My breathing slows
my mind is stilled
my spirit rises
Falun Gong

The evening weeps
in empathy
an evil steals
echoes of souls

As One we join
our sanctity
in supplication
to Divine

As more among us
simply vanish
Disappeared
without a trace

Mind is a dog
that barks, a dog
with a bone that is
never buried,
and thought like
a dog's instinct without
the anchor of volition.

.
I left the house of the tempest brewing,
Spinning like a rod, spun into flame
And came upon the redwood forest,
Eternal, shouting out heavens name.

The sun was indifferent, the creek shuffled
Its lament, the birds fluted their dirge—
I was so small, in the red giants grove,
Yet, felt so beloved, my pain was purged.

And I warmly came to see again—
My eyes, through the needles drove,
What a trifling is ones fleeting mood,
How true, heroic, immortal is my love.

.
Notes wash over
The no angled ear
Listener, journeyer
See trails leading
To a cloud of sun,
Break in the skies,
Soon to know again
What was creeping
In the eyes of restless
Thought, unrequited
Sense, the whirling
Ride in the globes
Of vertigo and touch.

Dismembered by mood,
The musician conjures
Lost jewels in thought,
Sparks to the mind,
Sorcery in the bland,
Wayout, man, you dig,
Tap the deep rythmns
Drowning under toes,
Shutters we have lined
Go ourselves together
In the blinds.  Turn on,

Off those penny eyes,
The horn careening
In its heights of low
Down blues and sheen,
Be bop and stirring
In a rush, unfinished
The player knows
Your got number,
Is offbeat, syncopated
With the pearly drums
Of the sheet, read heart.

Jazzman is charmer
To sleepy serpent
Kept, shot in only bars
That leech into night,
The looking glasses
Pouring over misery
Ride sweet nowhere
In the tempos of fix,
Youngling daddy-o,
Plenty is the brass horn
Of Jazz in the clears,
Cool fingers singing
What the mind hears.

Tell me,

When children lay dying
In muddied dusty streets
In a place so far removed
From the world you've hewn
A niche all for yourself
And your loved ones,
Do you pity them?

Tell me,

When bombs fall in the night
Filling children, women, and men with fright
For their meager yet worthy lives
Apt to be cut short before their time,
Do you sympathize?

Tell me,

When the man on the street
With one hand and no feet
Shakes a half empty cup
Begging for your money to sup
On something more than handouts
At the local shelter,
Do you drop your high-held nose and also a few coins?

Tell me,

When the neighbor girl
Walks past your door
On a triple-digit summer day
In long sleeves and heavy pants,
Do you stiffen with concern
That mottled skin might lie beneath
Her carefully constructed facade?

Tell me,

How close to home
Must tragedy strike
Before your eyes
See humanity?

Must it be your best friend on drugs
Or your mother with her whiskey
Or your brother with his guns
Or your daughter with her cuts,
Or even yet all of them dead
Because of their sins and addictions
That kept them
From living instead of merely surviving
Until one day they threw in the towel
And now you can't follow.

Tell me,

What will it take?
For us to see humanity.

Only time will tell
if we make the breakthrough
from one half
to another
where the light
shines to a space
fantastic
with creation
with realisation
immune
to falsification
to something that never
was
not in this life or
the next.