Skies
Free to read,
the sky writes its own poem.
Bird of Prey
I would like to fly,
will you teach me how?
Perched upon a rotating stick,
I noticed you for the first time.
Never had I pulled a camera faster,
will you grant me a smile?
Huntress, raptor!
From head to tail, out of order,
red, gray and brown.
Your gaze fell upon me,
long before mine.
What else colors your world,
outside of the hunt?
And how do the squirrels feel,
about your dominion over this park?
Red-tailed hawk!
Give me, if you will, a heartfelt cry.
Make yourself known,
to more than just the eye.
I’m begging you, teach me how to fly!
Faster than the shutter speed,
of this artificial eye.
Faster than the ear can hear,
and the car can drive.
Faster than my heartbeat,
when I’m high out of my mind.
Faster than even light,
streaking out across the starry night.
Faster than all you’ve preyed on,
who have come to know death in your embrace.
Now your friend has arrived,
and it’s time for take-off.
The sky called, never impatient,
but in monotone, always in time,
just like an air traffic controller,
and my heartbeat when stone-cold sober.
Birds of prey!
Will you show me how you soar?
I’ll keep to the ground, wait my turn,
like the winter branches of a beech,
and that swiveling metal rod
you’ve so elegantly perched on,
and the slew of squirrels darting into shadows,
and the cameramen hoping for a glimpse of the unknown.
With the trembling anxiety of the earthborn,
we wait for your return.
Azure
Swim-lanes line up the sky,
made by birds of steel,
sometimes spitting fire.
Our wings are stiff,
yet we still fly. Barely,
unlike dragons.
Moonrise
What saddens me the most
is the fact that
I will never find words good enough
to describe moonrise.
Yet I try.
I dare not dream of speaking,
of its eternal,
oh so ethereal,
entirely incomprehensible beauty.
Yet I try.
Daring to illuminate the night sky,
What sort of courage
does that require?
Unimaginable, surely.
Yet I try.
From blood-red horizons
to shimmering silver peaks,
its colors dazzled into awed silence
all living beings.
Yet I cry.
The intensity of its pull,
sloshing oceans into primordial soup,
no less divine than any other giver of life,
a worthy companion to a star.
Yet I die.
Goddess! Queen! Mother! Mirror!
Banisher of the dark,
savior of the night,
our beautiful little space rock.
So I tried.
In the end,
by the time I looked up,
my moon had risen
for the last time.
Bowl
Find a little bowl,
wide enough to fit all.
When you do, get in there quick!
Stay, and call it a day.
Heartbreak
(The One I Know)
If all that makes a heart
is nothing at all,
what breaks it so?
How could it ever get so dark in here
(right now, all of a sudden!)
when the past casts no shadow?
Hearts break,
that I know.
Gravity
Falling all the time,
we hold on to us.
Black Hole
There’s a giant door in the sky,
no one knows what lies behind.
Oh, but don’t worry sweetie,
experts are dying to find out.
Light goes first, and
meets darkness for once.
Time stretches thin, thinner, thinnest,
but still gets told to bounce.
Space is like, hold my beer, ‘cause
outside beverages are not allowed.
Even shit don’t stink, for
in here, smells look like sounds.
This is mad science.
Disco balls and church choirs,
the unborn child howls, as
thunderbolts pierce the silence.
Flight of the valkyries,
Amazons of the night,
Mississippis of the day, or
maybe just the Nile.
Paradox! Denial!
There’s a tiny hole in the sky,
no one knows what’s inside.
Oh, but don’t worry baby,
we all live to find out.
Cigarettes
Damn it! Why do I love cigarettes so much? I have many theories, but no real answer,
just like the stupidly mysterious question of life.
An old friend once said it’s all about controlling fire; clinging vestigially to that primal companion.
So very Promethean, as beautiful an explanation as she was a woman.
It didn’t cut it though, anyway I’ve always liked my theories more than others’.
So I thought it grounds you perhaps, as plants of the dark earth often do.
Simple yet elegant, but alas, not enough for the mind.
Soon after I found myself standing firm in the radiant presence of the eternal now.
There I said, I’ve got it now, all the damn thing does is drag you to the present, one drag at a time.
When you have a smoke you’re having a smoke and that’s that.
Biblically basic but new age gets old fast.
Science offered its unsolicited advice.
It’s just nicotine dummy and you’re an addict!
- always on high horses these guys -
But why nicotine and not caffeine and not alcohol and not heroine and not my sweet lady Mary Jane?
(oh how we used to dance so she must have been quite mad when I went and married her idiot cousin)
In the end I had to settle for not knowing why, which may just be true love.
Then I went ahead and smoked another one.
[lighter clicks, flame is kindled]
Walk in the Park
I make excuses not to write.
Not because writing is hard, it’s not,
just because life comes thick and fast,
and feels good, at last.
Love comes thick and fast,
in the shape of old friends and new lovers,
dogs in the park and rock climbers,
blossoming of trees, spring turning slowly into summer.
I have a dream, hope even, that one of these days
my mouth will open and the words flowing out will be a poem.
This is me inspired by you my darling,
because every move you make,
and every breath you take are poems.
All day, every day and even at night,
sometimes especially at night,
like the fog draped all over McCarren Park.
Art is poetry and poetry is art but what about the park,
and the sweet silver fog lying in wait amongst the trees,
another night owl walking with her dog in tow
as the moon queen watches from above,
and music plays somewhere far, but it can’t be too far,
music is always close, close enough to come from the inside
and make us dance, shuffling in and out of love
just to see what else might be going on.
This morning I thought enlightenment is just another word for getting old.
Hangovers remind me that alcohol remains strong,
as whatever part of me used to counter it grows dead and cold.
What is it about us that really, truly gets old?
Cells, tissues, organs, melting bones and whites in our hair,
401K dates approaching near, what a ridiculous deal.
Sell me all those years and I’ll hold your piggy bank, don’t fear!
America, oh you filthy, beautiful slut,
Land of the bravely stupid or stupidly brave or neither.
Really just people like in any other land, continent,
planet, solar system, galaxy and universe.
Bits from its as likely as its from bits,
time flows downstream as salmon fight their way up,
into the loving arms of a grizzly bear called death,
who most definitely had enough of winter.
Love, love unconditionally, love everything, everywhere, all at once.
But how? Dictators, EDM, madmen, and mosquitos take it a step too far.
Black holes as much as quasars,
ants as much as elephants,
but I do like redwoods more than sequoias
and it’s not fat shaming, I promise.
I wonder if any of them prefer me over the others?
Do plants have their favorites?
Is one garden better than the rest?
Is that why they call it Eden?
I guess I prefer questions over answers.
The thing with spring and summer is that they end,
like any flower as well as an individual petal
as well as each and every wave sailing over open ocean
as well as the crest of each and every wave,
begging for a surfer, with never a moment to rest,
to let go, to wait impatiently in order to move with patience.
Why would you need patience if you’re out of time?
You’re out of this world when you’re out of time,
like that famous star-man from England.
Star-men fly across the universe when they are the universe
not a second before and surely not a second after.
Winter remains around the corner,
buzzing flies remind me of the weather,
on the shared table sits the lovely philosopher.
Communal! Everything is communal.
We prop up each other, turn each other on (and off)
in games of cosmic tag, played forever.
My fair lady arrives, the sun, oh the sun yet shines,
and one day, maybe yesterday, I will start speaking in poems
but only when I realize love, love is already the best one.
Fashion Week is
in the News
Words look tired, reticent, reluctant
as they stroll up and down digital paper catwalks.
The seemingly infinite supermarket shelves are stocked
from the ground up with lifeless specimens,
the kind with dead eyes and souls on unpaid leave.
We’re left to wonder who or what’s really being sold,
who could bear the heft of such a vision?
No one, yet they’re all here,
with their fake mouths unable to smile any longer,
self-forced into scowls of wealthy weariness,
the sort that doesn’t come with age.
Unfazed by the spectacle, letters march hand in hand into uncharted waters,
daring to drown in full display of torrid horizons.
If you look properly the moon is always full,
but the eye often stands in the way of comprehension.
Illusions act like being removed from reality is the epitome of virtue,
leaving us to ponder imperfection.
Gasping for air is what gets you,
as anyone who’s ever drowned will tell you if they get the chance.
Who would ever pay to see this show, let alone dress up in multicolor,
go as far to arrive fashionably late in greyscale vehicles?
It must be the corporate sponsors, engaged in artless theatre.
Many get the call to attend this unaffordable soiree,
“Hey there, why don’t you come on down to the hall?”
I’m told everyone important enough to exist will be there,
and we’ll all drown our sorrows together. But never our pride.
Substance sinks to the bottom, when vanity is buoyant.
Buoys with their magical staying power, bobbing and weaving
through currents of haphazardly assembled disillusionment,
serve as a warning to honest sailors, here be dragons.
Might as well just show up, it won’t hurt more than anything else.
After all you can hate the game if you want, but never the players,
and on this runway only disbelief gets to be suspended.
Temple
The holy place, where is it?
Not just the Vatican, or St. Sophia surely,
because I’ve seen Yosemite.
Maybe it’s the climbing gym around the corner,
it has a lot of worshippers congregating daily,
in communion of climbing fake rocks.
Fake rocks have the same sort of reality true ones do,
letting you hold onto them just like in the wild.
They’re colorful too, not just black, white, grey and brown.
Next to the gym lies another temple,
some call it a park but they call Yosemite a park too.
Home to more than just people,
dogs more than any other kind of life.
named after God, dogs love everything,
but to be fair, so does God.
How about the vintage clothing store, next door?
Could that also be a temple?
It writes it’s own holy book, that’s for sure
called “On Clothes and Men”.
After all what’s Balenciaga but God?
This balcony too, or any balcony for that matter.
Indoors’ love for the outdoors protruding from solid walls,
hanging intuitively, clinging to concrete life.
Theaters and music halls, bars, clubs and college dorms,
rivers big and small, streams all the way to the ocean.
What are the stars but some of our most ancient temples?
Or the bed you wake up in every morning,
followed by a cup of hot coffee and a cigarette.
Yes, even the cigarette is a temple.
Nothing but the skin I inhabit,
it’s true what they say, the body is a temple.
The first and perhaps still the best one.
Like two bees chasing each other towards the baby blue sky,
your sweet embrace, the softness of your lips,
tender touches we share, you are my temple.
Our home, the kind that keeps vampires out,
and the black night at bay when it gets too dark,
with a soft, warm, yellow light emanating from the corner,
something light on the TV, made to be forgotten
or Steph Curry and the Warriors on their way to another title.
What’s a stadium but the holy ground for that annual endeavor?
An insanely attractive pilgrimage to the gods of sport.
Through the window I can see Empire State,
reaching out towards the heavens, looking as regal as ever.
What more proof do you need for money’s nothingness
when wealth is measured by the height of its towers?
But don’t hate money so easily, dismiss it out of hand,
call it the root of all evil, a great dark emptiness,
when its temple draws in so many,
breaking records for attendance,
it truly has the highest number of worshippers.
What about this notebook which takes in so much,
giving even more in return?
Home within home, head within head,
a spa for words, a place where they can relax
and be comfortable in their own letters.
They too, if you look carefully,
spell their love for anything and everything
in an attempt to define, describe, capture, name to no avail.
They never give up, and clearly, none of them really mind.
Happy to be here, happy to help us look for God left and right.
It might be the poles with all their melting ice,
or a giant redwood on the Pacific coast,
maybe I miss California after all.
Is it my sister’s eyes, or that baby in her father’s arms,
across the street from where I write?
Birds fly, that’s right, but would you believe it we do too.
Are planes our temples?
Or maybe just trains, cars, boats and bikes,
helicopters and submarines all rolled into one.
The computer just gave me the side-eye,
seemed to say “Hey buddy, don’t forget about us.”
But how could I forget about transistors,
and all they’ve achieved in such a short while,
especially when they made one of my first loves?
Home to that video game I just can’t stop playing,
the one with monsters and magic, swords and knights,
both the white and the dark kinds, and of course,
dragons of all colors and stripes.
Mother Earth, man enough to be home
to all life real and imaginary,
going through their motions.
There’s no holy war, just different forms of prayer.
Ritual begets ritual, creativity behooves creativity,
machines on top of machines,
humming like avians, buzzing like other avians,
whirring like washers and dryers,
driving like cars without drivers,
living like those who don’t know how to die,
breathing in and out.
Are we humans or are we dancers?
Someone sang once, and you won’t believe it but,
they hailed from Las Vegas.
Perhaps that’s why they were called the Killers.
It’s that look in Bowie’s eyes,
rock gods know there’s a lady out there,
who knows everything’s gold, glitter and all.
Rock and Roll, that’s my temple.
All that is holy lies beyond the veil.
The veil with infinite sides, the beyond
which depends on your own special point of view.
How can someone somewhere take you home,
when home is where the heart is?
So maybe that’s the answer, the heart is the temple.
My heart, your heart, all hearts.
Listen to the beat, and the song will follow.
Philosopher-King
Growing up all I ever wanted to become,
was a thinking man with a crown.
So I did what a thinking man does,
I let my angels die.
During the funeral I realized,
philosophers don’t sit on thrones,
at least not ones made of lies.
They’d just get up and leave,
honesty in leaps and bounds.
Ransomed by the beggar,
laughed at for laughing,
horses horsing around,
jesters in name alone.
Will thy kingdom ever come?
And tell me, if you will
where have all the queens gone?
Mothered by desire, pained in color,
painted over every spring,
at times leaking into summer.
Winter is akin to patience,
perhaps just second cousins,
allowed to procreate, so
frowned upon yet fawned over.
Now you’re ready,
as much as one is able,
to receive the truth of this matter.
It’s simple really, angels are immortal.
They sing and shout and shriek:
It’s always better to be in love
than to be a thinker, king or a bard.