ABYSS, THE

It's not what you look like

It never was.

I'd say, "It's the way you are."

Sounds good

It's not what we talk about

It's how we talk

Never a moment without a thought

Sounds good

But then the bottomless gulf

Now it's how you taste and smell

Now I whisper in your ear

Now you say, "You know the manual."

So now I have an abyss to climb out of.

AMATEUR EXHIBITION

Darks a little light, lights a little dark

Too few vivids, too many pales

Perspectives less than perfect

Hoping to be moved

I gaze at them all.

Are any art?

But dare I ask?

I can't paint at all.

Perhaps I've spent too much time

with the masterpieces

BEATING HEART

Conclusion, confusion, illusion, start

The logical deductive death of the heart.

Fear so near, so near, so near

Prejudging, besmudging, begrudging love

Abduction, reduction, induction start

The reasonable treasonable death of the heart.

Fear so near, so near, so near

Oppressing, repressing, suppressing love

The mind hurts hearts, hurts hearts, hurts hearts

The mind is the enemy, the enemy of love

BRINK

Tying our hearts with trust

Lest the uncertain swirl separate us

We fall ever deeper into its

Whirling white vortex.

Suddenly a heavenly lake

In sunlit peace

CAVE

It is now completely dark outside the mouth

The fire gives heat but not warmth

Shadows and flashes on the rock walls

Cinematic silence and anger

And most of all uncertainty

I close my eyes and find a familiar light

But one no more comforting

And drift into into my usual endless-odyssey dream.

Soon I half-wake to a dimmer light show  

In a colder theatre

Is there is ever any certainty?

Yes, that is certain

Because the rock walls are also what is real

Along with the flickering cinema

And the undeniable existence of fear

CONCEPTION

poems enter via your love

and grow till nearly complete.

they come into the world

I rear them for a while

then abandon them

DESTINATION

corporation

legal fiction

eating real Earth

destination

desperation

we're only what we're worth

DEAR SONNET

Now that you're written I'll want you no more

Neither your beauty nor delicacy

Will satisfy me and off I will be

With a song by another troubadour.

I care not what the future has in store

And hope you will ask no apology

For seeking my soul's earthly destiny

To write my poetic caricature.

Ours was a good one that just might have been

Though my wit was a bit long on the self

How fortunate we were so passionate.

I'll remember you always when I see

A sonnet so sweetly singing itself

But so sorry, I must dash—, Your poet

DEAR POET

I received your parting sonnet today

It hurt me a bit as I read along

You say with another is where you belong

So I must accept you're going away.

I'm melancholy, sonnets sigh they say

'Tis a heavy blow for a little song

But life is beautiful and I am strong

And as for you here's a thought if I may.

You take too much credit for the writing

Fine sonnets find a way to write themselves

Your part in this art's to edit my line.

'Tis true at first you seemed quite exciting

But your wit was better back on the shelf

Sorry you "must dash—"[sic] but I'll be fine

DESERT ISLAND

Surrounded by cars and fears

We're isolated from the world

A stranger comes by car for your heart

To tear it from its destiny in mine

Now only cars and fears

Isolated from the world

DOORWAY

Shall I stand at the doorway to your dreams

Allowing entrance only to those

Who'll fulfill your fantasies?

Shall I decide on them

Based upon what I know of you

Or take a servant's peek into your sleeping psyche

To see what you most want?

But do not think me generous my love

For you'll be mine when you wake

GUEST LECTURER

Neither jacket nor jeans in power colors

Nor his gray hair

Nor his bending toward the microphone

Rather than raising it to his height.

Nor thanking the moderator's introduction

With equal hyperbole

He proceeds to bend an old lecture into today's topic.

But despite all the academic armor he must wear for

Those who confuse the teacher's personal power

With the power of knowledge itself

His heart speaks louder than his words

HOW DARE I KISS HER?

After a breeze has kissed her face

A soft rain her hair

The sunshine her eyes

And maybe the moonlight her star?

IN A FIELD

She took me to her heart's own place

In a field by a glen

Where as a lovely young coleen

She'd gone again and again

She took me to her heart there

In that field by a glen

And I cried tears of joy inside

For I learned what love was then

JASS

So what if the bass

Is less than academic

Or if the chords are

Less than correctly inverted

Or mellowdized?

Jass

Swirls

Sighs

Sings

Swings

KALEIDOSCOPE KIT

Imagine one filled

Not with colored shapes

But with the following:

red         wind          salty          sunshine

ouch!     green        rain            bicycle

loud       walk          sweet        car

blues     bang!        raspy        delicious

Or you can make your own list.

But, if you do,

Consider some of these:

fears        doubts       loves        losses

images    sounds      memories ideas

grief         foods         toys           joy

smells     touches     friends      you

KERRY

Green-checkered hills

Roll gently by

In a kaleidoscope of

Sunshine spotlights

Shadows

Raindrops

Rainbows

White clouds

Gray clouds

Blue sky.

A new panorama

With every wink of an eye

LIGHT HEART

A heart that is light

Knows not its plight

Nor the fight for its right to be free.

It just sings its refrain

With the beats that remain

In this phase of eternity

MILLENNIUM?

Not just any old 'ennial

Or even a sesquicentennial

A thousand years!

The millennial drum begins its beat

But every day ends a thousand years.

Hark!

The Dailyennium

Greatest of any millennium

MING

Ming may have destiny.

Her only real danger is

Cars too fast in Caherslee's streets

Especially the car-flooded mote

Before the castle of the childless couple

Who just might dote on

A rather intelligent

Homelessly independent

Probably pedigreed dog

Whose remaining loyalty to her neglectful 'owners'

Speaks so well of her

MOONFUL

We love it:

Romance

Dance light.

We blame it:

Suicides in Sweden

Accidents in Rome

The wax and wane of sanity.

We're confused:

The Queen of the Night has a man in her

(Moonstruck honeymoon)?

Is it green cheese

Because the cow went over it?

MORE LOVELY

Though magnificent is the creation of

Sunlight, warmth, blue sky, clouds

Mingled on the greatest artist's palette--

Thy beauty required so much more of God.

MY BOAT

As I sail on my

Sea of dreams, I suddenly

Ask about my boat

inkblot galactic globule

light years wide

but a drop in Nature's bucket

N

                        NO WORSE
Let us not cling to beliefs old and dear
Which can only cause us to live in fear.
In infinite love no god would want worse
Than the past, the only true punishment,
So unchangeable and so permanent.

Despite what is said in Courthouse or Verse
Of darkness and doom none ever need fear.
We will never know worse, all "forgiven!"
Murderers, liars, yea all  in disgrace,
God takes one and all to His firmament.

OPEN HEART

I'll never lock my heart again

I'll welcome every theft

For the more my love is taken

The more there will be left

POOR POET?

Pity not the poet

They think and dream all day

And claim to fret and sweat

At work that's really play

They always sleep till late

And never know the date

But dressed-well they'll appear

At Poet's Night for beer

They claim to shun the crowd

But love to read aloud

For praise they'll ne're refuse

From those know their Muse.

Pity not the poet

See through that 'poor' mystique

Who wouldn't love to get

To play with words all week?

To Gabriel Fitzmaurice: poet, scholar, musician

RANDOM AND MEANING

We're constantly seeking

Patterns in the randomness of all things

Dippers and kings in the stars

Or animals as the ancients did

Or meaning in our lives

But there is no pattern

Or meaning 

In randomness

And that's the gift.

RELATIVELY

The way it appears to you

The way it appears to me

Speaking of objectivity

Relatively.

Good is for you

Different for me

Speaking of morality

Relatively.

But surely there is for us

A truth and a good that we

Cannot speak of relatively

SECOND DATE?

Why in the world

did you ring me again?

I had a good time,

just didn't spark.

But...well...

maybe this time.

SOUL MATE'S SOUL

In this life

Not the next

The self is incomplete

Until it finds

The rest of its self

It will long from its depths

A soul's mate

Possesses the missing part

Some of its self

Is in its soul mate's soul

Complete unity of self

Is its cosmic imperative

But in this life

That might not happen

Life can be limbo

As far as love is concerned

But the soul knows

It will be reunited

With that part if its self

In its soul mate's soul

STATIONS

jog more than a month

suddenly able to diet

a few stations along Destiny's tracks

occasional stations of opportunity

to actually choose

instead of the usual addiction

STRAIGHT LINE

It’s odd

Go out there one night

Pick a star

See the straight line

From you to it

SUPER HIM-POSED

To other thinks                 An ally's

(You mean beans)           In her voice

Utter things like,               S'in the sighs

Why?'s                              "More," he lies

To:  BOARD MEMBERS

Re:  YOU

You'll have no more power there

When you leave this world of care

Be it Heaven or Hell

There'll be no 'doing well'

At ten-thousand times your share.

There'll be nothing to run

No positions to be won

Or poisons to spew in the air.

Or ill-gained wealth

At the price of world health

You'll not be the One in the Chair.

There'll be no big bosses there

Or employees at wages unfair

No more pollution

As the cheapest solution

Bringing burdens our planet can't bear.

No big ambitions

Of big acquisitions

Or buying paintings so rare

Just a peaceful conclusion

To the corporate illusion

In the place of the loving and fair.

UNDER FOOT

"Hardest path to find is under foot."

The Wise Ones' words could not be better put.

When grass seems greener elsewhere

I'll wonder if here it's just as fair

And that maybe I'm doing what I should

UNLOCKED HEART

I'll never lock my heart again

I'll welcome every theft.

For the more my love is taken

The more love will be left

WHEN?

When the dogs ran free

Our conversation went with them

Rarely pausing

Except perhaps to consider what we said

And that lovely moment when

The dogs leapt up to the white-and-yellow clouds

Free from leash like our minds

Which chased all sorts of imponderables

When did our hearts first meet?

Some imperceptible beginning of a growing

In imperceptible steps past the squinting windows

And over the barbed wire and down the dirt wall

When did I first touch your hair?

As you wrote at the computer?

Our minds surging as fast as our hearts.

The future seemed boundless, beautiful

But most of all my Love

When did Destiny begin to untwine our bodies?

And make you imperceptibly drift away

Excuses, a cold kiss, not even Scrabble.

When did that begin my Love?

I want to go back and fix that moment

Desperate to undo Destiny's decision.

When was that my Love? When?

WORLD ASLEEP

Wake thyself oh world asleep

Your children do despair

Their future's in the forests

Falling ev'rywhere.

While grassroots fight the planet's war

Those on top don't care

They'd prefer a killing spree

On birds in dirty air

With activists on prison lists

For making us aware

You lay you down your souls to keep

With much more than your share.

Wake thyself oh world asleep

The Dream's no longer there

The damage to our planet

Is more than it can bear

'YOU'

'You' come to me on occasion

From your astral plane

Or whatever it is

And lie next to me

Perhaps it is because of a

Highly evolved selflessness

In my love here on the earth plane.

At least that's what I wish

Perhaps because I gave 'you' back to you

The day before your new lover came back

So that you could be completely there for him

Selfless love on my part?

I didn't do that thinking I'd be rewarded

Or that 'you' would ever come back.

Instead I listen and am there.

For hours on end you talk about him

I don't want to do this

But I am powerless not to

I'm just so happy and complete

When I'm with you

And as if to reward me

'You' have come back again

Weary from some loss of energy

Perhaps from a long journey

Or great mental effort

You sleep for hours at my right side

Your head on my shoulder

But sometimes you move on top of me

And kiss me and make love to me

II

Then there were the two the white-light experiences

'You' as an angel opened my rib cage

As if the doors to a cabinet

And filled me with light

And then opened your legs

Your back on my chest

And sent a ray of brilliant light

Into your womb

I haven't asked for these things to happen

I have not the self-esteem to do so

But for whatever reason

'You' choose me to be with 'you' in this way

The very thought of this choice

Of me

From there

Fills me with tears of joy

III

Sometimes I beg God

"Please. Please give me this woman"

A voice replies

"You have her."

I am confused.

Another man has you

Well, your mind and your body anyway.