RIP

yesterday I saw a face of a young man

eyes closed body cold all the inner organs
removed but the suit was pressed nicely
it lay there undisturbed by the many hands
walking by to touch and say a goodbye

sadness, tears, some waliing filled this space

not just for his souls surprising departure
but of how he chose to cease his beating heart
stop the pain causing him to scream loudly
but quietly inside where no one else could hear

he chose to quiet these screams echoing

through the air down the rivers bend
as his body sped downward with gravity
mindlessly down, down  off a bridge
that didn’t even know his name

his mother his father his brothers his sister

his children their mother didn’t know
of his wishing to fly away. wanting to discard
the insuperable pain yet recklessly leaving behind
questions and queries and those screams  
the screams that now reside in them

 

that star

who and what for am I

am I here to touch someone
or here to be touched by them
when I shall lay my head to sleep
I wish to have given of my heart
and left more than having received
will there be someone to carry
this torch of my words and
embrace my heart that’s been
left at the feet of many
when my spirit is ready to return
into the dark energy of space and
assimilate into the star dust from
whence my incarnation came,
will there be a memory shared
somewhere by someone looking up
at the night sky and shall whisper
to themselves and maybe to another
“…remember him, who lay his heart
here where we stand? ”

forgotten

you and your ignominious ways have

tossed you into the pail of obsolescence
your toes all crooked and unkempt,
your hair disheveled, uncombed forever
cuticles filled with dirt and suet
nails scaly and teeth crusted like lemon cake
you've allowed yourself to get old
don’t you have anyone,
someone who cared while you were
youthful and alive. at least someone who
can now cover you with some semblance
of human dignity as you pass on

so this is what unrequited love looks like

do you see, do you hear

I walk amidst many others

yet, seemingly unseen, unnoticed
my steps are pronounced with intention
loud almost to a stomp
yet, seemingly, still unheard

seems that a song must have

the right melody, the right tune
before it’s audible to ears
that don’t hear anything
but their own steps,
their own rythm and beat

a tree stands still, a miracle,
yet many eyes walk by
without it being noticed
Its lovely buds and leaves
that breathe for us,
Its bark giving joy to many tiny climbers,
Its fingers so tall they probe the clouds and
a secure abode for our soaring friends

a child’s cry from a lonely dark space

left abandoned in refuse
the mother lays at its little feet
incarnate without a soul
many walk by without a care
what kind of world does this child
caked in dirty tears, see

how loud must I stomp

what kind of song and melody
will greet your ears with welcome
must the tree fall before noticed
how long must the child sit alone
before some ones arms lifts and
embraces it with human empathy

cold winter's thought

My dreams, my tears, my love

will it all have been for naught
if the hope and faith of a deity
we’ve prayed to for so long,  
is not?

Could I have walked along

without caring or no one loving
me and all this would not matter?
and all the hate and destruction
will have been valued in the same?

What value does all the music and art

and poetry give to our lives?
why not stand still like the tree
or hang alone like the yellow
rock in the sky at night?

What do all these words matter

when you don’t care what they say
even if I tell you they come from
my heart?   

Death, is even temporary when

memory no longer serves us, if  this
blue green rock we walk upon soon
disappears into the black space,
for nothing will ever know we
were ever here

dancing with Mother Nature

Soon my aching muscles and arthritic joints

will bounce and jump for joy because the snow
and ice will be melting and once again flow north
I will walk with a jump in my step
and will kneel on dampen soil to till
and plant a seed for the spring of day
where colors will once again evince painting
the landscape  

I’ll be careful not to complain of too much rain,

too much wind or too hot of a sun
unless it becomes angry and wishes to take
the land away with floods and winds tearing apart
what my hands have built or the sun ravages the harvest
and aridity prevents children from drinking

Like the strings of an instrument if they are dissonant

and not tuned then I must balance the keys so that
they fit the likings of my ear. then I’ll play the tune
to accompany my voice and I'll sing my song
with Mother Nature, I must acclimate
and adjust to its ever changing seasons so that my
comfort level is to my liking

I need to recognize that I must adjust and accept change,

accept that all else has the right to coexist with me whether
it be another species, a tree, a rock, the stream, the person
who is taller or shorter than me, of different color and ethnicity,
a heart that sings a different tune, hormones or gender
different than mine and may be prettier, softer and
a gentler touch than mine.

If I can adjust, I will be content and free

life to life

my hands open the window

the world outside is let in

it breathes its life into me

and I exhale me onto it

polar vortex

Shhh, listen to the whispers

hovering in the gentle breeze  
voices coming from the mountains and seas
in between the great oaks and evergreens
a chant in synchronous harmony
of their plight, their soon demise

they were here before us to till and nourish

the soil and waters, share its nutrient exhale
so that we can breathe the earths vitality
and drink of Mother Natures milk and walk
amidst a gift of paradise in perpetuity

but, shhh, listen to the cries of sorrow now

that blow in the wind, sometimes howling
in angry destructive gusts telling us of
how without the trees we will not breathe
or cannot catch the wind and without clear brooks
and springs we will not drink, we will breach
the harmony of things

listen as the whispers have become screams

in portentous calls of thrusting angry fires
and torrential tears, breathing frigid
air amidst blinding squalls, instilling a fear, this
of our own doing from careless and uncaring
hands through the years, now casting
an ominous shadow upon our paradisiacal gift

without sin

gently with my warm hand, I place you

in the pocket of my soul, you can't walk away.
we’ve shared soft wet kisses and
so many lustful embraces, this, before we
unabashedly consummated our love at that
unforgettable place where only
you and I remember. we didn’t care of the many
eyes that were upon us as chippies stopped
their play and perched on weeping willow
limbs drooping like an English Sheep dogs coat
hiding its eyes and only he knows what he sees   

like Adam and Eve before shame befell them,

we meld our juices with the earth to let it know
we are aware we come from it and to it
we will return but until then we’ll play and
trample gently upon its face making shadows
in the sun and cooing sighs in moon light.
and with permission of the Universes spirit  
we’ll gather with our friends and also let them
know that playing without shame amidst the willows
and the eyes of chippies is once again ok whether in
the Sun or in the rain like Woodstock hippies

and as I walk along that harbored place

I shall reach gently into the pocket of my soul
and pull you out so that you can sit with me
and maybe we will again make love the way
we once did. no sin shall force us to cover
our eyes as we dance shamelessly while making
shadows in the Sun and then we’ll fall asleep in
each other’s arms underneath the moon and stars
and kiss the feet of our favorite willow tree

alone in the cold

I was going to write about the wintry white,

the sage who selects and filters the snow flakes
that fall on earth only keeping those that
don’t look alike and to sing about the single
foot tracks left behind for someone to find

then I came upon the words of a poet

who wrote of fishing in the cold Canadian
ice and her grand pup learning to tough
the frigid wind and to howl.  Her incantations
speak of loving life along side trees and oceans,
walking and leaving tracks with snow angels,
for  life’s too short to complain of the cold

I listen to the tickling of piano keys and

the soft voice of Sara Bareilles’ Gravity.  
speaks of a heart once again alone
as it leans against cold sharp rocks
on a lonely beach till the stars
no longer hang onto a darken night
when replaced by the fire of day light

not today, will I write about the wintry day

and the tracks I’ve left behind to be found.
with a heart feeling the trickle of tears shed
from loneliness, braving the cold, I sit
in this dark candle lit room with pen in hand
now realizing I am not alone

 

oh, to be a fly on the wall

a fly gently buzzes by landing on my window pane

it's colored with a green shade of shiny black-blue,
and then it gathers its opaque wings to its side, it has
skipped up on the glass looking out the window.
it shares my stares looking out, watching finches
eating from the feeder I have set for them
between the shelter of bushes and brush tactically
positioned so that the menacing gray hawk
perching above in a pine can only be irritated by
the inaccessibility to its prey
on this cool white winters day

the fly with its front legs primping its face

stares out into that outside space
watching, probably philosophizing, how it can
see this world outside yet confused and curious
looking through this translucent hard surface
that separates him from his freedom

“…who knows for what supreme forces- gods or

demons of Truth in whose shadow we roam-
I may be nothing but a shiny fly that alights in front of them
but for a moment or two…”
(Fernando Pessoa, The Book of Disquiet)

this moment casts upon me a shadow of cognitive reflection

of, wherefore am I, in the relevance, in the significance
to the difference between me and this fly and from each
to the world beyond this glass. I sit observing
from here thinking of myself irreverently and disdaining
my conjured self importance. a curious and hard
translucent surface separates me from
Natures sublimely painted white wintry cool
 

counting stars

tried to count the stars last night

    but there are so, so,so many
        and then I wondered if they are stars
            emitting their own light or are planets
                like our earth reflecting rays of nearby
                   suns, with oceans, rivers, mountains
                  trees, flora and fauna of sorts and
                life forms that whistle and chirp
             and scurry chasing each other
           and the kind that shed tears of sadness,
         love and like us romanticizing about
      the stars as they stare up at their sky
 and
   do they pray, wish and hope in their 
      searchings for joy, then age, then die,
         and do they wonder whether there’s
             a place like a heaven or a hell, a nether
                for their souls, and
                 do they make music, sing songs,
               tell stories, write history books and poetry
             someday, will we meet and embrace and
           lie together on a river's bank looking out
        toward and into the dark night of space
      wondering if there are more like us
  amidst all the glitter of so, so, so many stars

  

bane in my eyes

I send you words so that you can

gather your thoughts and images
in the colors that are within you
not those within the spectrum
of my eyes or my soul

I could send you pictures of the

pretty things, the memories that
my heart captured and the fondness
within but they are mine  
so painting them with words
to share so that you can capture
them with your own eyes,
your colors and imaginings

the sunrise tickles the earth

with a spray of freshness
spewing sparkly things on
leaves of trees and shines a tinge
of pinkish red on happy asters and wheat
dancing about to the rhythm of the wind
a new day begins

roosters crow to wake the day

for the cows to moo, for the equine snorts
and the hound barks chasing varmints into
ground not to eat but to chase and play
and so the sunlight grasps the earth
to shake the wings of black birds and crows,
tickle the curious and keen eyes of
a perched red tail hawk

and to the wonderment of the human eye

a young lady steps out in a bucolic
setting, the sun rays capture the sensual form of
perky tender breasts and curves of hips
with shapely thighs and calves through a
shear white veil night wear and she leans her
head back and shakes to release the long dark wavy hair
as she grips the rustic wood rail and inhales the day's morning

from this vision, in my eyes and within my veins,
licentious brew runs through 

Happy, New, Now!

I stand before a mirror that reflects

who I am today not yesterday
nor tomorrow but now
my body folds have become many
where once they were youthfully taught
There’s  wrinkles on my face, gray hair wildly
strewn throughout the otherwise black
strands sparsely left on my head and in my mustache,
and the scraggly growth invading my face, gray has
also found a less than desired space

Yesterday, Azur, passed into the destiny of

his next journey. I’ll miss his dark blue sheen
and majestically large gossamer fins
that would flair angelically through the water.
His vanity well displayed, whenever I would
walk by his glass enclosed kingdom. I'd call
out "azur azur" in a deep and soft voice
he would spiritedly flap his fin wings, fly
around his temporary sea and through
his underwater castle. On occasion
I think I would see him wink
and smile at me

The Gregorian calendar reminds us
the earth has made an orbit around
its designated Helio star. Other calendars
synchronized to lunar cycles, Spring equinox
or position of Venus. Most are convinced
this to be the designated time for a
‘new’ beginning but my calendar
begins every moment that I am cognizant
of my existence. When tomorrow comes,
if it does, I shall appreciate that moment
as the beginning of my new day with you

I say to you, my love ones now residing

in the beyond, save me a space where
I will come and take a place beside you
but until then I shall live here today
with a smile and with humble grace.
I shall love and hopefully it will be returned;
this being my new year’s resolution

once a golden eagle

I soared with wings tinted in bronze

hovered over the stones stacked one
on top of the other by those who thought
they could touch the sky and pray to
Quetzalcoatl from atop in Tenochtitlan

I tilt my gold crown head to look down upon

the tops of a CalpuIli crowns made from feathers
fallen from my wares for they also wished to
mimic me when they climbed their pyramids
to sacrifice their own

they did not know they would never fly

composed from the dirt they walked upon
and bones made of trees and stones
they were made to watch the earth
and watch o’er those without wings

some of us were made to fly and

some were made to traverse the ground
and look up to admire wing feathers glide
amidst the winds and make nests on mountain tops
this imparted upon them a will to wish and dream
thinking someday they too will touch the sky

in another life I will be like them

and walk the earth with arms and legs
but until then I shall wrap myself
in shawls of hovering clouds and squeal
my song through beak'n lips appreciate
in this life of why I was made to fly

a prayer

the wind blows cold

even when the day is warm
and  a single hovering cloud
can cover all with a dark gray
holding the sun at bay
it chills the soul
with isolation which makes
the heart shutter
a face of uncaring cruelty
abounds in a world where
those with mal-intent
instill fear over those
with lesser means

the day will come when

warm air blows in
and the sun dissipates
that cloud
gives a warm embrace
to the smallest flower
and it shall grow into
a garden that will feed
the least of them
and forgiveness will
fertilize the soil
which will enrich the soul
of those once so cruel

the writer

Sweet are words meld into sentences

honing the ends with commas and colons
expressing music or painting Natures colors
a symphany accompanying a herald of song
and where the grasses grow green and
flowers bloom in spring

a sense of joy comes as the

finger tips move the lead of a
newly sharpened pencil over
cyprus and or papyrus sheets
leaving impressions
soon to ride upon the reveries
and dreams of those who read this

the words I write may not be the
ones you choose, they may not express
the sentiments as creatively as yours
but they are mine and somewhere
someone will appreciate me for my
unique writer’s style if not just
for the intentions of my heart

underneath this held hand pen arises

notions of prickly white rose stems, the
thrashings and clapping of ocean waves,
aster meadows swaying in swirling
and howling winds mimicking the likes
of seas and seagulls soaring in concert
to the orchestration of robins, cardinals, wrens

the sounds of fresh running stream

play between the dangling of naked toes
of two lovers sitting by the bank
and sharing their palpitating hearts
as their lives have together journeyed,
now octogenarians, they've come back
to reminisce upon this place where
their youthful bodies first met and touched

as I place the pencil onto this paper
ascribing the lifting of a sail upon a mast
to ride the swales and caps of tides
raised high trying to reach and touch
the moon and stars the clouds by day
as the ocean winds take us on a journey
gleaned in writ on page after page.
and underneath the pencil and this pen,
whilst woefully but intentionally,
I dismiss the use of a punctuation period
at the story’s end  

'Be'

temporarily misdirected

need to change
the composition
of this road
made of
jagged stones and shards
of glass from broken
windows of my past

they cut into
my bare feet
every step is
foreboding
causing hesitation
to take another one

i stop stand still

observe myself
amidst the
cold the dark
in this path

try to understand
where i am
in these surroundings
what steps i
must take while
ignoring the pangs
of jagged stones
and broken glass

i rest my soul

upon the palms
of the 'One', and
abide willingly
the direction
it leads me

release my 'self'
without regret
without sorrow
and  breathe 
let the light
find me. ‘Be’

will you sing my song

body is petrifying

limbs becoming brittle
naked and barren
of buds and leaves
no longer are
my roots
strong and sturdy

still I feel

like singing
words I’ve written
as melodies
I hope they
make you smile, if
you choose to sing
my song
with me

days become numbers

I count the suns
and moons
asking stars
to make room
for I will
be there soon

hope to brighten

your nights
and fill your dreams
with wishes
and happy tears
much like mine
of many years

fill your day

with love, think
not of yesterdays
for they come
too soon, dream
your dreams not
of tomorrows
but what today
shall bring

be kind to yourself

because you are
all you have
as the song says…
when the wind is
blowing in your face
and the whole world
is on your case,
I can offer you
a warm embrace,
to make you feel
my love…

homeless

frigid cold bites

finger tips

numb purple toes

eyes frozen tears

edges of ears

cannot feel them

runny snot frozen

on the lips

pee stench

uncontrolled shaking

now has stopped

given up

 

eyelids won’t shut

glassed eyes

breath vapors

no longer

chest lies still

blood flow ceased

heart at rest

fetal position

stiff

 

last coin

call family

not home

bye, love you