I wander into a dark wood.
Nothing familiar crosses my path.
I am at a crossroads in life.
Middle-aged, confused, seeking beauty, delight.
Which way to turn is achingly unclear.
Immediately, Virgil appears,
A bright, transcendent presence.
Bemused, he understands my predicament.
Heading straight into the darkness,
He turns and says, "Follow me."

Faith overcomes all, a gift
of the Spirit. Let us hold fast to it, like Job.
Let us lean not on our own understanding,
but cling to the mighty bulwarks
of Your everlasting mercy.

Sun
blankets
tidal waves
heading to shore.
Sky turns orange-grey.
No one in sight means this:
Nature embraces you whole.
You will doze on the shore, baptized.
The ocean is one; you are many.
Peace infiltrates. waters your bone-dry soul.

I thirst fiercely in the desert;
I spy oases in the sky.
I've come to the edge of Mosaic Canyon.
There's nothing to drink
but the surface of stone.
I try licking the tiny pools
of rain water filling cracks
in the boulders.
But they, too, are illusions
packed tight below the sky.

If I could survive on colors, I would
be sated. Reds, browns and tans.
A subtle gray graces the front
of the stone where I sit.
I must try to **** it dry.
Foolishly, I set out hiking
without my water bottle.
Now I hallucinate streams
and gullies in the sand.
I can't go on; I must go on.

Cirrus clouds swirl around
palm trees. Camels linger
at a bubbling pool, settled
on their knees. Cold water
spills from their gnarled mouths.
They have forgotten nothing
to survive. I have forgotten
everything. Soon I hear
my name being called.
It echoes down the canyon.

I stumble backward, ankles
slanting on the stony path.
All along, I keep my eye
on the sky. The vision never
wavers, only intensifies.
The canyon walls box me in.
I cannot catch my breath.
Behind me, my wife calls
and calls me to safety.
In her hand, a cup of cold water.

Beware the way your forebears came,
dragging goods and cattle, horses
and wagons, whimpering children,
not nearly enough food or water
to cross the unforgiving mountain passes.
Destination unknown.

They mistook the rugged, rocky, drought-
ridden road for the path to the promised land.
What they found instead was a land
full of promise, but beckoning only to the prominent
few, who could survive without loss of pride
or prowess or precious blood.

But that is not your way. You are destined
for much finer things, unseen, celestial
things that repair and reset your
spiritual compass, and unfurl the map
of successive crossroads you must face --
the terror of angels, the awe of the
miraculous and the angst of self-overcoming.

Your home is not of earth or water,
but of the sky, its heliocentric emptiness
broadcasting a better way to wander
through the inevitable suffering of
humankind. A delicate, mindful way.

No, your home is of the sky
and of its stars in all their ancient glory.
Together they project a haven of words
to protect you from the elements
and from ambush by the
rash mountain climbers before you.

Theirs is not your way, no.
Yours remains the way of Li Po,
the vulnerable, venerated way,
the way of the poets.

I carry the land
like a stranger in transit.
Wilderness calls me home.
Aspens shiver.
Knife-edge mountains slice the sky.

the black rain
pushes incessantly
against
the window

great dull gray streaks
spread
the ephemeral sun
into
pallid false reflections

ridiculous faces
touching ***** white
wisps of clouds

a narrow
uncertain light
falls heavily
upon a page
I have written

crossing out
an unneeded,
superfluous
word

the room
is illuminated
with a golden
bright appearance

reflected in
four varnished
corners

of the table,
which catches my eye

I look at it
and the faces melt

the whole room is like that
nothing left but great dull gray images
even the cold ridiculous sky
is like that

this diminishing light;
I can no longer write with courage

tell this soul your grief
succor those who mourn their deeds
press the hand that bleeds

Robinson Jeffers’ poetry is as hard as bone,
his windswept lyrics fed by his dark side.
At Carmel, he built a tower of stone.
Wind, sea and storm fostered his rugged pride.
With nature’s fiery force, his skills he honed.
His message bleak, from which he could not hide,
foretold an elemental strife alone.
He wrangled roan stallions only few could ride.
His long-winged hawks over waves would moan.
He joined their wildness with soul open wide.
His poems made me yearn for his coastal home.
Nothing humanly made could pull back the tide.
His poetics read: Etch your heart in stone.
A Zen he practiced till the day he died.

rivers of ice melt
from our vast carbon footprint
greenhouse gases ****
we must exist without coal
centuries of history
point to our eternal shame

The last breath rattles
in your ribs. The soul
escapes the body --
or so some say.
But the soul survives
only draped in
celestial raiment.

Socrates proclaimed
that death is just a deep
sleep or an introduction
to afterlife society.
Either way, you have
nothing to fear.
Immortality reigns.

Love is the thing with feathers
-- it flies to the poet's song --
straight to the heart of God.

knowledge aims at pride
wisdom seeks humility
mind awakes in light

Sensitive to her sensibility,
I carefully craft my thoughts.
One blunder means embarrassment.
Two, humiliation.
Wishes must be weighed;
intent investigated.
She is worth taking every pain.
In reverence, I gaze into her eyes,
take her hand, do not speak.

Mmmmmmoon Lion roars.
The moon swerves in its orbit.
His voice reaches to the heavens,
avoiding omnivorous black holes.

He contemplates his philosophy
of life: poems written with
incorrigible vitality and verve.
He purrs the "m's" in his name.

Auden said that poetry makes
nothing happen. But Lion invokes
humor and thought, the rigor of form.
He holds deep respect for his readers.

They crave to do him justice in the
wake of an endangering diagnosis.
Poetry elevates the body, tunes in
to its hidden rhythms, sings its source.

As in Oz, the lion needs courage
to face the injustices of existence.
He silver-wraps his moments, gone
all too quickly. He instinctively roars

a new way to create poetry, one
that embraces the celestial,
disdains the body's betrayal.
He will win in the end:

His lion spirit soars.

a quiet sadness broods
the sea surges
rushes wave along the shore

In winter much of the living hibernates.
The dead seek out warmth.
Birds sing only in treetops, serenading
the world beyond. Let us soar to it
on the white wings of your poems.
You have said that one day we shall
live in the sky. but our consolation now
is the green earth, draped in snow.
Our footprints fade as soon as the sun burns down.
You left us in brightness. All your poems
embraced goodness, love and light.
A blanket of feathers covers your grave.
Beside them, a silver pen shines,
the instrument of grace. You wrote
more than we could absorb, more
than our mediocre minds could imagine.
You blessed us with the whiteness
of wisdom. We yearn to follow you
and the tree-top birds into the sky.
For now, we must feed on your snow-white
poetry, nature's hidden calligraphy,
spelling out our names.

First, give all your money to the poor.
Then gather your other possessions
and burn them, breathing a prayer
of contentment as smoke spirals
to the heavens.

Write farewell notes to all your
dearest friends and nearest relatives.
Keep the notes clear and concise --
no euphemisms for death and dying.
No saccharine clinging to the world.

Find a reputable carpenter to build
you a simple coffin -- most likely
a plain pine box. Meditate on your coffin
for days, imaging yourself laid inside it
with no way out. It will be your temporary
home. Keep it sparse and Spartan.
Look beyond it to the void.

Ritually bathe your body -- the last thing
you own -- cleansing it of sin and regret.
Repent. Rejoice. Reunite with your Source.
Bask in the glow of requited love.

In the sand, write with your finger a haiku;
make it jump like a frog into a pond of
lilies. Make it land on your heart
with ever the lightest touch.

Pray for grace to board your passage.
Only the living guess at its true nature,
unknowing on this side of the grave.
Read the Crito by Plato. There, Socrates says

Death is either a deep eternal sleep or
a reunion with other departed souls.
You do not have to choose. The reality
will come straight to you like a messenger
from afar. Be open to its meaning.

Finally, step into your coffin, fix the lid, and sleep.
When you wake, you will be on the other
side of dreams. Do not look back. You will
have entered the domain of the dead.
Make it your new abode. Clamber toward the light

I shiver on the edge of the precipice.
I must leap. I must choose.
But freedom offers no support;
it is transparent, pure possibility.
I suffer from the anxiety of nothing,
literally no-thing.
Yet it paralyzes me.
I try to leap; I fiercely will it.
But I only fall,
headlong into the abyss.

Robinson Jeffers’ poetry rings as hard as bone,
his windswept lyrics fed by his dark side.
At Carmel, he built a tower of stone.
Wind, sea and storm fostered his rugged pride.
With nature’s fiery force, his skills he honed.
His message bleak, from which he could not hide,
foretold an elemental strife alone.
He wrangled roan stallions only few could ride.
His long-winged hawks over waves would moan.
He joined their wildness with soul open wide.
His poems made me yearn for his coastal home.
Nothing humanly made could pull back the tide.
His poetics read: Etch your heart in stone.
A Zen he practiced till the day he died.

vapors coat the night
mist rises to the heavens
stars pulse light and life

The battered robot's sword
will no longer fit its sheath.
The blade is rusted and bent.
The handle tarnished and broken.
Now the sword is good for only one thing.

The robot's enemy offers a truce,
with a miraculous incentive:
If the robot throws down his sword
for good, he will have the chance
to become human. The wizard

promises to make this so.
The robot, battered himself,
turns his back on his enemy,
falls to his creaky knees
and commits hari-kari.

Sly Ulysses strapped himself to the mast,
So the Sirens could not lure him away.
His return home proved anything but fast.
Circe, in her cave, kept him years, for play.
By cunning, he ****** her into the past,
And to Ithaca set sail straightaway.
Penelope stayed faithful to the last.
Her hope for him never lost its strong sway.
He roamed far, once the die of Troy was cast.
His horse, filled with Greeks, the vast city razed.
Cleverness made his sailing ventures last.
“To the beyond” rang the mantra he prayed.
Homer had him **** his wife’s beaus, aghast.
Dante dispatched him to hell, where he stayed.

River birches cradle azure sky.
Snow blankets still-green grass.
Winter paints with ivory brush.

Darkness devours the gibbous moon.
Its final sliver shivers in the freezing void.
Pockets of pock-marked light spill out of dusty craters.
Prints from space-age boots deface iconic astronaut signatures.

Colonies of phantoms have settled on the surface.
They sacrifice stars in elaborate rituals of absolution,
then aimlessly amble in circles around the circumference.
They squeeze water from recalcitrant rocks.

In darkness they decline to speak to one another.
Mutely, they await the daily rebirth of solar flares.
The moon generates nothing on its own. Cosmic
passivity mimics social order. A fiery Logos descends.

Place your hands on your ankle
and squeeze tightly -- like
a tourniquet -- until your foot
expands, withers or explodes
from the pounds of pressure
damming your lower body’s
blood flow.

You can neither walk nor crawl --
your hands otherwise occupied --
so you must sit, half-cross-legged,
listless like a Beckett character,
supporting the burden of existence
-- its pain and tedium, its inexorable
cosmic absurdity.

Without budging, you survey
your surroundings -- a stage
unattended, only the foot lights
lit. You see your future waiting
In the wings among the heavy
velvet curtains drooping
with dust.

You sense an escape: You can
tumble toward your goal, bruising
your brow and back, but covering
distance like Quasimodo alighting
on his bells. You will collide with your
path forward: exchange your tourniquet
for a cross.

A languid loon
liltingly launches
a dive to the bottom of
a small stone pond
staked by straggly trees.

Near the shallow end
of the water, greenish
bracken forms
a wispy fringe
waving farewell
to the overgrown,
fulsome banks.

The taciturn trees
burst into capillaries
of naked branches,
as the autumn sun bears down
upon them from its
mid-afternoon throne.

The loon breaks
the glassy surface,
and a ring of irregular
circles spreads skyward
toward the luxuriant sun,
overlooking the lyrical,
liquid world below.

I sit on one of the dampened
stones, stoically awaiting
the loon’s arrival air-side.
Its last breath plunged it
into the darkened depths.
Now, another breath must
propel it upward to rejoin
the living.

But there is no movement,
no minions of bubbles
scrambling to the surface.
The supercilious sun
slinks further toward
the flat horizon.
Nothing happens.

The loon is lost, it seems,
listlessly failing
to defy the odds
of survival under water,
content to linger in
the glory of a long,
lonely yet lovely
swan song.

Being in the world,
there is a lesion

a murmur of the heart
I have fixed deep
within myself

a slight, distant shadow
a thin silhouette
that seeps
through my fingers
with each passing second.

I must try to **** it dry.

I have risked
everything
to accept it

yet it does not let itself
be drawn out.

I cling to it,
irreplaceable,
unnameable.

I would
annihilate it
in a moment.

The minutes crawl indifferently.
I grasp them in desperation.

I cannot
hold them back.

The silent murmur is not
prolonged.

I feel it pass
without beginning.

All is going to end.
I know it.

Still, I wait.

Nothing happens.

1.
Genesis:
grandiloquent awakening
genteel reawakening from the depths of a sleepy ocean
as dreams floated idly overhead like driftwood
translucent surging
back and forth
rising and falling with the moon and its pull

i open my eyes in the salty brine
and am purged

i open my mouth to swallow and
suddenly: Satori!

2.

in the beginning:
the driftwood would not burn

it's true i wandered aimlessly beneath the cliffs
into early morning
even before the sun, i was
mist upon the beach, barefoot, in jeans and sweater
damp in the morning

yes, i was there walking alone past
seal carcass and seagull carrion
seaweed and ***** would scurry
over smooth gray stones and sand
whitewashed with foam by the tide

somewhere along the shoreline    i thought
the firmament moved
a lighthouse beam perhaps

i, too, like the gull, was scavenging among the shells,
some spotted brown like leopards,
for the 15th century
heavy coins of Spanish galleons and gold

"holding a seashell to your ear, you can hear the voice of God,"
the Horse-woman once told me
stooping i listened
yes yes yes    you would have seen me there in the morning
but only because i was dreaming

3,

your reply:

I have dirtied my hands
with the archaeology of faith,
digging deep to unearth commitment,
smoothing soil to hide despair,
heaping stones as cairns of evidence.

Weary, I have accomplished this much:
Adding water, the dirt turns malleable.
I squeeze a body out of black clay,
delicately sculpt life into it,
then write my name in the residue.
Mud covers all but the letter "A".

1.

Drifting through the empty, sunlit stillness
of our broken minds, we weep at the futility
of reprieve for the dead.

Remembering the living, then.
Dark places,
shadows of the past.
And who remaining will have won relief?
Surely no claim to spirit,
its movement being stifled or staggered --
true vision of the Self gone blind.

Godot won't be coming.
We can no longer wait.

And upon our signal,
the living must go on.
But do not speak of meaning.

So where to begin? Where do I begin?

2.

The limousine door --
large, empty, open-armed,
behind us --
catches up the evening's light.
Along the window's edge,
subtle hints of black and gray
begin to appear.

And the dull white wash of your face,
your grief-stricken face,
all that's left behind.

But come: We must go forward.
Remembering the living,
we must return.

"We are carriers of this disease,
this pirated charade.
And it is not in our bodies
where the nothingness resides."

"Then why," you ask me, "am I so afraid?"

Why am I so afraid?

Over against the pale, pink, purple sky,
there is no great solace.
A single glimpse,
fleeting, gone --
and there is nothing.

So where to begin? Where do I begin?

Darkness devours the gibbous moon.
Its final sliver shivers in the freezing void.
Pockets of pock-marked light spill out of dusty craters.
Prints from space-age boots deface iconic astronaut signatures.

Colonies of phantoms have settled on the surface.
They sacrifice stars in elaborate rituals of absolution,
then aimlessly amble in circles around the circumference.
They squeeze water from recalcitrant rocks.

In darkness they decline to speak to one another.
Mutely, they await the daily rebirth of solar flares.
The moon generates nothing on its own. Cosmic
passivity mimics social order. A fiery Logos descends.

brilliant sky
trees grasp the sun
January warmth

Berries and cream, Gruyeres’ eternal taste,
Cream thick as wooden bowls you pour it from.
The mountains rise outside the village gate.
The castle, past the bridge, bids all to come.
Walls surround the square, the well, the worn slate.
Outside them gleam the green, vast pastures, some
As fresh as cream; well worth the bovine wait.
Turrets, arches, beams: elements of form.
Traipse the cobblestone at an uphill gait.
Shops sell crafts, art to the beat of Swiss drums.
Time suspends its march: the cadence of fate.
Here, the Middle Ages live on and on.
Gruyeres offers tranquil treasures that sate
The traveler’s wish for a world full of charm.

1.
You speak the word
that will hold back
death, muffled along
the forest path.
I seek a clearing
to hear clearly
what was said.
I seek an opening
to liberate
meaning. Nothing
shows itself, save
the flittering of birds.

2.
The poem is not yours to keep,
nor the others, who so eagerly read.

It belongs to the earth,
fated for the forest floor,

sifted through mounds
of leaves, yellow and brown,

buried by a hiker's boot,
unwilling to be found.

3.
Poetry fortifies the bond
between spirit and breath.
Each verse an exhale.

Poems dwell in the dank forest,
silent, thick and dark.
Our hut hovers high in the sky.

In the sky, exhales dissipate.
The word thins, death thrives.
Poetry fortifies the final whimper.

battle fatigues
empty cup
war on homelessness

Your smile radiates joy,
the brilliance of your heart
beaming from your face.
Your smile invigorates the sun,
the rest of the universe jealous.

stone arched bridge
covers the way to darkness
ice floes rest on still river

Van Gogh's "Starry Night"
illumines a damaged heart.
Poetry remains therapy
until the patient is cured.
Pulitzer Prize, parties, men
and accolades galore.
Anne Sexton, the poets' darling,
dances to the darkening sky.
This is how you want to die.
This is how the world ends:
without swirling stars,
without a crescent moon,
stuck alone inside your garage,
door closed, car running.
Inhale the aroma of the blackened night.

She is my Muse
but never floats a poem
daily I hearken
daily I drown

I carry the land
like a stranger in transit.
Wilderness calls me home.
Aspens shiver.
Knife-edge mountains slice the sky.

Ulysses sailed for 20 years
to reach Ithaca from Troy.
Mastermind of the Trojan Horse,
he and his warriors leveled that
fabled city; and he emerged as one
of Greece's greatest heroes.
Yet Dante consigned him
to Limbo to waste away
his afterlife. Heroism, apparently,
is not a holy virtue.

We trundle down the wooden steps
behind the weathered farmhouse,
headed toward the orchard
planted in yellow grass.

Only one tree still bears fruit,
the others desiccated from unwilling
neglect, the bequeathal of old age,
the dark turning of nature's cycle.

Looking back at the westward window,
I see nothing but its vacant stare,
seeking the setting sun to reflect
its waning light.

You stumble past the lonely apple
hanging precariously above the ground.
When it falls, your legacy of husbandry
will be complete.

I glance into the dull glaze of your
ancient eyes, seeking a light to reflect
my image, hidden neatly in
the folds of your wrinkled face.

I am the only fruit left hanging
from your long, English lineage.
I ****** the wizened apple
and lay it lovingly in the grass.

It will wither with the winter winds.
Next to the sun's slanting beam,
I feel the frisson of autumn's chill.

Dusk settles on the fields.
I stare at your stooping frame,
my arm hooked precariously
through the tree's crooked branch.

.
After "Sometimes"

1.

You call your dog home
from the mystic woods.
Larks land on branches.

You've built your final home
out of love and faith.
Clouds tear apart in branches.

You say that you're at home
with melancholy, because
it leaves you breathless.

You have God in your pocket
as you clamber up trees,
lodged safe and high in branches.

2.

A field of sunflowers blooms,
the crown of creation.
Simplicity, domesticity --
you lived the way your poems sang.

Death waited for you,
but you were unafraid, unamused.
You followed your own
instructions for living:

Pay attention.
Be astonished.
Tell about it.

You left beauty and wisdom
for the rest of us, as we
walk slowly with you
and listen.

Experience absorbs mind, shapes its ethereal body.
The invisible encircles the straining atoms
of thought, expands until there is space
to fill with my mind as your mind.

The green light still shines
at the end of the dock.
It is the deep color of my regret.
Daisy, my first love, now married
to another, casting me out, alone.

My persona, so sharp, proves to be a sheer lie.
Violence and death mar my lavish lifestyle.
I have realized the American dream
in all its purported glory. Only to
discover how fraudulent and empty it is.

Mirrored mansions tower across the bay.
We look past each other,
Daisy and I. How I continually
long for her, willing to sacrifice all,
yet how far she remains out of reach.

Deception and defeat haunt me like Furies.
Without lasting love, I have achieved nothing.
The green light still glows on the horizon.
I stare longingly at it and know that
soon I will see nothing but doom.