early retirement                                           2.11.22 Mercury/Pluto conjunction

I’ve been cracking jokes lately,
when in the company of others.
When there was an opening in the conversation
I would insert a comment;
I would joke about my life in early retirement.
I would joke and say that I am retired.
It's obviously funny because I’m only 35;
fairly early in my second Saturn returns.

Over the last 18 months I’ve made modest acquisitions
fit for a retiree;
house slippers, a few extra lines in my face and
even a piccolo pipe with dark cherry Cavendish tobacco.  
They all fit rather nicely,
(according to my eyes)
when worn with my gray cardigan with the red whip stitch
suring up the right pocket;
the same cardigan I wore the night of the accident and the
morning of the ward.
That was an equinox to remember.

Maybe it's in poor taste to joke about early retirement.
Perhaps that it isn’t very funny to go on about,
or maybe it was only funny to me.
It hadn’t quite occurred to me until now that
it may be kind of awkward for a grown man to crack
funnies about his lack of income or industriousness.
I suppose I just gave myself a pass.
Because I figured everyone already knows I’m
a little unhinged-
a little ungrounded-
certainly a bit touched…
and that “he just needs time to heal because he is
an activated Light Worker and the benefits reaped
by his inner struggle to anchor the
Light upon the Earth plane is in everyone’s best interest,
and that it takes an untold exertion of Will to exact such an incarnation,
and that it takes more than a few several months for the
risen Kundalini to come to maturation.
Quick, can someone please get me a tourmaline.

Well, here I am in
southern Jersey
Manchester Township
Ocean County
Riverside retirement community
side of the pond (man made)
composite bench under a gazebo erected on a concrete pad.
Sitting inside my cardigan next to my piccolo pipe and a pen in my hand,
wondering how I could feel so lost and so found at the same time.

I’ve been a stubborn *******.
Afraid to bear my Light within my hands and
expose it to my kin in a meaningful way.
But here I am,
early retirement
on an early afternoon
in a retirement community
full of elders
slinkin through the
early dusk of the
twilight of their lives.
And I don't like it.
I am not equanimous with what is.
I’ve excreted so many toxins that the
re-uptake is nearly too much to bear.
I’ve carried empty green notepads in my back pocket for years.
Pen and pad with scotch tape holding down the binding;
worth about three or four poems max.
“Yea I fancy myself a writer, just not very prolific.”
You can only speak something into being so many times
before the universe starts agreeing with you.
Old man Saturn couldn’t give a **** about
little fears and excuses.
The limits of necessity were only
bad wiring
rendered by
my own hand.
And that goes down smooth like a fish-bone in the throat.

I own enough scarves and robes to
circumambulate the globe a few times.
If only I could fly
it would be in such style
because on the outside I look how I want to feel on the inside.
Before my heart center I hold the dharmachakra mudra and
I stare into a candle flame.
I could of sworn they prescribed this treatment
early in the Rig Veda for guys with ailments like mine;
running mad like beside his shadow and
fleeing all the house flies;
sliding down the side of a waxing crescent moon.

only the moon it is a scythe;
a crescent knife.
Waning in early retirement,
old man Saturn coming for his life.

Sunlight, moonlight
Come with their own greeting
Sun says, “good morning”
Moon replies, “good evening”.

Clockwork shift change
Little conversation on the horizon
Clocking in, clocking out
Leaving and arriving

To dance under this broken moon
Is when speckled stars and old fascinations
Come together to put back pieces you
Shining a light on this midnight blue
That infuses your wounds

Ten thousand years can't save you now
So, leave behind this moonlight melancholy
Find the hands of those you've loved
Those that hold you in their eyes
Hold onto them,

In the empty space you used to breathe

The moon sways
down the sun’s half eye
for it every mo
is the elephant is in the room
before the sun zooms out  
deep down from the pi.

Magic is uncracked within
that first light breaks out
dawns in the eternal night
is a shiny tear in the speechless
witness’ open eye,
on the tight lips, deep runner silent pi!

Men on the painstakingly polished circle
may have hewn out riveted eyes.
Up more is set free deep down the pi,
bottom in anew, in open paradise!

sweet wishes so small
in their impossible distances, they
tickled almost, I trembled almost:
beneath ant-like trails of frisky teasings, I
was settled almost
as if moon on sea’s silk-draped skin
suddenly glittered in a glitching turbulence
and mermaids rose up and out
of their thick black skies of silver tremors
shaking beads out of damp-darkened hair
and questioning questioning around
who dare startle their monotonous dreamings
who dare tremble and
stir all dull-eyed creatures around; and
as if sea dared on
shifting reckless into the answerless air,
frenzied, and grasping at an empty night
causing hundreds strange havocs
for a moon so little

i saw the moon,
and it was yellow,
and its yellow glare reminded me of so many things —

of your smile, your beautiful smile,
of your pretty eyes that sparkle at the sight of flowers,
of the way you hold my hand like there is no other.

it reminded me of the love we share,
of the calm you give,
of your gentle care.

it reminded me of the comfortable warmth
that i find myself embraced in,
of new memories of sunshine, sunflowers, and butterflies.

it reminded me of your morning glow,
and of your sweet disposition.
it reminded me that i love you so.

Those who
Withstand the darkness
Could gaze the Moon
Even better

Thus
Whenever
There is
Imperfection

Make it ART

He says he’s the moon;
doesn’t have a light of his own.

i agree,
he is the moon.

but not for the reasons you presume:

he is the moon.
in the midst of a black sea;
a blazing of silver,
a flash of hope
in the vast darkness of this world.