Love and Crayolas

Don't get me wrong
I might could write your song
but it would be me glancing at you

Don't think me wise
I might see your daylight skies
without fathoming the blues of nights

We color and redraw
across pages of Mardi Gras
without noting the rains coming down

Horizons

Yes, I laughed at yesterday's tomorrow
and chuckled and joked at looking forward.

I always expected drier, lighter snow
and always saw the one-eyed poker card:

It was just support for pennies on the table
and the cloistered closing lines of our fable.

In Your (Our) Face

In your face.
I will remain in the race.
There is no disrespect
but just what you expect.
Sometimes we stumble
and sometimes we mumble
but we can twirl a star
at as distant and far
as we can imagine that far;
hold down the tent
it will rain and rumble
and many of us will disappear
into the clouds of despair
almost as quickly as frogs
from distant ditches and bogs.
The world translates us
differently and without fuss.
I still try to corner love
and fit into my working glove
but moments are moments
as burials are monuments.
Circles are sometimes smaller
than we need or call for;
we live in circumscribed
bottleneck dreams,
or so it often seems
though few of us feel bribed;
We know our tribe.

I am at Peace

if you need voices to assure you
that is cool as brown sugar & okay
but I will dance my twirls myself
and you can do what you do
I always have bunches more to say
but I'll set that on some high shelf
out of reach until we, she, or he needs it
meantime I will listen to doves coo
and the whistle of the morning pot
let me know what I forgot . . .

Crows and Ken

There are many ancient rhymes of words
known now only to crows and minion birds
that spend their time mocking the world.

Post your ear when they gather in your yard.
and hear noise lacking any semblance to the bard!
Their mocking memes grow in noisy swirls.

Yes, You Were Once my Only Love

You will not forget me
do not believe that you will
I don't mean just the good times
old bar ditches filled with wild celery
before you said good-bye
lost months and years stacked in memory
that find you wading in shallow water
sometimes thru mud and sticky sand
lots of drying tears without laughter
circling your todays and afterwards

I was never moving on, but winging it
from your smiles and silly good-byes
an albatross in wind alone, singing it
through the emptiest of cloudy skies
looking back over shoulder and soul
always earlier, waiting for you was a goal

I live in calming, living waters most days
pleased to live my life post-chaise
love does not occur to me at all
my love has always dripped from the page
of a life that I would never re-live
without all the angst and honesty

Maybe I am no albatross, just a proud dove
I am settled in with my true love . . .

Lao Tzu, Where are You?

I do not wish to needlessly awake you!
Boyang, how goes it with you and truth?
How are our friends in Chu Jen, Chu?

I have missed your reported visits
but watch nightly for falling stars . . .

Boo . . . Happy Halloween!

I wrestle with the machinations of life
my salary does not support other wrestles
I have countless grand and great-grandchildren
(only countless because I'm not a mathematician)
but I can add and subtract just
to know that they are dynamic bits of stuff
aiming to wrestle (stars?) beyond my snuff
but I never wrestle with my heart (my life).
I am on easy street
and know how to sweep
once the broom returns
after a bout with Halloween . . .
Enjoy pumpkin day
don't knock, I am away . . .

Sometimes I Cirlcle

Sometimes I circle in the wind, a dove seeking safe ground;
sometimes I circle above the breeze, a barn owl on the prowl.
My world is not always the world I sought, woke to, planned,
but a circus of expectations, full of lonely monkey sounds:
guttural screeches, tree-top screams, always wary of elfin growls:
an end to practiced sprints, ups, downs and joys of this world:
it is an adventure of mornings preparing for some final stand.

Views and Such

I don't often attempt a view
beyond a tomorrow or two - oh maybe tickets
to some must-see viola recital,
but these can be easy to bypass.

Too far into the future, say a month or so
and a life of ease can be ruined.

It takes calendars, budgets, and imaginations
beyond my current conception . . .
to prepare for that many imaginary tomorrows . . .
but what the hell, let's plan ahead for Spring . . .

Life in all its Glory

I was some 76 years old last June
but don't feel wiser than a year and a minute ago.
I ride my third bicycle (the first two were stolen).

Time seems not to slow nor step aside.
I have not felt as threatened
as I might . . . I had a job until I didn't
and a monthly SS check
slowly building an annuity of sorts . . .

But even though I find food for most tomorrows,
what becomes of all my creature friends?
I see them as I walk about,
some with soddy blankets, and some without;
and what of all those aging bikes with contested owners?

From Odessa, Texas

I never hitchhiked east but always west toward a larger setting sun.
Most times I thought I knew where I was heading sometimes I knew
I was totally without anchor, afloat in a swamp of ideas or ideals.
Stepping to no drummer but my buzzing head of endless ideas
I had a younger, and married, sister somewhere in orange groves
and moved in her general direction for a warm meal and coffee
so kept my feet to the ground and my thumb toward the west.
So many people saved me from me, including me and my sister,
but without lonely, thinking days, alone, I would not now smile.
I am the result of endless searching, wondering who I might be.

Rehabilitation with no Direction

My cat, mute and wiser than me,
un gato malo,
does not understand my direction,
my rambles about sobriety. It is
for the dogs - his eyes tell me this.

There are heavy things afoot:
manslaughter
armed burglary
dangerous drugs
aiding and abetting
and
a federal fugitive warrant
but they, THEY have Pancho
in jail now. He is
being reformed
redabilitated. My cat
doubts it. My cat
sneers cynically.

Un Gato Malo. In
Berkeley, Paul and
Greg have been busted
with no word of bail
--I write
with an eye
on the phone as if
its ring could be
seen. Greg, my radical
and once almost brother-in-law
friend
whose gift of wine
is still unopened; Paul,
would-be-Bokonon
of the desert
friend
would like my mute
cat, my wise Persian
of dry humorless meows.

Un Gato Malo is a member
of our karass. He
expects change. He and I
wait together to see
the sound of the telephone.
He is my only cat,
a perfect companion.
I assist him in his despair.

Circles in Twilight

We all age
and that ain't so bad
(if we're not in a damn cage)
in most of our worlds.
It is expected.

It is respected.
Another of life's countless swirls
from dew on every leaf
to ripened fruit.

Pluck me from the tree
and grin. Or maybe just smile.
This is mere prelude:
we are off for another few miles.

Octagon

I am an octagon of endless possibilities
and never dare to stare directly into any sun,
neither rising with all its wondrous probabilities
nor setting in its muted rainbowed shades of a day done.

Starlight Blues

That woman with starlight shining from her eyes
I'm telling you true
That woman with starlight shining from her eyes
Smiled so sweet but told me mostly bundles of lies
She's no friend of mine
I struggle with the blues
I'm telling you true.

Today Walking

Some crowded trails go mostly in circles
over terrain gardened beyond repair.
I mostly seek a path toward nowhere,
that if it circles, it is a curve of some neglect.
Such a trail deserves my walking respect.

Okay, okay . . . Let's move to Oregon

We need to make our own footprints.
And I see why you say I should show common sense.

I'm not just looking for us in a golden sunset,
and I know we are not always where I expect.
But it is not necessarily at dawn,
nor the summit of the sun
that I feel the cool of your shadow,
like a muted snare drum,
sounding dry beats of perfect timing
against the bent of my breath.
Sometimes it is on the move, south to west.

We will leave our footprints mingled on trails,
a mixture of energy and spice and beaver tails.

Father's Day 2016

Are we all finally bonsais;
pruned more for observers than ourselves;
pruned closely with so little soil
to explore or exploit;
separated into individual plots
and pruned to meet the limits of our potted world;
roots never touching roots, straining
against the guidewires of doting caretakers?

Near Florence, September 2017

I like walking with the wind at my back,
but better almost always, is to face the breeze,
cheeks reddening with the contact of icy fingers
of early winter and notions of racing back to summer
trails above the beaches of the coast. Planning.
There is surely some new way to combine carrots,
potatoes, and mushrooms to accompany the elegance
of B♭ evening greys sharpening into the winter white
of scaleless skies and endlessly cloudy nights . . .

Learning to Dance when we Were Younger

We were bits of yes or no & this and that
mostly dancing between A# & Bb;
I confess to a bebop mania, half deaf that I am
We swam in the '50s jumping tempos without tone
curling in the pools of songs, never alone . . .
We spun musical parties in our sketchy abodes
without much dough or smarts but an abundance
of energy and general blow; we pretended dance
and the world pretended along with most of us . . .
as we trucked across all our available floors
holding onto as many hands as we could score.
We did not spin out of control except when we did,
sometimes we blew beyond reason, without a lid.

Discerning the Trivial

Much of what I utter tends toward trivial . . .
And that's okay . . .
I am not in a debate with the Devil.
I face no certain door
of dying in a lover's bower.

I will stride into another day or two
As I learn some ways
To travel beyond this day . . . or four
into countless tomorrows . . .

Ozytrumpdias (evolving draft)

I found American echoes of silence in sand,
splintered bits of time beyond what we know
troubled, poor shadows of pure distress and guns
half sunk behind a rising maga-ish red sun,
a sliver of wrinkled lip of total command
carved on a bit of trampled bloodied sand,
a golden lip without knowledge of tune or song,
no sense, just scars on heartless buried bones.
With so many visits from the most gorgeous of birds,
why is our world so fully peppered with turkey turds?

I have Brothers and Sisters

I ain't fast enough typing to know what I meant yesterday.
Eight-balls careen from every corner before my polka stick
strikes a tonic chord. I am mostly a swirling idiot of motion
with too much emotion attempting to learn tomorrow's trick.
I have marched in step and I have paused after refreshment
without learning shtick about the mumbling bumbling moment
of brethern smiling and waving from passing flagged ships.
The distance of their salutes and smiles was not surprising;
sun to starboard and their salutes to port was prize enough.

Bike Ride on a Hot Windy Day

Sometimes I see best without a fat pen in hand:
just a bike ride through wetlands I've never visited.
Nothing much going in, pockets of world coming out.
Sometimes we have to go to know where we want to go.

When to Shut-up and when to Wing-Out

I ain't gonna wait until I have more to say;
I did that for lotta years and never spoke.
I'm gonna watch for the sun to come up
and see the moon float at apex above our stars
then maybe I'll talk, but don't get me started;
I've got weeks and years to wait out another day.
You can sing this song, or I can sing all the way
all by myself without a squirrel or bird along
but I'll have someone I don't know play banjo.
I've got such a tremendous life left to enjoy.

An Early Bird meets a Dove

I am an earlier more private bird than you
and dance alone along the long slick walk;
until we pass with your coo coo coo
sure, maybe prance a bit, smile and talk
but your jargon, for me, is mostly way too much.
I ain't used to strangers talking such mush.

Why most Dogs are my Friends

my thoughts are bubble gum long
a bubble is blown and then it's gone
before I remember any total song
so I do a lot of jogging & walking
with half my time smiling & talking
trying to listen and not miss a thing
wishing I were a bird on the wing
but knowing only bits of the song
until I hear the voices of dogs barking
they've known the melody all along

Memories that could be poems:

I spent many of my immediate post-high-school years with a thumb in the air looking for travel opportunity back and forth between Odessa, TX and Orange County, CA. It was sometimes slow going, it was mostly stopwatch quick. But don't think I traveled I-10. Those cars & trucks mostly couldn't and so mostly didn't ever stop for thumbs in the air. From Odessa, I went to Andrews and then to Carlsbad and then, often along Hwy 66, the best way I could to CA. And mostly retraced steps back.

July, Nikos, crows, and Theodore

July is not as hot in Eugene as in Houston
but the rains of winter and spring are long gone.
Our primary chorus continues to be the geese
but the crows are abundant, cheerful, and loud.
I seem to enjoy the geese arguing overhead
and the crows arguing in our yard. They are our bards.
I have not thought of Nikos Kazantzakis in some hours.
We like our red geraniums and miss Theodore Roethke.

I recognize sometimes that I am a lost ant on a large leaf
drifting through turmoils of crappy conditions
and that I float north on the Willamette
going in the opposite direction of much of the world.
I am okay with alternate directions and can smile
without quoting lines of poems from Theodore Roethke
as we do our daily walk through the Delta Ponds.
I cannot help but repeat bits of Nikos Kazantzakis on the trail.

My Poem July 2020

My poem, like some others,
is mostly a gentle searching of words
to give my morning coffee taste
and pull taint of my supper from the blues.
I know to always dance without haste
and mostly sing at the top of my scale.
I don't yet scribe in other's tongues

nor sing my words with thought.
I am but the crow you caught.

My songs are mostly your smiles
searching out some rounder, prouder world.
We may wear mostly scarfed bandanas
against the whirls of terrible yesterdays
but sometimes we see our tomorrow
without proper masks meant to hide
but merely to guard our love and abide.

We do not need to borrow from hope;
a step at a time is all it takes to cope.

From an Old Conversation with an Older Friend

A: Life is holding your guts in your hands. Dripping a little . . .

B: . . . what?

A: Life is an undoing of yourself, a letting go with both hands. Otherwise, you exist. Nothing else. Like a rock exists. Perhaps someone will come along and go chip chip. Maybe you'll sparkle and become a ring setting, but beauty is not what life is about. Beauty is incidental; Living creates beauty - not the reverse.

B: You make it sound weird. Absurd. Maybe even almost life perverted, madness.

A. Yes! Yes! Madness is part of life. And absurdity is part of the madness. Perversion? It's an artificial word. A moral word. But within its made-up context, okay, maybe. You decide.

B: and . . .

A: Breathe in the air you find . . . you are not a rock.

Rejoicing Well When Lost

Euterpe dances in transparent dress
against the sea. She is the ocean stone
toiling toward the shore - her tears caressing
her riven cheeks. She clicks, bone against bone,
a fictive note, her long toes zither fast
among the breakers as she sways the wind
against the sea. Her singing cannot last
a printed page, recognition is the end.
She leaves no face reflected in the long
morning's moon, just a clack of spent coin
in an empty glass; a formal song
that stirs no wind - each song sung but once.
We float to shore singing from her sea
searching inland, repeating this from memory.

Hi! I Remember You Quite Well

(for my friend Eberle Knight)

We're gonna dance into heaven 3 steps at a time
taking turns leading in all directions
we'll form a swan and turn on every third dime

or maybe I'll dance something beyond our sync
but near the end, you will rhumba past the brink
and some of us will be nearer to heaven

we will touch most of the time with affection
but watch my feet they stomp the floor like buffalo
and turn lovers toes into noisy piccolos

Spinning Today

If ya wanna win
pour a tonic & gin
and ask for '50's blues
& as our world loses its glues
we are open for an old time spin . . .

A Friday Night in Eugene

Surely a moment of change is some focus of energy;
perhaps a simple glance toward a movement of parts.
Differences may be subtle or sudden without cause;
chains of differences dance beyond our dancing reach.

Our world contains a multitude of starts and pauses.
I suspect we can disregard single, simple focuses of energy.
Chains of differences are troves or more often trials.
Even drunks who fall down a lot love a special someone.

The world in whole is somewhat different from the dance floor.
we dance and expect to finish with some flourish of a prance
and go home for a hug and a brandy, a nap before seeking more
and maybe savor with friends our favorite sticky toffee pudding.

I barely know the courtesies beyond the dance floor;
I do not cotton toward the whelm of endless universes.
But, I have possibilities: I may stroll the streets of Eugene,
staring starward into the skies, always wearing at least a mask.

The Simplicity of Poetry

You can write your poem;
I will scribble out mine.

You can chew at your pencil;
I'll lean back with a glass of wine!

Long-ago Yesterday

I remember my grandmother's fresh-starched bonnet
and how she weeded her flowers to allow then more light.
I remember her bulbs, stark, tall, bright and hand-blessed.

I also remember she took out her big book to read us a sonnet
by the old poets, with pauses, winks, smiles; always honest,
her words dancing from the page into the twindling twilight.

Pandemic Days

It's tough times.
We ain't stepping down.
Not sure where to step?
just avoid the shit if you can,
but keep your head up and smile on
and treat people like people.

When you can, offer a helping hand,
and know times have been tougher . . .
times have been way fuckin' tougher
and people did not always step up
but just waded through shit like it was normal.
Wading through shit is not normal.

Avoid the shit by stepping to the front
say hello offer your hand or shoulder to lean on.
Don't tread through shit if you can avoid it.
Help friends who feel threatened or pushed.
There's no rush, just do it now.
Reach out. There is our total world around us.

Strains of Life

Proprietors of "the"
have little truck with me;
hawkers of "a" and "an"
furnish better measuring sand.
An Eagle naps on an old limb.

A bird sang in a tree,
far off. My name repeated
on a tongue of the wind.
I dosed in a drowsing wood;
who invented should?

A strain of needy seeds
swaying beneath me;
who knows such need
better than you, me
and our flowering weeds.

Building Brick from Straw

What the old ones were saying
is much, I think, to what we are
saying today. The difficulties
are often obvious simplicities;
as a running stream will break
and reshape the image of our moon
all night long: the way our children
build brick from the straw of childhood
and watch for signals from the sky to break
into radiant glows of tomorrow's dreams
or nuances of yesterday's coulds and shoulds.

Splashes of Water

Some of my favorite poems are slaps of cold,
splashes of water from some mountain stream.

Walking Down a Street

I am mostly unaware:
stumbling, tripping, getting up to walk some more.

You are mostly badge:
chasing, hitting, laughing with a band of uniformed friends.

We went to school together:
hanging out, banging about, eating lunch from home.

We may end on the same hearse:
stretched out, no heartbeats, unaware of who's walking where.

Seeking affinity with Keats

At night when I smell some breath of fear
stalking lobbed-legged my mounting years,
I seek John Keats to spell again his fears
and then, on even earth, I respect old age.
Hungered, I breathe the air that was his breath
and chew the moon sea stars that were his food.
With diet and wan smile, we break a brittle cage.
We keep an open door, but not to ease in death
but smiling to welcome such life as passes there.
And once filled with fear, we smile our peace.
Expectations grow, not much, but always more.
For surely death will someday stop to smile.

We are Ken

We are family even if continents apart
whether we sit in the fourth row
to better see John's fountain
or the first row to race to the podium
to take the mike in hand and welcome
everyone through the door.
We voice our hymns in and out of sync
the message is always love.
Our goal is to share love without measure.

Yesterdays and Rain

I miss different people on different days;
I miss my friends in so many twinkly ways.
I miss my brothers tomorrow and yesterday.
I smile more than cry, because my brothers did.
I hang on every word I remember that they said.
I can almost talk to them live on days of rain.

Returning to the Mall

"Just so you know,
I am waiting over here
where we were."
"No, I am not over there
where we never were."
"What where?"
"Here, where we were;
I am still over here."
"Okay, see you over there . . . "
What do I know?

Spring in Lane County

Willamette valley begins our wonderful Springs
clumsily and slowly, pretending bluest of skies
while bitty spots of yellow and dripping grey skies
merely sport a flowery smile pretending Spring.

Friends of all Sorts

Sometimes I see best without a fat pen in hand.
Maybe a bike ride through wetlands never visited before
not knowing what I might see or who I could meet
sometimes collecting favorite rocks from other bikers
mostly folks sleeping along the railroad tracks
not asking, mostly wanting to share what they had
certain of gold in stone or magic in blessed rocks
and glad for a chance to teach and talk their saving lore.
I am blessed to have met and listened to such folks,
I am double blessed to see them again and wave hello.

Along the Willamette

our minds move so often in circles and sometimes bend in questionable directions . . . we give a flip; I can circle and watch you curve in delight as well . . . possibly, we can wonder where to go and wander in toward another setting sun, not enough for any worried soul . . . sometimes my mind works in overtime, not as well as yours, but I promise I am able to meet you halfway toward a drifting moon or almost rising sun and decipher your smile . . . we can stand and stare and we can hold hands and know that we recognize the sky and the dance of the river . . . we've managed that before and know most of the critical steps . . . I'm mostly slower than you but know to follow if you leap ahead . . .

An Aside of Sorts

When I was 12 or so living in Seth Ward, TX,
you know the place, a bit north of Plainview.
My barber was a sweet woman with a home shop
who needed only combs and scissors to do the cut
and saved her brush for a final flourish.

She was Mrs. Dean, a friend of my Grandmother.
She was just walking distance from where I lived,
near the gas station that paid .02 for rescued pop bottles.
It was an easy walk, the haircut cost 2 quarters and a dime.
(or something like that, I don't remember, but that sounds fair).

During school, I walked to see Mrs. Dean every other Saturday;
after school, I waited to walk until sometime in late August,
but always walking and looking for pop bottles in bar ditches.
I never met Mrs. Dean's famous son James, some movie guy
who later moved back to Plainview and started a sausage mill.

Nod to Mr. John Prine

We still expect love and happiness over sorrow;
most of us mature beyond ripe grapes toward wine.
Death does not overwhelm our goals for tomorrow;
we are pleased to have danced to the beat of Mr. Prine!

With my Brother in Vegas

I ain't behind nobody . . .
So there. I ain't behind you.

I know how to add 2+2 to 4
& sometimes I can triple it
and wait for the score.

It depends who sits the table.
My lead is certain; this ain't no banking game.

If you're looking for some way out,
don't look to me. I know my way.
Some teach, some learn; some march all day.

Inevitable Fall

I am a joe named bill . . .
I know when I am at top of a hill
because every which way looks down.

Some friends say, "look up, look up!"
but vertigo spins me into looking down
and I stumble like a twice-practiced clown.

Except, I have no practice at all
I am just a baby brother joe named bill
and I am starting to tumble and fall,
not quite deciphering up from down.

04/03/2021

Tap your steps and twirl on toes;
in our minds, the parts all move.
We can create a rhythm for our song.
This is our world. We all belong.
We have nothing more to prove;
only that we still step lively with love
and practice civil speech on our tongue.

belated . . .

Mike Weber (as he always did)

As January 2015 comes to an end,
something I never thought might happen,
and so many of my friends gone,
including our self-described "hardhead",
I pray (not with practice or patience)
that the justices of the universe
see fit to lend him assistance in what follows . . .
(or else, quite simply,
he'll need to make his own path, as he always did),

Woman in a Window April 2020

A woman stands at a window looking out.
The window rises from her middle thigh
to some six inches above her head.
The width of the frame narrows her silhouette:
a framed picture four times the width of her body.
She stares out, apparently seeing nothing.
I have never talked with her,
though we are members of the same tribe.
I stroll briskly, with purpose,
keeping distances between me and her.

Spatial Memory

Don't necessarilly remember what I say . . .
Even though importance may dawn after awhile:
maybe in early morning rain, or a moving horizon.
It can happen in multiple ways.
Be ready, help others, but always
look west at nightfall and, if possible, smile.
Mostly wake facing East for a true dawn.

Forget the rest I say until my last utterance.
The early verse is mostly rehearsal . . .
the latest . . . or finally some last stanzas,
describes the sum of the state of the universe.
It's where I am when I am no longer here,
unless I am finally lost in everywhere.

Awakening

I am more us than me
but I am totally me at dawn
when I'm not sure what I see
until nuzzled by my lady fawn.

Squirrels on a Wheel

Yesterday and tomorrow are rough enough
and tomorrow and tomorrow will be rougher.
It is sometimes the way of my world
that straight or curved paths whirl
into a new reality of varieties of nonsense
sometimes coalescing into pretend sense
mostly to the left and twice to the right
for a hundred years or so
and then, again, around we go.
You can't keep the same pair of dice all night.
We mostly dance in patterns of hope
from minus to "maybe we can cope."
In my favorite world
it is not best to be a squirrel.

Today or Tomorrow

I study twirl, dance and play
mostly now, and maybe even pray.
I cannot remain longer in yesterday.

I do not anticipate our tomorrow,
until I hear the dawn that follows,
and the difference is immense.

What we do and what we may,
are opposite ends of a chasm of tense
and could sink a world you know.
I will continue twirling toward dance

We Are In Charge

The last time we spoke
I may have seemed out of focus;
maybe due to a swarm of locusts
appearing from the northeast.

The little devils want to feast
on everything in the forest.
(I've ended singing a half-tone higher
from muddy-pies to sky-eye pies.)

There needs no excuse, nothing is obscure;
we are already almost past having a cure.
We are always simply smart and focused
on such flights as these luckless locusts.

We are in charge.

A Year Ago, a Moment, and Just Now

Sometimes it seems that choice
includes a bit of alternate stronger voice
beyond our recognized youthful pale.
Some new friend showing another trail?

Expect a choice of results from multiple paths,
yesterday, tomorrow, next week or just now.
The sun always rises with an appearance of solid truth,
a permanence, but maybe not thought thru.

Who can guess where we may decide to go
with the sun in splendor and the moon aglow?
So sigh, roll over, wink at the sky:
remember some tricks to try.

Let's just settle back into the yellow hammock,
wrap ourselves in our arms and count our luck.

Awakening

Black coffee before the yellow sun rises
muddying my view with its variant colors.

Even with the yellow sun almost in my eye
I am defiant and glance toward the darker sky.

Black coffee allows a truer reality of the day
without wind tossing about nets of stray colors.

Oh, I love the ritual of the rising of the sun
but I am myself more totally without such swirls.

Let suns control their worlds;
but know, they do not control me
until after I drink my black coffee.

Sapiens

nightly scribbles are mostly rambles
of some uncontrolled mind
-less-ness of bits and scraps of worry
about tomorrow's settled mind.

if there are no gospels haunting us,
we may imaginatively decide as we learn
and never quite imagine cursing
a world that is new and beginning . . .

West Texas Dancing Ghost

I've danced enough to have gone around a circle or two;
I ain't whispering Jack of Diamonds because of you.

Last night's moon across the creek touching your face
was more than I required to stay in this silly all-out race.

I ain't running for fun,
and never was
I am totally under the gun
and always was

It there's a way out and we go back, have Charley show me.
If there ain't no way out for sure, just have Charley shoot me.

I'm up against it again;
somehow further than then.
Don't peer back at nothing over your shoulder
If I ain't beside you, it's the end of your trouble.

February 2020 Coronavirus Update

When the masks go away, I'll try to hug you again.
I continue to love you without touching, but you scare me.

And, of course, I scare you. But we should soon have rain.
Maybe it will wash away the silly sins between you and me.

My Genes Remember

My genes remember 1918:
my teenage grandmother succumbed to the virus of that year.
She never reached her twenties.

That was then and that may be our now . . .
Love everyone, but do not touch anyone . . .
Wait for the Spring rains and additional information.

We cannot accept what our current government says;
they are totally full of patronage and shit.
Guard yourself. Look to everyone around you.

It may be short and of little consequence. Pray yes!
But know of another side.
We are all on the same slide . . .

Be cautious. Be cautious.
Do not shake hands.
Do not hug your precious neighbors.

A Distant Drummer

Conversations continue through interludes of talking;
Who can always answer a specific question?
Life and love continue sometimes in silence.

It may not be god everywhere.

It may not be god everywhere.
She may be here or over there;
or maybe, with special particular,
she may mostly always be here or nowhere.
She lives, smiles, deep and dank, in our There.
Physics does not yet allow us a were, or no, or there.
Still, it is nowhere or a mere bluish glimmer of somewhere.
You and I will dance and twirl there, and touch cheeks there.
We will smile, kiss, and always grin love with tippytoes there.

Come By Here

I may count my blessings more than most . . .
I've had my plenty . . .
I am aware of those around us
who have much less than plenty . . .
While I am an architect of much of my life,
I am also an inheritor of my family
who prepared fields for my gardens.
They are a block . . .
I am a chip.

I must remind myself to look toward those
without a field of family.
Kumbaya.

Without Direction

Yes, almost lost in a picture in a museum,
but I am not stopping; I am stepping in:
a breezy, carefree walk along the Hudson.

There are many aromas to my new breezes;
best, wafting, growing scents of coffee
with hints of cinnamon and toasted sourdough.

I am alone totally surrounded, eyes on me,
within the comfort and fortitude of Spring
with no worry for lunch nor bed for the night.

I could easily end my day as I have started it,
a simple figure in the distance, faint to most eyes,
I remain stroked into a background along the Hudson.

I Think I Know Who I Am

I think I know myself . . .
imperfectly, but better than she or he.
I am an invention of their imagination
recharged with recurring stories and images.
I may be started somewhere near "The Little
Red Hen" but I have evolved well beyond
the Heinlein Space Cadets, from twinkle,
twinkle star to beyond the studied cadences
of Bach to the blistering incadences of
"music" beyond my musical vocabulary.

I hear my footsteps from yesterday echoing
among the foot-clapping sound of tomorrow's
half-hour funs. I remain me to a degree,
not always recognizable even to you or me.
I think I don't know who we are.

Trails

All of those arduous trails
through uncountable mountain passes
must lead to you somewhere.
I've been there,
looking for you.
You are not there.
I try to follow.

The edelweiss, silvery-white,
define some trails,
blooming ahead of us.
It could be a good place
for you to stop and rest.
Do you ever stop to sleep?

I never stop walking.
My sleeps are to short.

I knew who you were once;
now I am not so sure.

I despair
that we may have passed
in a meadow in Spring.
You, with your dark
greying straight hair
and I with my curling brown-grey beard.

I've climbed up and sometimes down
looking for you.
You never come into complete view.

Some trails disappear among fallen rocks.
The empty arms of winter trees
allow some passage.
I will explore these trails
before the next snow . . .

Homes Again Poem (Houston / Eugene)

We are glad to be home again
from our home there to our home here.
We are basking in drizzly rain
and missing many family and friends.

We patter from room to room in smiles
stopping to peer out windows
confirming our drizzling rainy sky;
tonight we are glass slippers of wine.

Gauging a Moment

I am aware that when I appear to skip a step, it isn't a fancy dance step. I seem to need a moment to rebalance my brain to synchronize with an assumed equilibrium. If the moment isn't readily available, a fall usually corrects the issue. It's all about a skip and a jump, a smile and an I'll see you tomorrow.

A Zapteo toward love

I dance my heart away
I cannot yet come home.

I stomp and clog for love
I jump toward you and sway away.

I am not always me, but sometimes you.
We dance our hearts away
and cannot yet remain home.

So, we stomp and clog our love
and jump toward whom we love.
You are always you, but sometimes me.

Spirals, Sparrows and Crossed Paths

If I repeat myself
it is so;
I know where I go.
I am no lost sparrow
tumbling alone.
I am like most of the rest,
seeking some safer nest.

I am in tune
with pantry and bookshelves
with setting suns and rising moons,
the bubbly breath of whales
and the silver path of snails.

I watch surrounded by the repetition of love and fear
and recognize the markings of less and care.
If I repeat myself like morning rain,
I've been there,
maybe more than once and maybe soon again.

3 Short Poems

mirrors reflect who you may be
or who you may pretend to be
but try to turn it upside down

we don't write to learn
we already learned to write
we maybe have reached a total

A lack of words a day
may be a way to pave
a cleaner saner tomorrow

A Barefoot in a Land of Poets

As a barefoot in a land of poets,
I am sufficient to my task;
I stride quicker than asked,
but not always as directed.
My stumbles are not questions,
but possibilities of direction
outside the arrows of choice.
I mostly smile minus my shoes.

Our Newer World

I do not know how to write a poem
in the direct face of crumbling freedom.
This is no reign of an honest Jeroboam
with no one honest to succeed him.

We have people who know freedom
in a tragic world switched on low hum.
We will need a someone to beat a drum.

Someone begin a tattoo on a bongo!

Don't start too fast or too full of you;
seek out a center, a place of peace to go.
We can bongo too! to find the fuller view,
play well, We will love you, and say adieu.

Youthful Memories

Always somewhere to go
always somewhere to be
and suddenly she's there
in the middle of the street,
that someone out of nowhere:
the someone you must meet.
Don't look, she'll think I'm crazy.
The world, suddenly sweet as a daisy
for a moment,
then damn,
up and down the street,
she's gone.
You run into an empty lonesome street,
mindless, still humming the silliest song
for a someone you may never meet.
What the hell! O damn, what the hell!
and you are emptier than a peanut shell.
Always somewhere to be
and always somewhere to go
you're stuck in concrete all alone
in the middle of a street to hell
and you keep singing your stupid song.

if we meet again

I'm off to the horizon but looking back.
We can meet somewhere over there
or maybe go to J.B.'s for pizza and beer
(bring the mushrooms in the paper sack).
But please don't call back, I'll call you.
I have a ton of things that I have to do.