Heaviness of soul-searching
is ****** into sympathetic arms
- alleviation in darkness.

We are the animals
desiring answers
but needing affection.

Warm lips and fluids
a temporary release
from oppressive questions

Though even sensual yearning
will be embraced
by ultimate disclosures.

Why deny your hunger
while searching
for a god?

Both share
in the equation.

-fr

Gaze deeply and find
stellar parentage
in the columbine


- fr

Free thought path
through twilight of faith
- wake to gold



- fr

Gather and concentrate
     all inane trivialities
     of a superficial world  -
Make an assemblage of the shallow
     trifling nonessentials
     describing the tedious rounds  -
That which daily contributes to
     irascibility, animosity,
     elevated blood pressure  -
Group these ever-present torments
     into a single image
     held in supreme contempt.

Then cultivate a gentle scorn
     for even the act of contempt,
     the very inclination to contempt  -
Wholly displace
     the despised solitary image
     and resentful reaction  -
Demystify and purify
     the reflection perceived
     only
     in the headwaters  -
Make lucid and sharp
     the awareness that is
     oblivious to
     entanglement.






- fr

"Shut up!"

Something raises my guard  -
     I begin to bark.
Immediately a human feels
Obligated to shout at me:
     "shut up!"

I'd like to speak your language.
     Just once.  I truly would.
The language that you obviously
Are so very much enamored of  -
     you utter it even in sleep.

And all of your waking hours.
     Talking and gossiping.
     Speculating and chattering.
     Jabbering and yakking.

Talk, talk and even more talk  -
     you must be infatuated
With the mass of gibberish
Belching forth from your mouths.
Morning, noon and evening  -
     through the extended night  -
All of you, constantly talking,
     gabbing, talking, babbling, talking...

And how rarely you communicate
     anything of any importance.

Shut up.









- fr

What causes your anxiety
   is not that it
      may happen to you
But that you may be
   the unwilling vehicle
      through which it happens
And a new religion
   will be born.


- fr

Churchgoers
sing certainty hymns while
heavens weep

- fr

I designed and built this valley mansion
   obscuring a view of the mountains -
A magnificent multi-storied structure
   with many rooms dimly lit or darkened,
A few rooms admitting a minimum
   of filtered starlight.

In one room only
   is there occasionally
   direct blazing sunlight
And this is the room of longing.



- fr

My fascination
with a spider  -
old hag kills both







- fr

Genial artist
deer roaming mountain meadow
merge in pastels


- fr

Little Billy said
oh yeah?    wait and see what
i do with sonnets








- fr

A form is perceived  -
Then all of the additional baggage
Your memory, imagination
And emotional inclination
Hang upon and drape over
The perception  -
Yet you point
And tell me this is
   the truth of Reality.




- fr

What you ask of me
       is not possible
              nor desirable.

Unconditional love is reserved
       for the soil, the seedling
              and the blossom,

Not for the overgrowth
       of errors, weaknesses
              and shortcomings.

I don't even love that
       in myself -
              why, then, in you?


- fr

Searing time droplet
on earth's shattered glass mantle -
new creatures appear



- fr

Quiet prayers
sheltered within
candlelight  




- fr

This has nothing to do with the Absolute -
     this idea of God.

In childhood, God was the loving
     Father in the sky -
Outsized, sporting a flowing white beard, and
     ever attentive to my prayers.

Now, God is an abstract notion -
     transcendent and immanent,
Infinite, eternal, and
     difficult to embrace.

But all of this has nothing to do
     with God -
All these continually mutating
     mental constructs.



- fr

Blue jeans and lipstick
she awaits her beloved  -
sirens in distance







- fr

All matter is fluid
She believed
As she passed effortlessly
Through the concrete -
Then realizing the passage
Was in imagination only
She felt the warm blood pumping
From her skull onto a
Cold factual sidewalk.



- fr

So we begin dismantling
     and whittling away at
The prime protection
     for threatened creatures who
Share our world  -

As the cold overlords
     have determined that worshiping
The almighty dollar
     is of more value than
Preserving
     the essential diversity and
Divine sanctity of life.









- fr

A form emerges from the darkness
Raising its head and opening eyes
To perceive the lighted world
In which it is a necessary manifestation.
The form desires expression
And so composes a few verses
Describing the lighted world  -
Before dissolving back into
The darkness.
Though while the form was
Briefly perceiving and composing
It referred to itself as
"Immortal Poet."





- fr

A teacher said:
"The only constant
In the cosmos
Is Change."

A student asked:
"And what of Being?"


- fr

I said to myself,
   "Someday soon you will
     be dead and gone.
     Your consciousness dissolved.
     Forever."

Myself replied,
   "What does this mean?
     I have no experience
     with which to relate."

"This is true," I acknowledged, "but
     you possess imagination
     and thus may conceive
     of opposites."

"Yes," Myself agreed, "but
     imagination can only construct
     with what has been received.
     To conceive of
     the void of all conception
     is beyond my parameters."






- fr

Jesus says
of the lilies of the field:
       That even Solomon in all his glory
        was not arrayed as one of these.

Basho writes:
       *Come out to view
        the truth of flowers blooming
        in poverty

Passionate yearnings
rise weightlessly to caress
starless space above









- fr

A lifetime alone
In this individual sphere -
Though there were seasons when
Love erased the pain
Of self-consciousness.






- fr

Corn stalks and
wildflowers -
synchronous


- fr

Darkness envelopes
river basin odyssey
leaving no guideposts








- fr

Blink,
the lightning flash
still severs
through closed eyes

Center,
on the temporary illumination
and periphery is
destroyed

Deep in the purple aftermath,
radiance remembered
as horrid ominous thunder
applauds

Defiant fear,
seeking to embody
godlike
power...


- fr

We live not so much as to what we are
As to what we are becoming.
But I suspect that what we are becoming
Is, in truth, what we really are.
This now merely a state of separation
Hastening toward unity, integration,
                     wholeness...
Up ahead, the road will become narrower,
                     rougher...
The journey will become increasingly
                     harder...
You may want to surrender...
                     take my hand...


- fr

I've come back now
       from the periphery -
       where the multitude of
       things with names
Occupies all thinking,
                 all emotive reaction.

This must be what is termed
       primal wisdom
       - this constant compulsion toward
         the substantive.

Your arms and your mouth
The warm breath on my skin
The caressing movements of your body
Through one transient night...

Restores all
       to simplistic clarity -
Leaves me grounded
       in the real.


- fr

Did God weep
       over the angel fallen?
Or simply intone,
       unemotionally,
"It is so."


- fr

Musty old volume
an intelligence encased
brittle paper snaps




- fr

Intense loneliness
personifies itself
before inanimate walls

With a variety of
empathetic characters
to populate the room

Weaving and performing
an anxious dance
of justifications

For never permitting
vulnerability
to be exposed.



- fr

A crescent moon
creates sublime
mountain silhouettes

Against an unclouded
background dome
that is the Milky Way

Beneath which cool
vigorous breezes -
carrying scent of pine
and highlands river -

Drift over underbrush
where crickets sound off
in their perfect pitch
monotone.

And sitting here
on the wilderness threshold
I await
philosophical and literary
inspiration, but
- nothing.

So, simply a nod
in gratitude
to the unadulterated
vista.


- fr

Over Clear Creek bed
rolling artisan
sculpts smooth a pebble


- fr

Awkward - as the infinite
Black of night against
A background of baby bonnet pink.
No sustaining verse issues from
An unreflecting pool
Stagnant from deprivation of
Refreshing waters of life.
Cold intellect attempting
To compose poetry alive with
Crisp sunrises, rolling streams,
The perfume of a bashful girl -
Cold intellect, anxious and sad,
Desperately trying to
Regain a solid footing on earth,
Make its stand in a world
Of daisies and mockingbirds
Before it's too late.




- fr

Not in any book
       - the timeless intonation
       of Being -
The Word
       in nature
       in completeness
       in you.


- fr

Surveying the large and burdensome
Masonic Holy Bible
Given to you decades ago
As a Brother of the Fraternity,
Left behind upon your death,

Amazed at the excellent condition
Of the text; the presentation
And family record pages blank...

One would think this a token volume
Meant only for in-home display
Until finding, scattered throughout
And clinging near the spine,
Dried and preserved clovers from
Distant summer days.

Four-leaf clovers, a couple hundred or more,
Gathered over the years from fields,
Hillsides numberless, and pressed
Into the arms of kings David and Solomon,
Mingled with Isaiah's prophecies and
Seeded about the Sermon on the Mount -
The great tome laced with leaves
Of discovery, welcome surprise, safekeeping.

Some may believe this a misuse
Of a sacred text, but perhaps
It is a testament to your disposition
That an oversized and weighty Holy Bible
Was made a repository of so many
Little verdant flags of good fortune.


- fr