Overly expressive
An amped up mind.

I have to admit,
At times high on
My own supply.

It’s not always
Tangled, recessive,
This grind,

It is only my
Overly expressive mind.

Isn't ironic how some become enraged at you
When you stop drinking their poison, begin to choose?

You purge and wipe your lips, then walk away,
Escaping the drama of the day-after-day-after-day.

And that is when the thought of your escape
Suddenly chokes in their throat.

Then the tricks and threats start piling high.
You have taken their drug, cutoff their supply,

Now they must find another dealer.

My history stretches
For miles and miles before me
Across time and memory.
The young man drove
His souped-up blue Nova
With the blue tinted windows.
Racing up and down my street,
More of a country lane, really.

A black-topped shortcut
Leading into our small town.
My daddy would rush out
Wave fists, then call the sheriff.
A couple years went by,
The Vietnam war raged,
The souped-up Nova
Ceased to drive my street.

Daddy was relieved.
Mom and Dad grew to love
That young speed demon,
Though they didn't know
He'd been racing through time,
Racing towards me
And our life together.
Love, a home, children.

All while carrying his war-burdens.

So many countries are like old junkies
Who refuse to give up their favorite drug
First, the teeth drop out, and they have no bite
Until the person rots from the inside out
And become walking skeletal remains gumming

“Learn to see. Realize that everything connects to everything else.”
That is a quote from Leonardo Da Vinci who saw connectedness.

All things connect to one another.
That means I connect to you, you connect to me.

The sun and the moon connect to each other,
The stars connect to the sky and all of this connects to the others.

Not only should we "see" but we must feel this connectedness
For it is what opens us to love and life.

"Life can only be seen in relief."
That is what Leonardo said;
"One must not stop at the surface."

Dive below, for no world is small
When you open your eyes wide
To take it all in, analyze the details.

You find that there are the minute
Universes upon universes to explore.
Let the wonder take your breath

Until you have no more.  Leo did.

Those who are selling hate as a commodity
Do not care to know that when each person
Is lifted up, regardless of gender or race
We all float to the surface where there is
Room for all.

I'm not a cat, you will see, you wussy!
And I'd not be trapped anyway,
With that ball of string, I already played.
It is a tired old game for stupid *******.

Love can be like watching clouds.
You spot one that makes you smile, and
You feel a little excited at the same time.
You know that it can and will transform
Becoming something more than it is.
And so you watch and wait for something,
You never know what "something" might be.
As you look at changes as it grows and morphs.
But clouds also can and do swiftly fade away.
What was one thing simply becomes nothing or
Changed to something no longer recognizable,
Nor try as you might can you come to understand.
And slowly you remember this truth about clouds:
Clouds are made of water droplets or ice crystals
That floats in the sky; and love is at times mere vapor.

Her clothes are tatty, ratty, and soiled.
He needs a haircut and a shave.  Hair grows down his neck!
They are talking, but to who?  Themselves? An unseen being?
They grow unkempt in a forgotten garden.  They are not weeds,
They are wildflowers.

An un-dam-able tide
Cafeteria Christians
Blowing on the embers

Uncomfortable truths
I grieved the fall long
Before the step to the edge

The monkey has a monkey
Which rides its own back
Really?  W.W.J.D.?

What about you?

One day is very much like the other
But you know what if I have my druthers

I'd choose just one perfect day and make it stay.
I'd analyze and dissect it every day.

I'm sure I'd find new facets along the way.
With gratitude and humble heart, I'd pray

While giving thanks for that very day and you,
Thus, you can see in this way it will always be new.

Sweets of the flower
Opening, full-throated
Beckoning the welcomed bee.

Gifts are exchanged.

“Come or go,” she says,
“You remain free.
As long as you return to me.”

Therefore, he does.

Busy hours buzz,
The gatherings of love
Under the warmth of the sun.

Heat fades into cooler climes.

As always, winter comes.
There is 'a comfort' in that.
All must fly -

Bees, birds, time. . .

We live; we die.
Like a flowered vine clinging
We have offered ourselves up.

It is for the greater good, after all.

Dog gone those lawn people
Buzzing around like bees,
Swarming on mowers.

Rushing around with leaf blowers.
How they are bothering me!

Hitting piles of doggy poo which
My lovely neighbors leave behind,
Too lazy to own pets responsibly!

As if the noise was bad enough,
I have put up with the smell of that stuff!

She blew her brains out
Out by the dumpster
The note she left said
She had no one who cared
And she went out that way
Because she didn't want to
Leave a mess for the cleaning lady
I found a bucket, a good bucket
(I think it may have been hers)
Castoff and tossed afterwards
I needed a bucket like she
Needed to have a friend to care
So, now when I use it, I keep her
In my mind and alive,
Although I never knew her

Embrace the fact that we

Are all the same
Are not the same

Feel the same
Don't feel the same

Act the same
Act strange

Because we are
We are from the same

Dysfunctional family

Go now,
I set you on your wobbly way
On rubber-legs that sway,
On tiny feet on which you play.

"Go now, little one" I say,
"One day, it will not be for mere play.
You will go and be on your way,
My darling."

My grief lies below the 6-foot mark.
Yet, my hope rises above that depth
Where there are many hands to hold.
I recall that hope is an anchor for the soul.
And then I come to understand and know
That I can endure almost anything.

If I had a bicycle with a tiny wagon,
I'd give it to the homeless man.

The one that sleeps under the overpass
Then moves to a spot at a building near me.

He could use it to haul his bag and lawn chair
To that place where he spends the day sleeping

In the open air on a cement ledge of that building;
And does his ***** business in the corner where 2 meet.

You left a trail of breadcrumbs
That would lead back to you.

Hungry little bird that I am
I ate them one by one, and all,

Every single one,
And here I am.

When you force your thoughts and opinions
On me you are in one sense abusing and ****** me
Your saying is effectively true “It’s my way or the highway.”
At least it is certainly true for tiny minded you.
You will soon be left alone living in your empty mind.

Here I am standing within this moment.
I feel the echoes of time's tide
Lapping at my feet, washing over me
Reaching the top of my head.
My brain suddenly comprehending
What time actually means to each of us.

To change an opinion
it is not disingenuous.
Life and opinions
are situational.

As we grow as a person,
hopefully, our opinions
grow and become
more nuanced.

It is a sign of maturity.

To smell the lilacs in first morning light
Dew descending and shaking free from the tree
Splashing sweet infusions and splattering on me.

Even the fog rising is perfumed.
Fists full, I make my way back inside to find a vase.
A home perfumed by wafts of flowers is a heavenly abode.

It is a beautiful notion, but lilacs don't actually grow here.

Like substances broken out from your favorite perfume,
Somethings apart from the whole cannot be understood, nor enjoyed.
The beautiful scent comes from the delicate balance of each component.

Ingredients in your favorite dish do not taste as good as the whole.
Try eating flour on its own and see how far you get, and yet
A dessert made with it can be culinarily divine.

Sand is nice but what is it without the ocean or the ocean with sand?
You could plunk an alpine mountain down into a desert and then what?
The delicate ecosystem will not survive for long and then you have desert.

And what of literature, poetry?  What is its substance made of in the end?
Metaphors, meter, rhythm, rhyme, imagery, assonance, alliteration,
Words, phrases, stanzas, tone and form, ideas expressed to eke out the essence.

How do we construct a poem?
Poetry doesn't have to make sense,
But we want it to.

At the water's edge
A crow keeps watch
For what I do not know,

Yet it calls out
Every now and then
As if to give a warning.

The light tides
Rising and falling
As though breathing.

I hear, feel, the waves plight
As they struggle to move,
To gain any kind of momentum,

A sound like gasping.
Then with sudden stillness
All is quiet except for gentle lapping.

The spirit of the snow is in the waters
Trickling down the mighty mountains
Flowing into streams, becoming waterfalls.

The spirit of the snow rushes to the sea.
It goes forward to waters bright and shining
To be taken up for next season's snowfall.

That same spirit, ancient, and is in all.

Our town’s fire had burnt for years.  
Where all could come and share
It was the very center of our town

Massive rains, it happened one day,
And the floods put out our local fire
Sad but together all sat down in the ashes

But then single shout went out
“An ember over here glows.  It grows!”
Our community began a gentle blow

At first there was only grey smoke
Yet, then a mighty red coal glowed
As flames began to grow and grow

A cheer went up all around our town
We gathered wood from every home
Put it on the fire to help it grow and glow

Soon there was a bright and steady blaze
Each one began to dance and to sing
"As one divided, we fell, in unity we rejoice!"

The moral of the story, as they say, is
To learn to know, love and trust with no delay
Work to build your community the right way

Choose the most stable of materials
From every color, tribe, and home
For that will endure as the strongest

To rebuild your fire

Life can be so very pleasant, as we putter along.
At times we must stop to remind ourselves
That it too soon could all be gone.
So, grab the gusto of each experience and reflect
Because this life is far too short, by heck!

With this look
I give myself away.

With these words
It is much the same.

What I hide, I hid
Within a poem,

Without giving much away.

The joy of spring
Our summer games

After a dream
Our oeuvre starts anew

A slumber which held
An image of you

You, so true
I become spellbound
For it is raining flowers

You are frozen in time,
As though a bug in amber.

Awaken from your slumber
Before you run out of rhyme.

For Rumi us reminded to awaken!
Dawn's breeze is not to be forsaken

Because it has secrets to tell you.

Will the pluses outweigh the minuses?
The plus is a feather-light ephemeral thing.
A minus can weigh many, many tons.
Of the two to fall on you, choose which one,
Even though, my friend, it is already too late.

Your web tingles.
Movement you discern.
A shimmer of dew falls.
Perfectly still listening
You wait momentarily,
Rush forward to him
With your love bite.

There is an unrecognized key to living a life satisfied, if not Fulfilled. It is not a secret.  It is much overlooked.  It is: cycles

There is an unrecognized key to living a life satisfied, if not fulfilled.
It is not a secret.  It is much overlooked.  It is: cycles

The sun rises on our lives, the sun sets, as well.
The world obits and whirls, the seasons change

Then change back again. Cycles, life is a cycle.  Spinning
In a controlled fashion.  We can count on it.  For

It will cycle back around to the start of day, of love, of life.
That’s the thing to mentally grasp.  We rise to the cycle of the day.

We hum along never thinking, “We are spinning, turning, cycling!”
Feel the groove of that.  We will rise, we will sleep, we will be . . .

Cycles remind us that there is a rhythm.  With rhythm we make music.
With music we sing and dance our way through the cycle of life.

Wrap that, like a comforting blanket, around your life
And cycle on.

Spring is all, "Here I am!" in blooming color.
Summer is like, "I'll warm your bones as no other."
Autumn comes and brings the gold
As it waits for winter to unfold.

If I acknowledge you,
If I say your unknown name
- For unknowable it remains
Will it honor you in some way?
I stand on this shore looking out, aways
Into oceans vast from where you came.

They took you from your home
Bound into servitude, alone.
- Alone, alone echoes
Friends, family, community, gone.
How can I take you back to your home?
Can I mingle blood, bone with dirt?

My blood and your blood mingle
Could not that ancient soil mingle
- from where you came
Onto these shores which I stand on?
Will it honor you in some way?
Is it enough to make your memory stay?

Or will it too, like you fade away?

Among the shadows
Of the darkened room
In a reflecting glance
I see an assemblance
Of me
But it is no longer
A youthful me
That I see
I suspend a sense
Of this reality
In order to see me
The inner me
The real me
The encapsulated self

always commit to your poetry
write them in a book, give them a name
do not leave them like an unwanted child
a child never given a name

revise, rewrite, recommitting each time
even though you rewrite them a hundred times
name and rename, but by all means lay claim

for they are your offspring after all
you have given life, you have birthed them
they are, in the end, only ink on paper
they will not rear up and hurt you, they are you

It is that which drives me
It is not hardheadedness
Although it has been called such
It is, rather, a stick-to-it-ness
That guides me to never give up
A dogged determined outlook
Which tells me not to stop
Because ultimately all will be okay

Come, grieve with me
The bitter knowledge
Our beloved family tribes
Slaughtered by invaders,
Thieves of greedy intent.

I have put my seed
In this basket woven
By my ancestor's hand
Placed in those outside
Of our Nation to carry

Safely forward.  It had to be
Or we would cease to be.
Take this vessel of blood.
Spread it throughout
What becomes our Nation.

I watch the
Velvety dusky rose
Which risings up from
The clinging horizon.
The sky desires it
More than the blue
This time of morning.
And draws it away
Into itself until
It is all gone
Into the bright
Light of a new day.

Though things at present may look bleak.
Everything points to a brighter future.
What fuels our world's beauty, forests, fields, and gardens?
Is it, not decay, the litter layer, a waste uncultivated?
Superfluous matter feeds life and produces beauty.
"One man's trash," as they say, or animals for that fact -
Our systems are breaking down, building up, breaking down
Again.  In this churning regenerating it is giving hope.
The hope of a bright new world, before us, springs up.

You left a trail of breadcrumbs
That would lead back to you
Hungry little bird that I am
I ate them one and all.
Every one led me back to you.

I defiantly said,
"I don't need anyone
Or anything!"

Then took
A deep breath
And said, "I see."

Straight ahead and out of my bed,
Every morning between 5 am - 7 am
I go out onto my balcony and photograph

From the dawning until the sunrise's completion.
It feels me with joy and admiration
And gets me out into the morning's pollution.

That brief smell after the long dry spell,
Earthy richness released in sun warmed soil.
The scent emanating from rapidly drying grass,
These are the incenses from the ground.
Traces of the earth on which we all ride.
One of my favorite sensory sensations.

When anger, rivalry & jealousy
Fade away we are left
With only deep-seated love
And with the DNA that binds us.

You dope
To push the envelope.
I'll throw no rope.
You need to learn to cope
Or stop acting foolish.

There is no malice
Hidden in my words
Truth be told though
- He is not okay

He is living large
Within his own mind
Back to his heyday
- The 1980s

But he is living it again
Where he was 'kinda' on top
- And

Had the public a bit fooled
- Wildly wealthy
Was the phony claim

He recently explained the
"one rough hour?' needed
- He's not healthy

If friends and family really cared
They would get the poor man help.