Feasting on the 1
Three lions, one tiger.
The body politic prostrate before them,
they are compelled by nature
to tear into it, rip it apart
flesh and blood flying,
to sate themselves because they are male.
The lions start at the head,
the tiger goes right for the guts.
The lions tear toward the left.
The tiger rips toward the right.
They rent the air with their roars.
Soon it becomes lions vs. tiger,
tiger's outnumbered but holds his ground.
"You have no brains" roared the lions.
"You have no guts" replied the tiger.
It seemed, for a moment, they
might turn and feed on each other. Fangs bared,
they were in danger of forgetting
that the carcas lay there
free for everyone's chewing upon.
No need for tooth and claw to wound
tiger's bold strips, lions' golden mane.
Three lions, one tiger.
Feasting their fill.
Walking away full friends.
3/5/03
Watering
Appreciation feels like tears.
Tears feel like life.
Life holds its breath.
Breath held in waiting
waiting for the future
future death, future war.
War outside war inside
inside confused with out.
Out with meaningless distinctions.
Distinctions hung with weight,
weight presses us down
down into archaic feeling
feeling change must come
come because life cries
cries out for tears.
Tears feel like life.
Life flourishes on appreciation.
2/19/03
The Men's Group
A man of uncertain age,
he could be confused
with any man,
squats old-style
on a stone of unknown
origin selected carefully
at random as a perch
to watch with a patience
that grows into laziness
and then into hard habit,
the rock that blocks
the entrance to a cave
that entraps, he imagines,
his integrity and swords.
The rock, like so many
women in circular process,
like the millstone of IRS
debt ignored for years,
like the flutter of the butterfly
in China, stands between the man
and his dreamed of power and
peace.
Perhaps the man can meditate
and move the rock with his mind.
Perhaps with muscle and time.
Perhaps with patience. But
never ever alone.
Roll away the rock and release
integrity to fill the man with courage
and energy for work and family.
Energy for work with families.
Energy for mentoring, if it is right.
The swords are left where they lie
as if laid down in Jerusalem,
as when the Lion dreams with the lamb.
2/5/03
Always Keep Moving
"Truth" is an honest word and pleasant
to say as she roles around the mouth
and slides out through tounge and teeth.
Easy to say, you say, but harder
then ever to find, fractious and muddled
as it has become.
Even easier to speak is the word
"Joy". Only three letters exercising
gently the lips.
Even harder to find then truth.
Embedded asleep somewhere in
in the unsung song, in the empty bed.
Perhaps once you've found them
they're already gone in fact, but not
in the hopechest of feelings.
A remnant remains, a small flame
that warms and lights and cooks
the yearning and searching of living.
They hold through fallow, resistant
and wasted time. They patiently wait
for the mourning to end
and only long walks
and grace, only sweaty runs or fucking
will bring back the truth of joy or
the joy of truth, simple as a
soft sometimes cat, to curl at last
in the heart, to roll again
through your lips.
1/22/03
A View From the Creshe
Every year they pull me from my field and put me here.
Every year, the same orders. "Lie down in that straw,
be quiet, except for some gentle lowing. Remember,
you're not the star here, he is." the boss said pointing
to a baby lying in a feeding trough.
You see, I am, by nature, an ox and by profession
a beast of burden. All year I work my ass off (just
kidding, Ass is a friend of mine) from sun up to dark,
rain or shine pulling plows and breeding.
Then, all of a sudden, I am just lying around with nothing
to do but twich my ears, swat flies with my tale and
be a pastoral background for some annual religious tableau.
This break in the action of my routine allows me one thing,
however. I finally have time to reflect on my life, to hear
what my body is saying as it ages with aches and pains,
to ruminate on my failings, to feel gratitude and to
consider my future.
I would like to cut back on my work.he
I would like to have a life with less drama
and be not afraid of breaking commitments.
The kids are nearly grown and out of the house
almost. My wife and I are now left to look
each other in the eye.
I worry about having enough to eat in my golden years.
I worry about my health holding up.
Life is good.
Before I know it, they're breaking down the stable scene
and taking me back to my burdensome furrows. I can't stop
thinking I've been hanging around humans too much.
I keep wondering about that baby and what his life will be like.
Are we all beasts of burden
or breeders?
1/08/03
Unseen
You know the party's over
when the face paint comes off,
when the hot tub is naked no longer,
when the goats come in
and start nosing, nibbling
tablecloths and tin cans
much as the wind, gentle,
relentless, unseen uncovers
the truth of the matter
When even men and dead horses
genuflect before her
omnipresence --
there is no stopping
her.
She is the patience
and the unyielding command
to grow here, to shrink there
and thus
to change
much as the pages turned
reduce the book on one side
only to grow imperceptibly
on the other
a walk through the woods
and on the beach
ends with subtle increase
and a form frees itself
fully formed, but waiting
for the smoothing, slowly
so slowly, of the sculptor's
fiercely tolerant hands.
12-11-02
Rite On
It is a rite for boys and men
done in solitary and in shame,
choreographed by God.
(The Church prefers the pavane
of Onanism's
sinful spilling of the seed.)
Known by secret names,
bringing full-on imagination,
homo, hetero, bi,
arousing each member
to reach a climax,
to shoot the moon.
Your mother shouts through the locked door,
"What are you doing in there?"
"What's taking so long?"
"Why is your door locked?"
No matter how old
you always hears her voice,
feel the cold fear and wonder
has she heard the rustle of pages,
muffled video moans,
the whack whack whack
of the kit kat shuffle,
the five knuckle shuffle,
the rhythms of banging one out,
the animal sounds
of choking the chicken,
flogging the dog,
spanking the monkey?
This private pleasure has nothing
to do with the love
that lies in the bed with pain
that stands the ultimate test...
or does it?
This secret deed has nothing
to do with observations in journals,
what man talk about together...
or does it?
We dudes all do the dance one way
or another. Suddenly one man
courageously opens the locked door,
catching us all with our pants
down, the closeted worship outed
of the lingham, the Herm,
the tree of life growing
from the soil of soul
to the branches of Love,
proof of creative energy,
of relation to all.
Come now. What's all that
mean?
"Better a few years of masturbation than a lifetime of therapy."
11/13/02
Recollections
Then there was the night
that the men
the travelers
the companeros
gathered in a circle at
the place
the community
the circle
dipped their fingers
washed their eyes
went inside
went back
went into
memories, reminiscences, recollections
of baseball
on the radio
at school
at the park
wires hanging from ears
connections to salvation
distraction maybe from
dividing the day into threes
losses of
the hopes
the plans
the dreams
then giving up the narcotic
painkiller of memory
of baseball
of firefall's
of all things passed
to the truth of today
made bearable
faceable by
the men
the travelers
the companeros.
10/30/02
Dreams
Hey, freight train!
Are you the one
the one that roared
past my window last night
and messed up by dreams?
You had me so turned around
I heard you say "Da da da room"
and I thought is that the right sound
for a train?
I didn't even know
train tracks ran by my window!
(I haven't looked outside for years.)
I was alarmed to hear
four bells...
causing me to leap up
and release my bladder
into my coffee cup and on to
my cerial and into my car
as I headed out
for another day of
robust science.
No, you sounded more like
Ka Boom!, the irresistible
unstoppable force.
Can you be brought to a
stop
like the unflappable man
crumbled by death
like rushing into a house
that is cold, soundless and dark
the cat not fed
the wife turned away
like a hip that is not
replaced for time or money?
Look out the window at the
din of daybreak
cicadas awakening from their
sleep of many nights
of many years.
Dreaming again: I'm at a
Giants game with a friend.
He wipes my nose and feeds
me garlic fries. I think the crowd
is chanting Morris sucks. I laugh.
I tell this to my therapist and
he says something about opportunities
for love between men.
I remember a baseball poem
something about a pitcher and
making the batter understand too late.
and: "The others throw to be comprehended. He
throws to be a moment misunderstood."
A funny thought: train tracks
laid down over years of thoughtless habit
are not
my destiny,
my
life course.
I could paraphrase Kabir:
Knowing nothing keeps the freight train rushing; the new love halts
it.
The sound of airbrakes wakes the beautiful woman
asleep.
Kabir says: Fantastic! Don't let a chance like this goal by!
10/16/02
Understanding Father
I was 34 when my father died
a huge oak torn
from a small field
like the destination torn
from a corner of the map.
I was in a distant place wandering
at that time.
It took a while for the details
to reach me then
to touch me
like the lightest of stones
tumbling into the depths.
He sank suddenly without
friends around.
He told me once "it's good to to have a friend
on whom you can rely
a friend who gives you reason
to live on
and not to die."
I missed seeing my father
as a strong man.
He took comfort in old grooves:
"It aint good to sleep in,
leave dishes in the sink, clutter in the house
watch sunsets with the dogs,
build a temporary fountain just for fun.
I said, "God Dad
just do it. It's OK.
He seemed stuck in the past
his leg pressing my sister's
on a street car in Seattle
secure in the solitude
of dence wet lodgepoles.
He didn't believe that a he could feel
so close to her.
He had given up the bottle years before
yet he told me he got drunk
on a reunion of love feelings
for a high school sweetheart
as he remarried my mother that night.
When she died of cancer in ' 83
I thought he'd follow her soon.
Still grieving, he left searching
for a girl to replace
his bride
his hopes, his anger, his failures
pathetic if they weren't so lovely.
Last night I was sure I saw him
rootless and lost by my bed.
The mirror of his old dresser
told the truth
that my father's son
that sonofabitch
was me.
I cried out to him and the world
and the life to come were no longer at a distance.
And we were as close as life is to death
tossed together by a tidal wave
renting the veil from top to bottom
I understood my father as myself
my breath, his heartbeat.
We never expressed our love for each other
enough -- perhaps it was not necessary.
In the morning with that love, with your strong arms
I will replant the oak
and restore our destination
sharing the journey as
you continue your fathering in me.
10/02/02
Remember Loving
This body
the very buddha
codes lessons unlearned
revealing footholds in the twilight
desperate to make the top safe before dark.
My partner underneath
lulled by daily defaults
as if in day long nap connected,
falling, falling together
my left thigh on your legs
the startled gentle tumbling
here and not there of our twining
like ropes, for the love of dear life
remembering Whitman's words
to love, despise, devote, have patience
reexamine all you have been told
dismissing what insults the soul
Blind ears, turned off minds?
No, landing below not on top
the flesh of our love shall become
a great poem.
9/18/02
Rules
What is this strange ground
you lured me into?
Where rules, boundaries,
parameters are written anew
each day.
Rule 1: Perch on a 36' pole.
Rule 2: Look for a place to stand.
Rule 3: Find the connection between people.
Those are the only true meanings,
the only true rules.
Yet the rules don't hold
when I fall ripe and heavy
onto hallowed ground
my mouth open wide
releasing a howl from hell
setting free the Bluebird of happiness
to delude me yet again.
04/03/02
The Fruits of Living
"I can feel his hot breath
on my neck as I reach
for my gun under the
pillow..."
What is this strange fruit
produced from seeds not yet sewn
in a garden growing smaller
quieter to death?
Fruits that fill us with
terrible delight...erotic or comic...
Are those the produce of our energy
put out in the world only
coming back?
03/20/02
Running
Across convolutions of time
our wizened old one with arthritic hands
rubbed two sticks together creating smoke
awakening the giant who
covers the limitless dome
who paints images fantastic
and improbable
more true than life as we know it.
Modern instinct tells us to run.
Though our lungs scream stop
distance demands yet another mile.
It breaks my heart and makes me cry
to see you fall away
piece by peace.
As you diminish I only love you more.
What is the truth?
I must turn away from
imaginary judgments of others
stop -- behold the vapors as long as they last
until the giant becomes a mouse
And the truth is: I did it.
2/20/02
Wishing for Family
And that wish
skulking in the shadows
disconnected from its mother
leaving too many pictures unpainted.
How will you know if its perceptions
of the world and its people are true?
If only anger and resentment
would fall away
it would break my heart
but then I could watch
rainfall washing away dirt
revealing and releasing
an encircled family of stones.
1/23/02
