Poetry

There are no words to invite you to presence
The universe asked me to tell you
and foolishly I agreed
Dawn beckons

Night kisses your cheek
Raqueteers stole all the punch lines
Tell a joke
We’ll steal them back while they are laughing

Poetry woke me this morning
With urgent appraisal
I stumbled on my shoes
And groped in the half light through empty drawers for pen and paper
The early mists write their song on the hills,
Humming softly in their sleep
(Big Sur, Ca 2006)

White sycamore by the little Miami River
Gray heron takes flight
Winter sky. Fresh snow
Crunch of leaves beneath feet
Challenge of family
Love them anyway
Might as well
What have I got to lose?
(Yellow Springs, Ohio, 2005)

I am weary of tombs and empty palaces
Give me a starlit pasture
And my feet in the creek bed
Keep your cold marble statues
Give me dancing girls
And perfumed courtesans
Who cares for dead kings?
The street is my temple
If it be full of music and food
and children’s laughter
I think my ancestors would agree
(New Delhi, India, 2005)

Every moment has its soundtrack
Let me be yours when you smile
Sing me a song on my answering machine
A love song lonesome phone call
A long distance goodnight kiss

Soft lighting and a hot drink
Pen and paper
And time for anything
Every moment has its soundtrack
I’ll sing my own this time

I can hear the cook singing in Spanish
That’s the kind of restaurant I choose
Where the waitress calls you sweetie
And the busboy smiles a gold-toothed grin

Like cool water when I am thirsty
A roomful of laughter
Lifts my spirits
A roomful of voices singing together
Let this be this night’s music
(Anywhere Diner, 2004)

My heart chases yours
With Golden gossamer wings
Like the dragonflies
(New York, Aug 2006)

I am not holy
I am all of that
And all this besides
Laugh with me if you will
And I will bow to you
We choose this together
Either way I will sing
(Fairfax, Ca April 2006)

We met for the first time in the dark
I could feel your light even so
What delight then to see the countenance you've made
To touch the body you've chosen
Playing music on my fathers porch
What joy to meet you singing
To find you here
What remembrance
The forever hello and farewell
Driving windy roads late into the night
Listening to rain fall on the skylight
How gracious these meetings
How they dance in my heart
What song will we dance next I wonder?
(Los Angeles, Ca April 2004)

Thoughts like too much traffic
Traffic like to many thoughts
Give me a sun-dappled riverbed
Give me a breezy bowery
Give me a quiet mountain hum
Just this heart beating
A smile makes no sound
But a laugh bursts like water and sunlight at the helm of a maiden ship
Sailing for new worlds
(Boston, Mass 2004)

This time is an hour whose second hand is dancing
Thoughts rattle and clamor
Like jawbones in the scullery
The tavern wench lifts her skirt
And the drunkards spill their drink

The first to freedom
Finds he is not alone
All that is smiles and puts a
Finger to its lips

Like a child’s game of sardines
This hide and go seek is a song
A little uncertainty
An infinite jest

The crows in the valley in the morning
Call for caution
But the swollen creek whispers abandon
And wild philanthropy

Give it all away mumbling ripples advise
Do not wait for the next thunderstorm
Be the lightening yourself

Spend as long as you wish on the arc of the bridge
For it was made for your feet and your crossing

With legs in water hands built this moment
No need to rush now as the currents pass underneath
This morning is all mornings
This gratitude is all that is

What days we have made!
So full and wide and curious
Eternity touches hands
Laughter cures are separateness
(Fairfax, Ca 2006)

Seek out the open spaces
Leave Calamity behind
She doesn’t like hiking anyway
Run straight up hill to legs and lungs start to ache and burn
Black butterfly on yellow sun-beamed Acacias
Layers come off and then on again in breezy shadow
The labyrinth makes me dizzy
Enough of circles and spirals
I prefer to wait at the edge and watch the hilltops and horizon
Fret not for this too is but a glimpse
(Fairfax, Ca 2006)

My care for you
is the door’s squeaky hinge
Singing for the opening
Laughing with that breeze
As we swallow the sun
Let me see this face through your eyes
The mirror only tells me jokes
I miss the madman
Who stared at me across the kitchen table
All grace and gaze and music
Who laughs before the punch line
Who tells the story as it happens
(Fairfax, Ca 2006)

Poetry comes at the most ridiculous times
I put down a few lines at the stoplight
Scrambling for pen and paper I miss the turn
Let the fields drink deep this rain
All day in the car again
How do you build your world?
All the details
Each little moment
Shaped just so
Story always telling
Alone in your mind
Occasional laughter lifts that heavy veil
Traffic slows and stops when it’s not even rush hour
Your bank account empties
Your clothes look worn
If you could have anything
Would you know what to ask for?
Anywhere USA
Again
Strip Malls and neon signs
Raindrops create little spheres on the windshield
Like my mind creates universes
Give me the steady rhythm of the wipers
From this arch of freeway you can see downtown
Cloud laden and masked
The smell of wet pavement
Writing poetry on the steering wheel
Is this what rainy days are for?
Dark moods and melancholy?
How many notebooks full of scribbled lines never read again?
All that language waiting to speak with anyone
Who could decipher these pages of scrawling script?
Our love scratched at us like pen on paper
A poem tattooed dark blue and red like a bruise on our hearts.
(Austin, Texas 2004)

Feast on nectar like the hummingbirds
And change your mind just as fast
High jump on to your sandy fortress
And let the ocean in to touch your feet
is it not just as fun to knock it down as build it up?
Stay out of doors long past sunset
Kiss where you’ve never kissed before
My song is changing
Time so spacious my outstretched fingertips never graze the edge
Numbers and letters cannot confine this knowing
(Fairfax,ca 2006)

I am an inadequate superhero
A superfluous essential
Unique like everyone else
Seriously funny
Humorously morose
Against contradiction
Much more of a smaller dose
Replete with splendor
And garish banality
Bored with my own surprises
Playing hide and seek and peek a’ boo with god
(Fairfax, ca, 2006)

The month of November passed like poetry seated in a burgundy recliner
smoking jazz and drinking brandy
All pasts forgotten except this one
Art left by the roadside
Body bewitched in sleepy haze and syncopated rhythm
the temple doors left open to the late night air
windows shut tight against the cold
all visitors welcome but none expected
and none invited
(Barcelona, 1995)

Quero tenerte desnuda en montanas de almhodas blancas
y flores de jasmine
sentirme in ti
perderme en tus besos y la noche
que con el viento cantara en harmonia tu nombre en voz sutil y baja
hasta que vengan los primeros rayos del sol
y me descubro
en tus ojos
(Barcelona, 1995)

I judge myself
harsher than any jury
stricter then any master
society internalized and parents advice imagined
and yet
i get away with everything
(Barcelona, 1995)

Surfing the silver linings of the sapphire dawn
riding the waves of emotional Hoopla
like a paper boy rock star
soulfish and skinny
with dreams of glory delivered on a gentle breeze
Ebb and Flo
on their infinite anniversary
take a quiet walk in the park
arm and arm they stroll and talk of nothing in particular
and feed the pigeons
those city wise doves turned gray
so close and distant from their celestial white ancestors in the myths and paintings of old
Deformity is normality when you’re looking at the world through the wholes in your walls
pacing the turrets in your Tower of Babble on
in hopes of release or rescue
when all you have to do is walk out the front door to the wide waiting world
(Barcelona, 1995)

Better to have traveled and been lost then to have never taken the plunge and wither like a forgotten flower on the window sill
So drift pass the pillars of Hercules and the dollar sign
to ‚when all fisherman still were pirates
and flowers were not bought or sold
but picked in joy and anticipation from the sunlit fields of tomorrow's remembrance
roots spiraling back through history
a woven tapestry of countless colors
(Barcelona, 1995)

A kiss is just a kiss
and you will always be hungry again
no matter how much you eat this meal
You break my heart a thousand times a day
and leave me almost unable to breathe for the quantity of tears
that were wiped away before I was born
I want to paint you a lion
that will step off the canvas
and lie down purring at your feet
his roar only for the lizards
that dance spitting venom amidst the orange trees
fruit left uneaten and rotting on the ground
I feel like a telephone pole among redwoods
Wood with no green or branches
wood without roots
i’ve spent all my silver dollars on ice cream
thinking no harm could come to me while the sun shines and the weathers nice
so I stand on the median
inclined
with traffic on all sides
it travels only two directions
and neither of them mine
(Barcelona, 1995)

Mountain views and music
and I lose all thoughts of poetry
I suppose from that place it finds it’s own way out
But leave me to stink in my own afternoon thoughts
and the words jumble one on top of the other
lall the songs from an old jukebox playing all at once and again
(Barcelona, 1995)

A story for story’s sake
for the images it creates in the mind
for the way it passes the time
for the sound and the manner of speaking
for the truth and the lesson in seeing
So speak to me in fifteen tongues
of lives and loves that have come and gone
like the gentle rhythm of your breath
each life an art
who’s played it’s part
and slipped away quietly towards death
So sit behind me where the first faint light comes
when the dawn breaks in such cool soft fury
giving sudden glory to the morning
and like the story that ‘s wove it’s way through the night
we find ourselves
returning
(Barcelona, 1995)

because you are my world
I can not fall from yonder
but rather rise on the breezes
that sing about your knowing
and leave me suspended
wide and laughing
I could sing your praises
in languages unknown
and the words that could make you melt
will only congregate at your feet
all meaning lost except for the music and rhythm of my voice
and this not enough to
to reach you
(Barcelona, 1995)

Release me from your hold and let me drift
sailing on borrowed time
paying for past mistakes with soft and fleeting journeys through uncharted waters
the moment is now and always has been
but whom so ever listens
who looks and really listens
shall learn that the autumn winds and all that they bring
are naught but whispers that change one season to another
So why not fly?
Wide and laughing on warm breezes
finding stillness in motion
feeling sweet summer deep in your mountain born wings
why bring with you your half heard mumbling of discontent and terrestrial sin?
Leap the fence and run for the hills
all city symphonies left below
playing strong and chaotic for their sleeping audience
(Barcelona, 1995)

Irises in the rain
remind me
of how love beats at your heart
with perfumed fists
(Santa Fe 1989)

why do I feel like an unlit candle,
a soft sung lullaby to an unfed child
a swig from an empty bottle
an angry whisper
a frightened crowd?
and still the the crickets dance on my sorrows
dry desert grass waiting for the rain
and only slighted by the sky
(Santa Fe, 1996)

Alone among many
with the secret of flight
Discover me in imagined silence
where my ears still ring
with the constant chaos and tumult of questioning
(Barcelona, 1995)

The familiar pulse of half forgotten rhythm
bewitching and enchanted
a little smile and unveiled eyes that tangle and pull you in
leaving you stepping on your own heavy tongue
oversleeping in hopes of another dream stained glance
Come and sit at my table
I don’t want to eat alone
Fill your cup to overflowing with red dark wine and poetry
eat from my plate what i may offer
and rest in the shadows of these wings
Paint for me a feast fit for lovers
a still life
still alive and brilliant
then bring in the minstrel and the drums
and dance for me your dance of moonlight and sorrow
till the sweat from your efforts and my forgotten t ears
slip and mix together in the sweet salty union of remembrance
and we fall gently into sleep
(Barcelona, 1995)

Sit among the nettles and listen to the buzz and whisper of the morning
A rooster crows loud and strong in the distance
affirming his existence to himself and the world
Even in those far away places you will find me there
resting in the shadow of a tree
the first green of spring growing on it’s branches
where the birds sing their song of sunlight and idle gossip
history upon history
life’s great theater on the worlds changing stage
and your only sin
not to notice
(Barcelona, 1995)

Poetry comes so quickly and then it’s gone
like the answer to a riddle that seems so easy when you hear it
but then you can’t remember the next time you’re asked
like soft silky strands of sleepy dreaming and the dawn
a lover that slips away before you wake
and leaves you wondering if she was ever really there at all
(Barcelona, 1995)

Irises in the rain
remind me
of how love beats at your heart
with perfumed fists
(Santa Fe 1989)