If I were to reflect on my life
with books
if I were to spend the time
such a reflection deserves
I would be here for a week
seeking just the right words
to speak the inexpressible gift
of authors who gave their love
to finding themselves
binding themselves
to an idea
that deserved
and emerged
as new life.

The sheer volume of these gestations
trumpets and sings
anthems and hymns of grace
broken through inside the human heart.

I would not be who I am
but for their inspiration
and daily dedication
to pressing pen to page upon page
so I could turn a new leaf
and become all I was meant to be.

Books are acts of making love
right there on my table
day after passionate day
long after many have passed away
from the mornings they woke up
to this work, this play
with words
that would open worlds
for me and millions
to create something
ordinary or magnificent
for our presents and futures.

I bow to these small lumens,
authors and makers
who birthed their creations
and bound them together
from genesis to revelation.

Here among the trees
leaves, birds and bees
breathing in summer air
the sun embraces me
into its life-giving energy
I feel loved
and part of the great mystery
each day is a homecoming.

Here I can just be me
fearing no judgement
or condemnation for my sins
but pure acceptance
and bliss.

This day, each day
is my birth day.

I have always had a place to sleep nights
with a roof over my head and my own bed
but my homeless state was out of sight
it was at a lonely space in my mind instead.

I cannot count the years I wandered
on rocky winding roads in dark
nor measure the grace and light I squandered
losing myself in distraction and work.  

I can’t remember not having a job
nor count the hours I’ve wasted,
nor the love and care I’ve robbed
nor the bread of life not tasted.

You won’t see me holding my cup
on the sidewalk in the city
my pride’s too great to give up
I won’t ask you for your pity.

Yes, I have often been hungry
I’ve been empty of inspiration
yearned for peace in my country
hoped for the source of creation.

But recently I’ve awakened
from the darkness I had roamed
found the road I wish I’d taken
to a deeper fuller higher home.

“Homeless,” Copyright © 2017 by Glenn Currier

Countless songs sing your might
and your brawny romance with us.
The kiss, the sigh I return in moonlight
seems so weak.
But that is my puny judgement,
for when I am in the clutches of love
when I allow its vast waves to overtake me
I can get up from my sleepy lazy state
and stretch my muscle and bone,
walk toward your pain or joy with a stride and demeanor
no masculine actor could ever emulate.

Yet you are the mortar full of feeling
the octane of which clamors a symphony of sound
I cannot even hear
but feel it in my chest and biceps and thighs.
Your sadness clouds the stars
your joy makes them beam
your anger burns bright and hot in them.

So how can I hurt you?
Above all, by my indifference
when I break free and flee your embrace
when I strike you in the face
and punch you in the gut
with my pride, lust
and magnitudes of madness
my shame brings tears to my eyes.
It is not a shame that disables me
but awakens me to my limits.

How you must fear my freedom
because of what I have done,
what I do with it in my life?
How lonely you must feel when I abandon you
in favor of pleasure or hubris!

If you are invincible and lord of the cosmos
how would you make yourself so powerless
and vulnerable to emotions?
Because you sparked the creation
of my species and my planet
and even became human
to show us the profusion of love,
sensations and sentiments possible.

Including hurt.

“…how close we are
     to being
     nothing
     most of the time

     and
     for some of us
     nothing all of the time…  - Bukowski: “Meeting Them”


Reading his poem freed me
but bound me to a budding desire
to write
and explore
its roots in a reality
I fear.

How close to being nothing
are we
and is it for eternity
or just a moment?

But just asking the question is liberating
as if I looked death in the face
and just smiled.

The sun rose again at dawn
lilies opened blasting praise
I found a road to walk on
to face my fear and malaise.

How have you risen today?

A son forgave his errant dad
A father forgave his son’s sin
from their chains they got unclad
and found a way to begin again.

How have you risen today?

My wife and friend came with me
to church and sang and listened
were open and willing to see
the light and my eyes glistened.

How have you risen today?

Confused and lost I’d gone astray
and thought I was dying inside
gave up on finding the way
learned I could still come alive.

How have you risen this day?

Today I found a new truth
that if you are really inside
I’ll always be in my youth
and when I die I too will arise.

That’s a few other ways you’ve risen today.

“How have you risen today?” Copyright © 2017 by Glenn Currier

The slugger swept the bases
his swift run for home past third  
blew away the dusty traces
his teammates had stirred.

She precisely whisked flour
with oil, eggs, and spice
but played til such a late hour
she had to mix it twice.

The coach signaled a sacrifice fly
but he wanted to slam it
not a martyr kind of guy
so he hit a homer ******!

You might want to make dough
but you’d have to prove the matter
to get your fund and asset to grow
don’t forget you’re mixing a human batter.

By the end of next month
the hummingbirds will be gone
and I’ll have to find other wildness
to bring that tiny measure of joy
to my mornings.

My emptiness gnaws at me
erodes the dark coating on my soul
my hunger is a yawning bowl
of clear glass yearning to be filled
with your love
what nuggets of golden light
or even what suffering you might
will to me
to grow me
into what I need to be.

I trust you with my hunger
with the calluses
on my hands and feet
and the hardness of my heart
to touch, soften, repair,
and birth there
some fibers of new life.

But does a lover ignore his beloved?
Do I think you get used to it?
Like a flute playing in the distance.
Do I think you blind or deaf
to my silence
to the bustling dreary me?
Do I think you are immune
to my flight?
Do I hope you are dough waiting to be kneaded
assume you are accustomed to being unneeded
or do I wear
a dark cloak glad you don’t see me there?

How often do I blithely
utter, I love you
while wrapped secure
in the loaf of self?

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

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

When I was a young idealistic thinker
I took the bait hook line and sinker
now I’m an old more skeptical believer
but I hope I’m still an open receiver.

It was the next day
after I saw her walking down the hall
with pain still etched on her face
that my anger began to give way to remorse
the erosion of my ego
together with an almost divine spark of mercy
finally led me to seek her out, face her,
and say “I’m sorry honey for raising my voice to you.”
She looked at me, the tension in her face gone,
smiled and said, “I’m sorry too.”
At that moment we were together
in a small peaceful, glorious
and powerful
space in the universe.

My tears drip down my cheek
each one a piece of me
atoms of my love
for you.

You are there in air
rustling in leaves
whooshing in sonorous song
chiming in wind among the trees.

Even here on this silver screen
you beam key to key bouncing
exciting protons making small creatures
one character at a time.

You even whisper so quietly
in the daily hum of my life
I rarely hear or notice
the strong power of your love.

How can I miss the soft sound
hiding in the passages of my day
in my every breath
you traveling freely
in every molecule of my being?

I need to try harder
second to second
to listen first
to the sibilant sound
of you tiptoeing
in the background
your acoustic presence
in every step I take
every noise I make
every thought I conceive
you never never leave
me here or anywhere alone.

Sometime you seem nearly silent
until you roar back in the hymns
I can hear if I but listen
for you in the voices
of strangers, enemies and friends.  

You seem invisible
until I open my eyes
to you there in the creases
frowns and smiles
of every person I pass.

You are a symphony
and its composer
I can encounter
if I pay the coin of my attention
in the small moments of my day.

This day I hope
I can wake up
to the holy
all around
in every sight
in every sound
in the silences
tucked away
in between.

You were so far down the list
it was hard to find you
buried there among news items
groups begging
ads egging
service notices glaring
poets sharing.

I almost couldn’t find you
my love
and when I did
my phone kept blinking  
notifications
wanting my fixation.

Oh how easy it is to forget you.

My love gets buried…
yet that love is what keeps me awake and alive.
Diving deep into you refreshes my soul
like nothing else.

Here I am in clouds of gray
the curtain closing on the day
on the horizon the last light
softly lingers before the night
bright voices of day’s gladness
fade away, my heart veiled in sadness.

The blustery afternoon shook the wings
of elm, its leaves, flying golden things
I hear them sing as they fall
then whisper their farewell call
now in the gloaming of the day
the clouds invite rest or a moment to pray.

Ask sursease of sorrow ahead
but dwell not on shores of dread
believe the voice from inside
in each passing moment abide
let go the chains of control
find a piece of joy in your soul.

I sit here on a metal chair
hunched over, my head in my hands
I feel incredulous unable to wrap my mind
around being in this chamber of fools
with the others who came here as slaves
of a monster master.  

But each of us came with a captor within
who led us here in chains.

So here I am hiding my head
under a hood of shame.
I gave up my freedom
with each seemingly harmless fix
and step by step I led myself into the custody
of this man across from me.
Just this little bit won’t hurt,
I told myself.

And before long that trickle
became a roaring ravine -
me in the middle desperate
to keep my head above water.

The counselor sat there silently
with a look on his face that said
“Man, this is serious as a heart attack.”

But I’m not a ****** addict like the rest of these guys,
I thought to myself.  
I shouldn’t be here.  

And still he sat there, silent,
watching me cry, sniveling like a baby.  
This is not me
I thought
but here I am in my body
without the comfort or warmth
of a caring arm around my shoulders.  
Alone.  
Humiliated.

I get so tired of one religion
tearing down another.
It seems so cheap to me -
a protestation better muted
in favor of a simple act of helpfulness.

When she went to sleep
she prayed that a calming peace
would enter her body,
a body bloated with the potency
in her first pregnancy.
The Holy Ghost that she prayed for
swirled in her dreams
like a wispy cloud, golden tendrils
enveloping her with energy and imagination.

Finally she got to sleep
only to be awakened after midnight
by me delivering to her the pain of labor
she shouted to her honey beside her
startling him awake and out of bed
to get her up and grab the suitcase.

Darkness enveloped her
and fear, foreboding and near panic.
By three a.m. she was in Our Lady of the Lake delivery room
and I was on my way out of her
to greet what would be a clear cool morning
for July in southern Louisiana.

Little did she know what she would endure
from this screaming squirming little boy…

still habitually in motion
eight decades later.

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

[Ambiance: the atmosphere of an environment; a surrounding influence]

The smoke drifts over the audience,
the piano, the throaty singer and the sax
permeate the room with a jazzy ambiance.
My nerves vanish in the vibe, and I relax.

I enter the parlor to a flower-scent rush
there’s solemn gloom in the room for the viewing
I hear sniffles and mourners speak in a hush,
the ambiance here shaded with blueing.

The senses soak up the atmosphere.
Smells, sounds, touches, and sights
on the outside penetrate like a spear
take us down or ****** us to the heights.

Every day every inch of the way
is a new journey.  I can choose my stance,
embrace the unexpected and pray
for openness and grace in my internal ambiance.

“Internal Ambiance,” Copyright © 2017 by Glenn Currier

It is good to be in this place
in this time
the plants awakening to the light
the soft music
easing into my soul
the candle flickering
the air and me
cool and still
in this now.

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

Looking out the window I see
in the cup of a single holly leaf
a drop from last night’s rain
gazing glinting into my eyes
sun beams in that little drip
as if to herald the cosmic curator
of the visible.

He was introduced to her
all the while looking through her
to see someone who mattered,
who was smart and degreed enough
for his time, after all, she was just the wife.

That gathering and others awakened her.
Now she insisted hubby’s clock hands
be wrapped around the kids’ small fingers.
He’d learn to tick with their hearts as he lingered.
The volume of her voice turned up a click or two
her own determination gently gliding through.
Not hawklike but now with a new edge
she, with fresh wings was no longer a fledge
as she declared she too would make the grade,
have her career, no longer invisible in the shade.

And… now she’s in demand as a speaker of note
with expertise surpassed only by her heart
she leans and listens with wisdom to impart,
life’s struggles and southern roots lend a common touch -
soaked in family love - no need for titles like doctor and such.

What matters matters
it doesn’t matter
that there are so many things
and people that do
including you…

and me.

Contemplation is like fishing.
Often my reason fails me
and I cast out into the waters
hoping I can catch that vital energy
feel its power, its resistance, its strength
that is elusive
but I know is there
and those moments of connection
with that mysterious force
give me energy.
I am alive
so I keep castings into the ocean
knowing the elan is there,
the verve that takes me from my mind
to dance, to move, to swerve
in that moment of now.

Author’s Note: I bow in gratitude to Brian McLaren and Barbara A. Holmes for their wisdom that inspired this poem and kneel in awe and thanksgiving to all the fish I have caught over the years, for the excitement and nourishment – the life they gave me.

It is so easy to leave you
to get lost
in the garbage
fix the sink
watch the cowboys and chiefs
cut the grass, rake the leaves
shop for milk and eggs
exercise my arms and legs
take out the trash
pick up the mail
and a thousand other details.

It’s so easy to leave you
to get lost in the garbage
and before I’m through
we’ve drifted apart
and all I had to do
was sit down and start
to look into your eyes
speak from my heart
listen to you
and hang on your words.

Together take a walk
forget the clock
listen and talk
laugh a bit
maybe even cry
just you and I.

And before long
there we are again
we made it
that’s all we had to do
just be
me and you.

It’s just too late
foes on the verge of a trounce
fate is surely defeat.
Is there one more ounce
of hope, of effort
one more cup of fire in the whole
to eek out a victory?

It’s too late
to turn back now
you’re too far gone
your past hangs on your ankles
like rusty chains
the ruts in your road too deep
to swerve
to curve
off and out onto smooth.

Besides, you’re too old,
too set in your ways
to change now.
It’s too late baby
It’s too late.
When you were two
it happened to you
the stage was set
too bad my boy.

But I take a deep breath
look up
smile at my supposed fate
determined…
now is my moment
to step into brilliance.

I was caught up in the usual daily wrangle
for my attention among the images and stories
on my phone and the computer’s tangled
tries for some small measure of life’s glories.

Then I looked up from the bright screen
and saw the long elegant leaf lit by the sun.
The tributaries of its mysterious green
softened and focused me from many to one.

I lost my crazy mind in this living blade
and found this poem waiting there for me
in the simple power of its now where I stayed
for a tender eternal moment in its joyous jade sea.

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.

Translucent and
undeserved mercy
streams into me
humbling me like giant sequoias
who draw my eyes to the heavens!

In the crazy busyness of the day
where electric sounds suffuse,
even a little chat is often a freeway
of words and noise.

And in the midst, he tells me
“Just be yourself.”
There I am
in the small space of silence
being undone
with nothing to say
while I wonder
what self.

A friend tells me they’re getting a divorce.
The doctor says the tests are positive.
I watch: the surge of floods taking homes and lives
or images of smoke and debris right after a bombing.
After a real serious play or movie.
In the waiting room after I hear she is going to die.

In those lonely tiny spaces
of darkness
I cannot speak.

In those aftermath moments
I am silenced.

How do I react
to being out of control
or make these things normal
or fit them into my routine ways of being me?

Silence asserts itself
like a wild animal
I cannot tame.

At these intervals
of being powerless
I hope I do not miss the chance
to humbly bow
in silence
and embrace my humanity
and smallness
in the cosmos
where it is utterly trivial
to just be my self.

Justice, justice
You lay sweetly upon our souls
this morning
after the turmoil.
I wish you were not so rare a visitor.

The music plays its dirgelike tune
repeating it repeating repeating
until it is painful to keep listening,
lonely in its dreary tedium.

I am not sure whether to call this
an ache
or a yearning.

Being enclosed here in this seemingly endless loop
makes me want to jump out of it
onto the ship wreckage floating by me
to find a place with more life and lift
a field of clover and daisies
bees buzzing about the tasks of their short lives.

You alchemist  turning grayslate days
into luminescent jade

You tempestuous temptress
with voice of thunder and lightning eyes

Your skin sparkles sun and stars
painting peace on our scars

We swim in your moon
trembling in your silver ******

We sleep beside you by night
your abundance sates our days

We dash and flash and storm
you caress and touch and transform

The wisdom of your vastness
reaches us in waves

Oh you liquid goddess
leap into our souls

and make us whole  

Written - 5-24-2003

Lightly my fingers rest on the letters
hoping to coax  out of them
a lyric or a prayer to end this day.
I love these letters
who open the universe,
who touch the cheek of God
and fall here like shooting stars
or small planets
for you to see.

I miss a stone and step into the shallow stream
like a child hoping for an adventure
from his misstep into the clear water
where he can fall into the sky
and ride a cloud to Odessa
Pikes Peak or north to the Cascades.

I remember when the soles of my feet
were calloused from running across lawns
sidewalks and streets to play
ball or adventure into the nearby field
where we fashioned a fort our of tall sticky ****
and made up rules for initiation into our club.

What a life I find in these letters
who surrender to my touch so easily
what a symphony to match the music of Mahler
coming across the net falling here into my ears
like undeserved grace.

Cut your stress and tension in half
do something to get a good laugh
it’s too easy to let duties and tasks
rob us of joy
reach inside and find that little boy
or little girl and let her wiggle
till she erupts with a giggle
leave the adult back home
get out and roam
and roll in the grass
run with abandon
if only in your mind
there’ll be lots of time
to get back to the grind
take off a few hours or a day
and let yourself lurch into play.

I am alive
yet so small
almost nothing
I am a leaf on a great oak
whose roots reach into the cosmos.

Maybe if I take the leap of faith
that you will jump into the stream with me
I will enjoy the swim.

The winds and bright dying
of the leaves of fall
have brushed away the turning season
into the callous cold of winter
leaving behind a brown texture
of oak and pecan
scattered on the still green lawn
where they rest humbly,
their identity as living species
shriveling into the fog of memory.

I wonder what I can learn
from those leaves and the trees
who gently let go of all the little lives
and lay them on the ground
first to decay and then transform
from drying aching olding  
into a mysterious unfolding.

She was never that close to her mama
who wished her kids independent
but there was the day mama taught her to drive
out in the field where the only thing to hit
was the single large oak in the middle of the pasture.

The old stick shift was a challenge
requiring all the coordination of legs and arms
the teenager could muster.
Then mama left her alone there to practice
and she was glad being by herself,
the intimacy of learning to drive with mama made her uneasy.

Being sixteen and able to drive
a turning point for her
able now to get away from home
to find boys with her friend gave them a thrill -
adulthood’s first stirrings.

They searched for dance halls
where Cajun musicians played
fiddles, accordions and washboards
and she danced the two-step
and boys showed off their moves.

Her mama gave her a rite of passage
with those driving lessons
cut her loose into a wider world
where she would go to India
have her first baby
and practice loving her children
into their own adulthood.

On the edge of the cliff above me
***** rusty barrels loom
full of pollutants
detritus massed
from the darkness
of my errors
poor decisions
momentary failures to recall
and then act on the ideals
I rely on to inspire and move me.

Here I am at dawn
on the brink of a new day
full of possibilities
laughter, tenderness, listening and lingering
here I am at a moment of genesis

IF

I have the sense
and shameless audacity
to simply notice and accept those looming barrels
and their polluted contents
as yesterdays
and leave them there.

There it is, first light! The debut of dawn
another first - soft rays of a new day
fresh dew settling, cooling the lawn
the dew and irrepressible light make way
to this browning patch of earth
another prelude in my eyes
a gentle affirmation of life’s worth
in this glistening silver sunrise.

This freshness prods my lethargy
and is easy for me to take
but do I have the kind of energy
to allow a love without break
unconditional and pure
I wonder if I have it in me
to let such a love endure
to settle into me like dew - light and free.

Dear friends many of you have moved
from surroundings I knew and loved with you
but my memories of us have not defused
like clouds hanging dark but always new.

In old age it is the memories that flow
and make you present with hearts beating wildly
times we drank beer decrying the status quo
and when we celebrated little things like being Friday.

We celebrated a lot when life was so full
alive with discoveries, conflicts, and diversity
when our desires and thoughts pushed and pulled
and we felt pain and hope in multiplicity.

But now so many of you are gone
to places unknown: some to you and some to me
and together we won’t know joys of new dawns
we will deal with things like that **** aching knee.

For some of you your children are grown
for me poetry, love, and God enliven and wake me up
but nobody can take from me the bonds I have known
bonds cast with you in sharing, caring, and lifting life’s cup.

In long moments in a waiting room
trying to ignore the next challenge of my body
I’ll be grateful. I’ll not dwell in spaces of doom
I’ll remember those times of being good or naughty.

I’ll visit the rooms and the halls
where we gathered to learn and teach
in those precious moments of my recall
I’ll gather you together for the universes we’ve yet to reach.

Written 6-30-18

hummingbird ***** up
nectar swallowing in gulps
Life awaits my gulp

I looked out over
the peninsula of ice
reaching out into the rippling lake,
unsettled as I.
Snow covered peaks on the horizon
like clouds,
dreams and ideals melted
in decades poured out
in earnest labor.

The tall gaunt preacher
stood stoop-shouldered
his black hat barely gripped
in his hand held against his left leg
his face sad, eyes cast down
as if to discern what had gone wrong.

The rusted out bike
tires flattened, lay on bricks discarded
from an old church
with a cast iron cross
aching and alienated.

A once sparkling life
may seem barely more than refuge
but a soul stirs
still beaming,
a lighthouse
on the sea
crashing against the rocky shoal.

I feel it creeping up on the outer margins of me
like one cloud trying to overtake another
or dusk draping itself onto an old oak,
a dream trying to invade the probable.

Uncertainty seems like home to me
because when I think I have the truth
I find my way back home
where I can be the dismembered me
and grace seeps into the interstices of my mind
reflecting light in the puddles collecting there.

Doubt seems a dangerous companion
but I take its hand and pull it along with me
because it awakens me from my dusky comfort
and beckons me to the sparkling lagoon of inquiry.

Uncertainty is a favorite cousin
who on occasion texts me
with a pithy Punjab proverb
revealing a mystery worth chasing
to the dark side of the moon.