Precision

so, there was a message of wisdom and care
that touched the cores of those that dare
the magical search for Love

like drops that fall from windy grays
and drift to ground in countless ways
yet meet with precision of hand in glove

attracted in the myriad cycles of life
the circling vulture, the pregnant wife
desert flower, songs of a nesting dove

Deep care can leave the spirit bare
greed is the need for them to stay
happiness is the other's heart, such strife
tragic chance, magic dance - a search for Love

Beneath the whispers

Remember the moon
In the wintry night, colors vapor
As we speak; it seems
The air holds the words
The heat of breath and passion
In the closing space between us,
Remember; the moon
Paints the tile roof line
with an ermine cuff.
'Neath bright planets and dimmer stars
I can imagine
the ear of God, listening to their defiant songs.
Like love here with us
they burn  hot in the frigid cold.
Remember the moon
Above cloud, on skin, and beneath the whispers.

everywhere but here

I should be forgiven
like the shadow on the wall
i come because you glow within
and stay because i am called

when the light of sun or moon
washes over you, and i am there too
to see the moon and sun...more beautiful

I could find your eyes in the rainbow glows
over the Victoria Falls, could find your skin
where seas begin and end on every continent
i could find your smile in the opening of the clouds
when gray departs and golden meadows stand proud
I can find your kiss in the dreams i left behind
the missing tastes of honey that linger in my mind
you are always there and so completely dear
as fond as breath and beyond compare
i can find you everywhere, everywhere but here.

Speak to me like the voice of the rain
you glisten in the morning like gifts of mists
and when the heat of day falls dark again
every star listens and lifts a tender wish

if i could find a memory in the flower's fold
the scent of an evening long gone bye
drift to timeless place, nothing grows old
the thought of you would lift my eyes
slightly above the petal's edge...and more beautiful


I could find your eyes in the rainbow glows
over the Victoria Falls, could find your skin
where seas begin and end on every continent
i could find your smile in the opening of the clouds
when gray departs and golden meadows stand proud
I can find your kiss in the dreams i left behind
the missing tastes of honey that linger in my mind
you are always there and so completely dear
as fond as breath and beyond compare
i can find you everywhere, everywhere but here
i can find you everywhere, everywhere.... but here

I wake up in the morning and the dew drops form a tear...
I can find you anywhere, and everywhere...but here

The Poem Poem

A beginning risen from the cool, damp ground

into morning’s fog;  as the low clouds spawn

on half winds and notions of air, and filled in sound
rolling surf calling unto the coming dawn

Rising in a subtle crescendo as deep velvet overhead

Bent into a warmer blue in the slow march of the East

And the fog gathered like welcoming spirits of the coming day

As wet grasses and seaside dunes gave up all hope of holding dampness

To bathe with the rest of us in heavy air and morning mists

A clan of deer stood in silence, and slowly began  retreat

Into shades of trees and fern covered crevices

Carved by snow melt streams, fed by overflowing springs

And Moon wandered near, and I could hear

The tinkled beams on the window glass

And in the drifted senses passions wear

I undress time, admit a grudging pass

Such as the times, the early fingers of sun

Brought the forest sounds in to a rising chorus

As the silence that filled darkness lost its hold on mystery

Morning reveals…the world begins to shed night hungers

Wet boot steps shed drops and splatters splashes

the next step that occupies the delicate remainder

As thought holds true as the Pole Star, courage washes

the dust of  the long journey, and yet a bit longer

It is to home, and to a memory of love; where

Tender breath warmed skin and

Eager hands embraced the edges my face

And I was a precious moment.

For what use these determined dreams

And the seeds carried  far as hope believes

She is  the fertile heart of life, and it seems

the part of home that I can never leave

when the moon asks...

The Japanese maple  

climbs the west bedroom wall,

and shimmered  leafy shadows  

vignette my wood-framed leap

at the Powell and Market trolley.

I release the effort needed to stop

A wandering thought that seeks

reclaim, a tense reluctantly past-

and not so much as a scene but a way to see-

filters the crawling light

through  prisms of happiness.

Soon, the neighbor’s yard globe

eclipses the glowing ball of dusk;

the evening meal enlists smiles

of shoulder to shoulder and stolen touches

in the kitchen of that quaint downtown loft.

Even the music has a way of yesterday

and I dance Argentine Tango

with a memory of you;

finding restless air and  a sense of peace

is somehow within it.

For the most unsettling sound

would be the exhale of seat cushions

and thoughts that I would never

find us once again, when

the moon asks to open our favorite wine.

everywhere but here

I should be forgiven
like the shadow on the wall
I come because you glow within
and stay because I am called

when the light of sun or moon
washes over you, and I am there too
to see the moon and sun...more beautiful

You speak to me in the voice of the rain
and glisten in the morning like gifts of mists
When the heat of day falls dark again
every star listens and lifts a tender wish

If I could find a memory in the flower's fold
the scent of an evening long gone bye
drift to timeless place, nothing grows old
the thought of you would lift my eyes
slightly above the petal's edge...and more beautiful

I could find your eyes in the rainbow glows
over the Victoria Falls; could find your skin
where seas begin and end on every continent.
I could find your smile in the opening of the clouds
when gray departs and golden meadows stand proud.
I can find your kiss in the dreams I've left behind
the missing tastes of honey that linger in my mind.
You are always there and so completely dear
as fond as breath and beyond compare.
I can find you everywhere, everywhere but here,
I can find you everywhere, everywhere.... but here.

At wake, the morning dew holds the brink of a tear...
I can find you anywhere, and everywhere...but here

closer to heaven

The mind is a camera

Keeping the obscure; the shaper

Of a world of sight and touch

And time makes treasures.

 A soft set of chords and words

That keep a moment long past

As fresh as the breath we spent

Skin on skin, when lips could not say

What lips would say, and so

We painted and wrote in snail-foot movement

a wet-stained poetry

It was in a time of full moon and Jupiter

You were the altar for  passion prayers;

So many lives ago…when the heat

Of your breath solved cold winter air

And I was near inner peace...and closer to heaven.

Guided…

A rainbow in the clouds,

A fond and nearer imitation

of the distant winter sun

and harsh glares fill the glass

stings the eyes as I pass on a guided journey

In a day when the weight of air

bears down, and laughter floats close,

as if bound to fly a small piece of sky,

and the eyes take in no more than needs see

Signs are everywhere when the weight of care

Sharpens the senses, and the connected air-

from the first breath to now-

come full-flower in the fertile heart.

The touch of unseen hands

Assure, that the path is right,

and the courage of the last step taken

will be found before the next… The road

grows smooth in the hard places;

It rises again, to meet my weary feet

momentary butterfly

Perhaps every breath is an apology
for there is far more possibility than limits
my thoughts place...upon themselves;
truly in life, convinced of mortality,
I pause for mundane things.

I allow a sip of wine to dwell and occupy
the time a great novel might be born
I fantasize the passing buzz of a fly
to wonder if I could do more with a week of life
than irritate and vibrate.

I turn to the evening's menu, and the music
that will fill my ears and crawl into the seams of the walls
where once the music was a woman and song of passions
I think of the last and the next...and finally understand
love is the eternal strand of the momentary butterfly.

The epoch of a strife-less future could I have also
held forth like the vagrant millisecond-before
the Universe admitted the dimension of time.
The awful crawl of the hands on the clock
in the dream that comes like a mistral wind
when I was me and also he or she that I used to be
and knew I was losing and gaining myself.
A dream of birth and forgetting
and breath...without apology.





Inspired by:
Under One Small Star
by  Wislawa Szymborska  

curtained mystery

I can feel heartbeats in the melody
that rise and fall  like the rolling sea
driven and borne of the spirit and love...
the boundless, endless care...
when we dare give all without fear

So much of life is a curtained mystery
amidst the chance of a passing breeze
followed from afar like the constant star
blind to all risk, the heart in full glows
Life is a beaming light amidst deep shadows

When we speak the art of the soul
and though we reach and try to hold
the soft wax we press, but can never possess
a burden never, the weight of a feather
the essence that binds us together, forever.

Venus in the morning...

A grand view of the fall of stars
around the crest of dawn
and the velvet deeps play
into a crescendo of lightened blue
that ends in the fire of morning.

The journey of a day finds its way
across a hurried path into the east;
 first the eyes and then the heart
grabbed by a moment of lonely Venus...

Speak to me of love
as distant stars have faded, lost
in the wall of morning, yesterdays long-past
find voice in the mirage of coming light.
You who have seen the dawn of ages,
and death of epochs, each folded
into the edge of endless nights.

You, who have seen the fire of love
grow cold, and the ice of neglect
cover vacant hearts,
and known the point of longing
when the unspent purse grows thin
Rise to remind
that love is ever like the morning-
it is the peace of darkness, and the
matchstick  of a coming day.

loving...

Hidden in an un-noticed breath,
within a soft exhale and eye blinks;
it was there in touch of smooth cloth to fingertips,
and in a barely-felt brush of your close passing.

Aloft on a wispy movement of air
stirred specks and motes in a sunbeam;
there too in the uncounted movement
of fingers through hair, or the
lost point of a stare to the nether of thought.

Floating like the winged hungers on rising drafts
when the world holds all of her life, 
there is only the  patient search for a final fall.
It is in the sullen glows and joyous sparks
that ignite small fires unto great rebellions.

The spirit is never still, for it is filled
by an essence and an untamed flow;
 it is love, in every part of us,
 and through its ceaseless inner voice
existence is loving...

signs fall

In the flow of human time

Came a  time without the sun

A dark age, and the rage of ignorance

Fell like the darkness.

Man, left  in the power of his worst,

Fed the life-dimming thirst for hatred.

As their crops fell fallow

And human reach retreated from

The edge of greater understanding,

Like a flower that inhales its scent,

Time went backwards.

And  to now, in an age that thrust

Mankind to a choice of abundance or slaughter

The measure of human greatness in the balance

We can do either…exceedingly live, or

Follow well worn paths to greed and death.

Signs fall from the skies, a feather

Comes into the casual ambit of my eyes

And a meaning extends from the delicate blend

Of circumstance and inner sight, free-fall flight

Of a air light white feather…

Signs fall from the skies, the sun disappears

And will it be for moments or years that we recall

The endless nights, and the fright-filled wait

For the gates of the near heavens to admit

A right we overlook each day, the miracle

That we need to stay on this fragile blue craft

And will we see that it is simplicity of We

That need the sun, the air, the sweet water

And… forgiveness

__________________________________
The sun dimming in December 2012  or in 2014  is a hoax-- but the ideas spread virally around the Internet. This was the inspiration here, a sobering look at the science of this day-- magnificent sun spots and enormous solar flares. Our connection to the Sun is the essential for human life on Earth, and hoaxes can focus on the reality, solar activity is unpredictable and uncertain except that we need it, and we are all in that same situation - we need the warmth of the sun.

between you and the world

Speak to me as you speak to the stars

Knowing full the answer, yet you ask

Hear me in the silence that rises
in the spaces between you and the world
noticed like the last dripping spill of rain
the noiseless call that stills all thought.

See me as you see the face of the river

Giving form to unseen wind, holding

The soft shoulders of the moon

Know me as you know the voice of your mind
patient and forgiving of all things
eager for the rush of love

And feel me as you feel a breath

Touching your lips in a slow exchange

Of  warmth…

a fading rose

A sense of insolence flashes in her eyes

Beaming as bright as the night of her youth

In the full day of life’s stage, time bends her

inward, towards the latter evening

We see the living ghost of girlish youth,

hosted by slightly resentful matron

housed in present and past beauty,

she is a fading rose between thorny memory

and petal fall.

I am the weathered hand,

fingertips and opened palm still hold

the scent of the flower’s edge

I wonder of the air near her skin

where there is new treasure,

born of moments  that hold us

soft, like a gentle night wind

and leave nothing outward

but a place of eternal spring, within.
where her lost beauty is found
in the heart of my heart...

cosmic implication

When love seeps in,
in powers like air into skin,
every equation of human reckoning
changes...a constant
with cosmic implication.

Intrinsic as breath, subtle and hidden
as a state of  trance, yet the heart dances
to rhythms of another drum, resonates
to the thrum of other strings
when love seeps in... and it christens the world.

As if the wet kiss of clouds to earth,
touching all things, an equality of grace;
you are the dew on morning rose.
When love seeps in, it enfolds the world
and then I see the sun...and the glistened rose

short takes...

Morning Gulls

dawn punches holes in early autumn
as day's beginning grows so lazy, it crawls
into an empty Mall parking lot, makes a scene
cackled rattles of gulls long separated from the sea
argue boisterously, noisy rites for trashy sites with
unsightly residue


Morning Man

eyes find cracks and seams, and exogenous lines of water;
last night's rains barely came, but night lightning
and thunders filled the silent spaces of dreams
as movie plots and conversational what-nots
sidled into play; the libido rests not and every hot image
blends into a hidden wish, lust is like this...holds him
like mortar between bricks

Morning Coffee

steam recalls a piece of last night's dream, and moist heat
begs the fog's retreat and day to begin; unwanted
this expenditure of precious time-- it could be better spent
chasing wishes that come so urgently...
after the morning coffee.
After thoughtful sips dwindle into tasteless drips
when the ghosts of forgotten hours, rise
to haunt the day

fitful sleep

In the older ways, when in far simpler days,
faith was easy; spun beneath a gentle sun
a greener world- its greater evils
seemed long done - and the
reward of virtue was simply...itself.

Now, comes the time when faith is hard
because it can neither pardon waste's gravity,
nor explain depths we can see- precious life
cast aground blithely, like spoiled water.

Then one must see, for all the things men do,
the errors of the present and failings they rest upon,
for the whole of our arts are in the takings.
We spill precious existence as if it were wastes
Yet, we can restore neither life nor water,
cannot create air nor constitute the fishes
that sometimes fill the boats.

For all that we can do
brings little of that we need.
We yet prosper by gift; for all pretense,
mankind  is still a vagrant seed
fallen into fertile ground to grow.

Now, we take more than given,
by depth of greed we foul the air
and curse the ground, and faith
takes a trembling refuge
in fitful sleep and troubled dreams.

journey...

In morning sun, the clouds hold gold and gray,
its deeper blues relieved by harder graft;
as if to choose which role the day shall play.
Life's journey is a slowly savored draught

As time unfurls the sails, this fragile craft
can glide through wilted hearts, along the way
the rising sun sets upon the fogged waft
to blend into a white and blue bouquet.

As bolder beams become a golden shaft
the will holds firm, and does not fall astray.
The rushing waters calm, in shallows draft
where muddy shores give way to arid clay,

to gaze upon the solemn desert lands,
an ancient river’s womb, these burning sands.

lesser stars

When we love, a seed deep within
begins to blossom, we reach for
a warmer Sun; we grow
in ways we could not otherwise do.
It is the beauty of love, and it rises into life.

When I see the rain of my care
and she becomes a flower in the desert;
a blossom in defiance of pitiless sands
a rebellion upon the waterless earth
a power to be where nothing else might

We hold a  blessing of time
before the fall into night;
it is as the power of tides
upon the greatness of the seas.
It cannot not lift weight of a world
but it changes the face that holds
a thousand pieces of the moon
and the fall of lesser stars.