Appreciating a Poet whose eye fixed on my own stomping grounds . . .

The poet is my friend - in the army together - roommates for a time in Seattle . . .
(I like personal poetry just fine . . . don’t saddle up unless you want a ride . . .)

He comes in like a tourist. He is not a stenographer and not a whirlwind,
but more s tourist who has walked the world
(where? - North Africa with Voorhies; Greece with Efferding . . .)
and talked (12-string guitar) over much of the Pacific Northwest
displaying licks of influences from Houston’s Beau De Glen Lipscomb and
other, more desultory artists (Berkeley, etc. perhaps - I am not versed in his biography) . . .

But, I am honored to be among those who can welcome his voice into my house as a guest.
And guest, while not quite right . . . interpreter . . . picture-taker . . . sage . . . maybe more apt.

Though he may have arrived as tourist, as guest, he has also flung his arms in a magic circle,
almost nostalgic, of recognition and acceptance . . .
like a hobo looking for remembered sustenance who finds instead
a feast, beyond the ken of mere memory, and sits with candor and care at the table of the host . . .
the perfect guest.

Peter may remain, more a guest than a citizen of the worlds he explores, but, if so, this speaks
more to the capacity of a human mind than to the temper of his poetry. He is a welcome guest,
at home . . . in the larger world.


Postlude: like Tocqueville, he may see us clearly, but not always with the same curved mirror
in which we see ourselves . . . though his view invites an expanding horizon,
a wider world than we most times expect to see . . .
he does not always see what we think we can almost see.

Question and Answer

a sometimes song . . .

Will you be there in the morning when I’m singing my song?
Will you be there in the morning when I’m singing your song?

Yeh . . . for fucking sure . . .
I’ll be there in the morning when you are singing your song . . .
I’ll be there in the morning - be there all day long . . .
Don’t stop singing, I’ll sing the chorus for your song . . .
I’ll be there in the morning singing all day long . . .
We can sing into the night . . .
We can sing and sing . . . and I will be there

I am an old white man . . .

I am an old man (75 years old this year) and still mostly white . . .
in truth, probably as white as genetics might suggest . . .
I continue to have an awareness
and parents (of a sort)
(borh almost certainly dead) who sometimes trusted me
and on occasion may have taught me to live beyond a heritage of sexism and racism.

This is something that I sometimes don't remember with clarity . . .
I do know that it is a message that A and I have attempted (and with some success) to teach
to our own children . . .

My lesson, as I remembered learning it was that
all people --
all people
are equal . . .
That's really the only message . . .

I mostly forget what Winnie & Ralph may have said to us as children
about the possible creation-side of our existence . . .
and it doesn't so much matter if you're standing up . . .
I couldn't sing in tune with or without the piano.

And it wasn't of much use in the short run. . .
nor, necessarily of great use in the longer run as I remember

It may, however unlikely, it may
have helped in a short thereafter of some understanding . . .
or not.

I seem to have my own evolving (over 75 years)
and inconclusive appreciation of the Buddha
as I've come to know his likeness . . .
but who knows the winds of tomorrow . . .
for now, I keep his likeness carved in teak in our main hallway.

It is a blessing of sorts . . .

Sapiens

Nightly scribbles are mostly nightly rambles
as we allow our mind bits and scraps of worry
about tomorrow's mostly unsettled mind.
Advice (not that you need it . . . ): Don't take our word as gospel
You may end tangled in confused bramples
where no one seems to care

We almost always make it up as we go . . .

But not always . . . almost never always . . . but we go always somewhere.

Discerning the Trivial

Much of what I utter may be 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 comfort room.
I may live another day or two
Until I figure a way
To live another day . . .

No way to deny it . . .

I grow older by the day
but most days without notice . . .
some days I do . . .
little things not worth worry mostly
but "things" all the same.

But some days
go beyond "some days" into other days
when things announce themselves
within the frame of my body . . .

Little things mostly
. . no cancers yet
just uncomfortable things
possigle harbingers of
more desparate tomorrows.

Mostly

I write, mostly, as a way to move from before
to now:
a way to go from there to here.
There is gone; here is now.
Ok, that's all - that's why I write (mostly).

Sometimes I am too scattered to move
from place to place;
too present in now to move from then,
where I no longer am, to now where I never quite arrive
in one piece.

It is not a circle.
I do not go to where I've been.

Neither is it linear, but more like multiple
possible points on a map
with no single possible destination.

a question of pillows . . .

I've moved from pillows sewn in sleep bags to twin bed pillows stacked to the ceiling to pillows covering corners of double beds before reaching a majesty of space in queen size pillows, but only living into my 70's did I approach true majesty, the king size bed (though the pillows continued Queen). Should I strike forth for a pillow that reaches beyond this world into new horizons of other exploding worlds that fit the size of my continuing modesty and contentment of time?

It is clear to me . . .

that many Republicans (include Lindsay Graham) can tolerate festering sores on our communal efforts toward public grace and cooperation to satisfy certain objectives . . .

Some of us are still alive . . . and may keep attempting to write and guess about our circumstances . . . I expect to be there among that choir singing some possible tomorrows . . . the enlightenment is not over, we are still exploring passages forward even as we sometimes back-track to sullen yesterdays . . .