9-3-2014

Poetic Fishing License

"For about an hour, David." Thomas O. called back
In answer to his brother's: "When you coming home?"
Never thinking that in that time he would attack,
In record time, the better part of the poem
Soon to be legend in the Believesphere.
How could he have known that his short fishing
Interlude would catch him a whopper. A mere
Nugget even the Poet General would be relishing.
"Good luck catching one," from David on a roll
Thomas O.: "Oh that isn't the object." he replied with laughter
"Only to predict the hook's trajectory is my goal."
Usually it was vectors Thomas O. was after.
Chance had it that today he got so much more.
His casting yielded Tony and the horseshoe crab's lore. 

9-2-2014

Contra-act of creation

Under the rubber shavings Daniel could sense
Nearness of completion. He blew across the page
In hopes that his alteration would chance
Venusian birth bring to the crab's stark image.
Every once and a while, he fancied himself a
Real penner of the songs. After all who would
So much as whistle the tune later if
A certain i was not dotted? With a breath's flood,
Lovingly the mistake was gone! Another spry
Wave of the white out's brush!
And then a brief wait to let the sea foam dry:
Lovely as Venus on the half shell. Next a hush.
Then his mighty pen corrected it to the letter!
Zephyros could not have done any better.

9-1-2014

For a song

Daniel woke and his office was calm.
Right where he left it was his ink
Eraser and copy of the contract warm
Against his face-down palm. Its pink,
Malleable surface just a reach away.
Song publishing contracts were his strength.
In a day he could prepare a few, four, say.
Not today though, for he had just dozed at length:
A good three hours dreaming he was on some
Desert island.  It was so vivid. He still
Recoiled at the thought of the dead crab. Plumb
Enormous and brown it was. The thrill
And stench of it lingered. He perused the contract for faults.
Moped on in 3/4 time over this song about a horseshoe crab's waltz.

8-31-2014

Hut, two, three, four

"But he can't walk. Because he is dead."
Expresses our hero as he slowly rises.
"Let's see who is in that hut ahead.
I'm sorry, Tony. On to more pressing crises."
Eyeing the crab one last time, Harold stumbles,
Very weak still from his journey.
Every step is an accomplishment. Harold mumbles
Something he imagines soldiers learn. He
Puts more and more oomph into the phrase.
"How did i get here?" is his echoing question now.
Entering one of the beach-side huts he braces:
Ready or not, here it comes. "Wow.
Empty." He spots a cot and collapses.
"So it's sleep again," he yawns, as off into slumber he passes.

8-30-2014

Introduction to the Dimension Shift Sonnet Cycle
Day at the beach

Harold wakes with sand in his mouth.
Intense sunlight and something hard and brown
Slowly comes into focus like a memory from youth.
Next to him is what looks like  a bronze crown.
After a moment he realizes his mistake. "Better you than
Me." He addresses the empty shell of a horseshoe crab.
Everything is still blanched and harsh. His clan
Is nowhere to be seen and this drab
Stony, prehistoric remnant with dead eyes
Targets him like a freakish portrait of a warrior stranded,
Or of some dead relative with vision that pries--
No matter where in the room you landed--
Your very soul open like a Warhol soup keg.
He is brown. He has ten eyes. He has some legs. 

8-29-2014

Outlasting

The blue and white comfort us as we sit
Here and look up as a slow gull tilts
Every so often. Though not painted, it
Seems almost static but not still.
Kinetic in attitude but emblazoned.
You reach for your book and i gaze
To the east where the waves careen into an amazon.
Her form tiny to me. But her laughing gasps spray
Eternity across the sand, glistens for a long moment,
Loses intensity as the sand soaks it up and a wary
Intimacy is left behind as i realize our love's monument
Might well be in your placing your hand just on mine. Scary.
It's like a sail or the single cel in a very, very long film.
Too fragile to linger on the horizon, strong enough to pull the helm.

8-28-2014

Learning to wait

Some say it is television. Some, poor parenting or locusts.
It seems most prevalent in young boys:
This need to squirm, the lack of focus.
Then the maturity or biological debate annoys
Independent think tanks and thus comes the next study.
New methods using old tricks concentrate
Good money after bad. Maybe an MRI would be
Surer evidence of the problem. Better get the DNA.
Origin of the specious is nailed to the cross-hairs;
Still no solution. But maybe the unification
Theory is the problem. Should we adjust all office chairs
If the backs of a few ache. Or wait until June and vacation.
Let them run it off during summer.
Love tries everything and hope wakes from slumber.

8-27-2014

Reasons to be Cheerful (Part 4)

Evolution is not really about dog eat dog.
Victory can lose even in the most popular sneakers.
Elephants, pure and not-so-simple, Elephants. Frog
Ribbitting on a half-submerged limb. Beakers
Yielding some reason for hope. Contentedness.
Dis-contentedness. Boots made for puddle-exploration.
All proofs require something to be given. Let y = x.
Y is a Christmas present. X is the mystery. Elation.
Sadness is better shared. Joy is better shared. 
Anxiety is best forgotten. Bread is best warm.
Grief reminds you how much you cared.
Intelligence does not have one form.
Friend.
The end.

8-26-2014

Miniature Nativity Scene

Once upon a time when school age was
New. I would sit by the others in the pew
Where the children's service was held because
Adult services were not for us and I grew
Really curious about why that was so.
Did the smaller plug-in organ play better
Children's hymns? Was the miniature version a smaller altar ego?
Holier for younger but not older? Let our
Religion be not about size.
I ought not think about it so hard.
Some structures, like sonnets, have rules as guides
To let us know they are part of something bigger by far.
Its ok to break the rules as long as there's reason.
An honest mistake amid brethren and cistern is not treason.

8-25-2014

The wrong vaccine

One mistake i have made many times. So 
Many that i hesitate to confess my error
(Not for fear of consequence, though). 
It's the inane essence of its nature
And the pure ease of which i might have
Veered to avoid it. The answer: silence.
If i had the presence of mind to save
Needling you with a quick interrupting sentence--
Cautioning you with my world view,
I might have listened long enough to get the sense
That you were trying to give me. That to
Amend for past by throwing up an ego fence
Means a fruitless fool's errand of chasing my tale
Or hoping for some future that i have made stale.

8-24-2014

Soul vision

Guessing game it is not. But i know sometimes
Overt presence of the divine i'm not.
Devotion still is happening within, not crimes.
Intervention happens when i am brought
New trials beyond my ken. Not for my skill
Mind you, but for some mercy that is beyond me.
Everywhere this mercy lives sometimes in boggy catskills,
Sometimes in more bright Kinkadian landscapes. You see
Empathy is sometimes not spoken. But wherever
Experience is shared like when the mistake you made
Simply is erased and yet you know not the severe
God you expect. So that when you see the plaid
Or confusing fabric of the error again, the alarm's 
Din you felt will be salvation for the deaf; not more harm.

8-23-2014

Universal Laughter

Ultimately we wait. We wait for the moment
Now and everlasting. The brief inkling of belonging
Drawn from the well of having been there. Comet
Extends a finger to point to discovery's wronging
Revelation. "Oh we see now!" say the blind men,
Stunned by the information. But the satisfaction,
The fulfillment is fleeting. We found the boson.
Although we knew we would, the distraction
Now is what next. So we keep watching,
Drilling down into darkness. While we wait
It is helpful to think of others who have done so
Newton, Einstein, Linus for the Pumpkin Great
Grand unification of silliness and sobriety.
Somewhere a boson laughs at our society.

8-22-2014

The science of getting others to believe 

The problem is not the truth. The problem is
Our inability to perceive the truth. Physicists
Wave or point at 7 unperceived dimensions. This
Envelope they hand us that requires opening by theorists;
Requires observations of unseen events' effects on the seen
Ones. How does this differ in the scheme of things
From faith? Is there a reproducible outcome? A scene
Both believable and real? Perhaps, but it involves wings
And pigs and strings and many things recognized
By their unknowable nature. And so we wait for
Yearning to stop and knowing to begin: the real peace prize
Lets go. And Blake sing-songs us back to lands of lore.
Our grasp of the obvious always exceeding our reach.
Naive wisdom is as likely to do. Now, that'll preach. 

8-21-2014

Mister E.

How the voice of God is hidden in the open,
Emerson seems to have known too well.
A refrain of silent kindness well-spoken
Relieves each wound the world's spell
Wields on the innocent soul as it seeks
A home better suited to welcomeness.
Lost as we are in the surface, we still peek.
Depth stuns us into dumbness;
Opaques truth, not for lack of it; 
Simplifies for the overwrought, its dead end.
Senseless as it seems somehow we love it.
Oh if only I could tell my friend:
Nativity, miniature or otherwise, in time of calamity,
Gave healing profound to our whole family.

8-20-2014

Heisenberg Observes Uncertainty  

Siren thoughts buzz too loudly. But breathe 
In and breathe out and cherish the sense
Loosed upon your being. No longer tense
Every in and out is like a festive wreathe:
Nativity of the breast to weave
Creation back into the core from whence
Every renewed recompense 
Stretches in morning silken sleeve
Of restful awakening. All is well.
Open your eyes like newly risen roses
To share beauty in a choice exchange.
Happy is the day to see you revel.
Enchant us again as quiet exposes
Self in landscape moment strange.

8-19-2014

My summer vacation

Capture the flag time and the twilight kids
Are on the prowl trying to pry the last
Pearl hours out of summer; along with lids
(Tin caps really) off the bottles of the past.
United states of consciousness in the fabric
Rules the play. So you see, there will be no cheating.
Everybody knows when something runs afoul. Abso-
Tricking-lutely, The chaos that it would bring, though fleeting,
Hangs on the moments like dew on blades forming
Every hour after dark when the field is silent,
When flag is put away, traded for the school one they pledge in morning.
In essays of what they did they form lines with heads bent.
No way to tell how much fun they had, but ultimately it is better
Done well and half-heartedly recounted, than daydreamed in an unwritten letter.

8-18-2014

Flight of nonfancy

The truth, elusive as fireflies in youth's summer,
Remains just out of reach. We grasp,
Uncup our hands and the sparkle is gone. Bummer.
There are those moments when, sure, we gasp:
"Hey, look! I got it!" What then? Keep it in a jar?
Idolize the moment and drag it out later
Showing friends the carcass of foolishness far
Beyond imagining. But friends know what your
Error is and enjoy some second truth in the moment.
And there it is: the place where words and pictures fail.
Ugly in our palms, but lovely nonetheless as an omen:
Touching eternity like a knight's lips on the grail.
Youth loves the promise of progress. Age forgets
Beauty, Truth; knowing--there is no app for that.

8-17-2014

Reasons to be cheerful  (Part 3)

Individually rapped decorative songs.
Atonal migration to harmony.
Nuanced sidewalk chalk. Chim chim cheree.
"Dubliners" set to phillip glass soundtrack
Umbra of an umbrella.
Riotous laughter followed by taking a breath
Yet another unpublished bevy of Beatles songs 
Hydro-electric power windows
Infrared and ultraviolet throw a party for orange
Temporary library cards when needed
Mercy for the rest of us (and you too)
Exotic birds and their next door neighbors
With your rhythm stick, you keep time.
Dropping everything to smile with a wedge of lime.

8-16-2014

Be the A-mazing One

The way of the pilgrim is like an eleven day
Hegira that takes forty years. No, wait,
Efficiency is not the goal. Rather, let us say,
Justice grows with a soul as it
Evolves forgiveness. Each step a journey.
So best not to measure in terms of this world.
"Until it becomes the beating of your heart."
Says the pilgrim. Grace made real. Reps of curled
Pounds of stoic passion, but start
Really slow: A smile with knowledge.
A touch with known pain. Amid
Yearly rituals break the tradition's hedge.
Escape not the maze, but understand
Right active thought erases all boundaries, real and planned.

8-15-2014

A few great poets

Curse of rejection for standing one's ground
And telling the truth unguessed by sundry
Soldiers of groupthink. Blind justice astounds
Seeing-eye dogs with a simple: "know." The foundry
Arcadia lives! We carry its flame atop.
North winds, try as they may, never put it out.
Desert cave with a single palm stops
Revenge from Jonah like a Whale's spout.
And the boy cries wolf out of anticipation.
Victory laughs him to scorn. And shakes a finger sharply at  
Island of Elba: his new home. Or Patmos for his next vacation.
Sanest love guards against rampant harpies: what
Ideologies become for wont of reason over time.
On toward a rigid sphynx's riddle, we now must complete in rhyme.

8-14-2014

Upon trying to imagine a 3-D sonnet

"Cummings is not my cup of tea. Too flat and gray." I found that laughable,
On the day we talked of breaking molds:
"Really? Based on his rejection of capitals?"
No reply, but sensing I had struck gold,
Edged onward, "But when something's lacking,
Reinforcement occurs in an odd way.
Some sense of loss shown in the mold cracking
To wake us from the sleep of tradition, say."
"Oh, please, it's like rebel yell or plastic poesy!"
"No, it is not just a cheap shot. It's perusing a childhood crate or
Entering your backyard and with new focus, see?" 
"Too much concrete and too little nature!
Happenstance of style run amok. So the essence of 'Where it's
At' is rejected." "Forgive the method, Cinderfella, if the shoe fits!"

8-13-2014

 

Anti-matter language (Exhibit A)

"Fixed on the bull's eye." That is an odd phrase
Ought to be thinking more about his horns,
Really.  Consider what an idiom says
Ere saying it. Easier said than foreign
Sin tax allows though. Waiting for the customs
To be fresh but not too familiar. 
First in, last out, and who's on first just comes
Out. No run round the bases is sillier.
Really? Second. What? I don't know.
Third base. Who? I told you already
Really who? First base! Not that again. No
Everyone knows its who! This is a word eddy!
Eddie! Who's Eddie now? I don't know you
Suggested him in the first base. Yes. Who.

8-12-2014

Inconsolable?
(For Robin William's Family)

The numbers that you will make laugh, boss,
Until time ends, approach infinity in spite of the sadness
Rushing in: the void you left with your gaff awes.
Depression is an odd disease, I confess.
Universal sucking sound of your
Star's collapse. It is like God
Made black holes so we could endure
It when you gave out  your light's last
Gasp: Nature hates a vacuum. So much giving and love
Really cannot be tethered to one human. Similarly  
At the end of that movie: "Her"; the multiverse around and above
Transmigrates from a singularity.
Oh, and it hurts.  The joke's onus.
Riotous, now, how you tickled the darkness
and it laughed daylight.

8-11-2014

Inconceivable

Throw up the signal. The Joker's in town. 
I know its not funny, but somehow this fool
Clown reverses the order and makes
Kings into pawns. So let's not be wistful.
Let's not be shy. Get the cowl-headed crusader.
Ensure that he knows the moment for action,
Tech and thought is better now than later.
Heroes resist the world amid its attraction.
Every pun that he jokes is the lowest of nature. 
Don't let the catwoman entice our benefactor.
Arch enemies aren't friends no matter how elated or
Reticent they seem. In the bat cave no detractor
Knows the name of the steady stoic boy at
Night, excepting Bruce repeating: "My name is Inigo Montoya ..."

8-10-2014

Global Security

Maybe all the espionage
In Maclean cannot hush the single
Sad obvious secret: fear does not assuage.
Security, as costly as it is, is as strong as a Pringle.
If we were to open the floodgates,
Or let down our guard totally,
National security would just abate.
Initially it would be havoc. Notably
Many manmade disasters would occur.
Persistent openness: a splendid 
Offer. What kind of trust? Of bravura?
Simple truth is not so transparent it would
Seem. 'Trust but verify' is like saying:
"The proof is in the paying" 

8-9-2014

Not quite the hero you were expecting

You like playing with your action figure:
Openly showing your inner alter-you.
Unleashing your superpowers: your signature
Repeating swoops to the scene of rescue;
Beating the bad guys to the punchline;
Or making leaps of faith in a single bound. 
Seems odd that your coworker finds
Shuffling papers more interesting than your antics.
It's ok, you will still save the day and thwart
Supervisory meddling of the admin fanatics.
Take that micro-manager girl! Engarde!
Anti-fun boy. Now the day is turned around!
Now the office is safe and amid the awed hush:
Ding, behind you! Your perspective expands in a huge blush! 

8-8-2014

Consider the Lily

Really? Since you asked, no, i do not believe
Economies based on weapons serve
Society as peacemakers. Robocop is naïve.
It takes more bravery, more nerve
Sometimes to listen and wait and
Try to understand and make considerate
Vacillations of determination than
Invent the better mouse trap and sate
Our temporary lust for revenge.
Little children know what comes
Each time you feed a mouse orange
Nuggets laced with hatred: Some
Cancer seeps into the world and again rises.
Everybody loses and we are left with more crises.

8-7-2014

Don't Follow your Bliss.
Give it a good, koan slap!

Bellwether. Schmellwether. Just take one step. 
Easy does it. Tango tomorrow. Today focus
All your energy on the bare minimum. No kept
Trauma is so readily healed. Look at a crocus.
Enjoy that it is blooming for you.
Ask not about its trials. Be the pure
Scent of it. Lean on its stem. Say "Adieu"
Everyday and when the final parting lures
Accept the invitation as one at a square dance:
Nod to you partner, nod to your corner.
Devote your mind to the simple stance.
Relax in knowing all are partners.
Escape the cycle. Enjoy the present 
Store your central nervous system's heaven sent. 

8-6-2014

Staycation
(For Simon)

Perhaps discovery is where God cherishes most.
It starts with the hands unknowing greeting to the world 
Glimpsed for an instant and then lost.
Good day to you and whoa! What have you unfurled?
It is attached to you. It moves on will.
Let's go and catch everything! But where will we put it?
Yellow fireflies and kisses and cardinals on the sill.
Well, it was worth a shot. But see there! The hooded
Interloper taps the trunk in determined rat-a-tat. His nib
Goes crazy. You can frame him in a heart made of thumbs and fingers:
Gently cradle the moment before, further out or nearer, it lived:
Irate for its out-of-reachness; but satisfied in what lingers:
Landing focus on bare toes, once upon the gumshoe tome,
You go whee, whee, whee, all the way home.

8-5-2014

What are we fighting for?

Integral to the design is devotion,
Giving, and yes, weakness too.
Everyone hopes it were strength or mere opposition.
The choice of the shepherd over the warrior;
Trumpet over the turret, birds over music boxes.
How many examples do you need?
Eternity is alluring but remaining conscious
Presents the better balm of Gilead.
If you ask Ulysses now, no doubt he'll
Cede: It takes more bravery to weave
Tear out and reweave for love, than conceal 
Usurpation within a gift for a belief's
Revenge and a matron's vanity.
Enough, and better, to build a home and keep one's sanity.

8-4-2014

Roll away the stone and see for yourself
or Maybe it was the salmon mousse

Listening to dark echoes one does not need
Optical illusions or tricks of the mind
Or any of the false impressions we usually heed;
Kindness only. Centered focus on other in kind.  
For all this talk of empathy maybe only selfish
Or less than moral behavior reassures most.
Real doubt is really human, but some elfish
Counter-argument or maybe reason's ghost
Occupies the cave with imagined faith.
Mirrors and smoke? Spelunking in Marabar?
Many a philosopher stoned the subject: Wraith
Or rebirth? But many simply return to life's salad bar
Not caring about death's customs agent's
Ground for taxing them for hidden contentments.

8-3-2014

From Jacob to Israel with love

On the day he strove with the angel
No one knew the extent to which his
Example would show how repentance changes all.
Believe me, even his new name showed this.
Esau, even, could see what years with his crimes 
Changed in him and so forgave Isaac's son. 
On that day God hinted at the rhymes: 
Messiah is to pariah as creation is to nation. 
Examine yourself with gentle wonder;
Striving with what you have done.
Mercy is yours if you leave the thunder
Alone and concentrate what lessons you've won.
Now go forth in newness as your gift.
You are walking praise: God's face lift.

8-2-2014

As The Credits Roll

Go look at the underside of a leaf
Or consider how oxygen takes its ride
Down the trachea into the lung as you breathe  
Only to hi-five CO₂ on the backside.
Why do the first observers need credit? The church
Never designed the particle as it waves
Sayonara. Heisenberg brings all research
To its knees by stating: matter behaves (bad or good)
However it wants for each observer's eyes.
Excellent, there goes the neighborhood!
Praying works as well as predictive formulae.
Ahab still wants to capture life in his bark.
Tent flaps wave hither: the mystery's in the ark.

8-1-2014

Electric Guitar Lessons for Younger Brothers

Quietly you led me to your room with unusual
Unctuousness. "Please help me fix my
Amp, Dave." You pleaded. "Maybe I blew a fuse." "A    
Light is on the amp." I observed, not quick to buy.
"I'm sure it is broke, oh please help me?" "The
Thing worked fine yesterday," my reply.
"Yes but look:" and here you strummed
And nothing came out but a slight buzz.
"So what can I do about it?" Leery of the hum.
"Stick your ear against the speaker cloth" was
Urged a bit too eagerly. But being ten or some
Regretted my trust only after I bent down, because
Enlisted fully, I fell for your little ruse:
Deafening moment of youth's sound abuse.