See Saw

Mary Ann was my very best friend.

I did not want anything to change.

But change, it would come

Knocking on the door of an idyllic

Childhood - if only in my mind.

I did not want to leave my home

Where the cats played and the dog

Followed me to school and the woods

Were my wonderland.

But leaving, it would come

Knocking on the door of an idyllic

Childhood - if only in my mind.

I longed for benefit and holding on

Forever to all the pretty places and all

The pretty faces.

But letting go, it would come

Knocking on the door of an idyllic

Dreaming - if only in my mind.

12/24/09

Christmas Past

It's time to sing to dance a snowflake -

fake or real. What's the deal?

I remember cutting paper snowflakes

for the classroom windows in the

white wooden schoolhouse I attended

as a child,

the smell of wet mittens around the hot

potbellied stove in the center of the

classroom near the entrance, where we

hung our coats and left our overshoes dripping

with the melting snow.

Swish, swish, swish

in our snowsuits we went walking to the desk

and chair.

Excitement in the air!

I brought my RCA Victrola and Christmas

45s to play for the party later in the day.

12/24/09

Considerations

Sometimes, just the way the light falls on a building,

there is enough world to encompass

all things.

There are embraces and there are embraces.

Light and shadow constitute design, division,

and structure too for

all things.

Sun shines through a window on a chair or

a wall; that's all.

It seems to be enough in

all things.

12/23/09

Stretches

Stretches of time where there is silence and not a whole

lot of activity. Quiet time. Quiet time. Intimidating

sometimes, this quiet time. It is unusual not to be

moving about and doing. Sitting still is frequently

unnerving, unsettling, confusing and confounding.

Boredom is a by-product of doing nothing at all, it

seems. Rushing about, looking busy, preoccupied

seems to be important and feeds what we know. Look

busy. Pretend if you have to. Stillness speaks. When

listening, stillness does speak. Long stretches of silent

time can create loneliness - or not. Stretches of silence.

Stretches of stillness. Coming home. Coming home.

12/23/09

Coming to Light

Transition to transpire

An evocation coming

Coming higher and

Yet higher

A song, a bird

A bird, a song

Who makes for splitting

Hairs?

Who cares?

A bird, a song

A steeple spire

A church across

The street and

Aiming higher

For all the tensions

Of earthly life

The strife

The lines outside

My window, his, actually,

Of human beings

Waiting for a meal.

4/2/2009

May 8, 2009 A Poem

You and Jung have something to teach me;

I'm not quite sure what that is.

Perhaps it has something to do with compassion.

We all have our demons

Or dark side or what-not. Yes,

That what-not is the thing we wish we did not have.

The shadow - dark and light;

The over bright day and dark, dark night.

I come here, sit in the chair and wait for

Something to come that I can talk with you about.

Sometimes it's right there on the tip of my tongue,

But sometimes I have to just leave be and

Notice the rug patterns at my feet

And talk about that until some pertinent piece

Comes up from who knows where? The unconscious? The

Stratosphere? The subtle kinetic field of the two of us sitting here?

There's more I want to say and I feel like I'm drifting now, but

Wait, yes. There's this. My fear of being abandoned, my fear

Of being dismissed, my fear of not being loved enough, my

Fear of betrayal and rebuff.

And you, you remind me all the time of the search for myself,

And that I alone have the answers to the calming of my fears

And the wiping of my tears. And I'm trying, trying so hard

To figure it all out, but sometimes now I feel it all becomes

Real when I sit still - not so much on the outside as on the

Inside. When I am still and come home to myself, the what-not

All falls into place and a smile, subtle, almost an embrace,

Warms my face.

And more…

The computer

Computating won’t

Free my heart

From incubating

Thoughts and ruminations

Making me a more or less

Executor to anyone

So less myself

Undone

A poet without poetry

A walker who can’t run

It has begun

The faucet is open

And now the water

Must run

That is how it is with

Poetry written by a

Lover of words

Not for their meaning

Only but for their sound

Completely

Poetry is for this writer

A bridge over troubled

Water

A Pillar Poem

Saturday, March 21, 2009

It drew me to itself

Like a room reserved

The song of surprise

In the spring of simply

Non-winter when the

Weather is cold and

Raw and undecided

In its efforts to allow

The sun a more prominent

Place. The bird, this

Morning bird whose

Ancestors have known

The time and no matter

The feel of spring; there

Is a subtler urgency

That moves beyond this

Human ability to know

Just where the demarcation

Line is --

Not air not flame not sea

Not ground

The lark has returned

And so too the robin’s song

There is nothing grander

No orchestra, no concert hall

Can remand, in this time, us to

Our prison cells of info-tainment

Where distribution of gems that

Court the ego’s restoration may

Calm the nerves of a higher order

Of tantilation. It will not happen

Now that we can be reached

On some soul level except

Maybe the lark and robin

Who hold on to a stronger

Claim of flame and sea and

Ground and air --

Yank my heart of all despair.