Soul Poetry

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This is a poem I wrote when I had just started dating a most extraordinary woman.
 She is now my one and only eternal Love.  I was trying to capture the wonderful
turmoil a new journey with a special person brings.

The Poem came from poetry session entitled "Soul Poetry" and focused on
getting in to the being of poetry, the 'isness' of writing.

This poem came from an exercise which required you to finish
the singular opening line.

Here is my attempt at that exercise for the line "If would that my tongue could but utter ..."
(Deep Breath)

If would that my tongue could but utter
these feelings sent careening
over rocks silent and mute.

The knot of my heart expands
burning to be quenched
in the foam of your sea green eyes.

Waves rolling between us, my courage
is flotsam and jetsam, your smile
rushes to me, recedes, and rushes back.

I would kiss your silky shores trembling
briefly pause to wash myself in the
golden sands of your hair.

If would that my tongue could but utter
these desires adrift in huricane seas
you would guide me home.

(For Carol, who is and always will be my guiding light!)

Is It Dark In Here?

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"A metaphysician is a man who goes into a dark cellar at midnight without a light, looking for a black cat that is not there."
    - Lord Bowen

Just Before I Hit Restart

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I wanted to tell you so you wouldn't be alarmed when your world goes blue.

Anybody Remember Laughter?

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The age of the graffiti must be old.  But how do I know if it was my childhood sharing the memory or just a revivalist punk with no concept of who I am?

As I looked at the wall I remembered laughter and pain and friends long gone.

I realized I had become part of an old photo, a sepia colored print, a amusement park novelty.

It seemed to mean so much more to me back then ...

In a wood, lovely dark and deep

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(appolagies to Frost on slaughtering his words)

The wood is in Bretton Woods, NH

Saturday Zymurgist

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On a cold but sunny Saturday you may find the very pleasing organic smell of grains mashing, and hops soaking to wort boiled and bubbled, toiled no trouble, as we brew an

Interesting IPA

A Variation on the Hospital Pallor recipe on page 38 of the Victory Beer Recipes book.

My Head Snapped Back

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and I let out big yell; "You gotta be shitting me?"  The decibel level of the corporate cafeteria dimmed a bit but did not silence.  The din of assembly line catering services will not be stopped no matter what news is breaking over my cell phone.

My compadre Richie is going to be a Father!

At that moment I faced the everyday dilemma - how personal do you get over the phone in public?  I wanted to shout that no convicted felon should have children; this being completely false but said in that way guys somehow have to use to say "congratulations, I love you man!"  I wanted to regale him with exagerated recounts of our late night conquests both successful and mostly not.  I wanted to scream "Yeah man, you da man!"  The muffle of proprietery company policy settled over me instead.

It has been a few days since that call and Richard and I have broken bread, several in the form of India Pale Ales, and downed the mystical mini chicken and its wings (how they farm these micro chick for bars to server is a blog for another time) and hi-fived each other till our hands were sore.

Congratulations, mon ami, you are going to be a father.

Through the Back Door and Straight In To My Head

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If you don't know it my Mom gets to me and sometimes I don't realize just how much.I got off of the phone with her where we went through  the usual suspects: in too much snow, too depressed / manic, a bad relationship with my Dad.  Hang up and what do I spot, a bill to pay.  Duty calls, I must have water, and hence I proceeded to write a check the the town Water Utility.I wrote the check for an amount greater than I owe!!!I must have been looking at another check and just gone into unconscious parrot mode.Geesh.Now the envelope is sealed, the stamp affixed, and I'm not going to muss with it, too damn bad.

I never realized she gave me the aural frontal lobotomy

Missing

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How do you miss someone?  I don't mean the obvious up front "not there" missing but the other kind.   Missing is the noticing of a void, an emptiness, a not there to the all is-ness of the world around us.  But true missing is more than that.  Just missing someone, noticing they are not here, now, is on par with experiencing time as a dog does.  To a dog you are not there, then you are!  The interval between is irrelevant, the bliss of animals; there is only now (and I am so exited I could just wag my tail!) 

But what about you?

Why do you differ in my existence?  Why does your "not here" mean more?  Physically we are often separate and occasionally separate over extended periods of time.  But why does today feel like a kidney is missing?  Why can't I breathe fully?  I am driven to distraction and the 'not' of you is made real in my suffering.

Maybe the real missing is an experience of oneness; it comes from re-member-ing.  I am trying to say it follows from having and being so close to you that we are part of the one-ness; the is-ness.  I miss you like an amputee misses his long lost limb; I know you are there, have always been, why in God's name can't I grasp it!!! «I make an empty handed gesture at gabbing the glass»

And just when futility descends on my shoulders and I can't seem to see any farther, snow blind in a blizzard of you, I realize that there is no missing between us.  We are whole and real and the Yin is with the Yang; there is no division of one.

It is not that I miss you.  It is I am part of you, you a part of me, we are part of the one, a whole separate part in the one that has no parts.

This week you are away and in pain.  You are going through the turmoil of emotion, the roller coaster ride of grief, and like seeing a picture of a rose through your eyes I smell the fragrance so sweet, so bitter sweet.

There is sympathy and there is empathy.  But what do you call it that we have?  I can never give you sympathy, I feel you too much, I bleed when you are cut.

I don't miss you, my love, I cannot. 

I only want my body to feel with its nerve endings and primitive mind the light of your soul made real in the person before me.

Subtle ebbing,
tide and time.
Pulling, clutching,
gently licking
between fingers
held laughing,
running out,
life's line.

Called Forth

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In the realm of just too coincidental to be fiction; I have had some tragic news.  My girlfriend, my love, had her younger sister die of congestive heart failure due to complications from pneumonia.  My remarks around death and non-death posting three days before her passing is leading me down all sorts of avenues, some spiritual and some just plain freaky.  Do we call forth the reality we want in our world?  Do we see or somehow feel future events coming?

My heart goes out to her family!  They are leaving today to travel across the country to put to rest a sister, a daughter and a friend.  They will have to clean out, sell and give away all the flotsam and jetsam of her life; all that washed up on her shores will be ... gone.  The memories of past times are bitter salve on todays tears; sobbing and wretching we convulse at the loss of her soul and its potential.