you may be real or you may be not
but you will always be alive in my every memorable thought

What is deep I want fiercely.
What is heart-moving I need to feel.
In what is adventure I wish to partake
and live to fulfillment.

If time and chance allow me to dive
into experience I shall leave the shallows.
With wings boldly grown
what is known as free flight I want to try.

I intend learning the meaning of life's
hidden music.
If there are tunes sweeter dreams feed on
these I will start to sing.

So come forward potential.
I have mantra's mystique to re-invent inner
sensory limitations.
With what are catalysts for energy change
I want a positive avalanche.

If love means completion I shall barter no
more and surrender willingly.
What is bliss I want to fill with and give
my best to the saga of living.

If you've found love,
would you know?

If you also feel love,
would you let it grow?

If you're in love,
would you let it show?

If you've secured that love,
would you promise not to let it go?

This poem is dedicated to Steve Yocum,
author, poet, and soldier
farmer, father, grandfather,
man exemplar,
whom I honor
and honors me,
with the noblest title in all humankind,
friend.

But above all,
I honor him most,
as a tireless, truthful, harpooner
of the examined and the unexamined life

~~~

"Be the harpooners of the unexamined life,
with unfettered rhapsody, comfort caress us,
exhort the loopy to light their illusionary candles,
turn the sad eyed lowlanders into
crinkly eye-lined smilers."

~~~

these mine words writ many years past,
dusted off phrasings,
on dusty shelf long lain,
mined from notes,
decades steadily collected by steadily diminishing ears and eyes,
gathered most from self-taught lectures
and self-deceiving dances,
garbed and wearily grabbed
by the addict-strong
 observational need,
persistent and perpetual,
to pay off fresh debits,
renewables owed
to the lovely,
to the loopy,
inhabitants who excite and inspire
my so far, rebirthing, youthful,
yearling heart
who provide the special crazy that
justifies existence

just men,
connected by a bond of sonship,
kinship crowning kingship,
blood types as different as an
A is to B

both shall weep in one blood,
I, as I do now,
while midst the nascent commencement of this sonnet,
He, at its commencement,
for a good friendship has no
beginning or end,
but is a circular track,
a loop,
familial by repeated runnings,
yet never, coursed in the exact
same manner or speed

this thought,
this knowledge,
bring a smile to this crinkly eyed composer,
that the metaphysical
will always surpass the binding physics of mortal physical,

that two man,
who have
never met,
race side by side,
not in competition,
but in the mutuality of composition,
each a candle holder,
both writers,
observing the dark illusions,
re-making each into a carrier,
a shedder of light,
each a debt giver and a
debt holder to each other,
hosts to all the loopy,
comfort caressers,
to each other
and to all
who too,
are light-bathed by being in possession
of the title
*friend

In the tender parts
Of your naive heart
Footprints where
They went too far
So come to me
My precious friend
And I shall comfort
And help you mend
There's no magic
That cannot cure
So come to me
And have no fear
Trust these words
As true as lies
It gets better
On the other side
...