pebbles

Follow vapor-ed breath to low in the east
bright planets light  the arc of night
at the bend of world and sky

we share the beauty of dark and sparkle
stars and other worlds gleam, so little
to concern within the vastness of this presence
puny mankind and the greatness
within its hopes and sorrow

We stand for such a short time
under the radiant depths of the ceaseless sea
carried on an unerring stream of time

A song that rises from our lips only to fade as we-
such momentary beauty, we - and such leavings
of good undone, a bubble in the  vast expanse
can be for naught or much and we depend

on the lives we touch whether
we were meager or much
for even mere pebbles when
strung together make a place to stand

A Star to Follow...

The power of love celebrated

as birth of a child

in wonder of stars and earthly hosts—

noticed amid so little care of life  

that Life was the focus, and creation

of Love the goal—a flock  of souls adrift

left to crash upon rocks and shoals- found

a sudden shepherd.

 Walked among them a call

to something shared within each

a patient teaching, a purposeful reach

to the Sun

We live the miracle to this day

a far removed time still speaks the name

expresses happiness for a cause of mankind--

that man can be more kind, as this man

Whose steps made but a tiny circle

Whose words never cut stony Earth

but endure as little else has, a seed

that made fallow ground to turn;
 light in slow-crawl across time to now.

It lives a life peculiar to truths...above

the petty drag of days, and frayed tongues of doubt

to speak to the heart of the heart

in the voice of the spirit, to dare

hope, to risk loving, to defy the call to self

to exalt the purposes of compassion.

It is only the heart that finds a star in the east...

to follow  

como o mar

Love is the mystery of the seas
it keeps all things
and surrenders all things...in time.

Lovers walk the shore
amid relics of an unbroken cycle
and cast eyes unto the curl of the world
send dreams into a deeper sea teemed in stars

and we are like the sea, Lovers
keep and surrender, in mystery

sung...

I cast my love upon the face of the sea

my faith in tides and

winds I cannot see but

feel

for even thrown into emptiness

love remains, after time has withered it

into a seed. it remains, and waits

until the sweet season   

even of the fallow ground...

there is a sweet season

morning whisper

Five AM cruising empty streets

a neon sign says gas is $3.09

frost begins to clear windows

as last night’s snow lifts from the hood

like a rising voice of wind.

Speed increases although one does not feel

motion-up so much as slowing down

for the color red overhead,

and possibility of 18-wheelers’

cranky starts and uncontrollable stops.

In the quiet of mind

that rises above the hum and drum,

there is a thought- held like sugar

under my tongue- of one

whose sweetness I consider

a delicacy of my time

I think of a gift ...a greatness

amidst this momentary pause called life,

and it is the smile that ends on lips

of whispers which began in my heart.

jazz...

Rising from bare range I hear,

smooth ride up my spine,

the lips tighten on the metal end

and melody bends inside me

A short breath that I can feel

then he peels away the loose ends of this night

Then her lips part

above the heave of her bosom,

she sets me in motion.

 A glide across an ocean of my feelings

immersed in a sea from which I feel

no need to escape,  time drapes over my shoulders

like a comfortable shawl and all 

that a moment can hold 

is boldly here...my lover is near

breath warm on my skin,

I sink deep into eyes that hold me here

in this special place where I am

the one...the only one 

Excerpt from the short story, Girl's Story . How music makes
a melody within us...hdm

written by the winds

life poised just above the sea
in beauty, soft tides, and shimmered waters
where mornings gleam and dusk holds
a lasting trace of sun-kissed sky

and poised in the terrifying howl
of Nature's open throat,
the power of a deepened storm
born of mankind's caress of the world
and the force of pregnant air.

We are life at such balance, now
to rest uneasy on thrones we have chosen;
when comes fury in the winds
that rip away the love of that day
and tell us of a lost tomorrow.

When all we would hold to heart, and keep
is sudden stripped away,  a throttling dream
swallows this breath and the next; we are
poised just above the sea
as winds tear the roots of the world

wayside of a dream

A songbird filled the air
suddenly too still, a  ragged space
an uneasy place between songs
has a measure--a question

When music begins again
like softer winds following a soft wind
when green trees sway and dance
delight flutters like candle flame.

A songbird fills the wayside of a dream
revives touch and splendor
moonlight touched a woman's skin
until eclipsed by bodies in occult,

and sweetness flowed in shadows.
From deep rivers of her eyes
a flight of song that could not stay
but in speed lifted from wants and needs

Sweet songbird draped in colors of love
bare to any eyes but mine, for I see
a poetry roamed across all of you
a filmy robe...of many blessings 

Girl's story Sonnet

In dark of morning, quiet' pause within

Time ‘tween days gone and day to be

When I allow the whims that prick my skin

To freely billow breaths of poetry

And etch my words upon a wastrel wind.

The arrogance of a learned path, submits

To a greater wisdom, a worldly dividend

Suspends belief, and justice has no fit.

When we consume the days of youngest ones

An innocence, a time when life's so fertile

For wealth's unholy need a sorrowed harvest done

Little boys into things, and things of little girls.

We harm the yield when we rob the seed

Of time in golden sun, unshadowed by greed


Girl's story is a short story of mine- recent thing- to mark the international Day of Children, November 20, 2013. The theme I have chosen is Child labor.  I set my story in 1916 but as I wrote it, it is still a fact of life today in Asia, and tomorrow in the US because the Right Wing will destroy the middle class ( repeal the minimum wage, right to work laws) and reduce it to the point of putting our children into hard labor ---if we let them. SO DON'T LET THEM.  They do it wherever they can, make $200 sneakers and pay workers $2 a day.

coals...

after loving,
so empty and so full,
we pour into each other.

I do not know why it feels so
but the moment we cannot save
somehow lasts, stays on

left in my thoughts, a warming glow
like the coals of the last fire
in wait for the next...

fragment no. 715

Such glimmered web we weave
when we pry beneath the eave
window's glance by wicked chance
shed light upon the inner entity

for in all there is an angel's rise
and fall to storied depths we seek
when mind unbridled in stampede
thunders through --all that we can do

is hold to the power of flame for we
are filaments of passion now...and  yet to be.

unfound stars

I make a future memory
so dear, so precious, remarkable gem
even among a shining diadem, glows
captured on skin

The stars I will find in your eyes
the enduring softness of your touch
the words that will rise from within
and pour sweetly, sounds
in your passion song.

The hints in winds and trees
that follow my steps as I circle within
impatient days, fall of season
rise of season, there is an unchanging air-
an eager breath...my memory yet to be,
curled within each moment... I wait

a butterfly flight

An occasion of angels 

rests in warm thoughts 

when time reckons able 

we fall in to flight, as naught 

can stir the wish to ever be so 

held in a dream as love can do.

 

The mind makes a butterfly flight 

on edge of wind and cusp of light

the rhyme and reason is simply seen 

to taste the warmth of flower streams 

in air defined by fluttered sight, until 

follow whispers, to take our fill 

of all the heart can give,

of all the life, living can live.

pictured...(lyrics)

What's in a picture Dear? A memory
a day when your were here and feelin' so near
what is it Baby- the way you wore your hair,
how moonlight kept us there ...or a sight
of you that stilled the air

yes, was that but so much more
it was the breath that came before
words we spoke,  the times we swore
never to be this way...never empty hands
and forgotten books until-- we look at a picture
and find us, oh so long ago but  there...
and in love...still




Lyrics, inspired by a photo of Billie Holiday

autumn

A morning breeze leaves soft whispers
in trees, remnants of passed storms
and a morning murmur shared
as if to know soon grown bare,
will whisper far less as winds grow cold

Into the time of air and soft sounds
the busy backdrop of swirled thoughts
how we can touch like leaf and wind
when life is the shell gone to die
and yet the dreams it has always held
still play in the spirit

autumn when nature finds homes for seed
when life sweetens for its last; autumn,
when the world find a warm place
to curl in wait for spring...

only...

a time  of absolution
a drink made holy, to wash away
hints of sin, unkempt, mess-sided moments
and the need for forgiveness

men are not like God
She is eternal but men
have longer memories of things that hurt
except...forgiveness

There was a small part of a day,
something I'd started to say
in a way of tenderness, a moment given over
to feelings;  It was a thing like love,
 a moment like a bubble.
It held all the air I could have.

It rose within me
like something trapped in the sea
could not stay in deep light-less blue

There was a noise, some vague emptiness;
a distraction in the moment of my words
and they fell,  slowly, slowly
 like a dying leaf in the wind
fell, a whirly-seed shell with all of the
air I could have, all the love only I could give
fell
unseen, unnoticed  except by...only

a timeless scribble

How is it that love comes
like waves and tides
rising because of the glory of the moon
and the waves
timeless scribbles of moving water
etched for only an indelible moment.

How is that that love rises like a fever,
simmers in silence, and quells
when she wanders...when distance admits
coolness.

How is it Love
we can cling to tenderness and yet
turn so quickly away to follow the flight
of a dancing butterfly; and

how is it Love--
that goodbye lingers wet on the lips
when the last evening breeze left
its dry kiss...so long ago

little wisdoms

A great forest of faith
green trees bend in winds, deep
roots from little wisdom's grow 

The seed within finds its way
to the sun, giver of all wont.
Yet we savor momentary wealth,
stealth and power-lust fill
such short days given.

Love and loss, the Janus-face
of the heart; the gifts we take;
ungrateful turns of eyes meant
to find beauty...drip,by drip we learn
fire burns but not so deeply as the thorn
near the rose of given care...

did i carelessly waste precious breath
did i spill the goblet of her given spirit

life has
a lash of many strings
but the deepest sting
is the stroke
of forgiveness

autumn hokku

on sharp stones
watching a snake shed skin...
we grow

autumn alchemy
the library's stone lions
become gold

river gazing...
a golden leaf becomes
my new canoe

morning chill...
an old red sweater
remembers me

autumn sunrise...
now the sun enters the house
through the lower panes

to interpret the day...

        unwind a day
Breath -weary moments remembered
weave us into webbed space,
a place of understanding.
Each sense-attached string connected to
the slightest shimmer of air

     unwind its brightness
Follows mute and gray,
coolness on face, as mornings seen
through eyes that see only me.
By a slight grip on falling sands,
time worn like a skin, I shed
an excess of self.

   unwind its purposes
There is food for a seed
the need to grow, reach for
a closer sense of the Sun.
It warms the cheek gently
yet brings near-fire to spirit
and roils currents... that lift wings

Mãe e sussurros ( Mother and whispers)

A vivid wander in the apse,  

an ancient cathedral breathes incense.

The moaned prayers for so many dead

re-echo and sound old pain anew.

How can we forget for a moment;

how does laughter yet rise from

the fullness of our quaking sides?

When the spirit-calls of emptiness--

of cloaked leavings, hidden 

in the silent roar of  grief--

rises like a quick flood in over-soaked ground.

It is always there, the want for those few

we miss in so many times.

Some scars close without healing

for we remember the deep rent and tear.

It phantoms to persist and exist

when we cannot do anything more

than close the sting in the eyes

love poem number 117

have I loved  as I love you?
the air brings  traces of memory
across lips and tongue...an emptiness, felt

in the wanderings of fingertips
the memories of skin, i close eyes
and bring you into a dream unfolding

and in the sounds you leave
an echoed grace, a feeling akin to weightlessness
that rises in notes of birds, in the forest's hum,
lays hidden in the ambiance of a busy street,
where we have walked,  and
made moonlight more tender


( i sight a solitary sparrow on a wire,
and urge him to fly...give wings to my wishes
for it is among sparrows on earth and stars in heaven
that I have learned a geometry of faith)


have i loved as i love you?
no- it is more that i never loved
until loved by you

a time of stones

We are bound to a time
tethered like an umbilical --
life is time in a womb.

I am found in a stream
heart- deep in this serum heat.
In a sudden swirl, spun left and right
losing sight of sky and sands;
I am closed-eyed, left to reel
in howls of side-swum souls.

Amid sharp pulls of swiftly-moving flow
left to see from-within and know
ignorance too has a place in the Sun.
When yearning for truth is undone
by passion to make hatreds into stone,
stones into walls, and walls into an age of stones.
When black-hole minds cheat the unborn day
and keep darkness within dread and shadow.

( in this dream my hand sets to ground
upon scorpion sting, back reclines
upon a viper's tooth, and in sounds of thunder
the night reveals her fiery wounds)

We are creatures of love and fear;
to foment ignorance, we too are Godly;
we can create a universe and dwell therein...forever.

last of summer (hokku)

 

this book
read or not its pages turn...
waxing moon

 

summer heat... 

deep-winter wishes
drip from my brow

 

rolling thunder...

the lingering after thoughts

of sudden fire

 

summer's end
gull-winged shapes of hearts...
slowly drift on air

night scents...

my thoughts drift into

the edge of a rose

quiet fire

calm waters keep our dreams 
ignite them with the evening sun 
spreads quiet fire 'neath the waves 
kisses the shores again and again 
wet touches to remind, 

she is of the sea

One day 
fates will ask for proof of angels
I will hold such a moment as this 
when I reached for you with my heart 
and even the seas grew still...

the night began to glow anew
a moon of fire, for the heat
of desire also fills bent wings
of prayers and wishes

new hokku

empty creel...
the heron quickly proves
rumors of fish

scented breezes...
a petal's edge turns my thoughts
to sounds of creaking floors 

city on edge...
rolling thunders climb 
skyscrapers

unanswered door...
the old man's cane
sinks into dust

circling...
dipped wings and slow descent

into the last dream


 a pyrrhic beauty...
sunset makes a prism
of city-colored air

 

part of the sea

Aloft in the sea, float as if flight
for the lightness of splendid air
is woven in the waters;

we reach with might and thought
for a light within us is the guide.
We glide closed eyed
upon faith in what we feel.

There is no indifference
to the caress of waves and swirl, for
we are part of the sea
and it keeps us in its arms.

The fear of falling is lost
upon billows that urge us onward
that remind that we are forever
in the peace we make...
in the enduring powers of tide and flow.
We are forever in the present
the past is the wake behind our fluttered feet;
the whirled curls after spent pulls of arms.

They pass to send us onward,
into moments reached for,
breath yet on our lips, and
love yet to be lived...

quickening...

From somewhere
the desert sky finds a tear
and as if it pretends to weep
a dryness floods the incipient verge
we are left with an urge to swallow

So it is when i notice my hands
or the innocence of my pillow
when the rumpled covers-
weary glyphs of a fitful night-
slow dreams and quickening.

From somewhere
the mind finds a memory
to heal the scar left in the night
as if lightning has torn the sky
and only darkness...can heal.

vacuum

Today could be ordinary,
tedium and minutiae, 
a day lost to the weary-ways of the world.
We can fall; 
be lulled into a mundane view
that life is only as it seems.

Then, as if by a chance more-than-chance,
a red cardinal song falls from nearby trees.
A draped willow fir catches a wind
and whispers a vague melody.
They fill my thoughts in sudden wonder
as if I'd been given a way to see
beneath the patina of the everyday
a wormhole to another side of the page.

It is this way when we love
the world is never enough.
For we know within each moment
there is an unfilled space...
and Love abhors a vacuum.

Bankrupt

Risen from sewers
in legions - the corrupt
misled fair minds of A CITY,
now to be claimed by those
who only see the vulture's chance

bankrupt


Gritty City with a tilted halo
your spirit has a gangsta' lean.
Tied by hip to the reckless gas machines, you fueled
much growth; now the world chokes
on the four-wheeled felony: poisoning the air we breathe.

City of such loyal oaths, home and place,
those before came to find, peace and fortune
have blessed us. Kept smiles for so many little-ages.
NOW bankrupt and they sell the precious art.
BANKRUPT in chambers of justice poised
to aid the most unjust taking- democracy

The flower of many ages of sacrifice,
young men went only to return old and war-weary.
They fought and some died there, and there, and there...
died so young-- for Democracy.
Dead for the City they shared with their impatient dreams.
Taken away by whom? Who would dare?
Despoil blood gifts of so many heroes-- so many wonders?

It is a callous time, a time of little men
ruled by petty and corrupt, morally-bankrupt;
men possessed of no ideas
except to please their petty masters.
They are not of Democracy, they have raped it,
violated it with low-hearts of foul little men.

THE CITY where dreams come to be born and reborn
A PLACE tied by spirit to a people who wish
to Love a City

The City transforms, it always has-- it was
a place on the water once, now the water
is remembered on sunny days.
It was a place of sudden freedom for
the shameful days of small callous men
and chains.

We know a City, a place
never short of spirit and hope.
Sadly, never lacking small, indifferent men
who take the bounty others have made
and feed it to a base need for greed.

Yet THE CITY endures, finds sunshine
in the dark clouds, a plume of light to
lift us until dawn; a  candle to keep
a beacon for the Love of those
wh gave us this time and place

A CITY that will once again
prove greater than the puny evil
of small and ruthless men; for
in the City, in a Democracy,
there is a way to remove ...trash.

Japan (hokku)

We observe the anniversaries of the atomic bombs over Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Reminders once again that war is a failure of reason. It is a failure to be as mankind might - a rational being dedicated to honoring the great gift of life.  War and destruction have cut short millions of lives. Conflict has diverted humanity from the progress that is yet within reach: to eradicate disease, provide food, water, and an unlimited potential for abundance to all. There is sadness for what we might have been, yet hope that we have learned.

We stumble blind without the light of reason.



[Hiroshima]
rising sun-
the unforgettable...
remembered

 [Nagasaki]
rising sun-
below a man-made sun...
and its shadows

rising sun-
a deep silence follows
groaning earth

in the surf...

Waves laugh with her
leap to surround elegant arms;
sea air too holds prisms for sun
to bejewel...

my eyes capture camera
and keep her just this way
at play with a speck of a vast day
where somewhere there is birth
and sadness beyond endure
and here there is this droplet
to blend into the samba of a spinning world

A swirl of beauty held close in thought
a piece of light that travels on and on
across a deep flow of time
i've made...just for this
treasure of the sea

weaving the desert (hokku)

 red desert...
songs in the key
of night

one tea cup...
sipped in close company
of distant stars

desert night...
winds write and rewrite
poetry of sands 

young soldiers
step over puddles to leave...
childhood dreams 

red desert...
from waves of sands
moon songs 
                                     
sleepless, I am 
a spider in dark morning...
spinning to the light
 

dreams and epitaphs

As if my eyes were buoyed above
the view from without  yet held
in the voice from within,
and I told someone I loved:
"watch... as my body grows still".

Floated as if on a sea of space
where time were air and salty wind;
the unforgiving roll of tides
gives back all that it keeps.

Raised from deeps to flotsam and shore
a mild foundering, return to the Sun.
For every ending is a thing begun, again
each tear a place where love begins.

As I grow still, thoughts touch a tree-
such a journey; the broad abyss of life to naught
is but a fracture of breath, healed by will.
Yet ...grown still, only the buoy and eye
can deny the end, as I watch a curtain fall
'tween me and someone I love.

I see, the band that heedless of all we knew
ties us still, the forge of will-- when we
were fingers of God; created eternal things.

I am lost and found, there and here, from
whence I came and always were - no longer bare;
cloaked, I whisper a breeze to someone I love-
thankful, to be covered, warmed...

more hokku

young soldiers
step over puddles to leave...
childhood dreams

earthquake...
measured words from two friends
parallax views

mountain lake...
loon calls in cloud and mists
seep into the pines

in my car
cardinal calls from passed trees...
a red shift

a photo...

It was found in a letter from the heart
then was lost in words-
mis-delivered sentiments, in a place
reserved for love.
(kept as a photo, already memorized)

Because you do not change
I see so much change-- that you
were the center of the Sun when
all dear things spun around the light.

An unfinished moon above your shoulder
seemed to surge from blackness
as if it too meant to touch...your eyes
held such mystery, deep rivers they;

and now the play of time
upon the ordinary things: paper
texture, color make it so easy
to say it is old, but I know

time has no power...here.

hokku and stars

night gulls ...
wings lift my tired eyes
to seas of light

time and space...
a deep slow river flows
to a boundless sea


a distant mountain
among a spill of diamonds...
milky way


silver moon
poured across the meadow
into a fox's eyes

rain dreams...

Cold soaks pierce the calm,
feet take flight, skim rivulets;
in the sting of sweet water
running through the rain.

The meanings of spring rains take hold
grasses shed excess and concrete sieves
conform to the needs of the moment-
clouds spill and we become
the windy mix of hurry and reflex.

It should be thus, the plants and I
in a bow and revel for we all grow
in the wet and green; but so far removed
from the smell of lightning
so far distant from echoes of thunder
modern man- in leather bound feet-
cannot joyful, thrash in the
bounty of rains, not well wish each drop
for the nurture of a seed.

We cannot fathom the ultimate need,  yet we
creatures of love and fear, sea born and
in this blend of wind and popping drops;
I find a soul satisfying melody.

I listen... as I would hear wisdom of the world
I sense... as if I were a forgotten dry place
I  know my skin drinks-in this day
am soaked again in what makes me:
the water's child.

Mandela

remembering-
one man brought
a rise to freedom's call,
brings a million tears-
remembering

Freedom...

The night imparts poetry to me
a verse of wind whispers
and shadow dance
when freedom is a watchword
dripped like tears from a time of want;
love is the fertile ground.
Gives birth to dreams and dreamers
and nurtures the keep when
wings must sleep, and abide
the unerring flow of deep rivers

Freedom is in a prayer
before it is in a breath
and their crumpled wishes
lift lightly from my lips,
I remember...my debt
of gratitude

haiku, hokku yugen

 (haiku)
faithful time...
the shepherd that keeps
every lamb

(haiku)
like summer moons-
another's light makes us
more beautiful

(haiku)
the soldier's graveyard...
falling leaves cannot cover
so many wars

(hokku)
river at dusk...
a single plume lights the way
to the sea

(hokku)
shooting star...
joined with the night
once again


 (hokku)

across my yard
pouring silver drops ...
a chalice  moon

Silent side (For Ava)

Into the morning air

dawn sky and a cardinal song

moon filled a purple lace cloud

with close echoes of the day to come.

As I launch a journey, a circle of day

it is the vessel of night that tempts my eye

‘til at top of a hill a race of gulls

in a high dry sky, a noisy parade

angled wings and puny tempests

lifts my sight to take my breath...so near

so clear, the wondrous place of  waterless seas.

I think of moonlight touch-

a more silent side of the world-

and a gentle One setting out to do

little blessings, like wine drops fill a glass,

an unfinished taste...of greatness.

como o sol até a lua
vida reflete de você
e torna-se mais bonito

whisper...

It is when I am sure
you have heard
that I am content
to whisper

When you are as close as breath
involved  in every rustle
of sheets and toes that
I reach beneath silence-
speak to you
as one naked heart- in wonder

Of this tragic state
these separate lives...entwined
for the mercy of love and sunlight.
We find sparks, sudden arcs
to dispel an unwanted darkness
light the warm glow of night

It is when I know
you understand the wishes
that precede and follow-
my caravan of love
across the desert between us-
then I can whisper
and know ... that you know.

hokku (trio)

 in changed air...
ancient seeds rise to green
red deserts

summer winds...
whispers from the heart
of the sun

once a battlefield...
now young dreams rise
as green blades

a simple notion

In rain

grasses make a bed of whispers

as feet slide and glide over glassy ground.

Streets make jewels of lights and flashes,

 rooster tails rise off puddles, while I stride
on near-empty pavement.
Tunneled visions I keep 

of searches I’ve made,

treasures I've found, the path

on which I'm bound.

Like time and tides, tomorrows 

rise and fall; but for it all

it is an ever simple notion:

whether we drag nails in the ground

or hold arms wide ....

in welcomed embrace.

a love poem

Watching waves

cross the face of the sea

rhythmic rise and fall,

as beneath an airy canopy , water
caresses land.

Of all the thoughts it gently brings

none so pleasing as the way to say 

your name: rising and falling across my lips;

like the power of tides to stir deep waters.

Yet, the greatest of these

are in infant scale to the tiniest part

of vast seas of time; and yes, like  tides  

waves of vagrant and purposeless light,

traveled on-and-on.

They cross the wandered path

of this momentary existence,

transformed by you...

into a place

of boundless love

wisp of dust

in the voice of a summer rain
sweet refrains and lotus scent
as winds rise to introduce
the summer storm of evening
bright planets gleam as stars emerge
in the interplay of night sky and cloud

and wonder of the fates my eyes entail
to see a cloud formed yesterday
or star shine that has traveled
from before the world was a world, when
it was just a wisp of dust
around a bright white star

hokku #4

on Easter morning ...
in the apse--risen smoke
and guilt-free synapse

hokku #3

today
in the voice of summer rain
a song without end...begins

hokku

at dusk
watching three planets
I will never see

jupiter, Mercury, and venus
PhotoCredit:  Dan Gauss, Earthsky
http://earthsky.org/tonight/planetary-trio-mercury-venus-jupiter-at-dusk-may-27

Rose of Saturn

I do not love you as I love the Rose of Saturn
whose beauty tantalizes from afar
a flame atop a vast ringed world
a maelstrom’s fury become a crown.

I do not love you like that curled dome of storms
circled flumes paint a deep flowered rose
in petals of powerful winds, raised
a distant sky to crimson, red as flame.

I do not love you as I adore this fiercest flower
like tenacious ruby orbs of high deserts and mountains
persistence for its own sake, alone and splendid,
stark and sudden, a glance bares its beauty.

Because I think of you, you are never alone;
because I keep you,  you are never distant.
Because we love, love rages like eternal storms;
because your rose is a fire, a fire burns in my heart.







____________________
Photo credit: NASA Cassini Spacecraft hurricane at the north Pole of Saturn, it has been speculated that the storm has been there for many years. My guess is that it has been there for many decades or more, locked in place by the gravity and magnetic pull of  the polar region.

On Interstate 94 ...

...just before the southbound swarm

fills the beauty of a warm spring day

with circle-form angst -journeys

for bills we need to pay-closure

of silly loops; we with brains and souls

chase the ever-moving goals-

debts have made.

On highway 94 an aroma unexpected

among flowered apple and cherry,

random wild flower volunteers

and my eye- that most tactful sense- finds

the wrinkled jowls and chain-dimpled sides

the tender look of tough hog hides

pressed to air holes along  coupled brides

of rumbled tandem trucks,  riders doomed

to be such as delicious, tender, Fathers’ prides

near the toxic charcoal grills; chemical-ed

meats spread with real gooey trans-fat, artificial flavors.

All will be invited to savor the relics

of an earlier time. When holiday

meant beer and smiles, haven’t-seens-for-a-while

All along 94 South, not a sound did I hear

from hundreds of mouths taking in petrol-ed air;

in loop close journeys there too.

A trek that began with survival of a cull

to end with snout and skull jostled

past a poet in a speeding car, watching

for the words they cannot further carry; a sentence

that speaks upon visions of  trucks that reek…

yet wrought a feeling of commonality,

such journeys have we(--)and for all pretense(--)

just as heedless of its certain destiny.

She, within...

There should be a word I could say

that would instantly let me know you

a word that would translate all –

your sadness and beauty, the tree of your life.

Transcend the mosaic of a woman

shell and marvels- the sense of she within;

when love is a forged steel, bringing

conquest and surrender to the most tender

enduring moments man can make.

There is mystery behind the eyelashes

the focused views they adorn, the worlds they  filter

vastness as within motes and specks

that float in a sunbeam.

There should be a word, a key from my lips

into the treasured vaults…  of your heart.

Dreams( excerpts)

There in tangled rail yards, on tracks of time

lines upon lines of them: Cars of dreams.

Dreams from south traveled north

laded from harsh docks and jangled chains,

dreams wet with woman’s tears.

Rainbows of dreams--

golden from the gentle kiss of sun;

pale shades --

Blacks like ebony night;

reds held in  dune songs.

There were dreams that came to sudden end,

dreams that roamed and meandered;

 slowly ...like bends of great rivers.

Dreams ... like faded sounds; echoed  train calls

in mountains- -

Dreams from deep souls of mother’s grief

in emptied hands of lost and taken worlds.

They were there in disarray- some,

in ordered files and closeness- others;

 ----

Full of cargoes that no longer have any use

relics now, signs of earlier times, abandoned schedules.

Dreams  ...that followed steamy night, 

still drift in wait like flower scents

for love and answer; all, all

are there in rail yards of disuse.

Upon overgrown and sunken steels

dilapidated stocks of life, and skeleton shells.

“If only” they say, if only… a wind,

a wrinkle in smooth sheets of time, if only…

and in sleep that comes to hold us

a way of time like ice awaiting thaw

in restless states of heart and memory

in place- they swim against the stream…they cannot be still

for if stilled, they cannot be; they rail upon rails

and stir within seasons, in gusts and blows;

in night storms that warm possibility.

Like great golden bolts that ease clouds…they believe

fire will overcome the gravity of night.

Inspired "Sueños de trenes," Estravagario, 1958

by Pablo Neruda

“Train Dream”

Translated by Clayton Eshleman

moody-ku

swimming in the stream...
a still minnow

rising clouds...
angels climb a  rainbow


raised by spring gusts
a woman's skirt ...
old man's slow smile

a lover  leaves,
watching
cherry blossoms fall

heard
in the sound of your voice...
the taste of a kiss

passage

the beginning of a storm
a subtle thing, more felt than seen;
leaf tips turn, a  long clouded sky
seems more certain to descend and touch.
Aromatic earth lies open as if in wait.

The end of a storm, quiet falls like
a curtain upon the stage; the last bolt of fire
and last belly roars fill distant peaks.
It was all the matters in between
that shook ground and resounded
through to the root of us- and everything
seen, touched, tasted-- so different; our
wet skins basted in coolness
as sky and surface mate in elastic
air.
We notice a quiet surrender
upward flow of new clouds
reformed sun to prism-ed arcs.

Yet it is such as we, revel in the spent and shared;
a blend like soft summer winds and dripped leaves.
We can sometimes know a thing of  infinite wonder
how life passes...like the edges of a storm.

a shorter race

When life is a too brief page of poetry,

a start that climbs to interruption;

words yet rising to the high point  

an unmet crescendo of song.

Simply not long enough it seems

to meet the reach of dreams, the utter want…

the deep passion for things not done

We can see the race against time;

apace, never won, for it covers like a skin.

Yet we contend for it is all we know-

just as the voice within- it carries our truths.

Until it leaves and just the others race on,

those done and those yet to be…found in untold mystery

as faith and spirit speak of light.

When life is a deep ache, an emptiness;

a dreaded silence at the end of love

by two's

An  howling wind
rends shredded sails and turned
the sea into walls of white fury
 black depths beckon
as if there were no path but descent.

Still in a dream of safe harbor
a boat surrenders itself
from vessel into an Ark
whose ventures wait in
a dark and clouded horizon
and courage sings death
a dirge drawn of merciless water.

Hope has been gathered by two's:
woman's wait, man's dream remembered
reside in a place of fond agreement
while he and she exchange
breath and pulse on opposite sides
of storm and night.

kept...

Sometimes a drift is the only sign

as I go where the sea flows,  read

fishtail swirls and wind dimples,

attempt to understand the pulse of waves.

The sea speaks, even from great distance,

I can never truly lose her- as if some part,

some inseparable part of happiness-

necessary, like breath before laughter.

I find a thought of the sea

in billowed clouds sails, in wind swept treetops;

siren call of her voice rises in pauses

between spoken words and ambient sound.

Just as I’d stand on trembled shores

try to reach beyond edge of water and sky

only to imagine- she is still there

rolling on the rounding belly of the world

on turn to the place I stand but only if I too

spin with pregnant swells of land .

Wandered above gentle touches; waves to shore

a rush of wind becomes her exhale;

misty air a salty kiss, and mind

brings a breathless immersion

I can never truly lose her, for she

is the sweetness of air

flights of dreams

As eastward  winds
bring fresh made clouds
to grace a timeless face in passing beauty

woven glows become tendrils
silvered dark and shadow.
The eyes feed imaginings
faint shapes and tendencies
to deceive...for yet it is true;  I believe
that Love resides in that
which men have made of you.

We cannot hide our faith in things
that bring the poetry of deeper moments
when will becomes a petal,
the moon its beautiful flower
and memory shreds the age of days.

We bathe in soft light and wanting...
give rise to flights of dreams, and wait
with a patience unknown-
even to self- for something
we simply will not be without.
Like breath or the ceaseless voice of  thought
it is in us, in a place, that makes us.

a constant thing

when i say  'nothing has changed'
how can i help the lie

every second brings us

a step away ...
and closer to...

yet, there is a constant thing
that clings from heart to eyes, and now
through this sand-slide deluge of time
when i find a moment that passes slow

it is because it is held
by you...

Strumpet...

The whore in Iraq
sweet America used like
a street strumpet, abused
by men who did not love you
used for money

and they put you there
where virtue was a memory
where life was cheapened by lies
and death rained like mother's tears
after smoky bombs
and bullet filled air

and even now
as the years seem like minutes
so the dead are still lost to us
and oil still the price we pay
to the unborn who will freeze in strange heat
sweat in anomalous cold

breathe-in the folly of our age with
bitter tastes, as we fill their world with angers
their eyes with soot and burial ash

when memories like hatching eggs
bring the return of hatred, and
sands give back what we have sown
and time will own us; for the bonds
of truth...are unbreakable.




!0th Anniversary of the Iraq War ... hdm

seeds of invention

within every lost love
a fruit of a splendid season
are seeds of invention;
a search for rich black soil,
a  journey already begun.

Within every momentary sadness
is a joyful memory, gratitude for
a day of sun, a wishful dream.

Within the heart is a piece of stone
a marker of fallen life
and the mourners march
to slow beats pace, then quicken
race to windows where the Moon
makes a moment or stars
gleam into the sea  so we know
the world spins, takes us with it
as love is a swirl beneath the waves; and

within the  hard and flinty stone
is the power of fire

23rd Love poem

In a time of Moon and Jupiter
is  cold that holds so many warm thoughts.
There an ancient waltz of distant orbs
plays close to mind and eye; a certain
delight in winter skies, soon gone.

Spring will ring in the hearts of many
in this time of Moon and distant throngs of Moons
let my thoughts find a close orbit
in your eyes as they take in more of this world
its pains and the lights- yes, even within them.

As of  near and distant Moons, bright comet swoons
we create mystery to explain the known.
You are faraway yet frequently near
when I think of dear words, and moonlit epithets.

morning rustles

bedsheets and fuzzy focus

how many dreams were problems

how many problems were dreams

reality settles like feathers from a  pillow fight

then a gust of goals raises all again

an open door into a hurricane

morning rustles,

like the other set of legs

that twine and squeeze, steal warmth

leave when still wanted, stay through

near cramp…

rustles

like the unknowable, chaff in windy winds

against the window ; reminding of spring

yet to be, to be soon, always too brief , and asks

did we plant flowers and good foods

trim and clean and rebuild a dilapidated...

fertilize and hoe, touch black soil and inhale

and remember

the Loves we have sent to ground

the Loves that made us, kept us to then

when love became a last spring

and springs  began to rustle…in slow

descent like the stuff of  broken pillows

a patient search

losing love on Monday
She steps between dimensions.
Into the past

from the present day, though it slips away
like sand trickled through fingers, a sense lingers
one of satisfied expectation; without confines
of prediction: as mind defines noteworthy surprise.

Losing love on Monday
begins a cycle anew, a patient search
for what one  knows to be, found treasure
mystic pleasures of  connection

A day in spirit is an eternity in which
to dwell, an unimaginable end, an unobtainable silence
an never ending emptiness-- ( there is Spring time within)
the seed of invitation
to find love,  lost...on Monday

muse

You inspire

with slow movement of lips
a butterfly flight I see in your eyes;
in the way you look at me

to see far more than I imagine...Inspire
with fires in your urgent whispers
with loving that thrills my skin

Yes, You in ways

I can sometimes only feel in a place within
inspire...like the fold of Heavens in a setting sun
or the roll of stars to the glow of the Moon
Feel You, 

flowing into my thoughts...like breathing

to know

There it is, an inner galaxy

a swirl of great and trite words

spins about a core, a black hole of meaning;

and even the light of reason cannot

escape the gravity of complication.

It is these frictions that illuminate-

the proof of struggle-

the glow that pursues itself

a chased dog tail is eternity

When I speak of Love

a power that binds unlike elements

connected into a molecule 

until it endures despite momentary forces

or explodes in a release of energy.

All to allow the possibility (--) this itinerant urgency (--)

to come together again, outwardly appear
as just another particle in time

but within  there is an unique quality

in each of the countless existences

to know as much or little

as we wish …yet realize this:

we keep these moments,

we feel them-

in the undeniable root of us-within us,

forever.