So many sides to me, so much to see.
I'm strong, I'm weak, I'm shy, I'm brash.
A different me for every day.
I know how to save a life, while I desperately want to take my own.
I juggle my options daily
So far I've not found Peace....

She's an elusive mistress who's shadow resides in a bottle.

He calls to me daily and politely I answer.
Oblivion follows, the many 'mes' sleep.

Waking (another curse) I have to face my many sides, who will it be today?
Who's shaking hand will answer Oblivion's call tonight?

When I'm seeking shade from a relentless sun,
And brush a rejected leaf off my shoulder,
I feel poetry.

When I brought my girls home,
From hospital, school, a bad night out,
I've experienced poetry.

Walking Front St., or  Centennial Park,
While the buskers are busy,
The children are laughing,
The dogs are barking,
I've heard poetry.

If fortunate to espy a shooting star,
Enjoy the fullness of an autumn moon,
Witness the dawn light up my lawn,
Like a diamond mine,
I've seen poetry.

I've tasted poetry on my lips
With kisses and endearing words,
And lingering tastes from what you serve.
Yes, I've savored poetry's flavors.

Who reads poetry.

It isn't that you come here
moaning and flailing about my room
in a desperate apparitional brilliance

or that you move between my walls
omnipotent, chain rattling

but so much more

You make noise of fears
poets do not care of

of dying
of living
of beseech
of neglect
of need

but in a wailing assertion

If you want dominion here
break something

his future
his past
his heart -
    
           his thoughts

If not

he will most likely
cast you out to dolts
tucked tight in beds
in other cul-de-sacs

You need to understand
this home owns a sedentary poet
seduced by despondence

as aloof as anyone
you have ever strived to poltergeist

he will not know of you
lacking gifted conversation
and a planchette

Things have been changing
I'm seeing new things
when I go to mp3 sea
my screens have multiplied
my appetite rectified
but I'm still a primitive mind
trying to find my kind
things have been changing
minds on overdrive
scrutiny sharpened twice
still dancing under stars

but I whisper what is life?
and balance between abject terror
and blissful surrender
but now I'm chanting between my breathing
I know nothing
I know nothing
Just a piece of a part of some kind of art
and things have been changing.
Screens and dreams
People and scenes
I suppose I'm a summation and something in between.

on the way
to return sociology
to the library
i couldn't read the parking signs
so ended blocks away
at a salvation army

the kind with no books for sale
but an elevator shaft
running up, down
behind a drum-set altar
and a stage i didn't buy.

half-expecting 'the war room' ads
posted here as well
i let a stranger lead me to my muse
saying none would mind

Chuck asked me if i 'needed to pray this morning'
before unlocking -
i said, 'every day'  but thought
  not in his way
- i'm just begging him to play.

i read a psalm and kneel to test hypocrisy.
lotus palms connote release from suffering
wellness for all beings

and then  
i am here now
at the keyboard again
playing music i will never forget
even when my chainsaw body stiffens  creaks
the keys a saving home still  though shy
they hammer heart strings
broken, born -again again again.

praeludium, goldberg, well-tempered
minuets conjure Bach
in his stone church
and i cry for lost souls
my own lostness found
though convinced there is no static single 'self'
no 'soul'-rewarded other-life to justify our own
no 'god'- or science-demolished mystery
no metaphysic causa sui to separate
contempus mundi from the mundi...
no tidy verbal 'beyond beyond'
but that of Thales  Sappho  Gautama  
Laotse  Yeshua
Nagarjuna  Shankara
Duns Scotus  Hume  
Blake  Whitman  Darwin
Nietzsche  Du Bois
Tolkien  Stein  Merleau-Ponty  Sagan  Jong

but i will say we've sung the music of the spheres
in host-guest handshakes
stranger  xenophilic tunes
my earthling family hums my heart anew
as i begin  again
to sing my being into fingertips

skyward breath to lid-closed harmonies of hell redeemed
in Peter's vacuuming
request for 'Dixieland'
and Stacy's parting thanks
for 'we three kings'
Ruth's morning-making compliments and invitation back
my wish to share with them the love i feel
- from them, Gaskell's book
from deep within where no words win
authentic ownmost ocean depth of
less contingent love
historically embracing love
of errancy and freedom in our different loves
an atheist in love with vacuums
saucha and the music of human kindness
receiving gifts in giving thanks








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