Robbi

The nascence of the morning with the sounds of
an aviary choir would dictate that I stand before
my sliding glass patio door to observe my feathered friend
whose wings of café brown with a chest of rusty orange hue
would splash about as his chest would expand with pride
and he would spread to preen then ruffle
while perched on the edge of the lower tier of the fountain
resting from his refreshing morning dip
he’d routinely take in this fountain
I had logistically placed it for my enjoyment
to hear the sound of water falling and the view
of the sparkle from the falling streams reflecting the
teasing rays of the morning Sun and at night
the glistening smile of the Moon
Yet, my friend, Robbie, would in the mornings
seem to boast that this fountain was built for him
Others would swoop near and perch on the patio fence
but would only bob their heads back and forth sideways watching
as he, unabashed, would flaunt his proud bathing techniques
Profoundly sadden, I found him this morning
laying at the foot of ‘his’ fountain without breath and song
No longer will the sparkle of the falling stream of water
be interrupted by the playful splash of his proud expanding chest
but I am glad to have shared his mornings and his fountain

"tan duro, la vida"

Visited my brother today
Little have I slept tonight
thinking of his swollen eye lids
giving away the pain, the sorrow
for now they see life’s waning days

He sleeps even less than myself
His eyes remain open when others sleep
Recently his eyes didn’t wake
and his wife, with tearful eyes
did violently, his body shake

Sometimes his body forgets to awaken
It grapples every day with infirmed pain
His digestive track no longer in his control
medicinals prescribed are experimental
his liver, kidneys and white blood cells
have forgotten to function in balance

His eyes now stare back at me
Much the same that Mother’s did
When for many days and years
She would speak the words
“ tan duro, la vida “
distractions of youth did not allow
my ears to hear and understand

Now that my own body has taken life’s blows
with prosthetic hips and unkempt broken bones
my ears manicured from hair now grown
Staring into his eyes if I dare
Mother’s words I now compare
diurnal tug at life’s hairline strings
Upon my now also swollen eyes
Reflecting my little sleep

Painted Coat

Every moment every day, I paint myself with a different color coat so when one washes off while walking through the storms of life a different coat evinces from underneath and awaits a redress to the color scheme of my portrait on the canvas of life.

Sometimes I cover myself in a color to mesh with the day, the night.
The contrast of color I choose on a day when it’s grey allows me to play in the rain without being seen. It allows me to escape into the quiet while all around me still exists as I can see them while they cannot see me. Of my choice and depending where and with whom I’m around determines what color coat of paint I wear.

If I’m amidst Natures wondrous wares, the majestic stone mountains who’s aged caverns are filled with running rivers and streams seemingly the fallen sweat from the escarpments that rise so high they pierce the cotton swollen eyes of the skies which then cause their tears to fall and replenish the Sun dried tributaries and like a Bird of paradise, I dance and frolic within the Earth’s arboreal hair line left unscathed by man‘s hand.

Like deer in the forest and the diminutive terrestrials that scatter when strange feet walk onto their abode and birds shriek loudly flapping their wings wildly, feathers floating behind in air as they make their escape, I too with my multi-colored painted coats separate my self from the undesirable intrusion of sometimes Man’s nefarious intent.

From moment to moment and day to day, I can remove them and leave them behind without regret. I know when my Life ends into that transition of a new beginning it will come with greater ease as I discard what once I hoard of mundane worth removing the shelter of my coats.

Stop and Smell the Lilies

Walked past this lily that caught my eye
Tall light green stalk
bright sunrise yellow pedals sprawled wide
like arms reaching for the sky
it was screaming at me
‘look at me’ with my freckles
So I stopped stood in front of it
bent forward as if I was going to consume it’s scent
but I only wanted to get a closer look
Bristly fibered fingers rise from the center
wearing green and brown tiny stamen caps
They proudly stand soldierly in display
without emotion they stand erect
waiting for their diurnal command
from the next wind that blows
causing their caps to fall off slowly down
onto the ground, brown black soil below it’s rooted feet
There they rest in silence until the following
annual seasonal ascent
when once again we’ll meet

I’m glad I stopped to ‘smell the lilies’

pass it on

As my eyes are resting closed
that incandescent lamp that hangs
from the darken sky of night
tugs like the strings of a puppeteer
with high tide that ebbs onto the shore
and it’s vanity reflects upon the seas

But as I sleep the tug of life’s angst
and gravity also tugs upon my being
for the strings of time never sleep
upon my night time dreams
and day time reveries
lines and folds on my face will show
that were not there the day before

a harkened spirit arises with the sun
and with the sounds of avian play
I inhale the breath of a new day
and I choose to share a smile
with those who care

I do not have the strings
like the moon upon the seas
nor the sun’s fingers that grow the trees
but a kind word or a smile from me
will move someone’s heart or soul
to share with someone else
and pass it on and on and on …

Apology

my apologies to the people of Vietnam
I was told that ‘freedom’ and ‘democracy’
was in jeopardy. I didn’t know at the time
that ‘freedom’ and ‘democracy’
could be relative terms and conditions
my ignorance and weakened youthful state
allowed my being drafted into ‘the killing fields’
Asian faces of families and babies
on sleepless nights still gather in my mind
my protest too late as the light of Truth evinced

my apologies to the Iraq people
I was told that you had the means
to destroy the world and now
I’m being told your holding hands with
the Afghanistan’s Taliban ready to destroy
‘Our world’ and you are in ’cahoots’ with
the Palestinians ready to destroy ‘the promise land’
sorry for imposing ‘our world’ of ‘right’
and the morals of our chosen religion

sorry to the children lost to ‘Katrina’
and how we sat and watched and watched
as the television made the real, surreal
and that we didn’t come to your rescue
maybe the different color skin faces holding
those signs of ‘Help‘ atop your rooftops
made it seem you were in a different land
and now you Haitian people whose livelihoods
we and WTO politically destroyed because you wouldn’t
accept our ‘democracy’ our ‘oligarchic capitalism’
and now Mother Nature has finished the job
shaking your homes into the ground
fortuitously our new leader and his wife
has recognized this history and have
tried to make this right

sorry Nashville but your on your own to try
and salvage your music, your instruments, your history
as we asked the same of New Orleans
for our human resources have been depleted
all our volunteers are busy trying to wash
the oil off our feathered friends
and doing CPR on the sea faring inhabitants
direly consuming that ‘black gold’ released in the Gulf
while our government holds hands with oil wealthy friends
and our politicians chant the anthem ‘…drill baby drill’

Religion of Love

Can the conspiracy of Love
Lift one from the base of momentary despair?

Can it’s periphery
Evoke a change in direction of vision?

Does it’s core
Have the strength to pull one out of a depth of the abyss?

Is the light of it’s aura
Sufficient to illuminate the darkness of doubt and disbelief?

Is Love God?

Man's Whim

the sun is hovering full today
it’s been hiding by clouds filled with rain
giving credence that sadness and melancholy
seems to come more readily
when days are covered in grey.

self indulgent sadness abounds
when grey surrounds ironically
into sheltered isolation we run
away from what descends upon us
seemingly the antithesis of our Being

as the sun screams in full rapture
a sense of void still fills my soul
from the cries of pain coming from the Gulf
from Palestine, from anguished mothers
whose hearts are lost in Afghanistan

a carelessness, a selfishness, insensitivity,
apathy, a pomposity of our worth
over other life forms, our universal shortsightedness
and when I sit and ponder this
the sun still shines behind grey covered days
and the plants still grow
all other living creatures still play
sing their praises to the day
and live life uncaring of Man’s whim

Forgotten Face

The hallowed grounds of family
are born of common blood
We’ve shared the early days where fights
were common to get attention
when too many brothers and sisters
filled the rooms too small

We shared common tears for those we knew
as uncles, aunts and mother’s friends
faces we’d so often see
would no longer be, too young to understand
confused by the thing called ’death’.

As time now replaces the rooms too small
when brothers and sisters that once shared that space
and now they’ve all grown and gone away
Mother now sits alone in that space
now large when once too small
and that once shared place has been forgotten
when for mother’s attention we'd begin our day’s race

We gather no longer and rarely communicate
as if our past and our blood has been lost
no longer the presence of that embrace
from our days of that once filled space
With our own mundane taxing ways
as our own kids now awaken for school
we prepare ourselves for our workday race

We banter now as adults do
no longer the petty fights about socks or shoes
but about the serious emotional dread
of what has been dishonestly disseminated about me
more importantly about mother’s health infirmed in bed

Now when our fights are through
no longer do we come together
how as children we once did
forgetting about whose sock or whose shoe
we no longer forget or forgive
our adult pride disallows this
and we don't call let alone embrace
forgotten is that hallowed ground of ‘family’
lost is that shared space and it’s common face

moment alone

When all seemingly is asleep
And night has replaced the day
When sounds of crickets, cicadas and bull frogs
Fill the darken air
Replacing the avian sounds
As the sun descends
I sit alone wondering
do they whom I walked with today
Shared my words and smiles
feel the presence of the void
In my absence at the end of the day

Do the oceans cease to roar
Amidst the howling winds
That cause rolling waves
To run ashore
And the sea dwellers
Descend to the black and cold
While I sit here all alone

These tears they fall down
Without a sound
For no one hears them
They’ve crested dry upon my cheeks
As my eyes have now closed
I’ve cried myself to sleep
In my reveries and dreams
No longer am I alone

Will you share my day

Every morning that I wake
I reflect upon the dreams
that were just present in my head
I reflect upon what I was
the day before
What significance was my existence
Who did I encounter
and how did I touch them
I sat out on my patio
sharing the moment with
the water fountain that trickles down
as the sound of water falling
enhances my cognizance and consciousness

My day will once again begin
and who shall I walk with and talk to
Will my words beckon
someone else to share my thoughts
Will their eyes look upon what mine see
Will their eyes see the same colors the same aesthetics
Will the waft of smells I capture
as I walk the day
be the same for someone else
Will they share the sense of joy
and will their eyes also see
the poignancy of someone else’s day

When I hold my lover’s hand
will she feel my warmth
and hear my heart palpitate
As we stroll together through the day
observing the wind sway the maples and the oaks
listen to the mellifluous sounds
of the songs sung by our avian friends
And when we stop to touch each other’s lips
will she inhale the breath of my spirit
and for the rest of the day
will she ‘walk in my shoes’
and make the existence of my day, full

Thought of the Day

When we walk by people and smile
Are they affected even if they don’t see your smile?
Your intentions were ‘good’
Yet they didn’t capture your intent.
Did their spirit capture it, though?

Its like when walking in a trail
Where arboreal and nature’s botanical gardens exist
And many other animal beings reside,
If the breeze that’s caused from your stride moves a leaf
Or peddle of a wild flower,
If a perched winged feathered friend
calls out a warning of your approach
Has not your presence affected?

If in fact your presence affects
Then your choice is one of
How shall I affect;

With a smile or
a presence of a frown?

With one of caring and sharing
Or one of disparaging ?

With a helping reach
Or an empty hand?

Will your walk be strident
Or will you stop to talk?

The effects of your choice
In return, yourself, affect.

My Day

I tumble about every day
You’d think that at my age
there should be more clarity
Days would be unscathed by forlorn
yet as the days experience unfolds
reality sets in with human angst
Ennui is my personal battle
and I try so hard
sometimes with unappreciated pretense
to make someone, during the day, smile or laugh
Amidst this tedium, I welcome the happy wagging
of tails from my two mini-poodles
as they peer up at me with their soulful eyes
awaiting the reciprocity
of my required incessant petting
and sincere love
This makes my day
and now we await
to enter into this moment of joy
my wife, my lover, my friend, their mother

My Theme

It is hard to let go of the things from youth
and when one does due to aging restrictions
the unappreciated moments of the time
the fond memories, linger

My dreams and reveries flow unrestricted of those things
The memories of when I ran faster than I really did
Had Herculean strength beyond my capabilities
Climbed with youthful ease escarpments above my reach

With much pleasure I do remember
when my voice could ring like morning birds who sing
with vocals of angelic themes
inspired from a domicile of surrounding music
sung by Mother’s early morning waking songs

This exercise of vocals has not waned
In her passing the morning’s waking still remain
I can hear her languish in that Spanish refrain
with the passion of a Latina Mother’s heart
that also taught me how to Love

Ah, ‘si‘, and of that thing called ’love’
She taught me how to share
with my mind, my spirit, my heart
not just with my eyes or hands
those things restricted, she’d say,
the ways and limitations of Man’s

I leave behind those youthful fares
the sometimes unappreciated wares
a history that has made me who I am
retaining the things that do not age
of which I can perpetuate,
the loving and the care

Words; no Apologies

Sometimes I write without editing my words
I gather them unsolicited and spontaneously,
they come together with the whimsy of a child’s
format and expression, simple and not rhyming
neither in meter or timing
but I have found that sometimes the innocence
of this method is purer and truer
My thoughts are expressed
like a daisy or dandelion that has interrupted
one’s manicured and pristine yard
Like a neighbor’s dog that barks late at night
or a tiny twig that finds a home between
the naked toes when wearing sandals in a trail
or a pebble finds its way
as cool sand sifts on naked feet
while strolling in a warm day
on an ocean beach

I wish these words to express with pureness
like when the patter or beat of my heart
first felt an indulging desire for another,
a lust of a young boy becoming a man
when first noticing a woman’s curves
The wondrous flow of her hair
her eyes, her nose upon an effeminate face,
the titillating flair of her luscious lips and smile
down to her soft exposed shoulders that compose
the setting for her lovely bosoms or breasts,
a daunting yet quietus desire of every man

I wish these words to express a spontaneity
without apologies for not abiding
or encumbered by imposing editing
to a set of rules and ‘bylaws’ on writ
an innocent surprise like the expressed widened eyes
of a child’s first vision
to the miracle of a ’Mariposa’

Smell don't Pluck

I walk amidst the dandelions
the lavender the roses and the mint
smelling their wondrous fragrance
observing the pureness of their
purples, reds, whites and yellows
without separating them from their stems

Must one pluck the flower from it’s root
and selfishly not allow others
to also observe its beauty from where it stands
amidst and from Mother Nature’s hands
to be free to grow and play in the breeze
and show of it’s colorful display
upon the back ground of a verdant dress
where upon the bumble bee can nest
and pollinates another batch
for others to walk amidst
and also share its beauty
its arrayed caress

Is not Love much like this botanical display
it can be appreciated as a soulful heart
that pervades through dusks and dawns
enraptured by the gleeful eyes
and also shared through tears forlorn
it cannot be plucked and horded
never depleted or stolen from its nest
it is shared amidst the hearts
there is love enough for all

Slowing Time

How do I slow time down?
I know; minimize looking forward
Appreciate the moment
Try to refrain the time spent
on nostalgia or reminiscing
Memories are enjoyable if they
spontaneously come to mind
but not allowing the past to
swallow you up or wallow in it
Appreciate the friends and family
that surround
Accept that they and everything
are transitory by ‘life’s law’
Be able to release that which is near
Take deep breaths,
Listen to sounds of nature
Enjoy the sights of verdant scopes and blue shores
Azure skies with cumulus figurines
Sounds of children playing
A loved one’s warm hand embrace
Music, music, and more music
Read the writ of others’ sights, sounds and heart
Have the ‘pen’ at ready
capturing the moment

Cyber Humanity

Music of Mozart, Chopin, Liszt, Segovia, all flow through me as I journey in my mind while my body is sedentary. I travel in the space of others as I read their minds and hearts through their pen in the medium that now makes us all accessible and vulnerable.

The cyber ‘blogs’ that provide a conduit to each others personal space that before could not be experienced allow sharing of heart felt thoughts and the simple daily mundane that is our lives. This cyber community provides us an opportunity to share a human condition as never before spending time with each other, strangers otherwise. We can sit in each others home and pet your dog or see how your closet holds the choices of clothes, their colors, their style indigenous in the far away land of where one lives. The setting of your kitchen table, the food you consume, the literature you read, the music that you choose to listen. The faces that share your bed and sit next to you and embrace you warmly when all else exists outside your domicile domain as lights are dimmed and your head rests on your pillow for the nights refrain.

I sit here in comfort and peace in the pleasure of leisure that is made more poignant or significant when viewing the photo shots, stills, that bring into my world a child’s face, unwashed because there is no access to the luxury of a washroom let alone the luxury of clean water. At this moment I sit listening to the timber of guitar strings being precisely trilled and fretted by a genius in his craft. I'm viewing a ‘youtube’ video of the devastation to our gulf and wild life as crude oil spills, the result of an explosion to a man made drill well. Then there’s the video showing a flooded Nashville, Tennessee that has left many families homeless and the loss of life. Most personal to me are the video’s and stories I’m seeing and reading concerning the inhumane treatment of Mexican people in the state of Arizona by a stoke of a pen. Whether walking or riding in a car, one is stopped and asked for ‘papers’. Anecdotally, imagine a mother, who has her papers, is walking or driving her kids to get ice-cream, taking them to school or the grocery store, she forgets to bring her papers and is stopped by police. She is hand cuffed in front of her children and taken to a holding station, jail or otherwise. She must convince her incarcerators who are of the mindset that all who look like her, dark skin latina, are without rights and are held for hours until they can retain an attorney or get a relative or friend to go to their home and get their papers. The community she now resides in has been inculcated with the ‘mass hysteria’ that anyone with black hair and tan dark skin is the focus of blame identifying that all ‘crimes’ being committed against the ’white skin’ people who also believe that the land in which they reside is theirs by right of their own legislated and implemented laws. The brown skin people who had resided there many years prior to the ’white skin’ people forcing them out of this land is now an environment where ‘the Mexicans’ are ‘illegal’ in their own land. It saddens me because underlying and surreptitious in this mindset is the nefarious and insidious bellowing of prejudice and bigotry.

The irony of this access is that although we are now in each others lives, a distance is created in a vicarious existence from actual human contact and all the nuances of real human empathy.

Rain

It falls from way up high
If you look straight up while it’s falling
it looks like translucent streaks of meteorites
angrily attacking the earth of where you stand
When it hits your face
it refreshingly stings but only for a micro second
then it splatters into a wet cool
It runs down your cheek and neck
Your ears fill with small puddles
Your hair flattens but glistens in a sheen
You can feel trickles run down your bare arms
Your t-shirt becomes heavy wet
Then your pants are weighted
and you can feel your socks and shoes
fill with a 'squishy' feel
This is a welcome rain

At times when you see it coming
you run from it as if the drops are
slings of demon arrows
If you don’t hide from them or
take shelter from their pummel
they will destroy the vanity
that you’ve cosmetically created
and this persona will be destroyed
Like the mythical figure that turned around
to look and consequently turned into salt
This rain becomes an unwelcome nemesis

Gray days sometimes last forever
The constant little pings that strike
the window panes as your saddened eyes
stare out and although those drops that fall from above
never touch your face they magically appear
Trickling down your cheeks
They seem to escape in a ductile purge
that evokes a sniffling response
and a deep pensiveness emoting
a nostalgia with a focus upon grief
from loves lost and loves unrequited
This is a rain both unwelcome and yet welcome

Birthday Dance

Today, April 25, I choose to dance
my hips may no longer move freely
as my real ones once could
but my heart, my spirit still wish to dance

There’s music all around
if not, then why do birds sing
with the soft and rhythmic chords
played by the breeze and wind

The trees they also sway
the flowers and wild growth play
and if I look upon the seas
they ripple and they wrinkle
bringing upon the shore
a crescendo bass, a roar

If my legs hold out
I will once again dance
upon the trails that beckon my approach
with every step I take
upon pines and maple leaves
fallen from the forest trees

The sounds of broken twigs
are followed by scurrying sounds
and the rustling abounds
of tiny ground forest dwellers,
and their friends perched on limbs
the kindred songs of pine warblers

These dance steps that I now partake
come from my heart, my soul
in celebration along with a birthday cake
With love of life on this day
my Mother gave me birth,
Ironically, on this same day of the year
three years ago, it seems so near,
she left onto that other journey,
one we must all travel through ’happenstance’,
reminding me, that whilst I’m here,
and while I can, yes, I must dance!