words ultimately fail
hard for a poet to say

I wish and write and wonder
darling Wendy knows which Way

but then again depression
alone in silence I sadly pray

can’t now reach the beach
dreams with feet of clay

such beauty in this word
though ugliness too holds sway

twilight is my bluetrue
green now dawns the day

brown brings forth the future
purple rain y Cristo Rey

Sometimes I'm an egg
White outside, yellow within
Todd means fox
Thomas means the Twin

I found Japan amazing
Dressed up like a Samurai
Jazz club in Tokyo
A Motherless Child am I

On a boat in Hong Kong harbor
Fireworks above
Karuna is great compassion
I am grateful for Andy Dove

Meditation and water are wedded
I'm married but live alone
I finally told her I want her
I threw a Rolling Stone

There might be alien life
Exoplanets spin
Please judge me gently, kind reader
With my sickness and my sins

              Thich Nhat Hanh
               Not ** Chi Minh

The gun nuts and the Trumpfucks
Freedom to destroy
In Thailand I rode an elephant
Buddhamind? Nitnoy.

Reading of James Madison
2/22/23
Watching the Two Towers
Oxford. Xie Xie ni.

Philosophy at JMU
Learning from Dr. Wiles
San Francisco Zen Center
The Buddha gently smiles

Religion at JMU
Dr. William Thomas
Wagering with Pascal
Help me keep my promise

                  Amen.

I make mistakes
Lady of the Lakes

Help me do what it takes.

How is it we hear the loudest yelps for freedom from the drivers of Negroes? asked Dr. Johnson.

I don't understand these chaps who go around American universities talking about how they write their poems. It's like talking about how you make love to your wife.

Said Philip Larkin.

Riding the DC metro
     Winter 2016
      kakistocracy

I have wasted my years

Said Leonardo.

Leonardo.

She and I
In the Boston church

She and I
In the naked search

Said Anthony Trollope

Said Anthony Trollope.

Cohen to Lorca
Nighttrain to Spain
         L.A. rain

Angelique in All That Jazz
Is she The White Goddess?
           Is She God?

According to G.K. Chesterton.

According to G.K. Chesterton

Anger problems lately
*******, feel to fight
1 red shoe
2 green lights

When I was a child
My Mr. Spock kite
Bernard Lonergan
SJ then Insight

         So I write.

When the English go Catholic
They go deep deep deep

Tolkien and Hopkins
Even Shakespeare does creep

Eliot, Newman
Chesterton too

Westminster Abbey
One Mass for you

Graham Greene in Mexico
A bipolar man

Oxford at twilight
Sting if I can

            Patientia.

Woke up at 1 and wandered
Stayed up till break of dawn

Once I saw five deer
And two newborn fawns

Then one buck in grass
Antlers; sleeping on

Celtic Cross in darkness
Andrew more than Sean

Eliot and Chesterton
       Kensington
            
    colossal genius

The gunfire makes me angry
Here in the USA

I walk along the road
On my knees I pray

All these stupid guns
Please take them away

We need some rationality
Lay lady lay lady lay

the chaos of her mind
      I seek but cannot find
             decay, dismay in Time …

Look not upon my sins
Which are many and easy to see

But look upon my faith
Hidden in silence in Thee

From the puritan/**** dialectic
Help me to break free

                                Amen.

This story of Jesus has really helped us a lot.

Allowed Leo X

white cathedral, green dome
   afternoon without a why
      purple sky, purple sky

An icon for the ages?
No, that's not me.

A geeky former teacher
And a father of sweet three

Took two to see Bob Dylan
He sang in DC

An icon for the ages?
Yes, undoubtedly.

Nietzsche, who declared that God is dead.
But who was buried with a silver Cross.

Cuchulain is illegitimate
Arthur is illegitimate
Gawain is illegitimate
Roland is illegitimate

Possible midnight madness
I threw a Rolling Stone
Not much gadfy gladness
My three now on their own

I'm tired and I'm aching
Songs into the night
Honest, I'm not faking
Buddhamind delight

Bangkok in the twilight
Gorillas in the mist
Tigers in the forest
California kiss

I like San Francisco
Rode the Tokyo train
I saw San Fransokyo
Big Hero 6 my brain

         Animain!

They are going to say I'm crazy
Let them, they don't know

I am beauty crazy
Mad as the mist and snow

Deer at rest tonight
Left and right below

Silent in the grass
I sit. I wai. Ay yay yo.

tonight it happens once again
     maybe music my truest friend
             The Gift is his to lend ...

                      Delia and Rose portend.
                      Wonder how this ends?

Sen and Haku
River play
Spirited Away

american women nearly as bad
as bigoted american men

been to Cambodia once
probably won't get back again

sitting, just sitting,
that is rainy day Zen

Spirited Away
keep on trying, Sen!

I'd like to protect my loved ones
Just by writing a poem

A kind of incantation
They would hear, and I would show 'em

The love that's in my heart
Despite our agony

So they could find a start
On the Road to feeling free

Poems are made of words
Just little marks on pages

I thank my friend Mark
Songs for sons through all ages

I see no virtue in remaining uninformed, said Gandhi.

We did not ask you white people to come here.

Said Crazy Horse

(Who was sane, of course)

According to Franz Kafka.

It's the mid 1980s
I'm in tiny Satellite Beach, Florida
Lifting weights in my garage
And reading C.S. Lewis

As quick as you can say Jack Robinson
I'm intrigued
My first inkling of philosophy, theology
Hey hey UK

Alas, Mr. Lewis,
The terror in the world
Is far far worse
Than the Problem of Pain

Also, Jesus may well
Have been mentally ill
And gay
Broken long before the sky did open

Nevertheless,
Watched Narnia recently
Still like the name Aslan
A magic wardrobe: Try me.

Before me here in Barnes and Noble
(Barnes is alright; but Noble is a real *******)
Before me is your text
English literature in the 16th century.

Literature
Not philosophy
Definitely not theology
This, I surmise, is where you endure.

               The Eagle and the Child
                          Hagia Sophia!

Think you Petrarch
Would have written sonnets all his life

If Laura had been his wife?

Think you Petrarch
Would have written sonnets
All his life
Had Laura been his wife?

J.K. Rowling’s Harry
S.E. Hinton’s Pony
Lois Lowry’s Jonas

Can you see then what they’ve shown us?

Ophir, from where gold and sandalwood and ivory and apes and precious jewels and peacocks came.  Which is mentioned a dozen times in seven different books of the Old Testament.

And which no one has ever discovered the location of.

Pope Joan

Aka John VII
855 - 858

Who died when taken in childbirth
In a papal procession
From St.Peter's to St. John Lateran

marvelous Malahide
little boats, little sons
curious and quainting
am I living in a painting?