Tuesday's with My Brother

A dreaded phone call
his voice reverberates of sadness
yet the words expressed
give no hint of repression

Learned from his partner in life
posting in a social site
that his eyes had rolled back
barely a hint of the breath of life

Once again he had entered
into that eternal sleep
Without her calling his name
or the medic's external stimuli
he would have left us

Ten years and more
he’s walked with stolen keys
toward the gates of that journey
into that unknown abyss

His lover, his wife,
was able to once again
speak life into him
calling his name

Soon, I must accept,
‘Tuesday’s with Morrie’
will be the script
my brother and I
will be, tearfully, sharing

Purpose?

Should our pace of steps
in our walk of life
quicken ?

Does my ancestry’s Aztec/Mayan calendar
call for me to witness keener,
to breathe in deeper,
the waft of life?

Will all that has been taught
in my life and academic years
of erudition and inculcated knowledge
expire into irrelevance?

Will the Human experience
become an unconnected microcosm,
a point in ‘time’ (Man’s mundane observation),
insignificant yet integral in the ‘chaos’ of the universe?

Will there be a 'purpose' in our being
or just another word in Man’s vocabulary?
Will the chronology of historical Human experience
dissipate into a timeless space,
into the void of light?

Will Man’s pursuit of Love, Hope
based on an omniscient, omnipotent, deity
all have been for naught?

If there'd be anything of this Human experience
that, at minimum, casts a shadow
upon the expanse and reality of the Universe
let it be the different dynamics
man has pressed into history;
the heart’s and mind’s smatterings
of music, the arts, kindness and Love.

Abuelito's Clock

Last night, home alone,
I stubbed my toe while in my dimly lighted room
lit by only night lights plugged into outlets,
a room ready for bed time.
I bend over to rub and soothe the pain,
tiny shadows cast, climbing over folds,
my wrinkled skin made surreal by this darken room.
Noticing toe nails left unkempt,
my Abuelito’s feet evince.
A reverie of recall when last I witnessed them
hooked around the legs of a wooden stool,
his toes splayed in Mexican huaraches
covered in clay dust and grey dirt
from the streets outside his shop
where he’d repair, resole 'sapatos' .
They're slipped like sleeves onto black cast iron anvils
that resemble upside down feet.
Sunlight dimly lights inside his shop at day time,
lit at night by shards of moonlight rays piercing
through strategically placed slats of tin and cardboard roof
Supported atop walls of grass and mud
not unlike many casas in Torreon.
Under the moon and 'piszca de estrellas'
with squinting eyes and bottle glass lenses
he would clean and repair 'pistolas'
to make a few extra pesos.

Like in Edgar Allen Poe’s ’Tell Tale Heart’,
"...a slither of light cast a shadow upon his eye",
a dim light lays upon my aged feet
reminding me of how ‘time’ passes by
like when shadows cast are captured only by chance.

Existing in Irony

The antithesis of the spirit of the day;
a day when devout Christians celebrate
the monist belief that all exists in the name of ‘Jesus’,
my dream last night carried me within
the nebulae of contemplation into suicide

Impassioned onus of understanding my agnosticism,
the doubt that I now carry within about the origination
and the 'truth' of the professed ‘scriptures’(all religions),
If this be not true, in that all our efforts to be ’good’
yields no reward of promised ’heavenly joy’,
then why persist in accepting the struggle and strife
of ’life’?

If all exists without purpose, an existential thought,
then why choose to exist in a world
where pain and suffering dominates?
Exist, where the hands of those who wish
to mitigate the suffering and assuage the pain
is for naught.

So many of us consider this option
during this time of the year
when social pressures are in their heighten epitome
and depression insidiously arises quietly
because we've not met other's and our expectations
of ‘successes’ in love, in wealth, in health,
and all without a religious vision of Hope.

But once again, then I think,
why base my belief system on religion
or institutions that dictate an abidance
to only those options they've offered
in their dogma or proscribed mandates ?

Here, then, I make a choice to believe in either
‘freewill’ or ‘determinism’.
I choose ‘freewill’, therefore,
I choose unselfishness, the sharing of ‘good’,
based on my moral convictions and as explicated
by Sam Harris, a contemporary philosopher, educator,
'one's moral convictions are not based in religiosity
or prescribed social norms; manifest hypocrisies'.

Volitionally, in this way,  I therefore choose to live.

Remembering John

John Lennon’s voice spoke softly but loudly
His gentle sounds reverberated the beat of our hearts
in what we thought, in what we felt
what the issues of the time had meld

We remember his music because it was us
We remember the words
‘Imagine’ what the world would be
if we ‘let it be’!

We were battling in wars
with ideological misfits
children dieing , mother’s crying
for government’s games of power

Since his words have been silenced
we have once again raised our hands
in violence
We gather our fruit now before others eat
Only to feed ourselves without caring
for those with shoeless feet

We’ve placed our faith “In God We Trust”
and find our children living in the streets
when few live in castles made of gold
and like the violence placing his words on hold
we have fallen back to leaving our soldier's lives
lying in foreign dust

Can we ‘Imagine’ once again?

Life Carries On

Life strolls through the trails, pathways and streets
It walks uncaring and sometimes ruthless
without a whimper, without a whine for all those
stretched out arms grasping, clawing to grab on
to its apron strings for one last tug

Through scapes of rock face mountains, tree lined forests,
bends of rivers and sandy arid deserts,
it carries its gait with flowing air
uncaring of words written, sedating Life's woes,
vicariously, in an ambiance of lantern light and insulation
with aesthetic prose '...a starry night or dazzling sunlight'

Life carries on in spite of the primal wares
of primeval games played by man
seeping out life’s blood of ethics and morals,
Suffering and pain, broken hearts and travails,
seemingly disavowing human emotions

It plunders, unscathed by human discomfit
It cares not of religions or dogmas written
attempting to explain the why’s and hopes
or creation with their demons and deities.
Life carries on with an uncaring face

A Day With Our Kids

He’s a stout sixteen pound grey curly hair mini poodle
quiet and docile until his sister, via adoption a feisty
thirteen pound soft black curly hair also a mini poodle,
provokes him during play or tugging on a doggy toy
then he will just lift his front paw placing it atop of her,
she will then submit, subordinately, to his show of dominance.
Yet, when they’re released outside they both furiously scamper
onto the backyard scattering the furry tail arbor residents up their trees
and also scare the feathered friends that were eating on their feeders.
It always takes on a ferocity like a scene from an Alfred Hitchcock movie
where they take on a persona of autocratic rulers over their domicile, they’re dynasty.
He, Jules, follows her like a grey cumulus shadow
mimicking every sniff and curiosity as the ’royal’ terriers they are.
She will bark at anything as he then reacts with a deeper
more manly vocal bark as he gazes into space not even knowing why he‘s barking.
When my wife wishes to leave the house for whatever reason
Jaz must always go with her yet Jules won’t follow if I don’t go along.
My wife and I have come to the realization
that they have adopted us almost with a gender bias.
If I choose not to go with my wife and Jaz, of course, shadows her
Jules won’t go or jump into the car not even for a ride,
a favorite thing of his, but then he proceeds to whimper
in a high pitch tone as he sits on the sill
of our large picture window, possibly regretting at the moment his choice of human bonds, watching them depart.
He sits there on his tiger pillow with incessant whimpers and sadden eyes
waiting for mom and Jaz during this regrettable absence.
At night when it’s time to go to bed it is seemingly
their most enjoyable moment because they get a bedtime ‘chewy’
and get to share time with mom and papa on a warm bed.
As we all lay in bed and mom and I are reading, an ambiance of restful calm resides
while soft classical music is audible from the radio.
Through this salient calm, they can be heard softly chewing as they lie
side by side like Siamese twins yet to be separated of their attached umbilicus.
This is all calming until he decides to get up to get a drink
from his water bowl that sits on the floor next to the door.
Then a common nightly ritual begins where she will steal his ’chewy’
and put her paw over it while still chewing hers.
When he hops back up on the bed once again abutting his body next to her,
he notices that she has absconded his chewy and then he proceeds
to sound off with short howls while looking back at us
asking for our assistance to take back his chewy now being horded under her paw.
She at the same time is growling and jerking her head back and forth
watching his movement seeming to say “pay backs are hell, huh”?
It is humorously ironic to observe this nightly game between the two of them
because during the day he manifests a dominance with his front paw
while playing and wrestling with her and now watching him
ask for our help as she now holds captive his chewy under her paw.
During the day when it’s time for them to eat from a shared single bowl,
he allows her to eat first as he stands behind her like in a food line.
He waits till she’s finished then he’ll approach the bowl to eat.
Wondrously, the tradition in manners and inherent social ethics
of ‘ladies first’ seems to be well served in this case.

Sharing You

A disquiet comes o’er me
A sense of mourning in every cell
that resides within me
Now my soul is restless

When love fills this space
where my spirit rests
a calm and restful feeling
emits from every fiber of my being

This calm seems to have ceased
when it now peers into my heart
a once quiet and peaceful place
where time stood still

You’ve said all is still the same
but now you rarely call my name
and that sense of loving care
within me has since left

The feeling when your heart
would touch mine and mine alone
now feels of temperance
as if it shares it’s attention
with another somewhere else

If this be the case
then whisper gently those words
quietly and softly not to heighten the restlessness
and reawaken that once love filled space

Release me, free me
from this restless place
Knowing that someone else
now shares this space
allows at least my heart
to reside along with selflessness
and a different calm will soon arise
in a mist of subtle tearful restraint

Linking Hands

Holiday seasons arrive, festive tables are set
with the clanging of forks, knives and spoons
Coats and scarfs are strewn on couches and beds
Gathering of Moms and Dads, Uncles and aunts
Familiar faces evince some with feigned smiles
others with crumpled frowns
where gravity has gradually been winning
the challenge of taught cheeks and eyebrows
a noticeably changing landscape of folds and aging spots
A high traffic of piercing chatter and high pitch screams
from Nephews, Nieces and cousins
only previously heard of in conversation
now run by appearing from around the corners of other rooms
Unfamiliar voices fill the room
they share the now busy space in the kitchen and TV room
The waft of sweet and mashed potatoes with gravy
freshly baked rolls , greens and turkey await carnivorous consumption
The clinking of glass with ice inside swirling interrupts
A moment of reflections and thoughts sharply cut into
the chaos of voices as reminiscence and melancholy
enter the room
Then the holding of hands
some smaller lost in the larger
as circle of souls and hearts in the room are linked
then one voice speaks to a common deity
thanking for the spiritual intervention of this gathering
and wishing those less fortunate
the alone, the lonely, are also touched

Forgotten

Have we forgotten to care
because we struggle daily
to feed our own children
We ramble about trying to find warmth
both for the cold of our skin
and the stagnate mind and heart
due to our own strife
Will we once again find the time
find a space in our heart for the other
he or she that has less
For the children who are innocent
yet they ’re left to go hungry
And because of their youthful ignorance
we will selfishly let them starve
both in food intake
and mind nutrients
Some will take advantage
of that innocence
Have our personal toils distracted
where once there was human kindness
now replaced by apathy
Where once there was caring
now there’s non-empathy
Have we forgotten the ‘human truism’
when there’s a cognizant willingness of sharing
in carrying the weight of life’s toils,
it’s struggle and strife,
the burden is mitigated for all
and from this comes knowledge,
a light shining upon contentment, calm and resolve.

Soldier's Quest

Loud flashes of light above
reflecting off clouds ominously
Where once in youthful times
these sparkling lights meant celebration
but today they open up the skies
with loud explosive sounds

They shake the earth
awakening the demons underground
unlike when excitement, back home, filled the air
today they burst the silence
with redden fields and angry death

In a brief intermittent respit
when eardrum breaking blasts cease,
howling pain filled human cries
still fill the smoky air.

A still moment arises and my memories
of loved ones who wait for me
back where these flashing lights
and sky emptying cracking sounds
do not suck breath from life
but celebrate the joy of living,
I think of my heartfelt love'd ones,
their warm embraces and the kisses.

I reflect upon the freedoms,
the occasional abuse of liberties
we partake and are afforded us.
My mind fills in reverie of returning,
planting my garden with beans and tomatoes,
cutting my lawn, sitting in my back yard
with friends and loved ones,
grilling steaks and drinking beer,
listening to music on radio and singing childhood songs

Tears spew out from my eyes
but I do not have time to wipe them,
an explosion o’er my head
rattling my helmet and my brain
reawakening me to the reality
that my life and freedom lies before me
along side my buddy, my brother,
and inside my mind, belief that soon
the Truth of our quest will become victorious

Jules

His right front paw curled up unnaturally
He seemed to stare somewhere into an ethereal place
A space unbeknownst to anyone but him
He begins to quiver and shake
He was being held in my wife’s arms
when first I noticed his eyes
seemingly reaching deep into this space
Then his head rested limply on my wife’s shoulder
I knew in the depths of my soul
where my human emotions rest
that something was not right with Jules

I pulled him from her arms
gathering him closely to my chest
Trying to calm his quivering body
letting him know I was there
My gut was wrenched
Tears came quickly running down my face
He’s only nine was all I could think
Please your too young
I held him tighter
I’m sure he could feel my heart beat
Soon his body ceased from shaking
His eyes no longer staring into an abyss
He looks at me and with a gentle
soft stroke of his small tongue
he licked my cheek tasting my saline tears
For now all is well but time
for both of us is so much more salient.

Wintry Warmth

Waking early this November morn
Looking out into the still dark of night
I see a sheath of white covering roofs and chimney tops
Solemnity softly slides down from the white veil of the moon
The wintry ’ides of November’ visit me in my room

I turn to look atop the comfort spread upon my bed
There lying snuggled close in carefree sleep
My two small curly soft hair canine friends
One cuddles closely to my wife’s bosom
The other snails itself warmly near her head

A calm hovers o’er my spirit
A gentleness fills my heart, my soul
Mine eyes behold a cherished moment
Love descends filling the room
Quietly I saunter back to the warmth of bed’n sheets
To embrace my wife, my friends to hold

Cold Reality

The destructive winds from the north and west
have finally calmed at least here but now
its wrath has traveled east unsettling
the Atlantic coast and shores.
Outside my door a wet grey
has been left behind.
The once ornamental crimson, pumpkin orange leaves
are sprawled covering the lawns
giving a rubble look from broken dead limbs
and twigs fallen from now barren trees

Cold air and a dirty gray abounds
A stiffness of my joints, a muscular soreness
has invaded my incarnate shell
where even in my soul,
my mind has slowed giving way
to an introspective tone.

A battle within of a feeling of being ‘alone’
and the feeling of ‘lonely’ is a consequence.
It comes not just from the ambiance of the season
but as a result of a self indulging cognition
in considering the queries of doubt and ambivalence
posed in my head to whether a reality
of a Divine presence or even spirituality as in the Tao,
‘damn you’ Stephen Hawking’s, Nietze, Sartre, etc

‘Alone’, is a soldier sitting, barely breathing
so as not to make a sound, his heart races
Sweat flies onto the quiet mist
off his face because of the incessant
shaking of his body from desperate fear

‘Alone and lonely’, is the child in Haiti,
parents and siblings taken from her by the hand
of Nature’s wrath and consequential disease,
sitting all alone in dirt and debris
her tattered shirt and dirt basted little face
gives her the look as if she's part of the rubble.
She's in pain from broken heart and blood dried wounds
she's lost in her tears now dried and crest on her face
and no one sees her, no one comes.

Cold reality?

Welcome Today

I sample rhymes and meter, loosely formed prose,
relish and treasure the simple haunting
of another poets heart,
as my ears are filled with the mellifluous sound
of Chopin’s ivorys and Shubert’s string quartet
The sweet vocals of Johnny Mathis, the Righteous Brothers
Or Eva Cassidy’s vocal renditions of the classics

My eyes consume and absorb into the depths of my being
the words by Shelly : …”the sunlight grasps the earth,
the moon beams kiss the sea, what is all this kissing’s worth
if thou kiss not me” or the inspiring introspective words of
‘Unknown’ ’Desiderata’: “…be kind to yourself for you are also
a creation of ‘God’ like the birds, the trees and the seas”.

The wind blows briskly sometimes with a howl
outside my window today
It rings of sounds brought forth from the north
Unsettling the warmth of the day before
No longer can the leaves hang on
and the pine needles falling like strands of gold
covering the walkway and felling
the few verdant patches of grass
leaving a surreal display like brush strokes
on Van Gogh’s ’Starry Night” or Wyeth’s
field of grass in ’Christina’s World‘.

I welcome this display these sounds
introducing me to this new day
bare footed I walk atop this golden carpet
outside my door as the wind blows my robe open
asking that I also be in full display
as the wind blows crimson and orange leaves
into my hair standing naked now
holding hands in Nature’s care

A Smile in Space

Why do glee filled eyes and joyful smiles last so short a time?
Why do moments of this kind come so infrequent?

Sometimes those times of momentary joy come silently
They appear in quiet spaces in the oddest places
When no one is looking and it’s cloudy
When the sun is slightly piercing the cumulus
and touching with shadows cast on a single soul
She sits alone on a bench amidst a conifer maple and oak

A salient breach of solemnity arises encircles
papa and mama, octogenarians, sitting together
quietly with arms entwined into one another’s
staring into space, a space known only to them
she gently bends her neck to lean her head on his shoulder
a sense of exasperation abounds the two of them
yet a soft and gentle gasp of fulfillment
to their lifelong moments in time

A tiny tot sits alone on a thick patch of green
interspersed with golden strands of wheat
blowing gently in the breeze as she turns
to look at me with those large hazel blues
and a smile that only innocence could demand

If only this smile could pierce the gray of day
cascading everlasting rays of sunshine
upon those who sit alone
in the dark and cold
casting shadows of lonely souls

Editors Frenzy

Standing amidst the grandiose and enormity of rock formation
looking up, up and still not able to see the very tip of the snow cap
atop this natural forming scape that stretches above and beyond
clouds pierced by the chard formation of the tip of this mountain
gives me a sense of how an insect feels when landing on my arm
or when I stand hovering over a tiny toad that sits very still
as I stroll the wild damp brush below my feet and now imagining
how it feels if it feels or what it thinks if it thinks when it fearfully
looks up at this enormous entity that moves and threatens it’s existence
if it’s even cognizant of it’s jeopardy, with the human sense of fear.

Hearing the roar of an ocean wave as it gathers afar, far beyond my visual scope
and it’s rumbling forming much larger deep underneath than above
running faster and faster toward the shore line where I stand barefoot
as tiny ripples flow in and out through my naked toes curled gripping the cool white sand.
I notice with virgin gasps the large promontory rock formations have taken character and shape from the millions of slaps of splashing ocean tides seemingly playful yet
mindful of competing space through the epochs of time

The black cold of a cloudless night sky allowing the crystalline sparkle
of hovering stars and moon floating seemingly resisting movement,
resisting falling to earth and always watching me watching them.
Night after night depending on the equinox determines what star formation
stands sentry over me whether it’s the three star belt of the buff Orion, the
tail dragging Dragon or the olla of Ursa Major and the chatter of the Seven Sisters

This exercise of observation with nonsensical imaginational interpretation allows me
escape from my ego my self and also the written run on sentences unconventional grammatical implementations is intended to incite the traditionalists the elitist into a frenzy of wanting to edit and apply correct annotations punctuations capitalizations maybe even syntax etc.

My intent is to show that spontaneity in putting thought into script writ has it’s merits in rawness pureness and an inherent nature of the founding means of written communication diminishing the nuances of linguistic misinterpretations in the web of language translations.

Waking with a Smile

This morning I awaken with a smile
My night was restful with sleep
Dreams juxtaposed with memories and faces
Flying and super human performances
Embraces of love with those no longer
In my world even after I wake
Three years prior to this wonderful sleep
I couldn’t close my eyes to rest to sleep
for more than an hour as I attempted
to sleep in a sitting position.
Excruciating pain would travel from my hips
down to my knees and up to mid chest
Referred pain I guess it’s called
In this waking moment I celebrate prosthetics
and medicinal pain supplements
I am now able to carefully bend
to put my own socks on and tie my own shoes
I can bend to wash my ankles and even my legs.
I welcome being able to stand and talk to friends
in one spot for more than fifteen minutes
I’m able to walk my little miniature poodle
friends around one square block
No longer can I cross my legs while sitting
Caution is ever present when lifting and
most sadly when walking viewing a Winter scape
No longer can I chase the tennis ball, a game I loved
nor can I jog when once I used to run miles
But now I can play and cautiously chase my little friends
I roll in the grass with them
and able to stand up afterward on my own
I can sleep in a bed
I can dream of running and flying
I can sleep and dream, wonderful dreams

Water and Life

The wisdom I gathered from water
when first mother playfully splashed me
with a spray from her finger tips
The kitchen sink as mother gently held me upright
Sitting in the bathtub filled up to my toddler thighs
A childhood memory of wading in a plastic pool in our back yard
Tiny brooks or streams I'd walk into only up to mid calves or knees
A river running rapid over rocks and fallen branches
my short exciting sojourn in a canoe through a wooded park
An ocean wave ebbs onto the beach of sand and rock
I run into it’s arms of high waves
I’ve learn to swim against the tide
recognizing the choice of not fighting the undercurrent
Now that I have swam so many rivers and lakes
and even challenged strong ocean currents
my strength has waned with the number of seasons past
once again I only wade knee high
but my weakened arms and legs still recall
that feeling of a cold stream or river
and how they would battle up stream against the rapids
and sometimes into those large ocean tides where they would
swim along side dolphins
A small amount of wisdom I've gathered
upon those river banks
the high tides and their ebb
Vision of the grand expanse of the oceans abode
It started from that sprinkled splash upon my face
from mother’s finger tips and loving grace
I learned of the wisdom of water
how to stroke up stream analogous to Life.

Comes the Northern Wind

The sun has moved further away
It’s fingers no longer touch the day
with sweltering heat
I now see the wind blow
as the leaves now a rusty color
fall fast at an angle
seeming to leave a trail from the tree
where they’ve been separated
There’s a chill in the evening
as the wind blows from the north
It gives pause to how much cracked open
the windows are left at night
The darkness when peering up at the moon
is now seemingly more black
Orion and Ursa Major seem to glitter
more brilliantly this time of year

Nature has changed from it’s verdant dress
to the seasonal russet, orange and yellow chemise
It kindles a visual aspect
and that dusk comes earlier
Sweaters and wool shirts
become a preferred choice of wear
reminding us that the northern winds
will soon take residence
The occasional translucent precipitation
will soon fall feather light
with those tiny patterns of white
that have been said
never duplicate in pattern

These annual seasonal changes
seem to turn quicker
the more of these I’m witness
When once I would look forward
to these changes with
the excitement of physical activities
Now I welcome these seasons
with but a pleasure to my eyes
as time has also caused me changes
where now I walk when once I ran.