innocence of a strident word

when i walk barefoot on jagged stone

i think of the soothing cool if it was white sand
and as i walk on sharp and bristly shrub
i remember the soft full grasses
underneath my naked feet

when my words sometimes come strident

and they dwell upon the sadness of things
i, too, recall the mellifluous incantations of
Shakespeare, Joyce Kilmer, Shelley and Poe
and i thank them

not always do i choose perforce lamentations

in the subject of my words
but like tickling sprinkles of rain can give way
to a thunderous and ominous storm,
the crumpled debris and broken glass
abutting sidewalk edges all are the character
of reality that reside in the street

i also see the lilies and daffodils sway

in warming breezes of spring
the pristine lakes reflecting the verdant
hills and the ornamental cotton figurines
teasing the finger tips of our precious sun

i see the baby smile in mother’s arms,

the child playing with her pup,
two lovers embracing in the park,
seagulls flying o’er his silver strands of hair
as he feeds them whilst they hover
in the air and little joy ascends in this,

my words can come softly, about…

when innocence prevails

  

a flower sits still

a flower sits still

its beauty speaks loudly
clouds march in quiet step
yet so poignantly dress
the crinoline of an azure sky
the wolf and the hawk
traverse their homes cape
without disturbing sound
as the forest and the sky
applaud them with an ovation
of freedom

my heart beats unheard

it embraces the human spirit
but tears fall silently recognizing
the breath of apathy that pervades
it hovers not so subtly over the
souls of many for they care not
how they disturb the calming
silence of peace with their angry
hands of violence and war

the flower no longer sits still

nowhere to be found
the clouds have turned grey
with a pungent smell
of burning flesh
the hawk no longer flies over
and the wolf howls no more
for the sounds of death
have disturbed the silence
of the living soul

once

once,

when  my ears were small
words were few
little hands, little feet
barely used

a song bird sang,

to my heart beat
its rhythm,
its melody

once,
years accrued

words came
my finger tips
became agile on
guitar strings

a song bird freed

from my lips
of when my ears
were small 
with little hands
and little feet

a melody and rhythm

to the beat
of your heart now
touches the strings
with my finger tips

it's your song, mamasita

hold me

hold me

if but for a moment
fill an emptiness,
lately, ever present  

a void
a sense of loneliness
vulnerable

I’ve skipped the stone in the stream

walked the path in the woods
listening to the birds

witnessed the wonderment

of a silhouette fly into a crimson sun
winked at stars of night
waved good morning to the
waking golden eye

for this I am grateful

solitude is my friend

and reminds me of
how small I am  

this emptiness,

ever so salient

walking softly

...'there isn't anything that changes anything,
and what we say or do merely brushes the tops
of the hills, in whose valleys everything sleeps.'
Fernando Pessoa, 'The Book of Disquiet'

i’m walking softly and slowly

now days
i wish to hear my surroundings
without disturbing them
wish to see them carefully
so my pace is such
stop and watch, stop and touch
smell, inhale deeply
this now is mine
not to keep but to enjoy
wish all could share
especially those who can’t hear
those who can’t see
without hands or feet
whose hearts are scorned
whose mind is distraught
enjoy with me
the music of this moment
love, itself,
cannot be possessed
if shared selflessly,
one possesses all

be here now, remember

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