Some people change their
colors and fall away; a
few are evergreen.

Hard to say
where it begins.
A snowflake,
a step,
a voice...
too soft,
too small
for most
to notice.
One memory
cascades gently into
another, tumbling visions,
recherches du temps passe.
Gaining mass and momentum,
they still look beautiful and innocuous
from a distance, until you observe the trees
and boulders swept up into the blinding current

and it's upon you

and it fills your eyes your lungs
with suffocating whiteness
tossed about head over elbow
muffled tears on the desk

and if you're lucky

when the onslaught stops
you can dig out an air pocket
take a breath
burrow to the surface
and go on with your day.

Did not realize
how desperately my poet
wanted to be read.

Dilemma becomes:
Do I write now to be read,
or to say something?

A drunken ould sot named O'Reilly
Drank a bottle he thought of most highly.
On his way to the well,
He stumbled and fell,
And was hoist upon his own shilleilly.

Birthday wishes bloom
on Facebook; friendship's fragrance
will last all year long.

Two blots on the bar,
and double-sixes
my only hope
on an otherwise
closed board.
The back game
has become end game,
and I've doubled
and re-doubled
so the last few rolls
mean too much.
I must run for
the home board.
No time left to
leave any more blots
uncovered,
and the game is
no longer mine
to win.
All I ask
is enough throws
of the dice
to take
as many counters
as I can with me
before the match
is over.

When I was ten, I met a man who sailed the ocean far;
he came across from England with his suitcase and guitar.
He dug graves for a living, but no man was more alive.
His creed: to live, while others just survive.

Old Ben, he was a wanderer who roamed this country 'round
and wove his tales of travel into tapestries of sound.
The tune I borrowed from a song I loved to hear him play;
the words I wrote for Ben one yesterday.

Ben, ye bleedin' Briton, it's been many, many years
since your singing and your picking of the blues has reached my ears.
He dug graves for a living, but no man was more alive.
His creed: to live, while others just survive.

His music whispered magic with its pain and with its joy
and gently cast a spell upon this fourteen-year-old boy.
But as my life was starting, I saw Ben's life start to sour,
and watched him age a year for every hour.

It's hopeless and it's helpless when you just can't understand
how the bottle Ben was draining drained the magic of his hand.
When his voice took to creaking like an ancient barn-door hinge,
he took off on a desperation binge.

Ben, ye bleedin' Briton, it's been many, many years
since your singing and your picking of the blues has reached my ears.
You dug graves for a living, but no man was more alive.
Your creed: to live, while others just survive.

Some say you're in Nashville; others say you're in L.A.,
but if these words should find you, may they find that you're OK.
The tune I borrowed from a song I loved to hear you play;
the words I wrote for you one yesterday.

Ben, ye bleedin' Briton, it's been many, many years
since your singing and your picking of the blues has reached my ears.
You dug graves for a living, but no man was more alive.
Your creed to live...I hope it's still alive.

She pulls out a box of CD's;
says name your poison.
Cobalt-60 will do.

Bare Naked Ladies will be
the band du jour.
I lie on the slab
in the radiation lab...
yes i'm...lying in bed...
like brian wilson diiiid....

I'm wearing my spandex jacket
(where's Donald Fagan
when you need him?).

As LeAnn wraps the
velcro-ed elastic band
around me to bind my arms,
I mention that I miss
the good old days
of canvas
and leather straps.
i'm so sane
it's driving me crazy....

Time stops

I'm motionless

engage mind wander

it's so dangerous
you have to sign a waiver...
embossed positive
and negative
on the massive metal arm
the pluses and minuses
of shooting a carcinogen
at a spot of death
to save my life
*if there's someone you can live without...
then do so....

A boning knife was found behind the bed
to keep my older brother's hands at bay.
The words would not be heard, so none were said.

The little brother, trying to hide, played dead
beneath her blankets in a certain way;
a boning knife was found behind her bed.

She didn't fight me off before, instead
she let me, never spoke about my play.
The words would not be heard, so none were said.

The father, puking till his eyes were red:
"When I come to, there will be hell to pay."
A boning knife was found behind her bed.

He came out, knife in hand.  To her, I pled,
"Momma, please...".  Her look caused me to stay;
the words would not be heard, so none were said.

My daughter's plea was ringing in my head;
my father's hands still linger to this day.
A boning knife was found behind her bed,
the words would not be heard, so none were said.

The louvers of the
windows to my heart are shut
to the storm of love.

Light tread, heavy heart;
bears are the realm of spirit
in physical world.
The bridge they are carries weight;
a responsibility.

General Tso, rice,
shrimp eggroll, two potstickers,
*** of jasmine tea.

The note you left was short not sweet,
you barely said goodbye;
then moved across the country
with that rich, good-looking guy.
You come back knocking at my door,
you're tattered and you're torn;
you made your bed of roses...
now go sleep upon the thorns.

Why is it
when I drink Coke,
I get dysPepsia?

I once worked the sign
at the intersection
of Facebook and HelloPoetry.
All those years when
secure in my job,
flush with cash,
I'd not meet the eyes
of those who muttered
"thank you, sir"
on those rare occasions
when a crumpled dollar
fell from my hand into theirs.
So I now tell on myself
to bleed the shame
from the arrogance,
never knowing the courage
it takes to look the privileged
in the eyes and ask for help
until I stood on the corner
clothed only in my naked need.

if any
one
were to be
no
    thing,
then every
one
would be
(supreme)ly
being.

The spice and sauce
of ****** urge
has lost most
of it's flavor;
gnawing on bones
and gristle
of survival
more satisfying,

Be of good spirit, child, and carry light
upon this wondrous, worn and weary world.
Seek wisdom, search for what is true and right.

For those around you may not have the sight
to see this precious gift of life unfurled;
be of good spirit, child, and carry light.

You will encounter thoughts divine and trite;
philosophies to set your mind a-whirl.
Seek wisdom; search for what is true and right.

The days will come that seem like endless night
with sharpened consequence unfairly hurled.
Be of good spirit, child, and carry light.

A man who lived in darkness, fear and fright
in foetal crouch took ages to uncurl,
seek wisdom, search for what is true and right.

I may not be around to see the height
you'll reach as you climb past me, darling girl.
Be of good spirit, child, and carry light;
seek wisdom, search for what is true and right.

The hands are laid,
the light has blazed
and scales tumble
from oblivious eyes.
Believe
it or not,
the thousand-mile journey
still awaits
your first trembling step.
Vision?
If you can see
where your foot goes next,
that is enough.
Faith shuts the door behind,
trust leads you forward;
pray for the guidance
and willingness to follow.
Along the path
are placid pools of conscience;
points of depth and reflection,
murky darkness beneath
brilliant image.
Neither surface nor submerged
alone will save you
from the torture
of unfinished awareness.
Look into the eyes of both;
their wise, sad gaze back
will tell you that the 
thousand miles
are a lie.
"To know, and not to do
Is not to know."
Always more to know;
always more to do.

On hold half an hour;
bathroom break costs spot in queue.
Service is ****-poor.

Names and faces, poems
and messages from old friends
soothe a lonely heart.

Having been a stray myself

I seem to attract them.

The table holds the tokens of your love;
a card, a present.  Simple things, and still
I don't know how you keep on finding time

to work, to care for parents, and yet have time
for showing me the warm, unbounded love
that strikes me silent, wonder-filled and still.

The hours you're gone, the house is quiet, still;
my heart the ticking watch in measured time.
I'm thirsting for a droplet of your love;

love concentrated by the still of time.

May I present the envoy from the great state of Anhedonia.

You are light itself;
you are blessed, you are blessing.
Peace always with you.

You are light itself;
you are blessed, you are blessing.
Peace always with you.

In spite of seeking,
struck dumb by immensity
of my ignorance.

Fields full of spring;
mea maxima tulpa.
April in Holland.

Let's see...Mom died in
oh-three; nuclear family
reached critical mass.

Spirit's everywhere:
wind, cut through me, cleansing me;
sun, blind my ego;
earth, absorb, accept my wrongs;
water, carry me, reborn.

My dreams have always
been writer's dreams: colorful,
vivid, ironic,

visionary and
heavy with foreshadowing.
My early twenties

a sodden nightmare,
drinking away love, children,
family and home.

In dream of chaos,
Spirit I had not yet met
led me down the Way

I had been choosing;
brought me to its granite-cold
game-over ending.

Read my name, saw the
year of birth, but was taken
before I could read

the full final year.
But it began with nineteen.
Waking, shivering,

I could still feel the
achingly frigid tombstone
beneath trembling hands.

Despite the warning,
I carried on as I had,
fearing, ignoring

my destination.
Time was too short in my life
to be concerned with

anything except
living as I ****** well wanted.
Kept suffering deep

and often, wondered
about those friends who shook their heads
at me, and kept theirs.

Came the day when the
wonderful awareness awoke
the Spirit in me

to receive the love
the Universe had flooded,
floated, immersed me

in my entire life,
as I slaked my thirst other
ways. I drank my fill

of freshened water,
the first of many rebirths.
Pulled to solid ground,

slowly by slowly
I stood on my own again,
learning how to live

as the child I was,
adult in years, juvenile
in thought and action.

Sixteen years along
my journey brought me to a
terrifying day:

The thirty-first of 
December, modern era
nineteen ninety-nine.

I went home early,
away from Amateur Night
revelers driving,

and locked myself in,
calling friends and asking them
to call tomorrow.

I watched the ball drop
for the first time in many years...
and cried like a fool.

My Way is not yours,
and can never be.  My time
since is borrowed time;

I sign off on the
loan every morning I'm here.
Eastern spirit has

burnished my tarnished
soul, shining not removing
the dents and scratches

it's picked up during
the trip. Why Oriental
forms? You might have guessed.


Why write of Spirit
and of flesh?  Both are with me
as I carry on.

I must share borrowed
time for it to have meaning.
Blessed I am, having
found a place, a peaceful spot
and people with which to share.

Time's a passage that will narrow
as it's traveled; clashing rocks of
past and future crush the marrow
from the present.  Nagging clocks will
count each second of the numbered
days that still remain, and sound the
buzzer rousing those who slumber.
Those unwary fools who founder
on the unseen reefs of time have
never noticed how the hours will
quicken, forced through finite lives to
frothing waves, then crest and still.

A refilled flask of
creativity; open
it, it needs to breathe.

Tops out at six foot six,
long and thin,
perfect frame.
His ladies' fingers
create exceptional lift.
Has a mallow disposition.
His real name
is Abel Moschus,
but you can call him Red.
Best in a team situation;
he's the glue that holds
everyone together,
thick as thieves.
In individual competition,
though,
he wilts under high heat,
and his guts
turn to jelly.

I'm shutting up for
a while now; the well is dry
and needs refilling.

My heart aches for a
single evening's solitude;
family crashes
in, pieces of peace of mind
scattered across a week's time.

My focus shattered into fractals
without kaleidoscopic sense.
No sensual words, no image tactile
having meaning two days hence.

Would I could live by
what I write and what I see
each minute, each day.

I leave you
the love I have
found along
the wandering;
I leave you
the peace
of heart and mind
you have planted;
I leave my
gratitude
for all that you are;
as I leave you
alone.

a long cold
forbidding night
the world
crackles
beneath
echoing steps
the frozen snow
squeals underfoot
shivering
lost
alone
seeking what shelter
can't be found
ready to sit
sleep
surrender

a whiff of
wood-fire
a flicker
barely seen
spark of hope
closer
warmer

a clearing
small band
of kindled
kindred souls
the light
and heat of
warm words
thawing
icy heart
a hot cuppa
soothing
a place to rest
surrounded
by those
who saved
their own lives
cleared space
gathered wood
piled what little
they had left
and lit the
last match they had

Jonesing words, no time...
boss coming back, thank Spirit
for senryu mainline.

What sort of spirit blesses humankind
with sights of splendid beauty every day,
while understanding most will pay no mind;
their eyes fixated on survival's way?

What gentle goodness graces humankind
as we build monolithic concrete wrongs?
In unused space, trees, birds come, unassigned,
forgiving us with nature's quiet songs.

What kind of kindness cradles humankind
in spite of spiteful evils that we do
each other; sends us beings more refined
than we, the saints unsung just passing through?

The sort of spirit, goodness, love dispersed
when poems are cast upon the universe.

When days will pass without a written word
or weeks go by and no responses read,
don't think that any interest is dead.
It usually means that life itself has lured
me with a hefty chunk of "in the now",
and set the hidden hook deep in my jaw,
the friction of avoidance rubbing raw
my better nature.  Losing sight of how
acceptance ends the struggle, swimming hard
against the current wears me paper-thin.
Exhausted, humbled, docile, being reeled in,
the battle ends.  Surrender's healing starts;
a loving hand removes the hook and sets
me on my way, no strings and no regrets.

Some people are
insightful; many others
merely inciteful.

to look inside
even the most
even-handed among us
and bring light
to the darkest spaces
where the brothers
fear and anger
still reside

You might have picked an easy man to love;
a man extravagant with praise, effusive
with romance. Instead, you found a recluse,
a misanthrope whose heart is loath to move.
My love for you a shiny copper coin,
uncirculated, minted fresh each day;
the effort to produce far and away
exceeding its face value.  Even knowing
what small change my passion's purse will carry,
your wishing well stays waiting, wanting, open
for what pennies, salted tears I spare.
A scanty promise made: no matter where we
find ourselves, I'll wake, create my token,
drop it in, and wish for more to share.

Do you really mean
there is a lack of response-
ability in
our culture?  I don't think so.
The ability is there.

In eyes of the young,
with every gray hair I fade,
insignificant.

Each fear is a dove,
a homing pigeon released
in care of Spirit,

s  p  r  e  a  d  i  n  g out
poured viscousmelting into
(howslowly)
                  an after-noon
Friday notpassing
your buzz hovering
gathering time from
every
        flowering
                      moment
to meld with my
langourous liquid
honey-sweet and suspended
resisting flow
and (sundrifting
                       downdown)
darkness strengthens
defines sharpening curves
and shadows leading
                             (downdown)
into your
sweet
         ohh
                honey....