Something small, a wee haiku. Bear Butte, sacred to many Amerindian tribes, is a rather striking geological formation in South Dakota.
bear butte
windswept seas of grass
wash against the island rise
of shaly brown slopes
morning prayer
Every morning she prays her rosary. Although I am in no way religious, being present and in some way a part of the process can bring a certain peace to the moment and even a sense of hope to the day ahead.
morning prayer
This poem has been published in my book an inkling hope: select poems, available in Kindle and paperback formats. Out of consideration for those who have purchased a copy, I have removed it from this post and online viewing in general. However, the above player can still be used to listen to it.
Unrealized
I think the greatest tragedy one can experience is to become ever so slightly aware of his or her creative or professional potential, only to have any chance of ever achieving it ripped away. This has been my experience as a poet, and no other pain I’ve endured comes close to comparing. For me, to develop my potential as a poet requires the time and attention of a career profession, yet I am forced to work for a living, which leaves my creative potential sheered from the light and rotting in the soil.
Unrealized
This poem has been published in my book an inkling hope: select poems, available in Kindle and paperback formats. Out of consideration for those who have purchased a copy, I have removed it from this post and online viewing in general.
I have often contemplated suicide as the only way to escape the torment of knowing I have this potential to realize while not having the freedom to pursue it—For the quarter-measures afforded by the trifling free-time left at the end of a workweek are grossly insufficient. To live as potential unrealized because it has been made unattainable by the structure of society is in many ways worse than death itself.
Contrast
My third synthetic ode. I would like to eventually find the time and energy to write more. The first two parts are structurally isometric while the last has a structure of its own. Parts I and II focus on opposites, in this case the female (yin) and male (yang) energies, respectively. Part III explores a synthesis of the two.
Thesis, antithesis, synthesis—Using purely depictive language. All synthetic odes are done this way. It’s a time consuming process.
Contrast
This poem has been published in my book an inkling hope: select poems, available in Kindle and paperback formats. Out of consideration for those who have purchased a copy, I have removed it from this post and online viewing in general. However, the above player can still be used to listen to it.
I will at some point get around to writing an article on the synthetic ode, since I’m the only one who can explain it. It is my creation, after all. But first I want to write more such poems, so as to become completely clear about what elements of language and prosody must be present for a poem to be called by this name.
Maya
This was originally going to be at least a portion of part I for “Contrast”, but after several months it never progressed. So I decided to call it its own poem and start over with the former.
Maya
From hard hidden folds where granites press
stony drops through limestone crevices
to streams that coalesce in emptiness
and pool in caverns dripping far from sight
to canyon narrows carved from monuments
heft high above a universe of waves
to stillborn depths where ancient forms of life
move like starving ghosts amid the void
she creeps through time an ever present force
birthing shapes amorphous to the mind
which rise and bubble out into the light
manifest for moments on the wind
summer solstice at Bear Tower
A few days ago I returned from a two week long road trip with my fiance. The apex of this journey took place at the Devils Tower (Bear Tower by some accounts) national monument in Wyoming, where we camped two nights. This place is sacred ground to many. Though I don’t personally think in terms of “sacred”, the place is special to me for reasons beyond my capacity to understand or express.
I’ve always felt a connection with traditional Amerindian ways of viewing the world, and with some aspects of their cultures. Perhaps my karma is such that this couldn’t be helped. I was born here on the soils of California, nourished on foods grown from the dust of their ancestors, and nurtured with waters that welled from and washed over these same sands. Every molecule in my body—and by extension my spirit—has manifest from these lands and from those who have returned to its soils. Inheritance is not just genes and culture—it is much more.
We don’t choose our inheritance; we are manifest from it. For some reason, I have always sensed something about that from which my existence has manifested. In recent years I have begun to better understand this sense, and perhaps I’m also beginning to learn how to convey some of this understanding, using the medium I know best—Poetry.
summer solstice at Bear Tower
This poem has been published in my book an inkling hope: select poems, available in Kindle and paperback formats. Out of consideration for those who have purchased a copy, I have removed it from this post and online viewing in general. However, the above player can still be used to listen to it.
reality
The greatest tragedy I know is not being able to realize ones creative, academic, or professional potential after becoming aware that such potential exists. Not everyone is mentally and/or psychologically geared to survive in a cutthroat world while at the same time pursuing a creative interest. Most jobs demand a great deal of mental energy and psychological involvement to such a degree that there is no energy left at the end of the day for anything but recovery and recuperation. For such people, life ended long before the day they actually died.
reality
This poem has been published in my book an inkling hope: select poems, available in Kindle and paperback formats. Out of consideration for those who have purchased a copy, I have removed it from this post and online viewing in general.
sunday morning
I am trying to learn what I’ve half forgotten, how to bring moments of thought—imaginary or reflective—to life through imagery in words. But with all the insights I’ve gained since before forgetting, I find now that I want to try out strange oblique angles.
sunday morning
This poem has been published in my book an inkling hope: select poems, available in Kindle and paperback formats. Out of consideration for those who have purchased a copy, I have removed it from this post and online viewing in general.
No, this isn’t about me, nor anyone I think I know. But it is about someone. It’s definitely about someone—somewhere.
raven song
Throughout the years I’ve found that my heaviest moods can be lifted, at least for a time, by the lightest of songs from these shrewd, dark birds.
raven song
small black stones drop
through clear blue silence
and splash ever so lightly
in still water thoughts
ripples expand concentric
rebounding from the edge of mind
sliding back beneath eccentric
rings that wimple shards of light
and fade
release
Type it up, give it a title, and send it off into the world—Hope it one day fares better than I have. “She” in this poem is inspiration. While she may not go into our dark places with us, she does wait for us—just outside —to realize we are already free.
release
This poem has been published in my book an inkling hope: select poems, available in Kindle and paperback formats. Out of consideration for those who have purchased a copy, I have removed it from this post and online viewing in general.
Creation
Self discovery implies the existence of a self to discover—something clearer than metaphor, more concrete than abstraction. Yet when we press our inward eye against the pane of our being, we find ourselves gaping into the unknown, seeing only the dust of time and culture that has accumulated there like soot.
We wave our hands and fidget our fingers as we strive to express it, “It’s like a mustard seed …”, “It’s like a reflection …”, “It’s that place from which all experience …”, and it goes on. Almost always it is “like”, it is “as”, it is simile and metaphor. It never just is. And after so many years with my face pressed flat against that pane, I can’t seem to figure out where or what it is. So I’ve let go of trying to answer that age old question of, “Who am I?” I’ve let go even of the asking.
I am. Or at least I think I am. Whatever I is, however it happened, it’s here—And it just is.
Creation
You are already all
you have longed to be
close your eyes and breathe
trust in the rhythm of inspiration
The work is done
all that remains now
is the clear crisp waters of faith
on your sapling words
They sprouted when your soul was new
in dark brown soils where
confusion percolated down to nourish
tiny roots of sentience
Blind to all knowing they pushed
cracked open the earth and spread
tremulous shoots
glittering themes of light
What could be eons passed
bending with the sun
singing out to stars perhaps
long since vanished
All unwitting you kept
your garden safe from saws
that would plane your understanding
into signposts and billboards
A garden not unlike perhaps
the long ago Eden that once
rustled softly in morning winds
yearning to the step of creation
Now open your eyes
and behold strong green sprays
swaying over streams of time
they were always there
