It is 12 noon and I have swagger
Everywhere I look is my domain
I can pick and choose
I can create a scene
I can walk right in.
My universe, so they say,
is under my control.
People even know my name,
Love has come my way.
It's 12 noon and I have swagger that even I must refrain.

By 3 o'clock my life is slipping
The moon eclipses the sun
The sun eclipses the moon
I see the hints of darkness
that was not there at noon.
I reach the ledge and hang swinging,
my finger tips barely grip.
I am sweating but I am holding on.


By 6:00 o'clock
I am on the Bay Bridge,
traffic jammed in
My electrical system fails
and I know if I stop I'm doomed.
I watch the brake lights snaking towards me
No control now for me.
Inevitable as Monday morning
My car stops and I will probably die on this road.
The darkest hour surrounds me now.
My eyes are blind
My hands are numb
My lover has left me
and
I am wondering what I have become.

Sitting now in this empty space
all furniture moved out,
only this rocking chair remains,
Everything I have been has died
and now through finding this meaning
I sigh.
I surrender and all longing vanishes
I drift right back into this moment
and for a moment my heart sings.

At 9:00 o'clock I see a light
I see a path,
I start to move.
Once frozen now thawing
my heart resumes.
The clock clicks out my time
in digital sequence and rhymes
I even feel a dance begin.

I move towards 12:00 o'clock
but this wheel has rolled down the road
and even though back at noon
I start again
but in a different spot
and singing a different tune.
There is humility in my walk.
Down the road I see three oclock.

She doesn't know what to do
She can't get out of this room
She sits in her chair
watching the morning dew

No appetite

Words don't work
They won't even sway her
Her mind is somewhere else
I know maybe
she's thinking about you

There are so many clichés
one can say

All you can do is hug her
tell her
"Baby it's gonna be okay "

That's all you can do
when
baby's got the blues.

When I see God I'm going to ask 'em*
How many chords of wood have I stacked
how many lovers never came back
how many faux pas
how many miscues
how many meanings didn't I do.

When I see God I'm going to ask 'em
What's the most disgusting thing I ever ate
and
who.

When I see God I'm going to ask 'em
Why the birds are always laughing
In 60 million years is that what we are going to do
and what do the redwoods
think about
is that what five thousand years of life
will do
and where did the joy go
ten minutes ago ?

If I see God I'm going to ask 'em
for the perfect poem
the perfect mirror
the perfect thought
the perfect silence
I'm going to ask 'em
to sing one more time
the cosmic hum.

If I see God I'm going to ask 'em
to kiss the ocean
embrace the desert
kiss the mountains
bless the rivers
love the people
I'll tell 'em to love them
as we're supposed to.

And if I see God I'm going to ask 'em
what's the meaning
what's the purpose
what's the solution
and
of course
What the ****?

It is hard to do anything
when life is so raw
Walking down darkened hallways
trying every door

The corridor stretching
out to oblivion

Grief stricken
tears falling

Stumbling,
like a drunk down
in Old Town

Brought down to
one's knees
praying to
Jesus
Buddha
Zeus

Struggling to put on
an asbestos suit,
flailing in deep space

When life is raw,
hard to refrain
from
adding salt to the wounds

Peaceful sleep finally,
hard not to burn
when life is so raw

Close your eyes
quiet your thoughts

I'll be watching over you
at least for a while.

Where have all the Peacemakers
Gone?
Have they gone awry
Have they gone astray
Have they all died away?
What exactly are they doing
Today?

We face a universe's
Insatiable hunger
For death
On this small blue speck
Ants on an anthill
In the middle of the forest
Just off this path
Slaughtering each other
Over one
Miniscule mound of sweat.

We knock on the door
I'm hungry please let me in
When I'm hungry enough
I'll kick that **** door in.


Where have all the Peacemakers gone?
Whose coming with the light of dawn.

Every night on the news
The death report reports
And the cumulative sorrows weep
For the innocent
While genocide marches
Through the streets.
I can hear their cries from here.

Tell me dear
Where have all the Peacemakers gone?

Have we
Has the universe
In its insatiable hunger
Really
Killed each and every one?

I watch the apocalyptic
Dawn
And I can't help but feel so
Alone.
So I reach out to you
In affectionate
Hunger
And bury my face
In your breast for a
Moment's rest.
While in my heart are all
The cries
Of all the generations
Who have asked this before
They died

Where have all the Peacemakers gone?

And why?

Long Valley lay outside my bedroom window
high desert Northern Nevada,
each sunrise
rose
brilliant red
spirals
spires
exploding
in the passing dawn,
to
the petroglyphs
we were drawn.

The asphalt became a dirt road
then the dirt road ended.

Along Long Valley
like some drive through zoo,
herds of wild burros
cattle
sheep
grazing
separated by Pinion pines
the white sage
the dust devils
and the tumble weeds
and a 52 Studebaker body
perfectly preserved
in the high desert dry air
one could only wonder how it got there.

Long Valley had its own expanse
its own vibration to the air
distinct and unique
filled with wonder
way out there.

The petroglyphs
10,000 year old drawings
at once was
the shores of ancient
Lake Lahontan
you could feel it there.

Trying to decipher
the lines and curly cues
circles and swirls
stars and shapes
of
an alien consciousness
from another land
another time.

This was no one rock
but
acres and acres
of generations
communicating with one another
the rocks worn away
from thousands of years of sitting
forming perfect lounge chairs,
perhaps sitting alongside
some receding shore line.

There were  stone rock walls carefully stacked
mysteriously standing  scattered
in the desert
no one knows what it really means.

While lost in the tones
the scents and vision
of the millennium,
on the hillside
through the Tamarack
and Pinion
there emerged
four wild mustangs
at a distance
on the top of the ridge
not those that wandered
into our Virgina City yards

But wild animals
tied to the horses of the millennium.
Power and Strength
spirit gods
reminding us of where we were.
The winds blew
the black mane
of the male in front
wet from sweat
chest heaving in breath
and then they were gone
over the hill
from where they had come.

The petroglyphs were silent.
The sounds of the winds
the sounds of the small stream
less than a drop
in the once Great Lahontan Sea.

Before the sun went down
we needed to leave
driving along the sides
of dry river beds
up rocky hillsides
along the electrical lines
to the dirt road
to the asphalt
as the Long Valley
sunset shot
spires of red.

To
the poets
among us
I
do
bequeath for
us
the lines
that
bring
us
elegant
truth.

I wish upon wishes
I wish all the
time

If wishes were horses
than beggars would ride
This is something we've known
for a
long long
time

But still I put
wishes on stars
and
go along
for the ride
whispering out to the great unknown
listening and wishing
for
another story untold

But
of all the wishes
I could bestow
I wish for that peace
we all
wish
to know.

Women of a certain age
not so young and not so aged
have witnessed the passing of love's parade
They dance at night alone
to fight the diminishing
returns of youth's flight.

They have found peace and
quietude in wisdom
about life's truth.

No knight comes.
No child answers
"come home's" call.
No money opens
heartfelt doors.
No strife is beyond
their solving might.

They have given it all
in healing other's
wounded night.

They take it back
inside to find
in their eyes
a moment of serenity
wise and laughter in
those eyes,
where candles light
their longing night...

Still learning to reach for the gifts
star like in the skies
Taking them into my heart

One at a time

One for your love
The children too

One for the mind
One for the feelings
Through and through

One for the light evolving
One for the light of healing

One at a time

One for the heat of living

Still learning to reach for the gifts
Star like in the skies.

One day you're here,
the next day there,
No connection
between the two
but you.

Not like a boat
leaving the dock
and having the
shorelines fade
slowly away

Not like an airplane
above it all
when it all becomes so
small,
Until landing
brings it back up
to size,
Not like that at all.

Not like watching
them waving,
Fading away
as you drive down the street.

Yesterday at work,
In love,
Home with your parents,
Your spouse,
Your children

Today it's not present at all,
Whole ways of being,
Don't dissolve,
The program changes,
Lights on,
Lights off,
Maybe a flash
in-between,
But that's all,
can you tell me, my friend,
What does it really mean?

Yesterday, today, tomorrow,
I guess we are not all three,
The present is not a flow.

Just you and me now,
As we go.

All is
this composition book
in front of me,
With one more period
to go.

11/25/06-Fall
In Memorium, Dad

He did not pass
He did not die

He waited for me
to arrive.
The 410 Freeway mysteriously
traffic free at 5pm
An open highway on a Friday night
with Thanksgiving just passed
at that last bend.

I arrived and sat with him
His head rose, masked, heroic
Breath reaching

I gently stroked his smooth
inner arm in that game of
"tell me when my finger tip
reaches the exact spot"

His tongue went to his teeth
in gesture
whether tickle, or talk or kiss
(three times his tongue went
to his teeth)
The traffic such mysterious
coincidence.

I thanked him for waiting
and kissed his forehead

After the last breath
There is no other.

Every *******
text, email, reply
ends up
in a
rhyme.

You open
the
fortune cookie
and
there is
nothing
inside

You're my walking song
You right my wrongs
You walk with grace
in flowing lace
You're my song unsung
You're my walking song

You're my child
on their way
I hold you when you need me to
You're my walking song

It's a song unsung
This song we've begun
It's a melody caught in the breeze
It comes with the wind
And is gone towards the sea
It's a cumulus cloud unfolding
into a red red sky
It's a melody I hear
through my night time
window

You're my walking song
You've been delivered to me
My lips
My life
My love
is singing

My eyes are seeing the notes
before me

You're my song unsung
You're my walking song.