Category Archives: #poetry

THE HELMSMEN ROSE

\by the way, the land ?”
cocked a brow \of our own separate shores, the moon was lit to see the
stacks of hay bare, all brawny with large pairs of eyes beneath cabbage green skin, two spit clouds hovered from their open mouth, making a cat-like call, then leaped into the sky in somersault, and back to their stooks they proceeded, smoothing their chins with their hands.

— the world might have cared but these men, they were chasers; for us they took up together, and uncharged by fear, raised their sword over their heads.

side by side the helmsmen, looking with eyes of pale ice, drawn swords with an eager desire.
flick- the swords’ fingers moved as the helmsmen stepped out into the ice-caught wind, and went down to their knees and stood still and ice-smacked.

The first helmsman fell in battle, a broadsword strike cut clean through his face and dug deep into his chest, the blood spurted out, as each helmsman stood silently in a pose of stone — then the second helmsman from the right hurried with a cold, light of steel, to strike and the echo of his leap echoed through the air to strike from the left, their opposing lines locked in an invisible tug-of-war.

Each his comrades sprang to his aid, eyes twinkling with humor and a fiery arrogance (we all played army, we all survived, we all became famous stacking our walls with marbles).
From above, a dove tore above the warring helmsmen, blending with the sun-lit green, dropping to earth with an almighty clap of its wings, and darted out of sight.

The helmsmen rose, but the warring lines had re-emerged and began to gather the best looking arrows and each hoped to strike first. The bird had never left, but time passed without a note (but now, it was gone even as time had passed before.

We are older now, the birds have flown through the house, gone to sleep). \)

The dove knew that its days were spent, that it had flitted with a golden bell, leaving behind an empty sound (The birds have grown old, but not much more, as there are fewer of us with thoughts to hatch out into a new stage of growth, which would bring in more winged predators).
But the dove did not know that the winged men had grown old, that their dreams had waned into simple memories.

:: 02.26.2021 ::


EQUILIBRIUM

TAKE  the morning
take the night
as you will!

BRING the mud
dredge the water
filled to brim!

of life with death.

i took the sun
i took the moon
as love commanded

and lived my life.

How the world grew
How hearts grew
How my Life became

    –> all I knew!

:: 03.06.2021 ::


YOU ARE HERE WITH ME

I want you to know
one thing. You know how this is: if i look at the crystal moon, at the red branch
of the slow autumn at my window, if i touch near the fire the impalpable ash
or the wrinkled body of the log, everything carries me to you,
as if everything that exists, aromas, light, metals,
were little boats that sail toward those isles of yours that wait for me.
Well, now, if little by little you stop loving me I shall stop loving you little by little.
If suddenly you forget me do not look for me, for I shall already have forgotten you.
If you think it long and mad, the wind of banners that passes through my life,
and you decide to leave me at the shore of the heart where I have roots,
remember that on that day, at that hour, I shall lift my arms and my roots will set off
to seek another land.

But if each day, each hour, you feel that you are destined for me with implacable sweetness,
if each day a flower climbs up to your lips to seek me, ah my love, ah my own,
in me all that fire is repeated, in me nothing is extinguished or forgotten,
my love feeds on your love, beloved, and as long as you live it will be in your arms
without leaving mine.

Those moments when your heart stops beating for me like the moment when I first stepped
on the moon, the time I got a colostomy— those moments are what I treasure most,
the flow of blood in my veins, the enveloping of my heart.
I have been longing since the first night that I spoke to you.

My body had always been content, and had always had the sound of your laughter.
In the first thousand times that I touched your hand, I kept them still.
I could feel my body, I could feel the blood flow, I could even feel my heart pumping,
and still I could not say a word.
And I still do not know why.
Now I always speak. Now I am not content, I feel more pain.
My tears freeze like those on the glass of a window, like tiny crystals of ice.
Now my body is not content, in my mind and heart not in my soul.
Perhaps there are moments when I know that your love for me is more
than I can bear.
Perhaps it is in the hour when I see my life descending,
when I smell the last breath of summer, when the daily walk on the river takes me far from you,
perhaps it is in these moments that I cry for you.
And as long as you hear me, as long as I am alive, my tears are filled with your blood.
Sometimes in my heart, I am so full that I burst, and I think that my heart has come to an end,
and I understand, through my tears, that you are the one who is dearer to me
than I am to myself.

At that moment my heart feels as if I am one of those saplings that have roots in the earth,
and as long as your love does not die, your roots will not die either.
That is the truth. And if the day comes when my roots set off to find you, and your love dies,
my life will come to an end, and I hope that at that moment even if my heart is in pieces,
the sound of your laughter will echo in my mind, and it will say “I remember.”

Nothing in this world can make me happy.
Nothing in this world can calm my fears.
I am never happy. I am always in pain.
I have tried for many years to find the way through the darkness
and the cold, but my soul cannot accept it.
And there is no escape.
I dream of something that will make me happy, and I wake up and find myself with my heart in my hand.
And I can not cry for happiness, and I cannot cry for death.

I cannot cry for the things that I love.
I cannot cry for the things that I have lost.
I cannot cry because I am afraid.
And so I cry, and I weep, and I am weak, and I am so very alone,
but I cry and I weep, because you are not there, and I do not know
what is right.

I have tried to love and to hate, to live and to die, but I cannot understand
or love or hate.

You are not there with me, in my love, in my hate.

You are not there in the sea.
You are not there in the sky.

I walk in a place where no one knows me.
I walk in a place where no one needs me.
I walk in a place where no one can hear me.
I walk in a place where I do not fit,
I walk in a place where I have no place to stay.

But I have so much love, and I have so much pain.

And still, I will not let you go.

You are so near to me, so near.

I cannot run.
I cannot hide.
I will not let you go.
I cannot explain.
I will not explain.
I will not cry.
I will not cry.
I will not cry.

You are not there.
You are there.
You are there.
In my mind.
In my heart.
In my soul.
In my very soul.
You are there, with me.

:: 02.25.2021 ::


MY WIFE

INSPIRED BY ANDRE BRETON
(1896 – 1966: Freedom Of Love)

My wife with the eyes of an archangel of the nude
asking me to come to bed.
with the eyes of a unicorn riding on the back of a dragon
whilst i am the beggar upon a donkey
with the eyes of a column without mortar and of hands
My wife with the eyes of a lake the ocean flowed into
With the eyes of a pen and with the eye of a child
telling me wonderful bedtime stories of Life.
My wife with the eyes of a butterfly
of a woman who is just stepping off her horse
My wife with the eyes of a fox of the panther’s head
with the eyes of a snake
hissing at the inequalities of life.
My wife with the eyes of a cold drink of water
quenching my thrist for love and life.
with the eyes of the beak of a dove
with the mind of a bastard twin
with the skin of a smooth-jacket’s boot
with the brilliant smell of a green ear of corn
speaking through Nature with her heart.
My wife with the mind of a simile
with the body of a handful of sea-pearls
and with the Soul of a sun with a tail of serpents
My wife with the eyes of a broken dagger
and with the feelings of a smouldering petrol-bomb
My wife with the eyes of a pain in her thumb
like the swollen member between my legs.
My wife with the eyes of an exclamation point
My Love with the eyes of a box of bottled messages
as the curves of a wheel of apples
My wife with the eyes of a ring-gargoyle
My wife with the eyes of the German eagle
My wife with the eyes of a cannonball dropped into the rocks
carving love into the mountain of my personal Life.
My wife with the eyes of a crane weeping
My wife with the eyes of a nightjar’s feather
My wife with the eyes of a sceptre
My wife with the eyes of an ice-bucket containing a koi
My wife with the eyes of a house-smoker’s chimney
feeding all who come to know her kindness.
My wife with the eyes of the olive and of the lotus
My wife with the eyes of an eel and of the slipper of a cow
My wife with the eyes of an abacus containing a scarab
My wife with the eyes of a seagull

is my wife is my love is my own inspiration in this Life.

:: 02.07.2021 ::


LAT DOLCE VITA (the sweet life)

There’d be no unemployment, no crime, no war for profit; no environmental hell
for thousands of good-hearted lives.

You can’t just take so much paper so putting it off would mean at least ten
not calling till the 11th hour and hoping that you’ll forget what you needed —
i’m in a zoo somewhere between silence and (a)the mad hatter’s court of love
where the loneliness could prove impossible; i’ve been way too loquacious all day
all this time i’ve been riding in this very leather-bound bus how’d i get to this
zoo? maybe too much of this
counting bills counting wheat in the fields
counting my cash on the street
counting time in a silence-devoid world
The natural state of mankind is boredom trying to find the meaning in something so small
i’ve got too many words up in my head!
If you see a stranger carrying an extra pair of sunglasses, don’t steal them. We all
have them. They’re free.

Once in a lifetime, you meet someone who seems to have no fear. They don’t blink. They have
nothing to lose. I used to wish there was someone like that in my life, but all I’ve got
is a little bit of fear.

You can take the boy out of the country, but you can’t take the country out of the boy. What can I say?
Lizard-head heartbroken the love has gone — boo hoo you’re so fine, mama
: first wind it and you want to know if I still love you?

YOU, COME IN HERE, DON’T LEAVE until YOU’VE JOKED AND BEEN WRITTEN!
TIME DRIVER, THE NAMECHE MACHINE la dolce vita what a wonderful disguise
and this has been my argument ever since it’s as true today as it was then, for there’s a new king
who’s clothed in human suffering’s radiance treating it like toothpaste to his face
waiting for us to laugh at the pretend form of our wives and to learn from the conman; he’s played
all his own moves, but he’s still just a kid.
So we all shut up, on a rampage of rants and sarcasm to serve the king’s audacity; nobody wins forever
who’s ever been “the funny” when you wanted to be “the wise”?
we’re here to pick up the pieces, we get the job done, we go home
we’ll never see the boy king’s face until the queen’s hair grows back
(and he gets wise and goes home to his queen and gets “the funny” back) if the boy king turnS on us
we’ll all be dead, so, sing, ride, don’t sweat the consequences of casual cynicism, anything goes;

wear my crown and be the greatest boss of all.

i love you.

:: 01.29.2021 ::


WE DO NOT WAKE UP

We do not wake up, there is a valley of sorrow and misery, and in the center a dark demon glares with a hatred we cannot understand, a knowledge we cannot see.

We know nothing, we are nothing, we sit in a valley of weeping for ourselves, we realize there is no one to help us, and we wish that when the heart of love is finally destroyed andwe can fall into ourselves, into our true nature.

It is sad, but from it comes the healing, when we realize that we are sick in ourselves and we must reach out to a partner who will touch us in the wound, so that the poison may slowly be expelled, so we can live as an organism, as we were born to do.

I think we have to take the time to come to this realization that we want to stay with our minds.
We have been damaged by our children by ourselves and by other forces, and the hardest thing to do is to come to terms with this.

It is easy for a mother to give birth, but it is hard for her to watch her child grow into a whole and healthy man while she is always behind.

She feels anxious, frightened of losing what little she has left to give. Men do not share this fear. They are not even afraid of death.

They think they know the world and their problems, and they will always keep fighting.

We do not even need to understand their logic nor to get inside their heads. They are in the middle of an existential war they are always fighting against something they do not even know.

So men do not need to fear, and if they do, it is because they are hard and cold, with their knives and guns and dogs that bite.

A mother is afraid:

if her child will not return from school
if he will not come back after a quarrel
if he is running around with another girl
if he does not read.

A man is afraid of something else, i don’t know what.

We are not animals.
We are thinking beings.
We feel too much,
we talk too much,
we have to communicate our deepest thoughts to others,
then we must understand their thought processes and their weaknesses, and they must understand ours.

But we must learn to communicate with ourselves, to love ourselves, because as a creature we are vulnerable.

But also as a thinker, we are loved, we can love other creatures, our children, even the world.
At one time there was a wild animal hunting in the hills, when he came upon a village it was a very sad time.

The men had been working hard and not having any luck.
But the women were crying,
saying, “You do not need to work so hard, my beloved men,
there are big dreams, there are old dreams,
as old as the hills. We love you so much that we wait for you,
we send you messages when you do not see them, we touch your dreams
with our minds, we send you questions, we can tell you how we feel
for you, because the animal knows that he is loved.”

The women watched the animal as he ate and drank,
smelled the air, noticed their faces.
Then he got up from his seat, moved through the village,
and let himself be known.

He held out his paw to the men and it was accepted with joy.

Some ran to touch him.

He led the women into the village and they welcomed him into their homes,
and wept for joy.

I thought, “The creatures know they are loved.”

But they also know that they are afraid of dying, that their own blood can come to kill them.

I thought, “The animals are in danger, too.”

But they do not know this, because they are not close to their fear, they do not realize it is very close to them,
close in their minds.

And when I thought these things, I heard a noise in the jungle,
the sound of a motor.

It made my ears ring, but it did not frighten me.
The animal took a few steps toward it.

But it did not know where it was coming from.

And when it did, it took off.

In the meantime, in the village, all of the men had stopped working.

They were talking.

They were trying to understand each other.

They were moving their hands in the air.

They were communicating.

Some of the women went to touch the men.

They started crying.

Some held their husbands and children.

They were giving away the little they had.

Their own blood had turned to blood of the animal.

That is why they are always thinking of the animals.

Then they saw me.

I was walking with the animal,

and we had gone to a cave.

I think the animal wanted to give something to the women.

I thought,

“the animal is giving away a piece of himself,

but I will stay with him.”

So I went inside with him.

Inside, the air was cold.

It was dark.

But I had a light,

and my blood made a light.

There was a pungent smell.

The eyes of all the creatures were fixed on me.

But they did not frighten me.

I have been here before.

I was here when I made the first birds.

:: 01.27.2021 ::


NOW MY GOWN AND TULLE

Now my Gown and Tulle
feel the Wind that weaves a Shade –
and on the roof i cannot tell
since the picture there is –
because Time, a Form, stood a-hiding
and well It did.

Words and Music (my own)
Performed by James Dale
and Love.

“He is oft-injured by his men
or with their Menages,

‘I think I hear him say:
“His Portents are the Dews –
His Words the Dews – and Mine –
His Ends are Ieya’s.

“I wish this next Scene were ended
with the Destination of my own Fate –
“The Flight of Orpheus, I suppose,
“Off the Coast of Homer’s Folly –
Or Death – to Eternity.”

Futility was King in the play, under the pen of D. H. Lawrence.
I hope he was a reader of Shakespeare.

Well, I cannot write about this.
It is really too late.
There was an early book, and there is always another.
The fact that Lawrence is a poet is very well known;
and many of his poems have been put to music.

i have heard those – sometimes for many times – though
i should hate to go against the dead.

A great deal is being written about D. H. Lawrence
in the second decade of the twenty-first century.

:: 01.26.2021 ::


ROADSIDE BILLBOARD SLOGANS (1940s-1960s)

TOASTER oven sandwich grin on the family corner market keeping all the secrets within your baby warehouse teach your kids about love. Take 30 percent off their soul and i like your mouth come on in; let life fill your pie hole-soul & don’t go bacon my heart
: i couldn’t if I fried! and you can’t drink all day if you don’t start in the morning! and T.Troup was a chemist i’ve been missing life reading-seeing soundbite lies; the first concentrated lies come from roadside billboards like-life riding in a Chevrolet.


THE thing what IS IT? a golden opportunity sale family fun!  shakes & funnel cakes ~~ beef jerky too! and Wall Drug sells coffee for 5 cents a time ago

“YOUR MESSAGE HERE”


for 300.00 a month

:: 07-05-2015 ::


SO NOW

so now

That the Iris opens her eyes upon early morning sun
that the wind dances her showy flowers and is luck
the lost voice of forgotten lovers?

some Not

when wind forgets its dance and green devours
(feelings) by nature’s beauty shall the fisherMen
of hearts sail from continent to unknown places;
their gravely instilled by amorous desire.

some NullAS not would never go there.

:: 01.21.2021 ::


LOVE, FEAR, LUST OR GREED

Love, fear, lust or greed?
A thousand diseases blowing in the wind;
the hungry voices of hatred eating each side!
i caused pain within my life, that i did,
deciding at birth to give care upon
the blue marble i landed upon with baby feet.

i uplifted the crust of Mother Earth,
and swift torrential rush of drama-death;
only mockingbirds sing at night sweetly.

And the starRock light stabs the night
falling, falling, falling everywhere
is the moon and Her Light!

Blossoming memory: well the last days
of winter, of my life which was as full of
dim, mystic musings, and when one day,
my soul was high, and my body was a fountain,
my mind in cloudy wisdom;
as i had been taught a certain
manifestation of guilt, then i understood
the meaning of life!

So i climbed down from the high-place, in
my heart, and in my mind, each life cycle,
chased with the fall of leaves, cradled in
the arms of the earth bringing back meaning of life
each hour of every day.

As i did so, i put in a stasis a profound
tree-spirit; my movements in time could not be
restored, my mind was silent, an image seen
in my consciousness was born of my broken heart,
it was born of care for my precious soul!

But the sacred tree-spirit i brought
to life was proud, it ignored me,
it stayed on the heights of my mind!
i knew that even the past has a home in the future,
that the stars which never fall in the rain,
their waves have no end, have risen in the trees
of my life, and a new dawn was coming.

It filled me with hope.

:: 01.16.2021 ::