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Swim down around
Deeper still
Murky waters
Blanket well
Feel the swell
As visage cups overflow
The weighted feeling grows
Ink fills the darkened deep
The eel's place of troubled peace
Come not close
Remain unbitten
Vertigo Ferris-wheel
Blind muted carousel
Cold passing moonlit tides
Soft heavy underside
Apogee apology
To sleeping horizon
Rolled away by One of might
So comes again life up
In the downcast fractured light.

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I used to see the colors in my brain
They came to me naturally as the rain
Now they've all turned so very plain
And when I look, all shades are blended same
I no longer see the red in pain
and wonder if Sunburst joy can come again
Responsibilities drive me on
Love for others becomes a singing song
My oh my the day is long
The dark of night vanishes
When its gone
My hope endures till spring is come
The colors then again are born
In my soul where they belong
Autumn leaves fall to the ground
All the animals know the sound
Of windy breath that turns all brown
Fish and birds and butterfly
Long for prism painted paradise shown
With gentle silent sigh
Till golden sun with starlit rain
Bring them nigh.

Critique of the Critics

I disclose
That I would close
The door of who knows
For to tell
Would bring such hell
About those sounds
Of the death knell
An illustration in psychotic palpitation
Hispaniola, Anatolia
Africa and Asia
PTSD, MDD, PDO
Anhedonia and Amnesia
So the cats walk the fence and wall
Of each black way hall
Till out flies the starlings call
To stay the motion of notions
In oceans, of shouts
Pouring out
Of would be rescuing mouths.

Sorting Sand

Picking slim over barren plains
Calculating minds check the math
Ask the the question without finding why
Here I am, here am I
Or what if; to complicate, extricate, regulate?
Is round the corner, behind the place to validate, me?
Or perhaps the kaleidoscopic view of a confused soul,
Sorting in the sand.

Early Morning Meeting

Connect the dots, connect the dots
The trees are the forest to be seen
Becoming that which is between

Hope that you'll know
Where to go, in your mind
For to show, all that junk in your head

Posture and pose
In your abstract lederhose
From concrete brick to fluid stream

Gell up that pudin brain
Blow out that babbling scream
Focus forcefully through the strain

Attention gotten soon is lost
Gone south in winter's night
Till much is made at provocative cost.

Chasing Rabbits, Self Deluded Competition in the Workplace

The Climbers ascended
Mountains of words
Struggling for control
Of the tiger wind
Like woodland creatures
Fleeing fire
All clamored over one another
Seeking the surity
Of an imagined secure footing
Or transient idyllic conquest
The headless leader watched
And would have nodded in approval
Had he a mind to do so.
His gaze and smile
Focused forward
Content to march
Behind the horses
A lemming of enlightened bliss.

Love Eclipses Ambition

I saw then, what I thought
That in meaning
Made ascriptions clear
Until another's reality sense
Broke  in to cloud the sun
Of my clarion view

I waited for it to happen
But it never did
Something else more wonderful instead
Grew in the place of that which is dead
Behind the landscape that I had painted
Arose a sky in broad expanse
Three faces full of hope and life
and the hand of another, who caressed their being

The brightness blinds my view
As I gaze at them
Through the heavens
And although gravity pulls me down
My soul is uplifted till the day come
When I shall fly away.

Bureaucracy

She said
He said
Hello
I know
Who do
They do
The Do Do
Bird Flew
In the head
And out the mouth
Then everything
Went south
Moreover
And Heretofore
Next thereof
All is come
Undone
Hence useless
Morass
So please
Don't talk back
OK, OK
She said
Then went on
That talking head
It put me
Back in
My bed
Because the pain
Saw red
Death is
Freedom
From all
Is poured
On over
The brain
And soul
There left
A hole
Used to drain
Redundant comas
Till the next
Addendum of
Infinite revisions.

locusts in the Sycamores

It was 4 o'clock in the afternoon when I heard them.
Locusts, 7 yr locusts where sounding ttheir life in the Sycamores, Maples and Aspens.
They had come early, for this was only August and not yet past the afternoon.
I remembered how they told of the coming of evening and eventually winter, when I was a boy at play. Even then I felt the sadness come over me. I knew that it was the end of Summer, the beginning of Autumn, tthe coming of Winter. I did not understand why this should effect me so. The passage of time meant nothing to me then. But it did to the unconscious clock in me that communed with the eternal.
Another time and era had past, never to come again. It was time to come in from play and get ready for bed; and in the morning school. That which flourished in play with friends, died in school. Every time those cicadas with their cousins the locusts called out, it was like Sunday night before school and the end of summer all over again.

It was an omen. Winter was coming early and it would be a long, cold, dark prresence this yr. My mind flashed back to brief moments of months before. Looking down each morning while picking up the newspaper I would encounter an array of ants working furiously at their endeavor of survival. Marching every day or evening without fail across my sidewalk, from one Juniper to the next, they where there. And again Solomon's words came to mind: " Observe the ant....." Prepare for the future without ceasing, and in the meantime be content in your sweat; eat and sleep. Why? Because Winter is coming.

And this year it was coming early. The signs where there: the ants, the locusts. Even the leaves had begun to fall. Mother had been in the hospital on and off for the past 5 yrs. Dad as well. He was only a shadow of the man I knew growing up. The man who had once knocked down a burly tattooed bearded fireman who was refusing to help put out a burning building. A police dog had stopped him from continuing to pummel that sot. The maladies of age had shaken him, weakened his heart, taken away the pleasure of walking, and narrowed his sight. Mother on the other hand, well, had undergone the hand of time with multiple and sundry plagues common to our time. She had also lost the thrill of allure that had one brought Dr.s, Surgeons, Lawyers, Publishers and Poets to the cocktail parties that were once hosted in our home. Life had now become a matter of complaint, she to had been robbed of the simpler pleasures of walking, eating and the enjoyment of company.

Autumn is here, Winter is coming whispered the locusts in the Sycamores. And suddenly, a finger loomed up within me, pointing me back to Solomon, " All is but vanity and a chasing of the wind."
All of this wonderment is passing...... , fleeting.........., flying away, and I also with it. Mortality had come to call with its capital expression. I like Scrooge joined the community of humbuggeries and nay sayers to its proposition. .........I felt dizzy at times.

My Parents lay in their beds most of the day, living and participating through CNN and Little House on the Prairie. Slumber followed only to be interrupted by the habit of meal and ablutions. The wind was blowing the leaves right off the Maples. It carried along the chorus of wings in the trees; Winter is coming, Autumn is here. They weren't supposed to be here yet you see. They'd come early. It would be a long hard unpredictable Winter. The kind that makes a man's heart lonely and searching. The kind of cold that causes one to seek out the reassuring warmth of a few close friends. The kind of white blanketing in the night that propels all souls toward the Almighty Eternal.

A clanging silence, a rigid river of dancing contradiction that flashes in a flurry before the eye of the soul. The pinta l'ot - (the spark of life) - threatened at once by the coming torrent. Like lightning giving birth to thunder, shouts out the rainfall, so also the ants, with the buzzing of wings, and the crossing of tiny legs told the leaves to fall. And, as they rushed along, they seemed to rustle out the message; the Autumn is here, the Winter is near....

and come it must! For this has been the way till now, ordained each one to tarry an allotted ttime until the next season is ushered in, even as the one that is, passes over the falls into the Mind of timeless forgotten eternity.

Next

That which yearns to be is now becoming
A pill in hand
An herbal elixir
Raised the titanic
And now I wait
On a speeding train
Toward the painted tunnel facade
In the tension of the pre-game
Till the gun should sound
And like a shot unyielding
The outcome looks back
With sudden shock
And the former shell lies broken.

Untitled

The arrows shot long ago remain
And those of today
Blur in shades of pain
But this is my skin and life
and I am carried by lighter joys
Thus like the sun I rise up over jagged peaks
Till my Creator shall lay me down.

Form & Beauty

Broken yet standing
The form could yet be determined
The pieces lay neatly scattered
The shadows held the vase on the wooden plain
Like a hand from afar
The light cast down its caressing warmth
Revealing a dance of dust and spores
The quietness of that angular hollow
Called out the comforting grace
Of a lilting silent world
Part of a flower there displayed
Though there was no music or sound
A song is being sung
Of silken pleasing beauty profound
The past and present and future
Are here and now.

Sundays

I hate Sundays
Sundays suck
Sundays come to break my luck
Donkeys bray and chickens cluck
But Sundays speak nothing of adventure and pluck
Sundays come and Sundays go
No matter how many, no matter how slow
And with enough Sundays, they serve to show
That nothings changed and nothing will
Time to climb back up the hill.

Stopped

I'm stopped indeed with nowhere to run
They've sown in me a seed that has just begun
And now in the middle I find myself caught
To be in that, which I would rather not
Behind the place before the end
And round I go to meet me again.

Shattered / On repairing a Broken World

     Venus came upon Atlas one day and found him bent over and weeping while kneeling on the ground. Surrounding him were the broken shards of the World, that he had once carried on his shoulders. Why are you so distressed my love, Venus asked? For you are no longer burdened with the punishing task of carrying the world.
     Atlas replied, it is as you say, but although I am no longer betrothed to the slavish task of lifting up the World, I am now faced with one much greater.
     But what could be more difficult than carrying that mighty orb upon thy shoulders? Venus asked again.
     Atlas answered, true it is that my task was formidable, but I could perform it with great skill and pride; indeed it was for this purpose that my broad shoulders were fashioned by eternity. However, I cannot, nor is there any here among us, that can refashion the World once it has been shattered and broken.
     Venus covered her face and wept for a time with Atlas for the bitterness of the truth was more than she could bare.
     But Atlas looking up, his countenance brightened, suddenly stopped her with these words; it is a bitter concession that we cannot remedy all losses, answer all questions, know all things, generate all. But there is hope for us Gods yet, because once our finiteness has been revealed to us, we may then acknowlege what the philosophers have postulated; there must be one who is greater, a Grand Creator of the Cosmos who is Father to us all. And in knowing this we may now seek Him out...
     Venus broke in before Atlas could finish; and as His children we can ask Him to show the gods how to repair that which has been broken.

How Long

How long has it been, said the mouse to the bird
Since you have flown from your nest?
Seems like ages, said the little bird.
But how long, asked the mouse?
In miles, maybe a lifetime, but in time perhaps only a mile, said the bird.
You are perhaps just a bit confused, said the mouse.
Perplexed yes, said the little bird, but confused no.
You see time flies when you are having fun,
But the time and distance that I have gone from my nest
cannot be measured in those terms,
Who I am, where I came from, how I came to be and my feelings,
These are all impressions that have not the capacity
Or want of being captured in a net of words,
For that would be a trap to me.
The little mouse thought about it and realized that these things could only be framed,
However meekly, by the rising of the sun
And the change of the seasons 
As the little flies over the things made tiny
Below the arc of horizon in the embrace of bending heavens

How It Shines

Beyond the gates of mediocrity
Past tthe plains of mere critiquue
Comes a thing more comely that the spring
Evermore so than the beauty of bosom fair
Caught up in the eyes inocent
How it shines
Brighter than thee knowledge in the sun
How it shines
Piercing the heart with flame
O however does it shine
That starburst eternal
From whence comes the welling up of hope
Wrapped in a love so grand
That its lightning would score the heart of all
O Perfect Presence from beyond cosmos
Radiance that consumes to renew
That which It created in the unknowable
How It shines
The Shadow of His Glory
A casting of His countenance
The palm of His Hand
The light of His I AM
A caring of His am I
In the all that is
How It Shines

Poor Me

As I sit beneath this tree
I ponder my future path
So many roads
Not many right
So many debts
Not many lead home
Home is where the heart is
And how do I get the rest of me there
Yet how can I pay the tax on my soul
The fee for my family's lives
Am I locked forever in an unbreakable circle
Of plebeian servitude to someone else's enjoyment
Is there no meaning left to make
Of the creation of my heart and hands
When the day is done, can I only tell
Of how I filled another's storehouse
Of how I never enjoy my children in their youth
Because my heart was somewhere else
Looking for a way out of my predicament
No one told me that I had concrete legs
When the race started
Nor did my poor leaden heart hear the news
As it tried in vain to fly
A curse on that ungodly thing that makes
One man a slave to another's pocket
To that crushing weight of life's announcement
That a man may not pass that, which he was born into
Therefore tare out my heart and give me one more dull
That dares not hope, wish or dream
One that does not mind life's cruelties
Nor the stripes of death's encroachment upon the shores
Of my sleep and awakening
then I shall no longer desire the artist's renaissance
I will juump down from the rocky climb
To blow bubbles in the mud with the frogs and ttuurtles
Who do not mind thheiir shell and slimy skin
Oh to care not, but also be contented
For it is some kind of evil that puts the desire for a kind of brilliance
Within the heart of one who sits
broken in the shadow of those
Soaring high into the sun.

The Object

There is an object spiraling through the heavens
And where it lands is unknown
Many eyes are upon it
Including those of the hand from which it had flown
Troubling, that little thing
So high up in the air
Going onward still
Only slightly beyond the gravity of care
But the sun grows anxious
And the clouds begin to brood
For the wind grows lacerating and wanton
To effect a pull of mood
Hands reach out in expectation
Of a hunger to be fulfilled
Though now and then changed again
From the robin's loving call
To the Jay's so often shrill
And will there come a rainbow
To grace the harrowed hill
In the landscape of the lad
And destiny's sweet and sour,
Sugar coated pill.

The Blackbird Visits

A Blackbird came to roost today
He called out to and end of play
The raven cast a windblown shadow
Tipped over was the cup of callow
The bees prescribed a pleasant feast
Nectars of varied flowers sweet
Clouds of gray oppress the sunny thought
Torrential rains bring good to naught
Rabbits in the meadows their races started
Now tortoise like moved on retarded
beneath the specter of the hawk
A frantic scurry against the clock
To the hole and to the den
Till the glory of the sun
Should break upon the earth again.