Awake Part 1
I was born at sunrise
A shiny mother’s son
Put my shoes on backwards
Learned how to run
Walked into midnight
Felt a freeze in my veins
Sat waiting on the doorstep
His tomorrow never came
You see I’m on a sacred journey
I will never understand
The inside of my eye
Is a universe expanse
My right foot’s been wrong before
As my heel hits the floor
Muddle doesn’t know how to care
Standing on my thumb
O drunken Highway 51
Looking for some distance somewhere
Frightened and besieged
Too soft for comfort
Too hard to relieve
Stabbed with loss and confusion
A scarecrow was staring at my fear
A bar on every corner
A thief begging for the cure
Numbness too often lied to be heard
Lurking in a man’s charade
My war-number was pulled from an old white man’s grenade
Left my wife and 14-day-old daughter
Almost as brave as a coward
I flew 9,000 miles to the zone
Saw the flag-shrouded boxes of our youth going home
Mothers, fathers, wives, children, family, friends, all there crying
It took me a year to say fuck LBJ
Put a flower in my muzzle
And left my naïveté to die in the jungle
Too fast to remain so slow
Awake Part 2
Home with my rhymes lost in angry
I wore my jungle hat like a green badge of discouraged
Wondering about America the deceitful
58,220 dead 300,000 wounded (average age 22)
Yasgur's farm was just up the road
Hair and attitude were growing like the cries for peace
When love and responsibility slapped me awake
I learned Windsor knots and wingtip shoes
And marched off this time to buy the greenback dream
A newly lit cigar and proud blissful strut
Was buried with a weight no person could lift
On that impossible day
Staring across the field was the scarecrow crying for him
I left for the big-shoulder city
It blew fresh wind into our hearts…smog into my face
Pearl number three arrived to join mom and her sis
New life was buzzing in the spaces we miss
A Musing
Damn you muse
can you stop bugging me for one day?
These ink droppings
look like an infant
grabbed my pen
and scribbled a sonata
onto a moist Kleenex…
The notes got sucked into
porous silence.
What’s the point of this affair?
Nothing rhymes anymore
and when it does
I can’t sing it.
You want me to write
my Homeric tale
my hero life
of cowardice
and bravery
in 100 words or less.
Okay, I will.
Get out!
Hard Rain Tears
Shattered at eight years old
The smooth road my father built for us
Became rutted gravel after his sudden death
The hard rain still flows
Through me and straight out my eyes
Although it isn’t the rain
The cold is what crushes my veins
I wonder how only a few myths
Evolved into stone and steeples
Enduringly beautiful for millions
Soulless and deadly to millions of others
Science culled out the cloud-sitter and thunderbolt gods
Divine feminine was tossed aside with Eve’s apple
With blind faith of good male writers
Savvy sales kicked in
I’m out here with my thumb pointing west
Wondering how many smooth and bumpy miles
to my dad’s front porch
To the soft bright light we hear so much about
It doesn’t make me lost not knowing the unknowable
Nothing over my shoulder can fill my canteen with water
Threads of Something
Plunging into art
A walk on the surface of the moon
Star watch for nights glowing
Insanely wild on rainbow mysteries
Maybe this Einstein knew what he was talking about
We are in and of the miracle
Our legs hang over the garden wall
Like threads of something forgotten or not yet at all
Is the god particle laughing in our face or behind our backs while having lunch with the fish and the trees
We dance around our books
like there is an answer inside to be adored and worshiped
Our holy scrolls sewn together to sell a pair of sandals or space odyssey
If no one knows what is there to know
I don’t call it nothing
This Yin and Yang marathon
This good and evil Iron Man extravaganza.
This love and hate serenade killing us like the infestation we have become
The cosmic soup of too much and too little of everything
Pass that good book like smoking weed with all that bad shit inside
Bookmark carefully
You must wonder how many chapters there are in this tiny miracle
This one-in-a zillion zillion zillion lottery win
Starving for a stroke of genius to color the blinding white of day
The mystical stories
The ancient lies
The enigmas and myths and ordered chaos guide me to see myself
Out
Real Clouds
I’m sitting outside pen-tip blotting a sheet of plain white paper. It feels like I should be swirling words, those magical twirls of thought. But what words? Sometimes words flow like liquid salad, too fast really as they slip through my brain’s fingers never to be seen again. Tragic. Other times my mind gets constipated and put into solitary confinement.
There is a cloud overhead laughing its ass off (no, literally, its ass broke away and vapored off). I drift mindlessly into my iPhone that only awakens when I swipe or tickle or poke its deadness. Floating away the cloud’s mouth twists and says, “Look back down, you might find the glory of the words you seek inside that tiny monolith. There’s nothing out here when you’re not here.”
Circle
We sit in a circle.
Live in roundabout realities.
Thoughts of infinite straight lines
circle back
inside our thoughts as circles
and ovals
and connected swirls.
The moon watches us.
We spin and watch too
on the shoulders of mother earth
stuck with air glue
we orbit the sun.
We and the earth and the sun soaring around and around
going who-knows-where inside a glass jar
that sits on the far corner of God’s desk.
Will it be ourselves we find again and again
as we keep circling and seeking?
Or will a Googolplexian of universes close
behind and around us, hiding God in our mirror.
Look at our circle of faces, and
follow the line around.
We are the beginning and the end.
In singularity to all others ever and forever
our round faces
as small and large as they will ever be.
Cows Chasing Dolphins
I am of a time when the cows came home
where magic summers disappeared
like virginity and dust on a gravel road
I must sing the blues to happy
when heartache tries to strangle my me
To write to the top of my lungs
and dance outrageously on my wheels of age
To break my mirror of smiles and lies
and burn off the fog of anger and regret
I want my blue eyes back
shining young
where love was a warm bath
of skin and thought.
To swim the dolphin’s glide
in love’s deep waters
toward the shore I came from
One True Thing
With his candle burned down
Diogenes fell to his knees
“There must be honesty somewhere,” he sobbed.
I look
Maybe there’s one true thing
Under the next bridge that will jump out
Like a rabid squirrel and bite my brain
Better I should follow that raindrop down to the sea
My head is packed full
Like a ball of frayed twine or fishing line gone wrong
This tangle
Cannot be put on a thumb drive
Even if it could
The files are tossed about like confetti
Most of my good thoughts went to spam
Or accidently got trashed, misplaced, or forgotten
Yes, it’s messy in here
Is it in the joyous sweat of mom’s newborn gaze
The deep pure-water love of true eyes
The schoolboy’s first real kiss before any thorns grow
She who saw the better me… better than me
Or is it hiding
In the genius of an insane artist’s masterpiece
Or
Fried eggs
Crispy bacon and hash browns perfectly soft and crispy
Etcetera is for when the search is in everywhere
This precious smoke we inhale into our hearts…
And hold it there as long as we can.
In the fields
The bees
Without complaint
Go about their work
Never asking the obvious question of us
“How are you helping?”
I put a mauve orchid pedal between my lips
To see if I could taste the sunshine
Picture This
A mother's mother capturing yesterday,
up close like the baby is here and not there.
All these glimpses of this's and that’s
are what cue our memories to visit later
after life takes his little hand,
and walks off with him.
Us too.
Older than just now and
younger than before the shutter snaps,
she takes our pictures with her heart.
She wants to be behind the lens,
to freeze it all in a warm frame.
Unaware that we see her as the perfect picture,
she clicks away.
View
From here
it looks like the trees tops
have torn the sky
with tiny jagged rips.
Is it an unfinished mural
Or
has a wall of ancient graffiti
telling me everything
tragically been painted over?
Is the car driving in front of you your reality?
It might not exist
after it turns the next corner.
The phone rings and
a server
enters your good ear.
The caller doesn’t dream
or care if your loneliness
is breathing.
You say hello
to a speck on a microchip,
grateful
any (no) one
is calling.
Your doubt hugs the hallway
feeling for a way out.
View cont.
The hall pretends it’s your friend
promising to take you back
swimming
as you once did
as a get-there-first
guileless seed.
You wonder
if God is a computer app
bugged
in need of upgrading
Your eyes switch
Off
On
New Suit
Cadence rhythm rhyme
The backbeat tapping to Earth’s twirling time
I’m going downtown to buy a new suit and tie
I’ve stepped in too many puddles to look shabby on a sunny day
(If we ever get one again)
I am writing a song in C
When I can only sing in G
I will wrap my gnarled fingers around a ghost guitar
Stuff Bocelli and Tom Waits in my vest pockets
And sing the shit out of that thing
A woman with deep-soul eyes just waded into mine
She undressed me into boyhood
How did she do that
I didn’t come here for my song or $500 loafers
It’s in here somewhere or maybe in my iPhone
That Jesus-love we hear so much and practice too little
I adjust my new tie in a mirror
That has seen much joy and more suffering
I hug my cloths like old friends and walk out into the twirl
A wink of sun quiets my face to greet the miracle of being
Dimmer Switch
Dimly lit
crags sags and lines on my face
are drawn with the weight I dragged and carried
Did my youth run off
like a frightened fawn
and pop up in my mirror one morning
drenched with old age
No
the gait was relentlessly slow
the hourglass somehow quickened though
and my face kept pace
I fear too much light and an open lens will expose
my thousand blemishes
hundreds of scars
a grab bar taunting me under my chin
bags and jowls instead of grape-tight skin
But
city and rural lights didn’t squint my eyes to see less
I saw evil put wrinkles in hearts and faces
I hacked through the jungle of right and wrong
Beauty and love found me layered with life
And smoothed the soul beneath my skin
framed and beautifully flawed on my tiny canvas
I turned the dimmer off to light up this one-of-kind work-of-art
Woman
Island
Mirage
Mist
Rock
Sky
Whispers
Comfort
Sand is your home
Salt is who you are
The sun shines on you like greatness.
A hairy foot on your throat
for ten thousand years
you've known the language of freedom
yet didn't dare speak it.
The desert knows your name
as you place one foot ahead of the other,
carrying hope like water.
Huge Square Hole
I dreamed I could see myself standing
Directly in the middle
of a freshly dug hole
A perfect 50-foot square 30 feet deep
No-way-out hole
What was it? Its meaning?
Was I puzzled by my smallness
doomed to the forever
of being insidethebox?
Has this corona spore and old age brought my demise into exaggerated focus?
Has the isolation dug
a hole in my brain
with its anti-social shovel?
Was the universe dark dirt
filled with emptiness?
I’m not ready to hear the dirt land hard on the lid.
So, after many hours of sleepless contemplation, interpretation, and Freudian rosary beads the answer breached like a gigantic killer whale.
It was a huge square hole with me standing in the middle.
What Door
What door must I go through
One is surrounded by morning glories
Softer than the light they reflect
One falls into a ravine full
Of prickles and snakes
One shows light through
Coal-black darkness
Another is but red bricks
Behind them I hear
A rocking chair wheezing
Still another is locked
With the key inside
Where love dances like a pixie
To the softness of Chopin
One has a divan facing an open door
With your posed body
Savagely seductive
My heart beats
With the oneness of a thousand drums
For entry
The door slams in my mind
Startled to still be breathing
I walk to the end of the hall
And stare out
The window
Park Bench
A young woman
sat on the park bench
next to his gripes and old bones.
Her face was known yet unknown.
Her voice was like his mother’s, as soft as warm rain.
When she said hello, her deep eyes
dove inside his window
and occupied him
like an army of goodness.
They talked…
the June sun skittered across the sky.
His life stories spilled into her sanctuary.
She would say, “I know” a lot.
And she did.
If a lie tripped from his lips, she would say,
“You don’t need bullshit with me.”
Her words were daggers of understanding.
He listened like never before.
No birds heard, or cars,
or playground noise—
Only her speaking,
like she knew every ounce of him.
And she did.
Her stories spoke a truth
that broke open his bones and filled them.
She slid over, touched him, and whispered,
“You have what’s in a man
that makes a woman love him.”
He wanted to kiss her.
Hold her.
Be deep inside a slow dance of her.
He closed his quivering lids with a tight blink.
When he opened them,
his life ended there without ovation.
Searching for Bones
The narrow road isn’t
a dog-eared page
It isn't a parade
of dead flowers
It isn't narrow
a road or dead at all
It's a tear drop
gasping for breath
It's a holy mountain
weeping dry sand
It's a mother’s heat
in a cold room
It's milk and bread
on the way home
It's a whistling walk
without feet or sight
It’s a grassy path
painted on rock canvass
It's a garden's wink
at tomorrow's sun
It's the rippled dance
of quiet water
It’s a sparrow’s question
over a river burning
It’s a fin whale
crying in the sea
It’s a singed redwood
praying for rain
It's the web–thin glow
in a spider’s calm
It's a neuron soldier's
flittering song
It's a lover’s quilt
frayed with yesterdays
It's the backside
of hands and stars
It’s forgotten eyes
open and bleeding
It's a mirror shard
in the eye of morning
Stop this madness!
I look up. The clouds and their endlessness of never being the same grip my eyes and breaks the grind of seeking. A dog without a tail just stopped running and his legs ran off without him. There’s a fish up there swimming toward another sea of air. Small whales, a large bi-legged ant. My eyes stare and dart like there’s something I’m missing. This showing is for me alone, no DVR here. Just then a stranger pops up with jutted jaw and disjointed nose, angry, facing backwards chasing a vapor thief in his rearview mirror. A ghost is winking at me like it knows something. Looks like Bob Marley dancing toward happy on a reggae jet stream.
Back on the ground a heron and three sandhill cranes peck and strut. The lizards use their guile to stay green and whole. I don’t know what the hell the squirrels are doing. The dogs and cats and trees and snakes and owls and flowers and bees and bugs don’t care about metaphor — they don’t ponder now, before, or after, or have any questions at all.
Searching for Bones cont.
Who will search for our baffled bones or know our trampled ash once the goddess of cognition is done having her way with us?
Kiss
I dreamed I kissed a cobra on the nose
In return it bit mine
A bird sang
I took flight
Like air itself
A smiling earth below
Twirling on the kiss of myth
My eyes opened
Like doors to my mother’s love
I was going home
Explosion
Pushing my wheelchair up the road
Singing a song my brother wrote
The sky was earth blue
The treetops’ sunshine-green swayed
I opened my arms
And my every atom exploded quietly
into the universe
You’ve Come a Long Way
I’m 5000 tons of stone
The skin that wraps around your bones
Not helping or standing in your way
I was here before you ever came
I’m a myth floating in your eye
Not underground or in the sky
The voice you see in your mirror
The sound you will never hear
I’m a universe the size of a dime
The answer you will never find
It doesn’t matter what you say or do
I’m the inside and outside of you
You’ve come a long way
You’ve come a long way
You’ve come a long way
But you don’t know who I am
