funny how things go in life
sometimes we laugh with it
those thoughts we live with
in our hearts and minds
times when we're confused and blind
we can't help ourselves
breaking down we cry
struggling with it all
but still we must try
funny how things go
as years go by
sometimes happiness joins us
as we dance and sing
sometimes we simply curl up and die
deep in this soulful meditation
listen to the mantra of singing bowls
resounding life with all
its ringing accreditation
laugh and cry with light and dark
wounds leaving scars and lasting marks
so we're tested and often left bereft
those dangerous canyons
deep within our very souls
funny how things go in life
what is abnormal and what is norm
wandering those tragic depths
wading through transforming shoals
from the eye of every hurricane
through smoke and ash of fire storms
resolved and resting in calmer shallows
places where we sometimes find
life even with all its hard
is mostly good and sometimes kind

                       * * * 

 

you died
alzheimer's took you first
life's rocky ride
stealing away passion and thirst
then covid stole you away
grieving over you
I have been downhearted
knowing that place
where your remains lay
I broke down and finally cried
but life is full of pain and grief
that last breath you breathed
laying there on your own
knowing life is often cruel
wondering if how you lived your life
is what God had wanted
what God had planned
still you lived and loved
with those many things
you had faith in
all those wondrous things
you truly believed

             * * *

 

so many
minutes
per hour
how many
purulent fears
virulent years
sorrowful tears
over one lifetime
counting seconds
defining decades
but what if
human measurement
didn't have
hands with fingers
to count things and time
no balancing feet
attached to upright legs
no twisting arms
so connected
with rotating wrists
these strangling appendages
dangling past our ribs
sometimes dancing
hands on our hips
entranced making love
with our minds and thighs
what if we had
no blatant sides
mutant insides
or attractive outsides
what if active duty
didn't depend
on fueled hunger
no tooled languages
or tongues to speak
so we reside
with cruel time
our precious moments
affectionately recounted
lovingly perhaps
each awesome scene
accounted and regarded
if we could be
more flexible
seeing in
a different way
climbing with
some righteous treatise
accompanied with that
fleeting essence
resonance with
a new fangled presence
some may say
we are tangled
in the blink
of an eye
some may think
a strangled future
as we mutually
watch and witness
time fly by
tomorrows are where
tangible dreams
live and strive
driven we're seeking perfect
given a tap and die
like a fitting screw
befitting dreams
rightly scripted
supreme and tightly knit
woven into shear existence
as real fearless time
perhaps tomorrow
as we cope
hope and want
living all
our future days
I do hope
to see and do
as we walk and talk
crossing each
Shakespearean stage
excite some
novel star-crossed play
scream when things
don't rightly fit
smile holding hands
with friendly tomorrow
perhaps some
future kiss
with a sutured past
something we
can only dream
avoiding guts full of knots
thus we hope
providence will last
like soft true love
keeping with
lofty ideals
evading horror
but sometimes
we are stalked
by tragic sorrow
yet brave time
still ticks down
we so often
naively find
counting every
prickly minute
adding up
all those trickster years
life can
either go by
prison yard slow
or fly by
carnival fast
so many things
we want to know
so many places
we want to go
if only love
hand in hand
with joy and beauty
would know enough
for true bliss to last

             * * *

 

trying to fix ourselves
when we don't know
where all our pieces are
trying to adjust ourselves
when we are so broken
we don't ever know
where we even are
trying to find ourselves
when we are just lost
distrust and mental corruption
injured by physical destruction
chaos and obstruction
when we can't
ever mend our tattered way
when we are so shattered
falling to our wounded knees
stumbling with sobbing gasps
fumbling with throbbing pain and sorrow
lives troubled by dark deception
disrupting hearts with every tragic loss
maybe we just need correction
perhaps we all just need
true love and joy
enlightenment and new direction

                      * * *

 

I wish my poetry
was as smooth as satin
but it comes out paltry and salty
like coarse sand paper
trying to polish sin
my words grate and grind
lie on paper thin pages
work against the grain and tide
if only slick was what I find
my words would surely then
have something more
or less to hide
when these smitten lines
don't meet perfection
when I've scribbled words
that need correction
making war and peace
wield all my spears and swords
some cutting edge
others dull and dry
I wish these poems
I write and pledge
would make my readers
sad enough to cry
I wish these temperate zones
I find myself roaming in
dredge up tones
that make us
want to curl up and die
if I could only hone my skills
to a razors edge and something fine
if only my poems could make us
want to live good life and prospect love
as well as make us red-faced and angry
enough to make us want to destroy and kill
perhaps my wishes would come true
if my words could speak
to me as well as you
perhaps these thoughts
I think would help me
find those words and lines
that are brutally frank
as well as being truthfully rank
verse that speaks of spirit and signs
poems that are maybe even sometimes kind

                        * * *

 

such a master architect
organizing last and lasting
inflection and direction
like some great infection
some great cosmic insurrection
a universe of fast and faster
each veritable drastic sun
born with all its planetary young
if light had a predictable sum
maybe space would collapse
relinquish life and give in to itself
this chrysalis were ultimately in
each viscous solar mystery
marked by chaotic history
subjectively the architect knows
that universal law and light
must do what is often wrong
still heretically accomplish
what is somehow right
drawing lines through time and space
hearkening too each galactic race
physically the grand architect
bends the physics of each insurrection
marking each ridged institution
a pattern of frigid constitution
described by every dialect
ideology of order and chaos
anarchy of birth and death
describing ideal diatomic intellect
concentrically revived and renewed
ventricles of fractals and fractions
God's architecture revealed
geometrically reviewed
in every sublimated constellation

                    * * *

 

my father's hands
my mother's thumb
what a strange sum I am
what a mysterious egg
I'm from spermatozoa
engaged by the womb
from the cradle to the grave
through the mortal birth canal
to the immortal tomb
what a bloody mess we're in
life with its hopes and dreams
all this fortitude
all gone too soon
our gracious lives
so full of sin
so many sharp edged knives
carving up our kith and kin
if father's hands
could hold me now
if mother's thumb
could still press me down
perhaps that mystery
where we're all from
a shining light
emanating from some
far off crown
some of us are weak
some of us are brave
through the centuries
of wrong and right
still this wretched
mess we're in
all these births
all these deaths
praised in legend and liturgies
our beating hearts
life giving breath
still our capricious lives
marred by vicious
life and sin
this genetic provocation
we're all in
when sleep finally comes
when timely dreams unfold
that wicked place
where we're all from
will shake the world
shaped with mother's
escaped from father's
timely mold

           * * *

 

there's that
psychedelic reason
some parts of society
would call it treason
various segments of folk
gorge on searching
constantly forging here
secretly infiltrating there
inspecting odd clouds
conjecturally concluding things
looking for something hidden
under emotional rocks and stones
bringing us to the very edge
where we either fly or fall
growing revolutionary wings
with evolutionary ears to hear
those balled up
introspective tones
beneath everything mystic
cryptic hopes and dreams
God bequeaths a curious mind
blessing us with artful eyes
deep vision to know
intelligence to clearly see
what conscious dreams are relevant
this cerebral nature
accompanied with credo and spinal fluid
a rapture of fingers and toes
but with infrastructure who knows
this vital walk-about we're on
trekking through every stealth forest
crawling over bling and ringing sand dunes
unfolding where ever the free wind blows
we can nearly freely follow
stalked by the psychedelic moon
something in those pills we take
what about those unfolding drugs
selling smoke and two way mirrors
making us believe
things are somehow fake
when reality finally hits home
eventually that street cred
high society just can't take
yet high is where we all want to be
readily consuming
our psychedelic dreams
trying to steadily see
beneath every steadfast truth
so this is beastly real life
what it most often seems
those things we strive and hope for
some of them pure and good
some of them purely selfish and uncouth
when things are hard
fate totally unclear
our psychedelic dreams
can be full of immoral hate
captured and tortured by arduous fear
but if we are immortal
energy redefined by every trip
with psychic hip
when we wake
we might surely see
each marvelous flight we take
teaching us how to be
a forgiving caring nation
fulfilling psychedelic glory
instilling psychic station
where we can
truly all be free

             * * *

 

my falcon heart
wanting to soar
high above edgy earth
if only I do my part
wanting just enough
not craving any more
maybe my fledgling life
might turn out just right
let my kestrel feathers
neither be a prison
nor some restraining tether
either I am maintaining
just doing my feathered part
performing atmospheric miracles
preserving falcon jam
whether adding something yet
or simply soaring high above
this amply measured world
uplifts my treasured falcon heart

                  * * *

 

soon there will be
a new spectrum
prisms of light
shining from somewhere else
even today's rays and remnants
will be unrecognizable
spectres with the new
creationist sun
whether we are liable
as humans just unable
still everything capable changes
seldom change is fun
what fables will come
fate and traceable legends
may be indescribable
something factual
definitely new
actual with a defiant view
truant voice could not mean less
even one mindedness
doesn't mean blind we
shall exist and be blessed
something in the air now
things we don't necessarily see
we should take care though
because every varied ocean
is nothing but a deep cold sea
crying can't change things
whenever we've been down
floundering in the deepest depths
there is this sound
those that listen are hearing
like divinity's announcing trumpet
objectivity rising up
echoing within each soul
that crown of thorns
we've been wearing
soon we'll discover
we were never whole
too often complaining
clearly instead of cheering
do your hear the Creator calling
reminding us just how far
we can always fall
do you feel sadness
beaming from the balled up stars
imagine we are falling
into some deep dark pit
perhaps that frightful place
demons call home in hell
if we find fire and atmospheric change
hard to breathe and appalling
we need to stand tall and really think
straight and forward
even what we eat and drink
might keep things from completely stalling
so compost can smell sweet or simply stink
disciples of this current weather dance
whether trance or meditating
drumming as they sing and prance
adjust this churning world
hand to open hand
yearning for exchange
leaning towards a share of positive
fair change and cognitive revision
performing with a new spectral vision
planting rare seeds
blessed by fertile earth
growth without delusion
living institutional life
embracing both love and joy
heart to open heart
hand out to friendly hand
those babies still suckling
sentient mothers full
those giving breasts
happily shall grow
share in a vibrant world
where fruit is sweet
earth is full and ripe
where love and joy
are at their heartfelt best
where artful charter
creation provides us
life's new age spectral test

                * * *

 

your circumference
is something I could not imagine
how far reaching you are
my protractor port deems
electromagnetic interference
nothing significant
we are so far apart
if I could jump over the moon
maybe we wouldn't have been
here from the very start
I cherish your slim figure
your kisses made me swoon
when you touched me
I felt absolute love
together love was passion
jumping over the love sick moon
I tried to circle you
your shape fit me
I remember loving you
we fit like a glove
you had my heart
from the very start
but now we are far apart
somehow I still feel you
I think of you all too often
you're there when I wake
you linger in the dark
if love were truly kind
if love weren't difficult and stark
maybe love would have kept us
as love had found us
an ocean apart
one first kiss
one true love
it's you I miss
our beating hearts
how can we be so connected
your circumference encompasses me
even though we're disconnected
a world apart
right from the start
I tried to measure you
when I knew I couldn't stay
pleasure played me for a fool
foolish me as we walked away
I knew I'd always treasure you
true love isn't child's play
true love isn't even art
true love is how we do our part
truthful compass of what we feel and say

                   * * *