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First light gathers

I have a tendency to be up all night, be it working, writing, or other. Not long after we, my wife and I, got a very nice new (second hand, but new to us) couch that allows one to recline comfortably facing the balcony windows, I would find myself there looking out into the night, sometimes as dawn broke. It’s an interesting time of day for me, dawn—especially first light. It has always filled me with equal parts anticipation and anxiety. Dread even.

I’m sure the anticipation is normal. It almost has to be. A new day manifests, with new potentials, even if I’m already tired. The anxiety probably comes from a variety of experiences that have taught me to expect unpleasant things to break with the day, the sort of experiences that instill fear and foreboding deep in the psyche. Here I’ve tried to convey that sense of ambivalence, using imagery gleaned from a passing storm front.

First light gathers

First light gathers above the
        Huffaker Hills, above the
    bulbous shadow of the
            old Virginia Mountains.

Slowly it grows behind
        cataclysmic clouds,
    gray shapes etched dramatic
            on the moving void.

Wind is heard against
        roof and walls, against
    wide glass doors through which I
            meditate my gaze.

Silhouettes of unfurling
        cottonwood and maple
    flail like the wild shades of
            dancing dervish souls.

Inside, a leaky faucet
        drips. The wall clock ticks
    above the redbrick hearth. And
            Joy stirs lightly troubled

        in her dreams.

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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.
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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.
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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

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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

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Labor

As we got to know one another, she would sometimes tell me, “Each poem you write is like one of your children. Each one has a spirit and the potential to flourish.”

Needless to say, I married her.

Labor

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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Rinse

This was drafted near the end of a seven day walk on Lost Coast Trail. I’m pretty sure this was inspired by the beach at Bear Harbor, near the northern end of the Sinkyone Wilderness State Park.

Rinse

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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nose hairs

I have spent a lot of time in poetry focused writer’s groups. These are mostly populated by people who for some inexplicable reason love the writing of Whitman, Ginsberg, and the like. When I get my turn to share my work and hear critiques, these folks generally have only one thing to say, which is something along the lines of, “Just say what you feel, man! Just write what you feel! It’s all about what you feel, man!!” Well, alright, at the moment, this what I feel, man!

nose hairs

they stand in line
  stiff and stark
rank and file
  on the march

merciless soldiers
  raised from hell
heft their siege
  in endless swell

rifles raised
  with bayonettes
they stab their way
  with no regrets

shooting always
  toward the brain
with deadly force
  unfailing aim

for each one pulled
  from out the race
a dozen rise
  to fill their place

marching always
  on the brain
marching till i
  go insane

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Walang Masabi

I started this in November of 2007, and though I spent a full year singing the first four stanzas and two choruses to myself—at all hours—the rest just didn’t come to mind until over a year later.

Walang Masabi

I felt you breathing in my thoughts
a breath as subtle as the whisper of spring.
And though I couldn’t begin to guess your name,
I sensed you were out there, somewhere.

For years I struggled with a sense of you.
I searched the eyes of every face for a clue,
but no-one looked at me the way I knew
would leave me lost for what to say.

    chorus 1:

    walang masabi
      nothing than words can say
    walang masabi
      take my breath away
    walang masabi
      more than words can share
    walang masabi
      something’s in the air
      something’s in the air
      something’s in the air
        oh in the air
    walang masabi

In time I courted solitude,
prepared to walk the long remainder of life
without the comfort of companionship,
and yet I felt strangely at ease.

Then like the rising of a tropical sun
you rose illuminating all of my dreams,
a gift beyond the spectrum of my hopes
that left me lost for what to say.

    chorus 2:

    walang masabi
      more than words can share
    walang masabi
      something’s in the air
    walang masabi
      nothing words can say
    walang masabi
      take my breath away
      take my breath away
      take my breath away
        oh away
    walang masabi

I saw the blank unwritten years
stretching white into a life alone,
meditating in the silence of
a still and unusual peace.

But now I’ll journey through the days ahead
with promise written onto every page,
a sense of joy I never knew before
you left me lost for what to say.

    chorus 3:

    walang masabi
      more than words can say
    walang masabi
      take my breath away
    walang masabi
      nothing words can share
    walang masabi
      something’s in the air
      something’s in the air
      something’s in the air
        oh in the air
    walang masabi

Now let us join and fix our eyes
upon the blue horizon of our life
and venture all undaunted through the years
believing in our path together.

For you, mahal ko, are my utmost heart,
a mystery beyond imagination.
I never felt my spirit pulse before
you left me lost for what to say.

    chorus 4:

    walang masabi
        nothing words can share
    walang masabi
      something’s in the air
    walang masabi
      more than words can say
    walang masabi
      take my breath away
      take my breath away
      take my breath away
        oh away
    walang masabi

Walang masabi is a Tagalog (Filipino) expression that means something along the lines of “beyond words” or “nothing”, in the sense that it’s nothing words can express. Mahal ko is Tagalog for “My Love”.

This was written for my wife, then my fiance. I sing it a capella, though not very well. If I ever manage a decent recording, I’ll Youtube it and post a link here. The refrains are repeated all four times because the wording changes slightly each time around.

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evaporation

Someone emailed me a Zen poem, and I found myself tapping out this small response.

evaporation

in an ocean of stars
a ballet sun pirouettes
alone in a glimmering sea
of waltzing partners

in an ocean of light
waves wash the empty shores
of a trillion winkling eyes
an island of contemplation

mass gave light to motion
birth gave life to mind
thought gave dream to atoms
form gave way to karma

by the river of no return
a solitary observer
breathes in the emptiness
steam rising to nowhere

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happy deathday

I guess my “holiday” poems tend not to be so festive. It was a phrase from Joyce’s Ulysses that somehow got me going: “Must be his [Smith O’Brien’s] deathday. For many happy returns.” (pg. 93).

Thought this a curious twist on the phrase. And found myself jotting down a note in my composition book… which expanded into a quatrain… which expanded three more stanzas. At which point I looked at it and thought to myself, “Why am I writing something like this this early Thanksgiving morning?”

Why indeed! But with a little reflection, it came to me.

It’s the forth anniversary of a father’s death—suicide—which I can’t help but feel some responsibility for. Our most tragic mistakes shape us, hopefully into better beings. But they also scar us. And sometimes others.

I’ve been told again and again that I shouldn’t accept responsibility for this suicide. But… leaving circumstances untold here …It’s difficult not to. I hope his shade some semblance of peace there at the edge of Styx.

So, this realization in mind, I found myself focusing the last three stanzas more tightly.

happy deathday

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.