21 Tuesday Jun 2016
A black and white world
hasn’t any lines to blur-
what relief to fearful minds.
And if a smudge
tangoes with reason,
snapping the bra straps of rationality?
Waters might move in,
fill bleached arroyos,
and offer liquid to dry, cracked,
sorrowful lands.
Take the risk.
Invite chaos to play.
18 Saturday Jun 2016
I am a shooter.
In all the ways I hate myself, in all the ways I hate others,
in any destruction of life in which I partake,
in my cruelties and holding on to misunderstandings,
in any willful resistance to seeing difference as beautiful,
in my own brokenness, impatience, refusal to love,
I, too, am a shooter.
And how
may
my life-
this singular life-
be a devotion toward loving and mutual living
on this planet,
the one inhabitable wondrous place
we all share
and call home?
Born into violence and out of grace,
how may my breath move
from the one toward
the other…
With each day
I ask,
in the face of violence,
for grace.
14 Tuesday Jun 2016
If dreams rise
of planting marigolds in snow,
yet the spiders that plague you still
have not yielded
understanding,
can we love each other in our differences?
While you wrestle with your ghosts,
and I with mine,
is there a golden bridge between us
where
the songs we sing,
the tears filling our eyes,
the breath aching our lungs,
the laughter erupting before placid waters
may join?
We mustn’t forget
how many languages we share
even without knowing
any of the words.
06 Monday Jun 2016
This body is my drum
beating
inside out
into the world.
If your ears sense the beat
we both may
smile.
If your heart does,
we surely will.
Pulse rhythm cracked a shell
holding me back
from the raw thwack and rocketing yes
of unrepeatable
moments.
Hiding, shrinking, running dulls
music
all of us are here to create,
together..
Pick up your drum.
Let’s dance ~
29 Sunday May 2016
Come,
Enjoy this life while you have it.
Twisting guts or sunshine?
Nah, nah, twisting guts
and
sunshine,
the buried wriggle of new root,
a softening of shoulder and corner of lip,
a nagging thought, tremble of choice,
and a search for more.
More of this, of this!
The life pulling at your heavy heel
and
lifted brow in pure amusement.
Drop the weight-
it may not even be yours.
Direct that tender face
toward the sun-
allow light to bathe eyelash upon eyelash.
Bountiful plenty turns colors before you.
Bountiful plenty turns within you.
Come,
Enjoy this life
while you have it.
17 Tuesday May 2016
Young rattlesnake,
short chub and one rattle,
this day is dedicated to you.
Afternoon sun warms bare legs,
ferns stretch rootlets in wet shade,
cat licks paw pads,
and this heart pulses to new limits
of loving.
Every shedding of the skin adds
another rattle,
and a greater knowing
that less venom
is more.
15 Sunday May 2016
Were i
to reach for the stars
my pants would fall down.
Today requires earthly attentions.
Keeping up trousers may be
the ultimate action
while loftier desires
could knock me, particle by particle,
straight out of orbit.
Cupping a star in two small, mortal hands
must wait
until palms can remain steady
holding an infinitude of concentrated light.
Honoring
means discerning–
Here, fantasy. Here, reality.
With that slice we both
possess
the fullness of flourishing space.
14 Saturday May 2016
Bending over to pick up pennies
lost pocketfuls of change,
and left the pavement littered with leftovers.
No longer affording such loss,
I remain upright and accept only dollars.
14 Saturday May 2016
An open chair awaits you.
Clearing it of a tumbling-height stack
of NOs
took some doing.
Approximately four decades worth.
And now that the rich, carved wood and velvet
of that high-backed chair holds nothing of mine,
there’s space for you at the table.
Admittedly, food hasn’t been cooked…
Uhm tea, however,
I’m ready to commit to.
Candle, flame and flowers adorn
ridged lengths of milled tree
where our cups may sit.
Breath hasn’t yet dropped to belly-
waiting on your arrival out here in the valley
has caught it between Yes and Oh shit.
A place here, with me,
at a royal oak table welcoming us both
is the stretch of generosity and strength
born thus far.
09 Monday May 2016
the first memory,
a fear of ghosts,
might choke you in your sleep.
wake up.
one step forward with a little foot
and another,
and another with your foot, not so small-
recall your body
to pierce darkness inhabited
by the terrifying,
and purposely forgotten.
wake up!
repossess what’s yours, kid.
throw your little arms out into night’s gullet,
rid the rotting presence rising
from beyond the grave.
we’ll approach together.
your journey neither begins
nor ends
trembling in a spindle bed
below third floor timbers,
its vacancy above met
by broad staircase
channeling
down
what no one else will face.
Salt, Smoke, Water and Stone 