I barely went to school
And was baptized underneath a rain gutter
But I promise
Despite my upbringing
I will die a poet

Birds never studied music
Nature never rough drafted its deformations
Including me
I was born perfectly broken
With heart in throat
And head in clouds
And head in ****

And head

Head everywhere else but center
Hands anywhere but to myself

I dare you to stop pumping fuel
Into my mouth’s motor
Dare you to make fun of me
For my special education
For my short bus
******
My education was special

I learned to walk on two feet
When I should have had four
And I learned
How to stop myself from crying
When I found out not everyone is going to love me

I’ve learned the language
Of your laughter
And can translate your sighs
To mean anything
Right now they are the exhalation of ghosts
You no longer wish to hold on to

Let them go
Let go of your ghosts
And don’t settle for anything less
Than the silence of your soul
As it leaves you
Take this poem with you when you do
It is a love note
Sending Saint Peter home

All are welcome here

Especially you

I mean
Nobody’s perfect
Especially poets
I’m not perfect
Which is perfect
Because that means
I can die
A poet

just a sliver of silver
the orb's bright edge
peeking out behind a dull gray silhouette
falling to the horizon
in line with L. A.'s flight path
the darkness came early tonight
will the stars come out
in the moonlessness?

once laid my back in pitch black
on the sand at the Salton Sea
sky gazing
excitment stole my sleep
as eye witnessed the galaxy
is it an illusion
like water in the desert
or are the stars so numerous they appear milky?

I look for him in winter
three close stars in a straight line
Orion watches over scorpions and dogs
I follow the Big Dipper
pointing to the North Star
sky's center
the mother of all constellations
they encircle her
each telling her their stories in turn
the Ancients looked up and listened
transcribing what they thought they heard

now-a-days
with science preferred to mythology
and exact measurements to imagination
the stars twinkle silently
mocking us in mute mystery
and unshared secrets
gaze upward in wonder of the tales they hold
paying homage to their beauty and tranquility
listen carefully and patiently for their whispers
you may still hear a story or two
as they teach us to dream

He wears lots of light blue and close to gray
so young I wonder where does he come by
such tender knowledge with King Kong depth
I fantasize;

Here I am in his world
and my hands are on his shoulders as he writes
Stolen knowing
(must be lifetimes before, how could it be otherwise?)
I see the mist that circulates and falls like dust
dancing round the light
filling up the room we share
and I take the temperature from his body
as he makes love to me where inside his mind
already brewing
a becoming
of a thousand different ways to express
his heady stroke of my skin and darling wet flower

Books spewed (so many) about
are dog eared
all the greats are here
and a few I must purchase oneday

He is contained and unsure just because he is
young
but his heart beats like a grand scale of octave notes
who’s perfection between pitch
sirens those who want to feel his world
(like I do)

Lounged and laid back, surprising shapes of figs appear
In this… my own version of the best lover for me

Figs, pear shaped and small and dark purple
All ripe with my desire

I love his smile

It’s mine in this scenario
the parting of his mouth is like kings table
desserts
endless like his words; delectable, pungent, foreboding
far reaching
Sometimes un-intelligible for a less than writer like me.

But that’s why I wrote this,
It’s still delicious to find power in flesh and word.
I’ve simply fallen.

Linaji 2011

noble soul with eyes downcast
digs in dirt for his repast
seeks he there but does not find
nourishment to ease his mind

noble soul in dross obscured
tarnish he has long inured
mirror must be cleaned to shine,
reflect the rays of love divine


--bruised orange

After all this time, the rain has come again
soybeans bursting in the pod, dry brown fields.
The lake as low as it has ever been
clouds pass, thin wisps, withholding all they wield.

We too have dried, mere husks, once plangent
await cadences, intimacy's desires.
A chair rests on a deck, first child's salient
artifact of family life once resonant.

Not first love, but founded in maturity
enough, perhaps, to defy time's ravages.
Embarked with proclaimed mutual surety
to weather all a life's uncertain passages.

But, for now, we tender loves rebuff
and find the rain must prove to be enough.

Two of my Zen friends
who, at the time,
I thought were some kind
of Zen enemies,
seemed to condemn me
to a soap opera
of eternal cookies
and the sound of lawnmowers,
and it took me
forty-some years
to understand this koan,
and the suburban heaven
that I was condemned to,
where instead of a life
in the forest
with snakes and mosquitos,
or a life in the city
with rats and roaches,
I was given
a life in this quiet, rich suburb
with an air-conditioned summer
and a toasty warm winter,
so that surrealistic understanding
of cookie and lawnmower hell,
turned into everyday Nirvana.

You’re going to be fine.
?
I am, see?
.
You will. I came to tell you stuff. Listening?
.
Jumble sale shoes. I know you’ve got acrylics somewhere. Paint them.
?
The shoes. Flowers and dragons like you draw up your arms. They’re really good by the way. No one in school draws like you.
.
We are. You just have to be good-different. Stop hiding the whole time. Everyone loves your drawing.
.
We still like painting, reading…
?
It’ll happen when you’re 11. The letters un-jumble and it makes sense.
!
Honestly.
.
And at Christmas- tell Mum it’s your idea: Keeping him away from the ***** makes him cross- no point. Give him a drink as early as possible. By noon he’s unconscious and you put him to bed. Looks like he hit his head real hard but he woke up.
?
It’s OK. He doesn’t remember a thing. Works every year.
.
Stuff heals. It gets better. Everything. Life is excellent. People say you’re pretty, won’t believe it but you are. And we live on a good street in a warm house by the sea.
!
Honestly, cross my heart.
.
There’s one last thing. Listening?
.
Learn to laugh silently, no sound what so ever. I know you can’t imagine it- but she gets her revenge and it’s going to be funny. Takes years. You must play along or it won‘t work. So laugh silently.
?
Just one example then: Do you go to the car-boot sales yet?
.
On a Sunday in June, only 7AM but it’s so hot! She spots a koi carp in the road.
?
Like a giant goldfish. This one was huge. Probably dropped by a heron or something.
.
She moves it onto the verge and keeps walking. It's still there at 1.30. Been baking up on that verge all morning in full sun. Smothered in ants, horrible.
.
She wraps it in a Tesco bag and a bin liner- it stinks. As soon as you get in she starts frying onions, making pastry, white sauce. Dad eats fish pie for supper.
?
She made us a separate one.
.

Sad, beautiful days
Embrace me, from some stranger land
Than told to truth, beneath a ******'s moon.

I must go there to unfold the dawn-
Quickly; before the moon's shadows can find
The red radar beam, that's behind our eyes.

Now longing owns the temporal shell;
There's one name, one lone figure
As distant as the blinking stars.

A gesture may have to speak our words for us;
Or sometimes, only an expression;
Or just the direction we happen to be facing.

In a wider arc, I sense your being
Big as the ocean, deeper than sky;
Your tears the diamonds, questioning why?

Give to me your softer hands,
That sorrow's flames could never bear;
Somewhere above the spreading sun

In waves of peace, I'll find you there.

The indifference of paper kaleidoscopes
touches the afternoon's stained glass.

Scattered bubbles of blood
repeat the vaporous names of rocks.

The world itself wavers between
straying syllables of books.

A blank moment arrives
staring at secrets made visible.

All day is the stillness of
unchanging light around the temple.

Between 'come' and 'go'
the same motionless theater of rest.

Time gobbles up
the elusively throbbing reflections.

Myself the ghostly transparency
made of circular-turning glass.