This only works
If you judge me
Like your mirror

The heartbreaking parts
To Hemingway
Are finishing all his books

Love fills everything
But small failure
Blinds me to it

Life's longing for an embrace
Ceases not
After second eight

there's two ladies talking
about things
they don't dare mention

Unknowing is birth of wisdom
Better to abstain from judge
Most inceptions are so certain
Then collapse after a nudge

Unknowing is birth of wisdom
Better to abstain from judge
Most inceptions are so certain
Then collapse after a nudge

Don't, for a second,
Believe your familiarity equal
To the obsessed appreciator
Because you studied the author
Or painter, in school
How vague the prefrontal cortex, the memorization of Wikipedia (or generation Encyclopedia Britannica) or MFA syllabus bullet points
Focused on the minute details of joyful
Operatic beauty personification were you?
Or the mark delivered by a professor
The essay, the test?
Or the cute one in the class?
Or the one which your over-achieving spirit must compete?
Brilliance discovered in work you GET  outside of such demands is a stark difference indeed

never ever ever
******* give up
keep learning
keep loving people
and all living things
keep comforting
keep enjoying nature
the greatest tides can turn
no one knows what is around the bend
let all that has beauty
and peace
consume your mind
and shoulders
releasing the fight
completely

Know know know
Know know know
No no no
No no no
Let it go
Let it go
To feel at all
Feel it all
Singe your mind
Find more love inside

Slow down as slow as possible
Fill lungs with sky
Use your feet to feel the earth
Feel it all, think high

with that smile
let's skip the pleasantries --
take me to where your courage begins
and the fear that haunts
the shackles
    still carrying or falling away
tell me the story of the flower
    you saw today
and the decomposing tree
tell me of the butterflies
of the colors that penetrated your retina
    and made it's way through your body to please your skin
what are your thoughts and feelings
of the shameful practicality of architectural right angles?
how would you redesign the room that we're in?
or, would you rather
    burn it down
    and sit down
    in the dirt together?

Sipping mixed vermouth
Light meditation
    on love and truth
Conjuring lines of ancestral breaths
Wondering which crossed similar tests
My grandfathers
    who labored the same
My brave grandmothers
    conquered no fame
Whisper now
    'cross space-time's gap
It's the one we share
    reach over, tap
You must live quiet, in my heart
If just a small bit, a tiny part
Your blood goes on, in my veins
Beats remain, while others refrain
You're a buried memory
    a forgotten voice
I'll listen to you now
    if I had the choice

modernity's cost
synonymous with loss -
moral bits of sanity
filled with hyper-vanity
cured solely with long droughts
between button pushing bouts
to clarity kept
    to steps and depths

what are beats and breaths for
other than to address
the enormous storm
inspiration itself
rattling the door

fresh ratlings, rather
past imitation of old masters -
(warm blankets)
    and quiet shores

Grab a pint and sit with me
Tell me what you thought
While reading that short Hemingway
Or that sad one from Frost

Did you follow, or were you lost?
Do you care, or fell more blah?
What exactly did you see?
Did life reveal in raw?

How important is this art
But much more valued shared
Even if we don't agree
Together we rip the veil

We must face our fears
To begin to create
Art matters
It directs our fate

Conversation that guides
Steps that lead
Hearts are moved
Life to bleed

more the same
we were and are
then any difference
struggle or scar

there is no them
only us
can't bomb ourselves
enough - enough -

needs demanded
second to free
forgive and love
listen and see

suicidal subsides
to hope made clear
the great let go
facing all fear

Life truth lies in subtle realms
As the smallest streams story
    Is never straight
Flames and streams bend with ease
The cleansing part is both reflect
    Our soul's intent
It is the curve that holds beauty
It is the bump we desire
And all are capable sirens
After acquiring the flexion
    Of the old celestial song

Connection is not made by drawing hard lines in the sand
We can only draw off of the blurred relections that bounce the water's surface
And we suppose the cause
We guess
We estimate the source that is reflected
Based on our own reflection
It's true, I have never walked in your shoes
But don't exasperate all ignorance to believe for a single iota of time you have walked in mine
So, where do we go from here?
At what point across the increased expanse can we build a bridge?
Believe it will be worth the effort
All good in history has started this way

A day full
Of passing fads
And great lies
Time, space, boredom
Pain, worry, sorrow
Now deep Bordeaux with body
And a body full of ecstasy
Reading Hemingways short stories
And Poetry by masters
And strong breezes
Hold no unsettling power over me tonight
I contain multitudes
I go to far destinations
I follow rabbit trails
    To their inexhaustible ends
I dissolve here now
A peaceful allow to joy
Hold this not against me
I give in completely

A famous poet
A master
Of thirty (or more) years
Of teaching poetry
    (taught by Ginsberg I've been told)
Left a voicemail...a generous offer...to read my poetry
To give me instruction
At a downtown coffee shop
For fifty dollars an hour

Fifty dollars an hour?
Shouldn't he have an office?
Well, it's as close to a 1920s parisian dive around Boulder as one could find
I used to hang out there
And write before work

Eh
Perhaps it's not as weird as I think it is
Perhaps I can ascertain a love for language that couldn't be achieved outside of reading my Blake, Whitman, Hemingway, Lawrence, Dickerson...

He will read my poetry
And guide me towards accessibility, honesty, vulnerability, courage
I will be relatable (for once)
With beautiful imagery
That will open
    universes

I am suppose to text him back

Is this what I want?

What I want...thats something folks closest to me dare not ask

What has what I want have to do with anything in my life?

What I want, what I want, what I want

I want my voice to come forth effortlessly from my adventurous life, my song to echo expansive landscapes and treks, to learn intimate knowledge of plants and rocks, and laugh with the beautiful people that inhabit such places

I know tonight
Nothing matters
Until
I set an opportunistic sail to this change in the wind

I have already ventured deep into this life, I've not gone gently into the night, so why start now?

The time to shove off is soon

Like Whitman said...
"AFOOT and light-hearted, I take to the open road...
The long brown path before me, leading wherever I choose"

Hell ya, brother Walt

Walking into a coffee shop
Are they even open at this hour?
It's early
I awoke early to the sounds of my own dreams
But still slept soundly, half of my tea and open Hemingway on the bedside pedestal
Awake now, and proportionately functional
I walk to the coffee shop
Through a freezing Colorado December morning wind, that sweeps through these Boulder foothills
And a dark blackness
In my senses and sight line
Limited light pollution
I don't see the open sign, is it on?
Where is it?
A full moon through the fog
Causes a pause
Through wind-stretched clouds
The surface craters can be made out with the naked eye
The overtly bright beacon
Causes a moment of infinitesimal disproportionate yet absolutely true disparity of size
of universe and self
Thank God, they just turned the sign on!

the mysterious roar of colorado winter winds
shhhh-es through wool fibers of your beanie
providing deafness to all other sounds
ill-suited as anything
other than the predominant sensation
it is
indescribable nothingness and purity
upending curbside trash receptacles
creating ice walls of former snowfalls
and tears in the eyes of you and your dog
smeared cloud formations set against
the ethereal cerulean hum-glow clearings
cutting its perspective
into a day’s agenda
and while taking refuge
in robust shelters
it howls out reminders of its presence

Sacred weight to some known names
Warming glows, beyond quick flames
The path's finds are mostly lost
Blankets protecting the sudden frost

compassion is never compare
one loves and one condones
one can conjure beings and tribes
the other's shoes, always their own

Today
Is simply
Too magnificent
And beauty-filled
To feel as low, as I do

Is it
That I viewed
Some flawed fool
Capable of holding my gold
Trust sold cheap, a painful rue

Or the
Simple truth
Perhaps, I am
The mercurial shift
Along with the sands and infinity too

Or that
I've been blind
To said beauty's bound
An ample and abundant spread
Amongst the slews of trivial miscues

Likely
I avoid
Freedom's siren ring
For familiar's amenity chains
Electing convenience over break-through

Curious of the universe?
Saturn's rings?
Multitude of galaxies?

Do thoughts increase?
Increaing through a lifetime
All lifetimes

Miniscule photons
Horton's Universes heard
In every thumb

The soul exposing immobilization
Of a nurturing lover
In new found aesthetic beauty

Sensation of diving in water
But not water, something more
Awake from the modern dream

Visibility past these five minutes
Crippled not by fear
Crippled not by remorse

Inertia of the turn
Increasing past miraculous
Increasing past mortal language

Beats of heart-drums
    Do more than once thought
Rhythm of air into lungs
Feeling of the earth on bare feet
Birds singing you to wake

See, dear, see

the choice must be made, early on
to break from ****** caste
resign or conform to the herd
imitators en masse

to differ from this path of sheep
avoid more traveled by
for without curiosity
feebly disqualify

in these shallows, lie shallow words
with hint of substance found
remarks of minute, shielded songs
trivial, temporal sounds

lone whispered tales who dared into
dangerous distant seas
souls and hearts tapped by the allure
of what’s beyond the reef

meaning resides in deeper seas
where there is more at stake
and to ignore is praised by most
lacking courage to take

ideas are worth discussing
for those toward meaning go
first color sunrise worth noting
for takers of breaths slow

ignorance is not kiss of bliss
interest charts a new course
sanctioned preceded expansion
infinity’s deep heart

diatribes of desperation
too wonderful for Job
standing on shoulders of giants
visibility ‘n hope

from a shaded view use reason
capacities collide
intelligence, intuition
clear out views of this side

confidence is not inflection
the deep hold a bit more
eyes would rather dart through rooms than
admit what’s in the drawer

follow ideas all the way
carry them to the brink
devote it all to the open
where air is clean to think

the song’s sustenance can increase
beyond a passage bend
if the spark looms advantageous
then chase it to the end

provide occasions to evoke
the theories tracked in snow
uncertain lies the pendulum
of which direction goes

the first foggy ports of entry
where these journeys commence
encompass only distant lights
and often awful tests

allow the stronger light to blind
and bounce it off the halls
sounding boards of experience
ancient or modern calls –

calls leviathan, nebula
noble time unwasted
mysteries must be lost to gain
temporary o’ sacred

a dim reflection skips a beat
complete with foreign tune
matter not wholly familiar
where voice and image loom

inside - or outside - looking in
peering at copy dark
impressing shadow silhouettes
awake only in part

potentials are adorned within
the self-inflicted chains
honest laughs never lean
where unseen depths remain

elude the rank and file marching
van gogh’s for a dollar
valued only after its lost,
tapped or gandered through fire

compassion is never compare
one loves and one condones
one can conjure beings and tribes
the other's shoes, always their own

but fires do not completely fade
for those who stand in awe
love and shadows sincerely make
partial beauty withdraws

beauty comes suddenly, cleanly
when the thing comes at all
for unpursued and dimly lit
zipping boundless or small

evasive through the chattel herd
beyond the unexplored
echoing all senses at once
recognized or ignored

its grandeur through stories to heirs
that echo manifests
its rhythm, bearing, and function
wise to youth, wise near death

beauty's power, intangible
a high altitude veil
unspoken in its reflection
unseen with notice fail

intend on custom prison break
drop union from revel
no suffering o' comparison
the truth now the level

so pass shallows for deeper seas
with curious woken heads
and cast off cares of aversion
for soul’s empathy instead

quiet desperation has landed
loudly upon my face

youth-fueled dreams faded
promises now weighted
down
to aching
inside my rib cage
to my stomach pit
for someoneness
for somewhereness
for
me

immobilized and
frighteningly uninspired
standing on the edge
of great love
or the collapse of the coward
relief drives a hard bargain

jump inside the lavish paints
the american southwest
with scenes from first and final
and vision impetus

here all gaining is gained by loss
starting with sacreds held dear
first minutes and the hours
then all the years, then fears

long open soliloquy
lost in expanse of sky
exerts from creative souls
absorbing desert dry

Notch and notch we need knocked down
We right and proud with funds
Comfort grown in chiseled mirrors
Till all - withdrawal - that comes

Prostitutes meet messiahs
And cast offs tend their friends
The high and mighty turn goats
Most alone at the ends

Pained eyes in worn jeans with holes
Are souls that bare torn seams
We the broken down machines!
We the broken down dreams!

There's a dude
I talk to
Every time I buy a bottle of
Something good
    Chateauneuf du pape
    Topshelf Japanese whiskey
    Rare Spätburgunder
Not even Hemingway
    Or his characters
        Would dare open these alone
So I make arrangements
With the dude
And we drink slow
    While many others
        Circle around
            Come and go
And we drink it all
    With silent smiles
        While others tell tales
    
And there's a secret pact made
Each time
That we are the only ones
Tasting artist perfection

While all others
Seem to just taste
'Drink'

early nightfall in the canyon
a bat's balletic swoop
complements the alpine tribu-
tary, it's gentle loop

hi! I see you ursa major
you too are part of this--
the lull, the beat, the spell, the sleep
now with a goodnight kiss