Pomes & Poems

But what is a ‘line’ anyway?
It lines up with other meaningless words.

He found a way to write,
By using emptiness in his flow.
He gazed at his words and could only see
Lines drawn by a pen.

He found a Way to write in his actions,
    He speaks in movement,
    In thought
    He writes through his own eyes.
And documents it all inside of his heart.

I made love with you
You turned god into a dwarf
How did you do that?

Like humpty-dumpty
Off a tall ladder I fell
And cracked in two

It only takes one
Moment to lose your self here
In this universe

...

    Ripples of Silence
    ‘I am right here,” my heart nudged my soul. 
    ‘Pay attention to me,’ the wind whispered.
    ‘I’m in the silence,’ vibrations in my head.
    ‘The answer to all the questions.’

    It is not answered in words.
    It is a simple silent knowing.  It is…

    ‘Come and swim in My emptiness,’
    it says to me when I am lost,
    ‘and be filled with my light.
    Dive deep.’

    Keep going.
    The brightest light is at the deepest depth.

    Swim away from the surface
    And drink up the answers to all your questions.
    I am right here in the silence,
    In the blackness of the deep.

    In you
    I Am              still

    And I will breathe life into you as you dive.
    I am your lungs, your ocean, your ripples and your reflection.

    America
    I watch America as she dresses up in eyeliner as she drives.
    I see her pass by a penny and a second penny and she doesn’t look back.
    I see America in her day lit nights – shivering in the cold.
    I see America secretly cry out as she smokes cigarette after cigarette out of her own anus.
    I see America drinking nightly to hide from her pitiful emotions.  
    I see America and her surrealistic zombies with eyes perpetually fixed ahead.
    I cry for America as the moonlight shines on her last blade of grass.

To a Poet and a Doctor
It's in his stars to write and a star shot into his mind while dreary-eyed
Resulting in a pencil that scratches cursive upon his eyelids and shoots
Sparks to his legs and           runs
A staircase was just built                                last week
By one man who smiles at nothing
It was hammered around the moon     and
The poet climbs it nightly.

I Get Dirty Every Day
Why should I shower?
If I dig in the dirt
I explore deep into the chambers of life
In play and in work
My garden or theirs.
    If I sit on the earthy ground
    To meditate and catch my breath
    Anywhere I Am
    With who ever, I Am.
If I make art with my fingers
It is more intimate and allows
The slow strokes of the hand, to come
From god.
    I play…every day
    And find my spirit
    By being here now
    With where ever, I Am.
I wash my dishes
To live lightly and keep my Self close
Like the sponge in my soapy hand
To the dish in the sink.
    I fix my own car
    Because I am poor and America is dependent on oil
    In the air is my fist with wrench clenched in hand
    Cursing her name.
I recycle and take out the trash
To vanish a reminder of waste and ignorance
With care, I haul black bag over my shoulder like St. Nick…drip
To an alley way dumpster.
    I walk barefoot
    And the feel of earth between my toes and on my souls
    Will convince me to take off my shoes when
    I Am, old.
I carry heavy loads but they will not appear to be
Because I am a bodhisattva
Dedicated to the prosperity and
Awakening of Life.
    I drink the same cup and eat the same bread
    As friends and strangers
    Because we are all One and the same
    And different in so many ways
    To participate in the celebration of Life, through diversity.
Should I enter into this world
Of earth and smoke and grime
With a clean body
Before the morning sun reaches high?
    Or should I allow my Self to
    Have the common ground…
        Of earth,
            And smoke,
                And grime?
 

Perch of Sparrow
From the corner of my eye
I saw you
Black sparrow,
Your thin black wings
In a slow
Chang ing
Flutter
As you came landing from high

Your wings fade in
This cloudy Tuesday morning,
I noticed you,
When you landed,
Above my neighbors porch
Where you live
An unwelcomed guest,
Black sparrow.

You held a feather of an other bird
In between,
Your thin yellow beak.
It lay bent,
Beautiful,
White,
And as large as you,
Black sparrow.

You turned,
Your back
To the old,
Yellow
Shingles of my neighbors home
And you faced me,
While I sat and watched you,
Black sparrow.

And you looked both ways
Before entering your home
Of wooden attic
Floorboards
And felt
Your joyful excitement
Fade,
To shame.

You may sleep well on your feathered dreams
Tonight,
Black sparrow,
But now,
As I write your poem,
You sit on your perch
And watch
To see.

A Memory Alone
Beauty falls upon my face
With scars left from passionate bursts of
White dove wings caressing the shoulder
Digging talons into the back.
A drop of blood – a memory
Swims romantically in the ocean beauty waves. 

I Had Intimate Relations with the Trails

Sometimes, I and I go into the mountains to appreciate  what I and I have. 
But, often I and we go into the mountains to appreciate what I and I do not have and can never have. 
Be with her.  Appreciate the flaw of being flawless.  

The tree with the straightest trunk is the first to be cut down.

The well with the sweetest water is the first to be run dry. 

As Life Grows Older It Gets Harder to Die
My attachment to life expands
As I grow old

I breathe this breath and continue
And with each breath
I become more invested

Each one of us has made a decision

Should I invest in a business suit or
Some fancy jargon to win a war on words?
Should I invest in the craft of cobbling or in anatomy
And the control needed to weld broken skull and sew
Ripped skin and tendon
As if you are wrapping a wedding present.

Should I invest in planting trees and
Give my self to mother earth?

Should one invest in the dynamics and
Functioning of an atomic bomb,
And save a nation?

Should I voice ‘hello’ to each
Blossoming flower that
Crosses my path?

Should I invest in a life of orders?
Or the new blouse?
Or the latest technological convenience?

What should one invest the Self in?
Human life is brief,
But while awake,
A spirit plays and works in this temporal body.
This may be the true Self,
Hidden below the bright and flashing
Lights of today.

Thus dawns the question:
Who am I and what is my purpose?

I am a spirit in a human body

I am fighting
I am at peace

I am conditioned by the light that
Flash before my eyes
I am fighting the nurtured unconscious mind
I am the nurtured unconscious mind
As I am All things

I live in a complex world
I reach for simplicity

I run from fear
Or I may open my mouth and eat it

I am One
I am torn to pieces

I find peace in the security of home
And in the mango softened on the tree.

              &

Do Taoist’s Play Chess?

It does not matter where one finds peace
Or where they are in discontentment,
We are all beautiful
Spirits resting briefly in this
Human body.

The purpose of life is
A question
Few have come
To rest
In.

The purpose may be to awaken
The resting spirit,
All too often sedated
Bruised and battered by the trampling of society.

It may be to allow the spirit to work and play.

When the spirit is roused
One may ask;
What is the purpose of One
Self to be
Alive
In this world?
(Before there was spirit, what could the purpose of life be but to                          be a pawn to the chessmen?)

Before there is purpose, we are
Played or try to play others for our gain.

I played chess
Was this my life’s purpose?
I was good until virtue sat down and played.

The purpose of life may be to find
What the spirit should invest in.

Should the spirit live the life of a puppeteer.
Moving pawns, dominating,
To continue his next breath?

Should the spirit give the Self
To business and the trade markets
Conveniences and disasters?

Should the spirit give the Self to Tahitian drumming, deep water diving,
The training of horses, the mastering of the mind, or the perfect loaf of bread?

Should the spirit not invest
the Self
In anything at all
And dance freely
In the endless and unknown
Depth of the Self?

May this be the true Taoist? 

He Stands There.
He stands there and sees
       what they pass up           blind
He stands there and knows
        That they don’t know what he knows
He stands there and thinks        empty thoughts
    While they sit there and think of lies
        Only to fill up their emptiness in thought
He goes his own Way
    While they lie there praying for guidance.

There's a Flower Growing Inside My Head

Near the ocean on the dust we walk to find just what we must
We swirl around in clouds and sun and come to find that we are One
Climbing up the hillside knoll we look ahead to find our souls
Upon the rock we tie our rope with two humbled hands that pray for hope
We look above and then look below then lift our foot ever so slow
On the rock we are sure to stand and climb toward heaven’s open hands.

Let me fly.  Let me touch the moon. 
Let my wings grow.  Let my light grow. 

You Are Good Medicine

Your love is wildflower.
The sun shines in my heart.
Your love is my warmth.
I am a blade of grass.
You are my sun.
There are galaxies in my eyes.
Your love is an ocean.
You water me.
Your taste is bliss.
I am lifted by your grace and peace.
Floating.
You are the purity of wind;                                 dancing song.
You are the sound of space;                                            ancient loving roots.
Your love is all around me.
I am your love.
I am love.
Love.
You are love, my love.
Love, it is you I love.
You fill me and lift me so high.
Everything I touch is you.
The scent of wildflower.

Sunday Afternoon in June
There is a beautiful woman painted beneath my eyelids
There is a beautiful woman beside me in bed
There is a beautiful woman with whom I play in my dreams
There is a beautiful woman on my mind I think of you
There is a beautiful woman in my soul I know it is you
There is a beautiful woman on my lips I kiss her morning dew
There is a beautiful woman her spirit is love and true.
 

Reflections on Sound
Watch out!
I’m coming through
Like a waterless ocean
I am the ripples of the air
Coming through for you
To hear me.

Listen!

The rooster coo’s
While a distant tractor send vibrations into the earth
And through your mind.

The birds and those birds
And the many birds sing to me
As a pen scratches
And the rooster coo’s

LISTEN

Distant footsteps…

They might be my own, soul
Two of them
Trampling through rustled leaves

LISTEN

The fly buzzes in your ear and
Sends winged vibrations to your soul
Kisses the lobe
And flies away
Following its own
Fading sound.

I dance so the rooster can sing and the leaves of the canopy can rustle in the wind that knows we are one when it howls and dances in the field where the tall grass sways to my ripple and taps it self to the vibration of an ancient heart beat.

And the rooster coo’s
The frog is not far behind
And the bugle is sounded
Telling me that my meditation is over
While I sit upon a rock
And admire the beauty of all the individual sounds
And find the wonder in the perfect composition
Of the forest as a whole.

You're Pretty

We are beautiful.  What is beautiful?  Is it a perch resting vibrant bird, the flicker of a wick just lit in the breeze, the sky over Honolulu?  Is the music of leaves dancing to music and the man who sits on plastic chair with cigarette in hand with his dry old tobacco being relit beautiful?  Is it this hand that writes, this smoke, this fire, with its tobacco and chair and the music and the leaves and the breeze and the city and the sky and the wick of th candle which shimmers in the eye of the bird on the tree who gives its perch and the man who gives his hand to these words All God All beautiful?  What is beautiful?  We are beautiful.

On Highway One
Highway 1 is where the most beautiful scenes lie roadside
Highway 1 is where the road edges a cliff falling 200 feet to the ocean surf
Highway 1 no boundaries, no fences
On highway 1 there is freedom

Highway 1 a kid is biking from Seattle to San Francisco
Highway 1 a driver swerves around two baby deer
Highway 1 fog gives you an illusionary perception
    Mist hits your face as your drive, as you walk, lay
On highway 1 police are concerned about your sleep

In the morning of highway 1 it is magical
The rising sun creates rayed walls
    Separating the road, field, tree
Highway 1 where cows sunbathe cliffs edge
The constant ocean surf pounding 200 feet below

Highway 1 where you are above the fog, below the fog, in the fog
It is an ocean on top of an ocean

Highway 1 where the wealthy say ‘right on’
Highway 1 where my car thinks she’s a race car flying around corners
Highway 1 I sit roadside on a beach
    a bird watched me as I try to find any possibility of capturing this moment
On highway 1 beauty speaks for it self
On highway 1 rock reaches out of the ocean like fallen gods reaching for the heavens.

What is to Give Light Must Endure Fire
There are many who are conscious: they are self-aware and aware of the eternal.
There are many who are conscious of the Universal: they are aware of the soul, I and I, the near depth of within.
There are few who are conscious of the within: they hold hands with the man across the world.  They hold hands with the woman across the Universe. 
They are those who show that all thought can be manifested into reality.
They show that anything is possible.
In order to prove that all is possible one must endure what most would think impossible.
Only then would they believe.

written for me in Berkeley, CA