Selected Poems

These are some of my favorite poems this month. (They are still drafts, not final versions, and may not be shared outside this website without permission. Thank you.)

 

131231

AUTHENTICITY

What I am,
I’m glad to be.

Life, expunge
what isn’t me.

 

131230

SAMPLIN’

Punkin seeds—
they taste like sumthin’…
dunno whut,
but it ain’t punkin.

 

131225

METACHRONAL
RHYTHMS

Days, years,
lives, epochs.
They begin, rise,
fall, renew—
stadium fans
doing the wave.

 

131221

DIRECTIONLESS

Playing,
playing.
I’m just playing
with words
night and day,
now that  my feet
have landed
on thin air,
so to say.

 

131220

EYE BEAMS

We obsess on motes
in others’ eyes each minute,
convinced that they
are of the world
while we are merely in it.

 

131218

OTHERWISE OCCUPIED

I let them drain away—
those thoughts, those words—
since they were only whey.
(I kept the curds.)

 

131215

RESTRAINED

I want to be a healer,
which puts me in a bind:
I tend to think diseases
develop from the mind—
but how can any healer
judge if she herself is blind
or whether what she  offers
is harmful or is kind?

 

131214

LEAP OF NONFAITH

What might it be like
to believe in nothing at all—
is it possible, is it crazy,
and who would have the gall?

 

131213

WINTER WANDERER

Where you been?
You smell like bacon.
You been sittin’ by
somebody’s fire, hmm?
They take you in,
now you here, cold and wet
from roamin’ in the snow?
What you say, cat—
this still your house or not?
Okay, get warm, get cozy, eat.
Then you tell me.

 

131211

INSTRUMENT READING

It happens
between bouts of sleep.
Hands travel assessingly
over arms, face, neck, shoulders—
wherever skin is eposed—
especially over hands themselves,
comparing memories of textures
past and present—softnesses,
roughnesses, thick- and thinnesses,
temperatures, flexibilities.
Body enjoys doing this,
marveling at its own architecture
and longevity of design,
grateful for the knowing
it gathers and transmits this way.

 

131210

WORD ROBES

Words are garments;
you can try them on.

I am not.
I am naught.

There’s a difference—
as between dawn
of enlightenment
and enlightenment
of dawn.

Dawn and dusk,
don and doff—
words are garments;
you can take them off.

 

131209

WINTER WISH

Suspend me
in
inamination…
like this weather
is doing anyway.

 

131207

SPEAKING OF

Some friends speak of heaven,
Jesus, and the beast.
Some friends talk tradition,
family, fasts, and feasts.
Others mention chakras,
consciousness, and chi.

All they say has value—
but, frankly, as for me,
the more I learn, the less I know
(the more I have to guess).

I largely guess through poetry,
and thus my happiness.

 

131206

GRACED BY GRACE

“Blind McNair,” the story,
drew quick tears from me.
And my cat, that quickly,
came to tend to me.

Drawn by my soft whimpers—
surely too by grace—
he lay breast to breast,
drying tears with his own face.

His response to my response
drew this prayer from me—
“Bless my cat. Yes, bless him:
this one who blesses me.”

 

131205

SELF REFLECTION

When evils blast
and rages blow
we beg for peace,
peace like snow.

Salvation comes
once we know
we are that peace,
peace like snow.

[“May your choices reflect your hopes,
not your fears”  ~ Nelson Mandela]

 

131204

PROSPERITY
PERPLEXITY

I’m asking myself,
so I’ll be blunt:
there are things I’ll do
and things I won’t,
which explains the dearth
of things I want—
but why the abundance
of things I don’t?

 

131203

THAT SINKING FEELING

I am captain of my ship.
She goes neither fast
nor far, though.

It’s my own fault, I admit:
too much ballast,
too much cargo.

 

131202

REALLY NOW

Consciousness—
is there more than one?
Can it hide from itself just for fun?
Does it know it all, stem to stern?
Or, like us, does it learn to learn?

 

* * *
Photo Credits:
– Deer at Sunset by clconroy of morguefiles.com
– Cat on Snowy Stairs by Jo Lightfoot