Certainly not the intention
Nobody wants this rodeo
Sudden crisis intervention
Apologies to Tokyo

Like most things it started out small
I now feel like Pinocchio
Seems like things ran into a wall
Apologies to Tokyo

Now perhaps we did overfeed
Seems to enjoy finocchio
That doesn't explain the stampede
Apologies to Tokyo


Next time we will take it slower
try use less braggadocio
keep close by a grenade thrower
Apologies to Tokyo

Navel gazing poetry reduction
Set schemes and syllables, are all defined
Words within these set guidelines are confined
automatic, a five point deduction


odd
    nothing really rhymes with
                                 poetry

    poultry?

I
am
   sure
       the
          chickens
       like
      a
     certain
    rhythm
   to
  the
piece

(kind of looks like one)

But in Days of yore, but so goes the tale
Poets would lyric, prose, perhaps, with a lute
But poorly formed rhyme meant pay not in loot
A Homophone, gets you payment, in ale


Momentarily,
The flow is interrupted
By a small Haiku

The point of the piece would be
As anyone could plainly see
without breaking some joints
to win back the points
And not be among the debris

The waiter places the coffee on the table
somehow expressing just how beneath him
the entire exercise has proven
Accomplishing this with just the position of his
body and his lack of a greeting

I am impressed
I add cream and stir

I pick up the cup and peer inside
a swirl within another like a night
filled with stars
Placed above a town with a church steeple
as if to mix the sky
The cup itself now a palate
I could use it, perhaps with a biscotti
to paint my own darkness

I look around and perceive the table and the cafe
in a new way
Gaze too closely and it begins to break apart
There is nothing between the tiny dots
except....
we assume
the ones that look alike, go together
we make the patterns,

the connections don't really exist

The waiter now, despite being made up of a cloud
of independant notes,
still manages somehow
to project ennui and disdain
I continue to be impressed

Paying my bill using notes with shifting faces
I walk down a street created with the brush in my hand

If you are going to write poetry
you want to write something everyday
get into the habit
of finding something to express
Today the challenge is
say something about rain

I could write about driving
a couple of hours right into the teeth
And right at that time, this time of year
when it is getting dark
The headlights are on
but they are not doing very much

The experience of that little tug
The water on the road sends a message
slow down, there is no hurry
All those commercials come to mind
selling you new tires
the ones that hold the road

Then you hit new pavement, construction
they don't have the lines down yet
so it is kind of a guess
you look for those little marks they use
where the lines will be
other people don't find them

The back roads at least you know
just be careful the harvest is still on
that big machinery can track a wall of mud
and drop it right in the middle of the lane
you are currently trying to stay in
and make for a bad few seconds

There is also the element of the ground
the fields are emptying, left cold and wet
the rows are starting to fill with water
it is coming down hard and has been for a while
There is the thought, at least it's not snow
Not yet...but that will come and soon

But this is not new in any way
Everyone, well, anyone who drives
either knows this, or will learn
but really that is not the point
the point is to get home safe, sit down
and write something about rain

What astounding ego
To think I can express
what actually is

Perceive a day

To cut out a small piece
still alive and bleeding
and put it on a page

like some sort of trophy

"Look, see what I did"
what figures to be important
to certain eyes

unobserved, ignorant

some waves take a million years
to crash upon the beach
and flow back out to sea

How does that go.....
How many Moons?

Our own little Lunar stockpile
filling up the pantry now.
...and still

...sometimes you wonder...
worry how I see you.
What my real feelings are.

it is a momentary thing...

and if I could
eliminate all of your doubts
so you never gave it another thought
perfect self-assurance
The very center of confidence

I am not sure I would do it

you would be a very different person

And I wouldn't get to write you poems
to make your fears go away.

It is here
Long breath is needed
Only the Great Ones will reach
The small ones must wait for their return

The Season is coming
The time of New Life
There is a long journey
And the timing must be correct

There has been Death
The Song still rings the World
But there are fewer singing
I remember their Voices

When we go down
We will sing the names of the Great Ones
Those who have passed from the Now
Their echoes will show us the way

Q)
What is consciousness?

A)
An analogy

Walk into an orchard early on a misty morning
The trees have birds and fruit, both growing
You can see a few rows in any direction
The horizon is not visible

The birds are talking among themselves
and to their neighbors, signals exchanged
The same for the trees, messages sent
both through the air and underground

Meanwhile, information is incoming
even from beyond what can be seen
Of course, this has been relayed, perhaps
a number of times, and may in some way be corrupted

In this example that mist never goes away
You never see the entire orchard, no matter
how far you walk, because it is always changing
You cannot understand all the signals

Your perception is always what is just around you
The reality is a much larger thing
mostly unexplored and open to interpretation
Even the wind in the leaves has something to say

has the meaning been found
or found not to be findable?
see what can be done with words

that thought that those metaphors
the things we use to signal something else
are the basis for how we see ourselves

start with some simple rules
build a reality whole cloth
our own personal Genesis

I see you sleeping there
can compare you to a million things
yet not one of them is you

not really, in a real way
if that can even be defined
where I run up against the edge

looking for a sign, something like
the moon rising out at sea
right here, and still so far away

people don' get it
act like they met it
like they can pick it up
trick it up
stick it up

like it's a thing you get to have

Its not something you earn
maybe somethin' you learn

the time is not negotiable

and you can't do it alone
it's not on your phone
and not made out of stone

you can lose it
you do get to chose it

day, after day, after day
and in a way

it becomes a thing on its own

it starts to refine you
how they define you

get to know
that you mean what you say

and the time
the time
it don't rhyme
--------------

no easy way to say it
and not meant to play it
like its somethin' they give you
live you
forgive you

Like it's a thing on a shelf

not a prize that you win
not a toy you can spin

or a result of being sociable

and sometimes you are alone
just a line on the phone
and you are not made out of stone

and you lose it
and you try to choose it

but things seem to get in the way
and in a way

it becomes a symbol on its own

how you define you
how you design you

how you know
that you mean what you say

and the time
the time
it don't rhyme

----------------------

still gotta question it
hearin' me expressin' it
like I know what I'm saying
I'm praying
I'm staying

The one thing I have faith in

I know to give space to
the days we can get through

and we know now its controllable

and not afraid of alone
the years they have shown
it is harder than stone

and we will lose, but not it
and we choose to hold it

and the things that get taken
will not leave us shaken

we have done what we set out to do

you have defined me
and I have defined you

and I know
that you mean what you say


and the time
the time
we made it rhyme

There is always a road,
The sea, dark hair, dolor.

Always a question
Bigger than itself—

They say you’re leaving Monday
Why can’t you leave on Tuesday?


------------------

I got your note
had to look up dolor
you know more words than I do
you are sweet

And yeah,
there are questions
Bigger than all of us
I get that

But
Hanging on another day....
This is hard enough
No point

I'm sorry
If this might seem unkind
I am not going to start lying to you
Now

I know
You won't believe me
I didn't the first time either
It's hard

Look
I'm not immune
I know what that moment was
We danced

But
That is what it was, a moment
The sun comes up
Eventually

A mistake
To try and make it
Something else, than what it is
Never works

Goodbye
I will promise you one thing
I will think of you for a long time
I swear

Blue eyes, wonder. open for the first time
A place, serene, cold water, stars above
Forgiveness, no need to even speak of
a truth, I have found, wrapped up in a rhyme

A stranger, Kindness, an act without fear
The giving done without thought of payment
To walk alone, no thought of containment
A morning, deep fog and a white-tail deer

The chance taken, Lots thrown in league with Fate
Still Lovely as I watch time sculpt your face
A quiet hour, you, in my embrace
The moments pause outside a well-known gate


Cast off, set sail, nothing ahead but sea
The touch, that to this very day, heals me

"There is a wisdom that is Woe........
But there is a Woe that is Madness"
-Moby ****

++++++++
To speak from inside of it is impossible
The words carry layers, just too many to count
References and explanations the obstacle
Terms laden with meaning, impractical to mount

To speak from without would simply be of no use
Layout of the land does not reveal the anguish
To describe it leaves too much for you to deduce
Imagine all the people, no common language

Certainly no shortage of proposed solutions
Entire industry devoted to the thought
The result, one observes, wholly new pollutions
Bottled, put on the shelf and waiting to be bought

Even the most innocent added to the mix
The symbols of childhood given a new context
However, so trite to now offer some new fix
To pretend, needed just a change to a subtext

This will be done, or not, by the patient alone
If history our guide, the result clearly known

There was a moment
it was like what they call deja vu
She was one of those women
I think she worked in a store

Or a laundry, its been a while
Tell you the truth, I didn't care
Listening was never my my thing
Her mind wasn't what I was after

But what I did hear
Seemed like a script, well practised
She claimed she already had a man
But it was like the words were meaningless

And I remembered another one, a while before
Like her but not the same
Saying something roughly similar
And it didn't hit me until later

And when I say later
I mean after the fights and the yelling
After the slammed doors and tears
Just like the times before

Those very available
and yet somehow impossible to reach
Women, that seemed to fill up my life
Found them everywhere I went

That went on for a quite a while
Seems so **** obvious now.
The only excuse I have
I was young

the reversal was shocking
what had started out

(no that's not right
it started long before that
the history in fact went all the way back

to the beginning)

as an explanation
(an expression)
of

(and here is the heart of it)

a simple fear
simply
got the best of him

the reason he had not said it
(and to be truthful
he didn't know this ahead of time)
was
that, finally
made it real

(Once you say it
it cannot be taken back)

And....
it was if the floor fell away

If she hadn't been there
begs the question of what
would have been the bottom

But she was...

All formats out the window
meter and rhyme forgotten
no need for pretty words
How they sound together
is not the point

What I am striving for
is a solid steel rail
of a thought
Something clean and
maybe more than a little cold

Understand, I sympathize
Even I don't want to be reminded
every second of every day
But, truth be told
I sense a real lack of it

And, the thing is
It has its own beauty
It is real
in the sense of that word
that holds actual power

How you perceive this
is your responsibility
It cannot be handed to you
All I can say is go outside
on a clear, dark night


and look up