To You

I’ve walked among the broken and handed out biscuits
And smiles
As I’ve wondered down the streets of the town
From block to block and slow side street to busy corner
And stoop
Greeting your eyes with a kind word or directions, if I knew
Them or you cared to hear
My whispered wishes riding the winds reaching your ears
“Lift up your heads and nod to one another”
I shook hands or waved to those of you that I knew
Or wished to know me
Encouraged those of you who sit, not knowing what you
Wait for
Sang with the street musicians, roaming about for dimes
I shared what was in my lungs with you
And you, others that are to come
The plants that kept me alive, their ancestors will you
What I breathe in at fall, their seed in your spring delight you
When there were parks I would watch the young parents
Watching their wards
Or feed the squirrels with those who had passed that time
Before me
But I feel your pulling away like the moon moving away from
The earth at only millimeters a decade
I feel the stretch of the universe, that movement of time
The town has become a city and there are too many streets for me
To cross
I leave those to you
I’ve sang my songs and now it is up to you to carry and call the tune
What materials that I was blessed to use is yours
I’m reduced to the atoms from which I rose
And into the silence that I was

Stephen Hawking Dances

Sitting on the cusp of my extinction
I’m perched on the cliffs of my uninhabited isle
Throwing bottles into the sea
Some are corked, some are not, some contain messages, others not
No two messages are the same, I think linearly
Because of the undertow, the rocks below are littered with glass
And some wet paper
And the beach down the way
Is covered with returns
I’ve been taking my living out of bottles again and I have plenty
I had over-understood your kindnesses
So all of the messages are about or to you
I have lived in exile too long and have only heard the
The rushing of the wind or only my heartbeat in my ears
Orange turning to red, cooling to green and then blue
I darn not close my eyes and watch what is on the inside
Projected onto my lids
At night I stare up into the stars as they dance around
I saw Stephen Hawking dance once
And the music that he stepped to was
“Nothing produces nothing, it produces something”
He proved, mathematically, what we’ve all known all along
There is nothing
Black holes don’t suck in all of time and space and
Turn them into nothing
They emit Hawking radiation
And begin the dance again
There is no end, just different states of being
So nice that equations are made to sing so eloquently
Like stars we’re all slamming into one another at the speed of light
Or traveling away from one another
Deeper and deeper into dark mattered space
Degrading as time takes its toll
I need to slam into other bodies and emit positive energy
Not just to sit and stare into space and drink and fart

And More Rain Comes Down

We’ve stopped watching the news
All they say is that more rain is coming
But I knew because of the heavy winter snows
And if the rains came all at once
We’d see the river roar outside its banks
The river is running fast and angry
Swallowing all of our fields and streets
Taking back what we had stolen
My great-great grandfather had escaped the trail of tears
And became European to settle this land
But he secretly kept the spirit of the people
And it’s been handed down to me as I have
Passed it along to my sons and daughters
Spring planting will be late this year
The river doesn’t bring riches to our fields anymore
Just mud that hardens like cement in the sun
We spent last night sandbagging the river bank
And I heard someone’s dog go by yelping at the dark
I moved as much as I could upstairs
Our second floor is groaning over the amount of stuff
That we have
And hope to keep
The wife is worn with worry
Over more than her great-grandmother’s porcelain
But we’re the lucky ones
Charlie’s house was taken
It sat on a bluff that the river ate away and then
His house fell into the muddy waters
The state guard would have been here to help
But no one is left here in our state
They’re all over there, fighting
Just another administration killing others on a path of tears
I’m tired and this is the last flood that I’ll battle
What’s left will be left – time to move to higher ground

Touching the Stone

Two spirits hearing the same distant plaintive train’s whistle
Feeling captured in amber
Words are sometimes without meanings
Spoken as light as air and with the same consequences
Whispered in that mindless wind that won’t settle
Circling each other with the majestry of love-sick cobras
One move life
The other death
You leave me an emotional puddle
Curled up on the floor
Weeping dry tears because there is no more moisture
Switch
Focus
The dirty bedraggled unkempt poet still in the clothes he’s worn for months
Mutters at his clubfoot as he crosses in the middle of the busy street
Carrying all of his belongings in plastic bag
Over his shoulder
The tin cans rattle as he limps away creating their own song to the heavens
And her words hung on the edge of his ears, whispering
“You were probably good looking once”
Switch
Focus
He reaches out to touch her shoulder
And hopes her skin doesn’t tighten and her back curl away, this time
He pictures rubbing lotion on her burnt back
To comfort her for her lack of discretion flying too long near the sun
He knows what he is not and that he can never be that bright light
She holds nature above nurture
And follows the sight line of the horizon
As clouds spill over the edge of the world
Switch
Focus
An elderly couple sit on the park bench
Sharing the sound of the song coming from the children at play
On the swings
Back and forth
Giggles reaching for high squeals
From joy to easily forgotten terror
Theirs is a shared smile
The contentment of his hand on her shoulder
Teenagers holding hands never realize how important that can be later
In life

Beyond

Beyond language, learning, science, and knowledge
I feel your existence, uncomplaining
Incorporeal
Taking me to where I know that I can’t walk
Riding vapors, updrafts of drafts
No mortised joint holds anything
I’d cry at this beauty, but its reach exceeds tears
Breath is so bright it burns
But there is no flesh for it to sear
As I look out of old eyes
You lead me back in and out of time
There is no metered measure
So there is no beginning or end
Beyond speech, we nod in agreement
As I bow to the power of no words
No concealment or congealment
Floating past the boundaries that would have been placed
On these thoughts or movements
We dance upon the tips of grass in summer
Before the dew forms in morning
Forming and reforming with wisps of clouds in the
Afternoon
I lose myself in the formation of your thoughts
Hearing the music that comes from your unblinking eyes
A rose bloom waits on a song you might sing
You return me to what was myself and won’t be again

Ode to the Chocolat Cookie

Tasty siren calling to my heart and soul
Peeking peaks of rich dark gooey chocolat
Melting in a warm brown confection of delight
I place a piece on my tongue and press it to the roof
Of my mouth
I do not chew it, but let it dissolve
Enjoying the sweet sugars, buttery flavors, and
Slight bite of the semi-sweet chocolat
I take my time and each piece is its own reward
Satisfying like
A summer night at the ball game
The giggles of your child at the sight of a caterpillar
The smile in the eyes of your lover
And then the last piece
Not lamented because it’s gone
But celebrated because it was there at all
Those moments added to a life well spent
Ah, so much in the conviction of a confection

On Poetics (part 1) – the poem

Spinning atoms around atoms in the first black darkness
Swirling about the dark matter of gravity
Creating universes
Until there is the denseness of the spark of light
And time
Unseen atoms to molecules to the majesty of surroundings
Fired in heat and pressure until carbon and quartz
Become mountains reaching upwards
A chunk broken off of the Mountain of Poetry
Hurling into the flow of time
Sinking,
Waiting,
Flowing waters sent from the crying sky
And weeping mountain snows
Wandering their way, creating mystic canyons cut through the sandstone
The poetry chunk using the water’s flow to hone its sharp edges
Smoothing out the language of the spark of star-stuff
The quartz flakes grab the light and shine up through
Defused muddy H2O
Using the time’s seasons to work its way up from the depths
Each cycle of time, flood to drought to flood to drought
And on and on
Moving a millimeter per cycle, up
Slowly creeping to the river’s edge and poking a smoothed, honed
Head out of the water towards sun and shine of time
The rock became a gemstone
A definition of time and existence
Working its way to wait and dry to be found
And shine in someone’s hand
It’s taken eons to work its way towards the shore
From the depths of what once was solid and hidden
Ah, but wait...
They’ve flooded the canyon to wash silt down river
The stone is picked up by the unrelenting white-water rush
Weight and worth slams it to bottom
It will need to spend the next eons of ebb and flow
And attempt to work its way back to the light and edge
Until found and seen
But, here’s the question – who or what will understand
What it offers... its unique explanation of beginnings and eternity
Or will they just see another wet rock?