as my two equal hands make one
in reverence in honor prayer

my left and my right brain do

let's not dwell too much on it
one hand washing the other

simple voice of reason
simple voice of nature

indivisible

at peace
remembering

With lift-off intention I jumped to fly.
I was something like root grounded tree.

Taking flight was so absolutely hard,
though my guru counseled me.

With acquired and studied implements
I tried to cut each holding.

My intellect in truth was rather dull,
though Spirit bolding.

In hieroglyphic's manual page 222
I intuited hints, incantations true.

Here for scheming:
Fly-O  Fly-O  Fly Fly-O!

I recited that fortissimo for a week
in lucid dreaming.

Then my weighed body, my un-weighed soul
together I suppose remembered it simply,
that God had intimated flight for me
(gratuitously gave).

In classical mind's eye I spied
Icarus sploshing in a wave.

Entered in-- Ab-or-ig-inal Self.
Whoa, I said, hello!
shocked at that showing.

I know... I know... I know...
with ease -- be natural, just be still.

Unequivocally state
(this way make your start)
I need help.

so I believed it
I spoke it

and then I sailed and sailed away
with freedom, my heart.

Gratitude felt like a handshake coming back.

Spring green leaf calling,
made echoes in me.

What a family this is!
Now that I have ears to hear!

In every cell of me,
a Universe.

In every Universe of me
a forest of magnificent trees

dropping discreet
and sometimes upsetting
messages.

with intuitive hand of polished sensibility
i turned the **** to crack my safe

dailed in universal consciousness
dialed in life good ole fashioned love
dialed my mother

but no
it was God all along
ha!

that secret place

one happy tear

earth & sun
pretty passionate lovers

but not by gravitation

full-opened body of earth
full sun

gaze upon
one another

teach

sensations of purples

streaks of luminous black
dashing my eyes

star woman her wisdom
my body

star man sliding into view

blissful laughter
echoing my heart

was it God Truth speaking?
Will you marry me?

Yes! Yes! I cried
And I shall marry you again
tomorrow!

whoever i am
i do not know

i do not know
whomever i am

i am who?

i am that which
is not known to me

this whoever i am
who knows nothing
is me

Cat three-tooth, cat stone-deaf, cat sidewinder walk,
Old Bealman stalked the croaking, the croaking,
with forepaws meek stroking
airs of a summer cool night.

Bealman, Bealman, Meow & Sealman,
Pacing, still racing, one two three man.
Bealman—frog fisher & free.

Delphinium, the roses, lupine interposes
a shadow of fortressed green leaf
disguises the notion my Bealman supposes—
to seize, dismember it through,
make self-concocted, dishering frog stew.

Bealman, Bealman, Meow & Sealman,
Pacing, still racing, one two three man.
Bealman—frog fisher & free.

Night hours accounting, morning’s surmounting,
a bird warning Bealman, his patience to thin.
Croaking still blending, a flower stalk was bending,
two legs, peaking out, sent Bealman straight in.

Bealman, O my Bealman, Meow & Sealman,
Pacing, still racing, one two three man.
Frog fisher & free.

I saw Bealman beaming; I saw Bealman beaming.
How cats manage beaming I’ll wonder again.
Since Bealman was twenty, any beaming is plenty.
I loved my old Bealman, my frog fisher friend.

Bealman, Bealman, My Meow Dear Sealman,
Bealman—frog fisher & free.

The chilly camp-like home where I was staying,
had no running water, in winter all shut down,
but had—amplitudinous electric.

I must have been thinking extra sharp that morning,
when to electric stovetop I came; soon had boiling
Cumberland Farm’s bottled water
in a copper *** with four brown eggs.

With careful timing at last I took the four eggs out
and with the heated water applying
Barbasol and razor, so I shaved.

Please take care to not spill a single drop
of soapy water into the winterized drain pipe,
I heard in my head my sage sister say.

I discarded the contents of the ***
into a snowy patch.

Good morning, and happy happy, I sang.
I hefted one oak log onto a dying fire.

Two of the four eggs I ate,
saving the last for leaner days.

So complete--eggs
and hot shave breakfast.

sensing you, i stood myself tall
i stayed and in my staying i grew
ten thousand tiny legs or more—

each root foot set upon your shoulders
lifted me among constellation stars

home i had never left,
not you

thank you ancestors thank you
for your neighborly attentions
sound vibrations spiral strung --

God’s first word, first and second
generation sun, a greening earth,
until everywhere shaping intelligence
this my body finally here

steady and true as weighed stone,
unjudging love is

what you have come to teach me

that i could choose to die to fear
and die to death itself

i love you i love you
i love you i love you

i love you i love you
i love you i love you

you are so beautiful
you are so beautiful

you are so beautiful
you are so beautiful

thank you thank you thank you
thank you thank you thank you

thank you thank you thank you
thank you thank you thank you

Carefree in leisure time, one blasé tourist,
almost happy, I once had collected a complicated stone;
after the sunny hours had ended and last opportunity
for keepsakes began.

In my hand the stone had kept all of its mouths sewn shut,
holding its amalgamated story, and likewise in the car,
on the plane, through US Customs where it was not
in the least suspected.

A thumbnail identity I now should guess at, marking an old date,
and fixing it to, with reasonable estimate, a map location:
Plot No. 243, East end of the island, slave sugar plantation,
the stone from the corner of a ruined sugarmill stair—
broken free by my criminal hand.

The stone like a bleached out mini-monolith,
square rectangular, could be stood on end;
was swollen at its center like a pulled cork.

What could have moved this sequestered world to opening?
That was not for me to exactly discover,
except what came on Christmas Day,
two days after my returning.

Slave watercourses, the sight of innumerable Dutch ships,
ballasted with human flesh and hewn rock
for sugar works buildings.

The drop at-arms-swish of the Driver’s bullwhip.
Flecks of spirit splayed on vegetation.

A mongrel dog barked beyond the windless wall of sugarcane
in centipede and mosquito heat.

Seaside, beautiful seaside impressions;
distant coral light shadows, etched deep azure;
snowy colored breakers that pencil-marked the sea.
The staid, vibrant, mocking power
of visual symphony backdrop.

So little of aid for the slaves, but for those dangerous secrets,
un-housed in the fallen coolness of the night:
demonstratively crystalline heaven of stars;
a ragged moon, clouds scudding eastward toward Africa.
And there -- Orion’s Belt, mid-sky, illustrious bright,
with its three centering star points in rational line,
as if Hope could have flung its anchor onto Life
engendering sanctified resistance.

Christmas morning, 5 a.m.
I had awakened from a stuck place, shapeless and dark,
half in dreaming and half knowing I was in no dream.

I was sobbing, yet strangely, because there were no tears.
I had only put the stone inside my pajama top onto my heart.

considering the lilies of the field
palms laid down

blue white arizona desert flower
sweet blooming oh

considering sunlight
moonlight

mourning dove
hello

i ride into my jerusalem
singing

beautiful moment
full everywhere

out of a shallow dip
catch-water field
of landscape polished rock
a shock of pregnant junipers

olive-green fires arise
and my eyes bedazzle

gossamer
floating specks
of bees

new hatched
butterflies

golden jump
and spiral

as if tethered
to child's witching wand

random ride
the windless air

when everything everywhere
whispered in irresistible languages

hey you there
stop resisting

i began to surrender
was flowing free

stretching
wings flapping

toward the unknowable
inside

experimented with ditching
body as identification
name as identification
personal history as identification

faded off
mad word searching
explaining  justifying
reiterating too much information

i loosened my squeeze grip
on intellectualism
tell-me-how-to-be spiritual books
whatever the famous someone
said once then got bronzed over

i surrendered to universal unity
where i lavishly decorated
my living changing dream
with my own snap choices

i was flowing with fresh
synergetic synthesis

returned outside to pedestrian streets
where angelics mixed in
wore transparent disguises

i began to flow
forgiveness out and in

skipped a light fandango
splashing puddles was
answer to inclement weather

i set wooden faces
to smiling after
i switched my own

i rolled on through
perceived stop signs
of the everlasting no

incinerated all my karma with
nownownow
wonwonwon

made myself
stock still

experienced
yes yes

relaxed awareness

breathed
emptiness

opened all my hands

something stirred and alive came forth
out of my own heart it spoke
    
      all creation is of equalities
      sister brother relations
      here is truth

not to let it pass untested
i made an agreement
with belief

     blade of summer grass
     teach me

     dust speck
     gold starshine

     water droplet
     prisms
    
     fortuitous spider
     i hear your messages

spider moved in her sun-sparkled circle
she threw me spider kisses

but when i gave her kisses back
some voice came booming

     humanity is the golden crown
     of god's achievement

and the spirit of these words then took flight,
transversed my landscape,
crossed an ocean's width of time

and dropped under the waves
with the natural weight
its distorted truth

practices of superiority
of *******, of killing exploitation
rose from the collective--
flashed their white lightening

but struck counter--
diluting dissolving disarming

greediness and favoritism
manipulation and lies

expectation of privilege
so called divine right

a voice it came again
so that greater love
may have heard itself

    all creation is conscious
     all is alive all are equal
    
     none is better or worse
      than another

      remember this
       
       *to practice

My quarks my molecules my cells --  
they all piped up.

Universe was playing
its simplest tune.

My heart skipped a light fantastic
to the moon.

Moon expressed her left and right,
her face turned to everyone.

I heard her voice
serenade the sun.

Natural me is I ~ I am.

I offer myself
to the sky above.

Bow to earth.
Dance my love.

Down from Arizona desert cold, absence of ice and snow
three white painted terracotta pots
by the Villa apartment on the tabled walkway—
Christina’s place.

Stacked, each alternately inverted one to the next
stabilize a snowperson body.
Can you picture it?

Black painted buttons all the way up?
Lips of dots, an orange twist of nose,
deep eyes void black.

Burgundy scarf tied around the neck,
positioned just so, it could be fit
to a Christmas Chihuahua.

By its playful form and surprising attitude,
may it well succeed at pleasing every passerby
and draw out, on each scroogey face, a smile.

It’s been doing just that for me, as I park
opposite each night, my headlights there shining.

Still, I have not and shall not peak inside
the alluring, open terracotta skull,
since I have imagined not wishes,
nor disappointments, nor elves and cookies,
but practical ash, randomly spiked with spent cigarettes.

Last night, as I walked out, with my night’s anticipations,
my grab-bag of happy tangles, Christina’s hanging silver chimes
issued soft whispering over terracotta, and I caught
a remembrance of Amazing Grace how sweet the sound.

Then Mojo my psychic dog turned me sharply,
and he took me away–we two, going toward home
a starry desert.

On this early chill November morning
where are you now, my firefly,
in crystal ground, under log or leaf?

Where is your crew in its dying?
Have your babies wakened
to winter sleep?

I recall how on July evenings, when I came out,
I had long listened for your messages.

Blessings to you for accepting me, my witnessing
your spotted twists free-floating down;
your drifting off and on through moonlit tree,
visits to my wrist, a shoe.

I was happier than happy—
happiest as happy be.

Had you felt my spark
electric energy?

Multiple mystery goes slipping
in and out of my pocket.

And now, these few months hence, there is
this glint on the frost-etched window.
Flash of apt stillness.

A wild-voiced picture:
our pleasure’s twin.

How could I say I know exactly what you are?

By my ear and everywhere I would say!
These light flung words of yours,
not mine, to lend.

Yet, if I could love you so truly and then release you,
would I comprehend what life wishes to teach me
about possessiveness, the brevity of existence,
time itself, worlds of no time?

Most joyful would I leave all the faces of my dwelling.
Sail headlong into far-flung dream,
toward sky’s moon, hunting the sun.

Glimpse heaven in our dancing?

Behold you and my own body, firefly,
before we were born?

What's your take on walking?

My body serves my soul
and tells me how to go.

My heart, affixed -- aims to show.
These ways I’ve walked in my shoes and stockings.

I've looked to heaven’s stars, to daylit clouds,
when I've stepped out, or dropped my gaze
to track the ground.

Yes, it is true—whoever passed me by
could have taken offense and supposed
I lacked my confidence.

And ofttimes, I strode out straight and true
as if toward a far mist horizon.

Un-manifest future,
even peek-a-boo,
could be comprehended? 

I should doubt it.

And if I wished to address an occasional
in-the-dumps, lost-at-sea feeling,

I'd shut my eyes, and walk backwards --
owl-like, swivel 360 my head.

Backwards blind circumspection seemed worthy my try;
Ask--Who am I?

I would story where I’d been.

In my most spontaneous of nature foot-trafficking,
in roulette walk; my spin of gun chamber click--
ant, spider, beetle, and the occasional sighing snail
had fled my shadow shoe?

As slow drift clouds in a sky game would play
with the sun to hide—creatures had sought me out,
sung their farewells?  (it was an excellent day to die)

Let me tell it, as it had happened today,
and truth says how.

My feet, they had gotten to waltz-walking.
O how my body and soul
danced a-fancy free.

Love was brimming out of me; happiness
whispered her wordless name; and
my tongue tripped nonsensical.

So if, at last, you've kept a-pace with me
in sympathetic striding, then perhaps
you would surmise:

there never could be a flat-footed me,
when I spout off with poem-talking.

Now, what’s your take on walking?

slow the waters were ascending
high waters turning turning

like a baby’s satisfied fist
unfolding

bees and butterflies come
and everywhere
Life is

green calling out to everything
strutting and shouting success!

silence underpinning green

sunlight announcing it
up to the sky

I awoke this morning with all my
nanoseconds whizzing by—

spiraling, they broke for their exits,
they disarrayed my sky.

Each now and now and now
seemed a face, flash color,

many worlds. I could not sense
their place of start or stopping.

Morning sun peeped blue curtains.
I tried my usual breath, felt
heartbeat, wiggled foot.

My dog, he stretched
and bumped my bedframe
with his chest.

Against my fear I placed and pushed
messages of gratitude.

I thanked all things changing
and all of changing time.

Rather than elsewhere, I was here.

Instead of dead--
alive.

On the low-flung periphery of the salt marsh bay,
near the twisted beach, an eddy--

Sun low with the tide going up
where softly and under I lay.

For a pillow I was given
a yellow shell.

My ears were listening.

In its restlessness and reaching,
my tongue and its languages
felt lashed and closed.

I shall not leave
my waterworld.

But I must go,
ashore.

Hermit crab
raised itself up.

One silvery minnow played
across my open eyes.

Then, a cloud-blue sky
answered me
with a white seabird,
overhead circling.

So strange and beautiful,
this land of my dream I see--
in my amphibian way.

This hand which moves and rides some voice is not mine.
I have given it over to you, young boy.

This is what makes it fly so, traveling out,
tripping along in dance of shape and sound.

I acknowledge your presence in this fashion.

You tell me by messages,
beaming out the back of your head,
you are the very boy who has waited an eternity
at some upper railing.

You sit and peer through the spaces,
down the twisted stair.

Your hands, they grip the vertical rail.
Silent. Silent. Waiting you.

Let this right hand of mine be your secret voice.
Let this scrawl and scratch be your gravelly tongue—
ick-nicking, ga-chooing, click and stutter.

What language may I shape for our sake?
With you, may I follow, setting trail markers just so.

Will others come mistaking their ways for yours?

My hand is opening and opens wide.
I remember you. I am returning.
Let it be.

paved over is our feeling
and truth is nigh

know this stillness
it is real

faith can supply and make
for all what must be love

our earth is ill

she cries and she chokes
at our words

which say she's not
or it's not so bad

or that we are trying hard
which we aren't

come O earth lover -- Sun

speak now speak
release our ways

shake unfreeze us
god-self be true

we are careless children
and we misbehave

Buildings for the most part are boxes square.
But Pentecost circles and spirals,
they turn and burn wild.

Of those who would tame
and make comprehensible any fire--
apt tongues have gone titch titch
and beautiful catch 'til words and music
and parlor diplomacies fortify
much which is untrue.

Fear has no finish, even in our dying.
The path is a cliff edge.

Let us turn, un-adult-like, and strip ourselves  
of civilized persuasions. Usher
Earth's children into primordial worlds.

Water shall love and receive us, as it always has.
The naked ground will speak up,
into our touching feet.

Listen to the tongues of the wind.
Unhinge the body, which is you.

Let all creation fly.

Is it ever too late to be circumspect-select?*
I asked myself.

My semi-permeable state
invites distasteful items to my plate.

These careless hands of me
are flying all about,
opening all the gates.

And who or what has called to order, set opinion,
filed judgment, if not something
of a lie and a hatred?

Tries to tells me who I am
and says: this and that is what
I should rather be doing.

At my frosty age, be a man.
Get that straight.

And when I have seen hands of others
come, wishing to be as helpful,
they flash their passports at my door.

I shall deliberate and trust
the simple and silent
dominions of my house.

Practice.

What is it that I shall practice?
I'll not tell more.

Saturate and brimming of my hometown Boston,
of its sunshine Marathon peoples and bomb images,
my heart fracture rend.

On the third day—resurrection of all my sadness
came to me, feeling fresh and born to fruition,
so this grew.

It grew and through my tears coming,
I stood to witness two loving sparrows
on a window branch.

My sadness at some abeyance, studying and curious
I was of her--all akimbo shivers and rock-in-roll, of him--
flying feathered stone, rolling from branch to branch
and coming home, repeatedly.

Circles flying within moving circles!

Did something happen
with the last jiggle of her branch?

Did you see that? Science says
what they were doing—they had finished.

(But what to believe of Science?
It calls their loving--mating rather).

Now to tell you—the sequencing was this:
when I was full knocked down
on account of my grief,
and I hardly had strength to go on,
a Beatles song flew in and gently pierced my heart,
singing to my ear: Why don't we do it in the road...
no one will be watching us...why, why don't we do it

O, Spring Life of Sparrow surprises!
Open road, that budding tree,
any new notion is something grand!

How do I say now? That you two
were most helpful, your innocence
forever abiding?

Fly off Sparrows, forever prayer!
I speak this with all my love.

In the early dark of the morning,
dark inside the crypt of my bedroom--
you sparrows came to me there.

I had only said in mind these words:
a forgiveness of sparrows

And there you were, feathers
all fluffed out, and I
searching inside myself.

I think now to tell the better truth -- to say
that mixed in with my need for calling you
was Brueghel, his painted picture with the crushing board,
trip-cord, and feed for bird killing

and my imagining snapshot young Hemmingway
capturing pigeons in Paris to eat them

and feeling the presence of
the one small bird I'd shot as a boy
out of the apple tree
falling falling falling

Sparrows, forgiveness flies all around me!
The world cries out, everywhere!

A police car slides down my street,
as I hear your first chirp in the morning.

What we have named Fire Escape
(an ordered, angular tangle of ladders and rail)
had made picture geometries in my west window
well-framed and flat--set foreground and background
in two dimensions, as the sun hid,
and my round eye opened.

What we have named Fire Escape
was flaked-paint brown orange, as if
first it had been born of a flame
and then had taken up living as metal--
tempered itself into usefulness,
which I should trust now, in case of the yelling
and the engines.

What we have named Fire Escape
was happy Jungle Jim or Jungle for Jane
for the sparrows I saw this morning
which flitted and wildly played
within, rising up
arched and back again.

Made of the square pairs of ladder rungs--
a tunnel entrance or ducking posts,
or highway bridges to clear;
the birds like small plane, daredevil pilots
each following each, going under.
No sparrow would ever crash.

And what is this I remember now?
How one bird eased its engine and perched there to stay?
As if to offer me, with a little turn of head gesture--
a thank you, for the bread I'd left on the sill? Or to say  
I'd better shut the curtain and make my exit?

Either prideful guess gets me nowhere fast.
Failed even is speaking in any sparrow languages
from my recline stuffed chair; again, but now imagined,
to draw beady eyes to fix on me, telling me much less.

That morning, with the very last sparrow gone,
I remember that nothing in my sight moved,
save an American flag at a distance in the wind,
with its one red-white striped wing
waving toward the cold north,
as the white church spire,
framed in open quadrilaterals,
held its position.