Sublime I sometimes shudder at old pics, their bittersweetness, their cutting edge, their tricks: ….. daughter’s brilliant smiles, ….. mittens hung from cuffs, ….. Kodachrome taunts of time ….. —enough I’d rather mine old stones, turn up what’s scattered within my heart and head ….. —the gold I’d rather stick with what’s been deeply sown,…

1/1/26 Typhoon USA Aftermath Premonition —This is a revised version of a poem I wrote when a newly insane river running through our town one day came through, almost over-toping bridges, spilling into streets with wild abandon during Hurricane Irene.  One year back the river tore through on its fall to the sea, courts and laws…

Rapprochement: Just wondering if worlds seen from a distance are really smaller than they are. . . And could it be that when we sleep the world we leave goes on without us? .. Maybe you remember the old days too, days when greenhorns multiplied their joys and were thoughtless as a new moon. Is it…

Two young men greeted a new crew member on a ship’s quarterdeck 60 years ago and, in a matter of weeks, by simple challenge, introduced this then 18-year-old who’d never really read a book through, to the life that can be found in them. —Thank you Anthony Gaeta and Edmund Budde for your life-altering input.…

The writer died while mixing with the rebels, these are natural accidents of war . . . —Spanish Dictator Francisco Franco The country has to toughen up … part of the problem is nobody wants to hurt each other anymore, right? —US president, Donald Trump The Last Days of Federíco García Lorca Federico in pajamas…

“Like a bird on a wire, like a drunk in a midnight choir I have tried, in my way, to be free. . .” ……………………….. —Leonard Cohen Birds on Wires The universe is synchronous, its beauties overlap, tunes are made of birds on wires, Leonard sang that song for us Nature plays its songs for us riffs…

First Communion Three bells rung thrice boys kneeling, a candle at the altar burning, god’s portrait on the ceiling, priest lifts a holy wafer, do mythic circles make us safer? Priest bowing priest turning, golden chalice drunk dry, should I laugh or should I cry, once more, with feeling: a greenhorn skater on the ice,…

“lacrimae rerum, “ (the tears of things) …………………………………….. —Virgil Everything Cries Steel’s tears are rust, trees weep tears of falling leaves, clouds weep and mourn their loss sacrificing their billows to the earth as rain, the earth weeps its carbon into sky, the sun weeps its energy into earth and will die someday of the loss,…

A Matter of Love The question, “Can you tell me a certain thing that is a moral fact?” is specious, because the fact of the “certain thing” exists as a thing essential to the survival of homo sapiens in creating civilization. But civilization is not always up to the task of protecting its essential, instead,…

Fire in the Brain God is a fire in the brain Nijinsky saidwhich is as close to the truth asanything a dancer might dancewith a bonfire burning in his head God may put you in a trance with the fluttering of cardinal wings or with the way the moon looks mounting the mountain’s back on…

Crystal-Bison out of coolblue a bison out of bitter cold out of stratospheric skyblue a crystal bison from stillness, sheer, mute as speech in utter space from deadstill blueice steps a crystal, a bison apparition a bison frozen in veneer of chilled time cloven hooves to heaped hump its mere eyes, its cryo-olfactory nose smelldeaf due…

The Music of What Happens The music of what happens begins with the bottom line of drums —percussion, the thumps of bass in sync with a wind of horns, baritone, bassoon, and in the whispers of brushed snares, in the round tones of tympany, and, in the rests; the spaces between, those silent shifts that…

If you talk about it, it’s not Tao If you name it, it’s something else What can’t be named is eternal Naming splits the eternal to smithereens ………………… —per Lao Tzu, poet, 6th Century BC _____________________________________ Lao Tzu’s Lament At first I think, I’ve got it! Then I think, oh no, that’s not it. I…

“This is conclusive, and if men are capable of any truth, this is it.” …………………………………………………. —Blaise Pascal, on his wager  Blaise’s Place Blaise’s place is on a sunset strip paved razor-straight through desert air many cul de sacs veer from its hot black path squeezed in a pass between mountains there, west, where the day goes down…

Fun In Space Call me nomad. Rootlessness is my routine. From where I stand space seems to beg for exploration not occupation. Occupation of space requires a military state of mind, armies train for it. But individuals grow dull and lethargic just occupying space ~~ There’s no substitute for dynamism when facing space. When I…

Purse Strings My mind’s a purse in which I keep my stash if its purse strings are loose I might add to its load when new coin comes to town but if I tighten down the purse strings of my mind they’ll garrote its capaciousness and all that God might have me be may be…

Damocles In perilous times we join the otherworld, the one that’s outside our bubble who’s driving this bus? who’s at the helm? who jiggles the joystick? we man our posts we soothe ourselves but one day must come to terms: I saw a cormorant, wings spread drying herself in the wind after lunch oblivious to the…

Rattling My Cage Are you looking at me? I say to the mountain which moves as I run the tiller down the row. But it may not be the mountain I engage. Are you talking to me? I say to the pale moon which sits upon the mountain like a ghost ball. But maybe the moon is…

Song Behind a Rear-Tined Tiller They believed consciousness resided in the heart, Aristotle believed this, and the Egyptians who scooped out dead pharaoh’s brain through his nose with a spoon and stuffed his skull with rags assuring that he would not be thinking in the other world to which he’d travel by long boat being…

Whatchamacallit She’s dead, he said. So’s he, said she. Kicked the bucket, he said. Bought the farm, said she. Under the clover, he said. Crossed over, said she. Iced with a heater, he said. Sleeps with the fishes, said she. Taken for a little ride, he said. Gone to the other side, said she. Flat-lined, he said. Out…