Curious Love

Of course 

                   There's a larger figure

Looking over this,

                                 Who I know

     As my singularity

                                     At moments

Like these

                   When the horizon

Is the color before death ...

                                  The last

                   Casualty,

     An Objective God,

Which may be the last

              Of our innocence,

    For which we are

                                   Everlastingly grateful

    That we have the strength

                 For future tests 

                              To love.

It's all that is, 

                       How could there be

    Not Love

                     Only

                             Against it?

The perfect flex

                            On the other side

     Like male surf

                      To female shore,

The power to cultivate love

     As love discovers

                             Absence

(Having prepared for it with love)

     And loves what it sees,

                      Changing it

             From love to love.

O Sky Above,

                        The next highest frequency

             Of love,

                           Receives the love

      In the unconditionality

             To which all objects glide,

      To the decision of tolerance,

To let it all go, all the misguided

              Suffering done

                             In love's call,

      Pure, real love.

A moon above, 

                            Where the old computer

      Spits out its algorithms

To simplify love to lovelessness;

               They entertain us

      At lunar command

                              With their pose

      Of the False as the True --

                That's funny

                                      To us who

Approve

               Of misfortune bestowed

                               On others,

This lighter fluid breeze just now,

        And the innocent pride

                Of laughter

                At having secured

                       Subjection,

                             For example,

It's just that opposite, against

                               Again,

       Another unguarded spot

                 Of darkness

                          For love curious

                                 Love.

Because Phoebe exists

                  Somewhere,

       You'll find her,

       You are her

                  From when you were

                          Another,

You know her

                        And have for all

        Eternity

                        And can freely

Project, as fact, what you believe

        Only,

                 In a Phoebe,

                                        In fact.

Moments In and Out of Context

A row of skin trees

  by the Crystal Cathedral ...

I am here now

  but it is a now

Like a snifter of liqueur 

  that I handle and sift

And sip at my leisure,

  in this summer of basil

When we contemplate love

  as the end of time 

In the great ladle

  in the sky

That tells us

  where the time went

And how it was a myth

  anyway. 

California pours out

  in filtered light,

Obsolescent mermaid queen

  of the realm of gold

Seeking. The new Chronos,

  Rock and Roll,

Signs as time while a Volkswagen

  Thing rolls by.

Advice from Ezra

Sing of what you know, young man.

Do you know of apple trees?

Do you know fruit of any kind?

Or is it love

With whom you converse?

Love for,

That you know?

The will that catapults

Selections from your own desire?

The desire for you,

It turns out.

How that marble

Stays elusive,

Stays true,

As if it was marble

And could merely weather

Morbidity, achieved disgrace,

New birth of weeds.

It is only what one knows

Makes one powerless 

To explain. 

The most powerful change

In the omniverse

Barely registered,

So far away

The individual players

From each other's flames.

Cashier

"I'm not from around here,"

Said the red cashier,

"In Savannah those toe spacers

Would be easy to find."

Love subdivides for her

Like a candle shares its flame.

Weekend Meditation

It's not just the death of one

     but the death of four:

            Sweet Katie,

            Noble Michelle,

            Sister Triska,

            Dear Cheryl ...

All hopelessly entangled

      and estranged

And me a flinty Scot

      too stubborn to yield

To ... what? I never knew,

      it only came back

On the analytics report

      as submission.

Love was constant, though,

      as familiar as this morning

With only the sunflowers

      in the role of the desired.

It was me, always me, 

      who found a form to fill

And, in filling, 

      felt

Innumerable loves

      that criss-crossed lifetimes

And reminded me what 

      I'd yet to learn

Although the nearly remembered

      brought me only a little closer

To where I was, 

      always,

Subjected, as I

     was, always,

To the natural patterns of time 

     in this dimension, 

The one of storyline

     as inevitable 

As the green in the grass 

     that grows towards 

Another season,

     where love is expressed

In new minds to articulate

     the old thoughts,

New hearts 

     to carry the beat,

New diamond light resistances 

     that mirror

For me to contend with

     in my inner shell

That never quite 

     gets to where

The ocean 

     meets the shore,

The individual expression

     is shared

Except as an echo

     in the hollow cove

Where the witches make you

     remember who you were

When the lack of love's

     lack of consequence

Hit like a karmic

     load of bricks --

Itself a line from another relationship

     fractured

That came in

    by way of Buffalo

Like the wind

    onto Lovegrove

Where the ghosts were still

    too moist to go,

Another artist talk

    professional

Dreaming the stones

    as ancient stories,

Reconfiguring the rooms

    of the antiques city,

The animal space

    on innocent spokes ...

Always there were words 

    left for something 

Now missing,

    as monument 

For thought alone

    that forgot itself,

The prerogatives of the heart,

    the reach

For what is always there,

    a constant,

As if the sun can be found

    in a tree,

The stars far enough

   away

There's no danger

   of straying too close.

A Peaceful Day of Chaos

That sheet of crystal

                  ocean,

  how could the gulls,

         whose eyes are

                  fixed on it,

   receive all it knows

               as it is that?

They stare as only

                  birds can,

   as if some fish

                 of insight

         will rise through 

                      its white,

   rasp what it is

          and what it means

                 and why it

                    mesmerizes,

Or are these things 

          for the mind

                   to drop,

    the mind over all

          that wants to

                      know?

Irretrievable the waves

           and their slow 

    reaching for a touch

                   and knowing 

                   in a moment 

           it will never come,

        but trying again,

    for as long as it takes

              to be at peace

                     with what is,

The gift of lovelessness

    that looks so beautiful,

             the white,

                       the horizon,

    so happy we are trying

                  to get to it,

         hearts drawn in sand,

    couples and their hands,

.            love is all we know.

To Virgo, with Eternal Thanks

Madison Ponce

     Calls herself a They

To become an army

     That obliterates

Anything that stands

     In their way.

She'd sell her loving mother

     Up Santa Ana river

If it interfered

     With her desire

For vintage Me decade

     Furniture,

But she refuses to wear

     Turquoise jewelry

Or any other culturally

     Appropriated tool

Of power, raw power,

     To take away.

Madison Ponce

     Has no real feelings, 

You see,

     So she's free 

To light the city

     Of Anaheim on fire

And have anyone who tries

     To stop her

Put in the slammer

     For centuries-old murders

She makes stick with her wand of feelings

     We call witchery.

Gate Heal

She still prays

        to be healed

With a hopeful 

            smile

And indomitable will,

    even now.

The lions in

           Sirius

Are so 

     pleased with

             this.

BPPV at Ascend

Oh those vestibular crystals

That spin in the waves,

Maybe it's Mal de Debarquement 

Or Acoustic Neuroma

This abscission 

Of the wires

With no clear distinction 

Between the senses 

And mind

But the gulf widening 

Between what's perceived 

And what is known,

Like the organs of sense

Can finally admit

They stole it long ago

From the greater brain

As a kind of gift,

An objective world!

But the transducers

In the endocrine 

Are succumbing now 

To the pineal antennae

And the light that drills

Through it;

Times are too large 

For the senses,

The truth too important to risk

To the eyes, the ears, the throat.

Maybe now the visible world

Will be visible.

The Open Gate

A Cincinnati engineer

Against the saddest eyes on the planet,

Reduced to mere will

-- Can I make you hurt?

They invade every game, those eyes,

With pathos,

Rewrite the rules

In invisible tremors

That move objects

And souls

To where they don't 

Recognize themselves,

Away from the all-seeing blindness

To the blindness of the just.

An 80th

Her family's from Hangtown

And meets here

With all the employees 

Decked out in country-club blue

At the Orange Hill sunset.

Before the salad is served

I ever-so-anxiously pick at

The napkin

To try to distinguish the family 

From the staff.

Report from Vegas

They're tearing down the Mirage but

The Hard Rock schematics are lit,

Six neon guitar strings

Ascending all the way to the heavens.

Gusts from the Beach

There's a wind down

Lochlea, Drymen, Lomond,

Palm trunks like clubs that beat for war,

Even the genteel magnolia

     clicks like dominoes.

"You must go faster!"

The rush seems to suggest,

As the sky blows seaward

Through veering gulls and

       seaweed dreads.

The clouds are so precise, too still,

The power towers stiff as stone

As the flags take off with feathered wings,

"WELCOME," "Pet Friendly",

      transcend the human

And hang upon a golden thread

Between the real and material,

Promising a higher plane,

A more rarified curriculum 

      in rippling fonts and colors

Harkening to the shore

Where the one and only wind

Says the same thing it always does,

"Your belief in me takes me

       to your feet."

Viking wives weave pillage shrouds

For days like these, the call

Of piracy, to scrap every lanyard,

Abscond with every safe, replace

        all thinking with chaos

For the lust of blood experience,

The taste of burnt flesh,

Like a doughboy's ditch

Where fierce adversaries trade

        stale bread for pennies.

The palms wave goodbye to us

As we go to this, its prompting,

And the information registers

In frond calibrations 

        of measure and weight.

So much of what happens

Never happens at all, or if it does,

The seagull doesn't shriek of it.

It is different for each, the confines

        of reality are that fleeting.

Girls as Galaxies

The face inside,

Your secret lover,

Who carries your desire

As if it is her,

Proferring it freely

Like flowers 

To you.

But it is your love only

Comes as ricochet,

What you can finally feel as love

Distilled from longing,

The reach for the one flame

That burns in your heart

'Til the heavens encinder,

And all of it a paparazzi 

Flashbulb of the others

Crowding to your love,

Which never announces itself

As your mouth, your tongue 

Yet you graciously receive what comes

As an echo,

Like a photo

From forbidden Japan,

The only manifest in

Commodore Perry's hand,

A pearl for his sextant

As replacement 

For stars.

The Second Currency

Rasputin died six times

And there've been six or more Putins,

Each one killed off

According to plan,

But Putin 

Survives.

The Empty Room

Such sadness in the balancing,

The making right

What must remain wrong

Even when fixed

And forgotten.

O all you murderers

Of those who hurt your feelings

How you are forgiven,

Sent so much love

For being wrong,

Wrong, and therefore innocent,

That quality we think redeems us

When it is the other way,

Our guilt that follows us

All the way

To the most beautiful blue canal

In the most inaccessible port,

With nothing but sea

To show for the city,

What it tried but could never become.

Good Bad Poem

As her body breaks down

Her demands grow more fierce: 

Dysfunction in the fingers,

Too much dust,

Too many flies mating

In the waste we've left,

Too much lack

Of perfection,

Seemingly the natural state

Somewhere else --

Not the compost pile here, 

The great recycle redeemer,

Where nothing ever shows

But lack of love,

The better to get

Love delivered

In response,

A way of learning what it is,

Love, the great unknown,

The thing that brings us,

The force that is us

Somehow

In every indivisible cell,

Autonomous, distinguishable,

Alone but inextricably

Of the whole,

Love, the source,

The ordinary place,

How all things of this reign

Fall away to its ceaseless wind.

While Watering

As I lean into the palm

     to give it water

My head is in the palm god clouds

     casting heavenly thoughts

And the water through my hands

    is not from a hose

But a personal supply of my own

    from the infinite inside.

By the Stacks

I.

A dead leaf skitters

       on a perfect lawn

Bolted off-limits as the dead

       derricks of old

             Pat Robertson,

Now Gold Coast Fence,

       unmolested by requests,

             separates the tars

From phosphorus uppers.

II.

Every person you meet

        is a nudge away

              from Enlightenment,

Totally getting it, and barely

        in the trance that makes

              the thoughts they think

A moving mirror that takes her

        away from us, by which

              I mean myself only.

They say it's a process

        of more lucid dreams

              by daylight

Across the entire populace

        -- in time, they say,

              and slowly deliver

The glue unhooked 

        from the envelope,

              the parcel pulled out

And its contents titivated 

         by the closest thing we have 

              to collective,

These councils in white

         with sleeves of gold

              and hatred

Who make the decisions 

         you think you 

              thought of

But the wave came and went

         and left you to lean on

              this gravity vice

Where the stone's not even

         hollow, the fumes

              not even seen.

We have woken up

         no more firmly

              than in not taking this

 

World at its word anymore,

         as we would a dragonfly

               on the lake at firebug light,

The white unmistakable 

         spoken on everyone's lips

              in silence 

As the new sun

         passes the dead towers,

              skirts the tar.

That Morning Exhalation

The consciousness machine

Adjusts some tuning

At the fork

Where things come to be

But never stay,

As if they won't emerge

Within the conjurer's 

Eye.

It is only our need

To feel

The love

We are.

Response to the Arcturian

It's Family Dysfunction Week

       and everything must go,

How the earth

       appreciates the debris,

The dark tar released

       to the fungal nethers,

The closest thing to brains

       this old earth possesses,

Thoughts fallen like soldiers

       in shame, waste and hubris

Are recycled to new choices

       sprung from the humus,

New choices, is it love, 

       as this jungle will attest,

Or is the darkness

       it's own reward,

The hole too deep

       to climb out of

The only lesson

       of note,

The only one that sings

       "You need to learn."

Another 3 O'Clock Taupin

"When I die in my sleep," she asked before bed,

"Will you be so good to put my pajama pants on?"

"Of course, my love," I said to one

Of her novel new honey-do items.

It wasn't until 3 AM at night,

When some words from an old song

             "Even when you died..."

Filtered in like a dream

That I sat bolt upright

And started bawling the tears

I had saved, it seems, for this moment

When my wife, through the transference of art

Became that old starlet hounded in death

For her nakedness. It was something about

The friendlessness of angels 

And the deals we must make to walk upon this sphere.

And so private tears came from a most public song,

Tears like a storm in Oklahoma 

That may even end sometime,

No one knows.

Perspectives to Share

Now we've gone urn shopping,

Blue, green or gold, or an easier

Ash spread cylinder, or a free

Black cardboard box?

There are questions of guests,

Will they come for a weekend service?

And what if it rains, as it's doing

Right now, impossible to predict

Of July in Southern California,

With a fresh Libra moon headache ...

Why does every story I tell

Turn me into a victim?

The Family Way

Black sheep truth,

     the wail,

Nail to the screw,

A lone wolf cry in a family

     of sheep.

How cold and how cruel

    the deals for love

            bend in this family

For the rawest advantage,

    the most noxious noise,

That biles up shames

    and the guilt suppressed

As all transgressions are retrieved

    in the infinite howl of 

             the slaughtered,

The black sheep howl of truth

    acts out the martyr

             as assassin

Of all mores, norms, customs.

    the objective dysfunction 

             of the ones one loves.

She relies on codependency 

    as existential threat

              to exist

As anything but chaos,

Where the shrewdest 

              take advantage

In a numbers lock

    where we're still imprisoned 

In the bunkbed school

    fated to toil away at

             Funk and Wagnalls

                        forever

At these latest parties

    in the pinkest resorts 

Where the sharpest of retorts

    are reserved exclusively 

             for those loved the most,

The love most worth of sharing,

    because we are here,

The same horses on the

    same farm

With the same sheriff and wranglers

    and hired guns

               at sundown as dawn.

Intimations of Irresponsibility

The curvature of stars 

Is in the planet center;

There is no other way

Than inside, 

What you believe

And make real,

The rainbow volleyballs

Vibrating in cascade

As I watch the empty tables

Lift from the stage,

Rising as high as it wills,

The thing that doesn't exist.

Pride of the Yaquis June Rainbow Edition

After Dolce

You don't want it

          to be so,

  but no amount of

                    love

             you give

  you don't 

                   receive.

It's unequivocally the

                    same

            love

   from the same

                place.

You come here

            to experience 

   the creme de menthe

                  parfait

        of rainbow layered

                atmospheric

                          veins

                     of rock,

The love you need 

                  comes

   from empty canyons

   where the wind

           rushes in

             so pleasurably

        it's like the day

           will never end,

Even as the sun turns 

       golden on hills

           you've never

               seen before,

   where you learn

       you once set up

                  your home,

           now long gone,

   the weeds grown over

             so magnificently

                      in the sun,

the memory like a dream

         you will wait for,

                         it seems,

               like the twilight,

                    forever.

Gracias por comprar en Walmart Los Cabos

Down Salto Seco,

Where the stones are grouted

                 but the money

Remains an overhang

    like a parasol

                 over all,

Everything in dollars

           Mexicano,

    so large the values,

                 so small --

It's kept close,

            the hand

    at the register,

For fear we see

    the nothing we are

            and the nothing

               these fees --

    this form of exchange,

         so gracious,

    keeps us from stealing

             what's rightfully ours.

Bonita Rose in Gemini

Linseed tortilla,

The hills collapse in sun

And re-attach

To the crystal straits

With the merest breeze.

It flashes so fast 

The tourists won't 

Pick it up, this

Burning coin in the sand.

~~

There's something permanent

In these rocks

Despite the shadows

And the constant change

Of Being therein,

Duende to sober

To sharper than nails

-- Kindness is only implied

Far away from the visitors

Smiles.

~~

Scorpion spiders,

The conversation moves

Like the wind,

The bathers play

Like the waves,

The children float

On sunswept clouds

As if they are

From there.

~~

The singing crocodile

Mourns the unbuilt

Foundation,

The tire gardens,

The over-dessicated lawns

That disappear in an instant

To oblivion,

Where everything lives.

~~

The rock returns

As if it never left,

But nothing was here

In dirt-road 1974

Or yesterday.

~~

The desert sun 

Denies there is a 

Material world

And no philosopher 

Will stand in

Against it

Today.

~~

Boats

Another planet away,

People laughing

From a distant nebula --

The pink that surrounds

This silent dome

The only thing that's real.

~~

The black swans

                   dead

The peacock 

                   dead,

The aviary thinning,

       Cheryl dying

Yet the bougainvillea 

       shows its 

                   immortality.

~~

Baja Sur

  as inhospitable as the earth

                            can be

       And we come --

  It holds the mother's

                 fortune cards 

  and never says a thing --

We call that healing.

Constellations

The voices

         in this conversation

Are all the same

                  you

As the one opposing

               them,

        all laughing as one,

                         that's you,

    knowing all that,

        remembering,

                being

                               it

Though there was never it

        there

                  as much as you

    playing conductor,

           passenger and train

So magnificently,

           so seamlessly,

     you would think

           they were the same

                   person,

     not three, much less all 

                   of the others

Sharing a world of experience 

                           privately

        -- a moving train --

     where you know

               something's happening

                      without needing

         to confirm it

               with customers,

There's not even an

                       angel

     needed to know

                     it was you

     the whole time,

                        you.

Rooms of the Two Lexies

The cool wind on my skin

     is a thought in another realm

At a higher turn of the illusion,

     where philosophes of wind

Posture and postulate

     about essential things ... 

                     we can feel it

Though we can't quite ride

     along as yet

Past the concrete block our souls

     seem to be flyttrapped in of late,

Forced to navigate a game whose rules

     are understood only by playing,

The only way to know

     it's a game.

The wind blows, the kind of a day

    when matter ceases

In gulps at a time, the screw 

    turned loose finally

And the density chains unlock

    to light and wind as one

For once ...

                      then the wind moves on,

Clouds over the sun

     form paintings of their experience

That decorate the solarium

     where students -- they call themselves

Teachers -- sit rapt, deal propositions

     like black hearts.

The Sand When I Broke Lyra

The intelligence of the sand

        holding all current

                      in crystalline 

                      magnification,

Shifting with each foot,

       and with all

                      knowledge

   of the frequency being

               above the sole

       instantly received and

                 balanced

                       with the rest

           Collecting sand

While we, the humans,

           don't even know

                        to bow down

                                in honor

   and try to learn

            a grain of what it knows:

Every touch it was ever bequeathed

            and the meaning of each

                    recorded,

   every directive of source

                    through its legions

            ordered

       carried out

In perfect military simplicity,

   it would be

            for us

            too much

                    to experience 

Except in times like these

        when the wind rustles 

                               more

            than one wants

     and the palms

Send their bolts

            to the heart

                     of everything 

    dying, never born,

         never existing

                   or not existing,

The whole of who we are 

    rising instead of the sun,

Still blinding,

               blinding.

Last Curdle of Spring

"The greatest of teachers won't hesitate to leave you there by yourself chained to fate." - Ed Kowalczyk

The mind plays

        the music

On the leaves of the cherry tree

               and I

           am also the keys

     listening themselves

                     to existence

     with the images

               of all I am

Projecting on the screen

                     as backlight

            to this projection

                 where things are

                 louder, sharper,

     the easier to remember,

            to think it wasn't me

                             thinking 

     but the thought 

            can be isolated

     it doesn't have 

               to be love

          undifferentiated,

The thought can blow

     through the crispest of afternoons

          as a question of itself,

               answered

     in all it is not,

                 the humming void

                                that is

     the back yard, the neighbor's dog.

Juneteenth Observance Day

Free free

     every freed one is their own

                      frequency zone

          the entire world

                            individual

     an old soul

          plays an infantile child

                         an old slave

                 owns gold mines

                                in Ghana

     we're free to create

           everything exists

                                already

           it's only discovery

     the tongue to the ice

                          where each

                 is absorbed

                          in the other

         from desire for itself

     we are every pronoun

                  every astral mite

                             every star

          our life there called light

                  here

                          a brotherhood

                  and I am every ray

Self-Portrait in Rags

By some

    strange

           calculus

    my step

           son Aiden has

become my

               Dad.

~~~

Am I not

         famous?

Google is the

    Pope of

         soft rock.

~~~

Psychiatric disability

      is too strict,

          too tolerant;

Advanced

      Witch

         energy,

I figured you,

      Gonzalez,

         would

               know.

~~~

Wheelchair

    Inaccessible 

           the Clouds

    As they Always

                  Are.

~~~

The Love,

  why can I not

      sing about the

                  Love?

Because they don't 

      sing, I

   can only

             guess.

~~~

Death brings

      the center of

          the tree

  Into focus,

      how everything 

                grows

                out of me.

~~~

Big Daddy

       Bear

Why do you

    cry so

    and never 

        show a

             tear?

~~~

Why am I crying

     for you

          when no tears

     for myself

  Come through

           except as fan,

           as Audience?

~~~

Who are they,

     these Whitney's,

     these Patricia's?

Is it really

         an end

     with no end 

And the fool curse

         of trying?

~~~

I have created

    a Timeline

Where Xerox

       won the

              War.

~~~

Irvine OK?

I have to ask

        my Boss,

Who came by way

          of Rego Park

    and the furthest

               Exurb

                 of Kashmir.

~~~

I can't be

     in the

             collapsing 

                       city,

Showing its dinge 

     as the morning

                    sun

          turns pretty.

~~~

I collect

          whites

    on my

        Notebook

                 arm

    and write

        while Aiden

        recounts 

              how he

        Manifested

              the

              No Worries

          Grim Reaper

                  Last Call 

                      T shirt

A stranger left

                   in his hamper

              after the 100 drunks

      party he threw 

                   when we were

                      out of town

      and not looking.

~~~

I am the

   Primary

      Caregiver,

which became

               the truth

         the moment

      I said it.

~~~

Still, the mesas

      in Alamogordo 

  hold my interest

             more than

      what happens

      in front of me,

  in my bubble.

~~~

Aiden 

      negotiates

         a New Life

   with new skills

         as my old

               skull

    blows its

            cover.

~~~

On Donny

            the

      Magnificent 

  with his New York 

            hiss,

  George C. Patton

         sobriety,

               the scent of

     Jesuit piety --

   how could you fall

         for such a tender

                      trap?

~~~

Kubla Khan

     wasn't 

         written in a day

     like the world,

            so easily

                  undone.

~~~

Is it baseball,

       baseball

           season?

Is it time yet

        for 

             1935?

~~~

The Bengals

     are good,

The Bengals

     have won,

The Bengals

     almost crossed

          the Super-Rubicon

               again;

Cris Collinsworth

     sits disconsolately

           at the 

                bench.

~~~

They way they

     Invisibly

            pounced

       from every tree-

   like TV antennae 

       flashing orange

   in the blue-grey

                 world.

~~~

Year of the Tiger,

   Homage to the one

                 that purrs,

   like my ex, when

        she was aroused

               to be

                   cautious ...

  Oh how you

               honor

        the brave,

the word

     said right.

~~~

This plotline works

      because everyone 

   knows where it's 

                           going,

Art's surprises 

      are the only

               predictable 

      part of life.

~~~

Brian Wilson

      in the Sand,

the name of the 

               book

    I'm supposed

               to write,

On Dunhill

    and the Gold Star

         abduction

             ascension.

~~~

I have not

    been not

    a Scholar,

most particularly

             when my

             Scholarship

   is all made up,

       immaculate,

             authoritative,

                     precise.

~~~

So many

    ways to be a Writer

           back in the day

When the doors were locked

                         and now

           there are no doors,

                    no place to

                               lock

    except in a library

            of light and

                     treasured ruins.

~~~

The COVID gift

             that keeps on

                     giving,

that you can 

             live your life

    and never have

                    to leave

             your porch.

~~~

Many are bass-played,

             Few are

                      Bass,

The full bottom

     glass boat

                 translation 

to heart frequencies

         where we live

                      alone.

~~~

I was just trying

          to be accurate,

I would never talk like that

                     of course 

          in tones so

                  unhindered

Where we cope with the rope

                  to which we are

         tethered.

~~~

She believes

     that she is

                fat

       and presto

     she is fat

and no diet

     will visit her home

          and leave her

              in peace.

~~~

The Bearers of

          The Truth

   as much absorb

        as explain

When so few are listening,

        when one has to

              understand.

~~~

The Superworm lady

        was so darned cute

I had to get the

                   frozen rats

        despite my vow

                 not to.

~~~

Miles pee'ed off the hotel

                         balcony,

Cindy Jr. set her house

                 on fire,

Mike Jr. will pull out a gun

     if you dare point out

                 he was not

          the bass player

                          of Sublime,

And then there are

                  the crazy ones,

like Hanna, muse

              of my

                         darkness.

~~~

All politics are 

               local

But the mind

            is not,

    no matter

        how much

                       incense

            was spread.

~~~

They back off, in time,

                 the tyrants,

When we get tired of them,

        tired of opposing

                           a demon

and supporting the clean

                city hall

                        candidate

        who does not know

              what bang flash

                   or truthbomb 

                         is.

~~~

The quickest way

     to a Middle-Aged man's

                   heart

          is through his

               Nostalgia.

~~~

Yet the only sign

     that we are Gods

To those who go

                after us

Are the photos

         they find

                    of us

     in 1970's clothes.

~~~

The Raven feathers

         flutter through the

                     air

              as the door

                     slams --

Something always

                                falls,

     Gonzalez,

         into the darkness.

~~~

Arizona, 

        where all 

             my conundrums 

                        end

        and all roads

                       lead

     to ascend

         in the deadly 

                           sky.

~~~

Raptures of

        the Afternoon

Open and then close

          like lungs breathing;

    There is always more to do

          to get away from

                     speculation.

       He who is self-conscious

                           is lost.

Dead Angels Walking

I work in the Third World

Where the artists have to pay

For the right to wait

To go before committees 

For the clearance to paint

Tiny murals in no egress alleys

While graffiti is: Everywhere;

The structures are crumbling

But no one dares admit it,

They can't see past the test

Of whether they can taste

White sage in artisanal gin,

As they live the royal life

From the dead age of kings.

This face to face, 

This flesh feels false, 

Like our minds have gone

To the wormhole already 

Free of time and space 

And the always unspoken idea

That things are better this way,

With the cities cleared, 

Distances maintained,

The soul suck sad 

Sameness of commute

Suddenly optional, 

A livelihood more flexible,

A planet more liveable,

With no one working 

But those who want to

And everyone getting a check

To watch the sunset

To the dankest tune

And the lit-est filter

For their secret celebrity face.

The history is peeling,

The science turned fraud,

The materialist cement has popped its bolts

But no one here knows it,

They think it as it always was,

A place for tragedies to befall them

And the stories that make them whole.

In the Eye of the Rainbow

Castle Lake, CA

The fairies leap like diamond fish,

The wind's waves drink the shore,

Turn back and forth to fish before

The mirror broken again on the stones.

This is where the wind is at home,

In this sanctuary from judgement, 

The full expression unsuppressed 

By etiquette,

Of truths cold as the water 

But as radiant and blue

And moving in every no direction 

Conceivable, ever-veiled

Like the cloud robe

That crowns the mountain,

The archangelic word too far away,

By design, to be heard ...

"It's barely a lake" returns in the ear

"It's lakely a bear."

Shasta Grass

I wander through your history

To relive the horror

Of the season of the witch,

The observance of the breach

When you were wrong one time

And knew what you were up against.

So Juneau holds the room in white.

The star charts tell her tales so well

Because they let her say what she knows

Even when it's snowmelt

Using her voice,

Content to bestow on the invisible

A form that will come

When the mountain floats

Beyond existence.

The silence never chooses

To be heard,

But wind sprites come here

To be perceived

In a way they never can

On dry land.

It doesn't matter what the voice says

But to know it

As a voice.

Pause

The power and the love

                  games dance

   without really touching.

On Oldsmobile Hill

Glamping in Glamis

With tarantula hawks,

Shotguns, dead bodies

At the ready, every

Fast food-friendly

Livery box of rat

Waits just past the dunes

Which go on, it seems,

Forever, much as the sand

Skeins are torn

By Polaris bodies

Hurtling past

As act of war.

There is no place

To be ourselves,

Hence the mobile home

Wagon train

And tires inflated enough 

To go anywhere,

As if there was a somewhere 

Called escape.

Poetic Justice for the Crime of Wanting Love

The loss comes in with the eyes;

This person will leave me, no matter

How limitless the promise seems

Inside of the dream.

June's Translucent Moon - 14

There's nothing to stop me now

From living with the trees

In the future

Instead of troglodyte central here

With its trilobite bytes

And mastodon remains

From the swamp tar that was

Primeval Arctic terrain

Dessicated like street defecation 

As the large leaves hold

All radiance

In quivering bowls.

The whole of nature

Hails my return,

What once sat silent

As I rubbed the pollen

Off its stems.

My leaving, it turned out,

Changed them,

Though it seems the trail

Is abandoned,

The plangent cries a long

Suppressed, uncontradicted

Explanation, 

The rabbits under brush

A mirror sound,

As if with all that's hidden

There is nothing

I hadn't heard -- New birds, 

Branch formations,

Stream curvatures

To take me from the stasis,

As this canyon keeps the sun

From being bored.

That sound the palms make

To translate the wind,

The way they wave

In effigy,

Reaching fronds to my hands,

Bobbing limply

Around a centrifugal point.

The world down here

Is more a map

Of what may occur

Than something -- like that --

Actually happening,

Or a train track

Where people's plans

Become extensions,

Each connection shining.

The impenetrable stasis

Of a world thought away,

Was merely envisioned

To envelop with spray,

Static and feedback

The indomitable stone

Of no meaning,

What the lines in our plays

Depend on, like spiders 

Need nets

To dangle on strings

Swung by source consciousness.

The sand fleas 

Almost give you

The hallucinatory,

As the sea sometimes

Throws off a shade of blue

So impossible 

You could say it was imagined.

They drink shots in elder nooks

To such heady rationalizations

To make the way things are

Seem a dream,

The surface ever glistening,

The unseen

Not even seen.

June's Translucent Moon - 13

So we are here again,

Two indigenes

Disguised as one,

Twin rivers of convergence 

Like an end.

What I say to you

You must calm your mind

For hearing, understanding 

Is just not possible,

Nor even desirable,

For you think there is no other

When, in fact, there is no other.

Out of all the shadows magnified to view

Which one is me?

How I show myself

So incompletely,

As if I wasn't there,

No parent with their boat horn

To remind you you are theirs

But a glitch in the grass waving

The deepest whispers,

Like that, at least, 

No analogies can hold

The opacity of the form,

It is for you

To see through always

But know, that some prey awaits,

If you pray, if you pray.

The invisible honors program

Rolls out its ribbons every day,

You see them as palms swaying

In impartial sun

But you are the one

Choosing

Not what to see and how

To view it, but to see

At all - is there a mountain

Without meaning? A molehill

Without a mole?

The shadow walks with you

Like a suitcase

Of all you've collected

From the hotel rooms

Where your shoes have rested.

It perks up at noon,

Stretches out in the evening,

But never completely disappears  

Until you're vapor, of course,

Something easier to do

Than you ever admitted,

A matter of screwing your eyes

And holding still.

Something is twittering 

And it waits

For you to make it up

With everything you've learned

And are feeling -

So it can vanish again,

To a permanent record

Of your work

In the halls

Of wisdom,

Where Leonardo is hung.

Synaptic Synopsis

Some clefts may hold

But every leap is mad,

The electric's need

To find its gap

And fill with anything,

The void of not knowing,

Which, turns out, miraculously,

Is the thing that never can be filled

No matter how much stuff

You dump into the gullet,

It's a calculation 

Blinded in light

And taken in

As pure idea,

Separate from the mind

Because inside it,

Turning every point of contact 

Into a road

To plow through

Whatever brambles

Hide the path

To nowhere

That was once a highway

They might have said,

The golden road of El Dorado 

Through the most nondescript of yards.

A Good Day

Thank God the schizophrenia's back:

Soprano trills at dawn,

The gentle walk through the yearbook

And the people who are plotting to kill her,

And my scribbling in code that proves I'm a Christian

So should go back to hell where I belong ...

It's so pleasant to live this way 

With the buds and butterflies winging it

Like angels bounding through the spring,

Selfish though it may seem.

The crazy-making show has taken respite

As the semblance of rationality has collapsed,

And the infantile marksman

Has walked it back to toddler ware

Staring from the carriage like the baby Jesus

Next to the one with her mother,

Skin and bones, mouth involuntarily open,

Taking it in like an interesting bus ride.

Why "The Scripture of the Golden Eternity" is not a Poem: A Literary Analysis

Mad Love for Jack and the Buddha

1. The I that created the sky
   seems unaware of itself.
2. The word that is God
   defies definition.
3. What seems real
   never really seems
   an illusion.
4. Awakening like the lotus
   out of degradation again,
   still we don't understand
   degradation.
5. My body is spirit moving
   deaf, dumb and blind.
6. My non-existence
   is a rumor to me.
7. Bliss, like the world,
   carves itself to the actual.
8. The singularity of me
   doesn't equal
   the wholeness of you.
9. Imagination is the only access
   to a reality that
   only lets nothing enter.
10. We always must choose
    the movie or the world,
    the dream or waking state --
    how can we learn they're the same?
11. The dust on us
    by which we know our purity
    means we are no longer pure.
12. The silence at the center of things
    must be learned, but because
    it is silence, it cannot be.
13. Knowledge can see everything
    fold into one.
    Wisdom will keep things distinct.
14. In the beginningless
    was the wordless,
    just beyond the Gods
    to be forgotten.
15. We know how our forms
    eventually reveal their illusions
    but we don't know what truth
    brings to birth them.
16. Time is the alcohol
    in the tincture
    that makes it impossible
    to take.
17. Because of this,
    enlightenment
    always comes too late.
18. Believing the eternal,
    for example, is only a matter
    of how long.
19. Life forms come to go and go to come.
    Forgetting their bliss
    somehow becomes their bliss.
20. We've never left 
    the universal mind
    yet we can swear
    on a stack of bibles
    otherwise.
21. When change is the only permanence 
    nothing is left for the changeless.
22. In the darkness you can confront
    the invisible
    but it's only the absence of light.
23. Even flies nursing delicate viands
    grow tired of chasing nothing.
24. The cause of woe is not knowing,
    the cure is not to care.
25. Emptiness fills up everything
    to make us forget
    we are always hungry.
26. What you've lost 
    is on the other side
    of the multiverse,
    equally lost.
27. Like everything that kills,
    you disappear
    to quiet the mind.
28. You can race across the rapids
    without a kayak
    but mental pictures
    never.
29. To be virtuous is a sin,
    and sinfulness a virtue.
    It turns around and around
    like that because the whole
    can't break itself to parts.
30. The listener is as sincere
    as you imagine her to be.
31. The womb where
    everything holy grows
    is dark and empty,
    no wonder what's
    perishable in the light.
32. The mind exists not to think,
    the heart exists not to feel;
    but we're helpless at birth
    and like cripples make our way.
33. The golden eternity pretends
    to be you, plays your part
    while you are in another room.
    You come back to
    everyone stunned.
34. The Carmelites answered everything
    with silence.
    We still can hear the screaming.
35. We know, somehow, that all
    we call real is false, down here,
    where we pull the wailing bell
    to drown the constant silence
    of our laughter from on high.
36. There are tears of joy
    as you sense the other shorepeople
    wash through everything near
    and with an impeccable beat
    they turn back to tears of grief.
37. Jesus and Buddha saw, as they died,
    everyone as the same love,
    thus depriving the others of
    meaning, of being understood.
    There is only the gold of
    their profile that remains. 
38. Earth was spun into existence
    the way that Heaven was --
    a process we can't possibly comprehend,
    which makes it easy for us to pretend
    they are the same.
39. The Guru, the Iman, the Rabbi,
    the Most Right Righteous Reverend Don
    has no more humility
    than anyone in the flock
    but has what the laypeople don't,
    spiritual authority,
    so they can breathe easy, say nothing,
    and know the mysteries of life
    make the most compelling stories.
40. The trees at night 
    are not trees at night,
    which is sometimes comforting,
    sometimes not.
41. An altar of oranges, frankincense and tea,
    devoted to giving, to the heavenly,
    merely replays the tragedy 
    of the bars in between,
    the renunciation, the only
    image we have of heaven.
42. It has to happen
    for it not to have happened.
    We have to speak the truth
    to be told that we are wrong --
    that's the peculiar sense of education.
43. The finality of death
    would teach us to be free
    if not for the finality of birth.
44. In paradise we stand in line
    to be paralyzed numberless times
    in hell -- yet the only rewards
    we pay attention to here
    are fungible?
45. If you could see how comically wrong
    the scripture is in heaven,
    you might pay more attention down here.
46. TIME can tightened or loosened like a bolt,
    SPACE can be escaped like rain from eaves,
    the senses can be turned inward to the universal mind,
    but still our hands, for fun, consistently fail
    to locate the dream alarm in the morning.
47. Every bee, each cup of tea and blade of grass
    is sacred, even though they don't exist
    and neither do we.
48. The Earth doesn't need your love,
    the Universe doesn't need to be understood,
    even you do perfectly fine ignoring who you are --
    still all the wise ones want to do
    is foolishly try.
49. Choices: The mountain is a vision
    of purple heaven, or a thought
    of melting moguls in spring
    or something inaccessible,
    with no feeling or meaning,
    no discernible being.
50. How perfect to live in an illusion
    and have words to help us believe
    that it is real.
51. There are moments when I sense the golden
    eternity. It's like every block is made,
    and there's nothing but green to the end zone.
    But the feeling soon fades, and all I want to do
    is field another life-threatening punt.
52. Kindness begats the eternal milky love of oneness,
    or is it that kindness makes us separate and strange,
    feeling another's uncanny pulse?
53. It analyzes to vibration, our lives and world,
    and that's okay, for we sense the frequencies anyway,
    of course as something different.
54. One would think, with the universe in every cell,
    there would be peace -- such perfection in structure!
    How kind of us to conjure such chaos out of
    the scraps we find around, as if we were the Gods
    and the universe was somehow created.
55. If we can keep our eyes open
    the visible world will disappear
    as if it was the most natural thing to do,
    but focus them we must, as there's someone
    saying now the moon's a space ship,
    completely empty.
56. "It's a computer simulation, a holographic 
    video game," spits out the latest
    cosmological reports, as usual much easier
    to grasp than the smiling void.
57. There are times, I suppose,
    when the butterfly doesn't think of being eaten
    and times when humans look at things
    without turning into them, to step away
    from nature momentarily, like a holiday.
58. Just because your fingerprint resembles
    a certain nebula
    doesn't mean you're not unique.
59. Cats make us jealous
    when they gaze into those other worlds.
60. In heaven you'll regret the believing sweetness
    of heart that kept the pitied
    from being conscious of themselves.
    Ah, the golden door, so ever-possible,
    maybe the next time I'll find another 
    level of sincerity.
61. The perfect loving no-world trance
    requires a mind to imagine it and go there,
    not unlike a cardboard scripture
    putting dusty thoughts into your head.
62. No evidence of existence, as if that
    ever stopped us, our consciousness 
    causing the world and all, 
    and to both we are oblivious,
    the eternal hush of silence so close
    we think our words express it,
    as we think we don't have dreams
    because we don't seem to remember them.
63. Coyote the trickster points out the obvious again,
    that transformation is the order of the day,
    but not disclosing the equally pertinent,
    that we have no ability to recognize our former selves.
64. They say if we see the colors the way they really are
    we'll bounce away from our golden thread
    instantly, so it's a way of keeping us here,
    to experience only in sleep or deep delta
    or some left-brain trauma
    a vision of what some call "mystical":
    the forms dissolving, people merging,
    the line between the center and heart electrified,
    we call it everything, we call it nothing,
    we call it home, we call it heaven,
    this stretch of feeling that makes us,
    for no reason, believe our life has meaning,
    even as the density returns and boundaries re-emerge.
    That's what we do, create from nothing,
    believe from nothing, know that it was all
    a mistake, this terminal view,
    and the lies that visited upon our eyes
    unforgivable. And still we don't know,
    as if knowing mattered, as if it didn't get
    in the way.
65. Please compare with The Scripture of the Golden Eternity.
66. There is no Scripture of the Golden Eternity.

Respect for Elders

The judgements of the uninformed 

Take such peculiar shapes:

"You must want to suck his cock,"

"Big yikes that's racist,"

"Triggered much by your cringy cult?" ...

Which, in context, are a little like saying

"Lobsters turn blue when it rains,"

That is, everyone is entitled

To their opinion

And can dress up their feelings

As facts,

And they're even allowed to scream

When it's threatened

And put their hands in their ears like wax.

The truth that would save the world,

Or at least them,

Must be violently opposed,

For the cancer it would cure

Must spread

Until everyone is dead.

A person's feelings are that important.

Pink Shadows

The eurythmy dancers

Are not their breathing bodies,

Stretching tendons, awkward thighs

But pink shadows underneath

Make unyielding figures glide

With the smoothness of the polished floors

And a sureness of mind

That knows how

Chopin's Polonaise

Will end,

Though it seems at times

There's no extraction possible

From the feeling it conveys.

Maybe it's not that way,

Maybe these children are just growing away

From what they will never be again

And learning something important

With each memorized wave of hand,

And maybe it's not for me to ever know

What the future is

Or how the past could resolve so.

The pink light provides assurance

That it will all be fine --

Besides, it's just too poignant

Otherwise.