I’m cheating on Society. With Sunday dreams and honeybees Bossa nova clouds, wide Catalpa leaves Willow branches swinging low, They’re singing songs of love, Just for me.
“My eyes are hungry. Starved for magenta, desperate for a morsel of ochre. a cup of crimson, a bowl of azul...”
— from Sin Sabor
“Tonight the moon will fill up the sky. All day long she spills me her secrets in foreplay. Silver slipper syllables drop into poems, seducing the sky and you and I...”
— from Catch and Release: A Full Moon Prayer
POEMS FOR YOU
LOVE LANTERNS
So delicate we all are
These great big soul-lights in paper thin bodies
Little lanterns of love
Burning ourselves out
Getting knocked over by the wind
Soaked in the rain
Staying lit as long we can
Arising with that great ah! of the heart
The catch in the breath
From somewhere beyond
Magic is shining out of unexpected places
Grumpy faces
Rippling ducks
Worm-fed robins
Rosemary branches dusted with liminal blue buds
Not sure yet if it is comic or tragic
These storied lives we lead
That is the real joke, so they say
Believing we started our own flame
Chose our colors
Could do it better
Than this magic light show
This festival of dreams
This tender glow
We call life.
MYTH AND SHADE
I’m cheating on Society.
With Sunday dreams and honeybees
Bossa nova clouds, wide Catalpa leaves
Willow branches swinging low
They’re singing songs of love,
Just for me.
Dahlias, poppies, Queen Anne’s Lace,
Oh how sweetly we embrace
While over the mountains the sea surges deep
Anticipating the eve of my return.
Apple orgies intoxicate
Their boozy breeze obliterates
My clinging to what once was true
Dissolving ill-wed contracts
Into the unswept blue.
Here.
Here is where I shall remain
With my new lovers, Myth and Shade
Eyes awake to a world re-made
A world in need of nothing
Fully ready
For full-bodied surrender
For soul-filled celebration
Of leaf and bud and feather
This one precious life that leads forever
Oh my dear mistresses,
I will follow your dare
Any-every-where.
THE WAY WE LOVE (click to listen!)
Infinity’s pastries we are
Buttery layered lovers of God
Some crunchy, some bittersweet
All of us nutty in our embrace
The Divine’s sweet tooth propels us Towards
Imploring: Bite in!
Use both hands!
Lick your plate.
Now is no time to diet
Nor for reducing the fat in your secret-recipes
Love large!
Love as only You can.
Drench yourself in honey
Roll around in the violets
Scoop yourself up with a sugar-coated spoon
And serve.
We are all hungry for the taste only you can give.
Please! Do not worry about the crumbs you might leave
In your lover’s beard
Or if your batter is free of lumps.
There is no time to waste!
There is no right way to kiss
All lips open the Beloved’s door.
“This is how I love” whispers your tongue
So why not open wide and belt it out?
The trees are already humming along
Shamelessly draping their embrace
Over the earth for all these years
And what do you think those insects buzz on about?
Stirred as they are by the sun’s sweaty song
Or the waxy gardenias
Luxuriating in their own luscious scent
Listen: This is the way I love.
This is the way,
Love.
WINTER BREAKS
Winter breaks
And my heart too
Soft and tender shoots
Bursting, thirsting towards the shining
And even the snow delights in the melting
Of this meeting
While inside
The mountains sigh
As their winter coat is lifted
And their silent song is carried
By the birds once more
The river smooths her gown
For the heron’s landing
And we are all folded in
The silence of her silvery charms
Content in our yearning
Easy to be
Gathering mossy poems
To nest in quiet branches
Gentle and safe
Like the arms of a sweet-lipped lover
Spring calls.
A NEW APPROACH
Some people pull on it gently
This rope to heaven
Others hoist themselves right up
Neverminding the burning
These days I just stare at it
And hope to start a fire that way.
Remaining earthbound here
I think I need a new approach.
FIGHTING LIONS WITH FEATHERS
How to Keep It All Together in “Times Like These”
The only way I know is to not.
Rather, to let it all go. Let the heart break over and over
To reveal that it can never truly be broken.
Let the soul fall down, dig deep
To unearth the shards of fear, of shame, of doubt, of fury
And then invite the world wholly in
Invite the world to melt in
To finally and holy dissolve in
To the sweet amber core of our heart’s treasure
Where we are all one.
Hold me gentle, hold me close, won’t you?
HAIKUS FOR JANUARY
Ice breaks off branches
My beautiful boy vomits
Work remains undone
Icy bamboo bows
Smoke caresses frozen sky
The cat’s paw twitches
One narcissus blooms
Searching stacks for Taj Mahal
Keeping hope alive
Silky dresses hide
Snowy tracks hint of robins
Wool socks must be found
Wind cracks icy leaves
Sea turtles somewhere swim free
The liquor store, closed
THIS BLOSSOMING YES
So I’ll throw open the windows
To dream of you.
Nothing to hide.
No way to inside,
This bursting, this twinkling, this knowing
All April new, yet older than the truths in my head
Those webs spun of possibilities
To assure me, as I lean on a shimmer, that I won’t fall forever
And now I think becomes I know and I see how I never knew before
Because it is not about clarity of sight or checking of lists
It is about this blossoming yes,
That vines in and out of doors and tumbles down walls
That fills the air with its everlasting lushness
Paying no mind to words or fences
Kissing the dirt with its petals
And lusting after the rain.