You are an ocean of love
I float and drift on your surface
but under your sparkling skin
teems an ineffable life
another world mostly unseen,
selfless, unsung, and undeserved.

But here I am not even skin deep.
Am I afraid
of drowning in your depth
of being overwhelmed
in my modest capacities?

Oh my love
even if I see only what you reveal
to the sighted
I saturate myself in your splendid shallows
and await those precious interludes
of your deeper touch.

I hear the piano playing softly
pulling me from these rutted plains
into a moist green meadow
a vision of a flowing brook down the hill
makes me believe the words of the Prophet:
“Your old men will dream dreams, your young men will see visions.”
yes, I am old, but I see and feel the rising gentle treble notes
lighten my leaded limbs
awaken my spirit
and ****** me into the realms.
It is the touch and glide of the pianist’s fingers
across the ivory skin of the keys
that transports me
in the waning hours of this day.
How sweet it is!

I am broken
bent and misshapen
sad and lonely
dark side of the moon
not caught in undercurrents
but submerged in a bog
oxygen depleted.

Oh what a pitiful state
I’m embarrassed by myself
not s’pose to be like this
people need me to be upbeat and bright
not in darkness but in light
good for a laugh or a smile
wanna be with me a while
but this mournful me
like a salty dead sea
they’d rather not
I don’t blame them
I don’t even wanna be with me.

It’s dark outside
thunder storm rolling in
just perfect for my mood
I wanna thunder out loud!
Ridiculous huh?

Ha, oh what a putz!
Writing it all down like this
makes me want to laugh
at this oh so pitiful me.

I feel better already.
And here you are reading this
what a pure beautiful soul you are
obliging me by listening.

Now you can laugh!

Have a good day. 😊

I am bowed by the weight of bad news
tentacles of evil
creep in to wrap around me
like a dark cocoon
at mixed intervals each day.

Oh how I need love!
It is the only power greater
than the clouds dripping, pouring upon us.

The burning candle
its flickering flame
in the green glass
speak life to me
life within
beyond the reach
of threats and fear.

I bow to the light.

Love
love and its green flame
capture my attention
I adore it
and throw off the cloak of darkness.

Here I stand
now free
and open
in love.

This long month
lingers
unwilling to loose its deadly grip.

Or is it because there is still a flower to bloom
its magenta glory
to wash away
or dilute
the sadness
of this month’s decaying days?

A poem written of my pain
frees me of its chains.
Writing is the poet’s kiss
goodbye to darkness
and hello to bliss.

His ample graying beard
nearly covers crinkled flesh
his eyes focus on the stars
that surround him
his hat with its spangled band
bent slightly down in front
seems to say: I am traveler of Earth.

I wonder what transcendence
dances behind those eyes
slowly moving like Zorba,
arms out gently waving,
an eagle in flight.

Like the old man
I want to bear witness to the universe
in the wave of my mind
to give flight to words
infiltrate, expand and release them
and maybe figure out my small part
in the great mystery.

There he sits head bowed in sleep
leaning south on the weathered wooden bench
too tired to take another step.
He dreams of a dark broken-masted ship
wobbling in the water
nowhere to go
yet an amber light from the inner gloom
makes him wonder
if there is hope for a voyage
for another journey.

But beneath the dank scene
is a lingering certainty
he’s stuck here
stranded in this sad moment.

I looked up at night
yearning for the stars
but the man made light
eclipsed the ruby hearts of Antares and Mars.

Red and white pairs of light
move slowly up and down the hill
they fill the orbs of my sight
these lamps of electric human will.

I’ve a longing for the universe out there
for the touch of God’s creative hand
there must be a cellular link with each far flare
flung by some eternal plan.

But maybe the light I seek
is not in the sky
or that of which astronomers speak
or something captured by the eye.

But something of the universe within
scarcely noticed in the rush of my days
something beneath my skin
in stillness, silent, but deeply ablaze.

I wrap my arms around Earth and Sky
for I am a child of trees and seas
and even in their magnificence
I am comfortable and safe
knowing I am loved
for I drink clear water
it washes over me
cleanses me of stain and shame.
This cozy Cosmos yields food and light
grand canyons and stars at night
and keeps me warm
in the arms of awe.

I am a traveler
on a journey into your heart
a holy place
where I am in love.

You in your dark charm
play in the background
in the shadows
like a minor chord in a thriller
to create tension and doubt
your poison seeps through every tiny crack
in my sanity
all the more at day’s end
through the fog of my fatigue
but you are always poised there
waiting just beneath the surface
counting the moments till
you see an opening.

Experiencing the presence of you
in this now moment is a present.

I confess
more and more
I seem to be enjoying less and less.

When I ask you for something
like ***, your listening ear, or your help
I admit my limits.

It is like prayer
which is a moment of giving up
some part of my potency
ceding a share of my energy and control
to a greater something or someone
I need.

Intimacy is an asking
a surrender of my image
my public in-control self
a holy moment of exposure.

It’s like the cat who in battle with another
turns over on its back
and bares its tender belly
yielding itself.

Being inside of you
arouses my creative impulse
why do I neglect this ingress
and its ecstasy?

How I seem to need
the cleansing of tears lately!

Isn’t it a shame
that I can only spare
a few moments with you
in-between all the really important things
I have to do.
I tell myself I don’t HAVE to take this time with you
when every time I do take time
I am energized and revitalized.
Do I not have enough time for that?

Time time time
energy energy energy…

How I count the costs
of relationship
and not its treasures!

It was an evening of tears.
Not of pain or sadness
but those that arise unbidden and unexpected
after witnessing a hardened woman
who finds a sliver of grace
to forgive herself and another.

Tears of gratitude
from the sudden awareness
of undeserved goodness
given freely.

This flow welled up
from something so deep within me
it belies masculinity, logic,
or the thick and high walls
cast up from hurt.

Tears that pierce scar tissue
wrapped around the soul
from pain or the fear of it
from abuse and the remembrance of it.
These are powerful tears
more mighty than the brutality
and shameless arrogance
I witness on the evening news.

Oh how full I felt
from this unabashed weeping
as if I had been visited by angels,
innocence,
or something that can only be called
divine.

He held out his hand in greeting
smiling, eyes sparkling,
happy to see me
but I saw the scars on his wrist
his wound public
but easily missed.

We all carry wounds within
that we disguise or otherwise
hide from public view
and if they knew,
who would they see anew?

A disfigured one
or a mass of clay
being crafted and re-formed each day
emerged from darkness of night
into a soul full of light.

Do not cling to me
and our past together
instead stand back to see
the me still to be
a flowing brook
with floating leaves
and other pieces of earth.

my psyche is stretched
thin without depth
in humanity’s waning
straining staring into the abyss
of loss

Through the dullness of my senses
I pause and wait a moment
for you to rise up
and pierce my soul
with your  love

... still waiting...

Look at the moon in a telescope
how pristine and awesome it appears
to us here on this spoiled planet
polluted and darkened by fears
of human egos run wild.

The light of the moon brings a smile
Mama used to say: look at the man in the moon
but the moon is without guile
virus updates and bad news.
May some particle of wonder
keep us whole and awaken the muse.

each morning I get up
and swim in the ocean of your love
your salt soaks into my every pore
and awakens me
to what is real

this daily swim strengthens my muscles
especially my heart
and the deeper I dive into you
the stronger I get

the poetry of your being
surrounds me
and this immersion buoys me
to breath in freshness
and make me alive

when I need to be awakened
and my writing confidence is shaken
when I seem to be too far apart
in urgent need of loving hearts

where there’re too many un-live things
and I need to hear a poet sing
the times I need a different take
or can’t move on from some dark ache

I want to see some twinkling stars
and leave the shades of stinking bars
or caught in dark of hellish nights
and seek a flight to brilliant heights

There we sit in our partial darkness
her in her soft and easy chair
me in mine so I can see her face
and the smile or frown residing there
for these brief moments of grace
her reading from our spiritual book
me listening, waiting for angels to arrive
in a story or words that’ll become a sacred hook
into my soul or life’s burgeoning archive.

Evening after evening sometimes so tired
we can barely hold on and avoid sleeping
right there, each old body in its easy chair
sometimes laughing sometimes weeping
she my wife, partner in this long life
both of us gathering our souls
in this splendid crucible of light.

I wonder if poetry is
a humble attempt to reduce
the magnificence or terror of dreams
to words.

Things seem to be falling apart.
Our uncle dying from throat cancer
an old friend going home after a month in the hospital
no more touching or hugging
covering most of our faces in conversation.

All of this darkness
forces change upon me.
I have to work harder at getting you
I have to see you in your eyes
find you in your words and their meaning
since I can’t see your smile or frown.

But I always got just parts of you anyway
you poets in a few words on the page
you friends and kin in your stories.

So now I have to mine you
from smaller bits
see your smile in your eyes
really listen for the pearls in your words.

All of this doesn’t FEEL like a sacred moment
but it is.

I hope, after this painful letting go,
a new me is spit up on the shore
like Jonah after his bout with darkness
in the belly of the whale.

Early morning when I get up
I am in a fight with the dark forces
that inhabit my bones
and haunt my mind.

And I have a choice:
heaven and life or the devil and death.

I wrote a poem for him when he was still here
he was a Cajun artist without peer
for her a paean to a life well lived but now gone
her gentle self slipped into an eternal dawn.

All too few left who care
to read or hear
my poems of yesteryear
not even a single tear
from anyone but me
for these souls who graced my life
and led me to pause, think, feel, and write.  

What sweet sharp sorrow
drifting now in this dark and lonesome lake.

How small I am in my eyes.
May I see me as tall as you do.
My underestimation
keeps me from the gestation
of the universe within me
aching to explode.

I’m drowning in this night.
Please give me a jot of joy
turn on the light
to spurn this blight
I’ve gone overboard
send me a buoy.

Living with your depression
in that sphere of despair
is like gasping for air
becoming the dark pool’s possession.

My father said,
My dear son I love you very much.

I wept,
surprised by his affection
in the midst of my daily afflictions.
This outpouring
overflowed into my heart
and spilled out with tears.

Some people are writers
some are speakers or preachers.

Some try to do both
but one side of them always presses forward
as if to say,
This is who I really am
This is my natural gift.

You walk lightly,
said the old wizened man,
As if the floor were too thin
and you, afraid to use all your weight.

I looked at him with a surprised grin
and said
You are perceptive
no one ever said that out loud to me.

He just grinned and winked.

I get up in the morning
and my first duty is to our cats
to ensure they have food and water
to satisfy their simple needs.
They have no urgency to gather in
the myriad strands and filaments
of my mind to focus on them.
Unlike me, they are without ego
or neurosis or compulsions
or impulse to chew and devour
startling new currents of thought
or to dissect and parse tradition
to produce some new light of intellect.
Their feline genius of simplicity
is my present focus of admiration
and desire.
But of course I could never dissolve
the accumulated humanity
focused in my solitary mind
and achieve the elegant ease
with which our cats occupy
their meager patch of earth.

I seem to be at home on the margins
where I can be alone
with my folly
sweltering in my private bowl of stew
simmering in the sins
surrounding and piercing me
but you found me there
invited me into your heart
where you loved me
redeemed me
sewed my seams
pulled together my crazy quilt
made separate parts into a whole.

Without all my lovers
I would never enter the realm
of the fully human.

It comes in, sparkling and exciting,
with the promise of fun and zest
like a mist dappled with thrills

but it is a false promise
like the allurements of commercials
with smiling faces and a myriad of glitz

it ends in a state of shame
controlled by lords of the dark
and the owners of hell.

I brim over with gratitude for love
and the forces of beauty and mercy
that break the trance -
the spell always ending
with the unlit inglorious state of shame.

Today I am running on empty
nothing inside to fuel my rising
from this morass.

Does this wet lowland into which I sink
come from me
or the invading viral horror?

Alone I cannot raise myself up
I need a power far greater than me
to invade heavy me
with light.

At every turn I have looked
listened, felt around for a door
a door here and a door there
one that would open
let in the air
let me aboard
not afraid nor bored
or in doubt
always leaning toward
life, whatever would restore
the child’s enthusiasm
the young man’s excitement for the next adventure.

So many doors:
music, art, trees, flowers,
incense, a lover’s lips,
poetry, stories, a lunar eclipse,
lizards, drums, psalms,
the smell of her hair, the feel of her arms.

Still I search for a door open to the light
to heaven and depth and height.

Light rain falls into my day
darkened skies hang low
inside dry suffused dismay
and a small nagging unease
reminds me a clear sunny day
is a gift in the murky malaise
to make this persistent haunt
bearable
until again light reigns.

When I try to hold on to a lovely present
its gift disappears.

I have slowly loosened the grip
of one hand on hell
for a slow and gradual gain
but its persistent flame
still licks at my soul
has made me old
and beat in its heat.

I will not win this fight
with the dark and hoary blight
til I loosen both hands
to be wholly free
for the warm and deep embrace
of heaven’s healing grace.

You are in the waving limbs
of the pear tree in spring
the inquiring yellow eyes of my cat
the majesty and vastness of the roaring sea
the lively brown eyes of my lover
the soft sobs of saying goodbye
to his precious wife after illness
the soft hop of the toad
the light of the fireflies
the moments of their darkness
the birds who dip and drink
from small puddles of collected rain
the male cardinal feeding his mate
you laugh in the giggle of a toddler
and abide there in his tears
you are the unrestrained laughter of a wife
at her husband’s clumsy goof
the closing off from those we love
and the unfolding of life in isolation
you are my higher power
beyond even the strongest moments
of my fighting ego
as a swift wind
swaying and singing with the sage
and dancing with the sunflower stalk in spring
you show me how to wait
how to breathe in the peace of dawn
how to be.

After a moment of small grace
I realized in its presence there is nothing small.

Don’t brag about your good fortune in bad weather
unless you’re ready to hear how theirs is better

Here I wait resting on the door jamb
standing betwixt and between
shall I stay here or drop my hand,
move beyond what I’ve known and seen?
What will be out there to my left and right
where will the next step take me from here?
They said danger is there out of my sight -
threats, jinxes, and disease if that step I dare.

But if I move back into the shady cool
I’ll be safe in this cozy inner space.
Being in between without old rules
not knowing the beyond I’ll face
is scary but this is a journey of revelation
even if sacrifice and loss is in this race
I trust I will find peace and inspiration.