Several Friends Stopped By...

Several Friends stopped by in my dark hour. There I was…in the hole:
Apathy – looks down into the hole, with those big blue eyes to ensure me everything would be just fine…, she shrugs, and she wanders off.
Sympathy arrives – peers over the edge, eyes red and puffy – and issues quivering words of lament…sniffles and withdraws - he’s gone
Charity – shouts down that things could be worse, suggests my donation would help, so I toss up the change I find deep in my pockets
Empathy – stares over the hole anxiously - the spreads a broad smile and jumps right in with me!
Enlightenment – shakes his head smugly and throws down a flashlight so I could better see my troubles…just lots of dirt…the batteries die
And after some welcome solitude, Free-Will shows up…silently lowers down a thin and feeble string with a note that reads simply… “YOU CAN FLY”  

And so I did.  And as I looked down from above to scan the terrain, and saw holes everywhere.
So, I started cutting strands of string…and writing notes… Here’s one for you…

Winding To a Point

A child stooped low and picked up a stone
About yay big, with a rounded edge
He could find no reason to put it in his pocket
So he jumped to his feet instead.
 
The boy’s eyes narrowed as he thought of this stone
About yay big, with a soft smooth face
He could find no reason to keep it in his hand
So drew back his arm and aimed.
 
His thumb and forefinger curled around the stone
About yay big, and obsidian black
He could find no reason to wait any longer
And his arm sprung like a steel trap.
 
The youth caught his balance as on went the stone
About yay big, with a glistening sheen
It skipped once, twice, and it lost momentum
Disappearing in the ripples of the stream.
 
So are the thoughts of aging men
Holding dreams in the palms of their hands
They cast their stones along the surface of time
And spend their lives trying to find them again.

Flesh

Earth pulls up its collar as the sun sets
All things cooling, creak,
the most quiet is flesh.
 
Pouring life through the waist of leaded glass,
Countless grains two souls, in the talus
As fabrics glide, fiber and mesh
Warmth and velvet
The most soft is flesh
 
Peeling life, the mist from the rind
Freed and immortal, sprays silent and fine
Sweet nostalgia, upon palette, breaths
Fueled by scent
The most fragrant is flesh
 
A grape on a vine, in the rain, dew, and brine
Sea mist, on the vineyards, a portrait of time
My words are as fleeting, as love is endless
As lost as Latin
The most seen is flesh
 
You elude the patter, of fingers on keys
Uncloaking the letters shows a poets disease
Swirling in air, our winter breaths
Warmed by our mouths
The most tasted is flesh
 
Of all the senses, most fathomless
Least endeared,
You are my “now”
My forever
My flesh

Byzantine Kiss

Her whispers writhe upward, warming my lips
Chased gently by thoughts, and fingertips
Which pulse over keys, sewing words onto fields
Of love thirsty parchment, tenderly peeled
From shavings off banyan trees, twisted in time
Woven from tangles of roots and vines
That glimmer and glide on the twirls of her hair
That coil around dreams as they swirl in the air
And reciprocate whispers that blend into sighs
Reflecting like moonlight in opening eyes. 
Honey silk visage and java, like brindle,
Eyes like flint against frizzen, will kindle
Fire in the heart, calling men once missing
To a resplendent nexus, of lost souls kissing.
Arcadian journeys of body and mind
Sing from fathomless depths of space and time.
Geography traversed by her steps, sublime
Bearing piedra de ijada from a far eastern mine.
Electricity leaps in passionate arcs,
from skin to skin in dendritic sparks,
That strobe over rhythm beneath the sheets,
as lovers listen and friction speaks
in syncopation with shuddering breaths,
from sodden mouths that sweetly press,
And I close my eyes in synchronicity,
but even closed, it’s her I see.
Tasting the salt of a single tear
A harbinger, for the moments near.
High on the hum of hopes embrace
as rapture and destiny hasten the pace,
I open my eyes to watch her go,
but once inside it starts to grow
into a poem unleashed in my heart,
By a byzantine kiss, after lost lips part.

Jim Harrison

…still smelling like Athit, I found myself awakening in first class next to the recluse, Jim Harrison.

Jim Harrison was planetary from the moment I saw him. He is a thick and somewhat round man, dense enough to have his own gravitational pull and orbiting moons. From the corner of my eye, I can make out that unruly salt and pepper hair, blown back in disarray like Tea tree branches on Rottnest Island off Perth. Add to that a thicket of mustache, with different shaped teeth jutting down, like tombstones out of bear grass. He needs some grooming and some detangling. His eyes remind me of stout cement nails, beset in a tan round face. It’s leather and creases are like that of an old fashion catchers mit. In his eyes are little hematite beads, lens caps on film projectors rolling polyester film from the early 60’s. His left eye roams blindly, while his right tries to console a childhood injury that left him sightless in that one. His clothing this day is reminiscent of that which you’d find hanging wearily in a dark storage closet. His light brown T-shirt is a bit too small stretched over a hemisphere of abdomen. Over that he sports a rust colored and distressed suede jacket, with gnawed fringes on the sleeves as I recall; or so I seem to imagine. I’ll bet that in his pockets are a couple of old well pressed diner receipts, a turnpike ticket, and crinkled cellophane candy wrapper from, like, 1970.

Sitting beside him, I can hear the pitter pat of a mouse running on a squeaky toy Ferris wheel turning in his mind. From drink or lost years, he slurs slightly through stories about Jack Nicholson and that genre of people (Hunter Thompson, Dennis Hopper, Jimmy Buffett, and a few others.) He speaks with a bit of disgust about the Hollywood scene; having just returned geographically and mentally from a movie director’s office in LA, says that there is no money in being an author, but screenwriting, well there’s a living… Aspiring screenwriters are coming out of the knotty woodwork, with lolling tongues and pointy pencils (that’s not exactly what he said, but so I like to imagine it). I don’t get the feeling he’ll be putting out another book – but I hope to see some poetry.

What would I say to Jack Nicholson, who I ran into walking along the bay in San Diego years later? About this chance meeting with his friend Jim Harrison? “Hey Jack, I went out for barbeque with your friend Jim Harrison when he came through Tucson…he told me what a fucking nut you are.” When I ran by Jack that sunny day, I just said “hi Jack,” which seemed to startle him…he lifted his head in bewilderment and tried to spot me from under his shades.

Jim Harrison and I drank booze and made up a story for the flight attendant…you see, he was an underwear model and I was his agent…this went on for the entire flight. He disappeared while disembarking – ending up somewhere in Patagonia for a retreat. That day, I went home and Googled Jim Harrison. And scanned excerpts from his book, “Legends of the Fall”…and it made me think about Thaksin and Athit and Nicholson…

timeless through the ages

What is timeless through the ages
Is conveyed in the pages
Etched in stone or vinyl
And what has a beginning
Will reach many ends, but none
Is ever final
The hope you seek
In the words I speak
Is far deeper than meaning can reach,
The paradox is
That hope doesn’t serve a future
As much as it does the present
Abandon sight of its sign
And have faith that it is here
What of me next
We ask of our sages.
Will I thin to a point,
And be lost in the vagueness?
All of our choices
As we sort through
Pained and conflicted voices
Succinctly describe ambiguity
Hold on

TREE RINGS

 

Our moments collect in concentric rings about the nexus
Of a first embrace, adorned with Autumnal colors and scents -
We lovers blend, cupped gently below the stir of flecks and dapple.
Each leaf high up quivers in the bouquets and knows when to let go,
Fly and fall to earth.
 
Whispers from a rustling canopy climb down the bark encasements
Of these tall and somnolent trees, thirsty leaves that clatter and kiss,
Wink awake – brilliant - hold our gaze and suspend our hearts.
In a pirouette amidst the amity of recollection and premonition -
We shimmer in an iridescence of saffron on copper - remember this.
 
Moments light up, each one, for just an instant, the last of our lives;
Each conveniently the beginning of forever and forever smiles at us.
Rippling across the cycles of solstice and equinox, we radiate –
A nostalgic procession toward unmade memories, like tree rings.
We fly and fall in love.