WANDERING SOULS

There are souls

travelling aimlessly

on the paths of wanderers.

Without possession or guile,

at one with the elements,

they slide from one to the other,

Becoming this and then that.

Invisible in this wilderness of eyes,

they watch in disbelief

as they stumble unseeing

amidst the refuge.

How long they have denied themselves

the love they sought.

How far they have come to escape it.

Broken, they lie along the path

shorn of all volition.



I wonder how long they must wait

before they can heal

and rise up again

from those trash filled urns

to search the roads of their desire

for the doors of their emergence

once more in every grain of sand.



Now the bus is full again

and I shall not be deceived.

Sitting there across the aisle,

I see you rub your weary feet

before you deviate and depart

when the next stop arrives.

How else can we be released

from this circuitous route we ride?



4/15/16

El Aguacate, Jal, Mx

Morning Moment

Leaves falling on the table
-an annual event.
Drinking this morning´s coffee
-outside
Before this year´s red blossoms
-in an olive jar
-wilt.

A sonorous dove
-unseen in the distance
Coos approbations
-to the beginning
-to the motion of life.

The gnats have found my presence
-interesting, at least.
They pester my lips and eyes.
-I wonder
-having no possessions
-do they sense otherness?
Do they fear the gnatcatcher
-flitting through the branches of the trees.

A totally temporal situation
-I´m afraid,
Your existence – and mine
-the leaves on the table
-the flowers in the jar.

Delve into the nectar of it.
Taste it while you can.
The wheel is turning
-endlessly
-it never stops
All life´s contained
-in a single,
-morning moment

We celebrate
-it´s passage
-with passion
Each in his or her
-own way.

1/11/2014

Afternoon Panorama

Sitting in a chair out by the sidewalk as
the last rays of today’s sun
fall across primavera and rosa morada
in full bloom and the church bells
from a block away
peal through the dusk and
the cattle stand in their enclosures
With tails swishing lazily as doves coo
in unison as a breeze brushes
across the surface of the earth and sea
without beginning or end
and the quiver and wave of energy
arises into birds flocking
in swirl and dive through the trees
abandon all thought
and truly see.

4/24/2021

January Sixth

How lovely that you
have painted a mask for me
featuring all your favorite
monsters and boogymen,
the ones from the bedtime stories
you grew up on.
told by the frightened madmen of your youth,
to frighten you into submission,
the ones you are so certain
are not you, but the other….
me.
Your imagination is so exquisite
that my mask needs no cloth,
your old slide projector will do, so realistic,
that all the fearsome tales seem to
dance in full technicolor across my forehead.
The demonic red glare
reflecting from my eyeballs
cropped from ancient images
of heathen demons
and better dead than red,
with all that Christian blood
 dripping from their fangs,
the source of all your suffering for sure,
so perfectly projected upon my face
and in such incredible detail
that you can no longer distinguish
the deep fake from what’s real.
So then,
because all things need an opposite,
I must also paint a mask on you
with all the colors of my own fears
and all that terrifies me,
because as we both know,
 hate must be met with hate,
and vicious violence with vicious violence,
and a tooth for a tooth
for it is written
and has been posted on the internet,
so it must be true.
So now I see you
dressed in jack boots
with a swastika arm band
wearing a white hood
and waving a noose,.
so real I have totally forgotten
that you are you,
my brother and my sister and my friend
and I can no longer recognize you.
And now I find myself
standing before
the screen showing of my life,
in my dragon costume
with all my dragon scales
glistening in the eerie light,
and flames billowing
from my terrible gaping maw,
hoping to defeat the one
that I see coming at me
charging up the Capitol steps
on your white steed
with banners flying
and your holy blade of righteousness
waving high above your head
to save the day.
and it’s all caught on cell phone video!
So real! So real!
until the slide projector crashes to the floor
and bulb goes out
and there I am,
standing in front of you,
with your blade arching towards my throat,
no longer the beast,
no longer a dragon,
but an ordinary person,
yourself. myself, the one you love
wearing a silly mask,
only asking
if you would like to go outside
and play together in the street,
playing pretend,
until we each become
the thing we fear most.
4/2/2021

For Jail Gail

When I laid hurting,
You comforted me,
You gave me respite,
and the healing salve
of friendship.
You shared with me
your most precious gift,
the universe of yourself,
a kindness
I shall not forget.

And now
You have embarked
on that next journey
without us,
beyond time and space
and all that seprates us.

Buen viage Amiga
Amiga viage Buen

Catch you again
on the next spin
my friend.
.

2/3/2020
Barra de Navidad

How Civilizations Disappear

I’m walking down the road

under the dazzling, blazing sun

shining down on everything

and I see all the exploited dust

resting on every leaf and post

kicked up from the times before dinosaurs

when ancient beetles and other insects

bored geometric patterns

unmolested.upon the earth.

Spirals and circles within

spirals and circles,

amid all those cubes,

hexagons and other recurrent themes

that dust displays,

cities and nations built up on pitch black nights

before the last before

while the leaves

rattled above,

and no one was looking,

and there was no road,

and no one was walking along it..

 

My gaze follows the lines

between mountains and sky

rising and falling along the horizon

over which all things must pass.

It follows the limbs of trees

corkscrewing into the infinite between

and the paths of birds flying over.

It traces the unwavering attentions

of cattle for grass,

each in it’s own prickly patch,

accompanied by anxious attendant egrets

awaiting their own special prizes

beneath the cloven hooves..

 

A jagged wire maintains the community of the herd,

sharp and unforgiving,

which cannot be breached,

an artificial line temporarily

running along the road

While an occasional

dump truck roars by,

hauling the ashes of dead galaxies

and all lives dead and gone

in a billowing cloud

that sucks the air out of your lungs as it passes

before settling on new artifacts,

discarded plastic bags,

old shoes, cigarette butts,

bits of broken glass,

bones and pottery from other forgotten civilizations,

and the line of footprints behind me,

disappearing a multitude of sins,

 

all that Kali hath left in her wake.

 

 

1/12/2020

Infinity

Facebook, Google,

everything posted,

is past. Finite. Finished.

Information,

knowledge, literature.

A flick of the tail and all is gone.

Look out the window,

to the stars and beyond,

Or within,

to the story,

to the blank page

still being written

 

This is infinity.

 

8/4/2017

 

Listening To Popcorn Pop

As darkness descends

the jungle sounds rise and fall,

High whistles, chigs, scratches, screeches, a symphony orchestra, throbs, whirrrrrrrrrs,

Buzzzzzz sounds, and pops…………….

Pop,

pop, pop.

 

8/3/2017

 

Child Of The Dawn

And so the mottled child forlorn

wanders in from his journey home,

out of the soothing patter

of a warm rain

that fell across last night unrestrained.

Where have you been?

I ask him standing

in that light streaking

from between clouds and moments now breaking.

All the while silent answers flow

unhindered from his sodden features.

From somewhere deep inside the identity

of bone and stone,

being love and washing fear,

out of time’s dark narrow funnel.

From a place preceding sight,

through which all things,

both suffered and enjoyed,

must pass, coming and going,

all matter, dreams and light,

cosmic dust, water and smoke.

 

6/30/17

 

Spring Fires

The clouds in the east

are only a false promise of rain today,

but the jasmine has begun to bloom outside my door,

and above, the intense pale green

of emerging leaves graces the tree.

There is a hint of grass smoke

from the spring fires burning in the hills,

and an unseen wren is singing a sweet song,

“Where is love, where is love – surely not far away”,

waiting for the drought to end.

 

5/19/17