Four Stems

Orion hunts under the moon --
everything is alive
i see


--


illusion of the door closing in the dark
a play of shadows on the black mirror
in the dusk room      my lover's camera


--


a hundred crows    cawing maccabre
in the haunted blue dawn --
puddles trap the echo    wings cut the fog,
wires sag    beneath the black bodies


--


bone thin boys in a dim garage --
   "hold on,
       i lost my phone in my hair"

Three Poems Found Between Sleep + Awake

my heart   warm expanding
spinning beat spills
from my left breast   like a Navajo sunrise.

--

you strange nymph --
because you are so,
i don't mind
  that i may hold you   for only a moment.
you appear in the shimmering nowhere of my dream,
and there you will have or resist me.

--

against the white noise of rain    i see
your eyes fixed on mine
like a challenge   or a promise   or a question...
yes, questions many and true --
i find in this deepest cave
          burning opal.

"the dancing shadows"

i welcome the delusions' arrival --
they may not be fought:
the more you resist, the more
they erode the edges
of your mind,
those precious precipices.
so i welcome them.

(Pilate's wife preaching   at me,
 while i carefully unbind
      Leaves of Grass
 and plant the folded pages
                         in her garden.)

my existence
my perception of   self
has been grotesquely magnified:
   i am too much within myself
   i have no thought but
       "thought" itself,
               no feeling but
       "sense" itself.
i AM Thought,
  the feverish kaleidoscopic shifting of
                                       my identity,
                                the mode   of being,
                                          even,
  has burned away all superfluous "personality."
this,
  the torturous opposite of samadhi:
         perfect knowledge    of the Ego Fraud, of maya,
         but the immense
              consuming
           disconnect   with the Real.

meanwhile
  the gentle hum    of angels' voice
  kisses my ringing ears --
    i know they protect me
    as i lay in this bed
    and struggle against the visions
    that threaten to snuff out my breath.

surely i have found that ancient portal,
          visited by prophets alone,
    between our world and
           the Eternal Desert of Good and Evil --
    for in our world,
           there is only        Chance.
    and the prophets,
           returning from that monstrous Desert
                                through the blazing ether,
           are misunderstood
    and the people
           begin to see the dancing shadows
                         of angelic things, demonic
                                                            things
                 coloring the surface of their intentions.

"God's tide of light" / "life is..."

God's tide of light
so sweetly sweeping from the West --
already the canvas prepared,
mountains and valleys and islands
of deepest blue and gray.
the waxing light
washing the ceiling above this busy town --
waves of people with backs to the sky,
this promise,
like that to the sparrows,
of Eternal Love.

--

life is too beautiful!
  too fragile, too trivial,
  too meaningless and meaningful!
may i die only in a moment
  when i am alive with the world,
  whether in ecstasy or sorrow.

Permanence

(kingdom)

(sky)

(fire sky and silhouette)

(self portrait VI)

(trees)

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Impermanence

(clouds)

(fire)

(self portrait V)

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In Order of Appearance

   A dollar bill, three quarters from thin fingers.
   "One more quarter, honey."
   "He's nine."
   "It's still a dollar."
   Concession. It's just a quarter.
   The two brothers walk to the back of the bus, the older boy thinking about bus drivers and the younger about his sticky apple fingers. Two seats are open on either side of the aisle, the boys sit. The older boy notices the kid sitting beside him -- guitar case between his legs, notebook on his lap, he writes. On his writing wrist he wears a silver bangle, bent a little oval, and a thin crimson string. The older brother looks hard at his neighbor's face. Together, those wristlets belong to a Hindu in worship, but the guitar kid doesn't look Indian. The older brother knows his father would have something to say about Westerners stealing his culture, about "Shankar being too damn generous with those ridiculous Brits." The guitar kid probably loves them.
   All the while, little brother's been nudging a dead moth with the toe of his sandal, and wishing he had some water to wash his hands with. He's thirsty too.
   "Kid."
   Little brother turns his head toward the aisle and is face-to-crotch with a pair of faded red swimming trunks. He looks up, way up. In approximately the troposphere, an old Native American man looks down, way down, from behind some black Wayfarers. His thick braids reach his belly.
   "You're in my seat."
   Little brother glances at the fat lady beside him for help -- she's asleep.
   "I was here first," the tall stoic voice.
   The guitar kid exhales laughter, the older boy stares at him. He turns toward his brother, reaches past the big Native for a sticky hand, and leads the little one to the back of the bus, smiling one of those secret big brother smiles.
   "When we get home, can you make me some fruit salad?"
   "You just had an apple," the older boy answers.
   "Yeah, but...I think we have mangoes at home. I want mangoes."
   The older boy nods.

"waitin to bop"

waitin to bop!   i got it,  i got it

fingers little clumsy

but the heart bops strong --

home tonight,

i'll read Brother Baraka

    an throw up my hands!

    pull down the ceilin!

on my eyelids,
bodies smelling sweet real human

     mooovin osmosis union!

on my eyelids,

     smokey dark, bubblin bop

     and that darrrk sannngre!

on my fingers,

     your sweet dreams honey drip

     livin songs beneath my nails --

 hooold that thought

 an let it go,

 juss listen to the whisper

 and hum, hon

 hmmmm?

"this city I have fashioned"

this city I have fashioned

of clay as I discovered it --

its voice I shaped as I listened

to the sweet angel aria,

broken mirror and honest.

it is mine, this place...

a promise I whispered at conception --

and here we are,

standing like children on those same syllables.

listen,

the sound of creation.

wonder, hm?

that it is not your song,

that this place is not also your own?

--

all of us train angels

transfixed in communion by the holy Real outside our window:

like india ink the city spills

into God's exhaled sky and reaches for the half-moon

like a newborn for anything.

Color vs. Colour

(blue)

(fly)

(blood)

(railroad)

(swamps)

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Re: Meteor Showers

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Ripped + Glued + Painted

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Automoton : Organism :: Automoton : Organism

(roots)

(above us)

(prophet see)

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songs for beginners

it's still summer

yes, drawings and pictures!