The Whole

A person in a steady place-
us all sometimes-

is averse to a story of faltering,

finding little in being slow
and dragging to the start

of a long, looming day.

Yet the whole faces each.

It can be forgotten
and drunk and slept on

only illusorily.

The whole cannot be digested.

It returns double force
at its leisure.

It may become necessary

to call your mother

and keenly listen

to find your step.

* * *

In time I will turn
the grind of my teeth-

the grind
of my organ blood
as though infiltrated with sand-

into a whetting wheel.
I seek to spark a fine steel

blade, then brandish it and slash
down the whole,
carving a monstrosity
into clutchable moments

to walk through
in normal breaths.

Whether it be tree-dressed
mountains I craved,

or the harmless relentless paved
way I'm unable to blame,

it must be broken down.
One enormous scene is too cruel.

Questions of loves
and places and years

become a tornado-
a storm unbravable.

Only by stopping
to form my whetting words

can I halt the train of whirling winds
that rattles my tongue

like an unfurling flag of chaos.

* * *

Each faces the whole
and knows it is of earth.

The all of nature within us
begins to sing.

We make sense
thru furious need-

and in the crash of worry-
at the scent of death-

we know a miracle.
Close then we stay


to the day path of humanity,
refilled and wise,

seizing the universe
by doing,

rinsing our miracle
in action,

hearing a soul beat loud
at every turn

and inviting what we know
to be unending.

The Manyself, Thirty

You see you are not twenty.

Some of the adult
concerns have
become yours.

They say 30 is young
for a poet. Is it young
for dreaming aloud?

If you’re five, 30 is wild
and ancient, capable of defeating
a dragon or dying any day.

If you’re 65?
30 is a bastion of youth
to well preciously.

The man just emerging
from the tumult and lust
of his twenties sees a world

of guitars
and cash registers singing
a life to obtain.

* * *
How much can a dream

Be a response
to being shaped? The shape
of a true response?

What of a man touching
the edge of dreams he’s made?
there was an old message:

Hold your dream.
No one spoke
of more than one;

that detail skirted because
having the dream- wanting-
is easy. But more follow,

the struggle stands tall
with age, wishes collide
as the heart stretches

to encompass each friend
of the soul, each living word
cast in silver,

to clutch every laugh and song
before it tastes of the past-
and the heart's torridity

fuels from wisdom
to be not oneself but
the Manyself.

Each sliver deserves its journey
and plan for sweet becoming,
just as the countless flowers

for autumn to embrace-
who go hurdling into October knowing
only their own beauty- shining still-

to drop dry and forgotten.
A child of three decades
knows far too much

to drop peacefully.

* * *

Thus settle it simply.

Walk along one path
which winds
to each love in turn,

on a crashing morning
cresting to sunrise,
eyes on a life

of joyous expansion.

I Nurture Wonder By Way of Regions

I think of Vermont
with her purple-green horizons,
her misting midnight falls
over tumbled granite smoothes,
her bearded workers trudging
to greet the trailbound youth;

And South Carolina
in all her beleaguered love,
her sands warm
under the paws of summer ocean,
her sun a fierce soul
calm then raging;

And Colorado my new kindred,
a rising respite
of aspen-through rambles
and hot spring caves,
rife with the Truth
found or missed
by its many seekers;

And old New York
that racing child of art and lust
still gentle somehow,
teaching with asphalt
and smoky rooftops
the freedom of solitude.

The Time I Turned Thirty In Love

During dinner,
somehow she finds me
in the sentences
I unwittingly italicize
amid paragraphs
of rambling speech.

". . . these great gardens, and wonderful old oak trees
surrounded by acres of woods . . ."

She puts her hazel
directly into my blue-green.
"Oh- you love land!"
she exclaims, knowing
my labor to
sustain love for a city.

I go again,
talking invisible fear,
crying out.

". . . it's something I'm working on, I don't want
to worry about that . . . "

She drapes a soft, tawny hand
over my thigh
and reminds me in her cool
womanly way:

". . . It's you and me baby, moving forward . . . "

Long Weekend

We began with jazz-
a wicked slapping bassman-
to ales and burgers
and cool mountain air.

The lovemaking began anew.

We rose for bacon and coffee
and lay again, gleefully unwilling
to allow a day- needing an endless
morning to fill our fallen days
and swell our hungry souls.

The lovemaking was a savior.

We danced alone and with friends,
twirling and squeezing
two nimble lovers, willing
to dress and foreshadow our moves,
sharpening our rhythms
to sway and roll in time.

The lovemaking was a dream.

We walked for breakfast,
moving together slow;
bicycled hurtling down bridges, past rivers,
learning histories, finding wonders,
perusing and sampling to
fill our open senses. That night
I sang to her the song
I wrote in honor of her.

The lovemaking was spontaneous joy.

We dined as finely
as could be, the drinks
were made exquisitely.
She was a duchess, I the suitor,
vying for a kiss- then another;
dishes arrived
as sweet and rich
as the duchess deserves.

Then lovemaking halted.

I skidded on a slick of insecurity,
felled by her aplomb and beauty;
I lay weak, intoxicated
by fear into self-torture.
Quickly she rescued me,
pushing away my darkness!
Love returned, redoubled
and continued in the greatest-
the strongest- the worthiest

lovemaking I have ever known.

At man : Atman

I am this lover
of a warm stream of rain on the rocks
beneath airy toes. The sprawling stones
of a mountain splattered
in lichen sing brilliant lime tales
of an underwater gala.

I am this climber
of midnight falls: a storm
distilled and roaring- an August lion
baring his gleaming peril-
a flashing swath thru the forest
where we became ninja frogmen- eager
night spelunkers cooled by moss and mud,
sleek in the gushing black.

I am this guide
of children who come reaching
into a world of forms and colors;
they speak about toys and angels
with the same eyes. They laugh
and we grow wise.

I am this brother
to glowing heroes- wild, old,
modern beyond time-
ever on top of time; our mountaintop moments
flesh out the words and pictures
for The Epic.

I am this dreamer.
Of Love. Wanting it
to unfurl from a striving woman
who is strong in my grasp
then stronger standing from it-
to leave me gasping, lunging
for more cosmos hiding
within her, bringing me to her;
I call out as I fall;
her eyes reflect a star
that shines my blues to luster.

Midnight On the Island

To wonder at the wondrous veil

of celestial arrangements
making their silence wash

into night wells of sea-lap

and wild cicada songs,

I stand still.

Stilled as though motion
has taken leave

of my weary legs,

shifting into placidity.

* * *

My mother’s nearby body, once
the house of my incipient soul,

is silent, reposed, to be reminded
with tomorrow’s sun my mystery

contains a man and boy,
intertwined for their ascent.

Worry of love
and slump of labor have ceased,

slipped to the sand and moonlight
on a limb of beach.

The moon is sleekly regal
in her wisp of clouds attending.

Night is enormous, ripe
for jeweled questions to rise

again, the whispers of eons to start
again in my blood


* * *

Doze nation and mother and toil.

I will stay a minute before the stars

to wear their small eternal light,

my bare feet pressing a pose
into the dampness,

cool in cedar shadows.

The raucous symphony of cicadas
is flaring and singing the ocean secrets!

I am lit with intent,

listening

to the falling of starlight
into the sea

like a crashing island opus.