“Disconnect the Vowels”

Disconnect the vowels, then, read what’s left
Within the strophe that makes sense to you; leave
Judgments by the door. Wear no sleeve
On which to pin a sentiment nor shibboleth bereft
Of common sense because the urgent cause
For which the precious ointment was adopted long ago
No longer finds its use. Justly, as it should, in isolated slow
Progress through generations, the hoary stories pause
As literary cusps on scrolls between cycles’ broader strokes
Stoke what it is we know or think we know, or what all know as lies.
The verdicts will, of course, disguise themselves as scripture in the eyes.
And do you think so handsome gilded spokes
Of wheels as cycles’ pillars, circumferences to cover centuries of fears
So fragile that words inscribed in tears will touch the hearts and reach the ears?

“Oh, the Moment, Yes”

Oh the moment, yes. Movement
Owns them both–stillness
In evening’s fire’s thought and witness
To a change. Cycles are but rudiments
Along the way as if cosmic paths were condiments
To reasons for it all, seasoning enough
To accent all eternal syllables and possibly a word; the stuff
Of endlessness in verbal arguments
That pause to take a breath and form an action–mind the road!
Delicate digressions vie with natural hesitation
To embrace the midnight hour as circumspection
In the minor chord and prelude to the code,
Anomalies in the nexus like pearls of depth and deepest night
That birth a blinding light as moths, those sycophants of dawn are drawn in flight
To mark a resurrection in the properties of death and blend
With all things living. Disappearance–
All that is in splendour’s reappearance,
Redesigned to bind all broken hearts–is sent
To comfort both the faithful and the lost.
Seek confirmation, then, within the mind or soul,
but look to it in the end! as the beginning never folds
Nor those who look for solace in the costs
Of faith and knowledge; but losing teaches search
And then is gone. Certitude rises in the East,
With eyes held skyward. Fortitude abounds in inward feasts
Of broad intention, tone and pitch and blessed with inspiration reach

For patience in the present, memories of the past,
And perspicuous signs held in escrow from first to last.

“Who Tolerates the Touch”

Who tolerates the touch of palm and fingers
Triggers of the tympanum’s lover’s voice,
The involuntary arch of eyebrows, that choice
Of recognition dresses doubt that lingers
Yes a while on what once was until it reconfigures
Long enough to serve the summons, reaction’s invoice,
Undesired but necessarily what is required; a void
Is not an option to the unbelieving mind. Ligatures
Every particle seeks are sealed with audience, weight,
And purpose in immortal cycles that begin and end
In memory, its regeneration suspends
Its own belief and use within its measured time.
For him who wills cannot resist nor hesitate.

…a revision of the poem…”Swept Aside”

…a revision of the poem…

“Swept Aside”

Swept aside, all moments and celestial mementos collide
And waste no never-mind on credence and retention
In the wake of greater cosmic rinds and supine celestial reflection.
Mortality by definition lies; not so through what histories imply
But in the daily interaction of missives from the Goal
And penultimate ilunga * of the Source or
Sanctions of interaction in the triumphant triad of the coarsest
Ores of time, of space, and all that matters. Time, the cosmic linen folds
Of space and active order; space, the theatre of experience at the heart
Of the observer; matter, but an audience, a phenomena in passive
Active shadows of Creation and its nemesis. Simplicity is massive,
Complexity but a word; a question’s languages are art
And science while the answers form the pathos and the abstract.
What is more pathetic than to be and yet be nothing in the act?
Simplicity in the classic form requires
The prefects of a perfect vacuum
Combined in such a way as compliments the acumen
Of a strident meme, the jealous zeitgeist, tests that to the whole inspire
An urgent need to pause, to linger over bodies no longer really there,
A little more than a half a generation’s substance in a given time.
So granted this, so beautifully and tragically resigned,
Aloud comes the elegies of episodes to “Move along!”or “Retire!”
With such a cry inscribed, there was and always is
A here and there in rapid profit worshipped, fierce
As gallstones of desperation: “This, our chosen age, rehearsed
Upon a cross of memories little more than lyrics of an ancient tryst!”
And, equally, the many crowned and catalogued, remain aloof
Through symmetries of perfection in a sacred dynasty of embroidered truth.

*The word is ilunga, from the Bantu language of Tshiluba, and means a person ready to forgive any abuse for the first time, to tolerate it a second time, but never a third time.

When there is this, that is.
With the arising of this, that arises.
When this is not, neither is that.
With the cessation of this, that ceases.

His Holiness The Buddha

“Nothing’s Censured”

Nothing’s censured, everything’s gained they say
and choice is all there is and all that’s human.
Cycles shift as do devotion
and commitment and we are glad and sad
As fits emotion and the glory of the stars;
December’s fads
are gone by February, January’s gains illumine
What’s to come in cloistered gusts
that blight the staggered laughter of a spring’s reality.
As autumn’s indiscretions rush to judgement of the past
Occluded by the soul’s embarrassed need
to face the present last,
And yield a future’s wanton wastes
in raw October’s costs and call it natural morality.

Of course, all the world’s put right within
a pale Pink Moon’s delight and we are here tonight
And know damn well we’re gone tomorrow from the diaries of the estuary;
Dawn’s first kiss–the eternal pardon–will arrive behind the execution day,
Delayed a single hour for the sake of show and mere appearances, flights
Of angels sprinkling  spores of wonder in the newly pollinated skies. We’ve lied
Again  and while we ponder why it matters only heaven knows we tried.

“Summer Like the Lion”

“Summer Like the Lion”

Summer like the lion has so little time;
Reflections on horizons only seem at rest,
Refractions, hungers in the higher grasses are at best
A blind, a routine introspection, attest to sun and pride,
Alike as natural season’s slightest change rewards the prey
Of both with perspicuous signs and insecurities but nonetheless
Concrete enough to cause a wonder in the every power; less
Than single clouds occlude the sun, the slightest hint of grey
Upon the main, both signal gain and loss. Clearly crowned,
They have no equal in selection’s schemes
Save Death, itself, yet each pays out in measured penalties. Extremes
In greatness and renown sustain but reasons, diadems and crowns
Subject to circumstance of cycles in the main—in means
A certain end—in cosmic tragedies beyond the need of seasons.

“I Found Someone”

“I Found Someone”

I found someone breathing as if to pray;
No prayer, of course, no sign, no moon, no stars, silence–
Balm to souls and solace in the crisis
Of questions–many hopes absurd, what they say
Gives animas to eternity and shields simple fear from the terror
Of these days. I would not ask outright, I had no words, then,
Took flight, tight in twilight when
From cancer and fallen branches–errors,
Really, to the whole–to innocence conjuring lasting alibis,
Superfluous sentinels never come to rest, fruits of thought pressed
With violence enough that wine is produced—inebriation of more from less,
Wrath, the test , really, of what some old man once said. Patient sighs
Among sparrows egg him on while sitting on a porch swing, wisdoms at once:
“Make peace with the Fathers,” said he, “prepare to flee the Sons.”

“I Turned Around”

I turned around and found that they were gone,
Swarms, the chorus of bovine hacks and seekers, friends,
And, yes, of course, the teachers with certificates in the trend–
I, but one of many minions–a catalogue, a myriad of martial songs
In sync, a jihad of rhythm and cadence in specific cacophony,
As comes the nightly roaring of the lions in the thickets of what
Is neither fact nor fiction;  wickets for just another cue, a cut
Above, or so it’s thought, but addressed in distraction and destiny
Of dispensations’ delivered duties bound to mortal schools and rules
That pass so aimlessly through the ancient sieve of marble verse
Garnished with proviso and caveat , the business of a thousand terse
And cryptic observations so confidently voiced by just as many fools.
And I woke up one spring day with leaving on my mind,
And more than reason to believe that someone must be lying.
Answers in the tealeaves, sheaves appear before the harvest
Is gathered; there within the dross, a saline silence in solution.
Questions, masked, bitters in the waters provide ablutions
To the touch; dissolved, a saviour to the rites of moot investment
In what must come when will is spent.
And what of proceeds, pensions, dubious transactions
Boxed and packaged in the cards, admiring factions
That succumb to givens in the deck? The rent
Is paid, the covenants are honoured, and here again,
The possibilities drown within themselves. When Vonnegut died
There came a deadly pause and then applause (denied
Of course, but heard) from every semi-colon on the plains
“Just so,” the concourse wails, “What now will you write?”
“What the ink,”‘s reply, “and which the nib,
… and who’s the audience tonight?”

“They Spiral Out of Control”

They spiral out of control from coffers spun from circuit spools;
Images of speed spin webs of egregious debt beyond the means
Of organic opulence in public nothings; obscenities gleam,
Gratuities scream for leverage and credit in psalmistries of fools
And idol vendors’ biases. They feed on repetitious runes
And civic machinations, seizures of domain and sovereignty alike, slide
Markets and the rule of law in rubrics rank in rows of 1′s and 0′s. Abide
Beyond the codex then and close the open yaw. Computer litanies in rooms
Are daily sabotaged by Trojans soaked in scripts that rake the silvered sliver
Signals on the mountain noting slightest change to encourage evanescence.
Prolixity is the key to programmes obsolete and in arrears in advance,
Entitlements among the fêted calves and levied bank accounts
and corporations that deliver
All night long at half the cost of virtual holocausts
and ritual endlessness in angst in single souls:
They’ll not abate this side of cancer,
nor speculate beyond what they’ve been sold.

“The Wager”

“The Wager”

The wager of the least are promises
Of the best. The monoliths of reason are quantity
And quality perceived, the indicative of possibilities
In either mode weighed in equity and thus apprised.
The logic of the thing promotes the certainty of hope–
The life blood of change–and nothing in this world escapes
The kinetic causal catalyst’s craft upward or downward. Scrape
The bottom and the top begins its messianic anthem; cope
With transformation and in the fray, a certain moderation
Comes to mind, a casual but determined glance at maps
From here to there and back again. The Sadrat?
The siren’s illusion that what it seems, it is: confusion
Of the senses breeds capitulation to the daily run:
If these precious seconds lie, so, too, the sun.