Monday, October 29, 2007

In the morning I awake
and fake twitching
just to get you itching
to kick me out of bed.
Said trick is all to get
you to roust me
with your sweet kick
and then douse me
with your love’s mock:

“Baby, you are the rock
upon which
I rest my head.”

In the day to kill tired
so wired I drink
an espresso and think
you want to hear my confess-o-
matic malarkey
and that you hark me
because you bark at me
with your crooked grin:

“Honey, you are the wind
beneath my
feathery skirts.”

At night when all light is done,
I reply:

“Darlin’, you are the one,
the sun
that blinds
the twinkle in my eye.“

Saturday, October 27, 2007

Tuesday, October 23, 2007

I sleep with a dulled sword under my pillow
The soft raspings that it once made
While sharpened before battle
Whisper to me in the night
Call to be brought forth again
Call for blood
For the heads of my deep-set distraction: depression, despondence, dejection, diluted diffusion, demanding disillusion, diatribe-filled dissident distinction… damn, perhaps just a dream:

Like samurai of old I leap from utter mountainlakestillness in my bed, from flat to flightful feet in a moment of sweeping splendid smoothness where blankets part like the pelican wings at fluttery takeoff and blade emerges from feathered sheath with a steel hiss as air parts like waves from prow. Snickersnack high excaliber whipcrack of sword through air stale as spent sorries. My hands like light leaves flash the night without worry, caring only for cracks in the oxygen current where these parries and thrusts avert cracking functional and whole molecules and cause such turbulence as to rearrange the whole swirling ambiance, shake up all deep-set situation.

Wednesday, October 10, 2007

It might be high-noon bright on your skin
when in a flash and with a start
you realize it’s midnight in your heart—
I sure hope the stars will do their part.

You might be standing firmly alone
in sight of the next train out of town
then, at the first slight slip
into unconsciousness, the first
dozing dip into drifting off,
your whole world shifts
and your eyelids lift
to spouse and kids
bringing you home
with a flower for each
year you’ll never again spend on your own.

You may have a career
and on payday go out to have a beer
and drink to being in the clear
when with a sputter and a lurch,
say, you find yourself begging drunk in a gutter
just pray they pass not with a sickened shudder
but with a smile of sympathy to send them
on their sobered and newly steady way.

It might be high-noon bright on your skin
when in a flash and with a start
you realize it’s midnight in your heart—
I sure hope the stars will do their part.

Monday, October 08, 2007

I dropped a tear in the bucket
for every name that slipped my tongue
for every face that skipped my mind
for every friend whom I failed a prayer to find

Bearing the rising reservoir,
I irrigated my garden
of regret, assuming that salt
rendered earth infertile, turned seeds to stone
so this grim gardener would need not atone
for weeds fertilized with lax fault.

I dropped a tear in the bucket
listened to the resounding chime
nodded world-weary head in time
to the oscillating din of high-low echoes,
glanced a rueful grin at my dearest neglected
and whispered a steady, gleaming gaze to
my frail limits…

and then – unexpected –
clear-eyed vision graced me
with knees-in-earth-fertile humility

Saturday, October 06, 2007

Duermo por la calle por el barrio por la ciudad
vivo con la gente que no calla con necesidad
y sus voces, vivos, en mi mente translucientes,
me dijeron que ha sido un placer – buena gente.
Me pregunto por qué algunos comen y otros sufren.
Mi asunto es cuidar a los que amo y que
amen.

Wednesday, October 03, 2007

what with this and that,
with what reason do you get from tit to tat?
the bric-a-brac left by the pell-mell
hustle-bustle will
at the drop of the cat in the hat muddle
your o-so-modern thinking muscle:

neon signs scream fat-faced lies of get quick, rich
cops in cars leer, forked tongue-n-cheeky, make you sit, sick.
can’t stagger no more from bureaucrat
to high-on-shooting-life fat cat;
that semi-automatic affidavit
won’t fast-track you through this one, jack,

this is the proverbial kick-back;
the gun you thought was just quick-cash
crashed your forehead, put the backlash-smack-down your veins,
you better go slack or you’ll crack in pain,
smashed apart by this slam-bangin-
tornado-track-stackeddeck madhouse,
gonna distort-contort-pervert
your every intention my friend
unless you contend, release the tension,
transform the teeming seeming chaos
with collective-necessity-compelled invention, and bend.

blend the booty-shakin’ bop you snatch
as it falls from fifty-fifth floor flats
with jackhammer concussions and cursing convulsions
that strike your harried strut
to provide the street-beat
you need to give your feet that hip hop-step
to propel you and repel that lock-stock-step,
forcefed-barrelvision, dregs-of-drugs, credit-card-incision
mentality and gift you that shift-shapin’, high-flyin’
hard-hittin’ awareness of reality.

what with this and that,
with what reason do we get from tit to tat?
the bric-a-brac left by the pell-mell
hustle-bustle will
at the drop of the cat in the hat muddle
your o-so-modern thinking muscle:

see so many acting like mass-paidoff clones
of apathetic stone, yet all feeling alone
in the shame-game, unable to stomach their own free will,
too comfortable to digest, let others kill-clean-process
in their name while they profess it ain’t complacency,
just another victim of modern-massmurder of agency?

well we’ll sing them strength with soul-imbued skill,
but won’t cut it with that same old pop-slop-swill,
gotta concoct new notion-potions and let ‘em glut on it
distill saintly-spirits to set their blood in motion:
harvest what soul-quaking stimulation scatters our path,
transcend it into life-shaking creation.

Monday, October 01, 2007

We climbed a mountain to grasp at sky,
But as we exalted in reaching, fingers outstretched,
A spirit told us to simply sit in awe:
Wait for Sun to kiss Earth
And be held by air on fire
Then be led by moon washing down the valley.
Why fight for a fistful for yourself
When all the world wants to hold you as its own?