Hooligan Loses to Unitarian Temple

One winter night, I have a few drinks and when it gets late I decide I'm going to climb the Unitarian Temple. Not a huge climb, but an historically significant piece of architecture, irreplaceable as other famous structures, like the Golden Gate Bridge, I think. Yes. I take off my flip-flops and put on a pair of hiking boots, good for climbing. I walk down the dark midnight sleeping streets of Oak Park checking now and again to see if I'm being followed because I'm up to no good, but nobody cares. When I get to the temple, I see climbing it would be a bitch -- if you've ever been there, the walls half way up are 20 feet of blank cement with no footholds. Plus when I go around in back, I almost fall over a homeless person who obviously does not want to be disturbed by another drunk idiot. Reluctantly, I walk back to the house.

SCORE:

Unitarian Temple: 01
Nostalgic Hooligan: 00

Poem - Poem to the Interpreter

i knew this wicked smart guy
who told me about how the world would end
i minded the time the world didn't end
years later i can still see him on the beach
he seemed to be happy and also he told me
he was dying of prostate cancer

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Strand Beach
La Jolla
2003

Poem - Three Things

Z.

big thing
no gifts
just seeing
what was there

or bigger thing
seeing what
was never there
never could be

L.

back to dreams
not remembering
they are dreams
being so serious

the waterfall or
the mountain the
garden they all
tremble like music

Q.

big thing gone
dreams gone

still here
pleasantly

Poem - if i reside/ in a love/ and a gratitude

i dream
of a
soft night

we were together
walking on
a beach

and i said

you don't exist
i don't exist
the beach does not exist

all that is real
is desire for things
but this is okay

and i thought

if i reside
in a love
and a gratitude

more than me
more than you
more than a whole world

and all the
precious things
held in it's thrall

there could be

* * * * * * * * * *
* * * * * * * * *
* * * * * * * * *
* * * * * * * *
* * * * * * * *
* * * * * * *
* * * * * * *
* * * * * *
* * * * * *
* * * * *
* * * * *
* * * *
* * * *
* * *
* * *
* *
* *
*
*

an ebb in this hurt
this longing

and i knew

we are all
naturally orphaned
from ourselves

Poem - Osel's

"Last night
I had a dream.

Oh wonderful error!

I dreamt that here
In my heart,

golden bees were making
honey

and white combs
out of my old forgotten failures.

I bow to the bees and the honey and to all
our old forgotten failures."


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From the "Unnamed Book with a Reclining Buddha on the Cover"
by Osel
1999

!

Thus..........











.........the Rambling Taoist paraphrased, quite nicely, from a delightful May 10th post from blogger Ta Wang.

Poem - For Jack

pictures of you when a youth
on fire life drugs writing making it
the photo 15 years later
a bitter old man very lost angry
my heart aches for this as much
as it surged when i saw good time
laced with all the crap that won

when i see birds remote and high
like your dreams floating in a sky
i can only look and wonder
many glad in seeing it because
it will never be touched
carried on winds of no name & no place

i bow and pray to the earth
first for you
and then
for all the rest

Poem - silly innocence

what a thing
kept from the misery
of your own hand
by silly innocence

Poem - The Clown on a Bike

i've taken to sleeping when i don't wake up
i write poetry when i am away
6.22 am on my bicycle i see the moon
in morning blue powdered sky

i can't resist repeated metaphors
like you i tell the same stories over and over
we all get the place like a broken record
that goes round and round

when you think you have a grip on things
you'll think you're a sane person
but you're just another clown on a bike
all we have is what we do

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For the Suburban Fellowship Center
River Forest, IL

Poem - a monday morning

i watch you sleep
your phone hums ceaselessly

what could people want
of you right now

barely 8 am PST
a monday morning

you almost wake up
but continue to sleep

the phone hums again
and again

Poem- but part of you will never ever/ forget

1.

in the night
with the other wanderers

looking for something
that didn't occur to you

didn't know was wanted
until intoxicated

you'll never get it
this way

knowing this starts
to hurt

so drink more and hope
you don't remember it tomorrow

but part of you will never
ever forget

the star high in the sky
making this place so dark

2.

morning is here
last night was a dream

the bells of the old mariners' church
are ringing

the light on the wall
almost touching crumpled sheets

ring bell ring
last night was a dream

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For "Crazylegs"

Detroit
May, 2010