in the rhythm
Shell the peanuts.
Scrub and cut potatoes.
Knead the bread dough.
Pluck and chop the herbs.
Music in the fixing, in the
mixing,
each practiced movement.
Music of each meeting,
each task a jaunty dance.
Held in cogent
vibration,
safe in sound, lightly
bound,
guides to sense from
sensation,
turns lessons to merry
play.
Easy to commune, catch the tune,
taught with glee.
Such fun these school days can
be!
Back in the forests, the
caves,
the glades,
elemental chemistries
exchange,
sonic waves call wanderers
home;
soothing dark fears with
lullaby,
comradely cheer.
Know us by our song --
music to carry through
long brave trails, travailed
years.
If the Word is our binding
charm,
our song is our vow,
ever renaming power.
Engaging, blending, restorative
potion;
energy, purpose, pleasure of
motion
enthused by
acoustic muse.
The people united,
hanging together to avoid
being hung
one by one.
Growing their rhythm, get carried along in
a
strengthening hum
tuned to common cause.
Ringing poetic, wrapped
together, in a banner of furious
sound.
The people, excited, spring in their
step,
clear on their ground, can not be kept
down.
Entrapped,
entranced
Who is to be
gained
by loosening the
ties?
What you remains
released into
surprise?
Feel, beneath your
eyes.
Ease into the
rhythm.
Blessed familiarity
--
heartbeat through pulsing
memory.
Breathe, connect with the real
--
the gift of air, of
skin,
of enchanting chance
encounters,
of ringing
melodies
strong enough
to call to
lucidity
your most precious
name.
There's always a
child
dying
to play
loved and
protected
through audacious
curiosity,
worries over being too big
or
clashing to fit
in.
Little one,
listen:
Condensed to
soft-voiced
Song,
loving companion
on treacherous icy
walks
in winter rain
embraces from
within.
Intone and be heard,
protected,
assured of unsuspected
glory.
Song imagines your
story.
Surging through heart,
lungs, air
our ineffable beauty
sings.
.
.
.
Pre-Genesis
Before the Beginning
Before imagination,
sound or fury,
in a wraithlike pocket
outside of time and space
none to command
none to hinder
how does the spark ignite?
Spontaneous combustion?
Multiplicities of zeroes
encircling void
before chicken or egg or seed.
Was there a silent prophecy?
If the system is closed,
nothing created or destroyed,
where does it all come from?
How far can it expand?
If the system is open,
how far does it go?
If there is no system,
chaos endlessly realigning,
helpless to demand rule of law,
form but temporarily
delimiting substance,
no matter.
In our space and time
we play at definitions.
"In the Beginning . . .."
Words upon a screen,
analyzed
over millennia.
September 5, 2008
unquiet response
Is Insanity ever
quiet?
Stars burst within confined mind's
brilliant fire, catching curtains,
igniting tapestries.
Scorched odor
pervades;
crumbles crumple, a vast array of
sand.
She takes his hand, follows vein
cliffs
over warm comfort, traces trails of
memories
to compassionate
embrace.
She was never a rock, craggy and
solidly secure.
She was the windswept sea, invited
to taste shore.
How dare he wander to sink in sand
and fire's remnants?
"Faith" flickers from mouth to sad,
sad eyes.
He is lost.
She feels a scream of unwanted
laughter form
like spittle, twisting from dry
mouth to flooded eyes.
soul juice
Squeeze my soul.
Juicy rivelets sweep
into gaping waiting mouths
of aborted song,
crying to warn.
Empty waterless tears
can’t convey nutriment.
I am dying.
Bit by precious emission,
swirly spirals of contextual
drool.
The words, the wyrd, the weirding
ways
slip out into this stream,
newly stagnating.
I am dying to tell you.
Secreting lifeforce
exuded as shielding matrix.
Precious phrases
squeeze out meaning
in bloody trails, molecule
deep,
holding closely to spectral
ether.
Drink me!
Let me taste my essence
dripping through your
throat.
September 4, 2006
question of belief
They ast me, you know, do you
believe?
I had to say "depends on what you
mean"
'cause there's a difference
between
that everyday believin;
of all that crap we be
receivin'
on tv, at home, on the street, and
all
and that biblical stuff they want us to
swallow
so they can say it's all God's
Plan.
He's the one to service, He's the
Man.
When you think you ain't gettin' what yer
worth
or have other disputations with yer deal on
this Earth,
He's gonna make it all right in the great by
and by.
Hosts of Hallalujahing angels in the
sky
and all like that. So don't blame fat cats
for yer losing case.
Just bow and scrape and count on divine
Grace
to save your soul.
Yeah, I believe.
I believe you get what you
demand,
with the power of living voices, joining
hand in hand
spanning a world in continual
creation.
September 4, 2006
Haphazard People
Mostly pretty ugly, pretty
useless, pretty ignorant,
not pretty at all.
But how can I discount them when
unexpectedly
somebody kind, unreasonably wise,
a vision of grace,
undeniably lovely.
How could we account for miracles,
unlikely odds
coming through?
Random chaos is enough for human
ingenuity
to engineer you or me, or any
soldier joe
or social geek.
Who's to say which or any of us is
the freak?
I like my women half-crazed,
strong, and wonder-filled.
I like someone to cry
with.
I like someone who laughs me out
of my blues.
I like that she could
choose,
and freely cleaves to
me.
Haphazard people.
Unplanned lives.
What are the chances we might get
it right?
September 4, 2011
Void Moon Harvest
I could
if I willed it
go inward.
Beyond stratosphere,
infinite bliss,
the whole of the real.
I let go; I feel
eternity pulls me,
grasps my ambient air
into awareness.
All ways my destiny
incandescent transcendence,
resplendent artist's ecstasy.
Still
here
in these moments,
stuck in migrating vibrations.
Attached to this Earth,
mired (but not beyond mirth,
cosmic inspiration)
to miasmic
throes and woes.
Undefined transformation,
laborious birth.
I am dignified, made whole.
Service to vision:
corroded, corrupted,
yet shining below that pitted
surface
I see
and uncover the light
September 4, 2009