True Self
Nameless stands with his back to the wall.
Desperate grappling of an unsettled mind.
Piercing screams emitting from some lost place.
Unsure of any fate, real or imagined.
Looking past a vague blackness,
slowly filling an empty jar on the shelf.
Cardboard dreams crumbling,
while paint peels off in layers of obscurity.
A disease of doubt...
The Removal of Sin in a World Without Sin
Turning once again toward the sea,
strong arms move my head
to look at the land instead,
a desert landscape beige, bland
sand the monotonous menu
for my eyes that have seen it all before.
Defiant, I turn to feast on the wild water,
currents pushing the shore...
I PASS YOU AN EMPTY SKY
I just
love when
I pass you
an empty
sky
and you
spin it
then
hand me
back
a fistful
of stars.
ENTANGLEMENT 1
You reach through
this spiral of settling light
and touch
a drifting,
mislaid piece
of dust.
You lift it
and somewhere else
in time and space,
something in me
rises.
ENTANGLEMENT 2
On this ground I plant
a seed.
I lay by this mound
of peat moss and...
TRIATHLON
Jane was in Vancouver one day and she stood
at the window and saw a woman crawling out
of the sea. The woman started running really
fast on the beach until she reached a bicycle
and then she hopped on it and kept going.
“Wow!” Jane said, “I just saw the evolution
of mankind in...
suicide
paula’s weak moment
leaving me early
sad lonely feeling
nightly she returns
softly whispering
her lost love
still in my heart
bliss
alone in library
empty used bookstore
roaming shelves
sacred experience
like attending church
feeling hopeful promise
quietly turning pages
becoming dreamer again
freedom
waking to birdsong
before first light
building small fire
boiling water from stream
instant coffee
oats in tin cup
ready for journey
picking way over deadfall
brushing aside cobwebs
escaping...
Distant Thunder
I. Monster Mash
My sister noticed first:
“You walk like an old lady.”
I was forty-six, but she was right.
I could not, would not, see.
One day on the beach in Hermosa,
walking along the shore,
I stopped and looked back.
The sea tried to hide the evidence
but I was too quick:
step slide, step slide,...
THE MAGIC OF STILLNESS AND THE CHAOTIC
Some people, lost souls,
caught in the absurdity of noise,
create magical stillness
out of the chaotic
outwitting comprehension.
Other lost souls,
caught in the absurdity of silence,
create the chaotic
out of magical stillness
sidestepping incomprehension.
I, confused by both noise and silence,
adoring absurdity yet not knowing
which is more magical
or comprehensible,
stillness or...
THE TRANSLATOR
You once contributed to a study. You said
what you took seemed superior to what you left behind.
You got the letter but never joined the team.
You put on a different costume, but you’re always a shaman.
You said you would storm the studio
and seize the local reality from the projectors.
You...
On The Vasettha Sutta
Two Brahmins brought the Blessed One a dispute.
One argued, We were born pure into this caste.
The second claimed, Class is by virtue of actions.
Buddha, who often stayed silent, untouchable,
above such fray, discoursed in no uncertain terms:
Grasses or trees are distinct from birth, not man.
Still twenty-five hundred...
Old Men Walk Funny
Old men walk funny with shadows and time eating at their heels.
Pediatric walkers, prostate exams, bend over, then most die.
They grow poor, leave their grocery list at home,
and forget their social security checks bank account numbers,
dwell on whether they wear dentures, uppers or lowers;
did they...
Love-Child
Hugging his belly against my womb
He chimes exuberance galore
Through the placenta of my soul
And chase my hum in a strum
Like a frisking fawn
With melodies stacked
Under a banished bay
Drenched in kaleidoscopic notes
We gather them with bare hands
To compose the sky mottled gray
Like a charismatic vowel
Dilating a barren consonant
He conducts
In return,...