Poem - who choose the / wrong trail again and again (but those who see / do not give up)

in denial i measure time
by how my desires for others arise then fail

a pitiful kind of cosmology
for one who lives in self examination

occasionally i gain consciousness
see how this game is played in my mind

i realize why they say
the best time to pray or act with devotion

is when it is totally hopeless
and such acts seem to matter not

because my ordinary mind
is full of ordinary thoughts

true awareness' view
is anything than ordinary

they speak of beings
whose enlightened gaze even into hell

can recognize and aid
if comprehended or asked

i'm like a million
other wayward fools

who choose the
wrong trail again and again

but those who see
do not give up

they are like light


*


om tare to soha

Poem - it is on the small things we do

it is on the small things we do
or in the ordinary seeming

that happiness is ready
to spring forth and surprise

because the joy in all things
is never far away

delight is the light
behind every star

if you see anything
that is God

*

HB
Oct 2015

Poem - the pond / is frozen

the stone won't sink
or go in the pond
is frozen

last week it could
through just a crackle
of ice

everything is tan
blonde or brown even
the earth

except things
whimsically
highlighted by frost

the sun seems
like an old man or
woman

peeking out a window
you can feel a ray
and then gone


*

Poem - brighter or darker

if you look up
the tree branches are bare
they wave in the sky

against this
the ducks and geese fly
you feel winter coming

bonds between people
home get tighter as
the chill commences

each lived in place
so familiar becomes
brighter or darker



-----

Oak Park
2015

Poem - the street psychic can cleanse your soul

the street psychic can cleanse your soul
for ten bucks or sell you a joint
if you want real help you can call
this number and ask for brittany

how long will you be in new york
and where are you staying not times square
midtown mahattan for you or near
bowling green by the battery

people like you are used and use new york
so who is the victim not him or you
we're like bumper-cars and cony island
and he thrusts his pelvis at your face


*

Poem - and i have gained by you going

i had no idea
of your dishonesty

and when you betrayed me
for another

i waited after you left
for what i do not know

i waited to see
the moon rise with a star

bright in night blue sky
to show me some new things

arising out of darkness
they are brilliant

beyond the sad whiles and plans
of those who are cowards and even me

so as the moon rose
i knew more would come to me

you have taken nothing
and i have gained by you going



***

Poem - i keep reading / i read about language

i keep reading
i read about language

i read about
writing experimentation
in canaan in 2000 BC

i am told M
represents water
drawn from the depths

a S
is a snake or serpent
who endlessly devours
its own tail

how Romans
were slow to
adapt Latin inscriptions

how it could be
corrupted Phoenician
or some other untraceable
Indo-European script


*

my mind travels
through different
alphabets

Coptic

Runes

Greek

Cyrillic

Ethiopian

each with a history
all with a struggle
all attempting
to capture

a loving thought
or a judgement of death

sheep owed
lost n found

lies jokes and
exquisite stories

scratches of lines

lives lost and saved

I did not believe him, I've heard lots of tinfoil hat schemes.

He was convinced that black self-driving trucks trolled the neighborhoods at night, their payload a concealed quantum broadcaster that influenced the thoughts of sleeping people.  In the morning everyone would have an overpowering urge to have a Pepsi -- or report any suspicious activity of their neighbors.

I did not believe him, I've heard lots of tinfoil hat schemes.

But when I lived in Quail Meadow, I had a neighbor woman who was completely out of her mind, she said that the government and local authorities were spying on her through her TV, computer, and light-bulbs -- I didn't believe her for a second.

It turned out the NSA was spying on most people in the United States any way they could.

Being in a surveillance state, a state with secret security laws, subtiley corrupts the mind -- I don't know what to think anymore. The shadow government has no idea either. I decide to start collecting old national geographics. I want to read about the past, have a gauge about what came before, as we shut down our libraries, discard the books, electronic document and history online becomes authoritative, and can be rewritten at any time.

Then I go back in my mind the 1880s and try to live there, before our data profiles could be pinned by a metadata needle to a state like a butterfly to a collection card.



**

October 2018

Poem - i dream you are nearby

i dream you are nearby
and i can save you
it is not too late
i call your phone
i am surprised to hear
it ring in a pile of rags
abandoned or lost
in the shack i am
standing in



*

Poem - but you never forget how it feels

while waiting
on hold

a song says
we get
run down
by dreams

other music
suggests
maybe
some day
you'll know
where
you are
supposed
to be

and to be
ready to
move on

all like
fragments zen
koans
speckled with
hypnosis

filled
with such
longing

malleable
as a play-dough
of desire

or mind
making shadows
light and wall
and silhouettes
simultaneously

but you
never
forget how
it feels

Poem - Perhaps

he is alone
on the beach
with a selfie-stick
going through the motions
digging in the sand
frolicking in the waves
sending pictures perhaps
to a woman far away

in halting
pantomime he moves
pacing out and redoing
one shot or another
getting the splat of a wave
against him how fun
how refreshing it is
see you soon

the choreography
becomes painful
the sun is hot for his dog
so he decides he has enough
with the phantom beguilement
he has spun
walks up the cliff
limping just a bit

when he is gone
i don’t know
if i should be angry
amused or afraid
the sun is the same
and so are the waves
his staggering dance
just holes in the sand




O

Poem - to break free of time through architecture (we arrive and depart unexpectedly)

we were beautiful and lived in the future
but the past caught up with us
like with everyone else who tries
to break free of time through architecture

because death is in every straight line
invested in every curve and plane
only apparent when time takes its toll
on the euclidean environments we erect

there is no rampart real or imaginary
bubble however perfect that will exclude
the gradual corrosion then final rush
into dissolution of all sensation and feeling

walls are like bookends and inside
the contents of life a story is bedded
any number of people are there to be seen
to grow up live love and die

who is watching and seeing some say God
others say the abyss no sight
the spaces heroically go up then decay
we arrive and depart unexpectedly

when we are not here there is a hush

like in a dream you might come back
look and say yes here was my table and chair
there was my window with the view
the moon or star rose and i was enthralled




*