My Poetry, Musings,
and stuff......
~~Fence Hopping~~
The infinite hellos in one goodbye
are lost in limitations we design
Those copper-penney words and wonders seen
give hints to treasures lurking in between.
As many yous and I's fill up the place
too often designated empty space
as dwell the was and will-be in the now
and countless overs rising from below
What vastness still lies vaulted in our mind?
--How many of our breaths dance in the wind.
~~Of Zoos and Marriage~~
Her majesty wrapped in ebon velvet cloak,
this travesty of an august queen once spoke
in thundering disapproval of her new-found castle walls.
Once lightning flashed from seething eyes.
The erstwhile stride has lost its pride.
Put in a cage for her protection,
safe from feral predilection
What he calls love is veiled subjection.
While peering through the barred partition,
I nod my head in recognition.
~~Homesick~~
The city wears a tattered shroud of crowded isolation
Success exhibits hopeful lies to the eyes of desolation
The bodies reek of scorching flesh, the soul's in violation
worshipping minds, blind leading blind, to their annihilation
Reality is bought and sold
The sky is black, the earth is cold
The bolstered blouse of youth's grown old, too thin for insulation
All offering doors that have no keys
Saltwater beads touch cheeks and freeze
I've reaped and sown
If Thy condone
Can I come home now, please?
~~Behind Your Eyes~~
Behind your eyes
shines gold of ancient suns.
The thunderous rejoice of newborn cries.
A near-forgotten voice, the thread that runs
between our souls. It ties
one to another. There
behind our eyes.
Behind your eyes
a glimpse of ages past
flits by almost too swift to recognize.
The long awaited gift of sight at last
mends lenses scratched with lies
of death. The truth stands bare
behind your eyes.
Behind your eyes
shines love constrained by word.
The glow--eternal flame that flesh denies,
sweet melody whose name sense leaves unheard,
breaks free from clouded skies
of mortal bounds to glare
behind your eyes.
~~First Snow~~
With my nose against the pane
I watched as God crushed
a million trillion diamonds
and with a tender breath
sent them floating gently down
past the now turned amber streetlamp
where, winking as they danced
they transformed the grey
familiar streets of Brooklyn youth
into a glitter-covered, far-away
land of magic.
The sun peeked through the covers
shook the sheets out
onto the moon
and yawned.
dawn.
~~When the Me You've Known is Gone~~
Never believe that you have lost me.
Although it seems my final breath
affirms the ultimate goodbye,
with mortal hindrance gone now I
am one with you and all in death.
Don't linger by my fraying frame
to mourn my passing. Ill-spent tears
you'll shed on tattered cloth that bears
no more of me than did my name.
Instead seek out the autumn leaves
in flaming glory, dropped to earth
to feed the soil for their rebirth.
What fool erects a tomb and grieves
beholding sunset's crimson skies,
as if for all of time was gone
the golden smile replaced each dawn
when then it seems the moonlight dies?
Does not the sun and moon still glow
unceasing, though your morning brings
dusk to another? Endless springs
succeeded by their winters show
the cycles of Eternity.
Be not deceived by bounded sight
to think my sun's been slain by night.
Look to the daybreak, there I'll be.
Never believe that you have lost me.
~~Advice to a Tiny Sailor~~
Sleep softly little one. Let wondrous dreams
remind you life is more than what it seems.
Keep warm within your ancient sense of True.
The schoolhouse you've created waits for you.
Keep faithful to the lesson books and playground swings
all molded in your in-between imaginings.
When old beliefs grow useless set them free.
Let no one else's glass shape what you see.
Remember as you catch a falling star,
that everything is part of who you are.
There are no gods or demons unless you want them.
Let other people's hells and heavens haunt them.
Each has the right to choose their own reality.
Each one as valid as the one you choose to see.
We're here to love and learn. Enjoy your part
a co-creator in God's work of art.
We're each a traveller on our chosen road.
On this unbounded stage, we've each our role.
Take pleasure in the sights and scenes around you.
Embrace your fellow travellers when they've found you.
Try not to hate what you find hard to bear.
Try not to be a prisoner to fear.
Let the sage within you be your guide
through the ebbs and flows of lifetime's tide.
Remember most of all, this world's your friend.
Remember more than this, you have no end.
OM your way home
to a dead-end
perfection heaven;
stagnant-swamp nirvana -
an eternal guilded turnip
up at the top.
Then what?
Spend eternity
on some hallowed pedestal
for turnip worshippers?
Well, if it's all the same to you,
mister guru,
think I'll take the next cloud out.
too many mosquitoes.
~~Spirit Songs~~
I came and wrote a story in the sand
where each succeeding fingertip embraced
the message from a seeming firmer hand.
With one more tide the tale will be erased.
And whispered ear to ear on out to sea,
to where the sounds and sentences are broken
into bright beads, unstrung, by such as we
who bore the seeds before such dreams were spoken
Amid the drops of countless shapes and tones,
each weaver plucks a gem to form his chain.
And each believes the garland formed he owns;
that on his strand his sole imprints remain.
How earnest are we in our comic stance
to plant in clouds a flag that bears our name.
While truly fame and failure reign by chance.
We maintain not the merit nor the blame.
I came and wrote a story in the sand.
Yet never will, until the final chapter
is long forgotten, come to understand
that never was this beach my story's captor.
Innocent am I
and aged beyond measure.
I stand in awe of morning
though I devised its line.
I giggle at the treetops
and play amid God's letters.
Yet somewhere I remember
the songs and stamps are mine.
~~Song on the Wind~~
Her song wafts through the open window
more real than the car alarm and barking dogs.
Haunting and familiar
like the lingering fragment of a dream,
just missed,
you close your eyes and try to recapture.
It sways and swirls around the room
that now seems crass and out of place,
beckoning these absurd stumps of clay
to join the dance they once knew.
The faint scent of a memory
lingers to taunt a grumbling soul.
The table is set
but I've forgotten my way home.
~~La Sagesse des Enfants~~
Comme elle est belle, La Jeunesse,
Avant que l'on apprenne. Tout
S'amusent, les petits. Cette sagesse
Quand on grandit est perdue.
Les nuages on ne regarde plus
Comme les animaux au ciel
Qui flottent et dansent pour toi, et tous
Les feuilles qui tombent comme du miel
Goutte `a goutte aux arbres. La lune
Est un vieillard qui sourit.
Il y a des châteaux dans les dunes.
Les etoiles -- un prince qui rit.
On oublie bien de voir partout
Quand on viellit, la Vrai Beauté.
Alors, mes amis, je souhaite pour vous,
La joie des enfants -- leur simplicité.
~~Answers~~
On these mornings,
Does a quiet grey rain
Sadden your skies?
Does the bitter-sweet melody
Of a lone violin
Come to a musician's ear
As a dream
Because my thoughts cry,
Or has your violin
Caused this morning?
When I laugh
Does a field of lemon
Daffodils explode
In foreign barren land
Closer than we realize?
Does your smile create
My dawn?
When I try,
Do you succeed?
How many tornadoes
Are spawned in my anger?
How many stars
Are born in my love?
How many forevers
Exist in my alone?
How many worlds are formed
With one question?
The search is over. With tired baggage stored
away, forever is calling just beyond.
And I, unheeding, unshackled by its bond
pass by the window of dreams I can't afford.
The ship is anchored. Its ragged sail, drawn down,
for want of mending, will find no eager hand.
While gull songs beckon, the muzzled helm, unmanned,
is left discarded with charts marked 'parts unknown'.
The cardboard replacements of a travel-wearied soul,
grown thin in their scuffed boots, are gladly laid to rest.
Their stowaway tour-guide, from journeying undressed,
lies too in her own bed, at peace while ghost bells toll.
The seeking is ended. The wishing well's sucked dry.
You'll find one less pilgrim in search of promised lands.
That brass-ring clad temptress seduces other hands,
while mine neither reach out, nor wait for fate's reply.
~~Ok, well that was a bit dreary, so this is a good place to insert a little goofiness. This is my first poem...or should I say, the first one I kept. I was about 13 or 14 when I wrote it, and I suppose I held on to it to remind me in later years to not take life or myself too seriously..............
I think I'd better warn you
Sometimes I'm kind of wierd.
You'll wonder if I really said
What you thought you just heard.
It's not that I'm a lunatic
Sometimes I make good sense.
And then there's times I moo at cows
And cackle back at hens.
I'll frown when I am happy
And smile when I am sad
But people do that all the time
It doesn't mean I'm mad.
One minute melodrama
Next minute like a clown
Trying to stand on my head
And watch birds fly upside-down.
Just when you think you know me
I'll change before your eyes.
One minute full of nonsense,
Next minute calm and wise.
Some laugh and say the doctor
Must have dropped her on her head.
But I'd rather think of myself
As "interesting" instead
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