The wind comes along
and cools your body
and lifts your spirits
and softens your day,
and pushes you gently
in a certain direction,
or blows so hard
you must stay wide awake;
and on those days
when it’s hot and still,
you want the wind to cool you,
don't you, and at those times
when you’re all alone,
you want the wind for comfort;
and on those days
when you’re not quite sure
and you want to see
clouds hurrying by,
you want the wind
to show you where
your heart must go,
but you cannot have it,
it comes when it wants
and it blows where it will,
it belongs to another,
one greater than you.

if I wanted you to see
what I saw, wouldn't it
be better to just point,
rather than conjure a
bunch of flowery language
gibberish that leaves you
wondering who the hell I am

One bird told another
and he in turn
another
until
in no time,
word was passed
halfway 'round the world;

and though the bluebird
could not communicate
the exact
meaning
of the language,
so foreign,
still, he sang,
and the sense
of the thing
was imparted;

and though the woman
did not know
she was hearing it
in the bluebird's song,
that secret thing
the man had told
the nightingale
so far away
was imprinted on her heart,
and she felt it
and put her hand
over her breast,
and breathed in
and smiled;

And the man
did not know
what the birds
had done.

The whippoorwills
are a portent of dawn;
long before sun’s rising
they awaken the
alert ones who
welcome the light,
encourage the morning
with its singing birds
and countless bugs,
enthusiastic for life;
whirlpoolS spin endlessly,
grabbing whatever they can
and swirling it
down into darkness;
whippoorwills are for
the listening ones;
the hum of the freeway
and the buzz of mowers
and trimmers
and blowers and
planes and gulls
is for the others
who swat at ambience,
caught in life’s vortex.

Still ones,
listening ones,
stop the wheel!
Everyone grab a spoke.
Let’s turn the spiral
in the other
direction, let it come
from the center out.

Vote for me for poet of the year,
I can make you laugh,
I can make you fear,
I can make you giggle
like a schoolgirl again,
I can give absolution,
I can make you sin,
I can make you sing
with my meter and timing,
or upset your balance
with imperfect rhyming,
I’ll need your vote
at the end of the year
so, I thought I’d better
start asking you here,
vote for me for poet of the year.

There is
a part of
a teak
armchair,
left out
in the rain;
I sanded it
and buffed it
and waxed it;
this is a good thing
to do, taking
old wood
and making it
pretty;
I stripped some
electrical wire, and
hammered it
into expressions
of my longing;
I listened
to the silent birds
and the radio,
wandering around
wondering;
suddenly
never happened,
but eventually
I found my way
back into
the house.
There was still
the laundry,
and somehow
I had forgotten
to eat dinner.

you have it right there
in front of you
in your double sink,
you've got the greasy side
where you toss the stuff
in your life that you are
done with, and needs cleaning,
and then you've got the soapy side
where there is real power
in the grease cutting aspects
of your ambition,
your desire, your dreams,
now where did they come from?
Grab a rag!

I think of you every day,
  and my thoughts fail
    because you are
    so far away;

my thoughts are not words
  that tell you I miss you;
    they are not pictures
    that conjure your beauty;

there is no color, no line
  no meter, or rhyme
    no past and no future
    no increment of time;

my thoughts are feelings:
  needs, pure wanting
    sometimes,
    expressions of longing

that words would fail at,
  and pictures distract from;
    only touches
    would do them justice;

I think of you every day,
  and my thoughts fail
    because you are
    so far away.

While looting was a
major concern during
the current catastrophe,
I saw the opportunity;
as a murderer and a thief,
I wouldn’t have to creep in
and be discreet anymore,
I could just boldly
walk in and pick anyone out
and take their wallet,
bludgeon them to death,
if I like, and take
all their cash, and leave
them there; unfortunately
I was thwarted again, by
the unfortunate circumstance
of my own demise, this hospital
room, and all these tubes which
connect me to that life I abhorred.

when an owl screeches,
when a child interrupts,
when you look again
and it isn't there,
when the poles shift
and the earth rumbles
and the voice of God says, 'quit',
when pundits prefer,
when a light bulb burns out,
when your computer reboots
because of a power outage.
when you have to hide it
because of a knock at the door,
when moist lips entice you
to forget what you are doing,
when a vagrant breeze
lifts the paper,
when you've achieved
the fourteenth line,
when the dentist
is through with you,
that's a good time
to end a poem

You looked up
from your poetry reading
and out the window,
and in your mind’s eye
you saw me, standing
at the end of a long pier
where I had just awakened
from a dream about flying,
with a look of wonder
on my face, because I had
never woken up before from
a dream standing up, except
as a small child who had
sleep-walked into his mother’s room.
There was a moon on the lake
and a small rowboat tied to the pier,
and I climbed down into it, and
as I settled into the boat,
the water rippled and
the lower moon began to shimmer.
In a visual way, it was musical
and I hummed along. As I did
the boat began to move with
no apparent means of power,
effortless propulsion just like
the flying in my dream.
All I could do was relax
and see where the boat
was taking me. In the magic
of the moment I stopped humming
and the boat likewise slowed
to a stop. I stood up and dove
over the side, swam under water
for as long as I could hold my breath,
and when I came up, I saw you there
reading, involved with my words
on the page, and I longed to be with you.
You couldn’t see me waving, you only saw
me climb back into the boat, rowing,
parting the water with a soft, diminishing
slap as I disappeared into the distance,
but I rose from the water, flying again,
and come up behind you; you looked away
from the poem, wondering what it all meant
and I put my hands together and pushed
forward with all my will power and
flew into your heart. That is where I am
now, and I intend to stay until you can
break free from your imagined reality
and come into my story with me.

I know how to make yogurt
and kefir and sauerkraut and
pickles, but I have forgotten
how to make love, maybe
you could show me again

if you would consider me for a place in the human race, without thought, then perhaps I could be bought, but I ain't cheap, I came here by dubious means, swimming canals, finding shores, you can put water that is about three hundred degrees below zero into a woodstove and it will melt and sing you the hillbilly national anthem, but I, river swimmer, am a threat?

The temperature has
fallen to ten degrees
and I am looking into the
woodstove now, and seeing
how the densest of wooden
logs eventually succumb
to the fire, and watching
a news report of the LA
fire, and remembering when
I lived there, and flipping
over to the president elect’s
dinner with the governors, and
concluding that even the densest
of people will eventually
succumb to the truth, but
there will be unimaginable
losses (does a period go here
or shall I put a semicolon
just in case?)

Hey, I need to talk to you.
Are you cognizant?
I have whisperings and shouts
needs and advice,
your response will suffice
to further your education,
of me and my clan,
and you and your plan
and I promise,
I will always play the poet
as long as I can

there once was a fisherman
who went looking for words,
(he knew exactly how close
the words words and worms was)
so he took grubs; and pushed them
up into an inconspicuous place
where they festered and were
expelled, (completely without grace)
he survived in the end, without
comment, without friend,
but he wandered, and now is here

(Be sure to read my previous post, Chapter One, first)

As the story continues to unfold in newspapers all around the world, Raul and his mother and their cat sit bewildered at their kitchen table. The window is blown out and flies are everywhere. The old hawker’s cart lies in rubble on the street, the old man face down in the dirt beside it. The laundry still remains in the upper windows but is tarnished by soot. The old dirt street has been shredded by the tanks’ treads and buildings with gaping holes in the brick tenuously stand. No one is moving in the town, only Raul and his mother and their cat.
“Tell me this is all a dream,” says Raul’s mother, but Raul can’t. He can’t even speak because he is so choked up with tears that words will not come. He gets up from his chair and comes to stand by his mother and rubs her shoulder tenderly. She drops her head into her arms and sobs.
A Paris newspaper headline declaims, LES REBELLES DEFERLENT SUR L’AMERIQUE DU SUD. And another in Berlin, DIE REBELLEN FEGEN UBER SUDAMERIKA. The President of the United States issues a stern warning while privately wondering if he can marshal a strong enough protection at his southern border to prevent the rebellion from spreading. He has totally forgotten about the large Canal in Panama. He picks up his private phone and calls Raul’s mother. “How did you survive the attack?” he asks. She doesn’t understand it, how her phone is still working, and where the tanks have gone. “No se,” she replies. “No sabe,” echoes Raul. She doesn’t know. Raul doesn’t know and POTUS doesn’t know either, having been fully preoccupied with thousands of drones flying in over the Canadian border with smiley faces painted on their undersides, and the stubborn refusal of the prime minister of Sweden to answer her phone. FRILLIP he writes on a notepad on his desk, not even understanding what the letters mean. The word had appeared to him in a dream, and now a skywriting plane was writing it up in the clouds out of the window behind his desk. And by now you are wondering what the old man who is writing this is getting at with all his gibberish. The answer to this question is, “Absolutely nothing!” He is just wasting time on another dreary winter day. He stands away from his computer, goes to his kitchen and brushes his teeth, then pulls his pajama legs out of his woolen socks, disrobes and heads for a hot shower.

I love you with my
heart, hands, eyes, breath, feet and lips.
will it be enough


I can feel them there,
heartbeats echoing softly
when I hold you close


Give your love to me;
I will treasure and hold it
with an open hand


Hungry to see you;
and even after they do,
my eyes still want more


I hold my breath and
count to twenty to quench it,
this longing for you


When you laugh with me,
my soul feels so much lighter,
my feet start to dance


Silent lips await
their chance to sing your praises,
or kiss you softly

When we long,
we know there is more,
something missing
we need to find,
it is the motivation
to move on,
the essence of dissatisfaction,
the beginning of a journey
toward fulfillment,
it is the recognition
of unrest,
the need to discover
missing mysteries
in life.
Longing feels good,
it feels right;
it is the antidote
to complacency
and smug satisfaction.
When we long,
for others,
for something greater,
we reach past our dilemmas
and difficulties
and defeats,
we begin to climb
to higher ground.
Come, long along.

human extraction is when
you pull a person out
of a situation
where they think
they are trapped
and you see them there,
without a clue,
and what else
can you do,
you reach out,
flip some switches,
pull pulleys and shout,
and pretty soon the poor person
previously captive is out,
and you go drink a beer

I like the girls
at the pizza place,
even though they're
not very feminine,
arguing with the cooks,
exchanging insults
with the dishwashers.
Still, they're good to me
and understand.
The waitress said,
wiping her hands
on her flowered apron,
I'd take you home with me."
And even though
she didn't really mean it,
still, it was a nice
thing to say.
I saw you at our ten year
reunion
with that big-mouth
you married
and I tried to be
friendly
but it was hard
with him there.
I hadn't seen you
since the party
when you rode out
of my life
on his back,
him prancing into
the bedroom and
closing the door,
you laughing.
You were so beautiful
that night, though
not very feminine,
drunk and riding piggyback.
I waited until
the party was over
but you never came out.
I told the pizza girls
how much I wanted to tell you
"I love you," but couldn't
with big-mouth there.
They gave me a free cannoli.
They're nice,
but not very
feminine.

I saw him there alone at his task
upon his pedestal.
It was large enough
for him to turn
in short little steps
and still keep his balance
but no more than that,
as he turned and he turned,
and always kept turning.


Just a hand
on the pedestal
would have been trampled
by his continual turning,
in short little steps
around and around,
alone at his task
as he turned and he turned,
and he turned, always turning.


His clothing a veil
that couldn't conceal
the glow on his face.
And the strength
so apparent
in the task he performed
as he turned and he turned
and he turned and he turned,
and he turned and he turned,
always turning.


With his strong arms
bent slightly,  
he held a rope firmly
in sinewy hands
with thick fingers gripping,
he turned and he pulled,
and he turned and he pulled,
and he turned and he pulled,
always turning.






A strong muscled back
and large and sure legs
bent and locked at the knees;
he leaned back with the load
his arms stretched taut,
he turned and he pulled,
and he turned and he pulled,
he turned and he pulled,
always turning.


And as the rope
came by where I stood
I saw why he turned,
for licking around him
was a lake of fire burning
that lit up his face
as he turned and he pulled,
and he turned and he pulled,
he turned and he pulled
always turning.


At the end of the rope
was a large basket full,
of children all weeping
with nowhere to go,
too heavy to pull in
with arms stretched taut
as he turned and he turned,
and he pulled and he pulled,
and he turned and he pulled,
always turning.


They looked at the fire,
then earnestly to him
with eyes full of fear
as he held them perpetually,
above the flames;
In the glow of his face
I now recognized him
as he turned and kept turning
and turned,
always turning.





It was the father
who held them
and called them and told them
and pulled them and told them
that he couldn't pull them in,
there just wasn't room
on the pedestal for them,
but he would keep turning
and turning and turning,
and never stop turning,
no, never stop turning.




And he sang them a song
as they turned
and they turned;
he sang, "little children,
go around and around
and around and around
and around and around
and never stop turning."

a person,
a chameleon,
an adaptee,
the inveterate migrant,
the person who alters himself
to adapt to the local color,
dress, speech, mode,
who invents himself
to be accepted,
to fit in,
to appear at home,
to blend, must
disguise his true self,
and because he can’t
completely, because
his false description
is insufficient
to cover up     
what he was before,   
what life has molded
him into,
the shape,
the flavor,
and smell,
of his combined
historical circumstances
and conceptions
and upbringings,
the slaps
and kisses
and praises
and criticisms of his years,
then he must invent other false
descriptions about his true self
to counter
the imagined
prejudices
of the ones
he is trying to become like,
and all in all
it is lies, lies,
and more lies
and his true self
goes deeper
and further inside
until it nearly
disappears
and can only
be heard crying softly
in the darkness
by the keenest
of friends.

methinks, the would-be poets
have all lost their sense of humor
and are engaged in a tragic struggle
to retain their personal identity,
to keep from falling off some edge,
to decry a most miserable love affair,
to keen coyote-like at a disappearing moon,
to obtain sympathies only available
from other well-meaning sycophants,
and have also lost a certain dignity
that goes with the creative urge, the
willingness to throw off convention, to
explore, to invent situations unreal,
where they are the victors, the
heroes and heroines of a dying literature,
and to laugh out loud at all the circumstances
that have brought them to expose themselves
in such an unseemly manner
I raise a New Year's glass to you all
may you find peace, dignity, purpose
and regard in the coming year, and
overcome the forces of doom

I am working up
the courage to
face you all again
ever since I laid
myself bare with
my accounting of
how I thought to
survive; by hording
my words while trying
to stay alive, but
it didn’t work, I
almost choked on them,
and now I feel like
they are just going to
spew out of my mouth again,
and shame me as before

Oh, ****
everything
I said before
is null and void
I have been
found out,
in the category
of preposterous.
the realm of bravado

we could be staring
at the ceiling together
lost in wonder; but no worry,
our time will come;
how does one
pop a champagne cork
with decorum?
is there no way
to decompress
such a powerful reality;
what person lives
in such a weak-*** place
as where you need to cook
on med-high? Let us
invite them back
to simmerland,
poor scorchers
of innocent garlic,
their culinary attempts
of bravado
leave a disting-
guishable aroma behind,
their loving search
for the unknown,
that which was not
before but lays ahead,
is testament
to their sincerity
and enthusiasm,
their recipes
a jumble of surmise,
but they always pull it off

These books of mine,
their titles bold,
which lie in wait
upon the shelves
just to be read
and never sold,
wait patiently
as I regard
their spine,
but never have
the urge to bring
them to my bed,
my eros dwindled
after years of
grand disapproval,
from them and others;
if they could speak
with pages unturned
they’d be a chorus
of reproving languor;
“you’ve done nothing
for us. Why don’t you
throw us on the burn pile?
you smile and spurn
our words and all the while
work at your poetry,
as if you have
at your command
the ages, but
cannot see the simple
things at hand;
you’ll never learn!”
So I, with dampened eyes
turn aside nocturnal
nonsense, and take one
down, and dust it off
and open up its pages
and realize its words
are eternally young,
while I’ve grown old
and spun my lifelong
web of lies, and missed
my opportunity,
languishing
in my impunity.

I await, faithful poets
with upturned face
for a little debris
from outer space
to fall and land
in just the right place
about noon this coming Monday;

please pray, faithful poets
along with me
for this unlikely event
because it really could be;
we’d be shocked for sure
but secretly,
our mourning hearts
would be full of glee;

(now sing the chorus along with me)

Space debris, don’t fall on me,
I’m really not quite ready,
Oh, space debris, don’t fall on me,
I’m really not quite ready.

I have met so many
beautiful devils,
one tried to stab me,
one tried to shoot me,
on stole my heart, and
when I wanted it back,
she took my car; ******

just in case
you have been waiting,
someday never comes,
it’s always now,
it never changes
from that, so stop
saying it, someday
I’m going to do
this or that,
someday never comes

Knock, knock,
Whose there?
It's me, you ******* idiot,
who did you think it was?

is my dislike for the exceptional
regional or conventional,
am I paranoid or schizophrenic,
am I a raging peripatetic
or a reasonably ignorant human,
these questions all remain
as I wipe my hands off
and digress from communication
and work my way back
down into my wormhole
until the holidays are over

(for erin and Kalliope)

I'm swimming alone in the river of time
Do rondy rondy rondy, do rondy rhyme,
Remember me as the one who swims here,
It's par, silly sage, nose buryin' time.

I must keep swimming to keep my nose even
With a point on the shore that I think must be mine,
I swim and I swim, and I never stop swimming,
Staying abreast of that arbitrary line.

When I swim over towards it, I start drifting back,
It never gets closer when I swim the oblique,
I turn back and swim harder against the strong current
No closer but even with the shoreline I seek.

I want to turn over and float on my back
And drift idly down, feet first in the stream
With my hands intertwined 'neath my head as I aimlessly
Seek circumstances that are more serene.

With my toes I could point and turn this way and that
Watching cloud pictures pass in the heavenly blue.
But wait! There is something I remember from stories
Of a waterfall somewhere. I think that it's true.

The waterfall stories are full of destruction,
Mangled bodies all broken on sharp rocks below,
So, I swim and I swim and I just keep on swimming,
There is nothing else. I have nowhere to go.

I pull at the water, do breaststroke and crawl and
Dog paddle when I'm tired. How I wish I could fly!
I seldom look over at the shore anymore,
It discourages me so much I just want to cry.

I used to swim as fast as I could
But then I would falter, lose all that I gained,
I now take it easy, I know my own limits,
I don't swim with my body, I swim with my brain!

A friend of mine used to swim with me and tell me
She loved me and wanted to always be there,
To challenge, encourage me, touch me and feel me
Splashing ahead with the burdens we'd bear.

But now she's veered off and she swims at a distance;
I can see her struggling like me, even more.
I'm trying to help but I know I can't reach her
Any more than I can reach that far away shore.

Look around! There are so many boats in the water,
I've been in a few but I've always leapt free
When with sad revelation I've found that their heading
Wasn't anywhere near to the port of "point me"

Ah, who's afraid of those waterfalls anyway,
Maybe, like rollercoasters, they're thrilling I'll bet.
We just fear them, avoid them and make up the stories
Because we have never been over one yet.

It's not easy to keep this stuff dry while I'm swimming,
I can't record anymore in the water, as such.
Would somebody please just hand me some goggles,
My eyes hurt from laughing and crying so much.

When I went to church
they often sang the
horrified beagle song,
and it made me chuckle
to myself, they sang,
"in my life, lord, be glorified,
beagle horrified, in my life, lord,
beagle horrified today."

I want to get so drunk
that I forget to eat,
even though I’ve been
working on my poor soup
all day, and try not
to remember the turkey
with all the stuffing
and the mashed potatoes
and gravy, the green bean
casserole, and the pies,
oh, my, those pies,
but I am the Christmas
outcast, the one who
denied the historic Jesus
his Saturnalia adoption,
and hurled Him and me
into this oblivion.

from Mary Oliver

“Ordinarily, I go to the woods alone, with not a single
friend, for they are all smilers and talkers and therefore
unsuitable.
I don’t really want to be witnessed talking to the catbirds
or hugging the old black oak tree. I have my way of
praying, as you no doubt have yours.
Besides, when I am alone I can become invisible. I can sit
on the top of a dune as motionless as an uprise of weeds,
until the foxes run by unconcerned. I can hear the almost
unhearable sound of the roses singing.
If you have ever gone to the woods with me, I must love
you very much.”