driving moments pass
and stir my domesticated mind
with wild thoughts like these.

The Lock Smythe

2004-10-12T17:44:00.000-05:00

The pages, yellowed
not through time
but through meaning,
fell in sarcastic concentration.
The Smythe that turns the locks of time
his name
was not held there.
How could I
in my plebonic piece of mind
know that name
and yet
not those gods of life conspiracy.
Another trick to keep the idle satisfied.
And does he love the idle,
doesn’t he?
Those whom he makes wait
like the watchers of a boiling pot.
I know he exists
I’ve seen
his work firsthand.
As my life roars by like a train
each car a year
and always a flash in between.
Oh, tease me you holder of the cosmic combination.
You give me moments that stretch to eternities
and years that fly by on a rail.
If only I
could find the lair you keep
that hidden den of trickery
I would proudly
hold the key
and turn it
at my own discretion.

The Heart of a Child

2004-10-12T17:40:00.000-05:00

What are you
when you are no longer alive
yet the air
still crowds into your lungs
blood still runs warm in your veins
I stand far away
from the cold November rain
that now stabs at my face and my hands
I am
cold and numb and dead
until
I imagine myself in a dream
Where every night
I am alive
in the darkness behind my eyes
I am
something other
and something yet still the same
I can fly and sing and love
and breathe like a fish
underwater
These scenes that I play
these scenes that I live
seem always somehow familiar
And Always
I am Alive
unless of course I’m dead
and even then I feel
feel with the heart of a child
not calcified or mummy wrapped
or protected and free from itself
On some dark night when I am there
I will steal my own beating heart
hold it
beating
in my hands
slip it in
a black satin sack
and bring it back
to the other life then
But then I hope that when I awake
I will remember where I have put it.

The Fly and the Pig

2004-10-12T17:38:00.000-05:00

What I know of life
you could fit on the head of a pin.
Ain’t if funny, then
you listen what I’d said.
Life finds a niche
in any habitat.
Yet,
I’m special that I make do
in the moderate temperate?
Don’t tell me that
I’m unique, that I’m human,
while two million Jenny Jones zombies
click the remote and tune in.
We are blind to the strange
and what we can’t understand
but profess our control
with the sweep of a hand.
We are selfish, self-righteous,
petty and proud,
vain and self-centered,
boastful and loud.
We make
excuses for abuses
for ours and our kind
If nature has her way
I’m sure we will find-
We are like mites on a cow
And the Truth is colossal
it’s a two headed pig
and a fly
perched on a tennis ball.

The Farmer's Wife

2004-10-12T17:37:00.000-05:00

I stood before the paradise
I’d dreamt of for most of my life
A land where leapfrogging hills
stretched for miles around
and
Emerald spiked pines
reached up to the sky
while crystal twisting waters
whispered hidden secrets of lust to the land
but
I was not alone
So I turned to her
in silence
and looked into her eyes
and waited
what seemed like a lifetime.

She could have told me then
in a sweet silken voice
that she
could not stand the cold
or
She could have shown me
with stark silver silence
that her family
would be too far away
or
I could have felt
through the loneliest nights
that those sirens that sung their songs in my head
to her
fell upon deafened ears

And I would have scoffed
and frowned
and quietly bitten my bitter tongue
and let my thoughts burn like a fire

But she did not
she did none of those things
She just turned to me and looked in my eyes
and said,
“But, love, I could not see the sun set.”

The Dream of the Dead

2004-10-12T17:36:00.000-05:00

I was dead
in a dream
I had last night.
And I can remember as a child
someone had told me,
“If you die in your dream,
then you die in your bed.”
Well, I was dead.
But I can recall
that I stood above me
as fluid as a spirit
and I remember thinking,
“How odd it is to be dead.”
And I remember seeing
across the room
two others
both female
One blonde and beautiful
and warm floating in the air in a flowing white dress
and the other
dark and plain
with the body of a man.
And each seemed as enamored as I
at the shell of a body I’d once called my own.
Then,
for just a moment
I recall,
we stared
from across that space and time,
stared
into each others eyes
just before
one after another
we dove
right into Me.

The Dark Sunday

2004-10-12T17:35:00.000-05:00

Today, I feel like rain,
like gray skies and wet tennis shoes.
My soul it is cold like each single drop
and as empty as the space in between.
The clouds are my thoughts
looming and dark.
They are slow and sober and
the color of slate.
And I do not hope for a break
in the clouds
The sun can stay
hidden
from me all day

The Coyote-Life

2004-10-12T17:32:00.000-05:00

Procreate
it screams
at me
through the centuries in my mind
the genes within my body.
My thoughts
they fire
as they have been programmed to do.
Life toys with the ons and the offs-
“Let the chips fall where they may,”
It whispers at me with a smile.
My blood
it swims the channels of my body
as it has the bodies of my forefathers
and the experiments before them.
What a process-this demon Life has created.

Procreate
it screams to me-
In the emptiness
I feel
on a cloudy December day.
In the smile of a child
looking to his father.
In the quiet
of a snowy Christmas morn.
Oh, what a toy I am.
What a machine to the whims of Life.
An alchemy
of time and luck.
Do I not have the freedom of choice?
Was I not born here in America?

Yet,
all it takes is a blink
a nap
a moment in my mind
not minding the mystery.
Then-
Procreate it screams to me.
Or did I say
whispers with a smile?
Procreate,
it seems to be
the best idea
I’ve had in awhile.

The Cabin

2004-10-12T17:31:00.000-05:00

The cabin
it stands
in camouflage shadows
in my mind in my mind
I can see
the hurricane lantern
the shimmer of the light paints my life on its walls
The stove is left cold
and the hearth it lies empty
but the mantle is full of the things I hold dear…
clear nights and dark days
and the color of trees
on a gray afternoon
of an October watch
Spring fishing trips and late Winter lies
and sober conversation over beers with a friend
a walk in the wood and a night under stars
and a thousand more things that don’t cost a cent
they sit waiting for me just to step through its door.

The Captain's Trip Home

2004-10-12T17:29:00.000-05:00

You never know
in Wisconsin in September
In the evening
with the sky hanging low over Flambeau
when the winds will come in.
This boat dances
to the beat of the waves
that move to the rhythm
of those very same winds.
Born ripples to rills to roils to waves
gain momentum
as they march in line cross the bay
crashing now against this aluminum hull.
In the distance the storm darkened sky
makes an ally of the approaching night
A last glace of this ominous sight
and I turn the boat to sail home.
Time
and the craft seem to stop…
the channel nears and the snow begins.
Darker now
And Pokegama waits
through the strait on the other side.
And through
the black horizon only broken by white falling stars.
I have run this water before in lowlight,
I’m no stranger to the reefs and the points,
but the black of the night put me standing astride
with a torch and a hand on the wheel.
These icy stars that riddle my face
have the hairs on my back and my skin stand as well.
I am Captain
and I sail by the light in my hand
and by those in the hands of my crew.
And this cold could well be unbearable
if I had not loved my life at this time.
Now water and time pass the hull of my craft
as I pass the great pines as well.
And I’m sad when I reach
that old wooden dock
alight,
and tie my boat for the night.

The Bird

2004-10-12T17:23:00.000-05:00

I.
The flight of our soul
waits
just to the left
and behind
the sound of our breath.
Breathe in
and you can hear
the flick of its wing.
Breathe out
and you may feel
its ancient wind on your skin.
It can pass
like your very life through your lungs
on the speeding wings
of a bird on your breath.

II.
Sometimes
I can see,
in the crack of an oak,
eternity.
Where words come to dance
with the thoughts they destroy.
Where the twins of ‘conception’
can spin their meanings equally.
But most times,
I struggle.
Each word
drawn and set
like a stick and a string
molded and held
like a feather in the earth.

III.
“Build a home.”
she said
to me
in a dream.
“A paradise
so high
that
only the loftiest
of thoughts
and the dearest of dreams
will find that draft,
that life in a breath,
and rise and sail
home
like a bird on a wing.”

September 11, 2001

2004-10-12T17:21:00.000-05:00

The whole world changed today
on eight wings of steel
Seems fear exchanged hands in those towers of flame
and hate grew up tall in the ashes they made.
Thoughts changed today
in the minds of the crowd
from the mine and the yours to the theirs and the ours
to the pain of the dying and those left behind.
A nation
changed today
in the span of an hour
Naïve stupor was chased from the faces of men
now those doors are ajar that held racism within.
All our lives changed today
in the blink of an eye
and the futures we’d dreamed for our children and theirs
lie there in the ruins with metal and glass.
Still
the Canadas fly in that familiar ‘V’
all those wings beat toward South
as if
nothing has changed

Lido Deck-Aft

2004-10-12T17:19:00.000-05:00

I.
All the words I have said to myself
in my life
in my mind
are all gone
There must be a place in the infinite time
or these thoughts
and these lines
are all gone
All the moments I’ve spent at the ocean
aware
of the crests
and the lines
are all gone
And the moments I wait for the next ones to come
lost like gold
tossed like scraps
are all gone

II.
You
who know these flowers
and those trees
by name and by sight
and
I
who stumble through the forest
a babbling madman
It seems
there are too few names
even for me.

III.
Does a doe ever question
between a twitch of her neck
and the scent of the predator
What am I
Or a toad ever look
eyes wide to the sun
and wonder
will there be tomorrow
Would a lobster sit perched
sipping saline waters
and question the taste of his meal
Does the eagle in flight
feel the wind on its face
and just once stop to smile
Or a leech
stuck sucking the life from its host
ever care what sickness may lie within
Does the rabbit turn around
after racing ahead
to admire the length of its leap
Or a fly
upon mass regurgitate
delight in the taste of its puke
Well
upon further examination
and some stumbling over the truth
It seems
I do.

IV.
I hold her back
with these walls
but like a cat
she slips through
momentarily
with some clarity
Silence
even with the
screaming engines
of this steaming ship
Eternity
even as my life
is left behind
on the aft ward sea
These gifts she brings
So now I must build more walls.

V.
Poetry
I see
is sight
with new eyes

Dreams These Days

2004-10-12T17:17:00.000-05:00

Dreams come
these days like enemies
dark and windy
to grab hold of my throat
Blowing myself through forests
of stark silhouetted trees
into the arms of past loves
…then out again
spinning my body
like a simple leaf on the wind
over mountains as small and steep as most hills
They tease my thoughts
with lies
of dreams within dreams
and of memories in dreams
and of caverns ‘neath these very depths
I wake still held by those sinuous strings
held tight against my befuddled mind
left here, I’m sure, to prod and remind
of those lives down there that I’ve left behind

Doom-Page 1

2004-10-12T17:16:00.000-05:00

It is a shaky candle
now
on a far off window’s ledge
and the breeze that moves the curtains
and seems to gust here from all directions
wants it dead.
I was a child
in a past life
and that light
was
as large as the world
and seemed as bright as the sun.
But you can cut me open and count the rings
to see
some are dark and thick
weathered by winters of stark reality
loss of sweet naiveté.

I write to you
from the edge of the world
where Doom paces and waits in its frozen and brightening room.
The avalanche has begun
and I believe
as it has pushed so many behind
it will plow through me
and smash my bleeding, beaten
carcass into you.

Death, a Welcome Companion

2004-10-12T17:15:00.000-05:00

rubberman sits and ponders his life.
death-a welcome companion sits to his left
watching and tapping his shoulder lest he forget.
on the right stands emptiness.
no, not emptiness exactly for there is something there
but what?
his life?
he is still young and there is still time.
but he wants the moment, the second, the all-at-once.
it seems he is on a voyage on the open sea,
two dimensions
endless paths
he aims to make each path special
to taste the very fruit.
watching for lemons, and limes, and apples
to fall.
hoping like their blossoms
to grow.
and yet sometimes through life’s subtle alchemy
a simple lesson is learned-
And he looks to his left
and smiles at death.

April Kiss

2004-10-12T17:14:00.000-05:00

You forget the sound of thunder
in the winter
in the Midwest
But April always comes
and with it
a sound of rebirth from the sky
Its labor rocks the very air that we breathe
and its power of sound screams through these streets
-past the schools and the church
and out
into the fields
where that parched needy soil waits for a kiss.

April 20, 1999

2004-10-12T17:13:00.000-05:00

Where can you hide
when stainless steel doors
swing wide both ways
Our children walk those very same halls
armed to the teeth
Young faces are split, their bone lie splintered,
and their blood flows like a river
past the lunchroom
on through the library
and out
into the streets
where vultures wait
to carry it
onto the air
and into our homes
where we try to hide
from no one but ourselves.

Another Year

2004-10-12T17:12:00.000-05:00

Another year gone
another Spring of sky stretching corn
reaching
minute by minute,
hour by hour,
day by day
growing my life away
Another Summer to come
July and August
like a meal
waiting to be consumed
by the hunger of my days
and then left spent
to make room
for more days to come

And this time next year
I’m sure
when I see the first signs of the farmer’s labor
breaking the soil
wishing like a bird to know the sky
I’ll muse to myself
“I need to be more perceptive to the passings of my days”
And I’ll say once again
and for every year hence
“Ah,
another year gone.”

An April Moment

2004-10-12T17:11:00.000-05:00

Early April
and the wind
still stings with the memory
of winter’s harsh tongue
I feel
at crossroads
a time to choose
a month of choices
Am I a man?
maybe more
maybe less
Words seem to bind me-
tie me down
as they tie any named thing.
Oh, to rip through
to tear the fetid mesh of reality-
and become
what?
Who is more real
the enlightened
or the dull?
What is more true
eternity
or perception?
Will I-
do I
even want to know.
Well,
it seems
for the moment
I do know this-
that the wind is stinging my face-
that is real
and in this moment
that I am breathing in-
that
is true.

After the Snow

2004-10-12T17:10:00.000-05:00

After the snow
the wind dies
and the stillness hides the violence
and the trees cut the wind
and here I sit
like a camouflage man in a box
The white out
lost to the East
like the leaves and the dawn
now just another
piece of my past
But that crystal snow remains
an ever silent victor
And it waits
perched
for me
‘til the morning comes
and I reclaim
my little piece of this Earth.

A Poet's Space

2004-10-12T17:08:00.000-05:00

Between me
and the sea
lie everything
mindless matter
and endless time

‘tweenst I
and the sky
hangs eternity
all manner of life
and the death of a rhyme

A Page in Between

2004-10-09T19:48:00.000-05:00

In the space between
a tear and a smile,
I bid
good riddance.
From rings of stinging flame
only flickering embers remain
of a life’s yellowed pages turned.
My thoughts, thank God
no longer spin
so out of control.
And yet,
sometimes I long for the beat
and the fire of youth.
Again, I remember,
with nostalgic fondness,
the stinging fire in my gut,
the burning desire
lying just behind these eyes.
Yet again,
I can say truthfully,
I thank my creator
-whenever I can remember-
for the numb sobering calmness
that now flows through my mind.
These are but chapters,
it would seem,
in any mans life.
And I lie,
like the edge of the sheet,
On a page in between.

A Monday Smile

2004-10-09T19:46:00.000-05:00

Tears flow
like raging rivers
into the gutters
of old Rush Street.
While bourbon and smiles
rain down
on the bustling backstreets
of New Orleans.
Desperate soldiers
limp
from the fields of Chicago,
battered and beaten
despondent and sad.
As,
saints pray
and hurricanes crash
on the souls
of the souls
that wander those cobbled lanes
and mean streets
of the Big Easy.
Happy drunken Cajuns
dance in jest
at the muddling Midwestern masses.
And the autumn sun,
its heat spent on endless summer days,
sets
over the empty boxes
and empty hearts
that line the Great Lake.
Long faced losers walk its shores
while in the distance
stone-columned museums
long for the freedom,
the ‘ease’,
of that city that lies
where the everglades kiss
the mouth
of the mighty Mississippi.

A Moment in the Son

2004-10-09T19:45:00.000-05:00

I.
In the haze of a long day’s quickening-
sobriety lost to self-indulgence,
a dripping body emerges
from the mire.
Water, like mercury
rises up and falls back into itself.
The bank is not steep like a mountain’s side
but the weight seems particularly focused.
Grasses, near death
from too long this summer of drought
surround
and weave a carpet of chestnut thorns.
A thought,
somehow sensed all along,
finds simple words and it’s truth becomes known.

II.
As a child I was a good Catholic,
or better,
was well trained as one.
I was read the words of the twelve
and schooled in the works of the Son.
But life, as life is known to do,
turned my mind in another direction,
towards the self and it’s designs on the ego-
and left behind those tales of resurrection.

III.
Like a man returning
to where,
as a boy,
he’d run and climbed and danced-
I came.
A certainty
from a place so deep
it’s darkness could supply no proof.
Of the reawakening of past beliefs,
the resurrection of rusted ideas.

IV.
“If not you, who? If not now, when?”
the soul asked with a snicker.
“you know some day you’re destined to come,
why not just make it quicker.”

V.
Time plods on
and still I chase the ways that give life purpose-
Transcendence and epiphanies
I skate upon their surface.
Still,
I go on like a blind man
not knowing what will come
but I know I will not soon forget
my moment in the Son.

A Gift From Above

2004-10-09T19:43:00.000-05:00

It stood
feet perched on the frozen earth
its body too light
to pierce
the bleach white blanket
that had fallen
and frozen
on a night who’s temperature had plummeted
downward
like the acorn before its eyes.
A gift,
this January nut
for a creature which had let Fall’s lazy haze envelope it.
From above it had come
like summer lightening
a flash unexpectedly expected.
This ambrosia that had settled
on the carpet of snow before it,
found and echo.
And a deep hunger cried
from an empty place inside.
But,
it would not reach for the bliss
for it was easier to turn and leave
And that is just what it did.

A Conversation With a Wolf

2004-10-09T19:42:00.000-05:00

In a glass sided case
trimmed in gray painted oak
they stood
still
Frozen
in a less than natural moment.
Trophies of a long dead hunter’s life.
The wolf,
it’s face in eternal snarl,
and the Canada-
don’t you dare say Canadian
-Goose
with head up
eyes painted death black ebony.
Then,
all at once,
the goose
after all these years of mute entombment
turned to the wolf and said
“Brother, I pray that you will allow me one question, one little favor I would ask,”
The wolf turned to the goose and that eternal snarl
not so eternal after all
left his face.
He was silent.
But the goose thought
at least he seemed to be listening.
“Brother,” he said. “I am a goose, As you well know, and that is all I can ever be.
But, I must say, I’m one curious goose. And too as a goose I am loyal. It is well documented, sir, how we geese mate for life. And protect our injured as well. Also, as a goose I am known to be fierce. I will take flight most times when threatened, but when cornered I will fight to the death.”
“But, my wolf friend, you have a characteristic, one I can only hope to attain. It is the ‘attitude of the predator.’ This aspect in you I do not understand and as we have spent so much time in so close of quarters with no quarrels to speak of, I pray you will do me this favor. Please, my brother, tell me…what is it like to be the Wolf?”
At this,
the wolf,
its eyes fixed on the quivering neck of the goose
smiled
and sprung
and tore the bird apart.

Those Eyes

2004-10-06T18:28:00.000-05:00

Your eyes-
that’s what I’ll remember-
different from those
of a living man.
I’ve asked myself how,
in my quiet empty evenings,
that could have been the case.
And my brain tells me
“Of course it must be
that they lack the movement of life.
Or, better yet,
the salty tears that lubricate the machines of sight.”
But I know better
somehow I just know
that it’s something,
something else.
Even now as I poke at this cold and plastic easel
the slippery twisting truth
staggers home.
Of course
it’s because
Your soul was gone.

II.

Before I’d seen those eyes
I’d known you only in violence.
Your drunken anger and my childish ego
all we’d ever had in common.
And I’d forgotten
you were a person
until that moment I saw the knot
until that moment I saw those eyes.

III.

And you changed me
I know that now.
The only thing you’d owned in life,
your anger,
was given as a gift
to the last man you’d known in life.
But, I say,
it was no gift,
although I think you knew that.
It was accurse.
A curse.
And I can feel it on my skin,
my skin, in the times
when the heat rises to my face
and that awful knot
twists in my gut.
You’ve cursed me
and I have no
living way
to seek revenge.

IV.

Those eyes
I can still see them
in the darkness of my mind.
What did they see
in the last split seconds of life?
Gray stained walls
and cold metal bars!?
Oh, what did they see?
Those eyes-cold and dry
and empty and blank.
Half open lids
and a stare
into
nowhere.

The Winter's Lie

2004-10-06T18:26:00.000-05:00

Have you seen the moon tonight?
It’s face a blur in the evening haze.
Looking down on the western sky
crying in maroon malaise.

Have you seen the stars tonight?
Or are the lights of town too bright?
From here they seem an eerie sight
a thousand tiny halos of light.

Have you seen my soul tonight?
floating in the southern sky
waiting for the gods of Spring
to tease to life the Winter’s lie.

The Whisper

2004-10-06T18:25:00.000-05:00

The gods that live
in the clouds and wind
of a mid-April storm
took me aside
and whispered to me

I’d forgotten the sound of the rain
tap dancing on fresh cut Spring grass
forgotten the feel of thunder
in the tendons and joints of myself
I had know these things I’m sure
as a boy
But
as a man I’ve somehow forgotten
the feel of the rain in my hair
and the chill of the wind on my back

The Wall

2004-10-06T18:24:00.000-05:00

There is a gray wall of force
-don’t turn around-
as big as the universe
it is angry
it is
the past
and it wants
to be
the present.

The Two-Legged

2004-10-06T18:23:00.000-05:00

These thoughts in my head are not mine alone.
Like the vein on a leaf
on a branch on a tree
they trace back to the heart and are part of the whole.

And my body is born
a child of the stars
In Their hearts every part makes the blocks that build me.
Every movement of limbs
makes the universe dance
it enfolds and engulfs
and moves then itself.

This Gift that is life I return as a prayer
and try to remember to pay what is owed.
To feel, to breathe, to watch,
and to know.
And return to the all
the experience that I
-the two-legged-
was put here to be.

The Strike

2004-10-06T18:22:00.000-05:00

Cool and overcast
April Midwest
Blue gray skies belie the stillness
His breath the only breeze
Gypsy birds
the only sounds that disturb the air
Then
with
studied intent the flip a the wrist
and the lure caresses the mirror
and settles with ease on the face of the glass

Limp line lies
loose, looping
on the surface of the windless still water
just

for a moment
then

a tic
and a twitch
then a move to the side
and all that was peace is now gone.

The Seed of Temptation

2004-10-06T18:21:00.000-05:00

From what seed
this root of a thought,
already winding it’s way through the burrows of my brain,
spreading fingers and taking hold.
A germ
fertilized and alive
reaching for the surface of my life
to flower
and become action.
What future can stem from such a mystery?
It’s misshapen, meandering branches
growing and twisting
and hoping
foe a little water and sun
to change my way of life.

Vicodin Haze

2004-10-05T17:37:00.000-05:00

I have no voice
in this Vicodin haze
No dear words
arise
to save me
A dark well
drags me
with it’s liquid gravity
toward sleep
with the promise of sweet resurrection
Too slow,
my muddied mind,
to catch the wing
of my inspiration
I give in
like a leaf in a tempest
close my eyes
and lie down
to sleep.

A Walk with a Child

2004-10-05T17:34:00.000-05:00

Damn your young exuberance
slow down…
breathe…
listen…

Take quiet steps
heal to toe
touch life
like a feather on your neck.

Quiet now
you hear it?
No, you’re somewhere else…
no with me here.
You’re just there in front of my eyes.

I can teach you,
if you’ll let me.
If you want to Know.

But you’re too young.
I was once.
I can wait.

But oh, if only you would
slow down…
and breathe…
and listen.

Welcome

2004-10-05T17:29:00.000-05:00

Welcome
to my street
this is my home
it is full of the things
with which I choose to spend my time.
Look around and tell me if you think you know me.

Welcome
to my mind
it is my recess
it is full of the things
which I choose to call my Self.
Dig around and tell me if you could find me.

Welcome again
this is my heart
it is my weakness
it is full of the people
with which I choose to live my life.
Come around and tell me if you could love me.

You're Face

2004-10-05T17:25:00.000-05:00

I know you from your face, you know
you think it isn’t true?
That I can’t read your life
from the lines that surround those darkened gray eyes
That I couldn’t know every bit of your mind
from the curves at the very edge of your smile.
I can tell it all
if you give, if you need
if you love, if you hate, if you lie
if you cry
And beyond this
in your wrinkling brow
lay the tales
of the pains you have endured in your life
But more
and even further than this
I am sure I will still know it too
when your face lay white
and plain as the slate
Again, do you think it’s not true?

You

2004-10-05T17:24:00.000-05:00

I stand on the crest of a mountain
-sometimes-
to my left all that is real
the city lights
and midnight fights
and life and death
and you
But
to my right lies heaven
bliss
eternity
my soul
the moment of creation
the second of our birth
and love
and light
and fusion
dissolving into You.

Without Me

2004-10-05T17:21:00.000-05:00

The silent flames of dawn
will come
without me
The morning’s dew
will still
kiss its jeweled hand
long, long
after I’m gone
The evening sun
will still
brave the distant West
and spend
its bitter nights alone

Those haunting winter winds
will come
without me
and the snows they bring
will envelop the land
whether or not
I can sense
those fingers of ice
on my skin
or the talons of death
in my bones.

Winter Comes

2004-10-05T17:20:00.000-05:00

Gone is
the Summer’s sun
Blown
like the hot wet winds
South
to Miami
or better yet
the gulf of Mexico
And here
in this place I call home
these heavy prophetic trees have begun to weep
their colored tears
It is an annual salt
foretelling
of the cold and the dark and the dead

I could not live
in a land where rivers flow
unabated
by the passing of seasons
I would not survive
I know
in a place where the sun
could only in one way shine
or where skies would only know rain
He is a poor man
I think
whom in his life
has not breathed the scent
of sweet Lilac in the crisp April Spring
or felt the sun
on his face in the hot Summer air
What a destitute soul
who has never
sipped of bitter coffee on a Northwood November morn
or took comfort ‘longside of a fire
on a bitter and dry Christmas Eve

Winter comes
on the shoulders of the wind
and I
like the chilling waters of Fall
Oh yes,
I
will be here to greet him.

Song of the Maker

2004-10-05T17:17:00.000-05:00

Like the wind
that blows
those brown waters to white
and drives the clouds
‘cross that fickle North sky
Like the flash of a light
chased by sounding of fear
and the rising of smoke
but was left up there
Like the rain as cold as a late Autumn night
or effort born of a needing so dear
I wait
no child of silvery spoon
and dance yet alone
to the Maker’s tune

Wednesday Noon

2004-09-30T18:40:00.000-05:00

They blew it up on a Wednesday at noon
Over oil or land or some such grand shit
The bright blue-green gem
now a cinder of red
and as dry as the bones
that lie broken and splintered
in the cities and towns
and at other times in
small groupings
and alone
Lifeless anyway
alone
And they took it all with them
all the time that it took
for that life there to grow
to spread and to fill
that empty gray rock
with hunger, lust,
and consciousness
Nature, of course,
did as it does
as she always has
and probably always will
Chaos and order as yin is to yen
life into death and then life again

They blew it up on a Wednesday at noon
Just because they could
And wasn’t their dominion granted
after all
by the book or the church or the leaders of lands
Shouldn’t all of the world bend to the whims of this-Man
He has been chosen above all the creatures that live
all the green in the fields, all the stars in the sky
All the warmth of the sun, all the breaking of waves
for it is he for whom the universe was first laid

So,
they blew it up on a Wednesday at noon
and yet the stars all still shine
in God’s one true heaven
on this hot Wednesday eve

The Surface

2004-09-30T18:39:00.000-05:00

I live
my short life
on the surface of things.
Like a flat rock
I skip
‘cross the skin of the streams.
Never touching
for long
the face of the depths
I hang
in the air
contemplating my death.

The Suit of Anger

2004-09-30T18:38:00.000-05:00

Hard words flew
between us two
scarring verbs and angry thoughts.
Violence beat like blood
‘neath the surface of our reddening skin.
But then,
you
just
stopped.
And with both hands
tore
at either side of your chest
splitting a hole the length of your ribcage
right through your abdomen and down to your groin.
Then,
convulsing, you dipped your angry head
and popped it through.
And I watched you-
peaceful as the snow on Christmas day-
step outside
this body
that you had worn like a suit-
take it in your arms
and fold it up.
Then, smiling,
you handed it to me
saying,
“Here,
I believe
this is what you wanted.”

The Rock

2004-09-30T18:37:00.001-05:00

It was the rock they found
in Antarctica
cold and alone
jagged,
not
round and smooth like a river stone
It stood
that first day at the top of a mountain
where cold frosted clouds
danced in strings on its face
Then
that moment the ground gave way
and the dirt and the ice began to roll
it toppled
head and knees and chest and feet
down the steepest side
it seemed
Off rocks-large as busses they were
and sharp
careening down
Crushed against the glacial ice
twisting and rolling
out of control
forever.

The Only One

2004-09-30T18:37:00.000-05:00

It’s funny how memories come
how those long forgotten moments
rise to the light
armed to the teeth with meaning
where it seemed that they’d held nothing before

I was a child
ten or eleven I guess
In the city to see the museums
I loved them as a child
They held secrets and magic
in those high marbled walls
And we stopped at the Drive
or better
just off the Drive
by the lake
that lake enclosed in cement and not shore
And I remember the fish
as a child
I remember
the fish
long before I’d chosen this path
Those fish
all bright and shining
speckled the stinking hot sand
Fish
hundreds, it seemed
dead and decaying
And I thought that was odd
But odder still,
It felt as a child
that I was the only one who’d noticed.

The Day I Went Insane

2004-09-30T18:36:00.000-05:00

What paranoia of man’s reality
dwarfing levels upon lilting levels
like the shadow of smoke
broke
through that crimson duality
into the light of day as I sat
just a toad on the shore of a manmade lake
a leaf in the wind in a late autumn gale
or a child left alone in a strange city park
wet sounds came up through my fear tightened throat
just a croak or a wisp or the scream of a child
And those dark little men
run
like mice on an island dart
on the darkest of nights
through tunnels of black with their coal covered walls
opening doors between rooms
better left shut
The stone
that is my mind
let loose by the hand
that held it aloft
fell to the ground
and crashed
broken and battered
with nary a croak or a wisp or a sound.

The Brother of Death

2004-09-30T18:35:00.000-05:00

The Barrel of Society

2004-09-30T18:34:00.000-05:00

I spend my days in the yard out back
seems I always have
Weather beaten
The wind and rain and time
have multiplied the cracks
that stretch across my wooden skin
held sound
by these iron bands
I count my days
and praise the age
that creeps across my face
Still I curl and twist
at the ends where I can
and curse the bitter pain
But mostly I hold the waters
and await the poison rain.

Born in the Fall

2004-09-30T18:33:00.000-05:00

Coffee
cream and sugar
on an afternoon
too hot
for this time of year
People
too many people
my attention falls on my mind
like brittle hail on granite
all eyes and hair and flailing limbs
I escape…
to where the corn grows high
yellow
and ready for the blade
no sound but that of gripping tires
and the whisper
of the passing cars
the passing of stories and lives
single file
to cemeteries
I escape…
back to
the free floating leaves
the miracle of movement
past that
into that first place
Static, calm, and black and void
I am
too large
for this place
I escape…
am born
and am
here…now.

A Long Time

2004-09-30T18:32:00.000-05:00

A long time
on the edge of my life
Looking in
Slinking around

A long time
on the outside of life
Listening in
Snooping around

A long time
A long time
A long time

Suggestions From the Gut

2004-09-28T17:10:00.000-05:00

suggestions from the gut
the voice that seeks no answer
“push, pull, push, and thrust”
the dictator
screams to the masses
and we walk
like evening deer
up next to the forest-not into it
even our dna sings those same ancient songs
ringing for the kill
for the saber’s penetration
for the opening tomb
no care for what is hurt
no matter what will come
procreation
for some other fool
illusion of future
delusion of mind
it is the gut that speaks
to my soul
tonight.

Faith

2004-09-28T17:09:00.000-05:00

Beneath that ageless blackened ice
as thick as a fist
the water is held.
It breathes
below
like a captive soldier
limbs too frozen and slow
to make any real push for the surface.
Liquid longing
flows through the soul of any man
the burning need
to rise above
the hot desire to crash right on through.

Sometimes
on a bright night
with the eyes of the skies staring down
we may for a moment
capture some shadow
dancing in the diamonds on the ice.
Opaque facets of whispers
hints of another world
lying just beyond.

Cold is not the author,
the sire of the ice
there is another.
Still is not the reason
the objective of that dome
there must be another.

She walks softly on the hearts of men
those lucky ones who willingly pay the price
who reach up to the stretching skies
and dare to touch the darkened ice.

Eyes of the Other

2004-09-28T17:08:00.000-05:00

Oh nature
what have you done
another sweet innocence lost.
Not in the simple heart of the young
nor even in the curvings of the maturing body
No,
but in the eyes of the other

She moves
no longer
just as a child
and those eyes they follow suit.
From some dark place
perceptions are born
and she moves
no longer
just as a child.

Eve

2004-09-28T17:06:00.000-05:00

Sometimes I try
to think
without words
without my nouns and verbs and participles dangling
These words, these lies
dumped on me in my waking hours.
But I can’t
(or better, I won’t)
-for the words just come
washing down to my lips
the simple whisper
of
an invalid.
What happened to me
five thousand years ago?
When I spoke the language of the oak,
knew that hunger in the eyes of the wolf,
heard the gods whisper on the wind.
When I woke only to eat,
and sleep, and mate
and die.
Is this better?
This life of yapping mall rat monkeys.
This civilization hinged on the one?
Original sin-is it you
I have come to so despise?
Oh Eve, you have
condemned us one and all.
It seems in that moment of first consciousness
we were doomed to this life-
sentenced
to an eternity turning
in this hell I know as “I”.

Destiny

2004-09-28T17:05:00.000-05:00

Destiny waits in a black shawl
where the shadows fall
just around the comer/
it’s wicked face hidden
in the rut of sunken shoulders/
what little light there is
scampers like silhouetted rats
through it’s vertical brick abyss/
and it touches him
like a child testing fire
and slowly backs away/

Darwin's Nightmare

2004-09-28T17:03:00.000-05:00

I am witness
to “the descent of man”
as much
as if
I’d sailed the ship
to Ecuadorian Archipelagos.
But my view
had become that
of a much different sort
on a slow boat to the Galapagos.

What radiation type
could be to blame
to father this species
of inane and simple minds
of talk show host remains?
If only fittest do survive
yet Springerphiles are still alive
Is it worth this stomach churning ride
on a slow boat to the Galapagos?

This old ship creaks-
of course,
a hull this old
should surely
by now
have been put to rest-
The ancient Beagle
battered by winds of lungs filled
with cheap makeovers
and teased incest.
Unnatural selection
validated by a fawning host.
This new and ugly species
sets it’s sails high
on this old boat to the Galapagos.

The Land of White Dragons

2004-09-27T19:00:00.000-05:00

The land of the white dragons
sharp angled trees
log cabins
stone winding roads
people in small groups
gather
And the skies
swirl in eddies above
blue grays and charcoal blacks
Something waits
here in this hidden land
quiet and alone
not angry or disappointed
for any lone man
to walk that stone clad path
that twists
between man and monster
pain and peril
truth and death
to find his way home.

Of Birds and Dreams

2004-09-27T18:59:00.000-05:00

They are it seems
like the air they push with beating wings
everywhere
In empty fields of corn long gone
On pavement dark with carrion
Perched high in trees with steely eyes
gaze down at me and scrutinize
In stones and sky they’re shapes appear
and in my dreams are always near
as owl and hawk
eagle and crow
with voices high
with name I know

She was lost
the halls were long and bright
with doors of wood on either side
Inside a room
a closet door
opened
and I stepped inside
A child singing on a trike
rolled up to me and spoke to me
in the voice of a child
quick and high,
“She is not here, she is on another level.” they said.
Then as I awoke
I spoke the same.

My Name in a Dream

2004-09-27T18:58:00.000-05:00

There is a place
where men can fly
I’ve been there
and a place
where fish as large as men
are caught
and become men too-
been there too
There is a time when I am old
in my childhood home or a place I believe to be
I’ve spent time there
and a time when wizards walk the Earth
through forests by the edge of town-
spent time there too

These things I know
like I know my own hands
or my face
or my step

There is a place where muses dress
like lovers
and strangers
I’ve seen that
and a place where scenes meld together
and run like a stream-
seen that too
There is a time
when people I know
and people I don’t are rife with conversation
I’ve heard that
and there is a time
when thunder rolls
without lightning to drive it away-
and I’ve heard that too

These things I know
like your eyes in a crowd
or like
my name in a dream

Meeting Myself in a Dream

2004-09-27T18:57:00.000-05:00

In a dream I spoke of a dream I had had
in which
I’d kissed a dead man
who awoke with the ease of a lover
and asked, “Do you know who I am?”
He was me or at least
a part of myself
or an ancestor or descendant to be
and that thought to myself did not seem as strange
as a dream in a dream was to me.

Heaven

2004-09-27T18:56:00.000-05:00

I had a dream of heaven
It was as the near dead say
all bright and white and glowing with love
In a dream I saw it
for a fraction of an instant
but I pray today
and every day
that I not live long enough to forget
nor else forget for a moment
that love can change a life.

Elemental Dream-Spring 2000

2004-09-27T18:55:00.000-05:00

Tornadoes
in rows
like slow marching soldiers
clouds wet
and charcoaled gray
Pregnant with Spring
looming overhead
Spinning slate stalactites
chase farmers and families
themselves dressed in mission grays
through empty fields
of flat Dakota clay
And pillars…
pillars?
into ravines
no more than a man’s height wide
I dig
into the side
and crawl in
to safety
until the fear is past.

Then,
a lighted room
desks and computers
a window as large as the wall shows the storms with clouds even darker and night rolling in and lightning
lightning in packs like wolves
flashing
everywhere every moment
electric teeth gnashing
exploding light on black wet pavement only meters away but the lights in the room keep shining not even dimming as the lightning continues it’s assault and I hope if the lights do go out it will only take mere seconds for It to reboot.

A Dream of the Edge-

2004-09-27T18:54:00.000-05:00

I had a dream last night
of playing golf with a child
and he hit the ball hard
and straight over a cliff
so I inched to the edge where the ball had been lost
With a scream in my mind
terror in my heart
of that infinite drop and it’s shear granite face
The brink tempted near
my chest gripped in fear
I drove myself forward
looked over the side
And it really was not that far of a fall
between water and boulders lay comforting sand
and I thought I could live if I’d wanted to jump
but I didn’t
and turned and went back to my game.

The Eagle's Gift-Three Gold Pieces

2004-09-27T18:52:00.000-05:00

“Right over my head”
he said
I can see it now myself
wings wide like a mothers arms
these feather tips
caress
two corners
North and South
and that beak and tail
two more
and Sky above and Earth below
and in the center
He was there.

“An omen”
he said
“but I’m not dead”
Though naming him
he certainly was
Don’t shield your mind
and kill the Guide
even
Jesus had to die
die to be reborn
Hell,
if it weren’t for
Judas
Jesus
might still be alive.

“Brother Eagle”
say it
and mean it
then let the fun begin.

No

2004-09-27T18:51:00.000-05:00

Have I earned
every spreading wrinkle on this face
every silver hair on this head?
On a long November eve
with a friend
on a night
when there were more words
spoken than heard,
he asked,
“Are you the best you can be at anything?’
Well, isn’t that the question of the day
of the month
of the year.
It is a fact,
I would say that my body
has circumvented the sun,
what, thirty five times.
But have I lived that,
lived every moment,
to the best of my ways?
No
and no
and no.

The Feather

2004-09-27T18:50:00.001-05:00

If I were a feather
today,
I could float
a hundred miles in these brisk April winds
Through trees just green
with leaflets of Spring
and fields that reek of dank Nitrogen
Soil black
and fat with pregnancy
I would tumble and roll through the wide azure sky
on the tails of the clouds and the cotton of kites
head over heels and over again
This spiraling picture of
Earth Sky Earth Sky
‘til the evening comes with it’s softening heart
when with energies spent I’ll drift down on high
and settle upon
the palm of a child.

Reins

2004-09-27T18:50:00.000-05:00

Reins
leather and long
hold fast and firm
They circle my neck and
tighten at will.
It has been said
the skilled rider
uses them to his need
to sway and command
his once savage steed
and it seems
that they have
that very same
effect
on me.

My Narcissist

2004-09-27T18:48:00.001-05:00

the problem with death,
after all
is not the loss of the body to dust
in as much
as it is the mind
to this emptiness.
will any who survive me
know
how I felt
standing astride a great granite rise
feeling the soft wind
from the North
on my face
longing
like a wandering child
fore the sweet boredom of home.
will any man care
that this heart could love so deeply
those distant night stars
that on nights without a moon
pepper the midnight sky.
or my feeling
of childlike giddiness
on a cool autumn morn
the steam of coffee rising to the sky.
is that
which is any man
really known
by the loved and the lovers
his family and friends?
or is that man only known
in the shapes that he bears in another man’s mind?
you see,
I know I will die
and what really hurts the most
is I will surely die along with me.

My Life

2004-09-27T18:48:00.000-05:00

It slips by
like a breeze on the beach
a whisper against the breaking tides
as children
and zombies
dance in the numbing waters

Forgetfulness
is my minds disease
I know the water
for what it is
and still
I wake
with the sea around my knees

My Gift to Death

2004-09-27T18:46:00.000-05:00

I sleep and count the days away.
I hand them over
without too much of a fight
to Death.
It is a gray May morning
and yet I cannot feel the Spring.
But what good is new life anyway
if I’m prepared
to give this month so easily away?
Dread and Disappointment
play tag with my soul today.
I don’t wish to play
or to be honest…
maybe somewhere
some part of me
will not give up the game.

Counting the days until June
wasting life in between,
I wonder-
Couldn’t this gift
have been offered
to one more deserving than me.

Ah, but he waits
this sharer of my time
this drinker of my days.
I shall let him feast on me
for I am unworthy of this life.
It is his and I can think of no one more deserving.

Letter-July 2000

2004-09-27T18:45:00.000-05:00

Good deal of rain this year
and the corn is up
Not yet mid July
it stares me even in the eye
And everybody talks
about the rain last night
and the lightning
and the thunder that woke the dog
and made him piss
To be a tree this year would be good
all fat and strong against the wind
Oh, and the grass
The Devil himself has not owned so much
hate and distaste
Or so one’s heard to say
Bad year, though, for the mower to go down
and in repair for over a week
Just a belt is all that’s wrong
but those darned machines getting lots of use this year
and failing accordingly
Good year to be in small engine repair I guess
And my back went out ‘bout a month ago
real doctors nor the crackers
no one done it much good
tried pills and stretching
tried pills and ice
Just gonna have to take some time I guess
Went up again to Canada this month
Going back in another
Now that place
it just tugs on these Midwestern heart strings
Simpler place, simpler time
Oh and the rain up there this year
now that’s another story

In the Midst

2004-09-27T18:44:00.000-05:00

Within the midst
of brick and decaying lives
of hopelessness and alcohol
of broken homes and angry men
of crack whores and cracked concrete
of soiled streets and drive-bys
One lone tulip shoot
on a cool April morn
slips beside a cigarette butt
and points its face
up toward the sun.

Heels

2004-09-27T18:43:00.000-05:00

When did this happen?
I hate the Spring
Maybe it seems
I have less ahead
than those I’d left behind
Nothing but change
ever stays the same
and I’m spinning around
a burning out star
with heels digging
hard
into the ground.

Finally

2004-09-27T18:41:00.000-05:00

Maybe snow tonight
just maybe
The fat moon is full
and bright beyond these pregnant clouds
and this old autumn sky
seems to glow in accordance
The Earth below is all darkness, empty trees, and silhouettes
It is cold tonight
finally
Potent dams of carbon monoxide
held off the winds of the North
for awhile
But the slow strong flood of winter
will never be denied
No fire can warm me tonight
no glowing hearth of burning coals
It seems I am alone
tonight
most
most
most completely.

Empty Head

2004-09-27T18:40:00.000-05:00

It seems
it seems
night after night
I sit
I sit
and try to write.

Sometimes
sometimes
in afternoons
I think
I think
Erato leaves too soon.

But after all
after all
I see in the light of day
It’s no wonder I repeat myself
I don’t have that much to say.

Early November Drive

2004-09-27T18:39:00.000-05:00

A rift appears
‘tween the air
and the graying November sky
Something sweet
and delicious
cinnamon and cider
And in it’s wake
A smile

The afternoon sun
sneaks a last glance
at these emptying fields
and leaf draining trees
before cloud and horizon
swallows it whole

Early November stares me down
like a huge beautiful wall
each brick
a fond memory to come
of friends and family
turkeys and snows

Let Winter come
I will hold it to my chest
stroking it slow
welcoming it home
until it is warm

Dust

2004-09-27T18:37:00.001-05:00

I sat
with my face,
as I often for hours
do in a day,
to the box that eats up my life.
My attention
delivered like a social sacrifice
to The Beast With Just One Eye.
It was then
the man who aims my concentration
turned my mind to something other.
A particular sheen on the desk to my left
had caught up to my neurosis
and thus I was undone.

I lay cloth to wood
to remove
the time
that had settled on it’d face
Enjoying the thought
that these tiny mirrors of the sun
would spend their last gasping moments
freefalling
descending to their death
Eureka!
Oh yes, a simple minded vengeance
a moment of sweet retribution
for the toiling of my bones.

It was then
that the thought fell down upon me
like a dream.
No, like a scene from a dream.
Of a farmer
standing in knee deep field corn
one elbow at ease on his old green John Deere
Looking at me as if I were just a child
Shook his head in quiet disbelief,
the evening light
throwing shadows across his cracked sun baked face
“You gonna waste your life in that wooden box,” he said
“You gonna waste your death too.
‘You better find something that drags you out’
Cus’, son, dust don’t grow outsides.”

December 30

2004-09-27T18:37:00.000-05:00

Almost January,
almost,
The offering of the sun
explodes
on the fresh fallen snow
which seems
more light than white.
Another Christmas come and gone-
it is
a time between times.
A time
to remember the past
and a time
to make allies
for the long rough winter ahead.

Dear Reality

2004-09-27T18:32:00.000-05:00

Does an antelope sense
on it’s soft open neck
the breath of the hard charging cat?
does it feel on it’s back
the razor sharp claws
of death from the imminent beast?
does it know
the hunger
of the cat-
muscles made strong
by emptiness in it’s breast.

The great predators paws
like needle pointed daggers
slashing and grabbing
for a weakness
an advantage
any crevice for which to take hold.
All the while
hind kicking legs
grasp and tear
at the passing earth and sand
as the world flies twirling by.

On an urban highway
red and yellow lights flash
a hundred metal boxes push on
each a destination
Infinite information in the eternity of an instant.
In my mind a sharp epiphany
I am like that cat
chasing and stalking
most often missing
the throat
of my deer reality.

Born

2004-09-27T18:31:00.000-05:00

At the beginning place
i was
at one with all and ever
Why i’d choose identity
lonesome and sad
identity
when everything
and everyone
were i
and I were them
To bear
these very molecules
bent and held asunder
to receive a name and endure pain
complete and utter madness
But for You
and them
I’ve done it
for All and everyone
As Your sense of touch I feel this world
and with every other sense as well
I am, I know, and all of you
are but a dreamer’s dream
Yet this human brain
not every Mind
has tendency to forget
when the unity that is all things
is traded for ourselves
So many that were I
and too often myself as well
have lost the memory of whence we came
and to where we shall return.

An Early June (Frost's Inspiration)

2004-09-27T18:29:00.000-05:00

You left me
I lie mornings alone
mourning lost time
time lost forever

Under gray skies
sour hangover reminders
of opportunities missed
and life lost forever

A Frost’s inspiration
a humid June eve
sober and open
to dreams of forever

Hello my heart,
I’ve missed you
I welcome you home
I seem to have been
away for awhile.

The Wind

2004-09-27T18:25:00.000-05:00

He hates the wind
When it comes
in from the West on Spring days like these
Those stark memories
come flooding back
and his heart sinks so low in his chest
that he can barely breathe
And it wasn’t because it was the biggest
or the most beautiful on the block
He’d known it had it’s problems
the way the floorboards would creak
in the cool of the morning
on dry Summer days
or the way that old oak door would stick
and a shoulder would bruise to gain an escape
It was because of time
of the life that was there
and those lives
that were lived in it’s rooms
History
makes a home he thinks
not lumber or mortar or brick

He hates the wind
He remembers the day
when the sky turned jet black
and the thunder rolled in
Not the thunder of clouds flashing light in a storm
but the thunder of Death in the spinning of wind
How he’d sat in the cellar
pillow over his head
how he’d pray’d it would pass
and leave him intact
But it wasn’t to be
and the crushing began
And he screamed and he cried
and when it was done
found himself buried
barely alive
alone in the waste
of what was once his home

He hates the wind
He remembers how
breezy it was
when the tractors came to clean up the mess
and remembers
how he’d stood by the side and stared at his life
piled high
as the cranes now tore it apart

He hates the wind
He can still hear it outside
whipping around
this space where he lives
This place that was built on that same sacred ground
The foundation and footings
the same as the last
Then as life will
a clarity comes
and his eyes look around
at this place where he’s lived
five full years now
just a moment it seems
And he can’t help but smile
at his beautiful home
and thinks that the wind isn’t really so bad.

The Nature of a Tree

2004-09-26T08:16:00.000-05:00

What does it feel
in the harsh winter night
naked and empty
a toy to the stinging winds
Does it wait
breath held longing for the summertime
hoping for the strength to last
Does it feel with roots
the frozen earth
dreaming of the springtime’s thaw
And does it ponder Falls to come
and the loss that seems to touch us all
Why does it not just reach up
tear its roots asunder
and walk to some locale
warm and more abiding

What does it feel
in the sweet summertime
abud and teaming with life
a dancing sail in the prodding wind
Does it think to prepare for Fall
freed of its backbreaking load
Does it long for wintertime
lying still in a restful sleep
And does it dread the advent of Spring
come to drain its energies again
Why doesn’t it just crouch down
and bring its branches to the ground
and sleep
‘til it finds life more abiding

What is the nature of a tree?

The Locust's Treasure

2004-09-26T08:14:00.000-05:00

A crimson flash beyond the glass
that lies above the dirtied mass
of unwashed plastic, clay, and steel
caught my eye
and bade me slow
and hold
and stop
and take a look.
In my Locust, freshly planted,
(six months? No, wait, a year)
who’s arrow pointed leaflets
had finally come to bear,
a scarlet Summer’s cardinal
left weary from the wing
alit and lightly perched upon
a nonsymmetric limb.
A tree with twisted bending spines
too crooked to host a sprawler’s yard
had called upon this angel red
to rest without a muttered word.
I peered into its saddled eyes
and dreamt that it gazed back awhile
to see upon my lips a grin
and I upon its beak
a crooked smile.