first rebellion

You bring me back to the root of things

(--)no, I did not ask for forgiveness(--)

back to the base of the mountain

before it rises, before it builds
through the deep blue water to the sun.

You bring me back

to the first rebellion

when the Earth refused to keep its heat

and Her land refused to stand aside

Twas thereafter volcanoes of time and spirit

became impatient eruptive forces.

I needed rock to stay beneath my feet

entreated air to remain in my next breath

sought refuge in bulging clouds,

as if I were a bird, a ship of the sea-above- the- seas

(--)no, I did not ask for forgiveness(--)

I trusted… as if you were rock, air,

the winds on which I'd soar.

You bring me back

where things are born and rise to the sky.

Bridges...

lost in a curve of her hip

gathered muscle into delicate roundness

then released in stride to collect again

she is a rolling wave of  an inward tide;

waist slim and subtle, contra-body sway.

A line from shoulder points

to full swell of thigh…and I am lost

in gentle imaginings; colors like summer sand, 

softness; fine hairs that would catch sun.

In these moments I can notice least

what I treasure most, then in redux,

the smile that joins the eyes- soft brown

within the glow of gold, come words

that have no real meaning  except

they come from her, arrive at me…

make a bridge of moments

fires

Born of fire

of eruptive violence

a voiceless  roar still marked

in the tympani of vibrating strings

tides of time and rippled space

We, poured from ancient cauldrons

into droplets, spread like rains across a desert

blown into wind flown swirls, into time

like clouds that adorn mountains

fill cascades and streams

Into life like so many other ways of life

tiny emulative universes, scaled microcosms

of a greater stage of nature; yet we too

create, imagine and search for things

that speak to us of us, as if to look into

worlds within us was not sufficient proof.

We search and reason compounds reason

until in a cycle like a completion, we understand:

we are born of fires and so we must simply burn.

 _____________________________________

The birth and death of stars reminds us of some important things: the connection of humanity to a deep history of the Universe.  Every part of us and nearly everything we know has come from the cycle of stars- the atoms and elements that make our bodies were created in the immense heat and incredibly long lives of stars- carbon, calcium, iron all of the constituent parts of us, blown into space in the eruptions that end stars. We are connected in this way to the very beginnings of the vast structures we call Universe.  Connected at the undeniable level of the things all human have in common- the waters of our blood, the structure of our bodies, the electric energies that course through us--and of course the burning curiousity that drives us to wonder at everything we sense.  It is a wonder that we can create the idea of differences and strata among us, we who have a true common ancestry among a race of giant fires that endured  for eons and gave seeds of life to time and possiblity; and we who spend so much of our short spans in wonder of our creator, can marvel in the darkness of the things which have made us and everything around us, and ponder the powers of such great creation as an endless sea...of stars....hdm

Corcovado

it could be any place

not just one where God’s face

appears among clouds, or the patient smile

of Earth adorns the skin of moon-soft tides

It could be a quiet place

whispers and heartbeats make rhythms

and breath becomes the edge of touch

sweetness drips like beads of dew

a place you have seen and told

then brought me there; to hold me

in a time already imagined and lived

to be sweetness in revisions, when

“now” becomes moments shared

just one place or every place

is really one space, I call my heart;

the last part of me, I gave to you

and cannot ever - get it back

Inspired by:  Corcovado, words and music by Antonio Carlos Jobim

as performed by Miles Davis

on and on

Unafraid to love
nothing comes of  love except strength
love is never lost, it is
as light of a star, travels on and on
across a universe within each of us
and like starlight in the deep and  resonant night
it might reach a searching heart
some seeker of passion
and glow in their eyes

Volta

an emptiness, sands of  waterless seas

flat pan of ground lipped , beyond

whence I cannot see, beyond its edge

(--)as if the edge of this little world(--)

and lifeless too, defiant of search, reason ,

even madness of a season adrift in thought

as a dance of sun and shadow

incites an urge to spoken words- they too

drift beyond me unheard-

an essence of man and meaning

gone adrift into thinness- a sense of

missing air…

I watch the woman who fills my breath

slowly turn, she walks away…

then grit and pebbles take places of flowers

shadows as gold on the skin of the sea

sands weathered by eons of near stillness

roll like tides to shore,  sensed aromas of brine

sweetness of night blossoms

and memories of this soundless place

witness to silent thunders of missiled meteors

become the music of  lush green valleys

gurgled, cascaded, wind rushed and bird sung…

...she walks away...

night births a flower, petals strewn at my feet
Oh moon, an austere presence  redeemed

into paradise

A poem for the next five minutes

Ann said “I would die for my country

for my kids and my country…” and some

few - in an insect nuisance manner- picked and pecked.

Ahhhh  Ann, oh my, so sassy, so SHEroic,
so full of antipathy for those small minds
that seem to crawl up our ankles to bite
and make us itch—irritating sons of a bitch--
like human No-see-ums

and then their thoughts
a roll of nerdish, troll-ish polysyllabic gibberish

sophistry pretended by  mere grunts and ass-scratch

But Ann-
Of course, we would die for our country
our enemies give us no choice
they kill us for our country.
On the battlefield there used to be
a kind chivalry or gallantry
nobles once jousted til a fall
but in Japan for millennia it was heads that fell
deadly serious stuff
then the English also got tough, counter-revolt
burned churches full of people
We kicked their asses back across the Atlantic then
but now play nice (--) ahhh,  Diana
you were the only Royal I was crazy for
the rest are simply crazy to believe
they are God's gift...I mean if George III
was dropped on his head as a Baby—

I'd think George Bush was too (--)

Ahh Ann, I have the concentration of pregnant flea
what was I saying-- ahh yes

those little vipers and snipers

those who know there is no God
that a Black President must be guilty
of something[ bin Laden, Benghazi,  been something!!!...]

I pity them

so small these minds and in such a big world of possibility
them stuck in a time warp:  myth of white superiority
[shit haven't you seen Mitt Romney!!!] WTF--- anyway

we die

for Sarah Palin and Michele Bachmann
for the draft dodging Chicken Hawks:
Bush, Romney, Cheney and a cast of bastards
who send our children to die for their money.

We die for street thugs who'd bust a cap in our ass
to steal a car because their  broke-dick
sorry selves can’t buy one

We die for lying lawyers, cheating CPA's
bankers who steal from other bankers who have already stolen
for priests who assault young boys, flaming
assholes who want women to die because they dislike choice

We die, for the slaves who were kidnapped, raped and murdered-
worked to early death to make America rich;
we die for dead heroes of wars and their children
orphans and for women who raise families alone
only to be told they are worthless

--PLEASE VOTE FOR ME, said Romney that little MITT--

We die for Corporate People who neither hunger nor bleed

nor leave orphans

We die for faith in hope, for hope's dying sake
we give up our mortal hold

and know that only by love
of the despicable and the beautiful
the angelic and demonic, the prideful
and the humble  by every billion-breathed creature
only by love-- do we live on.