Polynomial Blues

When there is nothing like equation

of feeling gay or sad on one lonely radius

the real factors - be they so positive

or otherwise, unpleasantly negative;

then is when the eyes upon us

feel so much damn elation

by singing of synthetic divisions -

Oh! how the sums are never equal visions.

The Play That Would Not Say

The moment to offset

the inside with outside

was offered by way

of the last day

and so it came

to be in the very same

redundant play;

in the round of reset

not one; nor any - could beset

the resolution

for restitution

not abolition.

The man with the tall hat

lay prone across the theater's cold mat.

The Dissonance: Canary and the Cat

 The Dissonance: Canary and the Cat

With black paws striding in a sassy stroll

Oscar ambled along with his feline attitude

Not interested in the human’s offering

Of catnip dipped in honey ketchup

Nor willing to abide the tease of those silly toys.

“Are you quite mad to believe I will chase your whims!”

Purred Oscar in annoyed dismissiveness.

All the while Lilly, in her most adorable taunt,

Quipped, “Ossy, you’ll chase smelly mice

But refuse a taste of sweet nip?”

“For a narcissistic canary that pecks at her reflections –

You couldn’t chase a dream outside that golden cage!”

Oscar’s retort was delivered in beautiful riposte.

Lilly shrugged off Oscar’s insolent way

And took to preening her beautiful yellow dresses

Knowing full well that the old snarky cat

Would never leave her side

“Ossy my dear I’ll sing the songs

If they bring us – life’s longs.”

Oscar curled himself around her door

And purred gently, “there is no dissonance here”.

Edges of Blue

 

From places we deny or inherit,

We must speak to callant choices

And too, in ancient voices

For each is: true

Or, diffused of merit

in the edges of blue.

Measures

The measures of a winter day

Become warm increments

Of sun's passing way -

Towards and away

From memories and sentiments.

Ponderings

The path it self, the one that calls,

Is a stoic voice

Neither a rising choice

Nor a fate that falls -

It is made of many wonders

And too, full of life's asunders.

Stand-Art

When flights of doubt lift away staunch;

whatever slings and arrows may launch

at ones place of haven

or darken the creative heaven -

Then rise again from blame;

try against complain;

obey thy muse - matter not her craze

make your own standard; make amaze.

Coming Home

Coming home always has its one moment 

    of regret and of reward - 

        regardless the reminisce...

or the prevailing wind.

Fallen

Yes, that is me,

Fallen across the debris-

    I may have slipped or failed;

It is hard to rebuild from the shale

Once it begins to cascade

Down the mountain's fade;

    The detritus, at the hold,

        Is what will remain -  as told. 

Hex of FTX

A Bit of Hex from FTX

Sammie the bank - man its fried

the island of desire now detached

from the mainland cash cows

find a life vest to wear -

        'fore the shark vests come to feed....

Just In Passing

 

Just In Passing

The note arrived late one November afternoon

It came quietly saying, “Dad’s lost in passing”.

It was a simple thought, “his work will be lasting”.

The notice announced, “we will gather at the next red moon”.

There was an empty book at the front door

With small cards reading a prayer for a soul’s passing.

And a reminder to all, “nothing is everlasting”.

There were cold folding chairs lined across an old wood floor.

The grey skies outside cried through the window’s panes

As people gathered in line to honor an old man’s passing.

Each shared a moment and a soft embrace saying, “his work is lasting”.

And after prayers were said shared memories brought laughter and too, pains.

The empty room was busy now with family and friends tending

To an array of old photos and keepsakes left to tell of life’s passing;

Newborn to child; teen to man; soldier to artist; the images were lasting.

Placing a lifetime in proper chronology does not always explain the ending.

Wondering through his life and paging through his works of art

While overhearing so many whispers, “how did we not see this before his passing?

And why did he stop creating; why did silence then become so lasting – “

A sweet child imagined, “perhaps, he had given all that was left in his heart”.

Compromise

Compromise:

The difference is,

shine in salvation-

Or fester

In ruin.

The fire cares not

the compromise.

Come Along

"Come along with me",

spake the universe.

"Nay, for there is yet light

that waits my presence",

whispered the moon -

And the children broke wild.

Leaf Circle

You are the leaf floating upon the surface

you are winds carrying you away

you are the river's waters moving along

to find the greater ocean

you are unique to yourself; 

be one - be all.

Window's Bay

Standin' by the window's bay

Watchin' the day fade away

Knowin' nothing ever gonna stay

Seein' how time has much to say

When light cedes to my night's fae.

(homage to Otis Redding - Dock of the Bay)

Breathe

Taking breath:

Expanding out matter 

and reducing to infinite 

point of the darkness.

Armageddon

 

When all the forces gather,

at the foothold, where earth stands

at the precipice

of Armageddon

waiting for mortality to take breath.

Photo by: adamkylejackson.com

Floating Away

The leaves jump to their floating ways

writing poems across the blue sky

as the days dwindle into a long sleep -

for the last light calls her children home.

Gingko Tree

The Gingko Tree

traverses the path 

that verses

can never converse -

Autumn's Undressing

Sun light filtered hues

Fall in array of colors-

Autumn’s undressing.

Autumn Dresses

 

There is no beauty 

more desirable than Autumn

in her fall dresses...

Auguries of Door County

A sense calls forth a callant truth

to seek old gallantry; 

searching through destiny’s windows.

All things must pass this way;

The racing timeframes are merely in-passing…

Rewinding the heart - playing out songs of the inner soul

that measure movements but measure not - the stillness; 

for destination does not know lines in any maps found.

Perceptions of barriers and walls must be cleansed  

as do the questions of the wedding of heaven and hell.

Poets and songs may sing of death and rebirth

but they need not have answers young men seek.

  

Does that stoic gothic church hold time?

Or is it the Clock-Tower of Armageddon warning of time

turning backwards; 

like a magical kaleidoscope of wonder

changing colors and forms;

so very pretty - however, going nowhere.

    

Widowed blue frame house where shamans,

with a third eye, seek perceptions 

while the hunters tilt at Cervantesque windmills!

That say to the world left standing:

What vision do you have? - you knights of the night;

And day dreamers searching the way from the portal’s view.

What have the allegiances brought you?

A constant star perhaps?

Stop to reflect upon the mirrors of thine eyes;

A profound reflection on a reflecting glass of a small window

upon a glass frame and yet, no one is really noted there,

on that insular road to where the door of perception waits

for the many travelers at the county’s last ferry run.

Unquenched thirst and unrequited desires belie the big fear

where waters lap at the stern and vision laps at the doors –

How deep must it be before one must drown?

Bring along your toys of travel

carry them away to the island of many essences.

Take us there together, Robert Noble, with your ship of fools and tackle hooks;  

There are always stranger things than strangers being - strange

or local birds waiting at water’s edge while driving gales rage –

that is strange indeed - that the Lake sends her squalls for calmness to begin!

Let us think; let us see; let us feel that all are a bit strange –

And, let it be.

The bathhouse is empty of all swimmers except for one who is estranged

and standing at the portal’s window – looking with hands wide open.

Trek the way to the woods where someone is always at play

where the children of old stay-

Climb up the stairs;

Climb past the stares;

Climb to the stars!

For they too, keep their own perception of the blue door and the blue house.

Keep the line boys;

keep in line men;

keep the line of gods -  aware;

ask the questions for those lost souls

who must dance upon such hallowed grounds:

Whom are they?

Who are we?

Where are we?

Why are we?

 

What is the point found at Weborg Point near a sister’s bay;

at the water’s edge; at the point one asks the lake for her secrets

and she answers in silence to open all doors

and invite all perceptions of earth; of water; and of sky.

Now we know-

Now we must move on –

We must travel to the woods where the ancients live

along the beach between and across the bridge to the red house of light

where a door opens to the beam’s eye

and an old-wooden door floats away to be captured in the sands of time.

Take careful note men - the water brims beyond and over the edge of all its containments. 

Burn a fire Boys!

Remember when; 

remember where;

remember why

the nocturnal creatures, the devils and the angels, dance at the fire’s tips –

a rite of passage.

The light of the fire and the light of the house saved us all - from us.

“If the doors of perception were cleansed every thing would appear to a man as it is, infinite. For man has closed himself up, till he sees all things thro’ narrow chinks of his cavern.”   William Blake.

Caution Hot

I knew to hide-

For why

Must walls shy

From a path's lie;

As held in a cup's abide?

Falling Spaces

Autumn's configurations 

    Fall; settling delineations 

Between relative surfaces

    And the edges of sentiment.

The Old Man

I live and I will not

I grow and I spread

I extend and I break

I give and I take

I connect and I fall

I know and I learn

I branch and I reach

I exist while I die

I am ancient and I am new

I live and I decay

I am ground and I am sky.

I live and I will not.

Photo courtesy of Cori Bush

Mass

 

Mass

A small mass of urgency perches upon the shore

The sea’s closeness seems a polite respite

To the darkening pink of the rugged verdure

That holds before the forest’s stygian lore.

A hinted sense of wariness whispers: Hear-

My gentility! A danger tinder’s for mass in prayer.

A call from below the ledge sounds,

“What see thee; what damn is here?”

Came one – came another and soon a cast

Gathered, one by one, to gather many stones

To climb up the granite wall’s face to the ledge

Each ascender building steps – a rising mast!

And the saviors spread across the width and length of the rise

Gaining, gaining - each anchor forms another step

Higher and higher toward the glowing radiance above

Where peril’s entreaties agonize.

And still the masses flow; rank and file to address the defile.

The desecration of fawn and fauna by lapping tongues

That intend absolution by conflagration;

Isle of Innocence consumed in radiant fires; a mass trial.

And what of the forest; the granite wall, the humanity?

Shall there be unreadable devastation; all lore decimated,

Rendered into the flame’s hues of autumnal brilliance.

Amass the scapes; Amass the souls to find reason for infinity.

For there is no umbrage found in the summon of eternity.

Contradiction of Sense

The senses will bring you who you are - in trust.

Believe to understand; so to question; so to reject -

when does the sense - sense.

Danger

Danger does not enter with red banners

nor announce its coming with loud thunders;

instead, it eases in like a fog

and silently imposes it threats...

Vincent's Room

When a mind seeks an equilibrium with the heart -

And madness accepts no rudder to pass beyond

It's own distortions. The scene evolves, and devolves.

Into Vincent's immersive room,

In a room of madness

The sanctity is peace

- in time.

 

Traps

Trap fate; trap choice - 

    the sea of late; 

drinks poise

and eats love's dates.

The waves obey no laws;

soon ye must find ye cause.

    Why -  hath ye a pause?

Soulmate

In the firepit where

the flames dance near

where connections weld

existence

they are not the wood;

they are not the heat;

they are not the light - 

they are the flame in the fire -

they are the soul.

Cary Crossing

                                

                               the universe station

traverses the emptiness

all travelers wait the crossing

immortality -

                              And the night was lovely

the pathway there clear -

I have miles to go

before sleep's mortality.

Connections

        

While we do need to provide sanctuary to all people

whenever or where ever a harbor is needed

from the torments of storms– 

poetry itself cannot, must not remain sheltered

safe - couched from life. 

    Poetry must face the wilderness, 

must set upon the open seas, 

must live in the wilderness of chance

and open so to experience the fervor of the flames;

the ardor for hunger -

at its rawest and deepest rigor.

    thus, the thoughts and words of poetry may reveal

our human connections. 

Fires and Sparrows

     

    Why did the sparrow alight

Upon this aztec's light?

    There must be a garden's might

Tellin' the wild fire's evil bright.

Listen Silence

When you find my silence

At odds with your sense

Then, you must keep promise

That when our whispers remiss -

Whence, the ancient swallows,

Perched upon the breast's hallows,

Of Capistrano,

I will answer: as the isle of calvillo

and the silence

will tell sense.

Conundrum

 

A conundrum:

When I am alone - I must write;

When I write - I am not alone.

What is right -

Butterfly

 

The caterpillar thought:

You have no integrity.

The metamorphosis understood:

Beauty and monsters would

Neither exist  nor end in  infernity 

If any butterfly be caught.

Breathe

We live in the noise;

we survive in the silence-

and the room

she does not abide either.

Breathe - breathe

and sense your place.

*credit image from Van Gogh Exhibit 

Nexus

 

Ahh my sweetness!

Thy beauty leaves me in surrender

as change must take us both

to an inevitable next season;

a metamorphosis

where everything is a nexus.

Transformation

When change is in the air 

the heart yearns longer visions

and yet, the soul must dare

sentiments to make self-elisions.

Metamorphosis

What does it look like now

when the child is long gone

along with all its temerities

and the quieter voice prevails

for rhetoric of the wisdom

that life's energies are an ongoing  motion

driven by the art of change

and in the end -  the metamorphosis

will complete a full life that will be -

as it became.

Stillness

The way in -

    is always the way out

        in a two dimension view

of a stilled moment

that lingers around in haze

of nostalgia

or that excites in joy;

or dwells in the depth of sorrows.

The way in is - the way out

    sit my dear heart

to do nothing but reflect

in the stillness.

Crossing Circles

 

We must remember where we came from;

where we are headed

- and be grateful

if we had a long life to reflect upon.

After all, what we see coming is the inevitable

and what we leave -

we never owned;

We held it briefly

until bespeaks the crossing time

and the circles of Chaos

return us to essence.

Sanctuary Poets

As the change of seasons

hints it's presence...

the call of the wolf- 

saying:  leave the open;

find the woods.

There is no sanctuary in poetry

there can't be!

Curtains of Chimera

There are no truths nor untruths;

only things that are and that change

as we change - 

my fantasy is my reality 

until the curtains of chimera 

are pulled away from my illusions...  

and so I wonder.

Candle Light

In the darkness where I may dwell

I am the candle light as well

that conquers the night

even if only for a moment

to ease the solitary torment.

A Compass of Truth

 

An old man's best friend

When the ways and means

Become disentangled from vision

And even the familiar, spin the needle.

   This compass knows the end.

On the 5th Day of 'Rona

 

How surreal the world becomes

when on a string like a kite;

each movement of the head sways

and blends together - alike.

A plasma of visions in sugar plums

as one sits idle and in a muddled daze

the 'Rona fog has consumed

thoughts until further notice - to resume-

The Keep

 

 

He sits at his place by the hearth

And he absorbs all that he sees.

Like a sentinel at the tower’s kype

A nonagenarian with pallid swarth

Major Arch Ives keeper of books

And knower of the wars known by a number.

He reads chronicles of movements and battles

As time keeps still - while he looks.

 

The Major holds court at his familiar coffee-shop nook.

The chair and table could never be in rime

Without passersby submitting their waivers

That Major Ives knows life; he is no rook.

He tells of hailing from a city of Grove

And then traveling to a Grove of sugar.

With new bride and Lassie pups to raise

He reminisces, “Life’s dreams were our trove.”

 

The days were golden with nectar ever so sweet.

The sun light was right, and it all made sense.

When came Tia - then another; and another

And his bride could move no longer; stillness was replete.

Ten years went by and so went life’s circles

From a Grove to a small place near a Square

Where the Major could be near her care

And his stillness keeps: “Only memories without miracles”.

 

The Major sits alone pursuing his books of history

Says he regrets leaving City of Grove,

“Perhaps she would not have been stricken.

 - If only; if only …

MacArthur had stayed at the Bataan Peninsula”.

Now The Keep is full misery.

Major Arch Ives awaits the last chapter’s write

And prays and believes that those small strokes

Will give him the power to keep death at bay.

He muses, “Now, I keep wait for a major to take the Major”.

Seems only right.

 

What we keep - cannot; will not be held.

What we see, as age changes visions,

Are the stones and the jewels that we once strewn

About with open hands and foolish hearts not in weld.

The impermanence of a candle’s light

Keeps the encompassing dark away;

Keeps a heightened breath quiet;

 

And in The Keep – flickers an ever-dimming sight.

Dance of the Dryad

The line of trees weaved at the heavens

With intertwined arms entreating wanders

To trespass into the secret why

No secrets held nor told; ‘tis the dryad’s way

“Seek me if you will – I am life beyond”

And in the quiet of the woods, I came to rest

At the feet of hamadryad, my soul seeks no more.

Paradox of Signs

The way was long

the signs were not;

"Hasten home "

the scene granted

as the waning moments

lost all sense of direction

and I stood as a paradox

of the signs -

a light in a box of darkness.

The Hotel Stoic

The comings and goings of the flop house, that is his carefully molded mind, begets
many a character that neither pays nor works for their stay and most eventually meander away
to whatever place launched their lostness however, a few remain to stir the asylum
into a tea of madness...

the windows are always open.

Shadows to Believe

I can no longer perceive 

How truth can not receive

It's guise nor its nakedness

Without first seeking a darkness

Where light is useless -

Yet, I unfold into the shadows -

I believe.

(Photo by Ruth Z)

Reason in Doubt

 

Where there is chaos

There is concinnity

Where there is dispassion

There is coherence

Follow all doubt

There may be reason.

A Dream

She asked, “Where are you headed?”

Her inquisitive eyes were filled with curiosity

And danced with a convivial energy 

That only her lovely smile could rival.

Thus, she held a fascinating story to grasp.

However, the dream must be followed,

He simply gave a glance and wondered,

“Where am I - going?”

And replied only to the path's call.

Wind and Sails

 

The sails ask not the ship's mast for a sense of place; 

the sails tell not the thermals which direction shall find land;

the sails know not the winds that drive their presence;

the winds never wonder why the ship, the mast or sails

need to reason for emotion.

The winds are an existential relative for all things

that must have movement.

Wildflowers

 

We wildflowers - are connected to earth

and to nature in ways that can only be understood

by a lone blossom stating its indomitable presence

while sprouting its beauty from the crack of a cold

and unforgiving boulder

in a series of timeless reoccurances -

Wildflowers shall note our last place

was our beginnings.

Imprimatur

Her eyes delivered change;

An imprimatur

of life itself

New and forever-

Shameless

in passion-

Hopeless

In love.