On Family - with audio

audio link

I would steer my ship on board the prow
With that woman who has grasped my soul
Took what I offered and gave me children

Rather than bath in the seas
Of uncontrolled stormy wanderings
To desolate places of isolation
Entertaining and sustaining loneliness

She reached from beyond my place
Plucked me up to maturity in
Safe harbor where the world could wear off

In that solemn peace
I found awareness
With greater warmth
Of connected-ness

Moored to those
Who teach something greater
The giving of oneself for mate and kinderlas (children)

O how is it that this tired selfish one is so blest
Only God Himself knows
But in your arms and
By your side I am healed

My breath I take from gazing
Upon the smiles of my children
The stars in their eyes cause my heart to beat

How has this dream become my life
Many thanks offers one
Whose words cannot match the task
Of uttering such to the Holder of all things.

Opera - with audio

audio link

There comes next the steady roar of the great falls within
Seldom seen, seldom engaged these days
That underground river, from the aquifer of creativity
A force from which I came and to where I go

Until that day there is a shadow of such
Here in this life, most wondrous of opiates
That bathes the soul and takes it to the heights of Orion's country
Then plunges down through the fiery earth's core
In the sun's flares and the ocean's green and blue depths

You are loved, constellation of this constitution frail
To you many visit and are captured all in all
By your flames, heroes live and die in the heat
Then carried with the vapors, we rise again
With wings that do not wear out or fail
Even while in the bonds of fleshy sanguine clay

What can vanquish you that plays the human soul
With your caressing torrent of sound, song, colors, lights, blood and emotion
Leviathan, Gaudy Beast, Opera is the wrong name for thee
For you are not the stilted thing that some suppose
By those sleepy authorities who propagate your Via dell'Amore

Resounding with the force of life in the deepest heart of man
Your name can only be uttered in dreams and cannot be recalled in waking
A Lunar whisper from behind the Northern Lights
To call us back to the creation of all things, raw and untamed
'Til the spinning pulsars cast the soul back at speed of light to ourselves once more.

note:
This Opera thing, must surely be some foretaste of a glory
Yet to be revealed and beyond the realm of the known cosmos.
When I first heard Luciano Pavarotti, and Leontyne Price,
I thought heaven must have opened and I was hearing the voice of angels
come down upon lowly humans.

Vegas - with audio

 audio link

The drumbeat of lights
Hit upon the hearts
Of all who swam
Through the sea
Of turbulent sensation
Ping, Pop, Bing,
Ring, Tatatatatatatatatat!
The sounds like waves above
Pressed down
Then ebbed away
In a steady rhythm of tides

The smokey zeitgeist
Waded in and swirled
To flow within every breath
In pale inky silence
While each sensual statement
Expressed in procession
A play for passion
The Statues ached and cracked
As they blindly drank in the show
Naked and unfeeling like lost souls
While the crowds alternately
Bled and wept in tormented ecstasy
Or collapsed in brokenness and dejection

As in ancient times,
The spirit of forgotten Rome
Galloping, and cavorting now
Along this ocean-less shore
Draws in the wayward hordes
To give us milk and nourishment
From wolves boasting the breasts of a goddess
Like Romulus and Remus
At Lupa Capitolina
Only to cast them off again
After the games and revelry
To make war and plunder

Fountains of coins clanged
As they showered down
Like little metal birds
Pudda ping, pudda ping ping, ping ping, ping ping ping
Filling unholy grails
Fabric gold, satin dress
A plunging back line
Like an Athenian Arch
Eyes crawl down along
A neck fine and rare
To a vanishing point
Dark and unrelenting
There many dreams
Have found their rest

From the vaulted brush beaten sky
Ancient pillagers looked down
Upon reflections in a polished marbled plain
Those of the caught up,
And of those calling out
Lions, Warriors, Senators,
Caesars, Victims, Martyrs all
Till another, and another
Should fill the eyes and soul
Again and Again
Along the Appian Way
Like an overwhelming fountain
Upon an endless thirst
Aqueducts overflowing

Candied lips, dazzling eyes
A turn of the hip, A stab of a heel
So fair a skin, So keen the smile
Rounding away on a beautiful thigh
Coming back once again
O Those generous seekers
A shoulder bared
To catch a sigh
For the gaze of a Venus
Atop a sculpture of cream
Beneath the flowing flax
To the curves clinging well
Of all that ripples
Breathing in the night

Here, is capital gotten,
Stolen, spent and lost
In the wealth, and hearth
Hounds, and snares
Cats and cops
Politicians and kings
Perspiring, and expiring
Here, in the crowd,
A wash of humanity
Cries out veni vidi vici!
While asking, E tu, Brute?

There, in the fangs of hunger
Lay the hind and the prey
Bathing, Sinning, smiling
Laughing, living, blooming Moon
Waxing, waining, dying twightlight
Sweltering, melting asphalt Sun
Crying, loving, lusting
A Bloody city, a Cathedral 
Of Angels and Demons
Of the Living, and the Dead
Of the lost, at once -
Exalted and Lifted high
Or Beaten and Cast aside
Set up and knocked down
A Great Unholy Host
The Intoxication
Of Vegas.

My Old Norse Poem in Deutsch - with audio

audio link

Ich reise, ich reise, und leben tragen
Aber ruhe finden ich nicht
I travel, I travel, live and bear
But rest I cannot find

Warum und wo geht das spöttische Geschrei der Raben fliegen
Why and where go the mocking cries of the raven

Wie kommt es, dass Krankheit , Gier und Tod sollte so laut,
So dreist und ohne Reue zu prahlen
How is that disease, greed and death should so loudly boast,
So brazenly and without repentance

Sie haben sich durch die das Schwerkraft,
Ein Horizont  der Dunkelheit getäuscht worden .
They have been deceived by the force of gravity,
A horizon of darkness.

Aber keine Angst Kleinen sein Denn ich sage euch ein großer Tag steht vor der Tür
But be not afraid little ones, for I tell you a great day is coming.

Wann Die Himmel erschüttert werden
und das Universum wird wie ein Fanfaren Glocke schwingen,
kündigt eine neue Geburt , klingelt ein Erwachen
When the Heavens will be shaken
And the universe will resonate like a clarion bell,
Announcing a new birth, ringing an awakening

Wisst ihr nicht, der Tag der Freude?
Ja, ich wieder sagen, es kommt !
Wann alle Menschen frei sind.
Know you not, the day of joy?
Yes, I say again, it comes!
When all men are free.

Das werden wir im Meer der Sonne wohnen
Und in das morgenlicht
Unsere glucklich ewigkeit werden wir finden
Diese neue Tag ist heilig und Heilung
We will live in a sea of sun
And in the morning light
Our happy eternity we will see
This new day is holy and healing

Gesang inmitten der Engel und heiligen Wesen
Im Hause des Allmächtigen
Singing in the midst of angels and holy beings
In the house of the Almighty

Siehe, dann und dort , wie fortold wurde,
Hat unsere helle Morgenstern auf uns angestiegen
Behold, then and there, as was foretold,
Our Bright and Morning Star has risen upon us

Komm Messias, der Fürst
Mit ewigem Licht 
So dass die Nacht und der Tod gebrochen werden!
Come Messiah the Prince
With Eternal Light
So night and death will broken!

I travel, I travel, live and bear
But the rest I can not find
Why and where goes the mocking cries of the ravens flying

How is it that disease, greed and death should so loudly to boast, so brazenly and without repentance?

They have been deceived by the force of gravity, a horizon of darkness.

But be not afraid little ones, for I tell you a great day is coming 

When the heavens will be shaken
And the universe resonates with a clarion bell,
Announcing a new birth, ringing an awakening

Know you not, the day of joy? Yes, I say again, it comes!
When all men are free.

We will live in a sea of ​​sun
And in the morning light
Our happy eternity we will see
This new day is holy and healing

Singing in the midst of angels and holy beings
In the house of the Almighty

Behold, then and there, as was foretold, our Bright and Morning Star has risen upon us

Come Messiah the Prince
With eternal light
So that night and death will be broken!

Chicago Coffee Shop - with audio

audio link

They with the snow and winds
Knew not where the when began
At the Great Lake's northern shore
The ice had frozen over
But the sun shown through
Past the forward thoughts
Into the moment new
Voices lively fill the space
Of the traveler's eye
In this place a flush cheek
A guarded hand, a hidden glance
The conversation starts up again
What a very pleasant thing
Being asked to play the game
That winged thing will
Alight for sometimes and always
Sounded in the heart's deepest waters
In the dawning days and days gone before
Fish and Chips with one drink more
Palms touch and fingers clasp
A gush of words, no more than that
Japan, London, New York and Los Angeles
Rained down upon Chicago like wet snow
Focused through the prism of a precipitous view
Then rising like vapor and vanishing into the crowd
Spectators and travelers once more.

Every 7th Day - with audio

audio link

Every 7th day
Every slumbering night
Turn the strong yellow sun
To the shimmer of starlight
The poet cannot tell
What lies beyond the stars
Every deep interior
Contains an uncertainty
That none can see
Of what it is
And what's to be
When we are not.

Billionaire of Youth - with audio

audio link

Once there was a boy

So full of joy

On top of the world

He ran wild and free

A dragon was slain before breakfast

A princess would attend for tea

The world could be taken

For time needed no appointment

His sinews were supple

He was beautiful to behold

In his eyes shown the Universe

Birds spoke volumes of poetry

As they flew through the sky of his heart

Love was breath itself

No hand could arrest his soul

Remember when a blue sky revealed

What kind of beasts played there

In the churning satiny plumes -

Then rolling over in the dirt

To release a blasting steady stream

Of the scattering Dandy-lion's

Fuzzy white universe of stars

Time marched in the Foreign Legion

It's rifle salute did not dare

To trifle with the Robin's call

Nor could it blot out

The Cardinal's red coat

Each breath of air was

Sweet like Honey with

A child’s breast the comb

When yellow blooms of love

Clover and buttercups provided

Equal sensations of vibrant sun

The breeze played the strings upon his head

It caressed this neck and cheek

With a question for a slide

The boy played the seesawed game of childhood

He climbed each green apple tree

To find a pirate captain's treasure

A Robinhood, he snatched black ripened grapes

Of neighboring vines, and lustily consumed

The candied pleasures beneath their dusty coats

Then a dance sprung up from his legs

For the song of the moment

"Be off now 

To every kind of game and

To every kind of friend"

He was a billionaire of youth

A prince in foreign lands

No one spoke a word that

That he sought to understand

Playing at what is learned

Taking what was free

Damming what is earned

He looked with pride upon his empire

But the seasons played and it burned

Time wrought loss and caused the boy to leave

Upon returning the boy saw

That he and the kingdom

Were no longer the same

For everything had changed

The empire of joy was robbed, plundered, gone

So the boy turned away

To adventure in far off lands

He needed to get away further and more often

On ever increasing journeys in search of life

He lived in and through other imaginings

Traveling onward with the four elements

Of earth, water, air and fire

Floating freely high upon entertainment

The boy swam in projects,

Goals and reams of schemes

The future became the present

The past followed in dreams

But much of the now was forever lost

The empire lay destroyed and

No one yet comes to call

There are none fascinated to listen

While shadows grow ever tall

So time bespoke an age of rest

Now moonlight's entrancing dances

Cause the gray sands to glisten

Dimly recalling fortunes now spent

The glory of what was, now lies in sleep

The green estates, succulent orchards and

Dreams of castled lands have been exchanged

For a desert's expanse of rainbow scatterings

With only one thing left for inheritance

This shell of a wind-tattered dusty tent.

The Horse's Ass - with audio

audio link

I tried to lead the horse
Like hard headed mule he led me
That thick souled spirit
Really acts the nag
I would run him on the mountains
Mingled among the mustangs and clouds
But he'd rather in the muddy wadis roam

Yet he carries me well enough and
Tramples on the serpent's head
Once he's had his fill of clover,
Open air, meadow, flower,  stream
Only once broken does he do his master's bidding
Otherwise his backward glance condescends to offer
A bellicose Neigh above the thunderous gallop

Whereas I am left to choke on the dust
Laughing and cursing that which is quixotic,
Unbridled and an utterly human condition
Working out the process of balance
The struggle of life and character

Whether to tear at the wind
With the thoroughbreds,
Run with the stallions,
Pull the plow with the farmer,
Or quietly sit here like an ass.

Wanting Wanderer - with audio

audio link

Long before I read the story of Abraham
I knew that I was a sojourner on this earth
Destined to wander but never finding rest
Seeking out the place to be

Like a crooked block tossed on
A symmetrical pegboard landscape
Both detached yet present
Never fully connected, drifting onward

Having the Love of the Creator
Placed in the center of an otherwise hollow self
My sun of gravity, the black hole of being
Thank God for mercy, lest I collapse inward

The crush of time's weight perhaps life's only refinement
Caught in a web of pedestrian life
I march forward like Pierre in War and Peace
Onward in the snowdrifts of falling years

All the while admiring the one who prays
"Lay me down like a stone, oh Lord
And raise me up like a loaf."
Desiring all that this fleeting life has to offer.

Inverted Reflections - with audio

audio link

Failed to be a man
Failed to understand
Failed to truly see
All that's needed
To make it be
So live in defeats of the day
Till comes the dawn of another way
When to see if he remain
In the kingdom of this domain
Or at least in a land of peers

Not of witless simple turning gears
Not the quiet panic in running sheilas
Nor the dandy Homo sapiens fellas
Then throw out the politically corrects
Along with all Bureaucratic suspects
Only then can the mind turn clear
The heart calm down
The soul shed despair

Yet the spirit shall take flight
Beyond this pallored vale
To transcend and look down
Upon all those choices
Stuck deep in muddy ground
In Terra Firma spinning round
Still, within all that can be

Looking out from eternity
A place of treasured love to see
There a wealth of family
Beautiful sons, wife and daughter
Health, warmth and laughter
Friends, Pets, birds and Orange Blossoms
These upon him are showered
Gifts from above in that same hour.