poetry

ceremonial prayer

11/15/2025

dedicated to Merl Mews & Jack Gardner

beyond all vast magnitudes
and utmost humility
beyond life and death
with gratitude and charity

You imbue love’s imaginings
and boundless opportunity

to serve most faithfully
and express expansively
to endure time’s seasons
and dimensions of space

respectful in being
of person of place
hopeful in seeding
your bounty and grace

I ask for your blessings
your sound and your taste
your plentiful aid
your glorious trace

your everyday prayer
your peace valley base
your breath beyond breath
your intelligent face

living water

5/17/2025

the language of my singing
heart strings songs about
the ocean found within
each tiny drop of
rain that melts upon
my dancing brain fumbling
home to see you again
to see in you my love
our story and poems
nestled in your numbers
vowels breathe our journey

happenstance

5/10/2025

cause I can see it in you
your foreword knowledge
your principled know-how
your syntheses of complex ideas

the spectra of continua may be
orthogonal figuring I myself carry
an ordinary happiness of sorts
features of my favor and fortune

but either when or where is
neither wild enough nor heard
within sung words or chords
or our quiet literary dialogues

your influence is a scandal
weighing heavy is their fear
your aim is clear to be clear
you see what's next is near

until we unsay what wisdom
devising unfelt parts conscious
lines and phrases recreate
the most loveliest of arts

what comes of regrets anyway
what happenstance restarts
what feels like meanings that align
with Jean Paul or Descartes

a prism

5/2/2025

I receive your light and refract
your honeycomb of knowledge
kind man where you seek within
the piles of beads and paintings
the dialogues and analyses
the spells, charms, and potions
your unself, your third shelf
your unreality, your garden

violette

4/22/2025

Santa Fina, where are you from
exactly? You hold such fragrant flowers
in hand. It must be that you’ll come
somewhat late and miss how the powers

that be conduct an epic symphony
all for creative you, resonances to celebrate
your benevolence with wine and jewelry
and Neruda. You’ll have the gods of Fate

communicate how they'd rather
attend to work they can’t leave
due some incommunicable matter
made up indubitably to conceive

of other options, like pious sacrifice,
like how bound paper pages of poems feel
as they hug a pencil and card, like nice
spirals to trace, until earth becomes real

and touched by bare feet and bare knees
and elbows and bare hands, and your face
disarmed by your own romantic philosophies
blooms bright with new scenes, this new place.

this kernel

4/15/2025

a canopy of
orange pinks sparks
primavernal motifs

there are those
nights you arrive
in my dreams

only my human
self-denial will
deny this

I find verses
to voice so you will
stay a while

how genius of you
to visit like this
it’s true

not like that
inhuman urge
that destroys

our Sphinx
guardian of their
validations

as I write you
it kills me how
quickly a sun moves

I figure the gods
they are moving it
fueling its hurry

they do this to me
craving these nectars
nestled within

they miss me too much
this is their way
pulling me to them

thus teaching me
how selfish I can be
like they are

if it can be
thought whatever
it must be

mine by design
by how I'm inclined
by my veritable shine

could I, I would

4/8/2025

how I
yearn when with you
the sound your sigh
airs, the gentle tickling
your little hairs
glissade these reddened
softened slopes below
my open rounded
peering eyes

seeing you, indulging
feeling you, maddening
with meaning you, teeming
tearing up with you, beaming
bearing all for you, owing
all I found to you, showing
how allowing you, knowing
learning lives with you, tipping
toeing past the next, sipping
steeping teas and texts, going
going into you, cooing
confiding in you, glowing
gleaming yes, it’s true

how could I, I
of humble hopes
and steadfast days
and daily prayers
and simple cares,
could I catch fire
as if inspired, drawn
to what, what dusk

what cycle fawns revealing
fears, releasing years, reseeding
beds, refilling ears, her magic arts inducing
us to what, what myth

what moving force seducing
us, deducing this, reducing
us, what mount erupts, what boiling
blood, what choice disrupts, what bite

what isn’t right ‘bout being
right, resolving this evolves in
love, involving us, reminding
of what must be left remaining

revolving round remembering
what will sustain, what molten pouring
fumes remain, what's left of us, this being
ground to dust

some bottled up ashes and hellos
some scenes to make, some pics to take
some mulch to rake, some white wine
chilled in ice before some toast

how he opened up
for me the curtains
letting in fresh crisp
and bright, at first
I squinted at the sight
until such luscious colors
revivified, it felt as if
I only just arrived

he then unlatched and opened windows
urging my heart listen for its verity emerging
from the hurt I thought I would go through
calm caressing breezes twirled inside our room
others whirled about out there and my longing
view presumed fixing through the frames
upon the moving air

and him there whistling along
with birds their songs, wakened in me
newly thoughts of symphony
redefining harmony
and here I, sensing if
some simple rhythms tasted
on my teeth and lips, melding
with my bookish tongue, melting
with my coffee sips, readers
of my thoughts among, asking if
I could go through with it
what had bogged my ceaseless mind
what had always been all mine to find
I would

when like a sage magician, he
who'd always understood
my magic, tenderly felt for my hand,
our pressing fingers interlaced,
he led me to a table where
an unassuming vase sat awaiting
my heart’s bliss, this bouquet
arranged for me

he turned to me, bowing
sweetly lovingly offering
upon my hand the softest kiss
then reaching well into the posy
through the florets and the bracts
reaching down within the fire
burning golden yellows blazing
there he chose the one he lifted,
raising by its dripping stem,
radiant between us smiling
saying but not saying this to me

this sunflower is
yours, my
fire, my flame
my earth, my
sea, my heaven,
my name, my
thunderous love,
my bolt of silk, my
selfless self,
my breath's breath, my
conscious heart,
my light's lights, my
eyes' eye

this day
yours, every day,
all the days

in kind

3/31/2025

but also, as I summon quantums of clarity,
dear Muse, good friend, prolific Teacher,
it was through you with you of you for you echt
my poetic synchronous devotions mumbled here
through this voice immersing yes your perfect seeking

that I actualized realized manifested live love
visionquest twinflame kinds of fully holy-moly

oh so, again around your carousel some force
of will and trust, I dare return this favor in kind
sharing verses somewhat somewhere underlined
as conduit as glyphic as an amphicheiral knot
as intuiting such mythic prep you expound to allot

you are actualizing realizing manifesting love deeming
this fiery unbound unscreening beyond a beseeming

and so, while I'm gifted pages yes of sage like forwards
going inwards onwards towards lightened days
singing of familiar orbs to my dogs and compadres
seek for you look hidden gems prudently hermetic
forms attesting to your prayers fulfilling your full truth

beaming what will what was what is felt no other way
midst your lightly freshly morning sips of maté

a softer truth

3/29/2025

your power according to
your heart relative to
your principles as in a jar of
your flowers in my hand with
your name written on
your note to a good friend
your idealism outgrows
your shell hints of reality

when we give

3/25/2025

is an eye within time and space

or time and space within an eye
what do our physicists descry
why are the lines poets defy

where else but here this cedar place

these cedar planks this heated air
this dripping face I am but where

this heated room this cedar bench

this body drench this pouring wet
its stench its push its breath its sweat
is it just a mental mindset

to deconstruct to meld to quench

to thirst to cinch you are aware
I am aware I am aware

this body feels this body lives

this body knows the difference of
the pulse the flow the stasis of
this body endures beyond love

until it finally gives

and when you ask must it be fair
is this the basis for your care

or is there more to see to share

no other way

3/24/2025

until then he had been a poster
from then on he became the Poet

to read to learn to feed
it could be no other way

and when I then became the Muse
beginning at the beginning

of truth to gift this living water
memories and clues to lose to use

while each drop drips drops some
ripples flipping through to this to that

and then back to this again and when
for that reason he said I

want to show you my museum
there’s all of Egypt in that foot

this line let’s call it the giraffe
the elephant why not the cat

while what they were not looking at
uncertainty surrounding some

when in a flash of warmth a liking
like speaking the same language

in this terrifying beauty
in that discord of the words

now tied to a turning page
of some epic hero unheard of

and undeterred fumbling home
forming reversals to roam

will they become Love we long
was it Jung who wrote of fear

consecrating selfless selfies
composing poems around here

and to say at last I welcome
that distinguished thing this breath

while rereading and relearning
until conscious calmly death

but beyond then living matters
loving matters reeling arts

will your heart believe believing
in the aim of throwing darts

it is time then roused the Poet
listen close who’s shared the key

as your bow dear Muse and arrows
appoint synchronicity

reams of couplets realms of pharaohs
endless nouns appeasing cues

know these parallels won’t paralyze
without the demons’ ruse

a becoming is not coming for
if only you peruse

when you must untangle theories
not entanglements that choose

yes a newness now will knowingly sow
what your vow renews

from then on the trust to see in this
that cipher they refuse

until time provides alternatives
that classify the verbs

and space to rebegin within
this no longer perturbs

moving through onward and into
the inevitable next

where ambiguous creatives
leave the unconscious perplexed

as if rhythm lulls the reader
into misreading the text

until now no other way except
where the divine intersects

with all we ask all we perceive
all we most lovingly conceive

devotedly as grow the leaves
boundless as the open seas

unseeing continuity

3/22/2025

I
Immersed, reflecting, twisted, I --
within an atom vortex, my
digestions nourishing what thought
of how best work, with whom, from whence,
will posit yet more evidence
for going on, for doing — sought
to close the loop, renewing
all this seeming and those ensuing
false equivalences saying
the world is now decaying
due some drab deterministic,
classic, highly pessimistic
beings being individualistic.

II
“Ah, so you wish to poke the bear?”
I dunno, but Teach — do I dare,
and do I dare? Will I really
ever reach that -sigh- or them?
I searched: “image of a diadem”
was given options, but until he
returned, reviewed, and reminded
me my worth, I all but rescinded
my vows when it was revealed
how what I learned could be repealed
just as easy as that, if not
easier yet. This fierce thought
haunted me, thus leaving me distraught.

III
No! No longer could I just slide by,
effective, so as to hide my
uncertainties about mine tender
dreams and passions, lost in crossing
time and time again, in tossing,
turning, sleepless nights, to render
then a passive scroll. Avoiding, now
in fashion, like a pointing, pressing how
their taking tolls, while behind scenes,
“they’re cashing in on…” quarantines
of hearts and souls, devoid of light.
No, my opened eyes, attending sight,
attentive heard, the calls to fight.

IV
Instructive tongues spoke against spite,
yet charged me to advance despite
the dark thoughts I would never delve,
the ever-raging flood of feeling,
confusing, consuming, appealing
to my lesser, lower bounds of self.
No, I — my element in pain,
unbinding from years of disdain --
endeavor to unknot the schemes,
the maxims, the accounts of dreams,
the convincing and reasoning,
and rather vowel Truth and sing
of Graceland and of forgiving.

birdsongs

11/22/2024

the teeth and tongue
the inner rung
endeavor to untangle
who among us was

aglow again
again because
now and again was
again what it was

and Phoebe here
she cuts the time
she finds within you
your cool and divine

and you know me
and you know you
some of a new
sum of one plus a cue

listening being
breathing in being
mindful in breathing
believing is seeing

I call for you
your point of view
the birds sing songs
hear these birdsongs for you

listening being
breathing in being
mindful in breathing
believing is seeing

somehow

7/19/2024

the idea of me
being six foot three
getting gray
having less to say
giving more away

simply noting
simple predilections
recollections about
previous experiences
in the jungle

reminded when cognizing
-more soulful asks needed
-less selfishly heated
I should rather be moved
by the heat of the stars

but waste the day inside a house
with windows shielding
from the feel of it
from the unbearable unreal heat of it
from the waves of rays awash

I sit for twenty
to drop into it
to play in the stillness and harsh of it
to stop so I can be
more willful in it

the waves of unbeing
of every minute
resonating more or less
the order of time
sits here on my desk

I type knowing this
I type and digress yes
what's coming to play
in me a mantra to carry
this gift and this way

into nothing
and but what's next
ahh some something
sought and tread
wearing consciousness

the idea of mind really matters
standing here before you
apart and completely alive
I'll be gone before you
actually arrive

actually realize
I am here in you
listening actually hearing you
here in the mind where
the winds and words fumble

hearing you think
hearing your stomach grumble
hearing your throat a gurgle
holding something now
hearing thought disassemble

the magic wondering
how and how
you are here in me now
let us be in it
somehow and somehow

underlining in life

7/18/2024

between what is visible
and of the mind
is a penciled line
that is not merely a line

like us this line
has its own mind
that envelopes the page
and the reader of it

this line underlines
eloquence on the page
where wisdom shines
as we read we love it

this line is so sweet
wrapping 'round our feet
becoming line upon line
beneath words above it

and this line like us is
more than it is is
more than an underline
of words on a page

all words on the page
are this line they are
are this line cut loose
to expand and reduce

to unite and re-use
gravitating at once to
an underlying truth in
an underlined phrase

this line and this phase
being more than they are
are between what we see
what we mind and praise

if then

7/17/2024

bobcat is here
to admonish you
to take downtime
to attune
to this to that

integrating lessons
of a new life cycle
medicina anima
sheer facts of beauty
and order

if
common sense is rarely common
then

walking talk
finding patience
alleviating anxiety
discerning traces

searching and reaching
learning and teaching

secrets skills such
as adaptability
as fortitude
as itself a kind of gratitude
as if it’s all true

the grace and delicacy
and exquisite solitude felt
tasting a strawberry
for the first time

ever and ever
again here
you are
crossing your path

of this of that

7/14/2024

the gift of everyday meditation
of quitting overreacting
of stopping using
of involving correcting
of opining ruling

of mastering emerging
and returning laughing
bemuses a keen reader
of philosophy
of poems

oh so
asserting an argument
of an ongoing equality, that
is what was meant
to take shape, no?

whatever the precise teaching
a heart softens with age, yes?
softens the edges here within
and mind melds with sage
intuition awareness intelligence

and an order written
in these redlined pages
keys to unknowing yet
knocking on doors beyond
reflection and recreation

endoxa

7/12/2024

Socratic is their questioning
incisively philosophy,
those who model love and passion,
frequency and vibration,
the wisdoms of a One,
the wisdom of having none,
the efforts to see in you
the energies of the sun, with
an unbroken faith knowing
what’s done is undone and
what’s undone is glowing
as a pulsating rendition
of a formless sensation
surrounding you your
most spirited inherited and
innermost reflection
multiplied geometrically
outward and forward
til it happens to find
itself mirrored here
within this body of water
with the same name
as who else but you.

inner rings

6/13/2023

when drops drip
and land in water

folding matter
rippling through

their final pulses
before dissipating

express elements
aglow and interwoven

for us to
traverse and even to

root into
these inner rings

so close
and so distant

so core to it
and let's say so fresh

how will this become more
is it ok to ask yes

reasons replay again
and when and what will

be tree do they actually
see me when

protectively they say
it's so simple

to choose you
got to choose you

they say and
I say

they are all reasons yes
and yet what serves is

a question what actually
willfully serves us as

I am here
to serve ya know

rippling around
folding and unfolding

and yet each time we touch
I wanna take too much

I see it n love it n want it
n like you I get it

holding it inside
n being held

harnessing what
we sense in us

is yearning is kneading
is pulsing is pleading

inside being
again being

transformed
into a poem

I read to you
about a butterfly

how this butterfly
uses space

ages love
sings for a little while

about how we suffer
our wounds and

what choice but
to serve ya know so

let's do that
let's hold it there

with this truth
with this trust

thru heartache
thru sentiment

thru surprise
thru fear

with sound effects
with offering

releasing offering
music and voice

a choice to free
a free mind

to touch how
you touch my mind

how you find us
release this

open sky
and earth

and all in between us
this much

presence
raining torrential

changing everything
and nothing

remains the same
and for us

and for this
I keep tame

pastured
contained

bridled
reined in

reins in your hands
calmed by your voice

heeding your guidance
needing your essence

and nibbling on weeds
and nosing sugarbush

blossoms and shrubs
curious what next

and ready to drink
from this delicious creek

you lead us to
and I drink you in

surrender fear
and I think

I might be falling
into experiences

flowerings bloom
to full expression

as I drink up every
nourishing drop

of your time with me
walking and talking

freely on this mountain
trail loop we love together

and completing the loop
we come home

and your yellow roses
are fragrant and vibrant

and I feel your grace
and with gratitude

I kneel at your feet
and kiss your sweet face

for the most part

4/29/2023

I.
For the most part, we see eye to eye,
as they say. We agree the moon calls,
being minerally gravitational
and regularly different, with its craters

and eclipses and influences, its moon rock
and rough stones to be raised from quarries,
its business as usual, as they say.
We agree this watery wet place is

moved by what we perceive moving us.
Our assent, mutually assured,
for what is it worth, leads us
to rediscover archeology, anthropology,

stardust travels, as known,
and to become known, over years to come,
microbial new truths churning.

II.
You, part watching over not only
me, but also me, part planning
our next supper – bone-in
stewing, simmering, settled in

vinegar, bay leaves, peppercorn,
and onion flavoring the bowl
over rice, our temple and grace –
and part connecting the presence

of every essence manifest,
gelling with fam, with peers,
with whoever and whatever the moment
expects, exuding your interests

through your cheering eyes cheering on,
you reach me.

III.
But our tasks at hand whelm and unglue
us, swells rising with
your pulling and ever-pounding
rocky cliffs. What was your intention,

what were your what-ifs, and how will
you explain it, how explain it now? How
will you validate the room
in disarray, the room you make

for whom, and for whom and why? Tell me why
you make room for them when your room –
your room is in total disarray. What are you
even thinking?

VI.
What was kept in a bottle, which I
kept in a box somewhere in the attic
or in storage – I could find it if I looked –
is a bottle of volcanic ash from Mount

St. Helen’s, a bottle of ash that I kept. It has
no real story other than that I kept it
all these decades, all these years,
some bottle I was given as a boy by a

traveling salesman passing through,
who told me something about Mount
St. Helen’s that hell I can’t remember,
that I don’t ever remember remembering.

But I do remember that bottle whenever
I see embers falling or think of ash.

my desire

4/27/2023

My desire to taste your tandoori
unfurls my canvas mainsail
and sends me into the salt waves,

with their limbs spread out to embrace
me, foaming as I press on through
the sea-swell, called upon by Hera

to destroy my own unsure
disgrace with fury, with fire.
Yet that which offends me and depraves

my stanzas about you and me, forming
ephemera on a whim with ease,
with higher magic worlds unknown

to them as ours, yes, as hours spin
by and we form feelings beyond worry,
well within our space and time. Yes,

that which slows my drive and our spring
and your flow and seeds doubt and renders
serpents as toys to inspire

what revenge, that mind will silence
and pause and give rise to wind-blown
movements onward, forward.

These pomes that appeal to tongues
and teeth and ripe lips hungering
to impress upon the blood within the breast

a fresh, full pulse expanding
skins, tough, speckled and bulging
in places sweet and luscious,

these bulbs of vernal tulips, of cella
sensing, swimming, and soaking
in sweat and without debt,

just even seemingly placid.
These, they uncover the fatal
and cureless error, the rush

of fire rearing its crest
having fallen upon dry
brushwood sparking a furious

and fierce tumult and fuss,
having returned to the same
lesson and same need for healing,

for blessing, the same cycle
that waxed forth a crescent
reminiscent of the last time loss

and the lost crossed paths, the lost past
forgotten only – remember? It's the same
island, but all turned around

through that blustery, stormy mess,
came we to the same damn island
and once again we raised hell.

Once again propitiation became
necessary tax and filing and welcome
penance to then loosen from the sacred rock

and delight her in the vineyard
and heed her responses and heed
her rhythms and signals and in pouring

it on, all the praises and graces
and abundant fruit falling from the canopy
of a heavenly spring, an unceasing

stream, a season, and my desire
for your tandoori seasonings,
licking the spoon of your magic reasonings.

shockwave

4/16/2023

think of you everywhere
auction fish
unthrilled
keeping cool

yet suffocating
tension building
it's just a fish
in the tide

confide confide
ultimately alone
relatively dead
some comfort

someone parting
lips as breath
folds outwards
according to sounds

drifting from some
poem about lilacs
floral cups
downs ups

monstrous whirlpools
like gestures
she twisted
amidst inflections

selectively terrorizing
dears pale beers
stale looks
failed oldness

kale in teeth
the way I chose
n screwed you
n you

the thing
like soda
here a fountain
this prose

and its mine
so I don't have to go
its my joke
worrying brains

it could be months mist
how much shale
how much male
how much not

entanglement

3/26/2023

I bathed in your voice,
pondering, experiential,
bound to be skeptical,
to say "I don't know,"
yet consciousness
persists, it precedes
us in all this, like
a comment on
a comment on
a post, swimming
in so many hearts,
but convictions change
and really feeling is
an obvious, integral
part of this realm
torn open by death,
yet connected to it,
and this choice is
where I meet you,
emergent, aligned
in this finding
or something like it.

spa palace

3/21/2023

this vast palace
is never-ending

infinity ice
a sphere within

a sphere within
spheres beneath

nothing makes
loving myself

so much love
so much salt

I give give give
oneness I

chat mememe
and language

everything is
isness

is tangible
so tangible

and so worthy
I am done

what do they want

and running away
it doesn't

matter misses
wanting not

to want I don't
I want to not

want I do
not want

to want
I want to

suspend
listening

I'm done
listening

done doing
doing dumb

unseeking
binary the

binary is
human

mechanical

simpler than

3/15/2023

you think
literally
you are
currently
oceanic
flowing where
well knowing

where you need
to go

surrender
control
going with

flowing with

the know
your current
naturally
without
extra control
physically in
the moment

ride the
currently

wind
up where
you need

the flow

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