Do you know someone
who’s in the background of your day
and when you pause
if you’re lucky
you remember and smile
can’t suppress a thank you
but feel just a tint of sadness
they’re not in the foreground?

I read poems, stories, see movies
where protagonists fall in love
give themselves to their lovers
only to later be betrayed or abandoned -
a story as old as humanity.

We two lovers
entwined for five decades
still must re-new our love over and over
each still a mystery,
in a fashion a foreigner, a traveler
on the road
a road strewn with rocks
tiny pebbles that get in our shoes
irritate the soles of our feet
unsettle our souls.

And on our better days
we can laugh at our folly and flubs
and end with a knowing smile and hugs.

But still there are molecules of our being
hidden from each other and ourselves
that will betray our trust.

As she lay there, her face pale, almost ashen
tears flowing,
in her gravelly voice
she said how horrible she felt
about a life so full of mistakes and selfishness
for giving her sister a hard time
being crabby and so critical to her boss
who was also her friend.

She looked into my eyes
regret dripping in every wrinkle
of her rugged face
and she began sobbing.

I cried with her
squeezed her left hand
felt the burden of my own regrets
for the ruts and rocks I had left
in the path of my past.

And I told her she was a different person now
I reminded her that the amends made to me and so many
later in her life were a testament
to a soul redeemed
and now in glory.

She smiled wistfully,
closed her eyes,
and drifted on her tears
into eternity.

I can’t find my left glove
we have to go back to Lost Lake
to search.
Glove found on the ground
where they gathered leaves of red and gold
oh-ing and ah-ing
in awe of a bold autumn.

Where are my keys?
Frantically we look
Sis finds them between the seat and console
dropped when buckling my seatbelt.

Where are my new leather gloves
iPhone flashlight out to see in the deepening shadows.
They are on the floor right behind my feet.

We laugh at our aging ineptitude
happy we are together
finding mutual aid and humor
at Lost Lake.

The errant thread in the rug
bothered me for two days
finally I stooped and cut it
but the rug is still wholly a rug.
It is not tile or skin or milk
not cashmere or silk.
I’m glad it’s still a rug.

Finally I can lay on my left side
that fractured rib healing
fell down walking  on the grass
uneven grass but I rejoice
in its grassness.

I’m a walking human mess
still a sinner after all these years
praying, reading the good book,
going to church, hugging
all my fellow sinners.
Elated that still
they are wholly human.

I pretended seventy plus years
I was somehow special
picked to do great things.
But here I am still fractured
but getting better and better
progress my favorite word.

Trying to read deep poem
TV, fan, drum music
Attention too shallow

When someone fears not my freedom
opens their grip and surrenders
any hold on me
the blessed result is a kind of peace -

maybe a pause before I approach the cliff
but in that small moment a glimmer of grace
enough to save me

a space to crawl a few layers deeper
to find what lies beneath,
a slender root, a fertile bit of soil

a mystery on the desert plain
that nurtures a tender shoot
to take me into a hazy future

Freedom to die
to the hell within me
to the surface me
that pretends control
to the hidden pain that gobbles my light

These little deaths free me
to embrace the little boy within
the creative self
the beautiful alive soul
the pure core
that sustains us all.  

When Some One, anyone, fears not my freedom
opens their grip and surrenders…

Stop your regrets
sadness, worry, your presets.
Look up. Reform your mind.
Today is a new time
full of possibility
a festival of fertility
plug in to grace
quicken your pace
to the next frontier
put it in high gear
leave the desert of despair
breathe in the brisk fresh air
arise, emerge and begin
to believe again.

Amen.

Born seemingly pathetic
the boy grew up learning patience
with seemingly pathetic creatures
learning to see the divine in all
and in this vision invited them
and empowered himself
to rise
to be who they really are
rather than what they seem.

I read of this little orchestra of players
who made instruments of trash
reminded me how God uses strayers
like Moses, David, and Johnny Cash
recycled their failures into glory.
They found a flash or flicker
of faith to make a moving story.
They gave their flaws to the Fixer.

I see the detritus and lessons of my past
a guy whose mind was all over the place
who soared, swooped, leveled and crashed
was thrown out reaching for second base
whose heart was wounded, erratic and hurt
but had a treasury of teachers on his path
who inspired and encouraged the introvert
to use words instead of physics or math.

Yes, words became my friends
opened vistas of meaning and learning
paid limitless dividends
set my curiosity and wonder burning.
Fragments of imagination
bubbled up like a spring
moments of ****** inspiration
of darkness and light took wing.

The salve of poetry has brought healing
its warm oils and sweet scent
delivered me from darker feelings
gave me vigor when I was spent
gave me drink in the dessert
brought me moments of glory
in a world of hurt
helped me tell my story.

So like those Paraguay players
making music from trash
from all of life’s layers
of flowers and ash
I’ve been to the mountain peak
and to fertile green places
in my true voice I now speak
and swim in glorious graces.

We take time
to read from our wisdom books.
We ask questions,
pausing to think
before we speak.
We tell stories from our journeys.
We laugh,
tears on the brink of our eyes.
We speak from the tulip bulbs
of the gratitude
about to spring from our *******.
We sigh
upon the fruit
of this interlude together.

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

the garbage can is out back
top tight to contain the stench
clean on the outside
a model can among cans
but inside drips my hidden waste
next garbage day I’ll have more for it

The geese are standing there
just being geese in the grass
poking through the leaves
going deeper for nourishment
may I follow their example

I watched a movie last night
toward the end saw a couple on a boat
rowing toward the western golden light
then the clear Aegean
floated me into a cove in my brain
where mystery and emerald waters
became plain.

My memory organizes my life
by place.

The brownish sandy beach
where I whittled driftwood with my first Case knife.
The oleanders near the cyclone fence,
climbing the wiry fence tops chasing my friend Vince
who cursed those wires that caught his *******.
The river running through Tamaqua
on a family trip east as a kid
but I can’t see the faces or hear the names
of my New Jersey kin
I do see the wood box where me and my cousins hid.
Gone are the faint glimmers of folks
beyond the red-blooming poisonous bush
the names of aunts back east I wrote juvenile letters to
but I recall their ice cream parlor wall painted bright blue.

Closing my eyes
I see the yellow floor
and the bent aluminum legs of the kitchen table
I wiggled under as fast as I was able
to avoid Daddy’s long brown leather belt
and when he missed I heard his anger melt
when he couldn’t suppress a giggle.

Ah! the joy of my lively geographic memory.

Isn’t it strange
how in this brief exchange
of the creative impulse
we gain
a certain kind of intimacy
with each other
yet we never
smell each other
shake hands
breathe the same air
put up with personal idiosyncrasies
and off-putting voice inflections –
all the things our friends and loved ones have to.

Yet here we occupy hearts and minds
many of our friends and loves do not know
with such closeness, interiority, and connectedness.

What a strange and magnificent gift!

I sink into this sweet moment
not of lightning and hail
but soft unveiled convection warmth
of the south
in early afternoon
of winter.
I find my center
here in time
more precious than rubies or sparkling of diamonds
what a crime
presumption
I will persist
in it
this gift
this present
time.

Several college students stood around
arguing about the meaning of God.
Nearby sat an old Indian woman.
They asked her what she thought.

With a wan smile
she took a small blue bowl
from a plastic shopping bag
laid the crinkly bag on her lap
and pointing to it she said
“This is the universe.”
Then she pointed inside the bag’s opening
and said,
“This is God.”

Donning the mantle of godparent
cannot be blamed on an accident
it is both a gift and a choice
in which the child has no voice.

If it is a decision lightly taken
the deciders should awaken
to the burden it imposes
and the thorns of the roses.

An honor to the invited it might seem
but think about what it means
to the parents of that baby
and how vital to them it may be.

For if this is to be your child
it will not be for just a while
but for a lifetime of growth and pains
a multitude of joys and strains.

In a manner quite distinct
you are asked to be linked
to this person in the ups and downs
to hear both tender and awful sounds.

And think of where you may wander
in your journey out yonder
how your beliefs might alter
and your path might falter.

Wherever you go whatever you do
know this person is joined to you
through your good and bad breaks
with all your missteps and mistakes.

And above all remember you are kin.
You don’t lose.  You don’t win.
You are never never exiled
from Love, for you are both God’s child.

It’s a cloudy day today
forecast predicts lots of wind
my mood’s a darker shade of gray
than it has lately been

dissonant as the music playing
today as out of sync
as my heart is staying -
feeling on the brink

of I don’t know what
like the weather - wanting spring
for this winter’s tightened my gut -
wondering what the news will bring.

Reading poetry and seeing art
makes me believe God’s within -
as co-creators not wholly apart
even in our darkest sin

but sometimes faith’s leap
seems too long
the chasm between us too deep.
If in weakness I’m made strong

maybe this day I’ll find the strength
find the art of which I’m possessed
discover the joy to jump that length
through the dark that says God’s depressed.

Solomon tells God not to forget his promises he made to his father, David, of successors and protection.

     .     .     .     .     .     .     .

I wonder what his promises are to me
if he has made any at all.

But if he has not
he has in a million small and large matters
protected me
except when I didn’t allow him to
which is probably most of the time.  

Dare I expend the energy
to mentally list these matters?  

I seem so lazy  
when I think of my parents and how they sacrificed
their pleasure and comfort for me,
when I think of the pain I caused Mom
from the first weeks of conception on.
Oh how I have taken that love for granted.  
How much more so with my Creator.  

But truth is, I cannot separate the love
of Mamma and Daddy
friends who bore my boorishness
kin who’ve overlooked me overlooking them
I cannot separate these
from the fingers of the great sculptor.    

(See I Kings 8:25-30)

The flute played a lullaby in the distance
calling the man and his horse into desert’s blanch
where even tumbleweed had vanished.
He saw the streaked banks of the arroyo
that told a tale of currents
whose power clashed and hurled taut soil west
where the sun was going gold.

His face etched by storms
in many forms
he tried to ignore joint moans
by whistling Cohen’s Halleluia
that wiggled forth a salty mist
in his eyes.

Halleluia for all the years.
He hummed the line
he heard Leonard say:
don’t dwell on what’s passed away
or what is yet to be.

The flute again cast its spell
not a knell but a psalm
of praise to make
and create what he could
be it on paper or carved in wood.

My buddy the quarterback said to go long
music to my ears the chorus of my song
I could easily outrun all the puny secondary –
the guys from one block over on wealthy Dewberry.
We were all better at football on Lillian Street  
beating the crap out of those guys was oh so sweet.

Now mulling my interests, passions and such
I wonder why I love football so much
what with a life of writing, thinking and teaching
my football mania seems a tad overreaching
but still my arm flexes watching that heaver
connect in a perfect arch with his swift receiver.

Being Cajun in Texas where sports are king
probably explains something of why I’m so keen
and my pulse quickens as I remember
the neighbor boys’ shouts and calls in September
to meet them in our favorite autumn spot
down the street in that vacant lot.

Most of my life I’ve gone for short passes
connected with ideas and English classes
no novel for me, I fell for poetry
nor did I brave the rigor of a PhD.
Now finally, with my scores of years its not so wrong
to watch, leave it alone, wait a while, and go long.

I cannot imagine grace
its slow quiet crawl
into my soul

Glory is a word I seem to be using lately
Loving my life and the people in it
Overshining sadness, pain, and darkness
Remembering the goodness of the Lord
Years of abundant love from many angels.

I was hoping for sun
to brighten my mood
and wake me up this day.

But shades of gray
hang heavy on the horizon
ground wet from last night’s rain.

That’s life.

I remember my days of black and white
easy answers cut and dry, clear and bright
lines dark and sure
with me of refined mind
up on ground moral and high.

But I have become fond of gray
where friends with their faults
and me with mine stay
in love anyway.

Give me lowly, mushy earth
where seeds break open
with verdant birth.

Yes, please give me a day
with shades of gray.

He leans against the old battered lamp post
just as twilight fades away
hands in his pockets
the lamp spills its soft rays on him
as if to assure him there is light left.

His rumpled gray suit
has seen its better days
perhaps in a high rise a few blocks away
it hangs on him like a haunting shadow.

Despair looms in his eyes
a frown droops his pale face
he barely breathes
staring at the drainage grate
just beyond his dusty shoes.
Has his life seeped down into the gutter?

He is bowed by some awful weight.
And I across the street
gaze at him
misty-eyed
waiting
in my own shadow.

Outside life is in its green glory
springs and explodes with gusto.
Trees and plants shout with joy
irrepressible energy pulls me forward
leaps ahead from my dust and darkness
and takes me into sky from my fright
transforms my darkness into light
I thank you life for appearing in my night.  
It is in this mixture of shadows and sun
that you appear most awesome overflowing
running over the fearful edge of my soul.

“As a Royal you were always taught to maintain a buffer zone between you and the rest of Creation” – Prince Harry

I was a working class boy
from an oft-reeking neighborhood
there south of Greens Bayou
where a north wind
made us breathe rotten-egg air.

I was no royal.
But when I read the Prince’s quote today
I wondered if my mom’s childhood-induced fears
imposed a buffer zone on me
to protect me from the tough guys
whose dads ground pipes and did wiring
in local industrial plants.

Years of drinking beer sitting in the rear
I watched bar fights and felt Mom’s fear
as surely as if she’d been sitting near.
I didn’t stay in the Scouts long enough
to learn the stuff of being a man
didn’t hunt with my brother
and learn from him how to take a stand.

Now an adult, I’m sorry I wasn’t wild,
too bad I became too shy and too mild
shunned risk and danger, stayed too clear.

Was it some thin metal strand from me to my mama’s fear
that robbed me of things that make a man?
I know I learned empathy and gentleness from her
and hold not a shred of anger
for her or Dad who worked so many hours
away from that field of dreams.
I know their love saved me from violent extremes
and made me cherish God, music, and art,
tragic, as well as sensual, and exquisite scenes.
So here I sit writing
reflecting with preludes, green plants and memories.

Harry, Prince the Duke of Sussex, Spare, Random House, 2023, p. 54

In the first light of this day
with too little sleep
I am feeling tired and vulnerable
but I have entered the dreams, fears, and pains
of other poets from far and wide
and it seems
we are all growing and dying together
maybe just a little at a time
line by line
these spirits enter me
and assure me I am not alone
in this drift.

I find myself caught in recycling
not cans and paper and glass
but thoughts and actions
habits can help
but being stuck in the habitual
sloshes me into a swamp
dank and stagnant.

What if I broke the cycle in half
opened myself to hidden reaches
of my mental soulful caverns?
Maybe this interruption
would reawaken my muse
from her drowsiness
sparkling and sprinkling me
with poetic stirrings.

It’s worth trying.

The hair on the back of my hand
glistens in the lamp at night
it tells me I am a man
I am a creature
a thing created.
I did not create myself
even though I act as if I did.  

You made this body
and you keep it alive.
When I look at my hand
sometimes it reminds me of Jesus
who was also a man.

I yearn to feel his touch
his arms around my shoulders.
How often I need his hand
on the small of my back
giving me a gentle shove.

When I picture that hand
in my mind’s eye
I see the hair
the veins that bring the blood
from his heart,
a heart so full
so big it reaches to heaven.

It also reaches into my heart
when I think of his first noticing
and then stooping down
to touch the person on the side of the road
the person nobody else would go near.
I am touched to tears.  

That was the hand of Jesus
reaching down as it does now
to this sinner.

Like fingers running across a harp
from shoulder toward feet
I fall deeper into you.
My fingertips pause
here and there in their journey
to feel the sweet vibrations
of your body
and in these small silences
I enter your divinity.

Gathering into the hatchway
I push my breath from rest
in the clouds and adventures
into the city with my sister
who would rather walk and breathe
and push her body out and away
from convention and comfort
while I try to make up excuses
to use the car.

She stops to notice the police
trying to corral unruly homeless
while I seek refuge on a grassy *****
with a few of my elders enjoying the sun.

I know the city and the commerce
that has gashed through soil
of this once quiet prairie
to construct one steel obelisk
after another
making art and poetry sad afterthoughts.

Now it is time
for me to move my creaky bones
into a day yet to aborn
beyond my bed,
to wash myself in the infinite seed of creation
splashed upon me
with each dawn.

I cannot resist your wriggle
your movement wrestles me awake
from my routine slumbering lumbering day
your breath
your wind are my oxygen
telling me I’m alive
you move from heart to fingers
and dance on the floor
of this keyboard
with your partner
pen on the smooth flat surface of paper.

It is more vital to write my heart
to write write write as I MUST
than to obey some poetry manual
or imitate Longfellow, Rumi, or Frost
or any other.

Writing your movement is like breathing
I cannot go long without it
you impel me to this place
this oasis
this pure land
these tropics
where I let you speak
and have your way with me,
you my magnificent muse.

He swooped down landed atop the jutting eave
surveyed our yard for mice and other prey
and I prayed he wouldn’t leave.
He did not fly away
but up to the elm
keenly searching his realm.

His magnificence took my breath
I a privileged audience
no less than watching Macbeth
or listening to Ravel.

His breast a mottled gray and white
vigilant eyes and lethal raptor beak
his wings perfectly formed for agile flight.

I wondered if our species was perfectly made
and if so for what kind of flying:
gliding into an emerald glade
or lying there to get lost in cloudy skies
or like the hawk look and leap and rise?

The arrow in my dream pointed up
I wasn't sure what that meant
but I slowly swung my legs out of bed
still woozy but knowing I had to write
so I got up.

I walk with my head down
watching the darkened floor so each step is safe and firm.
Recently I saw my sister walking with her head up
looking at the trees
looking up to see the branches growing.
I worried she would trip on a crack or branch or rock and fall.
I worried.
She walked with her head up.

She is a good example for me
looking for growth
When she looks down it's for all the gifts
the Doug Firs and Cedar leave for good Earth
some of the samara she gathers like precious treasurers,
takes them home and spreads them about
for adornment of her place.

When discouragement or sadness get me down
I need to remember to look up
beyond the muck
toward the stars
where creation began
and listen for the bang
in the voices
of jays, cardinals, friends, loves, and strangers.

Hallelujah from the heart of Leonard Cohen
just took Leonard and his old scratchy voice
into my heart. What a gift my music app
just slung into my afternoon
to wake me from my late afternoon fatigue.

I do not take these tech gifts for granted
remembering when I would have to get the LP album
from off the crammed shelf and play it on a turntable.

Here in a moment of peace
I look up and see the trees
and the neighbor’s garden
beyond my windows.

And I thank God for this lovely peaceful moment
thank my old piano teacher
and the conductor of the Houston Youth Symphony
where I sang before my voice changed
and my parents who carpooled me from our suburb
to the old auditorium downtown
where my young mind and soul were nourished
by adults who cared for our young minds and voices.

Who knew that the gifts of these people
would spring up in my mind eight decades later
and mental images of Leopold Stokowski who directed us
at a grand concert in the Houston Music Hall.
He loved children but delivered high pitched hell
to the symphony players at rehearsals.

There are leads on my chest
to detect any vagaries within
but you are the best heart monitor
circulating in the deep vessels and chambers
checking what pulses and moves in me.
I trust you there
in the darkest parts of me
where life wanders.

Slender and humble in its youth
the oak grew in moist earth near the bayou.
Roots pierced the dark land
ate the rich gumbo
silently morphed facets of soil
into a heart
with unexposed power and poise.

Across the bayou
on a screened porch
a young girl watched the new rain
make puffs of dust in the dirt
she daydreamed in the drifts of clouds
and wondered where they were born.

A young man and his friend
off the beaten path of their travels
found the town pool.
Swimming, he saw the beautiful girl
perched above the deep end
and across longitudes and latitudes
of loving, laughing, and weeping
they birthed and raised a family.

The bark’s ridges and gaps reveal
centuries of storms and floods
the oak’s long limbs laden
with life, wisdom, and altered environments.

These two entwined lives enriched
by learning and prodigious practice
their wine a vintage
of passionate enchantment
imbibed by thirsty learners
across decades beyond ordinary borders.

But she like the oak
with open arms
her strength born in good soil.
Hers is a rare power of gentle love
hers a courage born
of some cosmic connection
at the heart of her beautiful humanity.

Dedicated to my cousin Melanie on her eightieth birthday. Both of us born in the Durand line in southern Louisiana not too far from the Evangeline Oak near Bayou Teche. Our lives were seemingly divergent but somehow parallel and ultimately connected, I think, by a power greater than ourselves. If you are interested in more, please see: https://www.currierpoems.net/teche-series

Ghosts

The ghosts float about
sometimes above my head
sometimes in my chest
they wrap themselves
Oh to be lycan
I saw a wolf in the northwest covered with snow
blue eyes looking right through me
as if to say wake up you stupid human
stuck in the mud
float in snow my man!
I feel the heat on my inner thighs
creeping upward tickling enticing
as if the summer is trying to peak its head
through cold winter soil
the shiny black snake coils
around my ankles
squeezes telling me to be not afraid
of the primordial divine impulse
to take my earthiness and embrace it
bring it to the heavens where it belongs
with my spirit.

The Woman

The long thin silk scarf around her neck
***** and flies off her left shoulder
like angel wings in the wind
caresses my cheek and neck
wants me within her feminine self.
Ah! what sweetness to behold!
her soft skin gentlizes me
takes my hairy clunky body
lifts it into my dreams
into her moistness.

Awake

And now I am awake
to spring in its irrepressible green
daffodils at the base of the pear tree
direct my eyes from earth to sky
like an organic gothic arch
long puffy clouds stand still
against the bright azure sky
heaven on earth.

This morning I woke up feeling lonely.
I don’t know why.
I have people around me who love me
and want to hold on to me
and I onto them.
I know…
feelings like this
and dreams
fly and soon evaporate into the cloudy sky.

But today some dark critter
a residue of the night
has hooked me
and won’t let go
it has reeled me in
so here I am using these lines
to cast my mind out into the choppy waters
to see if I can connect
with something swimming there
that’ll make sense of this tenuous mess
in which I wander and wallow.

I don’t seem to find my self
comfortable, wholly accepted and at home
with the people and places I roam
in this soaked and leaky vessel.
I know it’s stupid to be out here floating
when songs and words I’m often quoting
drift inside my head
planted there by many magnificent progenitors
who earnestly bred
a young man for whom they cared.

But loneliness does that.
It puts me where I know I shouldn’t be
by all grateful accounts.

I think to myself
I wish so and so was here to talk
but they’ve long gone and walked
from me
who has lived so long.

So here I am alone
casting out
or in
to find the answer, a home
or a place of some special grace…
while I sit here with these lines
in this lonely state.

Hello out there…?

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

I am here away in the dark.
Outside the winter trees
sway their million two hundred twenty five
artistic fingers
against the twilight sky
beckoning me to leave these shadows
and just for a moment
feel the black life coursing slowly
through their bodies.

They dance so quietly
no one but I
notices their intricate
artistry waving goodbye
to the daylight where throngs
of my species  made their
tiny marks upon the history
of humankind
in these northern environs
lost in the minutia
of us who scarcely
notice the human tragedy
of a suffering Gaza.

Just to be here now
nowhere else but here
is a feat for me
in my erratic mind
but now it’s just you and nobody else
no beauty queen
with voluptuous ******* and sparkling eyes
just you in your magnificence
I melt away my I-ness
and fall into your love alone.

Here I am lost on a stormy sea
here you are again with me
my life raft and my light

Vines and their tributaries
climb the wall overtake
and name of our neighborhood:
hidden canyon.

Four decades ago
we explored the woods
and found the rocky canyon
etched into the landscape by ten mile creek.
Our limbs were limber
muscles young and strong
adventure coursed in our veins.

But now no woods
just houses and streets
our jaunts into the wild
with woodsy small creatures and critters
are gone.

The mystery we found there
now supplanted by novels, poems and stories
of children, young explorers and writers
and I traverse the thicket
of my small universe
searching the hidden canyons of
mystics, dreamers and poets,
combing a terrain deeply inscribed
by the hand of the divine.

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.

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

Hold me in your arms
fold me into your heart
touch me and let me feel your softness
take me away from me
help me to see
through your big brown eyes
drench me in your light
for I am down
and in the dark
remind me to laugh
and lift me with your wings of hope
smile me that last mile
before I am too tired.