Wednesday, August 30, 2017

four thirty-nine

what is it to be beloved ...?
pocketed at ten 'til four on an afternoon in late august
pocketed
against a small stone picked up
from sidewalk's sunlit cracks
outside it smells of fresh mown grass
and a promised rain
outside...

what is it to be beloved?
held as a bluejay's feather found
and lost and found again
held so as to not bend the vane
hollow shaft the color of aged bones in a dream

what is it to be beloved
rolled out onto the pine table this clay to be molded
smoothed and pressed by a vision only seen by
one
unveiled bit by love-resilient bit
until form becomes space becomes
sun
stone
crack
rain
feather found dream
by one
unveiled
love
--beloved--

Thursday, August 24, 2017

still....

drawn to the shimmer of breath & breeze
this dog day morning
shadows take me
verdant linen woodland surrounds
surrender comes
in the lengthening of the heart-line
in the sureness of knowing
blue jays call to the alice-blue sky
lost & found
damned & joyful
we dance & love & lean
into the space that is us
that is this golden land
this time held between
breath & breeze....

come.


Wednesday, August 23, 2017

Saṃsāra





















coyote song and air stream trailers
hands held tight to august sky
gray fog dawn rolls in on the last boom of thunder
want circles the silver moon by & by

tall tales and arms wide open
wells of laced sorrow sit in the darkness of your eyes
listening to mary gauthier & a blue jay calling
consequence & redemption pierce surrendered sighs

no need to peel the bark from the maple
no need to choose left or right
no need to kneel at the sacred alter
lovers know always the price

burn of sun and midsummer's hazy promise
seeking shelter from contrast's gamma rays
path lies between the sage gap and the violet thyme of turning
lay down your whiskey softness and turn the page

there is no balm--no fix to story
no dissolve to the break of morning's alice blue
listen with a painted jasper heart stone solid
the point of the tale is to keep wandering through

no need to peel the bark from the maple
no need to choose the stay or the go
no need to kneel at the alter of this moment
love becomes the cost of morning's afterglow







Tuesday, August 22, 2017

eclipse

of sun and moon
and
ten thousand nights
venus blooms
verdant shadows loom 'neath tremors of shine
stones and thyme
bone to breath
consent
these currents alight
drag your fingertips across the linen
raw edges burn
delight
as darkness waxes blue jays crack with
the fading light
erudite sphinx moths quiver--flit
pale green to amber gem
strange this veil
this thread we hold
of sun
of moon
of him



Sunday, August 13, 2017

re·dux

Oh Columbia! 
imagined history of our ancients
where is our emancipator of despair?
bison spirit rising
compassionate liberation
against
political collide
pull back the veil of stars
stripes
bloodied suffering revised to fit the supremacy
Oh say can you see--our manifest destiny?
manifest genocide
redress--recognize
indigenous wholeness and right
nationalism expedition colonization imperialism
manifest genocide, again
 ... our destiny wrapped
in
rhyme--rhythm
by
Jackson
Jefferson
Cooper
Whitman
Hawthorne
Longfellow
Poe
Thoreau
darkness
blackness--native peoples demonized
whiteness christianized
in
the
killing fields of the Americas
indian country 
follow the corn trail 
the trail of tears;
Mayans
Olmec
Toltec
Anasazi
Pueblo
Caribs
Maroons
Powhatans
Pequot
Abenaki
Mohican
Shawnee
Delaware
Wintu
Maidu
Miwak
Omo
Wappo
Havasaupai
Nez Perce Nation
Yokuts
Iroquois Confederacy
Natchez Nation
Hopi
Apache
Navajo
Cherokee
Pawnee
Kiowa
Ojibwa
Chippewa
Seminole
Lakota
Sioux
Comanche
Muskogee Creek
Tuscaroras
Chickasaw
Choctaw
Tlingit
Salish
Makah
Hoopa
Pomo
Karok
Yurok
Shoshone
Bannock
Paiute
Ute
Haudenosaunee
Green corn dance
Ghost Dance
Sun Dance
resist
redeem
(the revolution was not televised)
repair
.... the soul of America
primal heroism and heart of our humanity
lost
     to
          the
impossible
passable
papable
grief
inherent
to wind
to river
to wilderness
legacy awakened...
Oh redemption!

This land is your land

Thursday, August 3, 2017

two o'clock

i am this day
gimlet stirred to pale alice blue
softly cradled at sixty-two
wind out of the west rustles--bows
to branch
to bramble
and bumblebees briar
stillness
pulls dust-iridescence from afternoon sky
into trails
that linger
behind winged bumble's goodbye
alight the world
the day
the break
of sunbeams
moonbeams
and lavender cakes
i am this day
this wind
this light
molten and polished
blue folded to night

pieces of June stirring

Take:
The shattered right femur of a girl
add
to that a green wool beret
funny pages from the sunday paper
scrambled eggs
and paper dolls
the taste of snow on your tongue
rosary beads of tulsi kapoor
a velvet Elvis painting
and your tucked away watercolor.
Then add rain
lots
of
rain--
the sound of rain
the smell of rain.
Add heaps & heaps of Dr. Zhivago snow
sparkling-blue-sequined-in-the-moonlight-snow
and
nose-deep-in-tomatoes-earth,
high-altitude-earth, horse-stable-earth
Plus rainbow trout
apples & New Orleans
Stir in the flume of diesel & cigar smoke on a London street
and the bite of whiskey & jazz
along with the opalescent thrumming of a hummingbird
Slice it
smoothly deep & narrow--during the shine of this blue-green corn moon
threaded with indigo & owl tears
Thunder rumbles
rolls
Rain comes
Once long ago,
I rode with my mother
as we searched for autumn leaves down a tree-lined country road.
I wore a purple coat
and my mother was so very present & the leaves were the color of her heart;
soft deer-brown, crimson with the lightest orange
When do we know that we are the same?
That we will yearn & bleed?
When is the sky more blue than ever before
and how often is a lifetime traversed
in a kiss?
Surrender lies there
where skin meets the sun
and
the day's fresh mown grass melts into evening's cool cotton sheets
Sureness shines in your dark eyes
and
forgiveness is found in the pause between seasons
and
in the heaviness of our bones
Love is all.
And I will wake
and
I will remember

Wednesday, August 2, 2017

a perseid-august-falling

from a young age
I knew that scars were
best
kept
on the outside
rather than
on the inside
it felt peaceful
ordained somehow
to bare a badge of injury--pain
to bruise
to bleed
to form thickened skin
stretched
pale as a badge
webbed
tatter-woven
inside scars : suffocated
binding tight to hollow spaces
ringing with the infinite
the sharpness
scar me up & lay me down
ink the line morel-black
resplendent
to elude the phantomn pursuit
THEN
we find
love
and t
he teeter-totter balancing act begins
love is discovered under bridges
--the balm to our scars
ending the requirement to bleed
shining during the passage
Love :
the unbridled inhuman-joy heard
in a meadowlarks song
the love of a grandmothers hand upon your back coupled by the smell of oatmeal
as captain kangaroo ping-pongs
the smell of summer wafting off your mothers skin
the presence of a father sitting for hours at the foot of your bed watching as you
slowly
breathe
yourself
to sleep
under that quiet vigilance
the soft ginger prickle of a baby's just-hatched hair beneath your lips
the easy comfort of a friend
the companionable love of noble & complicated men
men.
where laughter, glory and the sky become tamed
and the rockem-sockem ghost-love of a man
with sparkling walnut eyes
asks for a willing surrender--a tacit understanding
to trust its intimate quantum-rising.
the mark it leaves
the pain endured
the story told
scars ride shot-gun on the outlaw love-trail
coloring us in aqua-forgiveness under a perseid night that lights the path home
Fehu
love is scar-divine.

tumbling after

rumble
thump
echo
darkness peaks to pinnacle
paper scissors rock
jack be nimble
of mind polished to smooth ivory marble
captured flashes of human might
bold strokes of burning whispers bright
tap
rumble thump
the spell is cast
shadows bind now
to pressure leaps
little moth has lost her sheep
the porridge sun
tips the mast
to darkened waters where
mermaids cast away
this nonsense
riddle me away
the man in the moon has saved the day 

Tuesday, August 1, 2017

of three o'clock on the 1st of August

to be both here
and
there
formed yet endless
yearning still in resplendent contentment
not too tight
not too loose
edges polished
as bruised tissue
obeys the tuck & fold
like your mother's curtains
or
a wool skirt from 1976
tuck & fold
alight
behold the golden field of our molten tenure
the sparrow
or the meadowlark
or the grain ... where is the gem of us?
ah - there
in the immortal blue sky of
this day
unbound