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Tag Archives: poetry

Food Comes To No Good

28 Jun

I want to be
Diaphanous. So thin
You don’t know I’m here.
Wraithlike, drawn like the
Wire, sounding only when
Plucked, brushed,
No voice of my own.

Wispy, vaporous.
Watery.

This business of
Food in the mouth
Comes to no good.
Disgusting (I tell myself)
But there I go again.

Walk a little more.
Lift a little more.
Did you eat that?
Why? Do something
About it. Get rid of it.
You don’t want that
In you.

But you will do it
Again. And again
You will feel
The shame of consumption,
Existence. The physical needs
That keep you.

From being
Insubstantial.

The constant failure
To not be
As I am supposed to be.
As I am told to be
Thin.

 
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Posted by on June 28, 2024 in Culture, Food, Poetry, psychology

 

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Skookum

24 Jan
Skookum

I had this dream.

A longing. A thirst.

I would go to the Pacific Northwest
And live among the tall trees.
Wake to cedar and coffee,
Fish for salmon,
Create.

I would learn from the Chinook,
Keep my mythos close to me,
Prosper from the green land,
Take life as pleasure.

I even learned their Trade Jargon,
The Chinook Wau-wau so much the
Creole of the Pacific Northwest.

I am called there but
It is a battle upstream
And I am exhausted,
Humpbacked,
Old.

I am too busy working to spawn.

Listen to me.
As we sit here across this table,
As I decide what to wear,
Think about how long my day will feel,
Taste the dry breakfast I eat of need
And not desire,
I sip the strong splendor;
My salvation in a cup,
My blessed Skookum.
As I listen to you drone—
Your day, our life,
How good it all is—
All I want to say is
Halo Wau-wau, Muckamuck Kaupy:

“Shut Up and Drink the Coffee.”

I had written this poem for one purpose: to win a year’s supply of coffee. And I did. But, after the publication of Skookum, I began to get emails. Phone calls. Concern. How are you? I didn’t know it was that bad. Are you getting a divorce? Because, it would seem, people cannot fathom a poem that isn’t fiction. (The Owl and the Pussy-Cat went to sea. In a beautiful pea-green boat.) I asked them, did they think Hotel California was nonfiction? Did they think Don Henley and Glenn Frey were really trapped in a Satanic hotel? And my marriage was just fine, thank you.

And so was my year’s supply of Raven’s Brew Coffee.

 
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Posted by on January 24, 2024 in Poetry, Writing

 

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There Is Too Much

22 Dec 
There is too much-
The coming and going of pixels, products, and personalities,
Demands, desires, deadlines, debts,
Bandwidth saturation and buffering,
Buffering, always,
While the world continues to clickclick.

Who hears anything?
Who sees anything?

Pay attention—a friend of mine just died. I didn't write acquaintance. I wrote friend.
He needed things. Not much.
I couldn't pay attention.
It isn't all my fault, but
Really it is.
Not his death, but
He could have left with more love and
Care. Instead of waiting…
Waiting for the buffering to clear.
 
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Posted by on December 22, 2021 in Poetry, Social

 

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The Vigil

02 Dec

This is the vigil-
To protect you from the wolves
After the nights
Sitting up,
Singing to you
Heart Sutra.
“Don’t leave me.”
I won’t.

Holding your hand,
Touching your heart,
Fingers in your hair.
“You don’t get tired.”
It isn’t time for me
To rest.
For you though –

Watching you breathe
Watching you stop.

Open the doors.
Sunrise.
Keep the wolves away.
Wait.

Feel the sudden change.
“Where is she?”
Gone. Gone. Beyond gone.
Beyond beyond.
To the other shore.

Let the people roll in,
Roll out.

Gather the sheet,
Tie it around your body,
Carry it away.

Carry it away.

 
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Posted by on December 2, 2021 in Family, Poetry, Religion

 

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Something Holy

24 May

I heard the jingling of a collar last night. Throughout the house, the tag against tag. I could hear them jangling from the denim in the cadence of her jaunt, side to side, side to side.

I looked outside. No dog. Certainly none inside. Back to bed, then, the jingling toward the room, side of the bed, stopped.  I slept well.

I can’t remember when she left. A year? Two? But I remember her eyes. And the sound of her heart.  As well as I remember her gutteral moan and her whistle. The rhythm of her step. How her face fit perfectly in the curve under my knee when she leaned into me. And how she looked at me when I knew she wanted it over.  Her eyes, if they had been human, could not have made them more holy. img_20160707_10240101

Something Holy

I’ll find something holy in this.
In the blood and the vomit,
The urine and sad almond eyes.
Bodies come from the Earth,
And these are of the body.
So I will find something holy in this.

I will find something holy in the
Seizures, tetany, drugs,
The cost in dollars and sense.
In time, I’ll find something holy in this.

I will find something holy in the
Far-off stare, in the long breaths,
In the scent of wheat because
She always smelled like wheat
And was the color of golden bread
And, certainly, there is something holy in that.

I’ll find something holy in the last breath,
The closing of the eyes that won’t reopen,
The beat that slows, stops,
Leaves memory. And certainly,
There is something holy in that.

 
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Posted by on May 24, 2018 in Family, Poetry

 

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Let’s Burn Something Down Tonight

01 Sep

Let’s burn something down tonight.
Let’s find something old,
Something we used to think
We could not survive
Without, something significant. Let’s
Set it on fire.
An edifice we marveled at,
Something we looked up to,
Tall and strong, in
Admiration of power,
Importance, and potency.
Something we knew was forever,
Now, wondering
Why we ever thought
We couldn’t do without it?
Let’s burn it down.

Let’s set fire to something
That used to be the foundation of
Our being. Something
That would never occur to us
Could sink, erode,
Decay beneath us,
Leave our feet with no solid ground.
Something we built our entire lives on
But fell away. Let’s watch what’s built on it
List and lean,
Topple and crash by our own hand
Instead of the slow destruction of
Sand and rust.
We can be our own gods,
And end it with our own hands.
Let’s burn it down.

 
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Posted by on September 1, 2016 in philosophy, Poetry, Social

 

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Peacocks

24 Jun

When I think of peacocks
I think of you and
There are so many peacocks
Here. Their colors are
Everywhere. You are
Everywhere. Teal, turquoise, and
Azure surround me as
The color of you. Your eyes,
Electric blue, Blue –
The eyes on a feather,
Royal, The color of Sky and
Oceans of blue,
Sapphires of blue,
Everything your eyes see
Makes everything I see
Iridesce with, flash with
You, Now
Everything reminds me of peacocks.
When I think of peacocks
I think of you.

 
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Posted by on June 24, 2016 in Poetry

 

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When I Wake in the Morning

09 Mar

When I wake in the morning I want to do yoga.
When I wake in the morning I want to go for a walk.
When I wake in the morning I want to spin wildly.
When I wake in the morning I want to lay in bed and bless the day.
When I wake in the morning I want to wash in dew.
When I wake in the morning I want to make a slow breakfast.
When I wake in the morning I want to stretch.
When I wake in the morning I want to recall my dreams.
When I wake in the morning I want to do tai chi.
When I wake in the morning I want to run on the beach.
When I wake in the morning I want to sit and write.
When I wake in the morning I want to meditate.
When I wake in the morning I want to putter in the garden.
When I wake in the morning I want to do qigong.
When I wake in the morning I want to sing praise songs.
When I wake in the morning I want to greet the sun.
When I wake in the morning I want to be glad.

 
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Posted by on March 9, 2016 in Poetry, Social, Uncategorized

 

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Letter of Resignation

22 Feb

Letter of Resignation
(On my third reading of Siddhartha by Hermann Hesse)

 
Vasudeva,
Is it really necessary
We live in this hut together?

Isn’t it enough
I gave you my clothes
For the privilege of tending oar?

Can I only find myself
In the eternal now of the river
Always flowing, but never the same?

Must I sit under that tree
For an entire week to find myself?
After a week, I should have found my navel by now.

Must I sit there to
Defeat my demons? Afterall, they are
At my heels no matter where I happen to be.

The lotus
Grows from mud, I know,
But I want a bath and clean soft towels.

Why can’t I find myself
In a club somewhere,
Meditating in the beat and the groove?

What about the
Constant flow of people and machines,
The never-ending now of the ever-changing traffic?

Why can’t I
Subdue my demons
Over a great meal or between olive thighs?

I resign.
Besides, Vasudeva,
You snore horribly.

 
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Posted by on February 22, 2016 in Culture, philosophy, psychology, Religion

 

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Metric

15 Feb

If I had been brought up with the metric system
I could hold an orange in my hand
And tell you how much it weighs in kilograms.
But I was taught with pounds and feet
And I can tell you how much a whole bag of oranges weighs,
Just about,
Or look at a board and give you the measure of it.
But how many meters it is?
How much the orange weighs in kilograms?
I’m lost. Dumb.
Right in front of me,
Any guess as good as another.

Love, I think—
Love is measured in metrics,
Or some other unit.
I can look at it,
Heft it.
No matter.
Ask me how much I love you:
I cannot say.
I can only look at you,
Sigh,
And trust it can also be measured
In those sighs and desires, and hope
You do not ask.

 
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Posted by on February 15, 2016 in Poetry, Uncategorized

 

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