widdershins

Of tempest & tumult 

of sweeping hills to fields in furious flower

becoming Boann in morning's glow of sun to river reflecting 

face fair with emeralds gleaming 

from Boyne to Platte--and back!

what power lies here? what child to bear? what challenge? 

Oh lies & fear none must taste 

but strength in deception's turn 

as one is fallow the other ripe as a peach 

as alive as this speckled salmon dancing 

ah! to command the sun to stand still 

 summer & youth take root as from slumber one returns 

in solstice springs love & poetry plenty 

wisdom's wonder there in storms firing 

rivers thunder away from winter's chill away from iron rules 

away from form & fools 

to 

the sea and the swallowed depths of aqua longing 

of tempest & tumult I will weave of this day a tale of hazelnuts & song 

Oh Boann!

incandescent

mercurial enchantment
cast in the stones thrown in the valley of loss and sorrow's lament
bleeding out
in gamma ray'd awareness

rimmed in gold leaf and amethyst cooling
focus weaves a wicked spell
borne upon a hummingbird's back
into the diamond
curve
of
the
sun

today
i am love's jester rising
blown between worlds of
leather
and
black cake
buckled
feathered

commit no crime
write no words

that linger on a tongue slick with the tears of forgiveness
tattered and bruised
we heal to monarch
to the diamond
light
of
the
stars

5 o'clock dark

morning darkness 

full of birds & stars  

a train whistles for the sun 

to every sonnet

 

to have loved her differently 

with more oranges and browns in the
paint box along with the fine-toothed repulsion oh! how 

mirrors reflect merely the red buds in Spring along with the bliss as 

blackbirds and fire are indifferent to the thrumming noise 

and marbles as I am indifferent
to the copper fear tasting of decayed gardens 

and a bit of blood 

oh! how joy looks so far away from the jacquard window this morning oh! how 

i long for sleep sleep sleep amongst cats and rain 

oh! how 

to have love her differently 

with more oranges and browns would have allowed me to hate her 

differently too 

rain brings ...

rain rings drums ridiculously against the roof as distant thunder rumbles 

merely midnight or closer to morning? 

awake aware 

muddy--muddled—some part of me remains in some dreamscape dancing 

ridiculous how the rain sounds like 1962 

rising 

reaching for redemption 

i go quietly silently so as not to walk the sleeping ones 

to watch 

before windows awash in exacting wet tracings of this thunderstorm

lightening backlighting birch & linden trees 

so still so quiet except for rumbly rain & thunder quaking 

when i was a child i would find my father quietly silently smoking--sitting with a scotch 

in his white terry cloth robe 

while storms brewed & boiled in the dark 

ridiculous how this rain brings me back to 1962 

is it merely midnight or closer to morning? 

turning to glance at the time across the room 

i discover it is midnight 

         and i return to the waiting dancing dreamscape 

proust/de salon/des questions

bliss to regret
sleep to death 

to fear or not 

embrace this wild wonder trip and hold all things 

contrast the black to white--grey thunderstorms & tulips 

Earl Grey brewing .... 

scars ignorance weariness cooling cooling 

accidentally shamed small in a shadowed corner under a desk in Boulder County 

Jabberwock pears flying to Borealis flares in northern skies 

Lola dreams pressed against the movie reels of 

Beowulf 

and the golden sun-kissed boy (there in the asparagus patch)

who presses wildflowers & birds into linen rivers a thousand miles wide where 

whooping cranes abide against the alice blue waking 

cardinals blue jays wrens

barred owls repeat it all over again--hold fast! 

safe hands 

warm hearts 

holding gently to the opening blooms of the red bud 

Oh Bathsheba! Oh Anna! Oh Sissy! Oh breath of daylight!

Huckleberry foxglove sorrow waiting bright 

fight fiercely for love 

love fiercely 

        make it worth the fight 

 

we grow accustomed to the dark

 we grow accustomed to the Dark—

the rumbling birth of stars

great horned owls 

trains & leavings 

from shadows i linger 

wrapped in velvet night as familiar as my own breath 

from shadow i linger 

wondering how we got here and will my death become a sparrow? 

from shadows i linger 

observing the blackness of secrets as they lie beneath the linden tree 

from shadows i linger   

listening to the collide of the cosmos 

heroes

no cloaks no masks 

no labyrinths of glass 

heroes sometimes come unasked 

between the lightening cracks 

one smells of lavender 

one of larks 

one with feathers one with a bark 

pearly white--scruffy & wise 

heart of a lion with walnut eyes 

one comes dressed in flannel true 

(that one is you)!

and the one that comes last 

      is of sweet golden prairie grass

heroes come as violets & birds 

dogs 

people 

red buds & earth 

to see their hearts & know their worth 

playing the game from death to birth 

the agate secret one carries inside 

these heroes unmasked 

     become our guides 

button & thread

said the button to the thread 

i don't want to be led

not tied & buttoned to a shirt 

i don't want this bind this place to lie 

unmoving forcibly dead 

i am the shape of a wheel, the moon & the sun! 

able to roll & tumble & run 

i wish to be free from the flannel & form 

to be a free button 

evermore 

said the thread to the button i've no wish to bind 

my preference is to be spooled, quiet, inline 

no needles no task 

i wish to hold fast 

to my sweet bobbin paradigm 

i've no wish to capture 

to sew & enrapture 

this task set forth from above 

i've no wish to pin you down

to keep you from running around 

so flat & bound 

i merely wish to be wound 

'round my spindle so sound 

simple & smooth 

evermore 

the button rolled free 

to seek fields & trees 

as the thread wound round its wooden spool 

no marriage to flannel

no button sewed, bound & facile

just two things that matter now 

better apart than before 

button & thread 

evermore 

wrapped

you tease me with need, apples & emptiness

struggling to hardwire

lounging there in yellow silk boxers 

against your father's blueprint 

aging with bitter remorse 

without awareness

i hate football

and struggle to understand my own fragility

what is it that binds & stretches to accommodate our twisted, wounded selves

acceptance comes with a cost; 

a kiss of popcorn & fresh red peppers

a blizzard whorls beyond our walls 

and if you would open just long enough

i 

would 

fall

into your blue eyes 14 thousand feet deep

rich with wisdom & words and muscles hard

willing 

our bones are old and speak of chasms of mirth & merit

replete with lovers, summers & wine 

why the goodbye

why walls of blue-glass brick

to find the hole again 

altars of divine care & memory to what was & what could be 

sparked by flannel warmth & distance spanned by

love 

when the sky is green

Celadon 

comes the day from mossy dreams slumber 

rising rising 

movement wicked--articulated back to leg to arm 

beholding a day forecast green-grey 

thunderstorms forming unencumbered 

by night 

by this skin/bone collide (how verdant veins lie 

upon outstretched possibilities charm) 

seafoam turbulence with crocodile rain 

falling in artichoke torrents severity 

no brevity 

but wicked-articulated rising rising waves of nori destruction 

coming coming it is 

while all i can do is recall pistachio dreams

of meadow & willow fields afar 

wake--prepare 

meet the storm with an olive branch of forgiveness 

celadon comes the day 

fern bright will come the morrow 

 

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

prey

spirits & ghosts 

thoughts grey 

the hunting kind 

trapped in arbors thick

wild with over-ripe acceptance lined 

stay away from the yellow 

stay away from darkness binding 

oh you spirts & ghosts 

the hunting kind 

no longer a child susceptible to golden charms & wily ways 

with precious fruit awaiting ....  

with pearls of amethyst & shells a thousand years old 

no longer a child hiding from the hunter behind a pink sky 

i am the moon 

i am night--part ghost part wild hope 

rift

who are you
to erase all lines of definition, presence & form ?
how dare you !
is this working ?
is it easy?
there is no sign here 
no trace
invisibility is your camouflage
no bread crumb trail thru the woods
no cosmic footprint in the ether
no blue-ribboned bows upon branches marking the trail
no movement thru the world
merely the memory-foam-imprint lingering on skin
the haunting there within my limbic system
the pulse & heat that lies within my marrow
is this a move of strength or fear?
if you resided in the fullness of will & love
would you circle the wagons so tightly?
wouldn't you crave the space between for the light & love to pour out?
i do
wouldn't you be boldly eager to ride out
wrapped in the courage & fierce righteousness of your path?
i am boldly eager
while in your ancient-retreat--i smell regret & weakness
limited bravado

fear of discovery
and an echo of the sureness 

metamorphosis

with ease 

i slip beneath the bell jar 

trapped & separate from the tangible 

content in the capture 

to rest 

so tightly held 

so highly removed from the churning of the ordinary 

this wrapped nucleus of jade silken despair 

rest comes as chrysalis 

removed to this dome of glass 

to await the mandarin & black of flight

and

the sweetness of milkweed 

blue

a place space reachable by a narrow silver thread on a Spring morning 

when the wind is out of the north north-west at 

8 miles an hour 

not a cloud in the sky 

there i reside 

against the open wings of a sandhill crane 

on a track for Calgary .... 

there will be blue 

tied with white ribbons of silk to the cycles of the coyote moon 

a place reachable 

an empty space to fill in 

with all the spare parts; love, metal, matter & might 

no anchor here 

only feathered things that take you to blue 

where 

the sky tattoos your light 

forecast for an April morning

 

unusual--boldly wildly it comes
(recoiling)
--the blow of it--
blame rests with the wind
blustering so fierce
relentless pressing of grass & grasping
(shift--deflect)
blame might lie on the abundance of flowers;
sun-bright punch-drunk tulips
daffodils lemon-blonde
hyacinth noble & heavy
dismantled--unburdened
of karma's sentence
(those fucking uptight
time-junkies)
passing my hand across the surface of things
texture & temperature
allow the release
allow the leap
easy--to lay the crime on things
easy to surrender to the bliss of the thing
for 1 x 1 moment--
more than likely it is the wind

today, i would wed you

"flowers will save the world" (or the things we don't know we need to know)

 

Take me there ... 

to a land between two rivers

of rubles & tremors

lies a fertile valley wide 

mountains to each side 

tower to a blue sky undisturbed  

flowers grow here in the Fergana Valley 

flowers grow; 

the crepe myrtle

euphorbia milii

china rose & kalanchoe

pomegranate cotton

oleander

trumpets flowers & cotton 

four-o'clocks & marigolds 

buttercups

tulips

poppies 

flower carpets unroll 

from the chul, tau, adyr & yaylau 

flowers grow in a valley tucked in .... and we didn't know this before this moment 

take me there 

The Flower Festival of Namangan

remembering: have in or be able to bring to one's mind an awareness of (someone or something that one has seen, known, or experienced in the past)

remembering crinoline and softness and smallness the first time touching a pony's nose and the sound of meadowlarks 

remembering wonder 

remembering the smell of freshly mown grass, rain & my mother's perfume 

remembering hats and cigarettes and black and white television and death 

remembering feeling treasured 

remembering feeling invisible  

remembering the wide rive rand friends and school days and new clothes, laugher and love and sex and the fire ring of immortality 

remembering feeling invisible 

remembering death again 

remembering independence and the ability to know more, experience more, touch more and that smell of pine trees that follows you everywhere and striving for the unnamed unknown quotient 

remembering discovering Boulder 

remembering the day I left the earth for other horizons and what that brought, cost, lost

remembering the dead rattlesnake on the highway from Boulder 

remembering the prickly hair on the wee top of her head 

remembering that barren place where I found myself not myself or at least the emerging other selves abandoned and frightened, death again everywhere everywhere 

remembering the work 

remembering how I've known the love of the best dog ever and how the hole never gets smaller 

remembering coming home to self 

remembering the bright power of a sunrise that shines so canary bright as the dark lightens to an alice blue morning and there are two grandchildren waking to hunger & possibility and newness 

remembering everything 

remembering is a funny thing painted as it is by perception & age & atmosphere and the dreams one has and the sense of being not born on the right planet not born in oneself exactly and carrying the weight of bluejays and crane migration and importance of matter 

remembering the importance of matter 

remembering the song of meadowlarks .... 

enhancing

 

in April’s field standing 

early this day 

pre-dawn grey  

a taste of earth landing/waking upon my tongue

yields unstrung 

ah! my darling petrichor there you are! 

midnight’s spell-messenger evermore 

enchanted light 

bewitching rain 

as meadowlark’s song springs to flight 

what sky will delight?

in April’s field standing 

chestnut & cream

Not 

too dark not too light 

of eagle-winged serendipitous luck the color comes 

Pegasus was a Palomino

born from sea & gorgon-snakes for flight 

the ride of Bellerophon 

Athena charmed ... 

sweet spring grasses & strawberry ponds 

wide open meadows & cattail wands 

red rover red rover 

when the cranes fly over ... 

flight to fight to freedom to breath 

fountain builder 

thunderbolt shifter northern sky resider 

at +90°-60°

Pegasus was a Palomino  

bright

bright -sunlight hits the trees on the east side at seven twelve in the morning 

worry - don't fire the second arrow 

dew - comes when temperatures drop and things cool 

ice - a cool thing 

tulips - April popsicles 

coffee - nectar of the morning bright 

THE MOONIJIM

The Moonijim 

on falcon-feathered feet comes a'dancing

pink moon born

when storms brew fierce from thermal winds 

she comes ... 

to bid the prairie grasses to waken from winter's slumber 

clover to golden rod 

wild rose

bluestem 

buffalo grass and wild rye 

needle grass 

blue flax and 

poppy mallow 

waken to a moon storm 

waken to thunder 

waken to Spring 

where the day will break in 

blue sky

forgiveness 

pensamiento

 

it fills the space between constant whether sorrow or spirit bright

becoming painted with the light of the morning 

or darkened by tempest turning 

inward looking 

random or not so 

these bubbles dust the landscape of everywhere 

driving in the between

like a train roaring 

a thunder distantly heard against the tide of the ordinary 

thoughts

spin out 

or hold upon a task 

a treasure 

a tease 

a terror 

filling the space between this intimate dust mote travels the cosmos
to alight upon the faraway 

the forever moment 

the tender tendril of leaves outside a window 

the fire of some sparked ember 

burning 

learning 

leaning 

into whatever world we create 

whatever paradigm of shine

a river of consciousness streaming out 

cascading between walls & worlds 

from freedom or fear 

taking  on the 

colors of 

our birth 

our death 

our feathered aliveness untarnished tarnished 

thoughts 

thoughts to words to images to moments to light 

an axis within 

within 

all darkness damning 

dust motes of thoughts
       to light 

never saw you coming & it might have been the fluffier one

 

i stood on a porch with a red floor and turquoise ceiling 

looking into walnut eyes bewitched 

and chose you 

from two 

         (you who were for her & the one remaining) 

         (not me) 

         (i don't need anyone)

my eyes were bewitched 

my tongue enchanted somehow 

never expecting 

i chose you 

you who would take my heart out day by day 

piece by piece

& wear it as your own 

you stood in rain as penance for anything less than perfection 

yet you were perfection 

never expecting you would take my heart out into the rain 

where it would become golden open to 

magic 

i stood on a porch with a red floor and a turquoise ceiling 

and you choose me 

wish you were here

greetings!

you should see you from here 

because you are paradise 

nine million years

along the wide & shallow 

cranes come 

ballet under kaleidoscope skies 

warming winds warming 

predictable 

precise 

two months 

       now 

              kettling 

foretelling a departure from this golden valley 

 wild & waiting for Spring

      to fly 

the barred owl, the boy and the cat

the day has such a funny tint 

to it 

pink & grey & pink & grey 

no clouds 

to the barred owl 

perched 

watching the pink & grey day come on to light 

lighter 

watching for prey 

any small tiny movement 

any small waking 

this funny tint day to waking boy 

under stars & planet quilted thick 

pink & grey
his dreams reflect the coming sky 

lighter 

watching his own tiny movements 

tiny movements toes to fingers to blinking eyes 

to yawning 

small waking rising rising 

pink & grey this day 

the cat sits
attentive & curled upon stars & planets 

one turn of his silky head
watches an owl perched out the bedroom window 

one turn watches a boy rising 

one grey 

one pink 

all his contentment found in this day 

pink & grey