The Heart of Spring is something to be known in the Winter of  life.

We gather jewels and playthings along the way; we hold rusting angels close to our hearts; we confess love for the children of our earthly womb – the ones who come and go, the silent souls who disappear into the night.

What we are left with is us.   Dim, hollow, shallow, empty.  “Concerned“.

Void.

We seek the stars within.

But not by looking into the Twilight, the Immeasurable Abyss.   There is only one place where abides the True Star.  The Harbinger of Deep Peace.  The Bird-Songs of the End of Time.

Winter’s fading light invites us to hibernate, to return, to gather strength, initiave, resource from Inside.  We walk these City Streets, the Lost Avenues of Lost Souls, the dank, dark, decayed.  Light on the planet is tentative.  Seasonally Adjusted.  Afraid of the anger of men and the Finality of God.  This Day-Light our skin longs for is a crap-shoot, and can be purchased from the vendors of Tanning Beds.

The Skin craves its Vitamins: D.  Touch.  Warmth.  The wind from the Plains.  The Hand-Holding of fellow Humans.  We wander these deserted Alleyways – like nocturnal cats – seeking the light we love, the warmth we taste, the sleepy hollows of another human form to comfort our own.  Our hungry skin.  Our aching heart.

Adults learn to behave as adults.  Never heard.  Never lonely.  Never cry.  Never in pain.  Always happy.  Always busy.  Always planning, scheming, escaping, dancing in ever-increasing circles away from the Sweet Vortex of the Moment of Now.

Masquerades.  Charades.  Naked Emperor Parades.

It’s coming.  One Day.  The Atonement.  Someone promised us this, didn’t they?  It was written somewhere, wasn’t it?  The Angels of Mercy will show up, and they will hold us in their arms, and it will be alright, won’t it …?  This redemption.  This salvation.  This Heaven that is Just Out of Reach.

How Convenient.

My arms are the Naked Arms of Now; this human.  The want is a Hunger that won’t go away with Imagined Food.  With Promised Luxury.  With the Rain Check on Love.  This Now, this Eternal Child, this Lost Voice buried deep inside … is not hiding any more.  It’s not shutting up, going away, toning down, Behaving.

It’s a wreck and a Ruin and a Wild Thing.  It’s demanding the Big Cigar, the Full Meal Deal, the Deluxe Package.

Heaven is NOW.  While we’re on Earth.  While we’ve got breath to sing, bones to rest, moments to sip.  The Treasure.  The Great Mystery.  The Unfathomable Deep.

Dive in.

Sink or Swim, it matters not.  The air is getting thin.

The Pool is filled to the Brim.

WE are Men and Machines.
WE know how to Start, but never learned the STOPPING.

The STOPPING Mechanism.
The Little Black Box.

The Box called STOP.

STOP the Box.

BOX the Stop.

Jingle Bells
We go as Plaid Men;
Riding in Twisted Cargo
Smoking Cigars on a Green Fern Embargo.
We rise for the Sun & Decay in the Dawn
our Faces are Strawberries; our Fingers are Gone

We go as Plaid Men, we rise up as Nuns
we cave in as Children, Lovers, Cinnamon Buns
There is nothing to Stop us, We’re never in Heat;
We shave our sweet faces and swallow Burnt Meat
Our sisters before us have Salvaged the Road,
The Innocent meet Strangers, the Silver buys Gold.
The Dawn of Intention, heals the midnight Decay;
We go as Plaid Men
as Housewives we stay.

Jingle Bells
Sing our Moments’ Repent
The Serpent sinks in Leather
The Kitchen Water is Spent
The Dollar is Sideways,
A coin in the Lock
The Only Key we could Turn
was the Face of the Clock

We go as Plaid Men
Twisted in Corks
we sing our songs sideways
and eat Knives & Forks
The song that we Knew
is the one we Forgot
as the Ancient of Mariners
Drowns at the bottom of the Pot

Difficult Dust
I am a Single Poem
Prone to Rust
I am a Rotting and Fragrant Fruit
On your Tree of Souls
A clean and fluffy Laundry Item
on the Great Clothesline of the Sky
Washed once, Washed twice
Hung out to Dry
An Ace of Hearts, a Throw of the Dice
A river of Intent – a Jacuzzi of Ice
I’m all over the Map, looking for Home
Head in the Stars, worn to the Bone
I’m not going Far
A throw of the Stone
Difficult Dust
Single Poem
Prone to Rust
On the way Home.

Some nights are meant for walking at the water’s edge.

This was one.  Unremarkable night in an unremarkable summer.  The tame ocean’s quiet lapping at the ancient rocks.  Night is a chrysalis, womb of comfort and constraint, tight apron of a possessive mother.  Across the bay, the city lights – the screams and grunts of the young and drunken, the  party scene: the masquerading seasons of man.

On this side of the bay, where the wave and soft, reflected light lap against the shore: an amazing sight. A line of geese, going on and on into the distance: all sitting within a foot of the shore – either on the rocks or in the water.  And all these birds, as if obeying some silent schedule, were involved in the preparation for sleep.  Some were preening their feathers; others were snoozing already – heads tucked in under wings or buried in their own feathers.  Young geese were stationed directly behind their parents on the shore, heads tucked into feathers, obeying the timeless ritual that had been passed down energetically, genetically, effortlessly.  And obeyed without question, without rebellion or protest.

The young birds fell into line with the tradition of geese, without a hitch.  The effortlessness of their sleep.  Some of their elders stood in shallow water, head tucked under wing – asleep it seemed, yet acutely aware of every sound and movement in their periphery.  I sat on a bench and drank in the dusk.  The inky sky.  The watery lights of weary skyscrapers downtown, the quiet lapping of waves, whispers of passing lovers hand-in-hand, and the quiet, orderly, reassuring line of sleeping geese.  This sleeping line had a sweetness, resolve and dignity to it that cannot be described.  It was for my eyes only.  Others passed by – they saw it not.

And the screaming of the party-goers across the bay continued.  I was there with them: I was their father, their mother, the ground that caught them as they fell, the momentary decay of lightning and fireworks, as they celebrated – perhaps – their graduation into the adult world.  A world of screaming, grunting, joking, quiet farting, and falling in the night.  These are humans, we are humans; we – the crown of creation, we who inherit or disinherit the earth.  We who control and command the elements.  We who send a man to the moon and hold a scalpel over the unborn son.  We who know that all we know is pretense and we spend our lives on camoflauge, upholstery and makeup.

And the geese sleep peacefully in a line, with no born leader and no agenda for the dawn.

They live on, and we are long-gone.

Sleep in peace.

Indelible Moonscapes
Places we travel; things we know

the Insatiable Juice of the Orange of You.
parading in all of its Fine Contempt

Contempt for things worldly
contempt for the unbending Finger of Time
contempt for the abrasiveness of Modern Man

We seek the softness of things that Fly
Things that Know their Home, their Righteous Country
their Place of Birth.

We seek the Meal that Satisfies
the Unquenched Caverns in the Labyrinth of Heartland
the Taste of the Delicate & Informed
Lessons of love.

The Wheel that Turns
the Time that Goes
the Tiny Hand
that paints the spiral Heavens
of the inner Canvas
that grows
and grows
and grows.

We are left
We are left here Alone
Driftwood & Bones
Driftwood & Bones.

We begin
We begin with a Song
We’ve Known All along
That Right smells better than Wrong
We know who we are
deep in the body of our
Internal Guitar
We begin with a song
The same one that’s been Playing
All Along.

We all smell the Same
Deep at the source of our Internal Flame
That baby inside cares not
about who wins the Hockey Game
It’s good to become Wood
and dry out in the Sun
in the Weather that comes & goes
and the Tides that come undone.

Dinosaur Bones become old and wise
as they witness the Tides, the Angels, the Skies
they sit and wait
for you to return
they will warn you
and warm you
disarm you and charm you
remind you of the one ancient fire
that Burns.

you are dancing in the stars
you are not far
you are near
you are dear
you are here
you dance
the dance
dances itself
dance

life is giving
wakefulness sojourn joyful butterfly
cast the sweetness
to the net to the sand to the bright sky
to the birds in your lovely eye
your lovely eye

i am here
i am always
you know
you know this
know this only
this is only what you know
this is only
this is
this

There are Bowls
There are Drawers here
There are Hidden Shapes & Accessories

There are Small Kingdoms in Passing Moments
There is a Treasury of Doubt
and the Currency of the Inner Smile

There is Me Here
and there is You.

You: The one I have lost & found,
lost and found, lost & found.

Me: the one who stands
on Solid Ground
and spins around
and around
and around.

And then, there is the Sound.
The sound of Naked Waterfalls
filled with Diamonds of the Sun.
The sound that bubbles up
from deep inside the Ground.
The Hum of a Million Birds
The Stampede of the Butterflies of the Heart.

All is Sudden.
All is Changing.
The Ancient takes constant Birth
in the Soft Glove
of the Eternal Moment.