What does infinite longing
sound like?
Where is the vault that holds
the seed corn of sadness?
And how can we mute our fear
when the barred owls in these
dank woods sob in perfect
sympathy
with the night?

Here
the tense oboes find their range
silence pervades their thoughts
the drum marks a beat
while the string section weaves
a hieroglyph of grief
and resignation.

This symphony is called
the song of the night
and night proves to be
full of whispered life
rustling leaves
and the courage to face it.

But night is not synonymous
with darkness.
Its ways and means
harmonize with the light
render half the whole
parcel our sleeping hours
into dreams
and fitful moments
beneath the staring moon.

In the morning
a plaintive bird song
stirs thought
brings the sun into the east
and wraps night's dreams into
a silk handkerchief
where dreams are tightly bound
and forgotten.

The melodious thunk
of Thelonious Monk.
Nobody ever played
the piano that way
before or since
nobody ever imagined music
that way
before or since.

It took a while
for the audience to get it.
Longer for the critics.

And the Poor Man -
all he wanted was a
hit record.

His wayward mind
took him in difficult directions.
Left him with flint on his tongue
a fever on his brain.
No matter to the music, though.

So take it any way you like -
straight, no chaser.
Or after midnight.
Doesn't matter
the time and place
the drinks they're serving.

Not in this smoky little club  
practically sitting with the band.
Know what I mean?
Music like this
might once have been heard
on a planet
spinning in some wild ellipse around
Alpha Centauri.
But never here.
Never now.

So sit back and enjoy!
That's what I'm doing -
swinging slowly.
Join me, friends.

Book your flight to
my home town.
Bring your seven-cornered syncopation hat,
your saxophone or any other
musical instruments you possess.
You can sleep in a tent
beneath the fir trees
in my backyard
once the guest room is full.

And together
we can search for
the mystic connections
between interstellar music
poetry
truth
and love.

I saw her softly combing her chestnut hair
Each motion like parting smooth ocean waves.
I had to know her and how she behaves.
Yet my heart filled with terrible despair.

My friends told me to turn back,
but I braved the restless sea.
I seem to have a knack,
For finding any key.

I found her reading my favorite book.
She was delighted to know I knew it.
Nothing was more obscure than our love,
for a writer more obscure than his peers.

I dreamed of her every night
her passions warm
our victory right;
in either
dorm.

Every meeting with her I carried
my fantasies: a shell eclipsing the
very truth I failed to see, or so they
said of my nights' shameful proclivities.

We shared our hearts like pastries,
devouring one another's
thoughts until we
knew the taste
by rote.

Of course, we were so engorged upon the
fictions of our authored lives that something
had to be real; had to be tangible
beyond mere spooling tales wagging to tune.

Ignited like a forest fire was the lust coursing through us and
in gleaming moonlit fits of ravenous lips and tender bits
our bodies danced in only so many ways two
chiming instruments can rattle the soul
knocking and injecting essences
to quench the flame that
can never ever be
quenched...

Oh, Lord!

I lay there breathing wishing to die in
the moment I knew I loved her that I
may immortalize the knowledge thusly
ending potential doubt and teeming lies.

A month later, we were still burning and
alive and burning alive but we don't
threaten our haven, we just consider
ourselves lost in a wonderland of ***.

Then a man, a few years my senior came,
and he wanted words, he felt entitled.
He felt entitled to her, her mind, her
body, her genius, her love and her ***.

A month later, at a bar back at home,
I saw it all too clear and regretted
ever knowing her, ever loving her
every succumbing to the ***: that drug.

She's somewhere now, loving him, because he was entitled;
his name was on her history, in her language, on her
books, in her mind, on her, in her, every time
I thought it was just me, he was there
dancing with her, holding her
my hand was a ghost
all along.

My darling portends the end of an era,
but my life began with her and that soft kiss.
My darling portends a life of searching for,
cure to a heartbreak that mends with further pain.

My wife won't stop
writing poetry
it pours forth
rich in imagery
nuanced in tone
brilliant
inspired
every line loved into existence
tucked gently into bed each night
and called into service
the next morning.

Whereas
my words are meager
meek
brittle and contrived
words that push a barrel
of horseshit
toward the setting sun
No hope of ever getting there.

Why do I try?
It's really a bit sad
numero dos is my destiny
in this poetic liaison
I am forever the dunce
in poetry school.

But my teacher is a babe
a truly hot number
so I'll continue to sit at the back
of the class
try to follow the lessons
and hope against hope
she says a kind word.

The bones of this earth
grind down our fates
our hopes
our dreams
our lives

And a feathered serpent rules
over these climes
this western hemisphere
these Americas
have you heard?

Something elemental shapes this
world
and tempers our lives.
Unknown to most.

The old ones
the people who lived here before
knew him

Quetzalcoatl
Kukulkan
God of learning
Wearer of the wind jewel
the one who whispers life
and death
through his lips.
And you must drink it.
Alive or dead.

The morning star is his sign.
The evening star
his farewell.

He carries the sun
as a shield
and your fate
your fortune
as a good luck charm.

Listen and look.
You will see
You will hear it.

Whispers like water
from the heart
the skin
the bones of this sweet earth.

Listen.
You will hear it.

Forty-eight floors up, a God’s-eye view

a man practices tai-chi on a tired patch of grass
he is measured, beautiful

families rest under new-green trees
in Yoyogi Park this early spring Sunday

Mt. Fuji rises like a myth, fading
to illusion in the gathering smog.



                                                            A few inches can be an impossible sea

                                                            we sit, silently contemplating discord
                                                            and the meaningless reasons for it

                                                            cherry trees paint the city pink
                                                            while faded petals cyclone at our feet

                                                            tears, fleeting as sakura
                                                            bloom and fall.

Lucid dreaming is the doorway
        to the unconscious.
So dream.
Do not stay closed
        behind cement barricades
        blocking the moon
        from shining.
Live.
Each second is for you.
The tumbling of life
         does not promise
            anything.
In one breath
you can have
        a time table
        handed to you.
A distinct framework
        of how much
        longer you shall be.
Stay in illusion.
Keep in mind
that very little
is worthy of
being screamed about.
Politics
        and
people games
        are not
         the substance
        of existing.
Picture colourful images
         that flutter
          playfully
            across the
           mental horizon.
A traffic light
      will
       blink
red, yellow, green.
A noise
        will dominate
         the shading sky.
These mean nothing.
Moments of distraction
        soon
         gone away.
Focus on fantasy.
Allow yourself
the freedom to
         celebrate
        the essence
        of harmony.
When you die,
       it will be
         your dreams
         that are
          remembered.
Breathe.
It's just
      a bad day,
      not a bad life.