GIFTED
Years of my life I believed
why wouldn’t I?
how couldn’t I?
Give more than I receive.
Most importantly, give to humanity.
Never mind humiliating pain; let it rain,
take the drenching. Perfume mendacious stench
prattling pretty happy plans,
idealizing mankind as we could be
brought to peaks of glorious peace and bliss.
The word these days is Passion.
A flying heart.
The ache of Art.
Find where my mind takes ease,
soars with eternity, smiles with fluidity.
Learn from those few I can respect;
let go the rest.
Float, a ghost in repose, leaving regret
for scavengers to eat in my wake.
Every dawn could reveal inspiration,
unrestrained by beliefs in gifting obligations.
Streaming energy gleefully received.
I HAVE ALL-WAYS BEEN
Magic is not part of me.
It is every molecule
holding to higher intent.
Track the winding trail;
stars and moonlight exhale potency.
Spells, incantations, miracle divinations
flicker in malleable materiality.
Living Earth patiently ambles through rotations,
inhales stardust.
In darkness, creation recycles.
Magic is all.
This Is the Way I Communicate
Like light flickering over a piano in a sultry cabaret, like a round blue balloon fitfully drifting out into the storm-laden sky, like anyone you know or I know trying yet again to remember just what it was we were doing with our lives: that’s what its all been like. The cat cries, and I respond filled with the illusion of concern. The world cries, and my besotten brain bleeds into tears of angry, chain-rattling despair. It’s all about language. It’s all about the symbols we choose. A new day dawns cloudy and forbidding.
We are entering San Francisco in the morning fog, early, early, the world still dreaming. Or maybe it was Cambridge, Mass., lost in the fog, unsure of time or space. Sometimes there is singing: something about a “Yellow Submarine” or “Strawberry Fields” or sometimes haunting melodies without words. But it’s all about the words, even those implied by the music.
Wine can help. By the gods, wine is sometimes all that can help (tho sometimes even wine betrays me).
The stinking debris of mornings after the night before, or just morning by the coast with the stink of rotting fish, the cries of gulls or sirens, the emptiness without tears, the cold of morning — I remember that too. That no more mornings could touch me, that I could hide contented in the night dreaming flying dreams so none could touch me. Fragments. Taking life in fragments. Folding each shiny fragment into tender velvet pockets sequined to reflect the light, let them be all right, feel cared for. Let the nights protect us from the days. Like a wandering hermit with a self-igniting lantern . . . .
GOLDEN
I’ve been purified by fire;
washed and scoured by raging rain;
buffeted hither and yon by
winds of changing fortune.
Never safely planted to grow strong roots
that hold me close and whisper
soothing lullabies.
I have suffered all, not gladly,
but fortuitously.
I have survived, have imbibed
the luscious nectar of hard found
fruits, endured trials
testing every aspect of integrity,
grown in wisdom and honour
and lack of trust
for any who have never dwelled
in these wicked realms.
No one may know these travails but I and
the holy trio who
underwrite my progress.
No matter.
We are, my traveling band:
inspiration, organization
and sacred core of self-empowerment
forge intimate family
I have always so desperately
craved.
I am blessed, blissed.
I am that I am and none
shall cast asunder.
ROSE RED
I am prickly, admittedly.
I come by it rightly.
Organically evolved defensive weapon
(note, no offensive weapon attached).
You must approach me with care.
Feel the velvet of my vibrant leaves, gently.
My flower, radiant in grace and wonder.
Musical poetry wafting, my enchanted perfume
calls for the discerning touch.
But grasp too hard, too clumsily,
without reflection, a thousand tiny cuts
push you far away.
In no time, you will heal,
leaving me to bleed forever,
attempting to clear from my system
your poisonous residue.
ECLIPSE SCRYING
Where’s the fun
in hiding in the eye
of the hurricane?
I want to be bodysurfing
the storm,
madly dancing in the rain,
cast off from restrictive form …
I want to taste sweet grapes
break crisply;
Embark on a journey of ecstasy
to be all I have
thought to be;
yet safely reside
in a place deep inside
away from the prying norm.
I want romance in the sense of
sensation inviting and free.
I want a chance to believe in magic.
And I want what I want to be
crazily in love with me.
FRIENDLY GHOSTS
That’s the missing piece!
Honor all the horrible feelings, enjoy them,
revel in them.
Make them my comrades,
becoming intimate acquaintances,
sharing secrets,
giggling over really bad humor,
forgiving our trespasses, and
admitting to the thrill.
I am responsible
for my own emotions,
who are also my buddies,
co-conspirators in the
b & e of life.
Hail to thee, derisive sprites,
cachinnating pixies,
gut-jabbing daemons
incanting chemical baths
invading my private neural net.
I salute you.
I bow to the waist,
convulse into belly laughs
— you are so droll.
We are of an essence.
A package, tied up in nervous bows,
inhabited by scurrying creatures
who answer to a common name.
My daemons, my closest friends;
only they truly understand me.
My friends and I,
we are starting to comprehend.
We may have joyful work to do,
each according to our abilities.
GIVE AND TAKE
Taking it all into myself.
Thus has it always been so.
Taking it all and twisting and tweaking.
Making it all into a blessing.
I see visions. I hear angels.
Let me take you into myself.
Let me bless you.
Let me believe in you.
Let me see through your eyes,
walk on your legs,
imagine with your biography.
I can but reach to you. So poignantly.
What I do never matters.
What I say has no gravitas.
What I pray for
gets lost in the queue of prayers.
I am breathing
crisp air of autumn’s evening.
I am walking.
Mist obscures my view.
Lost in mirage, in a Van Gogh painting,
face wrenching laughter, luminous tears.
A vision of weeping, knees bent and falling;
permission I grant me.
I am loving with open heart
a frightened child who once declared:
I can take it.
LOVING MEDITATION
If of intimate ties, affection,
you feel bereft,
perhaps you lack ardent acceptance
devout duty demands.
Resist forced codes and
ritual, expected wishes.
Look! Travel mindful panorama
of you from early memories,
each significant nexus
marking direction
to now.
Blessings missing from your consciousness
were never meant for others to fulfill.
Love you give yourself
expands 4-fold:
Insightful embrace deepens your psychic well of delight.
The world is gifted ripples
of your love.
You tend your eternal spirit with
essential energy
to create what is great
within your destiny.
You offer exalted example
to uplift humanity.
Do not be afraid to love.
Do not be ashamed to love the
being closest to your heart.
Learn the meaning of loving charity.
It is not about dying for demonic sins.
It’s fulfilling happiness
through your own loving kindness.
Living a vision of love.