“In the Meantime”

And, in the meantime, what?
If the requirement is the sun
And in the hour, none;
If patience swells but in the rutting cuts
No clearance, no escape from paths
To howling destinations; if the moon
Must hide behind the earth, the cry of loons
Is heard no more for lack
Of seasons in the ether;
If the house depends on creosote,
And vessels pine for tides; the coat,
The autumn’s lack of warmth and wintry blasts recuse nor
Will they join demand to orderly confusion, what then?
The egg exacerbates the vigil not within the cock but in the hen.

…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.

“A Summer’s Aimless Thought” or “Don’t Ask Why I Wrote This!”

And so the lesser heat descends upon us once,
But, come again?…and now the skin is damp
For no good reason, nothing more than clams
Must feel through all their night’s eternity, abandoned
In watermarked enclosure, rarely asking where
Their homes are logged–no! nor even more from life
Than what is strained for food. If found, the knife
Will end it all. From accidental currents traffic cares,
From aimless waves and tides and what seals may accrue,
Seadogs innocently involved and driven by their own
Insensitivity to feelings and not so much in interest as they comb
The seabeds looking for what mindless kelp must do–
For supper–Yes! We dine tonight: the sacrifice of clams and oysters,
And budget-minded shrimp, and the choir?–crabs conveniently cloistered.

“The Recipe”

The recipe for change is simple: depth of thought
Weathered by the tethering fires of wizened time. By depth
Is meant profundity, the very weight of steps
Experienced wholly without cessation before the juggernaut
Or that sweet transformation as unction freely caught
As thoughts of separation from necessity, and in the run
Of things, events and visions–all that comes
Within the fragrance of justice. Objectives sought
Will in their natural way become the irrepressible root,
The seed made manifest in shoots and further outgrowth of the thing
Until it simply wants to be. Expect and measure nothing in the spring
But in its summer seeing argument and premise rendered moot
Before the gravitas of what has lasted after all and what has grown
From doubt to certainty, what conviction must produce if wisely sown.

“Nod to Season’s End”

Nod to season’s end and something’s changed, but he has
Fond remembrance in his veins and what remains of velvet skin,
Elastic reach, and exultation ever on the rebound; that once mighty fin
Bent perhaps to one side or the other with the tides. He’s come in last
Again, and there’s no more north to his days; his dorsal sags–
One of many signals. What was wont to win against the odds
In all winds, all waves always gives sway to simple treasures. The pods
Have someday left him, or is he merely leaving? Here he lags
And finds his pleasures in arenas, nearby bays, or just beyond the nets
Where all the lessers still pay for what they find; his presence draws
But cannot make a living. There comes that sundry sudden pause
Too many, and he’s trapped within an unforgiving inlet,
Or soon will be. He’ll not heed the signs, he cannot feel the warming;
Friends and family call to him but he can not hear the warning.

“She Appeases”

She appeases, others simply please
Themselves with platitudes, refined. Reeds
Produce a tone, but, lacking song, exceed
Themselves with piping. She treasures seeds
Produced but placed in barren soil
That comes to nothing. Patience finds
Reflective fields that take the sun, define
A reticence in clouds and makes them boil
To shed redeeming rain from discards
Of the winds, and melodrama in the shadows. She cares
For these her tender ones. Her signs she shares,
Her fruits, her flowers in the fragrances of winter’s snows: far
From smothering her gifts, she lifts them up and leaves them free
As imperfections, promises, and indecision, the rites of insecurity.

“The Aim Perhaps Is Subtle”

The aim perhaps is subtle but definite; stillness ranks
With movement in the meme, the which,
Veering then, requires another detour to skip a stitch,
To drop a construct, to choose a periodic thread, and thanks
To disarray and latent platitudes in praise of change,
The pattern lifts but pixels from the norm.
In the riot of the autumn’s recent rites no natural lights delight the worm.
Winter underwrites his monikers as souls inhale the breadth and range
Of what it means to be and then to cease to be.
Noted, then. Stamped, enshrined
Within the season’s sudden enterprise, his damp surprise seduces eyes
Beyond the overture, the other side of icy particles in cloudless skies
Above the object and goal of vision and all the mind attempts to realise.
Whether creatures of the night or day, the need is always there
To see the next refined redundancy in the recipe, a codicil of beauty in the air.
My own presence is the Ôm in me and not the audience to what I am;
Not I, but all mankind stakes the claim.  Prophets have declared the same
When once the cup of endless Holy Names is drained
Because He loves what He has made and writes it freely in the sand.
That I am not what I seem proves meaningless within a vain
But easy afterthought that vanity within is altered in the end
By every creature known to me. I am blown by every wind
And feel the breath of everyone I’ve known. I mirror that without that aims,
That feels, that sees, that barely hears the cacophony withal.
Syllables of thought from random scenes and primitive perceptions
Bond evenly in every waking dream, and memories, keen receptions
Held together by the same cement are cosmic answers to all such calls
From without myself. And I am here with you, fractured, present all the same,
And if you truly know who He is and always was and ever will be,
at once you know who I am and that I will remain.

“The Weathered Branch”

The weathered branch in winter’s weariness
Knows whereof it yearns, and so its certitude and hope;
The blossom finds no time to contemplate, its cope
And mitre, all its careless beauty reigns in consciousness
That time and the occasion are not long
Its beginning is its end, all its cries are burdens
In the grip of midnight’s once and only vice
And heard no more. What sadness in its song
While strength in twigs and heavy motherlode
Abides in faith despite its wretched state,
A one in many who will live when storms abate
Produce a greater majesty despite the deadly cold:
Which melody is to be heard, outrageous anthems moot
Within but hours or living centuries made manifest in the root?