I’m not saying that inner peace isn’t possible |
Though it would take a strong soul to come
Home after forty years of living in the desert
And find out the bread’s stale. The stones
Cold. And I’ve been dreaming of the ocean
For four years since I left you on the island
Dashing off into the tall pines on the sound’s
Side crying with your long green eyes. Harmony
Needs to know pain. It’s this reason why
I’ve never learned to love, though I’ve tried.

Let us walk in the woods in
The mountains in the fall and
Convince ourselves side by side
Hand in hand (and alone in our
Minds) that not only do we have a problem but it is the very jaw we feed from that gnaws at our every moment of existence.

Let us see the sun light and shadow
And climb mountains and swim
In rivers after flood, let the sunlight
Caress our very bones and let us
Be in love with every smallest
Particle of energy and with the
Whole weight of the universe.
And history, let us not forget it is
One of harmony and despair.

The desert in winter at night. That is
Where I am now thinking of
Such things  mountains and forests,
Death and peace and time

And then the synthesizer made a come back
And then a supernova. And then anxiety.
Cam over.
I’m out in the desert, studying the meaning
Of rain in the human brain. I’m learning
More about myself that is. How the blood
Talks. How the shade relieves itself.
I’m offering you sunsets. Roots set.
The lonely land and sky

When the sky changes, the heart opens up
And out of cliffs boulders hang on prudently
Like the skin between your fingers
The rain becomes the air. Soon
The desert is trumpeting its flowers
From all its highest fingers
(Were they ever really there?)

Soon enough the earth becomes bare
And what's left hides in caves.
 
What need do I have for flesh?
Simply the desire to be cloudy.

What is truth?
A gnarled old tree
No wind can rustle
Even death
Is nothing but stars.
What is love?
But the way of water
(the way of the ancient ones)
The gentle erosion of stone.
The mountain looms
On the purple horizon;
Dusk is startled and the animals
Emerge from their caves.

This land is bent
As yucca lingers *****;
Firm beetles push into soft
Sand, where soiled climates
Wet.

The arroyo is bloodshot and
Drunk, ******* rocks
Lay naked in sweat beneath
A colorful horizon of a smoked
Cigarette.

The moon, lubed, rises yellow
Bliss over ******* of
Red mountains embraced in
Night’s hard pressed
Kiss.

The stars are asleep and
Yet they keep a memory of
Love between juniper sheets;
Where you and I, and I
Weep.

The ****** sun is
Thrusting high, the day is
Climaxed in birdsong cry, without
Ever having to grasp (alas)
Goodbye.

When you look at him in the face
You can see yourself, a horizon
Of broken mountains. His eyes
The stars, they offer no solace
To the long dark nights. His smile
The sunset, it’s a million miles
Off.

What coarse winds, rise you?
Even to think, an untamed spark
May burn such sorrow.

On the lava flow
A raven’s feather on snow;
Winter's quiet wing.

You can see the lights form anywhere
I you didn’t know how to say when then
Theres. Said the city when you get drunk
If
When where Iraq vet couldn’t but be there
Yet said sorry head down bobbing b
***** b ***** road road the once liner
C snitch couldn’t quite catch when
They said only see snitch said if
Rich r say r can not be but r sway
Couldn’t say but if are we went
R own way then then only say
What you wand and the love though
Keep strong thought though through
Window with smile then bile but
D gone and dez gone said when wrong but
no **** and no wrong zebra is but gone and
**** game when no name is sure game but slay
nah nah if you laugh in cough cough "
parade say sa yong man
young man man you gone to far
blat vblaat

I step over black holes of
Books when the time has come
To brush my teeth bats
Go back in their cave sud
Denlly I will listen to chopin
Slowly flying ants.

Spring song is birdsong;
Gone, no rain but the old wind
Sighing so deeply.

Openly devout
The empty branches exhale;
Only the wind sways.

Moon climbs spring time smoke
Like a prayer I spoke last night;
The young aspen quake.

On smoked tipped wings, the
Owl sweeps the empty forest;
Death’s sweet renaissance.

So thoughtful to the wind
You cross the street like a
Flower sprouting up through
The rubble of an ancient village;
Some sort of low to the ground
Purple and white creature, with
bold eyes.

And it was only early April
When the sky moved too
Across the desert and
Like a blanket on the edge
Of a bed, crumpled into
The purple, midnight stars
That sagged all night
Over reckless mountains.

I’m finally waking up here is my mind--
A scattering of dreams, confusion.
The desert spread out, in soft clouds
I am awake here is my heart, the horizon
The only thing I can understand, now.
Pain is pain, be gone.
The smattering trail of mesquite smoke
The rising star
The thinning sound of thunder;
The sudden certain mountains
In the early morning rain.

Our lives are like
Those stones that
Escape out of
The hillside
And glitter in the sun.
Being heaved
From that hidden source
We arrive broken
And full of contradictions.
Exposed once again
To the forceful elements
Of love and fear.

Down by the ruffled river in the
Heart of the skeletal canyon
The cold stones begin to wake
As Hercules aims his arrow at the
Half-moon, misses wide, come those
Thirsty shadows with stretched necks
Dip their dry dusty lips into the
Silty water, ahhhh! Emerge the
People of clay, crude and
Broken apart like a mirror that has
Been dropped, shattered reflections
Of the earth, born, learning first how
To climb, and then how to walk.

The rushing of water
Through narrow veins
Of stone, like marrow
To be disposed of
To get rid of
Or the dull ache
Of wind finely etching
The cemented sand lose
Like a surgeon;
These years the same, the same
Sometimes the raging flood
Of debris, in all its muddy glory
Sometimes, the soft tug
Of stars pulling inward
Ever so gently, like
A long forgotten memory

Written into the sand
A delicate heart; the broken
Shape of a thousand footprints.
Sunlight moves like water here
Sweeping down the arroyo.
Carved into the sand
An open hand; holding on
To a thousand lonely stars.
The long-lasting embrace
Maintained through centuries.
-
I think to a time when
The bones of galaxies have faded
And all of space is abandon, in the evening of the end.
When there is no light left
To guide and the only
Sound is that of the dead
Tiptoeing on the shores of emptiness.

An evening fear
--The stubborn tear--
The death of day has opened way.

The sun is low, the shadows long
The horizon sky a light blue purple
The frozen trees now naked free
Cling to every last ray.

Beyond the mountain
Stars sleep
Free of prejudice.
In the pink light
Of morning the
Birds sing.

Imagine being a hollow tree
On a damp morning in
November in Minnesota along Lake Superior
When lonesome is the
Only thought on your mind
When the clouds do not lift
For days and the wind
Is perilous from the north
And the white and black of your
Rotting trunk is the only disparity
To the orange and brown ground
Where the mushrooms, they even they
Are dead.

That is the way I felt walking up
The gravel path at dusk with two friends
Such a dusky hazy muffled
Moment when the only light was
A blue black that seemed to last
Eternity and our breathe from our
Mouths were drowsy ghosts in the air around us
And the cold hit our ashen cheeks
And stung red the luminous blood
Gathered in our eyes and
I thought of her how I would never
See her green eyes again looking out through
Up on the hill looking out through
The forest and over the lake which
Could not be seen as a lake anymore
Just a profound purple translucent hole
And out over into that last bit of day
That bitter blue black which
Hung so hallow on the horizon
The saddest light endlessly
The saddest light endlessly
“We are almost half way there”
Said ***** and I nearly died right there
Nearly crawled on my knees into the forest
And as I gazed behind me into that black emptiness
I saw something run across the path into the forest
Something run away from the fear of loss
From the feeling of hurt and pain
It might have been a deer or a wolf
It never looked back it never turned around
And then it disappeared into the woods forever
And the only thing I could do was turn my shoulder
The only thing I could do was continue on.

The harbinger of death
Arrives in summer
On sultry wings,
A blessing of the winds
Frayed and torn,
Receiver of the ill and
Mistress to the moon
(A kiss from eternal worlds)
In the time of fire and flood
Dressed in a dusky robe
Appears out of the deeper
And darkest woods
On the earliest day of the year.

It’s a dream, they keep
In false eyes, memories
Of forgotten stars
On horizon’s edge
Fluttering like a great wave
Floating between two
Unknowns, fierce
And enduring.

Darkness in the swamp
No slanting moon smiling tonight
Just an overwhelming vibration
From the universe above.

To be a part of the whole
And love in the time of living
In the smallest fraction of space
The hope that lingers near.

I am facing her now
My breathe frigid and cold
And she is staring back at me
With a question on her tongue.

I pull the stars so near to my body
The shadows between compress
And I hold her hand tightly
In spite of all our differences.

I have annihilated all fears
And as my head spins toward hers
A star very far away
Is born again.

The sea knows a secret
I know the taste of
Time on its wave
Like those embraces
Beneath the mountains.
In the time of change
Even the heron
Follows the watery paths
To home. Oh those rotten
Old hills oh those sandy
Flower like feelings. My streams
Run down my cheeks
My streams run deep
And old.

you wait
but should not
you be gone? you
bird with red wings and
black feathered body
with territorial sound
so strange should not
you be traveling? toward
the north, to find a mate
it is already march! Has
not the light told you
"you must be gone now!"
why? have not the signals
from without changed you
within?

but still even tomorrow
you may be gone flying
swift in the breeze, following
your instinctual soul and me too
me too my friend
I will be close behind, waiting no more

The *** took a right
On Hennepin
Knew he shattered oblivion
While all the cars stood still
Still when he looked
To the winter sunset
Across the icy
River, frozen with thought
Thought well I
Know how this
Will end (stars

I tend to stay as silent as possible when two minds interact
It is my camouflage
And the woven fragment of argument
Of ecology and war and more
Is overwhelming when the moon is so full
And the killdeers know not if it is a grey morning
Or midnight
But I am the last one left
Alone by the fire waning
While the embers orange dim off
And the cold creeps in from the swamp
And my thoughts begin to ignite
On the horizon of perpetual sleep

(But it is I who walk the gravel road in shadows
So deep into the forgotten night, into the illuminated swamp
Making sure the flames will not uproot again).

Th
e horizon use to be
the youth of summer’s
l
ov
e.

Now, a misunderstanding
Between night and day.

I know it for what it is, the saddest thought of all stretched out.

I'm at the end of life here
On the end of the train
California is truely
A flower in the fog.
Stop your sorry branching
You silly cloud
Stop all that smilin;
There's a certain smell to aging
The sea breeze

At our saddest, the darkest
Of the night, we find our
Deepest purpose, the
Ultimate cause. Slipping
In and out of shadows
You once again become
Nothing more than a memory,
Colder than the emptiness of space.
(The sun rises again)
It was with burning tears
I kissed your forehead
And said goodbye.

Out from the warm-depths of an infinite sleep
Away from the cob-web dreams of the night
Me and her awake into a reality and bath in warm sunshine

Morning breaks the horizon and now it is moving
Across the undeniable intimidating blue sky
Moving in colorful waves but in silence
Peeling off the shrouds of sleep around our eyes
Bringing life to our bodies and to the world around
We glide and smile through the tropical vegetation
But no we are not alone there are others also gathering
Precisely estimating the strange reality of this morning

And look, there in the water
A bird that is
Swimming
We all feel the damp of its black feathers
We all feel the excitement of its peculiar existence
The anhinga breaks the water and smiles at us.

And look, there along the bank
An alligator basking
We are taking pictures and we are thinking deeply
With every bump of armor a million years of thought
The alligator opens his eye as we walk away.

And over there
Another bird is preying
It is white and grey and blue and red
It shifts its neck towards the water like an exclamation point
And no sooner breakfast is served for the great blue heron.

And further on
Something is breaking the
Water
A hundred or more creatures of the canal swimming
Shimmering bright black and brown on the surface
The Florida gar is slapping its tail in the air.

And on and on and on the creatures of the morning stir
In anxious anticipation of the fateful day
An infinite amount of possibilities hang and fall from the sky
They are falling among the cypress and saw grass, and into the water…
And into us
And into us, holding hand in hand
Me and her breathing in the tropic air, fresh and alive
Taking in all that is to be found, all the possibility and truth
We continue walking along to the end of the boardwalk;
We can go no further…
I smile at her through the orange rays of the morning sun
And kiss her musical lips.

A dream remembered
A billion year old smile;
The river snakes on.

While our life
Expectancy continues to grow
We continue to die younger
Each time we open our
Eyes to a new day.
While the river
Remains frozen in the mountain
The birds retain the branches
Nearer to the sun
Without so many leaves.
Who is it, the one who comes
In the night by the lake
To take away all the dreams;
To open our mouths to the stars
With such a sudden haste?

A hazy, senseless rain in the night
Steady, as if summer was, ah
Finally taking a deeper sigh
From its ancient, billowing lungs.
Entwined in the lethargic retreat of
Violins and a thousand dreams
Of death and love; what could be
More terrifying and exciting?
Bowing, as if to say goodbye
With shoulders bent and bruised;
I hold onto those tears I let go
A long time ago, but still so near.
A cacophony of dank mushrooms
And mossy stones (remembering now, a river sound).
And in the mountain of mystic slopes
Deep in some obscure aspen grove;
I wonder if a similar feeling stirs
And grows?

Laid down like a pine
after a mountain wind
after billions of years
the forest of space
is still widening

Sleet rain at night
From a cloudless sky
Was such a beautiful sight
To see you there smiling
Between the stars

Beneath the stars
The desert stretches
Its dusty mountains
A coyote howls.
Beneath the dirt
The flowers stir
Like measured whispers
To a lover.
The owl flies away silently
Leaving drops of blood
On the stones.
Soon the moon will rise
Like heartbeats.
All those hidden thoughts of mine.

out with the ancient ones
beneath the rain
we spread our wings
and remembered the dead
.

I rearranged my room but I could
Not rearrange the stars I bought a blue
Towel for the bathroom and I tried to
Forget about you but I could not.
I am more snipe when I drink
This is not a drunk poem…lies and lies
And lies. I rearranged my room but I could
Not rearrange you.

On Sunday the fields were filled
with butterflies shimmering in the
sun like gold,
but by Monday their
bodies lay covered in the snow;
A million fluttering sparks
extinguished by the cold.

I came to you returned as a cloud though
Your arrival is as persuasive as a cross, soon
Snow will fall like needles from the purple
Boughs though in fall I know your principles
Are pressing. Soon I will be a memory
And cold light will crawl across the valley;
Cold light will die and
Soon roads will lead you home again
Somewhere warmer if I could take you
With then I wouldn’t hesitate
I came returned as a cloud and you
You were like a tree in spring
Ashen grey with bud and tears
Though not shaken

The door of my home is opened and through it
The summer day is fading on the walls those dusty
Wooden planks soaked in rays for moments and through it
I step forward and into and around the corners as if I were
The sun on the horizon gleaming bursts of rays in those
Sullen corners through the dusty wooden slats.

Take seat and watch the completion of day finite resting thinking
Of a summer day spent among the hills of granite and pine
And all the dreams of day complete and spent jumping creek
And taking rest beneath green aspen or discovering
Caves or basking in the sun on granite spires.

Now exhausted in an enlightened thought
Sitting in my home resting with the sun fading into pale colors
On the walls thinking very carefully as the colors grow paler
A pale blue to grey now like frozen lines of shadows
The strangest colors of summer, dusk summer dusk.

“To which poet would find joy
In writing about joys and for why?
If summer is season it should
Be second thought to fall.”

I hold too much in my head
Similar to how little
the desert recieves rain. Sometimes
I need to go into the mountains
and drink to feel peace.
I drink until I can begin to write
Then the words spurt how like a
Flash flood. I think about the horizon
and the breakdown of poetry
Everything mus
Even the brittle brush and stone
it's almost June, the mesquite
living is pain, it's every
barely languid
suffocatingly benign;
let it end here no go on
like last years flowers
this years doom.
I've been much further since leaving the ocean
the whole of america for me, to devoir
the stars and their stars
andtheirstarsandtheirstars
isn't that joy, begin

I think of a heart
Scripted into the soft sand
Of a hollow day, in the evening
Of the year. Broken by
A thousand footsteps
(I’ve known many hearts like this)
When the aspen were both
Green and yellow. I think of
The juniper, almost vertical,
Clawed to the steep bank
As if they might walk up
And over, but knowing
Their true fate, as if to never
Be below (I’ve known many
People like this). I think of
A time when the bones of
Stars have faded and all
Of space is empty, in the evening
Of the end. When there is
No light left to guide and the only
Sound is that of the dead
Tiptoeing through the arroyo.

She called it the dark place and
Then the spring, and I agreed
That those hills they seemed
So bare that, evening the
Sunset couldn’t stay
The moon the only
Flower grey behind shy
Clouds leaned all night
A bit further down on us

The corrosive canyon;
A precursor to hope,
Bent before me like a king
In dusty robes (how many
More years?). I felt the slow
Soft smile of the sunset
Slink away into the dusk
In one long smear of red.
I heard the coyote and the owl
Chattering back and forth
Beyond the broken horizon
Beneath the impalpable, stars.

The mind sleeps, slacken
Like a fish net hung to dry;
Catching the naked wind.

Deep within the mountains a valley of green
In summer city of insects and towers of purple and
Yellow with the bees and butterflies preoccupied
With the joy of scent inspecting each door to find
The sweetness of living as the day descending
Sending rays through the spruce like some sort
Of king reaching for his laborers carelessly finding
His mark fallen short as the sunset frozen in
Lines of color spat white with roaming clouds
Yet the river gurgles even in the night and the song bird
Sings into the darkening hours a deafening cry
Hears a call back from some distant neighbor
“Will we survive the reckless night?”
As the howl of the mountain lion echoes granite
Sends a shiver through the ancient spine like
Some sort of expanding as the rooster calls the day
The lion births the night roaming silent paw
Across the nestled needles cracking
Sticks and pretend you are asleep because
Not even one eye on the ceaseless twinkle of
The stars will break your fear, wandering
Lonely as a deer in the midnight meadow
Head transfixed above the gas of space, the twist
Of galaxy and the silence of the forest leave me
Breathless, I hop from star to star like bees
Buzzing from flower to flower myself opening
The doors of sweetness, that unattainable nectar.
--I fall asleep in the meadow and wake to find the
Sun rising above another day and hear the cry of those
Same song birds “We have survived!” in soft sweet notes.