It was misery, sweet misery,
With its dark, gloomy clouds
That brought the flood of tears
That cleansed the raw, weathered
Crags etched on my face by
Yesterday’s eroding, bitter memories.

It was irony, sweet irony,
That removed its painted mask,
Revealing the stark madness
Of a reality that never was,
Or ever will be, what
It first appeared to be.

It was pain, sweet pain,
With its burning, searing insistence
That only through suffering
Can one find the Way that
Lead to my release from
The hurt and the agony.

Sweet misery, irony, and a
Not so sour pain;
Sweet, but only to my tastes.

Unheard, desperate cries,
Falling on deaf ears,
Indifference of the times—
Prayers plead desperately
To a dispassionate God.
Innocence, youth, and promises
Are insufficient causes
To awaken the Almighty.

Screams reach out, piercing
The cold, uncaring night—
Featureless faces turn away,
Eyes look to distant horizons.
Anguished sounds, lost, dispersed
In frigid, fearful winds;
Easier to hear a pin drop
Midst the maelstrom
Of creation’s cacophony.

Eyes frozen in terror,
Mouth gaped and motionless.
A child lost in the wilderness,
Wandering aimlessly, hopelessly.
A young voice asks help,
Turning to a society
Who has itself, long ago,
Lost its way as well.

Presumptuous, perhaps arrogant,
My perception of reality.
I invoke, with humility,
The Great Spirit and
Receive an answer.
Heavenly manifestations
In the form of trees,
Birds and dreams.
My reality.
But, what about me?

I am important.
I am destined.
I am.
I
Regulate and manipulate
My world.

Channeled energies, memories
Are brick and mortar
For the building of myself.
I build and build,
Adding rooms,
Windows, staircases.
My domain.
My center draws farther
From the edge.
Understanding expands.
I know more and more.
I sleep.

I dream of angels,
Of nature in bliss,
Of blue skies imbedded
With soft clouds,  
Of worlds--
Many, many, worlds--
And, I dream of myself.
I wake up.
I wake.
I

Am aware, facing
A being not of my choosing,
Beyond myself.
Shrill whistles,
Bright, flashing bulbs,
Agitated bees,
Forgotten memories,
Woven into the
Space that unfolds--
And more.
No longer under my control,
The earth spins on
Its axis.  
A world apart from me.
Presumptuous, perhaps arrogant,
My perception of reality.

To the Great Absolute I pray
That when I am gone and
Nothing but dust is left of me
That I may be remembered
For the joy and love I gave and,
For my prose and poetry.

Intoxicated with enchanted dreams,
I strive to weave poetic vistas
Filled with magic and illusions,
With unfolding multifaceted mirrored images
Of things that could or are yet to be;
Of joy and measured sadness and
Endless impassioned struggles.
I seek to capture love's raging fires,
Stoked by amorous energies,
To illuminate the darkness of despair,
Exposing paths to bliss and ecstasies.

With awe and reverence of creation,
From undulating, azure oceans
To canopies of sparkling, starry skies,
I script Mother Nature with all her majesty
With expansive, fertile fields
Filled with irises, lilies, and yellow daffodils;
Or snow-capped purple sierras and
Eagles circling pristine, placid mountain lakes.
I conjure prancing, dancing fireflies
On luminescent moonlit nights and
Winged horses gliding through the sky
Over golden spire peaks that rise
From gleaming, ivory castle towers,
Or heroic, quixotic noble quests
To right wrongs and vanquish evil
Until there's peace and harmony.

Give me, Great Spirit, the mental dexterity
To compose indelible, memorable stories
That will be etched in the annals of history.
Help open my mind’s eye to peer into eternity.
I feel tremors, murmurs in my heart
Beating, aching from within, longing
To write and write until I'm consumed,
Having fulfilled my karmic destiny.

Finally, when my pen runs dry
It will be my time to die;
I pray that at my passing
The world will pause and sigh.

New millenniums
Have come and gone—
Echoes of
“The End is Near!”,
Cried throughout
The ages.
A Second Coming
Has passed,
A thousand times before.
The chosen people
Buried,
One hundred generations
Deep.
No promised glory,
Or wondrous rapture
For the believers
Overcome, instead,
By unforgiving time.

Apes love,
Birds think,
Dogs smile—
Joy and thought
Not unique
To human spirit;
Emotions not exclusive
To the psyche.
Nature weeps
To cleanse the hurt;
Mother Earth sighs
No relief--
Humanity thinks
We are the ones,
We are the all, but
As creation whirls
We twist and turn,
Where it goes
We follow.
Inseparable are we
From the totality—
Locked in step
Toward our finality.

Timing is everything;
Even the weather,
Comes into play.
A cold and rainy
Late-Sunday afternoon
Is no time to end
A love relationship:
To say goodbye for
A very long time; nor,
To remember someone
Crying as you walk away.
Glistening, dark-colored umbrellas
Reflect sad, gray clouds
Drifting so slowly by.
Rain drops mask the tears:
The sighs and sobs of
Gloom weighed heavily by
An incessant, pervasive rain--
Pit, pat, pattering on
Tin roofs; or, plat, plop, plopping on
Foggy windows; or
***, tat, tattering
On walls already swollen
With grief and misery.
Yes, timing is everything!
Even the weather comes
Into play when you finally
Have to say to someone
“Goodbye”, forever, and,
“I do not love you anymore.”