Earth Speaks (5 June 2008)
I want the Earth to talk to me,
to listen to its call,
to hear its winds awhispery,
even a stormy squall.
I’m glad for weather’s vibrancy,
a living Earth for me,
no more the quiet sights
of rainless days and windless nights.
Hearing Silence
Hearing silence: deafening.
There is no shame in deafness.
Not in hearing lies the fault.
I strain my eyes at silent walls,
dull with grey, speckled by doubt,
and wonder if my vision’s gone awry.
Why do I look?
Walls will not change of their own.
They have no voice to speak.
Yet there is a voice that speaks.
No use wondering why I don’t hear it.
Perhaps all I need … is listen.
(6 February 2008)
The Polished Glass of Pure Perfection
The polished glass of pure perfection
cannot be seen from where I stand.
Like the moon,
or the eyes of a portrait,
it shifts as I move,
only–unlike them–
it hides.
Just a glimpse,
I desire.
Just a peek.
What radiance would I see?
What mysteries unfold?
But I see no reflection:
not of me,
nor the room,
nor anything I can fathom.
I fall back on my knowledge,
my belief,
my suspicion,
my fear.
Is it there?
(29 January 2008)
My Place in Need (6 February 2007)
You are the place I shed my tears,
and spill my blood,
and stub my toes.
You are where I hang my hopes,
unveil my eyes,
and face my fears.
Can I keep you in a pocket
to pull out when I need?
Will you be the fish
to swallow my tashlik?
Will you play the goat for me
to stand up in my stead?
Will you take all these things from me
and love me still,
like Sheldon’s Giving Tree?
I don’t know if I want that,
but if you will,
perhaps I’ll find the need.
Poetic Justice (February 6, 2007)
Poetic Justice eats my flesh;
indigestion then ensues.
Somehow judicial inquiry
escapes me in the news.
It’s hard to celebrate
a passionless debate
when sinews, muscle, blood and guts
surround where once was me.
To dance in the rain (11/24/96)
Great big tears weep from the sky.
I wonder at why the heavens have cause to cry.
And yet the tears embrace me as I dance
in the mud, on the ground.
Their tears encumber me with their wet weight,
Endrenching my clothes in their embrace, melting
One tear into the next, becoming altogether one,
One with each other, one with the mud, one with
The rains, with me and the sky.
And heavily my vestments cling to my flesh
Holding my shape as a hand caressing the form of
My body, the shell of my dwelling, and I
Feel not so much alone with myself, abandoned, but
Alone as one with the earth and sky.
Whispered Silence (11/94)
If ever time were passing by as clouds perambulate the sky, I'd love your voice within my ear to sense that there were someone near. And yet, if I could never hear the whispered words of one so dear, Would I be less than I am here no words within my mind to clear? As time doth ever pass me by, as clouds perambulate the sky, As shines the sun, reflects the moon, And water flows, and wind doth blow, I long to hear your voice, you know.
Strength (Sunday, September 22, 2002)
Sometimes I wonder
where strength comes from,
when everything seems so hard.
I try to remember
what’s easy for me
and slink into comparisons.
No, I am not another man,
nor is another one me.
I realize how little it gains me,
to put on another man’s clothes.
My task I know
is merely to be
the best of me I can.
Then I remember
that strength itself
resides inside of me.
The muddy clouds of me (December 6, 2006)
I want
more than anything
to be subsumed in distraction
to no longer feel the burden
of my own emptiness.
I want
more than sorrow
to feel something greater
than my own numb self.
I am
at once
absorbed in self-pity
consumed by longing
hollowed by the shrug of existence.
I, I, I.
I tire of my own pronoun,
wanting simply the strength
to shirk the robe of its embrace,
for it stifles me
more than it gives me life.
In this depression
I have so little to give
no pleasure to take.
Even masturbation
brings no reward.
To feel again
the warmth of another’s tears;
to see again
the rose in another’s cheek
as frozen winds
leave off the battering of their assault.
To shed the I enough
to hear the whimper of another’s pain;
to smell the musk of their fear,
and taste the salt of effort.
Oh, that my senses will awake again,
from the dark that obscures them,
these muddy clouds of me,
to once again permit my self
to be.
The Woods of Life (10/24/2006)
We’re on a path of our own choosing.
How wonderful to know,
stumbling on logs, and tripping on roots,
that the way is set,
not by precedent,
but by ourselves.
Oh, it is hard,
at times,
to hold that confidence,
the surety that this path is best,
among all the paths one might choose.
And yet, it need not be.
We trod our way,
veer to the side,
climb a tree,
ford a stream,
toss a stone,
smell a bloom,
stick a leaf in our hair,
not because it is best.
But merely,
we do these things,
because they are ours to choose.
