“Come over here” I said

She came
Laid herself upon my shoulder
And melted into me
As only she can do

For a long time
There were no words
No need for them
Just that powerful thrum
Like a lion’s purr

It held us there in silence
Like kids in awe of church

It assured my faithfulness
Without any need for promises
Or pledges or oaths

It will
As long as one of us can ask
“Come over here”

The thirsty plant
Need not know
Who pours the water.

Prayers of
thankfulness
Need no deity.

They Shot the ******
I say they-I don’t know who
Though I have my ideas

The farmer up the creek
Whose pasture he has flooded?
Is this why his fur is blooded?

Perhaps the hunters saw him
And shot him just for sport
They seem to be that sort

This one is the third
Two more the other day
I loved to watch them play

He floats fully distended
By gas of dead for days
Like some new Hindenberg

I glide by in canoe
Kick him with my shoe
Launch him in the breeze

He floats on down the lake
A Viking burial ship
Dying for our sake

You can live three weeks without food
Three days without water
Three minutes without oxygen
Which is longer?

By the time it really matters
With food or water
You are too weak to notice

If you want to know which is longer
There is a simple test
Hold your breath

You say you’ll love me always
but can that love express?
Inexplicably connected
we connect without success.

Play dates, texts and evening swims
You hurt to hear me now,
so one must find the reasons,
then things can fix somehow.

You suggest you see what’s best
by having stopped to think
of reasons why we must not try.
You sent me them in ink.

Head says I need less neediness.
Head says you need more trust.
Head says contact is much too soon.
Cold turkey is the best.

But after saying all you think
you ask twice for response.
and signify a little wink.
that takes my breath and sense.

And since you’ve left me senseless
and broken me apart
perhaps our love I can express
without my head but heart.

Now I know not of reasons-
things we can control.
I know love has its seasons.
I know I feel your soul.

I know naught that can be taught.
I know just what I feel.
I know there are no rules for us.
I beg borrow and steal.

And what is real and what is dream?
And how can one decide?
And when to stop and when to start?
And when to end the ride?

There are no answers in the mind
They harbor in the soul
How do I feel about time to heal?
The word “heal” comes from “whole”.

The soul knows naught of “either or”
It sings the song “both and”
It knows naught of right or wrong
It forfeits for The Friend

I see two trees twined in the wood
have rubbed raw one another.
I see them healing one on one
each giving each their cover

So if I ignore what you implore-
to give you time to heal
and instead of time I give this rhyme
that rings like your bell’s peal.

That fills the room like our first Ohhm
that stabs you to your core.
Let us forgive and let love live,
and row toward the roar.

Why do birds exalt in song
At coming of the dawn?
Unlike us, they never know
If it will come again.

Deciding now which way they should go
To and fro

Hiding in this green protective world
Nature unfurled

Lining up dead limbs to mark the way
Nothing to say

Fallen tree blocks the old way through
As though he knew

Trimming trails no one will ever see
No one but me

What have you brought?
No more than I need.
What I have sought?
To let my heart bleed.

What have you done
But let me be wild?
Trust in a woman
Joy in a child.

So many levels
Of vision, of existence
Each a door into its own universe

What can you see?
It depends on how you look
A telescope, a microscope?

Or how you travel
A plane, a train, a car, a bike, afoot
Each different speed reveals a different world

Summer’s heat slows a walk
Along familiar paths
Allowing eyes to see
The things they missed before

I’m at the cash register
Picking up a to go order
Making small talk with the hostess
Suddenly I hear your voice
Close enough to touch

You had to hear me but you do not turn
I look at you not looking at me
I make the leap

“Hi. Good to see you. Meet my friend.
Hope you are doing well. Take care.”
What goes unsaid says far too much.

You the independent one
Wanting someone only to enhance you
Needing no one to complete you

Me, with my holes to fill
Fill with someone like me,
Someone who needs me just as much

I pay the price, take the food, walk away
Unsteady on this new ground
Born in the earthquake of our meeting again


Each morning commute  
Every black car met
Makes false promises of your return

No sacrilege is love
That dies but yet remains
To nurture what’s to come

you cannot love
from the safety of a distance
you cannot know
what you cannot touch

You cannot taste
full joys of her attention
She cannot love  
if you fear too much

so the time has come
to abandon desperado
to take the plunge
to loose the widening gyre

to trust her love
to hand her heart your ego
to make the lunge
into her frightening fire

She was by here earlier today
Flirting with my wild imagination
Revealing lines and stanzas
The way you casually drop
Your clothes upon the floor

I yearned to pick them up
Preserve them with ink and paper
Or little bytes flashing on a screen
But I was busy
Doing more important things
So it seemed at the time

I should have remembered
That these gifts of poem pieces
Are more perishable
Than an overripe peach
And disappear more quickly
Than flakes of snow on warm earth

We are Slowly Dying
(A response to Thanatopsis)

We are slowly dying
Myself, and these old pines
a little here, a little there

almost imperceptibly
death on her cat’s feet comes

I sit with these old friends,
longing their lost limbs
some already fallen
some just now losing needles
like me, my hair

So we sit quietly,
neither saying much
neither needing to
All has been said and done
or else need never be

soon it will be time
signs are certain now
All point in one direction
We, transition forests
Bow to new emperors

But we’ve no need complain
Of bugs eating their bark
Other bugs eating at mine
It would do no good
So we sit silently

How to end this tale
Now that it's been told?
Perhaps a sweet rhymed couplet?
To tie it all together
Or some old musty moral?

The sunset goes down with us.
No meaning does it give us.

A mournful mist anoints the silent trees
A leafless limb grows crystal orbs below
A musty mother pulls them toward her womb

They tremble at the coming of the breeze
They fear the fall to what they do not know
They see the earth absorbing like a tomb

At last their weight overcomes their will
The tearing loose, the terrifying thrill
The bursting open on the forest floor
The ecstasy: One is no one no more.

Cliff Perkins
November 6, 2015

The spider taken by the wasp,
The pointless web remained
Betrayal for the butterfly

For fun some say
To pass the day
For reasons still unshown

To feel worthwhile
To cause a smile
To reap what went unsown

To ride the wind
To curse the grind
To perish all that’s lost

To play the game
To hide the shame
To never pay the cost

If all this rhyming makes no sense
Perhaps you’ve never known  
I have but one true audience
An audience of one

Why do we write?
Why read, why share?

Poems are stories
Stories of our terrors and triumphs
Our love and loneliness

Candles calling to each other
Allowing us to huddle in the dark

When a man comes to you
And tells you your own story
Then you will know that your sins are forgiven

Ernest Kuntz and Katherine Ketcham
The Spirituality of Imperfection
1992

I first saw him
Hiding in the woods edge
Looking so intently
What are his eyes saying?
Fear? Want? Desire? Need?
Yes. Yes. All of the above

He is Always on alert
Watching my every move
Hyper-vigilant
Ready to dart way at a moment’s notice

Days and weeks go by
He is friends with my dogs now
But isn’t that the way?
You can trust dogs more than people

If I ever move toward him
He pirouettes
and maintains our distance
It is a dance we all do
like many other dances

I respect his needs
I make no move towards him
No harsh words
Just sit and wait
and show myself
Give him room to be

If only I could have had the strength
To do the same with you

9/22/2012

Today he walks up and licks my hand
I speak softly but still make no move to hold him
He comes again, more relaxed this time

Suddenly he trusts me and the dam bursts
He is ecstatic, tail wagging, big smile
Eyes laughing hilariously

I rub his back and say something like:
“So finally you decided to come in out of the cold”  

In that moment of saying those words
I fall apart sobbing uncontrollably
Full of this happiness/sadness

When the crying stops
I ask myself: “What was that all about?”
Then suddenly I know
I am a wild dog too.

Eyes are windows to the soul
Showing what’s inside

But when I gaze the lake
See herons flying in the fog,
I realize

Windows work both ways
Filling us with beauty
Reflected in our eyes

You wish to hear the languages you do not understand
The ones you knew before you learned to speak

To see and hear and taste and touch; to dumbly walk the land
To empty out, to make your mind more meek

And so you wander wild in woods, unmade unmasked unplanned
With rock and rain and bark and bloom and beak

You own surprise with babe’s new eyes, you know now why you came:
To know each thing just as it is; to never know the name
To **** the flower, to lose the power, to lust as you unlearn
To smell the earth, to die in birth, to drown in sweet return

I am drawn to wounded things
The tattered butterfly
The lonesome dove, the long-lost love
The way we live and die

The terrapin with broken shell
The tree by tree rubbed raw
The broken leaf, the mother’s grief
The mouse in my cat’s maw

Why focus I on things that sigh?
Why not sing happy songs?
To live and die, it helps to cry
The wounds help right the wrongs

You asked what was missing
“Is it the ***?” you said.
As though love were just kissing
And thrashing in our bed

It hurt to hear you say it
Did you not understand?
That I must pray-- not play it
My love be real, not rand

The body’s temple to the soul
So do not test God’s wrath
By mistaking as the goal
The thing that’s just a path

And there are many paths to tread
As you and I have shown
Charkras aligned made a true sign
That we two were God’s own

The bed’s a place you may embrace
In honest conversation
And feel the force of *******
That’s more than mere sensation

So when I say I’m missing
And when it makes me cry
Please know it’s more than kissing
And more than some *** high

Please know it’s about touching souls
and not just getting kicks
Please know it’s only heaven’s drug
That gives my Suzie fix