How gently, falling snow,
Without authority or force,
Without ever raising your voice,
You transform all I know.
All I see is rebirth
Softer than the gentle rain pours
You float, you follow your course
Changing the face of earth.
Category Archives: Passion
Hubris
A new idea, a new idea,
And all of you must bow down low,
Put on the yoke, put on the yoke,
I do not listen for I know.
Try it on, you must try it on,
How will you ever know I’m right
Unless you yield your point of view;
Your faith, your passion, and insight.
Be quiet now, be quiet now,
Don’t dare assume I’ll fail this time
As all the times before have gone;
The only Right Idea is Mine.
Reboot the System
Depression is the next seduction.
Stuck in another deconstruction,
I hate the long transitions
Stuck in my own sedition-
How long are these traditions,
These binary oppositions-
I wish I could follow instruction.
I wish I didn’t speak destruction.
I miss the walks on the sandy shore-
I know I don’t belong there anymore.
No one thought I’d find subsistence.
It’s hard to break the habit of resistance.
I want proximity that isn’t coincidence.
Every part of life is long-distance.
I’ve walked all the new roads before
There’s nothing left here to explore.
I feel trapped in a world of vanity-
Ego is the worst profanity,
And we’ve built our towers high.
I wish I could still see the sky.
I wish I could hear the tide.
The waves are just implied,
But they were once my sanity.
What do I contribute to humanity?
I wish I could find my purpose.
I’m sick of the three-ring circus
Everyone is a juggler at a cheap fair
Everything stays in the air.
I meant to be more prepared.
I’ve dropped everything on a prayer,
And a cluttered surface.
I forget when I get nervous.
I need to take a walk to remind me,
I need for You to find me.
I’m good at shutting out the noise,
Carving fancy decoys-
Some towers need to be destroyed.
Deconstruct these cheap ploys,
Show me again Your glory,
Tell me again our story.
The Caretaker
Two weeks in the ground,
and the family’s dried up
so he carries them home-
his bride’s dead shrubs.
“Oh, he loves me still,
still, he loves.”
She places the black blooms
in the front room, unforgotten
she admires the dry petals
crisp like starched cotton
He eats quiet, sleeps fast,
and leaves with no kiss,
to tend stones and bones
and she tends his.
“Oh, he loves me still,
still, he loves.”
Roses need not open red
with petals silk to skin.
Beauty is, in life, in death,
where it is seen akin.
Restless
Throwing decisions over my shoulder
Grains of salt to the fates
Waiting and watching and working
I can’t concentrate
On the weight of these days.
Brooding inside me, in my neurosis,
All the pieces fit,
Falling into my obsessions,
The passions I won’t submit
And who will acquit me in my guilt?
One day more, one more week,
And I know how to fight
Addiction with distraction
Ignore what incites
But I’m not contrite enough
to marathon.
Darken the lights and dim the senses,
These days are long, and senseless,
Feel the same old something different,
Something deliberate or irreverent
To break the ice and crack the dam
Or wash away what I am.
Propagation
The weight of beauty
drooping low, dropping childhood
into eager palms
falling petals
Raindrops of time
small explosions, quiet accumulation
incapable of maintenance
or preservation
Born again,
functional, complete,
afloat on the surface
of recollection,
the seeds of beauty reborn.
Retroactivity
Perhaps I would, I will,
Not for my pride,
But to spite you, still
Caught inside.
Impossible to shake free,
Tangled in the breath and touch
And yearning of memory-
Every break a crutch.
Maybe one day
I’ll do whatever must be done,
To hear you say
I am your one
and only regret.
Under Kiai
He broke in my soul,
Played the loot,
The petty thief stole
And I took no pursuit.
I’d learned defense,
The jab and trance,
But not the pretense
Of the offensive stance.
I dropped my guard
Scuffled my feet
Over the shards
Of my parried retreat
And he knew me, or else
He got lucky, I guess,
To read my tells
To let me confess
Secrets and sabotages.
Childhood Innocence
It was all we knew or wanted to know,
Bouncing on beds,
Singing along, to hardly known songs,
Whatever lyrics jump in our heads.
We loved with our all our guts
Not the skin on top
Our laughter shared was love declared,
And our promise not to stop.
When simplicity of soul and
Innocent intentions
Spawns love, it’s made of
Stuff beyond adult conventions-
Breathless and helpless,
Ageless and selfless.
The Lingering Storm
All night home
and the sorrow sat in my chest.
It didn’t force my feet to run;
I found in sadness some rest,
And you were there.
You were sad,
and you never should be.
There was some distance
Woven into our sudden proximity,
But it didn’t make us.
All these miles
are wasted hours of waiting,
to be other than I am,
to overcome the berating
that gave me flight.
The storm in me
keeps me off the coast,
and it isn’t the winds of memory
that keep me engrossed,
or pull me back
But the shoreline view-
All the smiles, the embraces,
the new wrinkles forming
around familiar old faces
I am missing every day.
viewingcamelot 