The Rockies sing to us at sunrise

      when crystal snow-capped peaks
chant iridescent matins to the dawn,
      the dawn of a fresh new mountain day.

Luminous pastel clouds
     hover across the horizon
painting the hills and valleys below
     in mysterial shades of
lavendar, amber and rose.

The Rockies sing to us at daybreak
      when every crest and vale
unites in raising anthems to the dawn,
      The dawn of a bright new mountain morn.

Forests and fields awaken.
      A bull elk grazes by an alpine lake.
An eagle soars through the morning mist
      over rainbows of Indian paintbrush.
A hilltop lake spills over its rim
      and cascades down the *****
etching serpentine streams in the valley below.

We can hear the mountains singing.
      In every creature, ridge and flower
They bring to us their jublilant songs
      of wilderness, wildlife and wonder
.

We can hear the Rockies singing.

      The mountains sing forever!

*June, 2009

musings of a kook surfer
(kook: 1. Dork. 2. A new or inexperienced surfer. 3. Someone who says they surf but they can't.(waxboy)

Logic and Perspective  (a poem)

Quantum Imagination Rules.
What-Ifs equal What-Is
in this, a shared creation.

If         we are surrounded by what we can see,
            what we see is what we are;
Then   matter is perception of resistance,
            time is the persistence of opposites,
And    space is an Electric Universe;
            not lonely nuclear fires,
            but Twin Ribbons of infinite energy
            traveling through plasma that unites all.

The Earth
        a wonder of positive and negative,
        not solid,
        is the infinite slowed into harmony.
The Sun
        a focus of resistance,
        not burning out,
        Burns In.

No small coincidence that
equals means is
You Are and
You See so
I am and
                  
You are, you see, the I Am
...


No Chance for Chance  (a poem)

What is Serendipity?
Seen miraculous,
Some thing done there,
Something done.

What isn't Serendipity?
The unseen miraculous.
What miracles undone,
in time
in time,
as it never happened.

Everything?
Nothing?

It cannot be a good thing-
Fortunate for you is
lost fortune for who...
Self-fulfilling for Jungian prophecy
or prophecy fulfilled for Schrodinger's Cat.

It cannot be a bad thing-
In agreement
with yes...
Self-fulfilling for Jungian prophecy
or prophecy fulfilled for Schrodinger's Cat.

I think,
so I think I am caught between
a wave and a particle.

….

Between Worlds

Never turn your back on the ocean – the mantra of the surfer in my thoughts as I continuously scan the horizon.  There is just enough time to position for a wave; decide to paddle left or right or quickly further out to avoid the random pummel of a looming larger wave.  Between sets, the water gently bobs me floating half submerged.  Staring introspectively at the water, I am learning to interpret ribbons of upward-turning sparkles in the distance.

Dawn is an hour away; visibility is dim but gradually lifting.  Morning’s light is so flat and the water’s glassy surface so smooth that anticipating incoming waves becomes almost a matter of intuition.  The illusion of separateness from creation is breaking down.  The water is almost chilly, but still comforting. I forgo a rash-guard; the subsequent chest irritation from surfboard wax is a small exchange to feel immersed in the ocean.  The bay feels intimate yet expansive with only two other meditative surfers in the distance. Turtles swirl the water, heads straining up for a peek and a breath.  Sometimes they turn their shells so their fins feel the air; they keep three of us wanna-be-ocean-dwellers company.

Yesterday a southern Kona wind brings volcanic-smog from Kīlauea.   Vog is high in CO2 and fumes, giving sensitive people muddle-headedness, lethargy, and sore throat-  a reminder this is Pele's paradise.  This muting velvet feels almost smothering to the horizon.  Is it fog?  Yet a glance behind verifies the ***** of Mt. Haleakala is visible, from the shore to the cloud blanketing the world above the 10,000' peak.   Hale means "house" and the rest can mean either "of the sun", or "of a special raspberry-like flower". Either way the mountain was pulled from the ocean by Maui while he was roping the sun from the sky.  Usually, from this place in the sea, sunrise begins with a torch-like beacon of illuminated mist right over the peak, flaming brighter in the turquoise sky just as the sun coronas into a brilliant gold spotlight over the bay.  Yet this morning waiting for dawn, islands, water, and sky are all various shades of hushed mainland gray.

Half submerged and floating quietly, my back is to the mountain and I face the close but unusually shrouded island Kaho'olawe. It was callously blasted to a streaked surface of wind-blown dust by a military just for "training".  Recently reclaimed for pono, it represents the hope of nurturing a senselessly abused, irrevocably lost paradise. To my right is far-off Lana'i; to my left is Molokini, the sharp half rim of an ancient crater barely rising above the water's surface.

The world suddenly wakes, shedding gray. The sky's far reaching dome overhead intensifies, glowing in layers of rose, red, fuschia. The atmosphere I’m breathing becomes thickly permeated with color, as if one could breath lavendar-orange.

What planet am I on?

It feels so foreign, time stops.  The two other surfers are still as well, dwarfed by distance, and I am alone. Tiny in this red expanse, I become quietly centered.   I turn to see Haleakala where the sun is yet to rise, awed to distraction, forgetting incoming swells.  A bright sun smoked crimson is hidden behind the peak, shining horizontally through what I imagine to be some opening at the horizon.  Illuminated ridged undersides of the high clouds are streaked neon red to half the sky.  The atmosphere is hushed over the still water, the tangible copper light presses down, infuses everything.  It feels disarming yet comforting and surreal, floating surrendered to this other-world light; sky to water, horizon to vast horizon, the calm apocalypse the turtles and Kaho'olawe have been praying for.

Clear day—
Lavendar meadow stretches for miles.
Partly cloudy, no chance of rain.
The sun peaks out just enough
To light a field of golden grain.
I’m comfortable here,
In a summer dress,
Blanket on the ground,
Picnic set;
I look around,
And there you are,
Walking towards me
On this dreamlike day.

I do not wear dresses very often
so every dress I've ever owned
is still hanging
in order
in my closet.

The first,
whimsical and red
a crimson corduroy triangle
green ribbon
yellow flowers
it was for the first day of preschool
but it was also for every other  day
whimsical and red

The second:
Nutcracker pink
for days in San fransisco
when the matching coat
was necessary.
I used to dance.
Nutcracker pink.

The third:
Barefoot lavender
not the color, the scent.
Blue and french
avec des fleures jaunes.
we caught fish with brie cheese
Barefoot lavendar.

The fourth:
Navy blue didn't match
but we sewed the straps anyway
i made the first mistake
you forgave me for that one
thank you
Navy blue didn't match

The Fifth:
White Surrender.
sprinkled with turquoise
I surrendered
I didn't have to
I didn't want to
I'm sorry.
I don't usually wear dresses
I hope you still realize that.
White Surrender.

Whimsical, Red
Nutcracker Pink,
Barefoot Lavender,
Navy Blue,



White,
surrender.

Black carbon soot
Yellow, blue flames
Like a thief, the night took
Our fair sunlight away
Green etheral gases
Red burning star
Like a dog, the earth shook
Spewing fire and tar
Pink pedaled roses
White fallen snow
Like an axe, striking wood
Our minds reel from the blow
Lavendar mists
Gray cloudy seas
Like an angel, forsaken
We’ll be brought to our knees.

aged six, got hit by a swing,
                                 rushed to hospital,
                      now have a kippah-scar
     when the monk resides...

it just gets boring after a while, when too many people try
to **** you, and there's no Golgotha  theatre to make
all the necessary requests for kneeling worshippers...
   well...
you soon realise that you sometimes
get to worship a god by drinking
a glass of water...
   and with that argument: ex nihil...
i thought that black holes were nothing,
but apparently they're not
nothing after all...
i have no concept of nothing,
i see too many things...
  nothing is harder to conceptualise than
a deity,
      but this is the boring bit,
i mean: religiousness has to involve
a group of people,
a communal meaning...
being given this multi-diadem lottery
ticket and then asking the right question
is not really the only approach,
    i guess walking past a few evergreen shrubs
   and sticking your nose into them
(i wish i stashed my entire head in them)
     to get the scent...
  atmosphere, and how there's a need for
scent,
    lavendar, evergreen shrubs...
     and it has been valentine's day, right?
all the urban people must have been busy
under the guise of the cupid called cliché...
in local news:
   passing an indian restaurant with five beers
i spotted only 2 couples... only *2 couples
celebrating the whole point of having
anniversaries and days that could be considered
   worth having...
i'd feel happier if Hemingway didn't commit
suicide...
          but i'm happy that he invented
the cocktail: death in the afternoon...
a shot of absinthe in a champagne flute...
    tried it once, knocked me out straight...
   but there is something, really bugging me,
i'd love to have had an honest relationship
with women, i.e. the honesty concerning money...
just talking about it...
           it's no wonder we were given
toys as children and sometimes having to share
them...
             i never had an honest conversation
with a woman about money,
count prostitutes out of it...
no money at the beginning of a conversation:
no honey...
       maybe that's why it is so complicated
about talking about money,
how it: suddenly "kills" the romance...
  i can think of better ways of killing
a romance... e.g. reading heidegger's
"aphorism" no. 159...
   that's really killing it...
                money and romance...
no money and a familial affair of tribalism...
     i'd like to meet a few Aztec
and ask them why they kept so much
useless mineral resource until
the European Smaug came...
  and settled...
   and why the schizophrenia of the american
content is english up north, spanish down south...
ok... "exactness": a bit of french land and english
up north, a large chunk of portugese and spanish
down south...
    i left the house today hearing
the most amazing conversation between a man
and a woman... they were talking about money...
and how they'd juggle the accounts
  and pay for the roof...
               it was so nice hearing a man and a woman
talking about money without either
pretending to be a thief, and the other a king
or queen...
             when two people meet god is hardly
the difficulty to be managed,
    people can enter relationships from a variety
of backgrounds, one kneels periodically every
sunday, the other jokes about it...
  but money is the hardest obstacle to synchronise
between two people...
   it would have been nice to have written that
sort of symphony with someone...
     but when you're in a relationship with a woman
and there's a money "issue"?
    that's harder than keeping a dialectical argument
solo about god...
     from an early age i was told that money
was the root of all evil, that it displaced people,
that it transvaluated all values...
   well... it sorta did,
let's try toi engage atheists in talking about
the concept of money, past all economic theories
like past all theological theories...
  it would be easier to talk to them
about that thing that never seems to disappear
then about a deity...
question is: at what point will the argument
become considered too "infantile"?
   when we consider money to be a concept
that could be translated as an element akin to earth
and the earthquake of the great depression in the 1930s
that no one could prevent?
  or the Amazonian offshoots of the last remaining
tribes without the concept walking
into a house?
     and i thought: when was the last time people
used hard cash, and didn't buy on credit
and didn't turn gold in plastic?
            fervently, i believe that money had a real
place in the world, i honestly do,
even though i abhorred wearing rings
or necklaces, and that i didn't have the capacity
in me to not say: red is red, blue is blue...
     a chicken is worth more to me than a slab of gold...
   and this ties in with the ancient pagan practice
of paying the ferryman across the Styx,
  χαρoν / καρoν - (depending how you like to say it,
****! a choice! quick! make it!)
       how they placed two coins on the burial body,
nowhere else than on the eyes,
    not in their hands... on their eyes...
i just think there's more to it than the myth of the Styx,
even though i like the myth, i like the storytelling
aspect of it... something we could have engaged with,
in those days, when people reached old age,
they discovered philosophy, and mythology,
that's what they gave us,
   now... oh! it hurts!
           just talk of ailments...
  most people living to old age would have made more
sense having lived in ancient times,
when the really strong lived to old age
and could invent philosophy and a timescale
anti, completely anti-scientific, i.e. mythological...
   and that's the sad truth...
it's almost as if the young these days have to take
to the reins, and utter some very unfathomable stances...
so if they didn't place the coins for χαρoν in their hands
(as money is usually passed that way) - why
place them on the eyes, if not merely to state:
    let us see beyond the concept of money
in the afterlife...
                i can't see a reason for it...
                            that's what the ancients said,
when the concept of money was precious,
akin to diamonds, gold...
                        i think the concept is exhausting itself...
why do so many people fall into dept,
         they're hardly dealing with hard-money,
in urban areas i mean, at the high-end of society...
gone is the joke: how was copper wire invented?
two scots pulling a penny apart...
       at what point does this all become: delusional?
infantile?
              even as Ezra pointed out: usury...
or the fake exponential quality of being lent this
abstract thing that later translates into
concrete things like: a baker provides bread
in a supermarket... a butcher some meat...
  the apple farmer apples... and civilisation is built...
nothing familial being established...
and how the concept of family is now abhorred...
and how we only created money to give no
better idea of procreation... but the objective-unconscious
focus on mere numbers... being as they are...
     without money there would be no
sad story... but there wouldn't be this number
of us...
      i don't know at what precise point
i'm going to feed the seven pages of civiliation
(they were once called the cardinal sins) -
   how can i feel pride for this fact? how can i drop
into a cest pit of gluttony?
     oddly enough: drinking excessive is by comparison
a virtue... but it can rarely involve a lot
of people... oh look... here comes the pompous cannabis
crowd... the the m.d.m.a. freaks...
    poncy buggers...
        i have for that matter,
an experience of driving in a fiat 126 P,
and a ford mondeo, and a fiat cinquecento,
one of them would fit into a cadillac, no problem,
there! yonder! america and its size-complex!
just hearing a man and woman talking about
money so frankly, ah...
  romeo and juliet and *******...
            if you can be honest about money,
you sorta never have this desire to be dishonest
in the emotional life...
            and cheat, e.g.,
money isn't exactly a nice topic on the ground,
in the trenches of life... it's hardly an economic theory
for the highbrow talks at university...
   but at least both parties are agreed that
money is real, and like a philosopher's stone,
   it turns all subjects into a tapeworm of needs...
  take a penny and with your index and thumb press
it against every single thing in the whole wide world...
   like a magic wand, it changes every single thing
into, that common motto: beauty is in the eye of the beholder,
or a flea market: one man's clutter, another's treasure trove.
nietzsche didn't write the transvaluation of all values
because it would have been
   a book, with only one word in it:
                                                         money.
i know he's dead and there are many biographies,
but all of them are wrong,
  it wasn't the end of his relantionship with
   lou salomé, how she ran off after the mengage troi
ended with Rée... she ran off with Rilke after that,
and god knows who else...
    it just so happens that i'll state his motto:
poets act shamelessly toward their experiences...
they exploit them...
    he did see a *******, and so did i...
eventually prostitutes are like dentists or doctors...
dealing with the heart bit...
          what broke Nietzsche was the book title...
and the one word answer -
all the rest of it is *******...
                    yes: because it's such an infantile
   consideration to understand the basics of our lives.

so considering the beginning that's completely
unrelated to the end...
    people started, really, really boring me...
               in that they made so many attempts to get
rid off me... and that i'm still here...
  and within the groundwork of the only
pragmatism left in me... laughing at them.

I

Hospital chlorine, splash of lavendar
mix with baby powder as she guards her newborn.

His fingers brush the fur on her collar,
while he helps her with the car door.

Wisps of spring
breeze through her auburn hair.

He captures her grace
soft as a red fox.

II

Shorter steps carry them
to and from their Taurus.

Hand-me-down walkers and bassinets
feel the weight of their grandchildren.

Welcome Guests stitched in black and red
greets overnighters in the nursery.

Seventy years old in her black shawl,
his hand cups her elbow, "Steady dear, steady."

I was born lavendar but melted and sunk and dripped down walls like hot wax until I found myself pooled at the bottom, only my dad used to smoke indoors and drywall and smoke have an infatuation, so now I am only a smoky maroon.
I never used to believe in ghosts, but now EMF scanners explode and the room is chilled every time I take a good, long look in the mirror.
I used to be sturdy,
like a tree with more rings than my mother keeps in her top drawer, but now my joints crack like firewood every morning when I get out of bed and I stretch wide enough to fill a whole forest.
I used to shudder when boys looked at the pattern on my skirt,
but eventually the dip of my collarbones became a sanctuary for every pious boy to visit, eyes closed and speaking in tongues, the heads of their beds becoming crucifixes but the only thing getting nailed was me.
I realize I am different now. But I also realize that photographers find smoke beautiful, and babies can see the dead. i remember that marshmallows are best over campfires and that some people still believe in god.

I smell the scent of lavendar,
Where my soul is heard no more.
The hard truth,
Which shall be told no more.

The pain of losing,
And feeling the weak heart crying,
The heart which used to be lively once,
But the memories bounce
Back and forth bringing tears,
The silence that creeps inside day and night with fear.

Saddness fills the air,
The words seems to lose all its meaning,
The life seems meaningless with heart aches lingering.
My body is greiving..
The rain is pouring.
And here I sit on my table,
Trying to collect myself,
Sipping my cup of coffee,
Engulfing the hard truth inside.

On Sunday, I open up the house
to let in the June morning
to ease cobwebs from the empty rooms,
to efface dreams
adhering to the surfaces.

The weather—
of late, inimitable oppression—
has broken, and at last
we have a little serenity.

At noon, the hour of baptism,
the bed is stripped of its clothes—like a woman
praying for her old voluptuousness.

I wash the sheets in cold water
laced with lavendar and mint,
hiding thyme in bunches in the mattress
to conceal the taste of sleep
and mad dreaming.

I make a breakfast of mango slipped
from the flesh, orange water, cheese
& bread sprinkled with oils & thyme,
sweet plums. All day,
I do not speak a word.

One afternoon (or many of them),
I spent hours just sun worshipping.
It was easier than dreaming, you
could come away with a cleaner feeling.
The liquid of sunshine in the veins
was clarity.

Every so often, tempted by the suggestion of being born,
I stand naked in sun,
reminding myself of distant pilgrims who
prayed to the air or sang
their parched hymns to some tranquil god.
I search for him in the dazed clover,
my fingers grazing sound,
the tender in the long grass, all summers
distilled and scattered  through these empty rooms.

I am praying, praying.