On his way out the door Bonny kisses Clyde goodbye
and says in her quiet voice, y’know, that voice, “Hey Honey,
pick up some cash at the bank on your way home, will ya?”
Author: kjt
Humanity
Do not the mothers and the fathers of Gaza love their daughters,
love their sons, love the children as you love?
Do not the mothers and the fathers of Israel love their daughters,
love their sons, love the children as you love?
Do not the mothers and the fathers of Russia love their daughters,
love their sons, love the children as you love?
Do not the mothers and the fathers of Ukraine love their daughters,
love their sons, love the children as you love?
Do not all children love their mothers, love their fathers, love their sisters,
love their brothers, love their homes if they still have them—
Love them all as you have loved?
A blessing for my American friends.
God bless America and all for that she stands.
God bless and guide America—
Her hearts and minds and hands.
And God bless us, Americans,
United in and by our faiths
That with God’s help,
God’s faith in us,
America be saved.
.
Hillside
First hint of dawn blackbirds at song along hedgerows and
streams and where people have been I am alone
upon a hillside.
Down on my knees starlight falling through leaves
to this forest floor swept clean as a chapel.
In the distance broad places of people and the sounds
and the silences of livingness.
Laughter like water
Once upon the midday sun of summer day
or of lean times come and gone like rains
We lived believing love enough— just love,
with arms linked, like sunbeams under newly
opened summer skies splashing laughter like water.
An earlier edit was published July 2021, Spillwords Press.
New Dawn
A pool of light, a flight of stars across a sky,
dawn from night, curtains part or rise or fall. Day breaks! LIFE IS!
And with our smiles, our hands and minds upon this place—WE LIVE!
.
Placard
We do not beg for peace —
The War-Men have no peace to give.
Peace is yours, mine, ours.
Peace is ready now.
Light of their dreams
For men who set sail and steer ships by the stars
There is no truer when than now.
Today is the way of the whens of men:
Agree, disagree—it matters naught.
Choice is the wheel turned hard or held fast
Upon seas, often perilous seas
Whilst men with their gods steer their ships through the night
By the stars and the light of their dreams.
Whilst men with their gods steer their ships through the night
By the stars and the light of their dreams.
I’ve dug the garden rows
I’ve dug the garden rows. The seeds are in.
I wonder—Who will come to praise the beans?
I’ll sing loudly—And who will bring their melodies?
Besides the hummingbirds and bees, I mean.
Gardens
Life—creating here,
it seems for us,
just us and art, I think.
And insofar as
viewpoints of dimension—
gardens now and now again,
just now of golden lights.
His Light, a Blossom and a Humble Bee
His light,
A blossom and a humble bee—
So proffers God
That All may see.
Where gardens bloom
And earthworms sing.
God calls each named
And seasons’ turn.
His light,
A blossom and a humble bee—
So proffers God
That All shall see.
A pretty little thing I sing to myself.
For I do love
Though love, by step, descends
through gates, along idyllic paths,
through grates and catacombs,
love ascends by love alone.
So it is that we create
and thereby are created.
Published in: “3201 e’s” 2018
Come What May
.
Holding, come what may, each other
until unseen time folds us under.
And if, and though by plan or chance, we pass
from out this life into another, yet another—
Two parts within this Great Adventure,
For us, for now, an hour more, a day, a breath,
no matter, come what may.
This poem is set to music by British singer/songwriter Nic Evennett whose musical, magical artistry can also be found HERE.
Published in: “Poems for Relationships” 2017: “3201 e’s” 2018
Open Hands
Here, there, Dark recedes
Its mantle fallen
Curtains part
And Freedom spills into our hands
Published in: “Letter to the White Imbongi” 2013
Afternoon
It was the early afternoon of Infinity when we met.
I had called into being the forever of time
to anticipate your arrival in finite rhythms—
Knowing they must be the whitest of lies.
The preparation, the perception, the recognition,
the intertwining and engagement of spaces,
their separations—all in the span of hello
and the impossibility of absolute goodbyes.
Published as “Afternoon” in: “Letter to the White Imbongi” 2013: “Poems for Relationships” 2017: “3201 e’s” 2018
A Gentle Scent
A gentle scent surrounds me. It eddies,
flows, reminds me. I dream, look long
and away until just so and seeing you
and having only to say—I seize upon
some flower, something I love, you see,
and say—This is where I begin. This is
where I am. This is where I am re-awoken.
And in that span you hold me with interest,
with affinity. You who can never end,
whose beginning is before time—
From non-existence you rekindle me.
Published in: “Letter to the White Imbongi” 2013: “Poems for Relationships” 2017
this-that
My home is in a sky
where night as clear as day
and only for the stars and us
and where I’ve met the dawn
I dream
to touch this-that, the sky again
the sweep of stars into the distant
slope of night.
Published in: “3201 e’s” 2018
qui vive
unseen, sans wings
alone above an unknown wind
unsung, no throat swells
no tongue conveys, nor eyes contain
no flesh burns here
no doubt, no alibi
suns race silent far below
planets swing, comets chase
qui vive? la liberté!
qui vive? freedom!
Qui vive means, loosely, “Who goes there?” a sentry’s challenge. Sans means “without,” an old word stolen from the French centuries ago.
Published in: “3201 e’s” 2018
Boy runner
Approaching Siddhartha where he sat a
boy examined him politely (this-that?)
Siddhartha spoke and there the unnamed boy
who sitting a while with him that day thought
and over the days ahead returned and
leaving only for food, drink and service
that Siddhartha would not be distracted
from his goal until upon returning
he saw him glowing in the morning light
and so began to dance with him beneath
the tree. A leaf was shed, was gathered then
and the boy, who while tucking it away,
Siddhartha asked if he would run for him
to village, crossroads, field, grove, wherever
Siddhartha wished to speak. And so he ran
and soon arriving, announcing thus his
coming, holding high the leaf he carried
and which had never died, living, always
green, until Lord Buddha left his body.
Published in: “3201 e’s” 2018
Finding Buddha
And as I split myself and stand
At every corner of said universe
On any selfsame summer day
With any selfsame afternoon rain
Will this, though thought, slip
Where densities of interest fail
(Or by failures to perceive)
This leaf-boy-runner
Eight portions of beingness
The full and fill of prime creation
(Perhaps where life has paused
Or slowed enough to perceive
At any speed
The speed of perception
The true speed of light
The wavelengths of laughter
And of any thing)
While density shifts
Where inertia has failed
(The density of my interest
The shift of my affinity)
There is no doubt
Life wills velocity
It gives back light
It bends the universe
Assumes location
From which expands
All space
Not already filled
With the logic of otherness
And even there it bends— It wills
As (my breadth of vision)
A torrent
An avalanche
A fissure in nothingness
A co-creation of All
This theatre
Our audience
Of stelae
Beacons of lostness
In search of wavelengths
Of affinity
Where you might
Where I have
The curves beneath our frequencies
The pitch and roll of their design
Their width
(We have
Each other)
In all that vastness
An ordinary leaf
From this
For that
(I am)
The breathless
Runner
Published in: “3201 e’s” 2018 as “And if I split myself”
Broken bowls
The road is littered
with broken bowls and buddhas
flung in bits from cliffs
Published in: “souls arriving” 2006 as “#1”
Lotus Song
Om-mani birds
hold back the night
Om mani padme hum
Old nun bee Padme-hum
she waggles to the lotus song
Om mani padme hum
Om Metteyya
Om Maitreya
Om mani padme hum
There is a Buddhist mantra, a kind of meditative and spiritually meaningful chant: This quintessential utterance, Om mani padme hum, is considered to encapsulate all of the wisdom of Buddhism. Om is a sacred sound expressing holiness. Mani means jewel, Padme is the lotus flower, and Hum represents the spirit of enlightenment.
In this poem the first two words, “Om mani,” are used for the name of sacred birds. The last two words of the mantra, “Padme hum,” are taken to name a monastic bee.
And waggle, a curious word to use here, is the actual technical term used in describing the dance of the bee upon returning to the hive to communicate the path to the source of pollen; Spiritually, the road to enlightenment.
Metteyya and Maitreya have the same meaning, essentially “friend” in two languages (Metteyya in Pali, the ancient language spoken by Lord Buddha, and Maitreya in Sanskrit). They refer to the prophesy that an enlightened being will come to complete the work begun by Lord Buddha.
At the turning, soon the lifting, of the night
I dreamed an opened book of prayer
On a table by a window
Pages turning by a window’s ledge at night
There, God in darkness, knowing, seeing
And where a thief had hidden, kneeling
As pages flutter with the curtain in the night
Pages lifting, lifting, turning
While God looking, quiet, waiting
For His thief in contemplation
Of the faith he had not kept
There, in the shadows of the curtain
At the turning, soon the lifting, of the night
Published in: “3201 e’s” 2018
Cunningham
Perched, a red-winged blackbird watching me,
its fencepost newly staked, bark on, topside down.
At arm’s length, rusted fence pliers bounce along a span of wire.
One. Two. Three. “Hemlock, see, twists over time—”
that’s Cunningham’s voice, “stretches the wire.
Set one post wrong-way-to and it’ll sag right there.”
Came a day I read Seamus Heaney
and with newfound pride—my own name
and that red-winged blackbird there,
down Vernon River way.
Seamus Heaney wrote a fabulous poem titled St. Kevin and the Blackbird.
.

Here he is: Bob Cunningham. Bob passed on 24 Feb., 2016
The Photograph
The photograph hangs on the wall by the window
Three judges appear (one carries a folder)—
A tarot card reader, embalmer, engraver
Without much to say and not much of it said
About the boot in the crib and the tire in the bed
The round faced man and the pot on his head
Painted with flowers and chipped on its edge
And the cat near the door with its collar and bell
Flailing and airborne and mid caterwaul
And the three-leggèd dog with her leash on
And sweater, jubilant, leaping— Mon Dieu! Grand jeté!
And the crow— O the crow! In its cage cawing “Fire!”
The crow crowing “Mayhem!” and “Murder most foul!”
The dog and the cat and the crow and the tire
The cage and the crib, the pot painted in flowers
All in a frame with a sign alongside—
“Self portrait. Around the Ides of July.”
A ribbon is clipped and then hung for its owner
It bears the word “Mention” and then the engraver
Makes a note on a form he hands to the embalmer
The tarot card reader turns— She and her hat,
And addresses the room, “Ain’t no card made for that.”

Apocrypha
Before The Beginning God said
“Let there he Height!”
And it was everywhere.
And then, upon the evening of the eighth day
God said “Everyone’s a critic—
This cannot end well.”
We are nameless
We are nameless, I-men, striving
far above the beggared notions
of apathies and death’s release.
We are shadeless, unencumbered
beings drawn from Prime Consideration.
Others, fallen, fail, false in trade,
offer i for I.
I, reaching
skyward, holding fast the honest
roots wherefrom he rises— i-man,
reaching down, splits the rhizomed root,
splicing fungused-i to feed upon
a stolen I-man grace. And struts.
Mort
Unbeleuchtet Grau— sullen words to greet the day; (Unlit grey)
Grim mort, rising— Der Dichter ist für immer tot. (The poet is forever dead)
Criticasters shouting, “Poetry is dead— Tod für immer!” (Death forever!)
Wrested down; stripped of form, of action, futures
— Scat-mongers. Scat mangeurs. (Shit eaters)
Oh no! No! No! No! NO!
Bring him to! With your/my/our aesthetics
with purpose, ardent, godslike, unbridled—
Arise! Renew! Release! and Sound!
.
Mort is the note sounded on a hunter’s horn to signal the death of his chosen quarry.
Schema
.
Draw
a circle.
Draw a line,
through its middle,
in your mind. Within that
circle, on that line, draw yet
another circle there, just as the 1st;
you choose the size and where upon the line
it falls. And in the spaces left unclaimed, on either
side, if there is room, draw yet another circle there. And
others still until the line is full. This string of worlds, sized large
or small or mixed, is ready now. The essence of our paths is
found herein. The universe, the paths you choose; the
distance ’round each world alone, when added
to the others, is equal to the measure of the
first. You drew the circle. Drew the
line. Drew the others. Chose
their size. The essence of
our paths is found
herein
.
I discovered many years ago that if you draw a circle and then, like a string of pearls, draw a series of circles enough to fill the diameter of the first circle that the sum of the circumferences of the lesser circles is equal to the circumference of the great circle no matter how many circles you draw and of any varied size. If you draw just 2 circles within and trace a line around them like a sine wave you get the basic on the yin-yang which, if you measure the perimeter of each piece (yin or yang) the number once again is equal to the circumference of the great circle. A meditation on this bit of mathematics reveals more than one spiritual truth. At least it has for me.
Published in “Between Music and Dance” 2013 as “Tao”
Two poets
Two poets dance in a blossom wood
One with petals and the other with God
Where are, one asks, the flowers of yore?
Two poets turn in a stormy wood
One feels wind and the other, God
Whence, one asks, do these wild winds roar?
Two poets lean in a wintry wood
One through snow and the other with God
What more, one asks, must we endure?
Two poets come upon a midnight wood
One turns back and the other toward God
Both paths, God says, lead to my door.
.
Published in Ancient Paths Literary Magazine, June 19, 2020.
A riot of Song
A riot of Song
Of reverberating Song
And Imagination
Riot has meanings that include an unrestrained display of emotions, passions, etc.
Orange Grove
If in some other life
we sat in endless space
(perhaps you came alone)
leaning in, could it have been
an orange grove?
If in another life
we listened (in this
or that other grove) and wept
and overflowed with hope—
Then it was real.
Published in: “3201 e’s” 2018
Yesterday Today

When I see flowers I pass them by.
And lovers, I avert my eyes.
Laughter makes me turn and walk the other way.
When I hear music I’ve got no place to go.
No place to hide. No quiet place to lie.
When I hear music I just close my eyes and cry.
It might as well be yesterday—today is just the same.
Every morning lies and says I’ve come alive again,
That I’m not dying.
It might as well be yesterday,
Might just as well be yesterday—
Today.
P.S. I feel just fine now. I’ve found my way.
Tall against the night
Below the smoking cliffs
We wait and parting ways
To live a while between the fires
You, there
And I
And Who had come
Already tall against the night
Eight threads
Eight shining cords
Of livingness
Are we not eight
But one? Just so
Dandelions
Dandelions left her cryin’
What’s a man to figure
Tried it twice— She turned to ice
So what’s a man to figure
Told her that my love for her—
who knows—might last forever
Asked her if she’d be my gal
Last words I hear’d was “NEVER”
Last words I hear’d was “NEVER”
I have no idea how this got in my head. I admit to laughing.
White Seabirds Wheeling
Shoulders rolling, rising
as icebergs from their glacier calf to sea—
as men, we fend the rimless wilds
With force, flung, withheld,
intelligence, ancestral songs of origin,
of prophesy, returning avatars
Overhead
white seabirds
wheeling
I guess you’re on your own with this poem. I can tell you where it begins. The scene is set in ancient times, and as near as I remember— a northern, coastal region following the spring equinox. A few of us had embarked upon a quest to find The One. “The One” was not what we called such a Being but it serves to communicate and a given name does not matter for the purpose of this note. Most of Earth have heard it anyway in one incarnation or another.
Calf: The offspring of various large mammals, such as cows (cattle), elephants and whales. Also (as it is used here), a piece of an iceberg or a glacier that breaks away or the action of this happening.
Fend: (figurative) To defend or attack with skill, make one’s way.
Avatar: The manifestation of a deity or released soul in bodily form.
Published in: “3201 e’s” 2018
Star blue sky
Waking, right eye first, along the pillow line,
through the dark, and where the curtains part—
for a moment, clarity—a star blue sky.
Published in: “3201 e’s” 2018
I looked up and saw a star
I looked up and saw a star. And then another.
I traced the light of some small piece of rock or ice.
It might have been space junk but could have been a satellite.
No way to know for sure. The moon was over there.
Published in: “3201 e’s” 2018
Letter to the White Imbongi
These are the thoughts of the Locust thrum—
From the ripple, the thought is the Rock is God
From the Rock, the Earth
From the Earth, Sun-Moon
From They the thought is the Milky Spiral
The spiral known as the Eye of God
And from the Eye all space is His
Gift of glorious and of noble heights
And from the Eye all space is Hers
These are the thoughts of the Locust thrum—
Praise them then— the Locust mind, the flights of Stone
All Earths, their Suns and every Moon
Praise Galaxies
Praise Space— Her heights!
These are the thoughts of the Locust thrum
These are the thoughts of the Locust thrum
Imbongi, in South African tradition, is the name/title of a poet. I imagine a great imbongi with poet friends who relay information from afar—In particular, this letter about thoughts that the writer supposes have come from a distant cloud of locusts.
Ball Card Heroes
With bat and ball and gloves in hand and on our way we’d pass
by Old Man Finch where when he’d sit and watch the world
one of us would wave. Most times he’d look, he’d say,
Ever tell you boys about the game?
He stole our breath away, sure, a hundred times.
We were fielders for him, basemen, catchers and every ball
split seconds from extra innings in mid-flight-
from-outfield-to-second-base-and-home-plate night games.
Peanuts, beer, hotdog vendors shouting,
with every other voice, shouting!
Out! You buncha losers! C’mon cmon cmon! Safe!
Allow the call or fault it, either way.
We were ball card heroes, just the same,
with bat and ball and gloves in hand and on our way.

This poem tells a story. Life, imagination, games, spirit of play, youth, heroes and age. Baseball! When I was a boy we collected baseball cards. Topps I think. We carried them in our pockets, traded them, flicked them across the schoolyard in games of accuracy, attached them with clothes pegs to our bikes so that they hit against the spokes when we rode and made motorcycle sounds (we imagined). Cards were toys. I don’t collect cards now but if I did I’d collect the most played-with cards I could find.
Published in: “3201 e’s” 2018
Zombies Dancing
I see zombies in my headlights
Just one or two—and now a few.
They come dancing from the darkness.
They fly twirling out of view.
Published in: “Letter to the White Imbongi” 2013: “3201 e’s” 2018: Spillwords Press Oct. 2020
CAN YOU FEEL IT?
Can you feel it?
BUT CAN YOU FEEL IT?
I do.
The Changing—
Lights flickering on
And on and on…
Everywhere!
Can you taste it too?
And smell it?
Are you smiling
All-of-a-sudden
For the pleasure
Just the pleasure?
Sing!
Believe!
Be!
THE DARK IS OVER!
THE DARK IS OVER!
THE DARK IS OVER!
Come! Create with me!
Come!
Create with me!
(Create Create Create!)
You see—We are already friends
Remind me then of my abilities
Increase our creation of futures
(We pretend we do not know
That “when” is just a little lie we play with)
Remind me to rise at will
And to intend decision
I brim with joy at your separateness
Your joy with mine. With others too, full joy
Remind me of the play and of the game
(The little lies of lose and had)
The glory and the vision
Of “What if”
Reacquaint me with cognition
Remind me to re-cognite
The instant already-ness of being
(For BE we are DECISION)
What will we decide that we have already
What will we decide
Come!
Create with me!
Depths of Green
Depths of green—from canopy to forest floor
In streams of raucous livingness
And there, and whereabout, a sanctuary
Falls in heaps, in stone walls run aground.
And with, nearby, afar, by ins and outs
Through every place—perceived
Wherever listened for—vibration.
A single voice in Pali—a single voice
Leaping, leading, dancing, sweeping.
Hello, it says—Hello.
Published in: “3201 e’s” 2018
Upon Awakening in a Churchyard
Spare me the lecture, Father.
I’m going to Hell and we both know it.
Aye, and all your choirs and blather
Won’t but start me sufferin’ years
Before me ‘lotted time. Ye’d make
The Devil’s work a damned sight quicker
If’n I weren’t deaf in both ears twice before me wake
For all your moaning for me soul.
Spare me the lecture, Father.
I’m going to Hell and we both know it
Aye, and it don’t seem right a man should suffer
Twice for the same sin.
Being of Irish extraction this shouldn’t come as a surprise to anyone.
No Justice on Stolen Land
Along Victoria Inner Harbour
Behind the granite wall
Next to Capt. James Cook’s effigy in bronze
Next to bold bronze plaques of white-worlders-
Come-by-water
Across from The Empress
In front of the Assembly of Other Nations
Under an iron bench
Scratched in concrete—
No justice on stolen land.
Update, July 2, 2021: The statue of Captain James Cook at Victoria Inner Harbour was torn down by a group of protesters and thrown into the harbour. It will not be replaced.
Included in Make A list: How a Simple Practice Can Change Our Lives and Open Our Hearts by Marilyn McEntyre: Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Co., 2018. A lovely book.
Published in: “Letter to the White Imbongi” 2013
Pangaea
Standing. Alone.
A yellow sky. A shudder, grind
And hesitation of the earth.
Below, black seas heave and sigh
Against a scar of land.
Night. Yellow sky remains.
Arc and flicker.
I breathe. Night fades.
A shallow breath.
Acid rain falls gently.
Pangaea: Proto-continent existing about 375 million years ago eventually breaking into two continental masses, Gondwana & Laurasia. Gondwana: made up of areas now Africa, most of Australia, India, South America & Antarctica. Laurasia: North America, Greenland, Europe & Asia north of the Himalayas.
I put myself there, at the sundering.
Published in: “souls arriving” 2006: “Letter to the White Imbongi” 2013: “3201 e’s” 2018
Dismal Mountain
Summon Me! From Dismal Mountain
Where fallen prayers drift slowly down
Where ash of fallen prayer lies mounting
From the privy of the Beast!
Take Me! Shake each Gilded Logic
From dreaded Death! From dung deposits!
From the liars’ breath of thieves!
From Serpentes, friend of Eve!
Spill me! Spill my ancient grief!
My faith that God once had in beasts!
Spill the essence of my clay
The long of Night! The breadth of Day!
O Hear! Echoic from this ashen fell
Where idols leant and fallen dwell—
My Lords-in-waiting! Seneschals!
Summon Me!
A few words:
Serpentes (sir-pent-eze): a name in biology for the snakes— used here as the given name of the serpent in the Garden of Eden.
Fell: a hill or highland.
Leant is leaned. Rhymes with lent.
Seneschal: an officer or steward in a medieval noble household, in charge of servants and their duties, ceremonies and administration of justice. Reminds me of a lieutenant in an old crime family.
The premise here is that The Beast has no power of his own; it is first begged or stolen.
This lyric comes off as heavy metal in my head. With liturgical effect.
Published in: “Letter to the White Imbongi” 2013
The Golden Age
From beneath the bottom of the bottomless abyss, below even that, to the firm cliff’s edge above where light shines without shadow, so the Basic Books soar above the darkness, the lostness and the nightmares of yore.
From beneath the bottom of the bottomless abyss, below even that, to the firm cliff’s edge above where light shines without shadow. Further, to the waving flags at the peaks of the highest mountain tops and the voices of those who have climbed cheering and calling from above, so rise the Lectures with their Basic Books.
From beneath the bottom of the bottomless abyss, below even that, to the firm cliff’s edge above where light shines without shadow. Further, to the waving flags at the peaks of Highest Mountain and the voices of those who have climbed cheering and calling from above. Still further and unbelievably beyond, where infinity begins to stretch into constellations of your own creation, where hyperbole will remain forever an understatement, so ascends a New and Golden Age—The words, the voice and the visions of Ron.
Ron is L. Ron Hubbard.. The Basic Books and Lectures are a part of L. Ron Hubbard’s record of research and discovery in Scientology.
seasons
see-sawn summers
mother’s broom
autumn figures
sylvan moon
winter settles
lean and dusky
spring rains
fiddleheads
a-busking
Fiddleheads are the young curled fronds of some ferns.
Published in: “souls arriving” 2006: “Letter to the White Imbongi” 2013
Nuthin’
Shucks! That ain’t nuthin’—
I seen bigger— Way bigger!
I mean— The Entire Space Building!
Published in: “Letter to the White Imbongi” 2013
St. John’s Eve
Smouldering moon over fallen dark embers—
fragments rising in corkscrew red-gold rhythms
Midsummer, traditionally June 24th.
Death of a Patriot
All that rest are spaces (space)
space of drums
(“Come” they told him)
Nitre, cannon, horns, pipes
(echoed, calling)
vertebrae, rope-fray
Sinew (pink, foam-flecked)
flailing, fallen, gathered, apart
upon itself, weltered
Nitre or niter: saltpeter or potassium nitrate, a component of gunpowder.
Welter: lie soaked in blood.
Who do we actually think has laid down their lives for the freedoms of today? A wellspring of greater beings who have sacrificed everything for us in some past, performing a duty we attempt to honor for a moment, for a day or on a postage stamp? No no no. They are us, one life to the next as we live and die and live—live yet again. We might take a dimmer view of those running roughshod over our hard-won victories if we realized the personal price we’ve paid and how many times. This poem is a death remembered in parts—one day of many from that perspective. Remembered, because that awareness has gone on to live again. I remember some past lives (and this is the death of one of them). I don’t much care whether these ideas seem strange or utterly fantastic. Make room; This is the Death of a Patriot.
Published in: “3201 e’s” 2018
The Meanings of Trees
pine is for leaving
oak is for time
willow, for grieving
loves left behind
This verse lies in the grave of an Englishman who left for home from a borrowed land.
Published in: “souls arriving” 2006 as “Goodbye, I said”: “Letter to the White Imbongi” 2013: “Poems for Relationships” 2017: “3201 e’s” 2018
Raising a glass
Lord Jesus died for all our sins
& so, t’was mighty big o’ Him.
Especially since He hadn’t any
& all the rest of us ha’ plenty.
Now ‘t seems to me a shame t’ waste
Such charity & love—Such grace.
I drink t’ drink and t’ our Father’s smile
& t’ sins what makes His gift worthwhile.
I would dance among them
With trappings of chattel and ownership and slavery
Stain, scarification, of torture and tally
Edification and vainglory of succumb: metal ring, chain & ink—
Declaration: Inventory of alienable rights: inexistence
Where are the Free
The Free-to-Live-and-Die-and-Live-Again-at-Will
Where are the Truly Free
I would dance among them
I hear the desert wind
“The lone and level sands stretch far away.” Shelley.
Ah… And there it is, my friend— “A disembodied thought,”
Found, we’re told, under a soldier’s boot,
Though some have said it is not a thinkingness
But a yearning for the life that held it.
And there, just there, a bit of quartz
As white as cataracts
As final rays of sunlight, once
Caught and held— As black clouds
Boil across an afternoon sky
Eclipse the sun and day falls into night.
Or so the lone survivor told.
But she was blind, it’s said.
She lived another day or two
The legend goes, to say who won.
Though who would care, I wonder?
Surely not the dead.
We walk. We part from pasts and where
All pasts must dwell. Many cannot speak—
Others reach with open arms
Toward the voices of Allah, of Yahweh,
Of L. Ron Hubbard, of others.
And having listened and to our own thoughts
And having prayed our own prayers
Rejoined our own lives,
Today, we are returned.
In peace, be.
.
Sometime Around Vespers
Sometime around vespers or matins, still dreaming or about to—
swimming spaceless beyond the stretch where vision is blindness
where photons tumble like Phaëthon from his chariot of fire
Where time beats that archetypal
echo of rhymed nothingness
pulsing through ALL verse
Unfulfilled
nothingness
unfulfillable
Except to those returning soul-side
grooving to the hush between the beats—
the authors of such co-labours as these
Vespers: evening prayers. Matins: morning prayers, morning birdsong. Phaëthon [fey-uh-thuhn, -thon] In Greek Mythology Phaëthon is the son of Helios, the sun deity. Phaëthon “borrowed” his father’s sun chariot and drove it too close to Earth where Zeus killed him with a thunderbolt and so saved the world.
Sixteen
You were sixteen and sweeter than a mountain spring when I met you. I was young and handsome then and love was bright and new. We were not old but old enough and richer more than all the worlds combined.
Published in: “Poems for Relationships” 2017: “3201 e’s” 2018
Hymn of the Fallen Tree
Let me rest among these giant souls that stand
where trees once stood.
Here, greens break into blacky-blues and dragonflies
and dusts of beetle dung grow old withal.
Let me rest among the salmonberry and the tumblewood
of cotton, ash and hemlock, fir and cedar.
And let the wind stir of pine above the fall reawaken me
in early greens and sapling dress, anon.
This poem is an allegory. Published in: “souls arriving” 2006 as title “Tumblewood”: “Between Music and Dance” 2013: “Letter to the White Imbongi” 2013: “The Footprint Press” 2014: “3201 e’s” 2018.
Butterfly
Oh—Butterfly!
Unfolding folding—Away!
Up up down up—Ha!

Salty
Salty chips
Creamy dips
Licky lips
Published in: “Poems for Relationships” 2017 as “Grace”: “3201 e’s” 2018
If a man whispers peace in a field for the dead
If a man whispers peace in a field for the dead
will he be heard or will it be said
that the voice of one man is a lie?
If a man calls out peace from a box in a park
will he be heard or left lone in the dark
with the murmur of madmen and lies?
If a man cries for peace and names Allah or Yahweh or Christ
will he be heard or were they sacrificed
under flag? under bomb? under fire?
If a man offers peace with peace in his heart
will he be heard? Is that how it starts?
Someone— Anyone with peace in their hearts—
Will we be heard? Is THIS where it starts?
If we fail, my dear friends, who will live?
The War-Men have no peace to give.
Published in: “souls arriving” 2006: as version “If…”
Incandescent
I have fallen while the stars of endless
endless sucking skies have sucked me down.
Here, I have lain broken on the burning lawns of Hell—
fingers, arms, soul stretched to the point of no return
to catch a wind that sings and does not sigh
with the souls of a million million soulless men.
I have slept and dreamt of rising.
Dreamt the cool nakedness of space
beyond the shell of light that sucks me down.
And I have spent my fists with the soulless men
against the blackened skies of Earth, with the blazing
incandescent trails of souls arriving—
falling no farther.
To dream this night of rising
and the cool nakedness of space
once more.
Published in “souls arriving,” 2007: in “Between Music and Dance,” 2013: “Letter to the White Imbongi,” 2013. “3201 e’s,” 2018.
We Will Survive
Take away the sun above
And burn the air we breathe.
Take away the moon and stars
And everything believed.
Take away the green of life—
The blue-green seas below.
And take the glow that lives in them
And everything unknown.
Take the candle. Take the verse.
Take art. And take the artist’s words.
Take each thing— its form, its name.
Take everything. What’s left but blame? More blame.
One thing’s for sure— We will survive
We have gone on and left this song behind us.
Published in: “souls arriving” 2006 as version “9/11” : “3201 e’s” 2018 as version “We Have Gone On (9/11)”
WAR POEM
WAR is NOT a spiritual preference (except to the insane)
WAR is NOT a spiritual orientation (except to the Merchant of Chaos)
WAR is NOT a spiritual experience (except to those who die)
open our eyes together and we will dream
open our fists today and we will build
open our doors tonight and we will sing
open our eyes/fists/doors
or (close our eyes and never mind
(close our fists and build collateral damage
(close our doors and scream
oh no
open our eyes/fists/doors
send our prayers to the front lines
send our light to the front lines
send our truth to the front lines
send us
and we will build for beauty
and for freedom
and for love
send us
Published in: “souls arriving” 2006: “3201 e’s” 2018
Softly
Hold me, fold me
Like a dove
Kiss me now
Before I go
Here I am
Once more, My Love
My Love, before I go
Gently, softly
Like a prayer
Lay beside me
Hold me still
Defend me
When I fall, My Love
My Love, I fear to go
On the day I came back from the hospital after my heart had acted up.
Published in: “souls arriving” 2006: “Between Music and Dance” 2013: “Poems for Relationships” 2017”: “3201 e’s” 2018.
Northern Christmas Night
The road that lies below lies deep and still.
No moon to light the snow. The sky is clear.
Alone, heads back and arm in arm— We’re here!
In disbelief— We hardly breathe— But here!
So spill the lights of Heaven into sight—
Illumined, rising, falling, shifting grace.
Upon the starry sweep of Christmas night,
In ribbon-folds of light and dark it sways
Above the shepherd pine and hemlock choir.
There— This night! The sky! The lights!
The stars! The fire!
Above! Across! Dear God—
.
I recall having seen the northern lights only twice in this lifetime. The last was while driving east on an early winter evening. I turned my head to look north where the mountains above Vancouver are lit along the ski run down Grouse. There, and above darker more distant silhouettes, the northern lights hung in unexpected splendor.
Published in Ancient Paths Literary Magazine, December 26, 2020.
Them Birds That Cat
Yellow blue green white black—
they sit upon their perch
above the cat.
Cool cat—
she curls her tail and counts
and curls her tail,
she counts—
them birds.
That cat.
Published in: “3201 e’s” 2018
Members of the Jury—
It was a drive-by versing
A poem invasion
An act of irrepressible aesthetics
Unmitigated form and passion
Premeditated meter
Alliteration
Aggravated by both rhythm
And rhyme
It was a drive-by versing
A poem incursion
A wilding of fact and fantasy
By all accounts
A Declaration of Words
When my home town made it illegal for singers and performers to freely work the streets there was a protest rally. I read this poem from the old courthouse steps with bullhorn in hand.
Published in: “souls arriving” 2006
.
Paris, November
I remember. I remember
The flying leaves and floating leaves
Blazing yellow-orange-red
Until, wind-felled, their final embers
I remember to this day
This wet-wool gray, this end of day
Paris that November
Paris attacks, 13 November 2015.
Published in: “3201 e’s” 2018
The Mathematics of the Shattered Soul
The mathematics of the shattered soul:
Faux theorems born of arithmetic (adj.) chance
Associations purged of higher goals
Dreams of psych (and pharma) courtesans
Whilst mystery lies in algebraic shoals
False purposed ranks of prophets blindly dance
And madmen peddle poisons from their towers
Thus Man is kept in ignorance of Man
Published “Between Music and Dance” 2013: “3201 e’s” 2018
Toss me high
Friends, do not hold me,
Toss me high!
Free to rise
Above the winds,
Above the darkness
Sadness brings.
Friends, do not hold me,
Toss me high!
Sing your Hellos!
And if we must,
A kiss goodbye.
Sing your Hellos!
And if we must,
For just a little while,
Goodbye.

For Joan, Shauna, Tom, Lorraine, Irene, Nick, Richard
Published in: “3201 e’s” 2018
You sit, you stand, you read
You sit, you stand, you read
the news. How marvelous
that you do not weep.
Published in: “3201 e’s” 2018
Head bowed.
Head bowed. Homeless.
What a heavy load
He carries.
Saw him crossing a street in LA.
Published in: “3201 e’s” 2018
For My One True Valentine
Sunflowers! Crowns golden!
Violets! Sweet petals, blue!
Carnations! Pinks! Whites!
—And my Love for You!
Dahlias! Such beauty!
Tulips! Who knew!
Orchids! Red roses!
—And my Love for You!
Published in: “Poems for Relationships” 2017
Let us say
Let us say that we have loved
and though good women,
though good men,
admit the hatreds too.
And looking, just by looking,
find that love may be
the greater of the pair
and love, the bed upon which
hate must heal.
Let us say that we have loved.
Published in: “Poems for Relationships” 2017 (earlier version): “3201 e’s” 2018
THE NEW APARTHEID
Yes, segregate.
Create a slum for me.
Build walls.
Render us apart.
Hide.
The New Apartheid appears in full in Walling In and Walling Out: Why Are We Building New Barriers to Divide Us? by Laura McAtackney (Editor), Randall H. McGuire (Editor), as the epigraph for Chapter 11, Conclusion. Available on Amazon. The Introduction’s epigraph is a quote from Mending Wall (from which a line provides the book title), a poem by Robert Frost. Randall McGuire wrote, “I want to thank you for capturing in 13 words what we struggled to say in 100s of pages of academic prose.”
Also published in: “souls arriving” 2006 as Apartheid: “3201 e’s” 2018
Sin
I love thee not, Sweet Seraphim—
Thou, aloof, aloft— apart from sin.
Nor love thee, Sweet, as does Our Shepherd
Love His flock— His love unfettered.
Nay, truth, My Love— I, as a Beast,
Upon thy lips and thighs, would feast—
Thy musk! O musth! This night! Thy beauty!
Forsaken Heaven— Carnal duty!
I will not leave thee, Seraphim, uncertain
Thou hadst abandoned Him.
Musth: pronounced “must”— the frenzied sexual state of certain male animals.
Published in: “souls arriving” 2006
Caveat
A sonnet is a dandy thing all dressed
In pomp and form and run-on lines and things—
Enough to make the weary take up wings.
Though this is but my third, I must confess,
Lifetimes ago I wrote with zing and zest
And sonnets then were little songs to sing
To fluttering breasts and nightingales— or slings
Against misfortune, kings, and other pests.
No poet’s court has ever sat assize
Sans sonnets quick and cleverly contrived.
Fair queen or country maid, though each its prize—
The sonnet’s virtue rests in parted thighs.
Finer roe has never graced a sturgeon
Nor caveat much mattered to a virgin.
Caveat is a warning or caution. Assize is a court or can be a judgement. Sans is a word stolen from the French about 700 years ago. Means “without.”
Published in: “souls arriving” 2006 as “Sonnet 003”
Space
Stumbling, tumbling, jumbling space
Riffles and ripples in ecstatic grace
Yet barely persists
To mark where we’ve been
(We leaping!
We laughing
We lunging unseen!)
And roosters behind us
Galactacious spray
That glistens and glitters
The whole Milky Way!
Roosters means the action of forming a rooster-tail like the spray of water behind a speed boat. Galactacious is a made up word from Galaxy.
Published in: “souls arriving” 2006: “Between Music and Dance,” 2013, “Letter to the White Imbongi” 2013.
Coming of Age
My feet sing
My heart sings
My body sings along
I’m already in love
Just gotta find me a girl
This is what a guy feels like at a certain point in his life. Not sure if all guys do. Well, me anyway.
Published in: “Poems for Relationships” 2017: “3201 e’s” 2018
answer

I think a thought
(I sometimes do)
I think a thought
from start to through.
And when I’m done,
if it was fun,
I think me up
another one.
Father
Father,
how shall I atone
for sins so deep
that Satan
weeps
Published in: “souls arriving” 2006 as “Magi”: “Between Music and Dance” 2013, “Magi”
Rise
My skull lies split in splintered bits,
My brains, upon the rocks.
I rise on warring winds
To War
In battle over battlements
Where saints and saviors trod.
I rise whole, a king no more,
Nor more, nor less, than gods.
Published in “Between Music and Dance” 2013: “3201 e’s” 2018
I wake up to my darling
I wake up to my darling
My darling wakes with me
Out, in and on white sheets we slip
For breakfast, lunch and tea
Joy of Acknowledgement
Spoons
c-d-lick-k-k
pots/pans
b-bang-ng-ng
bowng b boawng
Hey!
-ey!
lids
CRSH-INGGG
Hey ng ng-ng b-ba-wnng Hey!
Hey!
HeyboangHecd-ba-b-yonnHey!
HeyowngHeyboangdeclick (SHiNGHey!)
Heyang-b-bang-c-dlick bongHey!
c-Hey-c-baowngSHINGGbonng-nging-Hey!
Dedicated to all those who’ve helped: Pots, pans, lids & spoons from balconies around the world.
Published in: “souls arriving” 2006 as “Joy of Kitchen”
main street underworld
belts hung with trampled halos
trammeled souls
t-shirts taunting— PROPERTY OF HIM
Lie between us
On a blanket on a wooden floor
Abandoned articles of war
Lie between us
And that future left behind
Happy Birthday! A day in the life of a child, a bird and a snail.
I was walking down the road
Just as happy as can be
And all the leaves upon the trees
Were waving back at me
I saw a curly snail
As he stretched to greet his day
Then headed down the road with me
Then stopped to stretch again
I saw a pretty sparrow
She was perched upon a wire
She sang a song—I sang along
We made a lovely choir
The snail conducted from a twig—
Just so, our song began
“Happy Birthday to You!”
Did you hear us as we sang?
We had a happy party
As we danced around—We three!
And we wished you Happy Birthday!
Just as HAPPY as can be!
Published in “Between Music and Dance” 2013 as version “Happy Birthday, Marianne!”
If (when)
If, for example, we die (and I’ve heard otherwise).
Not if but when, I’ve heard.
I would argue (suggest)
There is no truer when than now.
We live unless (until) we say we die.
And only then if I agree
And we agree
And others too
And once agreed
Must not be spoken of
(Which, all said, appears
To be the dyingness).
Contrariwise,
Living, living now, and thus—
If (when) we’ll agree amongst ourselves—
L’chaim!
L’chaim! (pronounced luh-khah-yim) a Hebrew toast. Literally— To life!
Published in: “3201 e’s” 2018
If love exists
Love early, long and more than any human heart can hold—
Full souled! First, last and freshly found, Love in All.
Love All in All. By these words, if Love exists, Love All.
Published in: “Poems for Relationships” 2017: “3201 e’s” 2018
Everyone
I have not come, he says,
to defend God
but to offend sinners.
Looks straight at me—
I am his everyone.
Published in: “3201 e’s” 2018 as “Everybody’s Man”
BEDBUG SLAM
The only good bedbug is a dead bedbug.
The only bedbug worse than a live bedbug
is a fed bedbug, notwithstanding the
fedded, bedded & newlywedded bedbugs
which tend to copulate & propagate across
rolling great reclining plains, trailing baby
bug bedbugs to carry on their game and with
no attention to the names we call them either.
Begin
Begin with faith
Beyond belief
Faith is
Begin with hope
Hope is the point
Rekindle hope
Begin with love
Love in all
Love first
Love anyway
The Hateful Man
Let each hate, and ours for his,
Be scraped away. Hopefully
He cared for some—At least the few
That may have cared for him.
Allow unchanged what good remains.
At length, with love or hate or both,
We go. We will return.
What number is a heart?
What number is a heart?
What faith bleeds some other red?
What rhythms do our hearts beat?
If they could what would they sing?
Michelangelo
I been told a thousand times
that holster on my hip
ain’t the only way to make a stand
then they steal (name it healing)
strip the bullets from my mind
jack me up to kick and twist
electricate both lobes until
élan succumbs to gravity
stars flicker GOD points a finger
points THAT finger says christ
not you again if I had a star
for every time… Ain’t that cold
.
One Cat, Maybe Two
Raymond shifted his weight forward on the coffee
shop chair and leaned his cheekbone into the heel of
his palm. A childhood verse chided him in his
mother’s voice of over fifty years ago.
“Raymond, Raymond, if you’re able,
get your elbows off the table
This is not a horse’s stable,
but your mother’s dining table.”
It didn’t immediately connect to any
pictures in his mind but he had heard it enough
to know it was real. An hour ago he had been
at his mother’s side in the palliative care ward.
She had appeared smaller than he liked to think of
her—had looked almost like he was seeing her at
a distance. She hadn’t greeted him, only closed
her eyes and said, “Feed the cats, will you.” It wasn’t
really a question. “Yes,” he answered, but the cats,
whoever they were, must have left or died years ago.
The only living thing she owned, he suspected,
was the small Christmas cactus someone had brought to
cheer her up. He looked at her again, waiting for
her eyes to open. They never did. Her jaw dropped
and that was that. Raymond hadn’t wanted to be
in the room when the nurses and orderly would
come to take her away. He stopped at the reception
desk to say that he’d be in the coffee shop
waiting for his brother and sister-in-law to
arrive. They were late and he was thankful to have
a few minutes to himself. From where he sat he
faced the open entrance of the café. There was
a couple sitting tiredly off to one side.
A man in a shapeless blue hospital gown and
slippers shuffled in pushing an IV pole ahead
of him. Raymond heard steps echo sharply down
the hallway. Here they are, he thought, hurrying
needlessly. Bill and Marijke had been fast asleep
at 2:30 am when Raymond’s first text message
came in. They never saw it until 5:00 when Bill
reached for his cell phone as he did every morning
right after Marijke turned off the alarm. “Damn,”
he said, “No time.” Bill, “William” on his realtor
business card, and Marijke, were used to demands
on their time from potential home buyers. But they
usually had early mornings to themselves—
breakfast, coffee, catch up on current events. Not
today. The text had said, “ASAP.” They hit the drive-
through at Starbucks on their way to the hospital.
“Hey Bill. Marijke,” Raymond said. Bill nodded. “Hey,”
he replied and paused to look at Raymond, to see
if he’d say something else, “Is she gone?” “Couple of
hours ago,” Raymond said. “Should we see her?” Bill asked.
“Can if you want, I suppose. Maybe later,”
Raymond said, “Did she have a cat? She mentioned cats.
I haven’t seen any for years. Did you take them?”
Mother might have mixed him up with Bill again.
Raymond looked at his brother who didn’t seem to
be listening and then at Marijke. “She used to
feed the neighborhood cats before she broke her hip,”
Marijke said. “That might be it.” It seemed odd that
Marijke knew more about his mother’s life than
her sons did. “Maybe you’re right,” Raymond said. “What’s next?”
“I’ll call her lawyer and get him on it,” Bill answered.
Raymond suddenly realized that his brother
had been listening. Marijke started to cry.
Raymond pulled some napkins from their holder and pressed
them hard against his eyes. Bill looked down and away.
Over the next few days life seemed to stop. Nothing
more than daily routines and only as long as
they didn’t require much effort or attention.
Coffee, whatever was in the fridge—dishes sat in
the sink. Gradually he began to feel alive
again. It was as though he had been wrapped in blankets,
hearing distant, mostly muffled voices, glimpsing
unfamiliar rooms and spaces when he closed his
eyes to sleep. Marijke had startled him this morning
when she called and said to the answering machine that
Bill and she were coming over with something from
the lawyer and hoped he would be in. She didn’t
wait for him to pick up. She’d have known he was at
the kitchen table. They arrived mid-afternoon.
No knock at the door. Bill was the older of the
two and was the most like their dad. And Dad had not
been the knocking sort. Not with Raymond anyway.
Bill and Marijke each carried a bag of groceries
which they placed on the kitchen counter. “Thought you might
need some things,” Marijke said. “Nice to see you, Ray.”
She took a bag of groceries and made room in the
fridge for its contents: milk, BBQ chicken and
eggs. She placed the bananas in a wooden bowl.
“Saw the lawyer yesterday,” Bill started. “He has
the will but it doesn’t amount to much except
for the house,” he paused, “The equity has mostly
been sucked out of it. God knows what for. And there’s this…”
Bill dropped a large manila envelope in front
of Raymond. “I’ve already opened it. There’s an
envelope for each of us in there. Marijke
says we should open them together because we’re
all the family we have now.” He tipped the envelope
on its end and let the two smaller envelopes
slip out. One each for William and Raymond. Bill picked
his up and tore the corner of the flap destroying
most of the envelope in the process and
extracted what appeared to be several sheets of
neat handwriting. “It’s just a letter,” Bill said. He
put it into the inside breast pocket of his
suit jacket. Raymond waited a moment then picked
up the other envelope, turned it over and nodded
almost imperceptibly. He stood, walked to the
shelf between the window and the back door where he
had made room for the Christmas cactus instead of
leaving it behind. Not sure about the light, he
thought, and leaned the unopened letter against the
earthenware pot. “Not you, too?” Marijke shook her
head. “It’ll be like…” Raymond said, he paused, looking
at her, “It’ll be like not hanging up the phone.”
Marijke understood—he’d never open it.
“I get it,” she said in a softer tone. Bill looked
blankly at his brother. And Raymond smiled a little
for the first time in a while. By six the next
morning Raymond was already dressed and brewing
coffee. Usually he would head down to Timmy’s
Donut Shop for his caffeine fix. “Double trouble,”
he’d say, meaning “Double double,” as he always
did at Timmy’s. It amused him and often made
his favorite server smile. “Too much trouble, you mean,”
she’d say. Human contact. Raymond guessed that some of
the guys at the corner table would be wondering
how he was doing. They’d know what had happened, of
course, but they’d ask just the same. He poured his first cup
and walked out onto the back porch. Still a bit cool
out here, he thought as he leaned against the railing,
sipping his coffee as his eyes wandered around
the yard. He’d have another cup in a while but
first he had something he needed to do. Raymond
sat down on the porch steps and slipped his feet into
an old pair of shoes. He tied them and flicked the loops
with his finger to see how the laces fell, to
make sure he had not tied them backwards and would not
work their way loose. Someone had taught him that a long
time ago when they had seen his laces come undone.
He stood up and walked across the yard to the back
lane and the narrow picket fence, missing a picket
here and there and much of its original coat
of white paint. Some boys had probably pulled the missing
pickets off decades ago and with galvanized
garbage can lids for shields spent a Saturday
morning sword fighting. The gate was leaning and half
open, held there by uncut grass, weeds and neglect.
He stepped out and onto the lane that led between
the two rows of houses that backed onto it. Raymond
looked at each fence, each set of stairs and window as
he passed them by. A block later he turned and headed
home satisfied that he had seen at least one cat,
maybe two. Another cup of coffee in hand,
Raymond sat on the top step. On his way out of
the kitchen and onto the porch he had stopped to
turn the cactus in the morning light, stepped outside
placing a saucer of fresh milk by the porch door,
and sat down.
Published in: “3201 e’s”: 2018
Postcard
Still here, my friend, not much to tell.
Winter came, wearied, went.
Spring—hurried skies, or sun or rain.
Hot summer days, hot sleepless nights.
Fall was fresher, raked what fell.
Another year. Mostly well.
Published in: “3201 e’s” 2018 as “Not much to tell”
Snowflakes
I see snowflakes in my headlights
Just one or two—and now a few.
They come dancing from the darkness.
They fly twirling out of view.
Published in: “Letter to the White Imbongi” 2013
Enjoy the sunshine (when she comes)
Enjoy the sunshine when she comes
Enjoy the blue skies cleared of grey
And with a glad song in your heart
Enjoy the sunshine when she comes
Enjoy the sun through dancing leaves
Enjoy her warmth against your skin
Enjoy the flowers and the greens
Whatever else your day may bring
Enjoy the sunshine when she comes
It’s been a while my dear old friend
Since we have walked and talked and laughed
Something we should do again
Enjoy the sunshine when she comes—
Until then
Published in: “Poems for Relationships” 2017: “3201 e’s” 2018
At Least Until This Fairy Tale is Over
Her bags are packed, left by the door. She looks away waiting for her ride to come. Just waiting.
You met her on a holiday. You can’t recall who else was there. She’s moved along and left you holding empty air. Empty rooms and empty halls fill the days you’ve lost count of and left an empty bed alone beside you.
You met her one late-summer day, or was it autumn, who can say? Like falling leaves you fell one for the other. The mornings were the best of all. The evenings melted into dawn and dawn again.
And then one day she said goodbye. Without a word, she said goodbye. Her eyes had someone else inside. You asked yourself when this all started.
Now every girl you see instead and every time you turn your head and all the names on every street, the colors of the sky at night, your bed at dawn—days pass you by, whatever tells you you’re alive tells you that you’re dead inside.
You keep her pillow by your own, wake up late each afternoon but still you wake up as alone. And then one day you’ve cleared your mind, you bring her back and let her slide away again.
Now mornings fade from grey to green and somewhere in the days between you catch an eye, she catches you and spends a night or maybe two. The hallway and the living room, the shower and the kitchen floor—what else had they existed for?
Now every smell of every flower, every early morning shower and all the songs on every street, the colors of the sky at night, her kiss at dawn, the rising light, whatever tells you you’re a man tells you you’re alive again. Yet stories like this never end like fairy tales.
With every smell of every flower, every early morning shower and all the songs on every street, the colors of the sky at night, her kiss at dawn, the rising light, whatever tells you you’re a man tells you you’re alive again at least until this fairy tale is over.
Published in: “souls arriving”: 2006 as “His story”: “Between Music and Dance” 2013 as “Beside You” : “Poems for Relationships” 2017: “3201 e’s” 2018
I am Freedom
I am the fulcrum, the base and the lever.
I am the space and the form and the game.
I am the maker, the vessel, the dreamer,
the teller, the namer—though naming, un-named.
I am the vision, the vista, the seer.
I am the lintel, the door and the frame.
I am the lock, the key and the knocker,
the handle, the pause and the knocker again.
I am the palm and the fist and the shoulder.
I am the sole and the road and the stride.
I am the still—all that echo, and echoes.
I am freedom——my counsel——my guide.
Published in: “souls arriving,” 2007: “Between Music and Dance,” 2013.
Pannin’ fer Rhymes (an old miner’s tale)
Well, now– It was in the spring of ‘49 just ‘round Memorial Day in the Land O’ Freedom… or so they call it. Anyway, I was sittin’ up behind them hills… Y’know, nexta where God ‘n’ Hell musta had some sorta fuss or ‘nother. Sorta desert. Sorta not. And I was pannin’ fer rhymes– I kept comin’ up dry– when alluvasudden straight outta the ground there’s this tinklin’, twinklin’ musical sound. So I grabbed me a panful and gave it a twitch. Some verbs and an adjective peppered the dish. Good stuff, I s’pose. Fer a yarn they’d bin fine but not fer perfessional-lookers-fer-rhymes. I swished ‘em a little and shook ‘em again to see if that tinklin’ mightn’t be kin to the one that I found in the gully that night. It’d had to be good or it wouldn’t fit right. Them poets won’t shell-out fer less than a pair cuz one by itself leaves ‘em pullin’ their hair. So ya gotta find more than a couple that fit or poets ‘ll fake it and some ‘ll just quit and some ‘ll just hope no one says that it’s….. Y’ know….. Call ‘emselves “nou-veau” and claim it’s legit. ‘Nuffa that, I s’pose.
I looks fer them twinklin’ musical words that rhymes like the first time they’s ever been heard. I sure ain’t the first one that’s panned in them hills. My pappy before me turned up a few thrills and somewhere or ‘nother done found a whole line. But me, I ain’t happy unless it’ll rhyme. They’re there, I can hear them– they tickle the breeze! I’ll stick it out long as there’s poets to please. If y’ expected a yarn or to hear miners cuss– I’s pannin’ fer rhymes and not prose in the dust!
Hmm… What’s that ya got there?
Published in: “souls arriving” 2006: “Between Music and Dance” 2013: “3201 e’s” 2018
Today
I don’t care who your god is
It’s alright who your god is
I don’t care how you pray
It’s alright
All I care is where my heart is
Here. Here my heart is
What I do with it today
Published in: “3201 e’s” 2018
Homage to Ogden Nash
I love to eat with just a spoon—soups, puddings too, if there is room. I love to eat with forks and knives while dining in with friends and wives. I love to eat with little sticks, especially the tricky bits. But most of all with hands and fingers or any things where flavors lingers.
Published Aug. 2020, SpillWords Press.
auparavant
It seems the walls that blocked my vision
were once my wishes, my decisions.
Lives seem built upon themselves and where
we are, who knows? Which floor? How high above,
how far below, how many more?
And every ceiling thwarts ascent—
each one a floor auparavant.
Auparavant: a French word meaning “previously”.
Sally
“Don’t be silly, Dad, I’m your only daughter.”
“Yes. But you’d still be my favorite even if you had a dozen sisters and as many brothers.”
“And your mother is my favorite wife.”
“Oh Dad, you only have one.”
“… At a time. And anyway, she would still be my favorite even if those other wives were favorites too, if I loved them all as much as you.”
Vox
Beauty without increment
(Instrument, implement)
A single breath
(Principled)
In spiritus unum
(Indivisibilis, invictus)
In spiritus unum = In a single breath
Indivisibilis, invictus = Indivisible, invincible
Published Feb. 2021, SpillWords Press with title: A Single Breath.
LOGIC STICKS
Don’t beat me with your logic sticks
It ain’t that I can’t take the licks
My skin is thick, as thick as bricks
It’s just I’ve had my fill of it
Chorus
We’ll beat you when you’re up
No, we’ll beat you when you’re down
No, we’ll beat you when you’re up again
And beat you when you’re down
Descartes rests headless in his tomb
Cogito ergo—ergo whom?
Don’t beat me with your logic sticks
Fidem! ergo sum (Faith! therefore I am)
Chorus
Don’t care what makes your logic tick
It ain’t that I can’t take the licks
Don’t know where your logic’s been
Logic gets around
Chorus
Don’t beat me with your logic sticks
My skin is thick, as thick as bricks
It ain’t that I can’t take the licks
IT’S JUST I’VE HAD MY FILL OF IT
Surgeon’s pride
no saws
no taxidermied limbs
to swell the surgeon’s pride
none seen behind the gleam
and paint
no gangrene
formaldehyde
no ether
excrement
red bags
and waiting
uncleaned body trays
no
today the sun rises
FREE BEINGS
From out of the lights Free Beings have come
From out of the cities Free Beings have come
From out of the forests Free Beings have come
From out of the fields Free Beings have come
From out of the mountains Free Beings have come
From out of the darkness Free Beings have come
And Free Beings are here
Free Beings are here
Free Beings are amongst us
Cataclysm
they fucked us back / we fucked them down / on in the air / in on the ground / millennia / millennia / we carry on
from thundercloud / we fleet as rain / clapping corrugated tin / rising from the sea again / rising silently again
under dark assembled things / assembling / assembling / broken straws / severed wings / in all the ground a war of things / too late / we carry on
Published in: “3201 e’s” as original f-bomb version in lieu of “fought” 2018
Allow
You’ve seen me slip beyond our door
To whisper home again from wars
I’ve fought within, to you again—
And pillow, table, field, plow—
I pray, these too, that you’ll allow.
Published May 2020, SpillWords Press.
Peace
Peace
Is not withdrawal
Peace is the surge
The urge
Peace is arising
Swelling
It’s an overflowing
Swing of
Upturning
Turned-up rhythm
Peace is resurgence
Peace is expression
In and of
Common Purpose
Cresting waves
Of purpose
Aligned
Upon a new dynamic line
Peace is
Not withdrawal from life
Peace is not placid
Not flaccid
Peace is active
Busy
Peace is believed
Conceived
Crafted
Peace is for
And not against
Peace just is
See?
And you are its source
And I am its source
And we are its source
Reaching
Reaching from and for and to
Every searching soul
Peace is strength
Of integrity
Peace is faith
In living
Peace is yours
Mine
Ours
Peace is ready now
Avatar (Triptych)
Dark and hurried skies, forewarning end to all as sure as night the day; bodies heaped, bone to dust, ash of fallen prayer amounting in still, now silent ruins.
Beings of abandoned cause, broken, dulled, awaiting eagles sent, gone a thousand years, here now returned; floating down a thousand skies to tell the way.
From ever endless skies, shall we, at our arrival, our return, rejoicing, ask wisely (O so wisely), “Who knew?” and know and laugh again?
Hello from a room
Hello for the earth
Hello for the moon
Hello from the sky
Hello from a room
Hello my new friend
Hello little brown bird
Hello trees
Hello clouds
Hello thoughts
Hello words
Hello joy
Hello breeze
Hello life
Hello me
Hello all that I see
Hello you
Young Wm.
The point is, young Wm., you have no ticket
to the pantheon. Earned it? Yes. But in leaving
left the scrip behind; compare yourself
to erstwhile selves and having fallen thus
go now unbidden. Whilst you, young Wm., hailed
Lo! A fraud! A thief! or by some lower
hellish frame have learned that crueler hells
no doubt exist though like the pantheon
as hard to find. The point is, young Wm., you
have no ticket to the pantheon. Get on with it!
First night
I remember the moment you first saw the light
The moment you reached up and held my hand tight
The moment you took your first steps in the world
Each moment, each step— Now no longer a girl
I remember these moments, each one of them bright
Like the moment I held you that very first night
“First night” celebrates the birth of my daughter.
à l’envers
I rise from my body
My fall à l’envers
Through cold brilliant sunlight
And thinness of air
Past floating ions
Into almost bare space
And I shift my gaze back
And I wish for your face
I’ll one day return
With the wind in my hair
Some bright afternoon
And all devil-may-care
With that kiss I’m left owing
Until it is paid
With our love I left holding
When I fell away
Á l’envers is French for upside down or wrong way to. It is pronounced a bit like “ah lon vair”. The s is silent.
Some folks say
Some folks say
that other folks
get their opinions
from the media.
They can be right.
Other folks say
that some folks
get their opinions
from psychics
and mediums.
They can be right.
Some other folks
have their own minds
and use them.
Their opinions
can be right too.
Sacrificio
O sing unto the grape her glory!
Impatient, she awaits undress—
Sun warmed, sun ripened, Rubenesque!
They who decry her worth, her alchemies,
Flatworms shall feed upon them.
A hymn in praise of the grape and a curse upon oenophobes (haters of wine). Sacrificio is from “Sacrifice” and here refers to the first wines of the season which are reserved for Bacchus, Greek god of wine.
Lucky Man’s Task
I love my wife—
O lucky man’s task
That love for love
Is all she asks
And love for love—
All that she gives—
O lucky man, I
My Mrs. is!
Published in: “souls arriving” 2006: “Between Music and Dance” 2013
Frost 1
It’s snowing
Crows racing, caw-calling
Old hemlocks waiting
A ‘ku-esque prequel to Robert Frost’s “Dust of Snow.” Published June 2020, SpillWords Press.
For the Season of Love’s Expression and Forthcoming Valentine’s Day
My self, that is, that part, the part you say is me;
Your part, that part, that self I sense in verse
And without whom, that self, your self,
My self is lost for words
Published in: “Poems for Relationships” 2017 as “Lost for words”
Sweet Home / Two Beats Of Silence
There are two versions of this verse. Which do you prefer?
/
When I am done with being right
And you are done with being wronged
Perhaps then we can speak of something small and bright
That we can both agree upon.

This lovely piece of calligraphy is from the hand of Catharine Hoffmaster. Its full size is about 20 inches by 8 inches. It hangs in my kitchen.
…………………………………………
When I am (or you are or we are) done with being right
And you are (or we are or I am) done with being wronged
Perhaps then we can speak of something small and bright
That we can all agree upon.
First version published in: “Letter to the White Imbongi” 2013 as “Two Beats of Silence” : “Poems for Relationships” 2017: “3201 e’s” 2018.
The following calligraphy was done by curry72501 at fiverr.com

Postulate: A poem for Ideal Orgs*
Whatever else this Earth has been
Wherefrom we step, torchlights streaming
Into the dark and storm of night
We are Cause
We are Decision
We are Scientologists
Postulate:
We are Creators, Builders, Keepers
Of Ideal Orgs—Sanctuaries of Hope
And Light and Beauty
Wisdom and Prophecy
Here, Order, as intended
And Purpose, lead the way
Postulate:
Ideal Orgs abound and with them
The ringing of the Bells of Freedom
Mark the passing of the night
Calling in the dawn and each new day
Of this New and Golden Age
Advancing futures
Cleared beings
Groups, cities
States, continents
And hemispheres
This Earth—
Wherefrom we welcome
All shoulders to the wheel—
New strength with ours
Pan-determined, undeterred
And the wheel turns
And with the wheel the universe turns
And the universe bends its knee
For we are Cause
We are Decision
We are Scientologists
Postulate:
Eight shining cords
Eight streaming cords of livingness
Aligning to one Common Purpose
And THAT is the Postulate
- Ideal Org: Ideal is something considered to be perfect or most suitable. Org is short for organization and is often the word used by Scientologists for its churches. Thus an Ideal Org is one that embodies the applied religious philosophy of Scientology. For more information visit Scientology Beliefs & Practices: What is Scientology?
.
.
Christians Everywhere Sing Joyful
Prayer and Glory! [a single voice, calling]
Jesus! [more voices, tumultuous, joyful]
Leading each of us to heaven
He with neither sin nor hating
Christians everywhere sing joyful
Loving each of God’s creations
Praise Him! Praise Him! Every nation!
Praise the King this Christmas morning!
Prayer and Glory!
Christ, Our Savior, Christmas born! .
Christians everywhere sing joyful!
Prophesy has come to pass
Jesus, sent for our salvation
God, Our Father, gathers us
Praise Him! Praise Him! Every nation!
Praise the King this Christmas morning!
Prayer and Glory!
Christ, Our Savior, Christmas born!
It is not that the dead are dead
It is not that the dead are dead, however having seen the lie in it, we live. If not for the dying of the dead, I don’t know, we may have missed the death in it, we live. We are not the dead, that is to say, having seen the lie instead, there it is, we live. It is not that the dead are not dead nor that the dead are not dying, we live. We have not died, that is to say, the dead do not know and have not seen the lie that is or is not there. We live. And having seen and played both sides of it, that is to say the lie of it, we have never died and never will. We live.
Hello Ron!
Hello, Ron!
We’re here!
We’ve come to join you!
We’ve held your lines
Upheld your dream for All—
And now our hope, our dream—
The goal of Total Freedom!
And in your quest beyond the sky
Beyond the stars that trim the night
We’ve come—All for All
To thank you
To help
To join you on the Road to Total Freedom!
Hello, Ron!
Here we are!
Ron is L. Ron Hubbard, Founder of the Scientology Religion.
Published in: “souls arriving,” 2007.