AH SWEETNESS
OF A PURPOSE
FOR DEVOTIONS
ONCE FORGOTTEN
CARRIED HOME
NEAR BURDENS
AS EXPECTED
TO LET GO
HARD TASKS
AND FREE
TO CRUSH
Playlet ---------------------------------------
Act one
------------ Up curtain
Of the mind
Let a woman
Seek and find
Passions of a life behind
Music then
Of any kind
Act two
------------
Children now for her and all
Whistle at the moon and call
Some are naked
Lost they sprawl
Inch by inch
Atop a wall
Act three
------------
Eating numbers
Old man slumbers
Woman rhumbas
Life encumbers
For awhile
Smile by smile
Another style
Another file
A pile
Act four
------------
Life and leaf
And raindrops brief
Some become
Another's grief
She who kisses
Misses hard
Jokers once
Her bottom card
Act five
------------
See her
aiming
framing
as she can
a plan
a distance
and a span
until
the fill
of magic
hers to scan
art to
heart
all in all
so much to will
and eyes alone
for us to spill
The playwright's fool
Throws up a dime
Its landing spin for who
Sublime?
The cause is done
Applause is won
Be certain
Of the curtain
we suggest
the drops and stops are just a test
ABsee ---------------------------------------
I am half mad
north by north
south by south
I glide
abide
ride with pride
a child
mild
and wild
Have I given up on love
or has love given up on me
Runners ---------------------------------------
I've been too long
Without a song
A breeze or sneeze
Or lover's knees
Could help to right a wrong
The poet begs
For even dregs
I'm off to the woods
To gather my goods
The poet sings
of golden rings
And a magic tree
Only fools would flee
But a flower grows
Beneath his toes
And pebbles and roots
Creep over his boots
As a frog on a log
Slips into a bog
And mice nibble rice
While a hawk will stalk
The poet stands
Where night demands
I walk like a duck
And then I cluck
I hop like bunny
And dine on honey
I grunt and snort
Then swim into port
Name my name
And kill my game
The poet serves
Whatever deserves
I am We yet always Me
Alone to the bone
A jest at best
The poet confessed
I took a novel
To a dead man's hovel
And words flew like birds
Until I was freed
Of hope and need
The poet hums
And the world succumbs
Some say hate
Is a great man's fate
Or is it violence
Comes born with silence?
Choose and lose
The poet swears
To one who cares
Look to heaven and leaven
The tale of a sprightly whale
And a dry old man
With a poet's plan
To strut and howl
Whenever he can
I'm ripe for the battle
You camels and cattle
You maulers and crawlers
You've a date with a plate
And there's fish on the dish
Oh readers and feeders
Who then if not you
Soon ripe for the table
To finish the fable?
The poet in the garden
Begs no one's pardon
The poet rules
Where mystery schools
The poet scorns
The voice that warns
The poet mends
When dread attends
The poet agrees
When the hero flees
The last lost goal
Ties the soul
Of the poet whole
And the bird sings
And flaps her wings
And children rhyme
To pass the time
And what's to do?
The poet runs
and dangles too
X for X ---------------------------------------
A lifetime or so ago
A poet said no
Chase the face
Trace the place
And crown the clown
Who rhymed goodbye
And why
Did she weep?
Did she sleep?
Were there scars
For each to keep?
Run memory run
Twilights almost done
Surprise!
Her eyes her lips her hips
The magic of a tongue
Sprung
So young
Absurd
So much to touch
With just a word
She heard
Skin to skin
No sin
For her to play
And win
Place the chase
Trace the face
Love is all
She emoted
I was quoted
Yes I noted
The moon above
Craves love
And I would stay
Another day
But it's hard for a bard
Not to stray
When hill after hill
Draws want and will
To a home
For a poem
New and true
Did she weep?
Did she sleep?
Did she keep
Her heart alive?
Did she thrive?
Easy the scene
At near eighteen
Weighty at eighty
The loss that was lost
In the scramble to find
Nothing so rare
As was left behind
Place the face
Chase the trace
To a no
A lifetime or so
Ago
1-Come then merchant death
I know you sell what you must
Be the keeper of my trust
If I straggle I won't haggle
The deal is real
The terms are just
Tomorrow—today
One smile and away
2-We're dead she said
I'll go ahead and fix the bed
The books are read
The cats are fed
The sheets are spread
I'll go ahead
She said
The day has fled
3-By chance to love
The poet sighs
And lifts his eyes
Ah this and that
Old and fat
Dusty hat
The arrow strikes as it can and will
There are hearts to fill
Be still
And taste the air
That's warm and rare
Somehow somewhere
4-sail on sail on the poet cries
the ocean's a master with no definite plan—
firm true and lost as the gods perhaps
5-soon we'll go
Where the crow
Flies low
And slow
I know
Above and below
We'll go
I know
And slow
6-is it luck
That rings the bell
And sets the prize as well?
Sing to the crowd
Of what's allowed
Those who build
Are always stilled
While those who laugh
Claim more than half
As if to say
Its god or nature's way
For we to have and you to pray
What then for a death
and the blanketing of stars
Into wholeness that breaks?
The poet feeds words
Into lines that commend
a puzzling truth
of what
at the end?
Behold!
Dots and dashes
Pinwheels and ashes
Wonder's a fact
That must be tracked
We nose along
If nothing else
to catch a song
Occasion II ---------------------------------------
Laid under a siege again my darlings!
Brought fierce and true you've given your all
What's left only matters to those far behind.
Be cheerful say the wizards of old
The darkness pretends its traps are forever
There's an opening I swear I crossed over in a dream.
I can't be sure of what I remember
Yet night after night I catch pieces of the whole
Fleeing again chased by the dawn as expected
Poet's Skit
FALL THEN! I'm jumping
FLY THEN! I'm jumping
FREEZE THEN! I'm jumping
JUMP THEN!
How?
1931 THERE ---------------------------------------
Shlof mayn kind
Shlof
Soon enough
An end will mend
The stuff
Of wicked dreams come true
Made real
By heil and heel
And edge of steel
Forcing the old and weak
To kneel
Shlof shlof
Soon enough
They'll whine like swine
As betters dine
On their decline
The rot of what
And who
They hail as if divine
Shlof mayn kindt
Soon enough
A blessed day will shine again
Til then
Shlof shlof
Mayn kind
Mayn lieber kind
1931 HERE
Passions once fashions
A la mode
Explode
A bank will tank
Bard or baker
Zilch for the taker
Poor man wonders
Rich man thunders
No more
Count the score
Zero plus zero
Where's the Nero
To burn the town down?
Buy or sell
What goes well?
Bananas on the corner
Everyone a mourner
Beezlebub Beezlebub
Here's the rub
Gain gain gain
Pain pain pain
One to the other
Brother to brother
Nothing new
Now it's due
For you and you
Crying your way
Into the day
Hurrah hurrah hurray?
So Far ---------------------------------------
Ah yes they are
singing to us now
the planets even as I
kiss your thighs in a
current dream just before
the light
Easy it was for you to pretend with good cause
my hand becoming a cloud gently descending into
grooves and depths of a body rising up with the needs
of truth for answers simple and free
Once and forever
never my comet you
for beauty's sake alone crashing spinning falling through
our hidden selves tangled breath colors rubbed alive for you to sketch one night
and I poor man to stumble and recite
LEGACY for the Children of True Science ----------------------------------------------------
Let the song retrieve the singer Let the air be charmed as it will by the unthought the unfound the unmade Let time and bodies be joined at their source Let the windings and settlings be marked and named Let the measure of space be the promptings of life And visions be born with the terms of their use
Let fleers and seekers be rounded into nations As missions of faith are awakened by touch
Let poems and scars be the crowns of reason Let craft and will match the swiftness of grief As stealth and joy fuel the engines of plenty
Let passion's excess share the boundaries of truth And wisdom's retreat hold the answers to purpose
Let numbers and letters befuddle the wicked As night and rain store comfort for the dying And shadows and clouds enrapture the lost
Let age and love be sealed in flames Let the glow rebuke the sun Let the rays and cones be the faces of hope
Let promise and remembrance be devoured by being And let the singer affirm the song
Earth Time ---------------------------------------
Pure wonder
Blessings
Angels tumbling scattering
Heroes of the moment chasing the unknown
Remember?
You looking up and I shouting out to trillion plus stars
If he dies tomorrow will there be an accounting or a joke well given?
If he dies on a Thursday will the date be pressed into the sky?
Will a crowd at his bedside join in the thought of an echo of drums leading a message from
ahead to himself and all
Will a bird pecking on a window and a cat watching below mark the pace of a vigil the same as his own?
He will die in the arms of a stranger who becomes his fast and final image long awaited for now
poem ---------------------------------------
poem poem poem poem
ALL SAID
AND SO TO BED
LAW ---------------------------------------
In the fixing of the poem the arranging of jumps
and swirls click shut into a self its music child deep
yours just once then back and away.
CYCLE ---------------------------------------
Spoken Words
Hours and flowers
Dust and rust
A wince for the prince
And beggars to trust
Look behind or ahead
Dance or dread
Each game the same
On a hanging thread
Sermon ---------------------------------------
I am gathering up my soul
laughs the rabbi
I went down to a river emptied of water----its path
to the sea ----mud and sharp stones
I slept in a meadow whose earth and beneath promised no joy
I was called to a mountain by voices that sang of hidden beginnings for trails leading up to and not yet beyond a fortress of clouds at the top
I reached out to hands that dropped to the ground—fingers icy—curled shut as if never to yield
Why do you mock me dear friends now that I've quit my grumbling and sighing and am content to retreat from the day and watch untroubled for the passing of the moon into phases of deeper and deeper darkness. Amen
Mad King Jesus II ---------------------------------------
I want to dance until the blood in my eyes freezes into a passion for joy shared by all
I want to bite the wind and swallow it whole until it begs in vain to be savage again
I want to pray and pray until the heavens reach down and crush blossoms into seeds for new life
I want to steal the treasures of old and use them to lure the weak into dreams of might
I want to gaze into the sea and bring up monsters of the deep to join watchers on the shore locked into a oneness by my hands and voice
I want to mask the blink of time that folds together day and night and keep a rainbow there as everlasting proof of goodness striving past the odds to mark a claim
Prologue ---------------------------------------
Oh you people of the circle drawn in and favored by gossip and pretense
Oh you people of the hills whispering to the moon behind your gates of steel
Oh you people of the axe stomping ahead through fields and streams and children's dreams
Oh you people of the towers dancing wilder and wilder as you chase the goal of promised scraps to make you whole
Oh you people of the hunt kneeling before caverns once filled with the singing of women
Oh you people of notes and numbers hailing certainties lost bit by bit to simple thought and deeds
Oh you people of the air holding fiercely to your truths as they pass from visions and rituals to omens and commands
Oh you people of the journey abandoning memory for darting hints of planks on which to rest a future slipping into being with gifts and trials unmatched by anything before
The obedient ones hurry from their devotions—
Click clack Clack click
Louder and louder--
They carry a message —of purposes abandoned—meanings forgotten—vows unrecorded—atonement delayed
In their dwellings—in how they dwell—barriers protect against the shock of surprises—the weight of decisions—the intrusions of glee—
They never stray inwardly—outwardly—or think to test and measure for repairs—or wonder at the absence of a corner once reserved for small delights—lost now beneath the weight of judgment—fearsome visions torn from thoughts of self-made weakness always threatening to prevail--- despite a bowing to the calls of faith and duties ever consuming hours—minutes—seconds--life
Their eyes—their hearts are given to a book —page after page--- words guiding the taker to a oneness with the taken—syllable after syllable —frozen on the page---bit by bit--- frozen in the mind—locked tight against the uses of the world—the falsities that challenge truth—eternal—divine--- proven-- by belief—recited—over and over
See them on their doorsteps raging in the night at those who worship change and those whose silence mocks the actions of the righteous and their bliss—to come—
They promise an end to voices singing the unwary to feasts of the damned-- waiting sure as heaven—swift as hell
The doers—the wrongs—the wronged---
All the same they proclaim---
Click Clack
Meek and mild wise and wild
Clack Click
All for the flame
In praise of the Name Click
What beast rises now to the promise of healing the unfortunates and their children with sparkling eyes alone
that advances in silence with guarded steps through crowd after crowd scribbling gossip and acclaim for a vision unpronounced
that grinds the bones of welcoming feasts into juices for holy purpose
that positions a farce ending in terror where each and all laugh away a death for the next
Ghost Town Remembrance -------------------------------------------
The world ends as it always does with most asleep and unaware of curses and crises testing the air chants a ghost of the future
and She our mistress of plenty denuded falls back and hides her goods far far beyond any means of approach
and rabbits and hens and goats our allies
vanish
urging each other to abandon
at last our promise of reward
for lifelong service
and melodies of old linger on as usual
waiting as they must for eons or seconds
to blend in again with voices or
squeaks or growls
or the tap tap tap
of tiny armor
whose hour has come
and flowers surrender their grip
torn up and up through ashes and smoke
higher and higher
ten tens times a trillion petals
rushing into winds circling the earth
becoming for eyes that can see
a garden in the sky
mirroring for an instant what was once below
and could be again perhaps or not
Ghost Town Memoir ---------------------------------------
I am the lone survivor of uncontested evils
the last speaker of monumental debates
forgotten by all
I shuffle along with
angels of the street
their welcomed companion and near father
I am joined by my fellow wanderers in adding up and singing away a lifetime of mocking encounters and too easy rewards
One night a child stranger came to rest at my side
and there was a thundering and a sense of healing
undeserved given any standard of right and wrong
or between
Rushing from fence to fence
I sat between givers and takers
lending my true voice
to fewer and fewer with less and less
until nothing remained for myself
What next for me
having renounced my oath to the body
the full claims of my person
lust and trust
name and flame
will and spill
face and space
life and knife
on and on all gone
down and down
past endings and beginnings
scratch by scratch
into darkness and silence
I listen listen
for what may be lost forever
but no! I hear or think I hear
words
garbled
smaller than small
yet with the promise of a message
soon to come
from deep within myself I ask?
from far outside?
or simply said
from nothingness
plus what ahead?
I ask again again again
Ghost Town Memoir 2 ---------------------------------------
Speak then or sing
As I do now
Of hidden reaches of love
And demons there
Who taunted us once
With thoughts
Of idle comfort
Gain without struggle
Unchecked visions
To be shared
One to one
By crawlers and grabbers
Held down or ignored
And we the few
Racing to advance our mission
Conquest after conquest
Of earth and sky
And all between
Made so
By calculations
Freeing power
Equal to or greater than
A witch or wizards
Dream of old
To master day by day
A future rising out of
Will and want alone
Count on counting
We declared
The witch and wizards
Dream of old
An end to endless
Tricks and whims
Of fate and nature's rule
Lies just ahead we vowed
To cheers and chants
Ghost Town Memoir 3 ---------------------------------------
Speak then or sing
As I do now
Of time gobbling up
Something
Less in weight
Than an atom's pulse
Yet able to grow
Take in what it would
And could
Blood to blood
We looking up
Those staring down
No more apart
Huddled together
As if planned at the start
by
Demons demons demons
Ghost Town Memoir 4 ---------------------------------------
Sing then with all of us
In reasoned tones
Looking brightly ahead
At room for doom
The stroke of a joke
Made law and guide
As we kneel to the wheel
And abide
Ghost Town Re-echo ---------------------------------------
So then a test
Of clashing stars
Or measured beats of passions going dark
All announcing the good
In a willing caress
Out of dreams incomplete
Made whole in the demon's eyes
I close my own—to see
Chant of Chants ---------------------------------------
By the moon reemerging as trusted bearer of hallowed codes
By cosmic arms weighed for use in sweeping the earth clean
By known and unknown joys of the body filling the mind with perfect awareness of healing doubt
By fists opening to reveal the magic buds of a coming season
By virgins daring to sing the night alive
By words tapped and stretched into blood and bones and eternal breath in the making
So then the best hour resides in the second or less of an urge to prevail
Stratagem Plus 40 ---------------------------------------
Position One
Unhandling body slaves and prisoners of thought
Position two
Ministering to the fearful begging to escape dangers needed to advance awareness
Position Three
Awakening of the many bonded in genius through the visible action of selves into selves into self by the few
Position four
Canceling systems whose rules leap beyond questioning
Position Five
Remembering to drive unessentials of fact and belief into the light out of which they arose
Position Six
Looking to artful pretending and crafting of games when knowledge as it will hardens and stops never to go forward again it's cried
Position Seven
Slicing revelations into measurable arcs and slants of yet unpictured journeys waiting to surprise and amaze
Position Eight
Learning to dance with every separate rhythm of the all in all given the blessing of space and time eternally reshaping form into a home for life
Position Nine
Coming to know the purpose of limits to be challenged.
Finale 3 ---------------------------------------
When pleasures are threaded into habit
And simple needs made holy
And wisdom's redeemed by laughter and magic
And pity and spite draw together and vanish
And armies of wanderers leap out of shadows—
strangers no more
Then you and I and the vows between will return again dear hearts in the eyes and songs of children
at play
first DREAM last ---------------------------------------
The Goddess is down
A phantom in the corner
Nears my face and groans
The killing is over
A mighty one rules now above
And you below in His name
And She beneath you both
Lying still
A blessing for the world you say
A truth on which to hang belief
For good and all
Laws cut hard and deep out of fear
Fear danced away in Her arms
No more
Shout out the news as I stuff a curse
Into the mouths that hail this day
The phantom swears
Then look to the bones of your future
Age after age
Drums
Marchers
Over and over
Until the children of your children's children
Reach back and spit on the leavings of the past
Riches
Splendor
Glory
In the midst of which my curse
Asked and answered
Silence from above
Voices below louder and louder
Me Me ME
To judge the taking of heaven's plenty
Who? Why? How?
Drums
Marchers
Fields of green turned red
Damaged ones crawling together
Brother to brother
Gazing up at sniffing beasts
And flocking birds
Come to rest chest by chest
Drums and marchers
Pleading for an end
Only to begin
When child after child
Daring to be free
Settle on a hilltop
Of blossoms yet uncrushed
Signaling
The promise of a future
Wanting
Needing
Raising
A vision of what?
Sung alive by who?
At last
The phantom touches my face
And leads me to her corner
Never to fear she laughs
Never to fear
Her opened arms are always near
Welcomed or else
Made to fade
By you alone
Flesh and bone
X a.m. poem --------------------------------------------------
I am temporary wielder of magic
Speaker and seeker
Of places in the mind
Opened only to thieves
Snatching glints and beats of a life at hand
Shoveled into words
For the timid and all
To use when needed
Or simplest of pleasures
Unattended by thought
I am temporary master of rages
Aimed wildly at killing of beauty
By truth set apart and enslaved
I am temporary lender to the mighty
Begging to know
Why their reasons for being
Are as cloudy
As that of the lowliest
Walker in shadows
I am temporary joiner
Of children reaching higher and higher
And elders falling back in wonder
At natures conniving
To push the past
Into a season of beginnings
Awakenings blessed or cursed
Sweeping through time
Into a tangling of now and forever
Once more
I am temporary redeemer of failures
Great and good
Penny by penny
Welcoming the day
Comforting the night
Always daring to crowd
The path of the brave
Laughing
With nothing to hoard
Never a stranger
Bow down
To the keepers of the world
I am temporary healer
In spirit
Of misplaced facts
And language
gutted of adventure
And knowledge squatting in the hallways
Of ruined thought
Needing only the magic
Of perfect
Silence
to awake
Pause For Loss 2015 ---------------------------------------
How to retrieve a fleeing vision of impossible wholeness broken?
Imagine quantity reduced to practical energy splashed away.
And the soul crashes too and returns to the source of its beginning
Where light and time continue the journey of unfolding magic and its play
Of being and becoming out of nothing or something or both or neither.
Dream then as always of a welcoming dawn after shattering of the past.
Visions ---------------------------------------
Visions gone thrown down from love shattered
and we best of best soul by soul whole by whole
to win and halt before default.
OLD MAN ---------------------------------------
OLD MAN left without a kiss
yet see how she embraced his play of words a dance enough for her and him
a passion yes a light circling with a kiss for both
Old man knows what he knows
theres room for love
beginning or end
Old man drops a future
into the eyes
of the next child
in his arms
Old man counts
one two three
remembering or forgetting
treasures of the night
are his and all waiting still
Old man fights the lies
with a poem
as defense and laughter
I Will Die ---------------------------------------
I will learn to die
Next day or beyond
For the music.
I am Half Blind ---------------------------------------
I am half blind, you know
just another poet,
Of course.
SHE ---------------------------------------
SHE She she
Again,
Forever?
A Story ---------------------------------------
A Story...
Wild child
Lies down
with an old man
And laughs at knowing
Only one will rise this night
a judgement paid