Part of the Process: Poems on Life, Nature, and Music

Part of a Process

Devastation is Not the End.

Life moves everywhere in time,

never ceasing its toil to reclaim the blasted land.

Dust will be soil.

Ashes will be a beginning.

Life is process.

Hear yourself speak.

Listen to the sound,

The music unwrapped in pieces

of broken thoughts put back together

in another mind.

It floats in the air, shattered.

I wonder, how do I speak wonder?

Is this room connected to the world?

I am trying to remember

how a puddle of water on a shiny leaf

looks like a piece of ice

in the sunshine of a rainy day.

A Twice Found Note

From a note that was on my desk on a Monday afternoon

that I found later in my pocket

as I searched for parking meter change:

Louis, the blind man

came to see

about covering the door windows.

He says he can hang the shades over the door,

but nobody can come in or out

when they are down.

Will this work?

Here is something to try

In the world as you go through it,
If a person annoys you or seems out of sorts,
think this,
“You have a light.”
“You have a song.”

Ask yourself,
“Can I help them find their light?”
“Can I hear the faint whispering
of singing deep inside?”

Each of us has a light to shine.
The light may be covered by pain
or worry,
but it is there.
You may see a glimmer of it
as if through a dark woods.

Each of us has a song
that sings from within.

The song may be muffled
or stifled,
or picked up angry discord
through years of abuse
or neglect,
or it may just be lost
in the jumbled noise of machinery
or inane babble
of the shallow stream of thoughts
that runs through the world
without direction or meaning or passion,
just the yammering of greed and loneliness.
“Look at this!”
“You really need one of these!”
“You can really have it all!”
while pointing big flashing neon signs at the void.

You may need to find your light
to see where the light
is hidden in others.

You may have to learn your song again
in order to hear the sound
of a real voice
above the clamor.

You may need to sit quietly:

shining and humming
in a field on a warm day
with a soft breeze moving
the leaves of nearby trees.

Or in a room with people
who care for you
just listening to soft conversation.

Or, maybe, on a beach
with the waves whispering
and crashing about.

or in a car
on your way to work
when the noise of the day
has not begun to drown you out.

There really is nothing
more important to be doing.

Nothing else will matter
by the time it is
too late.

Running Into The Future.

The jibber-jabber of hidden teeth

Sketched on the wall of a bright winter day

Has led them all away

Into a land where nothing stays.

I lay on the sidewalk,

A sucked and spat out

Cherry pit,

With still some hope of earth

Rain, bleak sun,

Not even a shoe to kick me over.

They have all gone ahead

chasing that shifting

might be glimmer song.

How does it go?

Little by little, too late,

gone.

Trane and Miles Mapping the New World

Acid lizard grin

on a jade cat bell,

Passion pins about

Languid kiwi valley haze.

Red eyes, Rolled smooth

Bleeding ragged at the edges

Low drooling, pear juice hum

Dripping down the chin,

Tasted on the tongue.

Plugged nose moan

Scuffle slide drag

Scrape soles sand on old ridged planks

Lily cool murmur

Round bowl howl

Covering over the world

With one tortured joy

A spiraling Precession of Crenellated Tessellations.

The savage knife cuts

refracted into precise hard lines.

Twenty Years Ago

In the heavy forest,

My skin bordered the sky,

Played with it,

Wings probing,

Noticing,

Eyes turned on themselves.

In between

I was unprepared,

Whirled from almost every year

Back to that object of finding gaze

And folded bare twigs

To fill the spaces.

Free Will vs Destiny

Lacy skeletons

Made of millions of glassy splinters

Porous bodies

Move water in through filtering holes

And out through a central cavity.

Loosely organized of microscopic entities,

If strained through a sieve

And poured in the same location

Will form the same body

Even though each tiny entity is

Capable of surviving on its own.

More than a Bag of Accumulating Tissues

This simple body is not burdened

But enclosed no further

Splits

With no shell

Rigid

Soft ballooning tubes

Move one mouthful of another

World gobbling

Simultaneously protruding

Side to side

A wide-eyed

Sliding

Dance!

The Difference in Seasonal Light as Seen in a Semi-precious Stone

Opal Opaque

Mystery radiant
Reality in a jar on the top shelf
Flying is the only option

My coin
the same as hers
14 years later

A fish frozen curved on the air
A town under a snowy mountain
Shadow

River rising in spring
Glacial blue
Sinuous pull

Opal translucent

***************

Overhead, It was all Vibrating, again

In the beginning,

Still shaken,

Always aware of the forces

Gathering in the hub

Under my feet,

I appeared,

A sword frozen inside a diamond of air.

I crouched, recovering

And began

to feed flawlessly prepared anatomical specimens

Into the machinery

In the middle of the branches

Working with just the sharp edges

Of clouds.

Two Worlds/One Door

I rinsed out / two worlds

A cereal bowl / open into

(someone else’s) / myself

left crumbs of / locked inside

crusty cereal / except

all around the sink / pouring forth

for Mary to / when I

find. / unlock

I will continue / the door

to collect / I live in

black pens, / the shadow

keys to both sides / and nuance in

of one door / the midst of

that opens into two / my own

different worlds / primordial ooze

one of light and shadows / bubbling

the other of shades / up from

of meaning / holes I

and deception. / poke with my pen.

Delicate Dance

The balance is the beauty,

each part moving freely

and yet affecting each other part,

compensating to retain the center.

If the form is awkward,

the movements must wobble.

Thus perfection mars the balance

and brings the structure down.

The balance is the beauty.

Can I give so that you can take

and receive what is given equal to your movement?

I must move to fill a certain space,

if you move toward an empty place.

If you bend to pick up a pin,

I must move further from the center .01 steps

and up one penny’s width.

Or, should I scuff an indent

and sink in a cold puddle depression at my heel.

****************

“I want to hear a poem

where Tito Puente is still alive

and Elvis is dead,”

Tito Puente is still alive,

still chugging out the rhythm,

Tangelo, tangelo,

The old bridge leads like a scout

Through tropical sweat dripping

Tangle of vines.

Milagro! Milagro!

He is still alive!

But, Elvis is dead.