Tag: poetry

Stray Thoughts

Here by the water the only constant
is the wind, the waves behave as if they
couldn’t be bothered to make themselves known

against the rock. A fellow nearby looks intently
at The Gate while his beloved sits in silence,
chin in hand, waiting for the answer that should come

to her at any moment. This bench is dedicated to the
public service of a city councilman, who from this spot
shall look upon the Bay forever, contemplating the

shifting nature of the world he left behind.
This is the day I will record the argot of the shaman
preparing his evening magic by a low fire,

a squirrel rising up from a rocky windbreak,
the clatter of small drums,
the snap of kite tails and unintelligible

harmonies celebrating sunshine. Ballooned yachts
criss-cross the horizon, white sails whipping halyards
taut — a flock of gulls straddling the updrafts–

white wings, distant whitecaps, a white cotton
candy sky, a white dog passing,
the white socks of the walkers,

the white lace gown you wore last night,
the bed a Rohrschach in white.
The Buddha never shifts his gaze.

Gratitude

Gratitude, I am your listening post,
perched on the shoulders of mountains,
in the grasses, in your granite faces,
reclining in the long valleys of your body.
.
Send me your chariots, your champion angels,
warriors of the spirit, whose love rises in speech,
in gesture, in wordless looks,
bathed in sublime rose waters;
even in anguish for the suffering of others.

Send me your thoroughbreds, heavy with bridle;
I will race alongside you, breathing my thanksgiving
for the idealism of youth, for the wild and holy power
of the earnest novitiate;

for conversations between fathers, mothers,
sons and daughters, blooming in the
rising cumulus of purity and courage, in
the altitudes of high regard, the vitality of innocence,
the awakening of inquiry.

Let me travel beside you,
raining down with the pounding hooves
of your galloping love.

 

This Creaking Wagon

These bones are now but drying dates
shriveling in the sun. In the morning, they
squabble with each other like ravenous lovers.

Yet they are not strangers in my house, uninvited.
Nor are they pack animals, hard on the scent
of death. They still crave the lamp of midnight

stories sweetened with the truth of young wine.
They are still vessels of honey, pouring slowly
their devotions to the last breath.

I used to wake as a baker ready to feed a
village.  Now I rise at dawn as fallen fruit, ripened in
dreams. This creaking wagon, the blessed bounty

of life, one morning shall rise to see the doors gone,
the windows thrown open and the sun shining
through the hole in this roof.

Listen For The Beloved

Listen for the Beloved.
The walls fall down.
Listen for the Beloved.
The Stories wither to dust.

Listen for the Beloved.
The crockery dances in the cupboards.
Listen for the Beloved.
The masters obey their animals.

Empty your pockets.
You do not live in a tiny tent,
solitary in your pea pod warmth
by a dwindling fire.

No, your tent is the sky.
And that lump in your throat
is not gold.
Neither is it coal.
It is not even yours.

Set free the herd
chained to your doorstep.
Set free the millers,
chained to their wheels.

There is water aplenty
overflowing the cup
of the Beloved.
Drink by her soul hand.

Hellbender Salamander

Tell me again how we all came from the same place.
Where you are here, opening your palm to the shaking

wriggle of worm-force, the blackness, the
soul-less gravity of imperatives watching

your unfolding, the light, the distance overcome
in the waters, the tides, the blood of time,

your age, the warp of your witness,
shadows unfurling into light, your orbit,

your center of iron, blatant divisions that must be
crossed before you can express the inexpressible.

this is love unwound. this is love before it knows itself.
this is love becoming itself, time deciding what is and is not.

this is love casting its shadow upon the deep.
twisting out of its cocoon, bursting through the soil, the night.