10-4 Good Buddy

I had every intention...

On your Birthday I had every intention of writing a poem worthy
of you. And what i wrote did not pass the smell test. And while it's
tempting to claim form follows function by declaring the poem was
about the card game: go fish. So, yeah, it was supposed to stink.
But one can't hang laurels on that fishhook and expect anyone to think
"Yeah. What he said." But for better or verse, I did think about you and chuckle today.
For instance, in the dentist's office I saw a New Yorker cartoon with a couple driving
with a blue whale in the back seat and the caption was: "Well I thought you meant it when you put
that bumper sticker on the the car!"
Later in the day there was a radio story on a father who taught his daughter how to be a Luthier.

If you did not catch it you can hear it here:

http://www.npr.org/2016/10/04/496138785/a-father-daughter-luthier-duo-builds-souls-into-guitars

8-30-2016

Dimension travel is the poetry of physics:
Astonishing when done right, but doesn't pay well.

Even though Daniel and Wu met and spoke
Neverending circles, the center of the wheel
Did not make Daniel understand and he woke
Little to the lessons that Wu tried to reveal.
Ezekiel spokes and tangents and Daniel tired
Soon of stretching brain and brawn in the park.
So what if they all rode the tai-chi tandem. Wired
Sound in each student with music in the dark.
Universal truth was not any closer than breath.
"Maybe I made a mistake in thwarting the song.
"Maybe," replied Wu, "but mistakes often bless
Eternity with wisdom. You spend too long
Raking the soil of past fruits. Stop digging for
Ore of lore. The nightingale is gone but the ode lives evermore.
Forever love. Forever live. Do not go back. Go on to give."

April 3, 2016

Example

Thought, Word and Deed.
Can you imagine a being with integrity enough
to think, speak and act love merely by willing?
Well, you may say, there is always Venus on the half-shell.
But, still, that is in the realm of the ideal.
What about the big bang then? 
God muses: "Hey, I know, Universe!"
Then God says: "Universe!"
Then: Universe!
I can give you the stick-figure diagram,
But God gives you the symphony of spacetime.
Enjoy the concert. Follow the example.
Be a Whale.

Easter Two Thousand and Sixteen

WWJPB
Pardon? i say to the public man. "WWJPB," he repeats, "You know,
What would his playlist be?" i ponder this.
Maybe Suzanne Vega's Book of Dreams
The image of Thomas with eyes wide as he touches
the wound that is not an issue any longer.
And likely Bruce Cockburn's Child of the Wind
Where the world is changed by inserting love into the
interpretation of what one sees.
For instance standing up to bombers and killers and haters
simply by saying homeland security has nothing to do
with reacting in kind to hatefulness. Simply smile and say would you
like to come in and talk to us about why you are so angry?
Why are you so angry, anyway?
Or maybe Weezer: "What did we ever do to these guys,
to make them so violent?"
And definitely, John Gorka's "Where the Bottles Break."
Still i wonder what rough image did we forge back in Bethlehem, PA and Oakridge, TN.

Palm Sunday 3-20-2016

Faith 
(Apologies to Emily Dickinson)

The courage to get out of bed amid
Imaginings of Hitchcock's hashtag rebellion
To look death in the eye and say:
"Oh, it's you again, ok. come in.
Care for something to drink.
Take your cowl off and stay awhile.
Why would i be frightened by passing delusion?
Sorry, but i don't believe in the two certainties.
And yet you persist in the public eye.
Dread is just not worth the drain on being. 
So i will say it again:
'The reflection in a friend's gift of a moment is life distilled.
We bloom by simply treasuring the image in the iris laughing.'
i laugh you out of the picture."

February 26, 2016

Bird is the word

As the Trashmen collect my thoughts 
The scavengers dine on what's left of reason. 
Some pinpoint of light, of thought, projects what's 
migrating from a single name through all seasons.
Ibises on a pot shard broken with Egrets 
Flock beyond number from a single egg.
Hans Christian Andersen's emperor frets
that the gem-crusted effigy begs
the truth and beauty from nature.
While Mr Klee laughs a constellation:
a twittering machine of info raptors
that sweep across the internet nation
To keep the students of Yeats from napping
While the Gyres gimble in the wabe's soul trapping.