Last week, among friends black and white,
among some discussion of protests in Ferguson
and the related looting of stores, I invoked
the word.  It was an admission, in a round
of confessions, of something about myself
that I didn't like:  that I had perceived Michael Brown
in that way based on his possible participation
in a strong-armed robbery.  

When Travon Martin was in the news,
I was inflamed like many others who wanted
George Zimmerman in jail for ******.
The outcome of that trial was an injustice,
I was utterly certain.  Why does this case
in Missouri feel different?  More importantly,
Who is inside me that still wants to rise
in defiance of 48 years of learning how
to be a better person, a person without prejudices,
stereotyping, labeling of others, hurtful language?

Where is the hippie girl now?  How does she live
with this other person?  Am I Sterling, Gibson,
a hater and spewer of viciousness, a lover
of separation and separateness, that I should
invite damage to my own relationships
with those I love and cherish and respect?

What is a **** but a bully, and what is a bully
but someone who pushes words around like
weapons, spits them out indiscriminately,
so that they land on the already bruised heart
and set it on fire.

Whose heart, besides mine, now sits in smoke
and ash, with that word like a brand
still sore and permanent, having been spoken
aloud?

musings of a kook surfer
(kook: 1. Dork. 2. A new or inexperienced surfer. 3. Someone who says they surf but they can't.(waxboy)

Logic and Perspective  (a poem)

Quantum Imagination Rules.
What-Ifs equal What-Is
in this, a shared creation.

If         we are surrounded by what we can see,
            what we see is what we are;
Then   matter is perception of resistance,
            time is the persistence of opposites,
And    space is an Electric Universe;
            not lonely nuclear fires,
            but Twin Ribbons of infinite energy
            traveling through plasma that unites all.

The Earth
        a wonder of positive and negative,
        not solid,
        is the infinite slowed into harmony.
The Sun
        a focus of resistance,
        not burning out,
        Burns In.

No small coincidence that
equals means is
You Are and
You See so
I am and
                  
You are, you see, the I Am
...


No Chance for Chance  (a poem)

What is Serendipity?
Seen miraculous,
Some thing done there,
Something done.

What isn't Serendipity?
The unseen miraculous.
What miracles undone,
in time
in time,
as it never happened.

Everything?
Nothing?

It cannot be a good thing-
Fortunate for you is
lost fortune for who...
Self-fulfilling for Jungian prophecy
or prophecy fulfilled for Schrodinger's Cat.

It cannot be a bad thing-
In agreement
with yes...
Self-fulfilling for Jungian prophecy
or prophecy fulfilled for Schrodinger's Cat.

I think,
so I think I am caught between
a wave and a particle.

….

Between Worlds

Never turn your back on the ocean – the mantra of the surfer in my thoughts as I continuously scan the horizon.  There is just enough time to position for a wave; decide to paddle left or right or quickly further out to avoid the random pummel of a looming larger wave.  Between sets, the water gently bobs me floating half submerged.  Staring introspectively at the water, I am learning to interpret ribbons of upward-turning sparkles in the distance.

Dawn is an hour away; visibility is dim but gradually lifting.  Morning’s light is so flat and the water’s glassy surface so smooth that anticipating incoming waves becomes almost a matter of intuition.  The illusion of separateness from creation is breaking down.  The water is almost chilly, but still comforting. I forgo a rash-guard; the subsequent chest irritation from surfboard wax is a small exchange to feel immersed in the ocean.  The bay feels intimate yet expansive with only two other meditative surfers in the distance. Turtles swirl the water, heads straining up for a peek and a breath.  Sometimes they turn their shells so their fins feel the air; they keep three of us wanna-be-ocean-dwellers company.

Yesterday a southern Kona wind brings volcanic-smog from Kīlauea.   Vog is high in CO2 and fumes, giving sensitive people muddle-headedness, lethargy, and sore throat-  a reminder this is Pele's paradise.  This muting velvet feels almost smothering to the horizon.  Is it fog?  Yet a glance behind verifies the ***** of Mt. Haleakala is visible, from the shore to the cloud blanketing the world above the 10,000' peak.   Hale means "house" and the rest can mean either "of the sun", or "of a special raspberry-like flower". Either way the mountain was pulled from the ocean by Maui while he was roping the sun from the sky.  Usually, from this place in the sea, sunrise begins with a torch-like beacon of illuminated mist right over the peak, flaming brighter in the turquoise sky just as the sun coronas into a brilliant gold spotlight over the bay.  Yet this morning waiting for dawn, islands, water, and sky are all various shades of hushed mainland gray.

Half submerged and floating quietly, my back is to the mountain and I face the close but unusually shrouded island Kaho'olawe. It was callously blasted to a streaked surface of wind-blown dust by a military just for "training".  Recently reclaimed for pono, it represents the hope of nurturing a senselessly abused, irrevocably lost paradise. To my right is far-off Lana'i; to my left is Molokini, the sharp half rim of an ancient crater barely rising above the water's surface.

The world suddenly wakes, shedding gray. The sky's far reaching dome overhead intensifies, glowing in layers of rose, red, fuschia. The atmosphere I’m breathing becomes thickly permeated with color, as if one could breath lavendar-orange.

What planet am I on?

It feels so foreign, time stops.  The two other surfers are still as well, dwarfed by distance, and I am alone. Tiny in this red expanse, I become quietly centered.   I turn to see Haleakala where the sun is yet to rise, awed to distraction, forgetting incoming swells.  A bright sun smoked crimson is hidden behind the peak, shining horizontally through what I imagine to be some opening at the horizon.  Illuminated ridged undersides of the high clouds are streaked neon red to half the sky.  The atmosphere is hushed over the still water, the tangible copper light presses down, infuses everything.  It feels disarming yet comforting and surreal, floating surrendered to this other-world light; sky to water, horizon to vast horizon, the calm apocalypse the turtles and Kaho'olawe have been praying for.

these games 2010 vancouver olympics are about performance under tremendous pressure more than they are about sport our expectations destroy us how do athletes possibly in training their entire lives cope with cameras nationalism corporate media mania? these distinguished people fallible humans with frail emotions doubts superstitions insecurities just like everyone else sustain skill phenomenal precision how do they sleep at night? carry on relationships with spouses family friends? endure eminent separateness loneliness? do gold medal winners become bloated rock stars conceited movie stars overpaid professional athletes? do losers become life’s could have been a contender drunk in obscurity casualties? what price in human terms these games? hey when joannie rochette hit ice prayer to mom i cried love watching sports this gorgeous display of human talent yet wonder about underlying meaning consequence sports or spectacle?

"As the same fire assumes different shapes
When it consumes objects differing in shape,
So does the one Self take the shape
Of every creature in whom he is present."
(Katha Upanishad II.2.9)

"As the rivers flowing east and west
Merge in the sea and become one with it,
Forgetting they were separate rivers,
So do all creatures lose their separateness
When they merge at last into pure Being.
There is nothing that does not come from him.
Of everything he is the inmost Self.
He is the truth; he is the Self supreme.
You are that Shvetaketu, you are that."
(Chandogya Upanishad IV.10.1-3)

I don't understand,
Why, in this land,
Where these sacred
scriptures were written,
Were so many religions born--

I don't understand,
How, in this land,
Were differences encouraged,
When the backbone of all life
Always was recognized as liberation--

The acknowledgement
Of all different religions, castes, creeds,
Really broke the deal you know...

Imagine, if all the cultures were mixed
Instead of being *separated, unconnected, segregated;
And churned into a liberal philosophy
The Philosophy of Liberation (read: Moksha)
We'd have prevented so many wars,
All fought under the cloak of differences and disparities;
We could have averted
So much bloodshed,
So many innocent screams--

And these shudders down your spine right now?
They would be the product of fiction;
Not the echoes of cruel reality...

In the window of the pet shop
four small faces, lost.
Their owners, sick with worry,
want them found at any cost.

A quad of treasured family pets
roaming wild and free,
unmindful of the panic
they’re causing back in Leigh.

A sausage dog called Mini,
sleek and burnished dark.
She’s likely got a little voice
that is more squeak than bark.

Tinks: a sturdy Staffie,
with a plea on Facebook
praying for his safe return
his people beg you “have a look”

“in your sheds and garages,
or in the kids' playhouse.
You never know who could be there
‘cos he’s quiet as a mouse”.

A grumpy Border Terrier,
Underbitten, rough of coat
“Bill: a much loved dog, we miss him”
in shaky letters wrote.

And, last of all, would you believe
Someone’s lost their tortoise!
He’s been in the family since ‘77
(let’s hope he isn’t corpus).

For pets are no mere mortals,
nor fallible as we.
They’re up there on a pedestal,
in anthropomorphic fantasy.

Then one day they disappear,
our soppy hearts turn wretched.
No stick to throw, and if we did
none to go and fetch it.

On centre stage of family life
entangled in our tribe.
No separateness of species,
always by our side.

So if you’re there, or round about
And you should chance to see
Mini, Tinks or Billy
or a tortoise in his mid-thirties.

Tell the little pet shop -
it’s better late than never -
to mend an aching, wretched heart
who thought their best friend gone forever.

There's a girl I think about, sometimes
On wet afternoons, and when I'm on my own
Well, she's an older woman now but still a first affection
With a family, grown to middle age
And a dead husband in her past, somewhere.

We knew each other forty years ago, perhaps
In an army town; or was it slightly later?
We were never intimately joined
In those prophylactic, pre-pill times
And the frowning fathers, narrow-eyed on the fringes

She could drive, and had her mothers car that day
We slunk out to a field, to dispose of her virginity
But, the military fuzz they quickly found us
And took us in to the local station
Heart thumping, testosterone levels tumbling

That was the last time that we met, I think.
We corresponded fitfully, and for a short time after
But somehow shame and not a little guilt
At what I'd done and left undone, sputtered the phrases and
Quite soon the letters stopped arriving.

Unconsummated but never quite forgotten, last week
A Facebook message in my in-box, unbidden
From a name unfamiliar to me, and suspicious
"Dear Sir" it read, and proceeded to announce itself
Auspicious, as my former lovers son.

Can this be you? the lovers son enquired politely
My mothers friend that we talked about at Christmas?
Triumphant, there mother! I have found him
Far across the years and using now's technology
Across a lifetime of separateness

I sensed in her a broad reluctance, despite the introduction
From her child, who's person never was a factor
To connect with me again, this different person
Risking the diminution of that dimmed image, the remnant
Of who we had been that time

And why not? Why confuse the layers and the generations?
The forewarned spectacle of our sad reunion
Uncomfortably eye-ing each other with little left in common
Awkward unsaid phrases hanging out to dry
In the flag-fluttering breezes of our allusions.

But, in fact, there had been another reason I admit
For shame that final hour that final day
When I had been revealed in all my nakedness as wanting
Tongue tied and mumbling my excuses to the sky
Youth I was, weak, poor and unconvincing

The police were brusque and thoroughly impersonal
Growled deep-throated at my love and I.
And I; I discarded my affection for security and left her there
Disconsolate and disbelieving in the police station
More worried about the facing of my father

And so we left it then last week with little left unsaid
Knowing both it was too late and too unknown
For reintroductions as the people we had been
Unconvincing in our bright and sharpened protestations
Preferring poor relations in a foreign country

There's a girl I think about, sometimes
On wet afternoons, and when I'm on my own
Well, she's an older woman now but still a first affection
With a family, grown to middle age
And a dead husband in her past, somewhere.

We knew each other forty years ago, perhaps
In an army town; or was it slightly later?
We were never intimately joined
In those prophylactic, pre-pill times
And the frowning fathers, narrow-eyed on the fringes

She could drive, and had her mothers car that day
We slunk out to a field, to dispose of her virginity
But, the military fuzz they quickly found us
And took us in to the local station
Heart thumping, testosterone levels tumbling

That was the last time that we met, I think.
We corresponded fitfully, and for a short time after
But somehow shame and not a little guilt
At what I'd done and left undone, sputtered the phrases and
Quite soon the letters stopped arriving.

Unconsummated but never quite forgotten, last week
A Facebook message in my in-box, unbidden
From a name unfamiliar to me, and suspicious
"Dear Sir" it read, and proceeded to announce itself
Auspicious, as my former lovers son.

Can this be you? the lovers son enquired politely
My mothers friend that we talked about at Christmas?
Triumphant, there mother! I have found him
Far across the years and using now's technology
Across a lifetime of separateness

I sensed in her a broad reluctance, despite the introduction
From her child, who's person never was a factor
To connect with me again, this different person
Risking the diminution of that dimmed image, the remnant
Of who we had been that time

And why not? Why confuse the layers and the generations?
The forewarned spectacle of our sad reunion
Uncomfortably eye-ing each other with little left in common
Awkward unsaid phrases hanging out to dry
In the flag-fluttering breezes of our allusions.

But, in fact, there had been another reason I admit
For shame that final hour that final day
When I had been revealed in all my nakedness as wanting
Tongue tied and mumbling my excuses to the sky
Youth I was, weak, poor and unconvincing

The police were brusque and thoroughly impersonal
Growled deep-throated at my love and I.
And I; I discarded my affection for security and left her there
Disconsolate and disbelieving in the police station
More worried about the facing of my father

And so we left it then last week with little left unsaid
Knowing both it was too late and too unknown
For reintroductions as the people we had been
Unconvincing in our bright and sharpened protestations
Preferring poor relations in a foreign country

Think about it,
She off-handedly remarks:
Formality is separateness

Lost in one of the nebulous folds
Of my cerebellum
I acknowledge her comment with a thousand yard stare

Eagle eyed, I surf a warm updraft
To rise above it all
But I can't slip the prison of pre-conception

Amuse me, she says.
Whisper me your pretty little lyrics,
Sing me your song

You have one of the most interesting faces I’ve ever met
I brazenly tell her, and
My minds eye is full of anticipation

I know it’s pedantic
I am not so romantic
Maybe we should not peel back the veneer, but

A peak

It’s inexplicable

Naive and unassuming, with
Bashful sincerity, and
An enduring patience

Awaken: open your eyes
The serpent goddess counsels

And you will find your way

think  I  shall  be springtime; such   clumsy
scent  of  the world   collapsing  not  with  nets
but   hands  not upon  trellis  but    bodies –
    sleep    shall   carry   us  to  inches
of  terrible  speech    such somnolent world senses
    quietness   in  the  rivers   of   our blood;
how  murmurously  veritable    moment
     leaps   forth  ripe  in the   air   of such  splendidness
when  it   was not   mountains
    but    your   *******   deep within   the    Earth of  me
and I  rain    cleaving  the   scent   of   the world
    into   two   separateness   until   the
enormously     ****   moon   plunges    within;
   I    shall   be   a   tree
and you, a rose    or   springtide, or   everything
   that
            blooms,    withers,
dances – new  beginnings;

Those words that were coined as a cliche mean more than we shall ever guess.
We need not understand them until the adrenaline wears off like the lipstick of a pale moon's night.
Change becomes so inert, it feels as though we are watching Neptune orbit the sun.
We tie a knot and leap.
Days and nights pass in a tangle
Such as a tumbleweed hitting our tire on a warm desert car ride.
The peaks and valleys we ride create a rhythm that plays to the metronome of the heart.
They can make us sick some times,
While other times we can't help but stare in amazement at such imperfectly beautiful things.
I wish I could take it all with me:
The land, the sky, the scent
I never want to face myself again because of where I ventured to before it all.
I find myself high up on a mountain, hearing the memories of the earth as well as the memories my own spherical entities have held and let go, all at the same time.
As I make my way down from the peak to another valley, I realise I do not have enough room to hold such masterpieces..within my frontal lobe or my backseat window.
For I am not alone. I began this journey as a we.
However what I took from it all was specifically mine.
We are united in our separateness.
With each scene passing us by, we notify ourselves change has set in. Maybe not all together outwardly but intermittently internally.
The first cut is the deepest and although we are attuned to what's going on in our outside world, our inner world has already began rebuilding itself without us even acknowledging it.
It may take reading a list of cliches on a mountain for us to  the recognize the small change, but it is there, like an unforeseen star in the night
sky.

wine stains on the shelf
a flash of irritation ended
coverless on the couch

separateness lingers into morning
politeness papers over open wounds
where repairs could have been made
memory wire refuses to uncoil

we'd overwound the pound-shop threads
of our connection
scraped each filament to fronds
that could part at any moment
but didn't

we argue our differences, forget
to celebrate our samenesses
sensing barriers
where none are

Those blessed with children
already know something
of the fellowship
kinship brings when
gathered indiscriminately;
how the rightness of place and time
wraps itself around,
makes a gift to hang
on the Christmas tree of memory.
 
In this house
lives a tangible presence
of past coming-togethers:
long long days of comfortable conversations,
warm greetings passed on the stairs.
See here - that dear head bent over a crossword,
and through a window, look!, a child in the garden;
Always, always - the kitchen laughter.
 
And spreading between all this
a glue of music
binding with its miracle formula
the separateness of strings and fingers.
In the joy of Opus 20.No.2
(played between friends)
an intensity of action and reaction
sings; born out of listening
with calm intent and
with selfless attention given -
one to another.