Sunday, March 31, 2013

from a fool's journal


brought to you by

hOLy CHaoS ~ Emerging Visions #17 ~ April 1





Why suffer fools at all? They can certainly suffer just fine for themselves.


A Fool I've been
walking behind visions
cringing from derision
seeking solace from a merry Moon
too soon gone old
Laughing back on follies
sticking pins in pain -- jolly?
Morose, cold ...
harridan crone
Have my wanderings sown
no happy harvest, raised no cozy home?
Snuggling into punishing remorse
"You knew you should have run a better course!"
"You know you deserve to be alone."
Is that true? Am I the Fool careening
down the precipice,
broken, no meaning;
is this my hapless fate?
Or self-hate insisting I mistake
a journey for a goal?
A Fool can be a cherished, merry soul
dancing the golden mountain trail
reveling in freezing rain and snow
tasting the bite without bitterness
This I know



Fairy Tale


A memory of haunting nostalgia
I cannot not touch it, taste it, hold it, know it, breathe it
Still it piques me at the corner of my eye, below perception.
The words escape me.
One must be very careful of words.
They hold great power: mystic and legal and personal.
Words can weave a whole world, a whirl of worlds, a wild wind of words
They can create reality for those who get caught up in them.
The right word at the right time can catalyze miracles.
The right word at the wrong time can destroy the eternal.
How might I find the words to capture my dream, my destiny?
Enter the Fool upon the Precipice, prattling ditties of the daily airwaves.
She is whirling blithely, eyes upon a distant rainbow, breathing in clouds
Breathing out daisies and daffodils and a brilliance of pansies.
She is dancing to her own symphony, entranced in her deepest essence.
Without thought, without prayer, without a government authorized identity
There are no guarantees, no happy ending.
There is a tale I try to tell.
Its point escapes me, withering into fairydust.
I breathe in the poisoned air, drink the poisoned water, eat the poisoned food
Like a desperately swimming fish in a polluted bowl, like a creature of the streets eating garbage,
Like a child.
The pattern is corrupted, but I follow it as best I can.
I have been told that if I can properly put the pieces in place
All will be revealed; all will be peace and beauty and love.
The pieces of my foolish shattered heart.



Calling Card


I am metamorphing art
a brain in a biological bottle.
What does that even mean?
I am but a latter day fool,
a futile Lancelot sans his Art or Guin.
If you let me in, if I satisfy some gaping
pinhole in your aimless curiosity,
if my foraging philosophy intrigues
your rambling wit, if we sit to laugh and cry
over brie and wine, you will see.



Etherized


Will o' the wisp wending a land of dreams
Daisies, bright blooming weeds,
mellifluous, grand.
Whoosh! Genie arms wide into flight
above foam and sea.
Beyond fear,
absorbed by awareness -- sheer horizon
confined by no mind, eyes
or reason.
Who imagines,
and in that magic space settles
to reside?
Women in velvet and fur, swan necks,
arrogant tresses,
sip marvelous narcotic, sweet as fire.
Upheld mirror portraits, glowing strands
of wire and prismic hues,
vibrant perfumes call to wander,
to stray.
Will-less, free, each step,
each feather fall
a gift of mystery, of mystics' play,
caress of bliss.



High Art


A chimera of Mage and Fool
Image of watery fire
a’flow and standing resolute
Creation of patient desire
Tell me a tale of intricate pleasure
Knit me a touchstone against any weather
Join me in illusive
smoke, wine and song
Catch me in delusion; but don't imply I'm wrong
Let me breathe grand fantasy
past grasping reality
spin out sunbeams from decay of dross
sweetly decorate my cross
Waylaid reason is no loss
because I have reason to see
the world I create it to be

Friday, March 29, 2013

resurrection


"Jesus wept and died"
I always wondered what that meant.
Is it an admonition to us to do the same?
Like, "Life sucks, and then you die"?
Or, if Jesus died for our sins,
did he first weep for our sins --
a holy pity party embracing us all?
So, our sins have been wept for, died for;
we carry the blood and tears of the Lamb
on our souls.
Perhaps that would be best blessed, if we
rejoiced and laughed and hugged and forgave
and generally enjoyed the feast of life
to balance the weeping and dying and love.
For joy balances weeping;
life balances death;
and love, of course,
is the only balance to love.



Jesus died for somebody's sins, but not mine Jesus cried, and somebody grinned -- don't whine Jesus smiled his love on the least, scattered his manna that the lowly might feast All you remember is that slavering Beast so remind me why you find daring to share peace of mind in kindness less than Divine



Holy Weak

Locked in a keyhole
a romance gone AWOL,
a sad bitter song badly sung.
Mad voices lie to our young,
encrypt failure as beggar’s choice.
Born to be property, Innocent of means to judge,
to please
a man of pride, complete his beautiful
bride, be his family retreat from
right and wrong.
. . .
Jesus, before His Destiny
removed Him from common ribaldry,
banter and shoving that score for a man,
secure his order among fellow men,
Jesus loved the children even then.
He dared to imagine a gentle love, free
from bullies’ shaming, from easy blaming,
from traumatic scars of social war.
He believed in us, human kin, above
judgmental sin.
Fatherly humor, the way fathers love
their children, with the pride of
ownership and the slave master’s
secret fear,
God disciplines His Heir.



Easter
Gentle rosy raindrops of a mellow morning,
Children make the day – it's Spring.
I thought of Christ in Church this morning,
nailed to His cross in long ago Jerusalem,
arising to springtime, the earth's reawakening.
It's a time for children and games of childhood,
a time for playing with love,
secret smiles and daisy chains.
It's a time for the simple and natural
A time for anointing the soul in peace
after the ravages of winter.
A time for gentle things
like newborn kittens
and flowerbuds after the rain.
I am slowly relearning the healing strength of love,
Slowly relearning the simple pleasures of humanity.
Life is sweet, poignant,
a drifting melody.



At the Table

You want your fond place at the table
You want to be a fellow jolly good "so say we all."
I tell you, the table is vastly laden with
layers of little memories, which
no two see the same.
We arrive at the feast
hungry for virtue, for love, for
forgiveness of our wanton ways;
willing to be merry, to partake of
ritual, merging through
transubstantiation.
Constellations, moving, shifting,
making waves in our collective
consciousness, appear to reveal
sparkling impulses of truth.
On that warm, wet evening
taking in the sweet, evocative air,
embracing untranslated joy,
something catches in our throats.
The song we need so desperately
to share can only emerge in shards.
The pain, sucked in with our breath,
becomes one with the bread and wine.
This is the blood, the body,
marinated in salty tears, preserving
what has not yet found
appropriate release.
Again, and yet again
meeting, to take sustenance.
Hungry battle wounds
courageously opening,
to imbibe the healing
of grace.

faith healers


Faith Healers


No doubt, excellent penance must be paid.
Life is debt.
Always more to need pulls forward
out of dusty cracked ground to quiet thirst.
We are not last, or first, nor most grieved,
most grievous.
Another litter along this trail of fools.
As if ever more stringent rules,
admonitions of flame and infamy,
could slake or set us free.
Comic cosmic tragedy, but for descendants
begrudged, pre-judged, caught up pre-aware
in dismal prophecy catechized by
bumbling attendants.
Future’s fettered face: shake faith in
reckless disregard for creation.



March 29, 2013

Sunday, March 24, 2013

pray for violence


Pray for Violence


The God of Abraham
enjoys His Master tricks.
Calls Chosen men to violent
revenge against all fancied slights.
“They’re wicked – Smite!
Pillage their villages.
Rape their disgusting whores.
Make their acres yours in My sight,
in My glory. Give blood lust, My rightful
gory sacrifice. Pride is My reward
when your sons fight in My Name.
Pride can pay the price, replace shame.
I am no pansy, no prancing debutante
at Papa’s ball. I am no Mama’s man,
no Fate’s enthralled. I am the First, the
Prime, the All.”

Soldiers, persons of honor, heroes of
common cause, deserve our worship on the throne
of myth. No longer men or women alone, adrift,
seeking meaning, solace for their losses,
receivers for their gifts. Sins and virtues
washed in wars’ conflicting visions, no longer fit
collective debt. Don’t crimes against our mirrors
deserve refection? Does the command of worship
demand recursive lies, impossibility of true
repentance, vicious alibis, endless falling into
death?



March 24, 2013

Tuesday, March 19, 2013

anticipating Spring


Memories, they weave a silken web in silence
We talk of times past in gently measured tones,
sometimes bitter humor.
We watch a bird circling in the distance,
and build patterns in the clouds.
Last year I spied a mole burrowing in
the unmelted snow of early spring.
Today I tend to think of you
smiling as you did last night
when you first saw me after parting.

Spring Medley

Air clear as a free-running stream
tumbling over country rocks and minty greenery
Clear soft air of early spring
Breathing satsang, reeling eternity,
While running 'cross the straight-lined highway
-- shouting
"Hey sky, embrace me!" shouting
I embrace the air and call it Love.
I love you, love you, love you, love you
I
Form, Words, Action
I in motion
I in tumbling, stumbling, crazy image
kaleidoscope
over 'n' over
love you, love you, love you, love you
Capture the essence for an almost noninstant
Capture the image of groping, grabbing, grasping
gazing heartfelt on release, but
love you, love you, love you, love you
insane, insatiable
cannot touch release of
love you, love you, love you, love you
Smothering in the too pure air.

Hey, Springtime,
Got some time to be wasting
So I tracked a songbird
on a still bare treebranch
and joined it in song.
What wonder the woods bring
I can't contain it.
Thistle and briar weeds
Capture my imagination
Grow wild and tangly
All through my mind.


Spring is for being born;
Autumn for dying.
Spring is for being born
(or maybe sometimes Winter --
something has to take you through
those long cold months of snow and ice).
Spring is for being born;
Autumn for dying
(when the leaves change colors
and fall and blow
into the frost and first fall snow).
Spring is for being born;
Autumn for dying.
(Why do you weep for me, sister,
long heartfelt sobs of dismay?
Why do you weep as I drift off to sleep
for many and many a day?
Today I shall die so tonight I may fly
-- with the leaves I'll be scattered away.)
Spring is for being born;
Autumn for dying.
(But I only die today that I may be reborn
tomorrow, when the warm kiss of Spring
touches the earth,
bringing promise of joyous rebirth
and months of summer sun,
when leaves turn green again.)
Spring is for being born;
Autumn for dying.


Renewal

Faded jackolantern,
darkened eyes obscured;
blooming trees
branches swaying,
picking up the tempo
dancing 'n' jivin'
in merry celebration
of Spring.
Look at us flounce our skirts
rolling our hips
licking our lips
ready to rollick,
enticing pregnant play.
Let the goodtimes roll
on down the verdant hillside
winter's sorrows
spilling out like seed
cleansed free
singing in the
flowing rain
recombinant flowers and wildlife.
Stories hidden,
tangled and mired in
tired decades of dust and gloom
swept into light by chance,
unobscured in the gently falling rain,
taken up, given honoured place
singing now in the ritual chorus.
Timeless chanting,
calling in vibrant winds.
Moving, re- and un- engaging,
ever changing,
never wholly new.


When All Fails

And it’s always on to the next adventure.
Random leaves flicker roads of desolate
neglect
trod and cried
over, fallen quicksand depths demanding
flight
for survival.
Frozen wings, sudden sparkling cold
commanding
damp unforgiven. Bent below, tramps
expecting handouts,
bankers expecting deeds,
women expecting hollow forcomings.
There is no easy fantasy. Tales of fates and
magics
lie on quantum desperation, haunted nights.
Winter always lurks on Spring’s horizon.
Keep moving; keep life singing, gyrating for
warmth.
The road long saturated with evil, rise above.
Learn, grieve, abandon.
Envision a grander hope, shining spire
beckoning.


healing balm of Spring
washing winter sorrows
in hope of warm tomorrows
the flowering they bring

5 law plan


1) First, do no harm
2) Be honest in all your dealings
3) Learn to love yourself, and understand that we are all selves and interconnected
4) Promote the concept that what is good for each is good for all, and vice versa
5) Promote creativity, flexibility, authenticity, communication

Monday, March 18, 2013

thinking forward


St. Patty


You touched me with clear green eyes
Pulled my tumbled mind into
this moment.
Not karma, not destiny,
nothing like history connects our days.
A moment of clear vision
binds like divine embrace.



Live Long


Flexibility is key
to move with the wind,
blend into changing seasons,
to dance the tide with gleeful grace.
Able to arrange form to place,
freely embrace
or bend away.


and check out my post apocalyptic blog:

Sunday, March 10, 2013

42 skiddoo

Don't panic
 
world-eating fog encroaches
no chance to breathe in this miasma
gasping for something clean
to inhale
 
release
gently
into nothingness
no trace of panic
around which to coalesce
fear, malice
let all pain bleed off
into airless mist
 
relax, restless thrashing
sinking bit by bit 
into silence
now, wasn't that easy?
slowly, without emotion
watch the fog roll by
easing into serene skies



http://ibnlive.in.com/news/google-celebrates-douglas-adams-61st-birthday-with-a-doodle/377960-11.html

Friday, March 8, 2013

woman's worlds


Persephone's Worlds


I have wandered far from thoughtless girlhood,
am a woman, a Queen
in my own right.
Yet I am treated with the expectations
of a mindless child
in my mother's Summer home.
The Gods are all agog with Zeus,
fickle, abrasive, free to take full stance
above the laws he so imperiously commands.
My Dark King is so much more a man,
sincere, deeply feeling, committed to his realm,
compassionate, if not always kind.
Yet, here I must obey the crowd,
displaying charm and grace
in haute couture, making small, insipid
conversation with the socialites
decorating Zeus' lawn parties.
Up here, life is meaningless,
All flash and doggerel
to amuse, O', do entertain us.
So tiring to endure the ennui.
Those not privy to opulent entitlement,
relegated to the dregs of servitude, or less
endure for their time, brutal, painful, short,
for no good reason.
I hear their horrid tales,
back in my rightful place and purpose.
Shrunken souls, shriveled by life time hungers
still growling beyond the grave.
I am balm and wise mother.
At last they matter, their stories opening in me
a marvelous passageway through which they are
taken into paradise.
My life above, the petulant daughter,
the pampered goddess spawn,
I endure coldly.
Summer's trivialities, properly obedient to
rituals of the social condition,
know nothing of my true life
under Winter's glory.



Athena's Valentine


Athena fair
stalwart daughter of Zeus
graces her time and place
with divine knowledge.
Today unlined face,
silken hair,
robust yet fragile form
are proclaimed as the graces
of womanhood.
Athena, lost in the pantheon,
whispers to the nightears
of her faithful,
saying: "True woman's mind
inclines to wisdom."
But Daddy's girl
wants more recompense
for loneliness.



Scrying on the Moon (for Brigid)


~twilight of the goddess, call to song to aery dancing, lady fair your fiery trance rewinds our souls; enjoy these offerings of fancy: all art is yours ~

By sibylline light
images I recognize,
creviced captures of my life.
I know her judgment to be my own.
"Nourished by Moon rivers
mythical cavern blooms
unseen by sunlight
glow green."
Thus she sets the scene;
becomes the prophecy.
"Purest white simplicity
curved to suggest fragility
faith fed maiden ready for
plucking,
given in bondage to womanly woes,
hard rows to hoe
for that human hug through
crying of night.
Fate of mortal soldiers, sacrificed to lust.
Seeking relief, beg for the boon of drama
high adventure
sneaking into sad hotels
for a fix or a tumble.
Laughs,
deadly play,
danger, a real chance.
Barefoot in the snow
icy roads
winds so strong
I could not make you hear.
I thought you were my destiny.
Crazy thoughts, far from clear;
but I believed
song lyrics from Saturnine deities
would not lie, leave me
dying, fading into winter's grey
drifting clouds,
endless sorrow endured for naught.
Lost on this careless corner,
dreaming of oblivion, intent on visions
like rain
tapping against eternity's
vast windowpane.
Scenic serenity.
Nature's gradations of green
soothe tired eyes,
trembling nerves, throbbing veins.
Slivers of moonlight reflect
in withered refrains, unearth secrets
embedded in song
effervescing through cool pure air

cleansing the uprising nestling
set aflame
resurrected
tempered mettle,
pure, wise, tested
engorged with the will
to rise"



Your Philosophy


movie plot as object lesson
boys find valuable object
boys lose valuable object
boys fight to get valuable object back

I am woman born
no source of father's pride
too early in my days, they
track my aroma
I know not to hide
use me in some back room
until my womb rises with a new slave
for their diversions
I am sacred mother
tit tied to feeding, always feeding
(agonized bleeding in secret shame)
No more than a tether, a trough, and
tantalizer of the profane. I am a wrecked
train, a vehicle left to rust, blamed for
slatternly stagnation,
never quite thrown away.
Reject me; reject hard truths,
long trod diamonds, scuff-polished,
hidden like icebergs in paleolithic mud.
Dismiss prophetic exaltation, work songs,
labyrinthine gardens,
we who are only dreams in your philosophy.
You may well be better
stuck in your own
wheel of clay.
My lesson, when I am ready,
is to leave you to your way;
cleave to the ecstasy
loose, lost, subjective
heroic



cubicle woman


The moments go by if you forget they're there. Sucking in sweetness, hot sugared coffee, aroma into memory.
It might be a warm, clammy late summer afternoon. Hints of autumn like blackberry spicing the air.
The people here are decent. They smile to make conversation a pleasant bit of business.
They want me to feel safe, cared for. It doesn't matter that we are never more than strangers,
passing faces, smiling. They bring me coffee with sugar and plastic sticks for stirring.
In this moment all of the world turns so skillfully I move along without pause for acknowledgement,
stealthily aware.



Masked Lady Moon shines
into my room
speaks of fantastic adventure.
Dare I question her
abundant concern?
I a masked gypsy
painted in gloom,
a taste for wry humour,
impossible promises,
resplendent terrain.
A woman insane,
taken in by the Moon
fair sister, sparkling cold
so far
I wander without home
but that clear, quiet salvation
hiding like Moonlight
unmasked in my mind.



A Woman Disappointed and Disillusioned, Courageously Facing a Seemingly Empty Life


Dressed in sadness
Depressed to madness
Mad to believe in passion,
which never lasts beyond the hour.
Shrieking to bequeath the
power to stand, to breathe.
Years appear, macabre hag
preening her wares.
"See how it was, how it could be.
Drag and drop your face, your fate
onto a printed page. Can you see
new meaning? New lamps for old."
She cackles, like
a metronome.
New maps for a new age.
That charming village erstwhile
known as Hell
has realigned into Helvetica.
All that burning sorrow
tomorrow's poetry.



Lovers Meeting

Carry her with love
Always, in your deepest places
She is a woman upon the Earth
in a land of briar and weeds
It is so easy to fall
to fail to thrive
set upon by slavering beasts
and prophets
You know she yearns to serve
so well
that none could find fault
Yet every agonizing step
like angry knives
cutting from below
hobbles her further, deeper
leaving less to give
Bloody prints mark her
dusty trail
Thirsting for the cooling warmth
of love
Carry her into your
sacred caverns
secreted wellsprings
journey's end



Here at the bar again, bar nothing to me.


Here at the bar again, bar nothing to me.
Early Scorpio warm, warm village 2 pm poetry reading
at Chumley's
Searching for bargains, found a Paul Goodman book
with cat and dog and baby photographs
to give to Cindy
a gift of love for a fragile child
stranger/sister.
Still affright from last night's heavy scene
Wherein the police took my man away again,
This time with my blessing and accomplicement.
. . . A man is a hard thing.
Also a drag on fulfilling aspirations
When all he does is cry and threaten
Big Brute Violence
To storm my awareness.
(What's frustrating is he doesn't hear me cry.)
Laughing in the park we loved
Crying in the night we parted
Oh, beseech I, god above
Why must you leave me broken-hearted
(and I know he'll be returning with more disregards
and diatribes and possibly pistols drawn to fire.)
So I sit here in the bar, again
Drinking sweet Kahlua and awaiting the poetry
Taking a respite, you see.
Oh, god, for this while,
Bar nothing to this troubled child
(for child I feel, though woman grown)
Let peace alone assail me.




Earth Goddess
 
Ceres, mother of the Earth
Athena, of cerebral birth
Juno, queen of all the gods
Vesta, pure against all odds
Virgo woman, life bequeaths you,
Standing proud amongst your sheaths,
Wisdom, loving gifts of grace,
In all fields is your place
To give of virtue, mind and soul
You plant the seed. You help it grow.
You till the soil and prune and weed.
You are the soil. You are the seed.
A snow-white light on field's relief
To countenance divine belief.
The image of a wishful star:
A steady shine -- but still so far.
The nights of hope; the days of pain
And on and on, that old refrain
We are the heart, the soul, the spleen
We are all we've known, done and seen
We are the time that marches on
With much to do before we're gone.

Thursday, March 7, 2013

Sun in Pisces/Moon in Aquarius


Sun in Pisces/Moon in Aquarius
Lilting spirit out of body
dance of purified energy
merged into music
outside law or obligation.
Reinstate time of bright lights in darkness,
of flagrant song, buoyant laughter,
twirling theme of ecstasy beyond reason or ration.
Reinstate the quiet sunrise
smell of pine and wild roses,
of limitless sky entertaining majestic formations of earth,
unbridled passion encompassing silent reflection,
all orchestrated in bold tones, exquisite complexity
and simple truth.
Take me there. Let me fly
forever undisturbed by a need to touch down.