Sometimes

Sometimes,
it is the the greatest joy to be included,
appreciated,
and celebrated by a throng
bonded by shared ideals,
who immerse you
in their mass joy of identity.

And sometimes,
it is the bitterest of disappointments
to realize nobody has any interest
in who you are,
what you think,
and what you say,
that you are simply disappeared
from all human fellowship.

And then sometimes,
it can be the most amazing revelation
to find that what seemed like a solitary confinement
within socially unanimous rejection
was actually the purest freedom anyone had ever known,
the most profound experience of affirmation
the universe could ever bestow on an individual.

13 October 2016

I Am Not Here

Poetry is the first hideout of a romantic,
and the last refuge of a socialist.
In between
is a lifetime of discovery and disillusion.
Plus ça change, plus c’est la même chose.
The Sunday afternoon sunlight
of a San Francisco Bay Indian Summer
illuminating the honeyed ruby sweetness
of a glass of port
in a near-empty bistro relaxing
with honeyed saxophone sounds
is the dynamic stillpoint of the All,
consciousness of which is entirely mine
in all of humanity.

With each passing day
I am increasingly cloud-hidden
on the upper slopes of the unseen mountain
at the threshold of the Western Desert.
The berries up here are sweet,
ripened with age,
except for the bitter young ones,
plump and green.
I am eye-to-eye with eternity
even as I am of vanishing consequence.
On descent into the daylight below the mists,
into the hurly-burly of the human ferment,
I am enveloped by a protective invisibility
because ignorance is fragile,
and like the first sprouts of a seedling
needs protective shade against the withering sun.

Soon enough the port is drunk,
dusk has passed,
and in the foggy night chill
I set off once again up the mountain
to catch the dawn rays above the mists,
in solitude,
cloud-hidden, whereabouts unknown.

9 October 2016

Civics 911

The election is a class war against the terror of democracy.
The people are the enemy of the state,
and corporate power is the state.
Hillary is the Joan-of-Arc of American parasites
(and foreign ones).
Trump is America’s response to being force-fed Hillary.
The American people are:
redundant labor,
a low-yield investment,
an inadequate market,
an impediment to economic efficiency.
It is true at least half of them are deplorable basket cases
of ignorance and bigotry,
while much of the other half are deplorable basket cases
of smugly hypocritical dishonesty and selfishness.
But, there it is,
the Janus faces of the American union.
The democratic socialist dreamers can fantasize
about truth and justice being the American way,
but there’s no money in that
so too few believe in it.
No, ours is an empire of stale bread crumbs
and grotesquely hokey circuses,
and every poor barely-working stiff is
monkey-in-the-middle
as well as a jeering lout in the encircling rabble,
shrieking in a delighted rage,
thumbing down on others
in a delusion of self-importance no one else ever notices.
Kill ‘em! Whoever they are.
Hail Caesar! Whoever you are.
You can’t make a silk purse out of a sow’s ear.

14 September 2016

Karma Is Good For Everyone

“Character is fate,”
we are as we do:
juggling karma: a comic gambler
dance with karma: an artist at living
wrestle with karma: an ordinary worker
fight with karma: an ignorant schemer
seduce karma: a clever schemer
abuse karma: a parasite
pimp karma: a heartless criminal
betray karma: amorally lucky
submit to karma: a broken spirit
love and hate karma: childishly immature
ignore karma: a proud fool
escape karma: a delusional mediocrity
embrace karma: an adventurer
transcend karma: hibernation of a recluse mind
contemplate karma: a poet.

8 September 2016

Survivor’s Luck

When I was a baby I had my mama,
and she was sweet and loves me still.
When I was a boy I had my toys
and I played with them till all were gone.
When I was a lad I had my dreams
of sleek cars and voluptuous girls.
When I was a young man
I worked to make the lad’s dreams real,
and though the cars were pudgy
and the women complicated,
moments of dreaming did become true.
When I was a working man I had pride in success
and fulfillment in shouldering society.
When I was a thinking man I knew
my only real successes were those nobody saw,
and that society is a boneyard of illusions
and an anthill of acquisition.
When I was a redundant man
I had irrelevant wisdom
and near perfect invisibility,
and, boy, was I ever stupid!
I was filled with memories
and occupied nearly none.
When they told me I was an old man:
I still felt like a working man
who wanted to save the world;
I still felt like a lad
who could delight in adventure and romance,
though now such dreams are only nostalgia
instead of heated anticipation;
I still felt like a boy
who wanted to play with intriguing toys;
And I have the luck of a baby
whose sweet mother loves him still.

30 August 2016

Love at Dawn

I still can feel your dawn-window eyes
as I walk through this night,
and I still can smell your long, dark hair
softly catching the light.
The sweet taste of your tender lips
I still can savor with care,
and the warming voice of your soft, soft skin
still glides upon my face.
I still can feel your dawn-window eyes
as I walk through this night,
this night though but a wisp of the past
is an eternal delight.

7 October 1969

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Letter to a Forgotten Lover

Friday afternoon.
Sunlight filters through still air,
October leaves glow with Indian Summer.
Walls muffle voices in adjoining rooms,
the relentless, ocean-like pounding of distant freeways
and the ebbing wail of sky-high turbojets.
In my room – still air.
Connected by the open window
to the last full-bodied outdoor caress of the season,
I float far off
on the subtle airs of the dream of memory.
Remember?
That last weekday afternoon of preselected obligation,
those last few hours of conscious productivity
before slipping into the dream surpassing all dreaming –
a weekend celebration of being with you.
I can still smell the crisp, moisture-laden air
in the oak and maple groves, and wild lawns
along hypnotic Bring More Brook,
that fluid rippling babble of melted sparkle.
How we loved to swim in each others eyes,
to soar through each others hearts
on peaceful October summer days,
sipping wine and kisses by the brook.
We would run and frolic,
laugh and horse,
and spill through the meadow like a rolling stream.
Yes, and we would walk quietly through the wood,
our brimming love enfolding that endless moment.
It was only a scant lifetime of hours ago
that we had sailed through the razzle-dazzle high-jinx
of an artful Friday night.
We had seen,
we had eaten,
we had been
and we had known – together,
how many things?

Wine and cider,
smokes and film,
sidewalks and city lights,
music and motion,
talk of poems and poems of touch,
glistening eyes suspending breathless starlight.
Wake up, wake up, I want another kiss.
The dream has broken, I want another kiss.
Long palms stroke your smooth sleeping warmth.
Wake up the feeling that glides through my hands.
I want another kiss, another kiss.
I want to cover you with love.
I want to soak in that abyss.
Wake up and blend into the dream.
Wake open, mouth, and draw me in,
another kiss, another kiss.
Endless, endless, endless – where has it all gone?
It was so easy to flood with emotion
and forget all but feeling the real.
The imprint of that moment
leaves a trace, sharper today,
than these garish superficial
grown-up gainful days.
Dream in defiance or dream in regret,
dream on the loving – forget all the rest.
Dream on her sunlight, her moisture and breath,
dream on regardless, as lovers forget.
Dream on the wind streaming the leaves,
dream on your living, endless and free.
Dream on.

9 October 1983

Day Comes

I am first impressions
fossilized in the minds of strangers called friends.
I walk out in the quiet morning light
and draw a line in the sand.
I breathe in four atoms of Archimedes
as horizons vanish like dewdrops in the sun.

Birdsong.
Spider silk glints against distant forest shadows.
Cool air floats into thoughtless light.
The illusions are still asleep.

28 July 2016

An Island In The Stream

I remember when I was young
and full of testosterone,
ravishing my lovers
with passionate poems.
“I will love you forever”
they all said,
and I meant every word,
even now.
But all those forevers
curled and branched and eddied off
like whorls in clouds
drifting beyond sight,
and swirls in streams
cascading down a tumble of time’s boulders,
out of many nows
into the unknowable void of other futures.
And here we are, we two,
like shipwrecked survivors
tossed up from love’s pitiless ocean
onto an island of companionship,
and peace.
And, what kind of peace?
Tolerance with humor
for the intransigent imperfections
we each insist on maintaining.
And what kind of love?
Gratitude for the acceptance we receive,
for I think we each know
how impossible it would be for any other
to appreciate the genius of each of us.
And now, as we get older,
we’re dead set on getting worse,
from everyone else’s point of view.
So,
I guess we’ll be clinking glasses of champagne
together
in our own private party
as we tumble along in the stream
carrying us through this lost world.
What I am finally learning
is to stop trying to explain anything:
the ignorant are uncomprehending,
the stupid are omniscient,
my memory is long and my time is short.
That someone understands something of another
without so many words
is a gift.
It frees one from the dreary confinement
of social acceptance,
from hypocritical politeness,
from all of them.
We are outside the mainstream,
beyond the pale,
increasingly forgotten castaways,
but together.
And that’s nice.

21 June 2016