my 32nd love poem

Of all the souls around us
the rivers know us best
some hold us in heart slow depths
and the moments that hold us
keep us like silt and unseen darkness

The flight of heady waters
remake our joy, when breath and frolic
decorate lips; the gentle kiss
of life, in smiles that begin somewhere within

When we are like the river
a purpose unto self
wrapped in our own arms of love
and welcoming to destined travelers.

You are filled by that knowing flow,
It crowds shorelines of your voice,
beats like distant drums of the heart
and glows like Moon upon water
a spell of many diamonds
as much as you can hold...
cup your hand and caress the skin,
lift palm wine for the world

blue notes for old red stars

In deep sky a trance unfolds,
a dance of ancient light;
tomorrow's rains gather
to cloak the portal to mystery
so much as in life, they do not stay.

Patient lights of an endless reach
teach me again, how delicate and small
is this form of man, how God-like the gift
of imagining.

Creation in  Six sharp notes
rest on the Seventh
as a cascade of creations
seize the front of the mind,
make blue notes for old red stars.

Making the world I would see
through eyes closed  in peace
where All value the need to bring
closeness to purpose- and know
the purpose of life, is abundant life.

Deep in the night, I cut away
the clouds that pass between
things we see and that which can be...
it is a time to swirl with galaxies unborn
and consider the virtue of a wistful tear.

missing home...

Unfolding like new leaves in springtime sun
a dream begun in a smile, the familiar-
a view down Main Street in my little town.

Pacing past store windows, glass panels chronicle
my reach to the sun and the way my eyes
took on the wisdom of shade-dark circles.
Beneath a determined brow, a slanted sun
spring begun in the early walks and wondering

A view, the tall building where mother lived
defiant happiness, turning the world's indifference
into a patient golden glow...like this springtime sun
painting my portrait on lower Main.
Below Market and Broadway, another tower
where my sister held court
in a lively flow of rumor and near chance,
together, a lofty pair of deep and doubtless faiths.

The smile in the dreamy view
wrinkled anew as I dream-stepped
across a wide expanse of time, relaxed in expectation
the touch of love; and then, as if at shimmers end,
the vision took to sudden flight.
with so many still moments of knowing
the warmth of care and the shared ways
feelings we'd made into a cocoon of eruptive life.

They are not there any longer
neither together nor separately there,
gone, and the tall buildings
are just that, stoney anthills,
No longer the seats of love
no longer ...home

delta of a smile

I softly sang to you  

and gently washed your hair

filled the air with warm whispers

and closed your eyes with touches

of soft wet lips to skin

and each water rope and braid 

became a wish...to stay, this way

I pause to take in the reflection

of things we try to say, the calm wonder

that beauty within rises to the skin

and I watch and merge into the spray

listen to falling flow as if a summer rain

and my fingertips wander, and mind follows

across curve of chin into the delta of a smile

where a seed of love...has taken root

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.

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.

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

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

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

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.

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

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...

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.