eclipsed

Eclipsed

We sit alone together in the Chinese restaurant  

5 o’clock, the dead zone in the western world, a hollow space

Between lunch and dinner, only a single occupied table,

A huge hispanic family seated in the center of the room,

They’re well nourished, well groomed, well dressed,

Accordioned white spun silk shirts & black shiny satin dresses

having just come from a wedding, it seems,

Or maybe some giant faraway church, or maybe major grocery shopping

kids noshing on everything from egg rolls to mar far sweet & sour.

We are old & tired; the day has been long & exhausting, not much  accomplished,

The biggest news around is the full solar eclipse, not another to be seen

For more than a decade anywhere on earth. For once, we have landed an ideal

Viewing position. I stare out the huge plate glass window, through which the colored

Light leeches irrelevantly as we speak. I wonder at the quietness of space, empty sidewalks,

Sunday afternoon before memorial day Sunday & everyone no doubt  

at the m ountains now or on the beach, hoping for a view.  We are space aliens

who have landed in this funky Chinese restaurant.

We now know there are many more varieties & dialects than even this

20 page menu can contain, but are content to flip & frown.

It is comical almost to watch the children well behaved at table pray

“Gracias por el arroz frito y el fried shrimp”

items we no longer order, managing cholesterol.

No one here cares, apparently, about the alignment of  heavenly bodies.

We are careful elders who barely catch a glance, except for the waitress,

Whose slim figure in polky dot A line is arresting, & who

Culturally recalls how to respect her elders, as we are wise, & probably

Better tippers than the young.  The sky outside is graying fast, like a giant cloud cover

passing, the solar eye a lidded stare. We both stare at one another under pure

fluorescent light,

Too tired to even think to go outside.

I guess the solar eclipse is in full swing, I manage.

Yes, the light looks pretty dull out there you reply. We stare again

At the menu; our waitress arrives, recognizing & recalling us.

As the room fades, her her face lights up.

“One singapore chow fun!

One happy family, white rice!”

dreaming 2012

Dear sarah jessica parker, i love you too & obamas too i would love to join all 3 of you for dinner but i have already been donating money i don't have. i dreamed about the o'bamas last nite. we were getting our pictures taken w barack. i took two good ones of my friends w him but i asked michelle to take one with him and me. i dont know why i didn't want her to be in the picture. they had 2 giant bears with them, so then i wanted pix w me, obama & the bears. they were nice about it, but then i went inside & locked the door. the bears snarled & tried to get in baring their long fangs & claws. twas then i realized they were secret service bears.

broken hearts

this is a valentine poem
for everyone who did not get a valentine
there are more people who get this valentine
than were buried in haiti, carried away by tsunamis
or pointlessly murdered by weapons of mass destruction
put together. everybody knows
the meaning of a broken heart.
ah, broken hearts.
the journey of life is to face the insane hurt
of the black hole left by one who leaves
with or without a smile or pointless explanation
for something that really cant be understood.
breathe, broken hearted one, for through this breath
the whole story of God will flow through to you.
breathe, for through this dark tunnel
the wind of Spirit will surely surge again
and bring you back revivified to life.
breathe, for when you surrender to this pain
the joy of love like the perfect wave will surely rise again
and just as you have learned to neither expect nor await it,
the magic of love will certainly return to you
shining through tears and sorrow, sparking wet in the sun,
more beautiful more perfect more precious
than you can even remember or allow the dark mind of fear
to let you now in these dark moments, believe,
but from one who knows take this promise deep to heart
believe, like blind stevie, like suffering marley, like john & yoko imagining
& all the rest, the music lives & will live on forever, she will
fly home, returning in a new voice, new face new fractal form, new spirit,
heart, mind--Believe.
Believe. BELIEVE.

wild ponies

Keep digging diligently the same deep row, poets preach,
Sooner or later, you’ll find water, maybe salt, even gold;
Perhaps miraculously, some rare 1st century roman coin
stubbornly stamped w the head of a caeser.
But I can’t find wise words like that underground, I’ve tried,
dug many a dark well & only got a backache.
Instead I playfully & childishly see my fearless herds of words, undisciplined cloud dream puzzle pieces, young wild ponies
dancing on the horizon, flicking flies, neighing at each other playfully
in some language I’ll never understand.
When I run to tether them they scatter;
were I to mount one, I’d be thrown breathless for my efforts.
Enticed by a handful of hay, their eyes roll back, teeth gnash,
& in the midst of snorting if I’m lucky I’ll escape w all ten toes & fingers.
Sometimes at dawn I capture them visually, unsaddled
standing peaceably beneath an apple tree, munching momentarily
in dusky reverie silhouetted before the pale
aurora of my semi consciousness.
The moment I awake & make a single sound, they stampede off,
& in the cozmic cloud of dreamdust, disappear.
So despite kind counsel & admirable advice,
I cannot dig for dreams like new potatoes buried down to dirt beneath –
I lack the discipline. I witness wild mustang & palomino ponies galloping & am reminded by the flashing yellow manes & ochre tails
that paint the sky I cannot hold, I cannot tame them, own them,
herd them & if I stooped to feed them on my knees! I’d for my pains
no doubt get binocular black eyes. & yet I’ll follow poets who
tend the gardens of their souls w daily disciplines & rituals
& harvest heavy hidden bounties from the soil. I too partake of all they’ve brought forth from the ground at groaning tables rich w succulent delights, & I can only bring the questionable value
of my constant jealous greedy appetite,
& trundle barrows back to royally repay the poet’s worth in compost,
& up-end barrows full of rich dark fertilizer,
to freshly with full fork addend the appreciated generous quality of earth
where roving wild pony herds / occasionally still happen by.

"Adrift" for the Birth of the Bab

Adrift

As a teacher of our finest youth
To tend the gardens of the mind
I labored long & many years
From children into worthy men I made – the rows I pruned,
The weeds I burned.
From ancient verse to memory I seared each word in each small mind
With fearsome work they learned to prove
The triumph of their mastery
Long chants of grave, judicious care
Rang through young voices in clear air & with perfect calligraphy
Each reflected what was learned – of me—
As strokes upon the surface of a still, ice-silvered lake.
For I admitted no mistake in training to obedience
& confidence from willfulness
young boys who seemed to thrive these tests
& made a pillar yet of me
increased my pride & arrogance—while submission I commanded
I storve to teach humility by pointing out each minor flaw
Sharpening wits as if upon a surgeon’s blade &
Venerating self-control.

While power’s gone or changes shape, yet live
The memories which time & place alone cannot forgive
Yet please forgive the mind of one old man from whom now
Most memory and power have fled
& who retains no word but mention in history, no name
& whose only slight & fleeting momentary fame
comes of the One he could not teach
one ocean-fish he could not catch;
whom, when His uncle brought Him in to me
His reach I could not grasp, but after struggle threw Him back.
My balance gone as if I’d slipped upon the deck of some small ship!
His bearing showed no trace frivolity toward me
O, that I well knew to make straight
& hard! With both punishments and reward
But this One pure & simple Child
With clear, wide gaze & clearer voice
Expressed all answers to the riddles I had not yet even asked
& worked so clean & fine! With such intent
my greatest scholars sat in awe of Him! Imagine!
A child whose years were scarcely five or six
If I do remembered now how foolishly I stared, jaw dropped
As if a fish well snagged myself upon His hook
While He discoursed the mysteries of the One All-Seeing God Himself
& chanted with a purer voice than ere I’d heard
& spoke all Truth as if it shone through Him from on High—but else,
what set this Citizen apart
while I had strained to reach the Mind,
He saw and effortlessly knew the Heart.
& through the fog that gathered on my frozen lake
I shrank now timid from my own lifelong imposter’s gaze
For all the water that had ever mirrored me
Was as nothing to a droplet of the Ocean of His Grace
Was as breath to the Ocean of the tears that He erased

With One small voice
One ringing bell
That answered Beauty, Truth, Pain, Suffering & Hell
as the flute answers the cannon’s bloody throat
with but one quiet, persevering, patient Note—
that finally caused me to drive Him from the room
where I no longer held capacity to teach
& understood that I lacked even ghost’s authority
I was adrift! But in that place
That dry & endless beach where our souls met
I wandered helplessly & was set free
I saw the Sky & heard the simple jewel songs that angels sing
Felt pearls of truth & wisdom that each surging wave would bring
& shower us with Heaven’s most enduring, brilliant &
surpassing Love, and from that day
I never found the power to teach the same but wordlessly
I listened each hour thence—for that same Voice of perfect purity again

if but in vain.

"Ignorance is Bliss"

Ignorance is bliss
Some of this true and some BS.
& it’s yr job not mine to figure it out.
The average American gets a cup of salt every week
w/o ever touching a salt shaker.
Ignorance is bliss.
Around the world dictators flourish w/ weapons of fear
until ppl rise up politically & learn to destroy their own neighbors
Ignorance is bliss
You can kill more ppl with the mistaken idea of human perfection
than w a thousand perfectly normal sins
Ignorance is bliss
If I had a tattoo for every tragedy, my body would be
a perfect geometric paisley tapestry
Ignorance is bliss
There are nearly 7 billion ppl on this planet and guess what?
We all pretty much got here the same way
Ignorance is bliss
Between our mothers thighs & screams she sighs & dreams
Ignorance is bliss
Our parents did the hokey pokey way back when
Ignorance is bliss
Down under, winter is nearly over
Ignorance is bliss
Whales are becoming tricoastal to survive
Ignorance is bliss
There are 3 tropical storms in the gulf right now, lining up to take the coast
Ignorance is bliss
The Nina the Pinta & the Santa Maria
Ignorance is bliss
Coffee is actually good 4 U & red wine 2 who knew?
Ignorance is bliss
But bread and cheese now that’ll kill U
Ignorance is bliss
In this country there are more ppl now in prison than public school
Ignorance is bliss
You can spread TB, HPV & TLC
Through a kiss
But ignorance baby!
Ignorance is bliss.

बेफ़्रिएन्दिन्ग थे त्सुनामी

Befriending the Tsunami


Befriend the torn tsunami scarline of your own post surgical face.
Know the sliding gravel piles jaggedly conceding defeat to gravity
Surrender to sandy erosion new hillsides of felled timber, balding grasslands
Find familiar soon this blemished surface, fetal sinkhole chasms
littered with the memories of richly rotting corpses,
carcasses photographed so perfectly from space now tiny homeless rodents
the shapes of spirits now ash-scattered, that can never be collected
like the fog of broken clouds that change in constant quantum flow.
Fear not the broken boulders cracking surfaces of streets
Swirling black oil down where fish kill stinks below in rotting stacks
Where children’s spines like human jigsaws make their newly crisp & brittle origami
where cumulative cholera pools waistdeep covered by a veil of swarming gnats,
garbage that has gathered higher than a mountaintop in rancid drifts.
Fear not the blind tornado earthquake of the oceanic damage of your earthly face.
Beneath the sculptured surface mud & bone & excrement
above the fertile fecal soil where new eruptions threaten constantly
Where rumblings like a dark digestion of a system undermined,
your consciousness remains beneath the black & poisoned sky.
your dreamtime wanders lapping edges of the dark & toxic sea.
Realize that consciousness alone is rare
& often called a kind of grace.