the winter of small men

winter urges the world
to rest and gather, precious water
and the spirit feeds its need to soak-in
the blessings of seasons past and rest
that eases tomorrow's burden

The spring that rests like a seed
in the spirit's ever fertile soil
sown in the want for more and more life
it is the path to happiness in the reach
for the healing warmth of the sun
and abundance.

So unlike the winter of small men
spare and ungiving, lost in  a fruitless
search for a greater emptiness- the seeming strength
to ignore the suffering of others, and find
an abundance for the few...
so unlike the world, as it cradles all
so unlike the gifts the world has given
to each of you.

a flower in spring

There is a mystery to love
denied unto hatred, which proceeds
from the lack of care.
it is the the bounty and wonder of the sea
reduced to the fill of a dime-store saucer
so diminshed is the life given to hatred.

it is real so much as love is ephemeral
hatred is a brick bound in mortar
within an impassable wall
but it is beause of its solid strength
its ground in the real world
that it fails the eternal tests

hatred passes away, it dies with
the infected lives, it goes to feed
uncaring worms, and it returns
as a flower in spring, a thing
like few others
that inspires Love.

unbridled path

I have grown distant from the sky,
from the inviting mysteries of faraway fires
the teeming night of the past that visits
fresh to the wondering eye and taunts
imagination for its difficult reality-
travelers from the time before
the world on which I stand.

It is the minutiae, the bacterium scale
of tedium that keeps a greatness at bay;
the way a puddle can keep the man from
a destined step, or the way a breeze can alter
a life-altering thought, and as a wisp of smoke
curls to reprise a precious memory.

All the world can seem a folly when
days begin and end in a circle with no particular gain
and the distant sky, even in memory, whispers;
it is waiting, holding my place
upon its unbridled path to forever.

Against the Current

 

the deepest river flows
and from a vantage it seems so slow
that the change is barely perceived.
from the twig in the stream
watching the shore line, fade
like a dream we try to remember and hold
it is suddenly fresh, then old and
gone cold as a fire-less hearth;
cold like the night in unwanted loneliness
cold, like the spring rain on bare skin.
the deepest river
speeds away as we watch it yet stays
long enough to make us feel--
like a long sought kiss, one that we miss
before and after-- and the woman
borrows the deep river, and i find it,
in her wide dark eyes

Author Notes

inspired by Current  by Alan Soldofsky  . 

a deeper slice of sky

Crowding against the cold
skin gathers itself to contain inner heat.
A prickled outward skin to keep heat within
and the world notices little
of the battle in brittle layers of life.
It is an ordinary winter day, and yet the sun
betrays the golden face of warmth;
aslant and through a deeper slice of sky,
we tremble and yearn for calendars to turn

faster

No matter the width of the world
one only feels the nearest inch, and in an endless bound
of space and time, sitting at sea's edge
it is the ship launched by the winded breath
of the mind's own sky, takes the onward path
to nothing and back, and all along the way,
creation in each inhale, filling forms
of bubbled galaxies in each passed breath

slower

than the pulsing light of life, can it become
a snail foot, when missing the reason
for the next step, when the only fear
is that tomorrow arrives before I can repair
today.

Morning and America

It is morning in America

Because that is what comes after

An emptiness of stolen joy

In the night’s darkest hours.

Sown on winds of hope, now reap the whilrlwind 

a coming harvest from seeds of care

that fight and survive in fallow ground

Earth's sweet breath fouled by hatred.

Morning in America

Because the fiber of your being

Is resistant to destruction; though numbed by false sensation,

Will finally recoil from the temptation to wound

the weak ... simply because they are weaker

Morning, and the coming day

Holds promise of greatness

That the thin fabric and bare bones

Made by the sweat and tears of ancestors

Comes alive by the will of their prayers

To fulfill so many wishes for freedom

From the mean lash, and now to this day

It is freedom from a meaner lash of privilege

Morning and America, rising to a song of life

Precious beyond wealth, meaningful beyond measure;

it is the un-purchasable gift of a loving world.

It is Morning, when bleak darkness fades

To the rhythmic rise of an unstoppable tide;

The human spirit is not content to suffer

and rebellions seep through pores, as we

reach for the generosity of the Sun

The light of life has no favorite

leaves no one in shadow, it carries the spark

of creation;  it is we- connected, inseparably

in the image of something far greater, and

by Morning, it calls a day reckoned for justice

in the timeless want of the soul.

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  

beija-flor

The whirring hiss and softest kiss

At  the edge of the petal

As furious wings belie

The peace of a moment…beija-flor

The burning yearning for sweetness fulfilled

As life spills into life

At the flower of the heart

A wind borne search, as thin air carries

A vaunt will to persist, an essence of the core

And seeps into the pores of an unwitting world

That knows so little of each and so much of all

That each stir of breeze has purpose

Every seed a greatness of hope

And every whimper, a pause at lips

That would speak rebellion until

 a tender surrender

uma Bieja- flor  Brazilian Portuguese literally means the flower kiss, to most of the world it is the hummingbird, for me  it will always be the flower kiss.

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.

among night fires...

I was born beneath a dying star
its deep red glows from the past, afar
a light set free on a far flung  journey
Among night fires alone in the cold
defiant flames that yet grow old

the wane of life counts me from the start
down fleeting joys and pain, fill the heart
as if wind-born sands falling through my hands.
The lash of forgiveness leaves the deepest scar
I race against the night, beneath a dying star.

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.

saudade to unlived life

The universe became a dream
a snowflake formed of galaxies
drifted in light-less cold, it beams
a candle flickered, it breathes 
of an Eternal Wind

and, upon it all

I drape this meager reach of life
from an immortal perch of thought
and build a mountain of faith
to stand above the curved mold of time
Seeing places I can never be, bound as all, we
have created chains from the will to be free.

Anchored in mire of other men's greed
seduced by banal fantasies of need, we lie
upon a wilted meadow
Watch carefree birds and chameleon clouds fly
as we quick descent to dust of dusty stars.
Only the mind is free to be as wont, only the will
is able to chart the untraveled parts of human journeys.
There is a creeping door, that closes more upon
each breath, life's brief flame, and we
the brittle filament and feel this moment
a saudade to the unlived life,
a deeply-missed could have been, we place
into a daily grave

a short menu...

time paints in vivid strokes
as if a canvas, memory accepts
the colors of given days and blends
like the bend of sun and world's end
where only our idea of God can accept
the gift of the petal's edge

Memory shreds the ordered flow
into places we wish to go, and things we would;
and should is a passport to the space between
the sides of the page, burrow like leaf miners
raise the surface till it breaks, obliterates the fates
that have fallen once.

It is the comings and goings that do not lie;
nor morph into more pleasing substance-
alive or not, in the end...it is a short menu
for such a learned palate, and such eclectic tastes...

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

in my heart ...

You live in my heart, a place of thought

Wherein I cannot deny things

I accept as truths

It is resistant to the gravity of logic and convention;

It has the magic of wishes, and the powers

of divine creation.

I was... before I was born, and to that place

from which I came, I shall truly return,

And You

Will be there with me, matched

in the vault of my treasures, among

the gems and jewels of my existence.

You

who loved me on your splendid nipple

You who lifted me from fragile youth,

and You who loved me through this body

as if it were my eternal soul

All of You

The bricks and mortar

of the house my spirit calls home

the firmament on which I stand

When there is nothing of the world,

and nothing made of matter; there will be

All of You, and the me...All of You have made.

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.

the sparrow and the fishes

There was celebration, in usually quiet congregation

hand-clapping thundered, and rose to rafters.

Bits and chips of leaded paint fell,

like confetti, or moments of immense sincerity,

and Walmart said Amen!

The God of Lesser Corporations,

HIS children reborn, artificial bodies filled-

Transfiguration, spirit to cash-mere flesh,

with life and blood more real than menstruation.

In gloried Halls like Valhalla

rituals profound as Jehovah's, witness to

an awakening, the freedom to be

life and breath entities, by a Godly Court

a decree of  life from ink and paper.

The Spirit of God

moved upon the face of  articles of incorporation

let there be life...

and Walmart said Amen!

Wither the woman, vessel of saints and saviours

your choice to live in an era of manly–men.

Virtue can corrupt the Judges, when measured

by faith in penises. Cast wide the net

and capture every offending fish

for they have thoughts of freedom

choice a voice which interferes
 with the dearer freedom,

the favorite of the law, and only God saw

the sparrows and the fishes

 For the sparrow wanteth not and

 like the fish, thrive in floods of love,

thrash and run in tides of caring,

gathering scraps and pieces of life
 into loving existence.

They boldly hold... 

“there shall be no more waterless sky nor airless water”!

The manly-men scoff, for in sound petition
hallelujahs rise among them, called for Profits

They bare knives and forks for feast and care not
for drought or things beneath the waters.

They know, choice is on the wing of the sparrow

and in the wish of the multiplied fish,

and Walmart said Amen!

_______________________________________

The U.S Supreme Court has ruled (Burwell vs. Hobby Lobby) that for-profit corporations can have religious beliefs; and  which beliefs can excuse them from obeying the laws that apply to them.  While the ruling purports to limit itself to reproductive rights, it does not. This ruling has changed the law into a place where wealth and privilege now have powers to dictate a selective assortment of behaviour controls and morals. In effect it extends and ratifies private efforts to control American citizens.