"arrivals" poems
time is
the space in which we grow
without awareness
in our early years
structured by meals
arrivals and departures
light and dark
hot and cold
school studies play adventures
celebrations
and by waiting
anxiously or not
for things to happen
time is
that feeling
that we may not have enough of it
in our later years
busy with jobs and family and travel
covering long distances in order to
achieve and educate and care
time is
what starts to rush by us
with increasing speed
in our final years
making us wonder
what it really means
that space
by which we measure
our lives
our universes
our worlds
time is
Mar 18, 2015
Mar 18, 2015 at 3:29 PM UTC
What poem will you wear, when first we meet?
How will I recognition-you,
when you transverse my land?
Unknown our faces, our voices,
Only silent words electronic exchanged
Will lantern, it be: one, if by land, two, if by sea?
Will your ID badge, passport stamped and state,
Your chest bear a witness-sign?
The Arrivals Board flashes:
une poétesse est arrivé
eine Dichterin ist angekomme
a poetess has arrived
una poetisa ha llegado
Will there be a haiku in your hair,
A limerick exposed by raucous grin,
Or just ten words
allotted for your entire visit?
**Desperate to locate
Urgent to sensate
Matters I take
Into two cupped hands,
On the shoeshine stand
Climb and recite-shout**
Know me by my words,
Know me by the lilt lyrical
Of my American accented,
Canadian Tongue of my mother
Know me by my words,
Carved by time on my forehead,
Poetry is the blood of this fool's soul,
Hear me, find me, look upon me slamming
Poems are the thorns in my palms,
See me crucified, bleeding stanzas
Upon my shoeshine stand cross
Recitation resuscitation welcoming:
Benedicting Gloria, Gloria, Gloria
But if this should fail your attention to secure,
Or the TSA unappreciate my second coming,
Look for the crowd gathered round,
A man of moderate height, in a tall hat,
Beard scraggly, looking sorrowful
Reciting the Gettysburg Address
Either way,
Should be easy peasy to find me,
Grab your bag, off to short-term parking
This is how an Americana poet meets n' greets
Arriving poetess from a foreign land
Is there any other way?
------------------------------
Postscipt
**Alas, five years on and I know in my heart
that you are not coming...**
Aug 31, 2013
Aug 31, 2013 at 3:17 AM UTC
Time apart makes all things
New - a nervousness
An excitement
Needy and naive
The memory of your touch
Fades - but not the intensity
Of my love
Checking like clockwork
The departures and arrivals
Heart thumping
My poor vision
A true handicap
Scanning the masses
For the most familiar face
In the world
Of whom I know
The span between my thumb and index
Is the same as your chin to earlobe
And my finger could trace the shape of your lips
From memory alone.
When my eyes
Settle upon your face
My hard heart beat
Hits slow motion
And stops -
Everything runs through my mind
But I think nothing at all
Reach out.
Kiss.
Jun 21, 2011
Jun 21, 2011 at 6:25 PM UTC
In the supermarket airport
There are arrivals every day.
The departures in your trolley
Come to you from far away.
Those brightly coloured vegetables
Have sat around for days
In what we’re told are
such hygienic backroom bays.
They’re obviously picked and packed by well paid sprites and elves!
Then magically appear on your supermarket shelves.
Here every carrot is straight and clean
And every lettuce crisply curled
Then gassed in plastic packets
That are filling up our world!
Take a glance inside your trolley
And if what I say is true
Then I guarantee the food within
Has seen more of the world than you.
Like the picture on the packet
Of your frozen ready meal
The colour of this far flown food is great
The taste experience, surreal.
Those ripe tomatoes in their reddest skins
We should dye brown, to match their taste
Those vivid orange carrots are a mystery of flavour-
What a waste!
A plate of vibrant promising hue
Can taste of packaging and glue.
The supermarket tells you you’re in clover
But its goods have all the texture of an old pullover.
Your supermarket says that it is catering for you
But if you’re honest do you really think that’s true?
If you don’t then there is something you can do.
At the supermarket airport
All the money’s in departures
So put that trolley back
And just depart.
If you're wanting to be vocal
Then shop seasonal and local
And hit these psuedo airports at their heart.
Apr 27, 2010
Apr 27, 2010 at 6:57 AM UTC
Of all my misnomers,
Mistooks of arrogance,
To think I could career careen
A life
in poetry,
Extra pressure of the
Broadest of a narrowing sujet,
the scripting of poesy
on the restricted topical
of only love poetry
Must have been punch love drunk,
When that notion crazy stung
My cerebal,
Gored discor-ed cortex,
Probably just another
Post a Loving,
dreaming scheming moment,
Or reading a Shakespeare sonnet,
Or
Midst the long lonely pauses
somewhere,
*(S)under the rainbow,
tween teener and geezer,
and
Everything in between*
made myself a poet of a restricted diet
not "eating " for days at a time
for love comes and goes,
frequent departures much more easygoing & common,
than regularly scheduled arrivals,
easy go, not so easy come,
what was I thinking of?
what a she-muk,
talking about cutting your nose off
to spite your face,
Jul 20, 2025
Jul 20, 2025 at 8:13 AM UTC
Like a plane in the
fog
looking for a place to
land
Like a man in a
homeless shelter listening for the rapture
A pelican on a pier
eyeing his next meal
the last apple on a
tree all ready
to fall
Remember I started with blue
skies in front of me
I studied my flight plan well
I knew I'd be landing
I knew for sure
it wasn't going to be hell
I always tried to do so well,
focusing in on innocence
when ever I was able to
But there are failures of compass
The phantom captain takes
a nap
The instruments may keep on
saying you're right on track
But
the only trust I have is
in the Northern Star
and in Mars high
in the sky.
It seems impossible
to be so lost
Like a plane in the
fog
looking for somewhere
to land.
Like a woman working tables
until two a.m.
Her fitness app keeps saying
a hundred years this shift
The fuel is evaporating
The miles to go before zero
keeps hopping
Like a whale without a culture
no one to talk to
The sky is a 300 mile high
air ocean
I thought I was free
to get from here to there
Like a window with a view
of a brick wall
Phoenix in the summer
A tsunami on dry land
A river without a name
A cougar and no game
Like a lover whose left
and no way to find their name
So many aspects of this life
Departures and arrivals
a one way ticket
There is a great darkness
out in the distance
I know it's getting closer
but
I keep on drifting
Like a plane in the fog
looking for a place to land.
Oct 21, 2016
Oct 21, 2016 at 1:48 PM UTC
They're gonna try to use my lyrics against me in trial
To prove I've been running for ah thousand miles
Many styles but the flow ********
Ten years gone ah prisoner of war
To live like that with the weight on my back
Ain't no ******* joke homie staying on track
Ese panick attacks to all my rivals
When the news hit the neck about my arrivals
It's called survival for the strong stay alive
You ain't gotta be like me I ain't trying to misguide
Just provide ah course eye view
Of what it's really like for ah chosen few
That's what I do I put your life in this
Ah street gang corrido is ah underground hit
From the face event you might hear the violence
But if you didn't keep you'll find peace in silence
Step in the booth I payed all my dues
If you check new tourist it's like two million views
The reviews say I infuse
That lowrider crews L.A County blues
Some win some lose
In their grave they snooze
While the DJ cut it up on the ones and twos
That's cool that's what the criminal say
So I'ma keep riding homeboy no delay
Big C Rock Mac 11 spray
Got the people in the zone ******* no bang
Put your hands up now put them down
Only the selected could cancel the crown
The rest of you clowns get faced down
Las puertas del Infierno ese that's my sound
Notorious Enemy that's how I get down
Ain't giving up nada catching no rebound
So album after album that I keep on dropping
Letting everybody know there ain't no stopping
This my coffin so bury me in it
Intellectual metaphor bout the music business
Mental fitness along with lyrical sickness
Loyal getting ready cross examine ah witness
Bout to fix this
Situation at hand
Cause my presence on ah stage ese high demand
Here I am
C Rocka the legend
Ink oozing out my pen is carving ah message
Say I'm destined to lead ah battalions
Sentenario change wing that's my home in Dalan
Not Italian but you get it kapish
I'ma sit up in the cut till it's time to release
My dominion's of angels and demons
To the scene where it's needed
Cause my people's is fiending
Jun 4, 2015
Jun 4, 2015 at 8:07 PM UTC
Fly back to me
Straight path to my arms
Check my arrivals
You know just where to start
Glace over my flight plan
See just where you are
Land on my runway
Climb right on board
Buckle in my dear
I'll take you anywhere you want
I promise a smooth ride
A destination in my heart
Mar 28, 2013
Mar 28, 2013 at 5:03 PM UTC
it's past mid September,
the modest gradations
(and graduations)
of temp and the indirectness
of the ever shifting sun
are not lost on the
the skin of the locals,
nor even the
summer sojourner, who
recalls the past rainy June,
and the "who knew that
winter lasted so long"
on this peculiar planet island land
the calendar dictates
that the obligations of the
living are fully recommenced,
and the avoidance of realities,
cannot be excused, refused,
but they go ignored for just
one more day, and the ever
more spectacular pastel sunsets
tease, "see what you will be missing..."
the skeletons of beach fires
doused by silver beach sand,
are the last to say, we will still
be here, even though you've
hasten to where we have no
counterpart, and though we
will blend back to just being
sand and driftwood,
in time for what we the
inanimate,
loosely call next year,
but not remarked upon
any calendar in any ink
we can read...
forty years some tribe
tented in a desert, before
finding shelter,
we've counted 46, summers,
passed, neighbors, too, the
landscape dotted with newer
arrivals, and we just cluck, like
so many others, at the longing ferry line,
those who walk on the road's wrong side,
the one or two remaining tradespeople,
who still call our abode by our predecessors
last name, wondering when, if we will make
that grade
so much more to say,
what we've witnessed,
what has changed, what,
thank god, hasn't
but the city wants its fair share,
of us, and our taxes true, so come
upon just another last day, and look
back in the review mirror, remembering
the first last day of many years ago...
Sep 15, 2025
Sep 15, 2025 at 1:44 PM UTC
*Waste-of-skin misogynists
Eagerly-angry feminists
Trust-fund kids
Disposable friends
Reusable partners
Confused 20-something's
Mid-life crisis lifers
Got-it-all-figured-out liars
Early comers and late arrivals*
The world's too full of them
Jul 29, 2014
Jul 29, 2014 at 8:39 PM UTC
Every time
I start anew,
or decide
to leave,
without fail I arrive
at a new beginning.
Every start
is an end-
of something.
Each arrival,
culminates in a departure,
fallen in to the cycle of
'samsara'
vagrant mind, plays
creates illusions;
ends and beginnings.
When the karma wheel completes its circles,
without thinking, consciousness merges with
the ocean of eternal being
arrivals and departures mean nothing,
If
consciousness is still and unmoving, in the point between
birth and death.
Oct 20, 2012
Oct 20, 2012 at 8:44 AM UTC
My life is made up of seconds
And they're ticking away.
At this very moment
I grow older
And memories are lost.
As noon turns to night,
And night turns to day
Images are blurred.
White noise,
Turning into silence.
Prolonged exposure to life,
The illusion of time takes over.
Summer falls and winter rises,
Identity lost,
Yourself just out of reach.
Arrivals and departures,
Of the shadow children.
The door shuts,
And the pendulum
Slowly stops swinging.
Everything comes and goes,
And everything changes.
On a long enough time line
The survival rate of everyone
Drops to zero.
Nov 27, 2012
Nov 27, 2012 at 8:41 PM UTC
Ask a guy to come over
with the unspoken implication
of *** in your invitation
and he jets over in record time.
But ask him to come help
with something you need done,
a serious task without promise of fun,
and watch the clock tick away
the minutes without his arrival.
Mar 28, 2015
Mar 28, 2015 at 7:12 PM UTC
Padded paws prance on the living room floor.
“Chip” sports a red bow and is playful for sure.
He greets his new mistress with a lick of his tongue
This chocolate Lab puppy can wait to have fun.
He’s a little Mischievous but nobody minds
-His arrivals been longed for a very long time.
Someone tell Uncle Robert to get down off his chair
Its only a puppy, there’s nothing to fear.
Nov 9, 2014
Nov 9, 2014 at 1:32 PM UTC
Departures and Arrivals.
The dust hasn't yet settled on the torn up trail behind me.
Particles still linger in my hair, my teeth and in the air
around me like they own me.
I wonder, even though it seems like I've dearly departed, if it
will ever settle and I don't necessarily expect it to because
maybe it has to sock it to me
so no sweet amnesia can shew away the memories of what it was
that got me here to this place of growing respect for all the
potholes and all the unpaved roads.
Driving in the dark tree monsters slide bye one after the other,
their silent dialogue giving me the shivers like so many other
things in the world do,
cold sweat running down my face as the car rattles and the
music stops and there's only the sound of dripping rain. Tears,
like rain aren't separate from sweat.
They're constanly recycling and bleeding into one another like
night bleeds into day. I get that and I even love that because where
does hardship go if not to tears?
Stuffing grief into the cracks of the bodymind is a recipe for sick. I get
that too. People may tell ya to take a pill, have a swig, do anything to
bully your discomfort away but you sense
and you know that you sense and only you can sense what it is you
have to do. So you keep on going because what has drinking the
sweet numbing Koolaide ever done for ya anyway?
And it's a relief to come out of the comatose to watch the rose-gold
sunrise coming up over your landscape as your gears shift on the
broken hill of this awakening;
laser sharp beams of light gutting the nonsense out of ya, your feet
touching down onto solid ground and you feeling shaky but all
aglow in your skin
and this departure is telling every cell in your body that you have arrived.
There will be other departures and other arrivals, other days and other
nights but for now,
in this moment you have arrived and you don't give a **** about and
you're almost grateful for the dust and the particles and the freaky
and the the not so freaky fallout hovering over ya like a halo
1/2020
Aug 25, 2022
Aug 25, 2022 at 10:00 AM UTC
*As I wait here in Arrivals,
the minutes start to drag.
Why does it always take so long,
to unload a freakin bag?*
Apr 13, 2011
Apr 13, 2011 at 9:51 AM UTC
let’s love the lawn
sweetheart
let’s trim the lawn;
let’s get it cut
and neat and fine;
let’s do the groovy lawn dance
baby
so the neighbors will be
green as nourished grass
let’s feed the lawn
sweetheart
all chemicals and fertilizers;
let’s read the warnings first
baby:
*keep away from eyes
wear a face mask
and spread generously
on lawn*
let’s keep the lawn beautiful
and pleasant
like the ancient fields of Albion,
sweetheart;
it’s time for the weed-killer sprays
and conscientious as we are
we use only enviro-friendly
so let’s read the instructions
baby:
*Keep spray away from drains
and eyes and skin
and do not spray before rain*
Ah, come on
ladies and gentlemen
of our distinguished
blue ribbon suburbs;
out all with your chemicals
and all our pesticides
to **** the grubs and such pests
come all, Old Ken
and newly-weds Lily and Peter
and new-arrivals Tan and Goh
we’ll show you how;
come sweethearts
come let’s dance in the fields of cherished suburbs
and let the earth yield a great big burb
this is the way
we spray chemicals
this is the way we **** our weeds;
this is the way we fertilize our lawns
this is the way we spray pesticides
early morning
every Spring and Summer
this is the way we do it
early morning
every Spring and Summer
so let’s love the lawn
sweetheart
let’s trim the lawn;
let’s get it cut
and neat and fine;
let’s do the groovy lawn dance
baby
so the neighbors will be
green as nourished grass
Oct 12, 2010
Oct 12, 2010 at 2:58 AM UTC
Leaves stir announcing,
Seasons first Hazel nuts fall,
. . . Blue Jays return soon.
Feb 5, 2015
Feb 5, 2015 at 6:27 PM UTC
Fiery free moments
Are coming for me
They took us to London
Then New York City
As clear as the gel pens
You had while you lived in the sticks
Along with Slip'n'Slide
All the boys you played with
Always paid for your tricks
When the bizarre ill-willing troche
Trap men in their snares, and everywhere
it seems everyone's begin to stare.
Into my eyes (As a tug boat and its bride)
My dad's corduroy ties (In the closet upstairs in the basement)
You wouldn't dare, would you? You wouldn't dare
I embraced the tide that took away our guts
our stuff
when enoughs enough
enoughs enough
So carry around your game in handwritten pamphlets
While you delve into the reasons you didn't want them laminated
When I spoke to Commander Owens ("Let's say the town didn't go wild")
But rather you and I I
Left too long perhaps another time
Remember, Remember
Recital time's at noon
The pianists' laminate cut off the last bar and he's starting in 2(2)
The priest asked Justin if he'd come in earlier too
Venomously he cast aside the bride and groom
So we played Slip'n'Slide for the wedding party in our living room
Dancers start on the left then double-back with the left inside
Turn their bodies, dip their hips, restart and double-back to the right
But before the wedding party, she proposed to him with his favorite song
In the San Francisco Airport arrivals, when he turned the stereo on
Parked at curbside pickup laid down and started Slip and Sliding.
Jul 15, 2015
Jul 15, 2015 at 6:26 AM UTC
joey
left today
the radiance of a
summer sunshine
gone dark
an icon
of jersey shore
memories
lost to the
rumbling
breakers
a joie de vivre
crested
ebbing waves
flow out
ushered off
by friendly
on-shore winds
the day bespeaks
a perfect symmetry
departing life's shores
on Sandy’s anniversary
marking momentous days
of passings and arrivals
may you safely arrive
on the seaside shores
in the place of eternal
summer sunshine
vaya con dios
mi hermano
for joey
Fleet Foxes:
Grown Ocean
10/29/30
oakland
jbm
Oct 29, 2013
Oct 29, 2013 at 1:21 PM UTC
Kathleen Avenue still has houses,
But people left, and trees were felled;
The canopy across the street
Has lost some limbs
And many feet
Of children
Playing hide and seek.
One house, a brown-shingled frame
Is aging there as are our names;
The front yard doesn't boast corn
That Daddy grew
When first we landed;
Not knowing neighbours were offended
With farming behind green picket fences.
so corn, cabbage and turnip too
were left to rot. Daddy knew to strike
when hot.
The locals weren't too much impressed
When Daddy taught them some respect.
The human smell of decaying turnip
Keeps my nose from turning up.
the front was never farmed again.
Recently, I passed that yard,
The picket fences gone;
And someone has a garden there,
The new arrivals,
If they care,
Really see the wisdom there.
I give a nod
To my Old Man,
An immigrant
Before his time.
Jan 20, 2015
Jan 20, 2015 at 10:38 PM UTC
Doorstep arrivals are such a thing of haste
I was a last minute thought, nothing has changed
That little niece is about to be eighteen
She can count on her hand how much she has seen
Of you... My saddest truth
That doorstep never knew you again
That one Christmas note, it was your sin
I was delighted to get a letter from a stranger
But you never did write back again.
Aug 29, 2016
Aug 29, 2016 at 12:59 AM UTC
"Death interrupts life;
it calls on everyone of us",
Unexpected yet long awaited.
Don't they say?It's not the destination
but the journey on which you go.
That would make us all,
but travelers
wandering a lonesome road.
Is it lonesome?
And what is lonely?
Have I never felt these thing
if I have friends,
people.
And yet I am, ultimately.
For, when you go, you go on your own.
Or arrive
-whichever it may be...
Nov 22, 2011
Nov 22, 2011 at 2:01 PM UTC
The clock is running down
suddenly its real
will this encounter show the truth
of exactly how we feel
Nerves I never knew before
now flash before my mind
will this moment show my future
so I can leave my past behind
As my heartbeat starts to quicken
anticipation starts to rise
what will I see revealed
when I look into those eyes
So many possibilities
so many way this story ends
will it end with us together
as lovers or as friends
Jan 19, 2011
Jan 19, 2011 at 5:14 PM UTC