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Opened

Not everyone has your best interest at heart. Some people will treat you like an emotional science experiment, and if you’ve become emotionally involved with such a person, I feel for you. It sucks.

Opened

I’ve been split with a rib spreader
     in my sleep
          awakened to agony

My chest won’t close again
     anguished nipples face the wall
          a red fist pounds dry air

Tears ripped from my eyes
     can’t wail back the rift
          and seal the wound

Muscles spasm in vain
     against the stainless grip
          pinned to a shiny table

Helpless fingers clutch
     themselves back until bruised
          fingernails peel back the skin

Where is the surgeon?
     where is the nurse in scrubs?
          who will remove this awful grip?

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Whitewater

We’re all caught up in the stream of consciousness, the madly rushing stream some of the old Zen masters would refer to as “mind”. Such is the nature of samsara. It’s rough, but life’s rough. Existence is rough. Being is rough. There’s no escaping the roughness so long as mind moves. And since I don’t have a clue how to go about stilling mind.

Whitewater

we’re caught in a turbid flow
        you and i
    and we must learn to swim
both or die

the banks are high and torn
        rip-rap roots
    churn the heaving surge which
leaves no bar

ahead a canyon booms and
        we are bound
    to shoot its foamy rocks and
shoreless pools

snags menace every feeble stroke
        trunks and boughs
    broken into maenad nests of
tooth and claw

no raft will lift us safely through
        arms and legs
    are all we have to navigate this
wrathful flood

gather up your will and swim
        peel your eyes
    watch the movements of the stream and
tread the wake

beyond these tangled weave of bends
        we may find
    a white sand beach of clarity where
moments rest

Little poems like this can be good for playing around with imagery and exploring different ways of bringing an object to the mind’s eye using words.

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Braille

There’s a young blind man that frequents one of the coffee houses I like. Whenever he comes tapping in with his white cane, there is always this pretty lady with him. She dotes over him and helps him with whatever he needs. She could be his sister, or his lover, but I suspect that they’re intimate.

The last time I saw them at the coffee house, I found myself drafting this poem, thinking about what it must be like for him. Later I revised it further. It’s abstract, as I imagine a blind person must perceive the world in an abstract sort of way.

Braille

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.
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Forward

All conceptions of beauty are idealized, period. If you’re lucky, that ideal will emanate from a place so deep within your heart, that as your spouse begins to age and show the defeats of time, you’ll see only what your heart sees. But, for most of us, we’ll see only what the skin shows—And that is our unfortunate karma.

Forward

You’ve shattered the image,
    marble glass and clay
            scattered like broken dreams.

There’s no repair,
    no reconstruction
            for these lost ideals,

Grecian models fragmented
    into rubble,
            jigsaw disappointment.

What is there to save?
    These jagged shards will only
            tear the skin.

Yet there’s still the garden,
    paulownia trees in bloom,
            a little brown path.

Please, take my hand;
    let’s walk, find a casual pace,
            and leave this waste behind.

At best, for those of us disturbed by the shape of skin and bone, we must make an effort—a conscious effort—to move beyond what we merely see. If we don’t, we must repeat our tragedies over and over until there is nothing left to do but die alone.

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Sacrifice

I was delighted to discover in Gresham, right across the street from a coffee house I like, one of the largest California black oaks I have ever encountered. Here I like to lean against its dark gray trunk and practice my bansuri flutes, even in the cold as my fingers numb and my lip splits. I feel a connection with this particular tree, as I do with all black oaks, so I don’t mind the sacrifice.

Sacrifice

a cold spring breeze
   splits my lower lip
       quietly so as not to disturb
 the wind in the wood

this song is past memory
   it fills an asphalt space
       between tall cracked walls
 calling out the leaves

my body begins to tremble
   against the broad high trunk
       which holds up the night
 the wind falls hush

in the halogen light
   tiny oak leaves quiver
       and i notice now the blood
 smeared on the hollow reed

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sheer

One of the ways I’ve conceptualized coming, as in being born, is something like a dream in which there is no real self, but an egoless point of perception that shifts through abstract perceptions of unreality until at some point it is yanked from the ether and pinned to a fixed location—the new life that wails confused from the womb.

sheer

the dreamer falls
  crashing through patterns of ice
     submerged in crystal black waters

a flash of cold
  sears through the senses
     and life begins

And I’ve found myself conceptualizing going, as in dying, in much the same way. That point of perception becomes dislodged from the decaying self and returns to an egoless realm of dream and abstraction until the next time it is yanked into some fixed reality.

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Cabin Pressure

This is experimental. Just playing with imagery.

Cabin Pressure

Crammed into a stainless tube
bolted fast to turbine lungs,
each passenger is forced to sacrifice
the strong illusion of eternal self.

Great lungs suck in a standing breath
which howls like a perpetual wind
and heaves the cylinder through space
above the spread of folding clouds.

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Ambivalence

It was an interesting dream. Though my ambivalence lessened as a result of this dream experience, it ultimately did not work out that I remained her step-father.

Ambivalence

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.
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Dispossession

This hearkens back to an experience I had as a runaway teenager. It is the only time in my life where I feel absolutely certain that I encountered a demon or evil spirit of some sort.

Dispossession

yes…

            i have seen your claws
        razor black talons
    aimed at my mind

            i have seen your eyes
        dark red slits in the depths
    of ink blot shadows

and…

            i have felt your touch
        siphon warmth from my blood till shards
    cracked from my spirit

yet…

    i will never forget
        how you shriveled in terror
            when i called to the stars

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Disparity

This was written as I reflected on some of the stark disparities between myself and a well-known poet and musician, Leonard Cohen. I would actually sing a lot of my poems, if I could. There is a problem with my throat that prevents me from being able to explore that side of my craft. This problem also makes it difficult for me to recite my poems at poetry readings.

Disparity

i’ve never seen such a cross
between whisk and wood
rod and rood

your words portray such
longing for the very thing
in your arms

what drove you to spatter
prolific patterns of thought
into sylleptic song

was it really the tenderness
you found beneath blue skirts
or was it g-ds

no i have a feeling it was just
the same old question
that manifests us all

stranger we both wear black
yours stylish and dapper
mine rotting and threadbare

and stranger we both bear songs
yours in starbucks cafes
mine hushed dead in my throat

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Condensation

A full lifetime of pondering the implications of life and death, coming and going, has lead to a fair amount of reflection on the matter. Here I ponder the beginnings of corporeal life as relates to consciousness and its drive to manifest a corporeal existence.

Condensation

vapors ooze from a black unknown
   shifting places changing form
 currents swirl beyond sensation
   and dreams are set adrift
wafting like scents through the void

poured from starless reaches
   impulses consolidate in pools
 growing creeping crawling flying
   their primal manifestations
sprung in tandem from the abyss

color falls from the earth
   moisture grows from the sky
 soils sweep across the seas
   waters erupt into mountains
fires spurred to consciousness

flashes clear a shapeless dust
   and pink hued lumps of clay
 soak the stormy reign of thought
   stand and stumble struck with awe
blinded by visions of time and space