There remains, then, some poems that seem to want to be included in this work. I did eliminate a fair number from the original book that I felt no longer worthy of seeing the light of a book or website [not that there aren’t a number of other ‘survivors’ who should have probably suffered the same fate]. Anyway, some of these are fun and span many years.
I Can
They say
If I look into the Sun,
It will hurt and
I may be blinded.
But . . .
What an attraction!
Early morning,
When light
Scrapes its fingernails
On night’s shell, and
Shades of rose
And milky caramel
Wipe away night’s
Pin-streaked brilliance.
Behind my eyes
Beats a pulse –
A crazy throb . . .
An opening
To what could be
Is rent into my perception:
I can;
I really can . . .
(I think)
Look
Into that Sun.
********************
Merry-Go-Round
Merry-
Go-
Round.
White-maned horse
Ridden up and down.
We sit,
Holding onto the life
In our hands
And under our seat –
Riding it, all round.
Music and bells,
Raucous noises,
Merry’s own
Tower of Babel
Fills the ears,
Rising and falling
With our ups and downs.
Wind flows as pace quickens,
Around again – and again.
The blurry whirl,
Scenes and faces
Once thought known –
Stretching and bending
To drive senses inward,
Screams in delight,
In fright for our plight.
So close on the right,
There you sit
Glowing bright.
Merry-go-round –
I reach in the whirl
Before it slows;
Can I grab
That illusive pearl:
The golden ring
For which I reach out
To see if I can
Get from life
Another whirl.
Another fling,
Another chance,
Go-
Round,
Be-Merry.
So
On your horse
As you fly
Reach and seize
Whatever dream
You want to try.
The ‘F’ Train
NYC’s subway system is an interesting puzzle. I think I never mastered the map or what line would take me where. Once I got which train would take me from here to there, it was hold on for the trip and pray this really was the train – there were ‘locals’ (stop at every station) and ‘expresses’ (usually flying by your stop). The manners (or lack thereof) for getting on and off and for travelling in the cars always left me curious. And then, compared to other cities (e.g. Tokyo), there was and is a whole new story. Here comes your train, get in.
Crowded spaces,
Empty faces,
Masked together,
Talk is about the weather,
Souls all alone –
Where is home?
Turns in circles,
Issuing chortles
Hither and fro,
Coming and go,
Any destination
Throughout the nation . . .
Where is home?
Out in the field,
Joy-forcing we wield,
Romp and play,
Stretching night into day;
Forget the trend,
‘Til crashing it ends.
Where is home?
Descend into the hole,
Steel-hardened moles,
Rush to ennui,
Cry: Notice Me!
Doors open –
(continued)
Release:
Cares never surcease.
Where is home?
She enters . . .
Enticing;
The day is now splicing –
Each on a side
Of the pole
Seeking to become
Just one whole.
Now, cover that pout –
Her stop . . .
She is out.
Where is home?
Day’s end,
And, again, we wend
Through the masses,
All classes,
Each seeking to lay,
To rest
For the next day.
Where is home?
So in the underground holes,
Holding onto the poles,
Is it O.K. to try
To catch someone’s eye?
To say to a new friend,
I hope your day’s end
Will get you to peace
And the joy of your home.
********************
Pondering
There are so many places,
Infinite spaces
Nooks and crannies –
Spots to be.
Each is a setting,
Time used for letting
Me to be with you,
Sharing life’s hues.
Our mortal anchors;
Our daily hankers;
Tie us too tightly
To well-defined spots.
It is our task
To free ourselves up,
So we can drink again
From Universe’s cup.
That sip will open our sight
To being all and nothing,
Expanding to light.
I have caught that feeling,
I am ready to go reeling,
Head over heels,
To forever and NOW.
Patience be with me,
Each day and each night,
For that mortal vessel
Anchored so tight,
That spirit of light
As weightless it flies,
Cavorting, intertwining,
Filling my sight.
I sit and I ponder,
Sending Spirit over yonder,
Knowing it may never return.
Perhaps, that’s the end
The goal that we tend,
So devotedly desired.
It is scary,
Delightful,
Weird, crazy absurd.
Mind wanders,
Deep thoughts
Do I ponder,
Looking out the window
Of Mill Hill Road.
Whose Dream?
I like to read the last page or pages of most any book recommended or that I pick up. And, it often drives friends crazy when I do so. “you will find out the butler did it!” or “you need to go through the whole argument to understand the conclusion.” O.K. So, I am writing a novel: “The Ultimate Author.” I want to bring to a wider public (or better understand for myself) the world of Life Between Lives that Michael Newton, Ph.D. and those he has trained how they have unveiled and continue to unveil through the use of deep hypnosis to get their subjects back through past lives to understand where they go and what happens when they die.
One would think that this field would be of GREAT interest. And, it seems all the work done (perhaps thousands of people who all seem to come up with the same ‘stories’) should get more play, more publicity, more examination.
Anyway, the end of my novel – when and if it ever gets done — is a scene where the two main characters are having a deep conversation and the jist comes down to: “O.K. we agree that all this ‘stuff,’ all our experiences, the Universe, consciousness, EVERYTHING, everything in the end is all a dream. So . . . the ultimate question then is: . . . whose dream is it?- Yours or Mine?
A glow
From the void
That is every thing
And no thing.
It wooshes through space
And consumes
LIGHT, WARMTH,
FORM, SUSTENANCE,
STIMULATION,
BEGINNING, END,
SMOOTH ARCS
AND ARCHES
Calling, singing, entwining.
I am light,
Almost weightless;
Buoyed by a laugh;
Encaptured, enraptured,
Yet free
To whatever BE.
The glow has ignited;
Membranes are excited;
You can feel –
Without touching –
Reach out from within.
Soaring on currents
Of our own creation,
Propelled by juices
Of our own elation;
Crashing the cloud tops
Of dewy-spun threads;
Lying in splender
On nature’s mossy beds.
Time is on vacation,
NOW becomes ALWAYS,
Partaking of NEVER –
Brain melds into head.
Real becomes fairy;
Mountains are for leaping;
Truth is our plaything;
Impossible – merely a word.
Whose dream
Is this dreaming?
Whose pawns are we?
Who is it scheming?
Is it a game
Of hide and seek?
So I fly o’er the mountains,
Soar through the valleys
To unite my Being
With that glorious
Golden glow.
I am touched
By its presence,
Filled by its essence –
Renewed, directed;
I know . . . and
I grow.
Still On Course
Early in the beginning of this ‘book’ there is a poem: “On Course.”
Having now gone through these pages, these thoughts, these attempts to share ideas, visions, descriptive words, my optimistic self – the part that knows it is ONE with all else and is busy experiencing so that it may enrich its return to The Eternal Sea – that droplet still feels [and here I get lost as to what is the ‘right’ word – how does a holographic piece of the Whole react – what would be the right term?
THINK, BELIEVE, FEEL, DEVINE, CHANNEL, INTUITE, – WHAT? Anyway, join me in this discourse about being On Course:
In this I call my life,
Nothing ever went wrong;
Each heart lived to love,
Each voice gave song.
I still believe that
We are ‘here,’
Spread out,
Smooth, not knurled,
Spirit’s manifestation
Experiencing the material world.
A part of the Creator,
A chip off the sublime,
We are energy existing
In space and in time.
In this I call my life,
Nothing ever went wrong;
My soul lived to give,
My brain made its song.
Each time I awakened
From the eternal soup,
I went off a-questing
And returned to regroup.Unconsciousness creates our reality,
Consciousness bears her fruit
It is for us only
To conceive
As we would suit.The new quantum physics
Teaches how we exist,
More studies will show us
(If we persist)
That souls and energy
Have a synergy,
So very clever
That we exist . . .
Forever!So, in this I call my life
Nothing ever goes wrong,
Each spirit lives to unite,
Each voice to give song.
My stack of poems is dwindling down – almost like the words in September Song: “and the days dwindle down to a precious few” and “ the wine dwindles down to a precious brew.” So let’s see if I can brew up some precious words and thoughts about nature, actions and reactions, and some relationship to experience and The Eternal Sea.
Natures Way
When the balance
Of people and nature
Is mostly nature’s way,
Life seems more tranquil,
In order, with reason –
Day, happily, follows day.
How much of life involves fighting –
Struggling for the “progress’
We’ve made changing this natural balance;
Changing it so we may hurry,
Be taller, talk faster –
Shutting off the envelop
Of nature’s lovely glade?
We manufacture:
Noises, gases, garbage, toxins,
Stuff’ that needs more ‘stuff’
To take care of it.
This waste creation,
Fulfilling the pursuit of happiness
And the “American Dream,”
Is for ‘Progress’ – A better life;
Having more than . . .
For what?
We forget (or ignore)
The ‘Way(s)’ of our ancestors,
The time when all lived in harmony
With each other and with Nature,
When getting and giving
Were the underpinning of the cycle of life.
So the course, we are told,
To follow, to pursue, to ‘success,’
Is one forgetting nature’s balance,
Its rhyme and its rhythm,
Plunging on, straight ahead,
Unblinking and unthinking.
Is our course so charted, unswerving
That, however, we try
We are locked into a pattern
We have dubbed “progress?”
What upheaval, at what cost,
Can the burden be righted, again?
Is the burden of ‘progress’
So fixed and so heavy
That it cannot be thrown off
By today’s mortal men and women?Can we relearn, teach, experience
Lessons from another day,
When the balance of people and nature
Was mostly nature’s way?
With that balance,
Life can be so tranquil.
So, then, in order,
With reason,
Have season follow season;
Walk the path
Of Nature’s way,
And life will unfold,
The story gladly told
Of day, happily, following day.
********************
Click
Sitting with our remotes, clicking away at the fare being offered on the TV, what is it that we really are seeking? Perhaps more than anything else a surcease from the striving to understand what is going on around us; what is it that allows the events that are played up on the ‘news’ to be so attractive – events that involve pretty much human kind’s dark side and/or nature’s way of reminding us who is really in charge. Here, the click of the remote brings forth the scope of the lives we live – lives that rush through the seasons and years and with the flick of the wrist could click us to answers to those basic questions.
Click (Being):
The twinkles become reality.
Spring has sprung –
From bare and nothing,
Greening comes forth:
Everything is possible.
Fresh, joy, no cares;
Playing freely, no rules:
Being.
Click (Doing):
Days are full,
We become ‘responsible,’
Segueing from nourished
To nurturing.
Warming, maturing,
Living in the ‘real world.’
Time is precious and presses,
Balancing spending and storing.
Doing.
Click (Being/Doing)
Daylight is shortened;
The prism of life
Transforms the greens
Of our summers
(continued)
Into multi-hued blazes –
Breaking the intensity of
Summer’s ‘doings’
Into a panoply
Of memory-driven
Times and places.
Click:
The “September Song” tells us:
‘When the Autumn weather
Turns the leaves to flames,
That we haven’t time
For the waiting game.”
Yet, we have been blessed
With many extra decades of this life
To once more chose among the paths
That open before us.
Click (Being):
One ‘next’ path
Is (forgive me Nike)
Being all we can be;
Being what fits in the center
Of those separate circles of
What you Like/Love;
What you are Good at;
What is Needed.
Being.
Click, then,
Into that place and space
Of memories, talents, networks –
The future beckons.
Click that remote
To live the life
You came to live;
The life
For which you were created.
CLICK!
********************
Season’s Song
When I leave this body,
My aura, more spoor,
May I be like Autumn’s leaves:
Multi hued, flaming;
Set in clear contrast
To that awesome blue sky
On a cloudless day in Fall,
Attracting and reflecting the sun,
Low in the heavens
As it rises and sets.
When I ‘die,’
Remember me as the one
On a Quixotic Quest,
Searching for meaning,
Feeling alone and apart,
Swimming in the context
Of Love’s eternal soup.
The seasons of the year,
Like the seasons of life,
Have been given to us
As canvas and paint
To create our picture
Of time’s journey.
And, what is time
But some made-up measure
So we can box experiences –
Storing them
On the Shelf of Life.
Ah! Autumn,
When we can harvest
The fruits of lifelong learning;
Of lifelong yearning –
When all the ‘this’s”
And all the “that’s”
Line up,
Coming together.And, all the colors
Of thought and deed
Do come together
To flash as Rainbow –
No longer whispering;
But making a bald,
Bold statement:
Live, harvest, expire –
Be, be in each moment.
Winter:
The bare, still, colorless cold.
Time:
Is this a season for passing?
Or rather, a season for resting?
The pause in the cycle of creation;
The contemplation, the stock-taking
Before ONE’s re-borning?
Winter:
Season for preparing;
For recycling.
The re-coiling
Springing forth.
Ah! Listen! Regard!
The seasons sing;
Life’s stages harmonize.
We, in the end, are ONE –
And Love is the answer.
We sit in a circle,
Breathing in the smoke of elderhood
As we watch the flame
Reflect life’s turnings.At first,
There was the time
Spring:
The time for springing forth,
Full of energy, dreams, desires;
Tilling, planting, cultivating –
Wide-eyed and impressionable
As we now see it
In life’s rear-view mirror
Greening turned to
The full colors
And active buzzing
Of our Summers.
Life was like the circus performer
Running back and forth,
Spinning so many plates
On sticks overhead;
Did it matter
That some fell and shattered?
What was growing then,
So important, bursting forth:
Bearing all kinds of fruit,
Now changes as viewed
Through the glory
Of Autumn’s colors.
Let us luxuriate,
Making new tracks
In the colors of Autumn,
Celebrating the days past;
The work done.
Time to share the harvest.
Our seeds now drop,
Some to take root –
Even as Winter
Stills the cycle,
Covering the fields
That once were plowed
And yielding.
There is fresh space,
Time is stretched,
Memories bring smiles
And “Ah Ha’s!”We sit in a circle
Around the fire,
Fashioning solutions
From the smoke of memory
And the joyous living
That was/is our lives.
********************
NYC Weekend
I lived and worked in NYC for many years after my college days upstate,four year’s of law school living in Greenwich Village, and a year on a Fulbright in Spain launched me into several careers there including a relatively long stint on the 56th floor of ‘30 Rock.’ [30 Rockefeller Plaza] It was exciting, there were special opportunities to learn, to contribute, to truly experience many, many ‘things.’ And, after having moved away to the quiet and friendliness of Upstate New York – and then other places like Charleston, SC and Charlottesville, VA – returning to “the City” lost its charm and attraction. This poem reflects where I’got to’ on a visit sometime ago.
The most exciting thing
In New York City
Is the robin
Building her nest
Outside the kitchen window
Where I am staying.
One can bring nature and soul
Into any nest –
Anywhere.
Pile in the shining leaves –
Create a hiding spot underneath.
Weave pieces of string
Into a nest that is “home.”
The most exciting thing
In New York City
Is the robin affirming life by
Building her nest
Outside the kitchen window.
People, faces,
Noises, graces,
Shops, cafes, taxis,
Get-aways;
Sirens, barking,
(continued)
Couples sparking;
Unimaginable diversity:
Museums, universities,
Slums and alums –
If you can’t find it here
It ain’t anywhere.
The most exciting thing
In New York City
Was the feeling
That the robin gave me:
A feeling of being safe and secure,
In the tree
Outside the kitchen window.
Two weeks’ salary
To park your care;
Anything you could want
Ain’t very far –
Except perhaps Nature’s balm,
Babbling brook’s sound,
Senses becalmed.People, faces, noises, graces,
Shops, cafes, taxis, “Oy-veys:”
Sirens, barking,
Sirens, hawking;
Shopping, charging,
Pushing, bargaining;
Humanity spilling out everywhere;
Their hearts, their souls, their cares.
If you can’t find it here,
It ain’t anywhere.
The most memorable thing
In New York City this weekend
Is to know that a robin
Is building her nest
Outside the kitchen window.
********************
Skyscraper
Manhattan Island (the “City) has a deep rock base (although lots has been added with fill). This allows the very tall ‘skyscrapers’ to be built. When the deep holes are dug, there was usually a fence constructed around the site, with holes in the fence to look at what was being built. One thing I tried to do when I served as Assistant Commissioner for Cultural Affairs while the first World Trade Center was being built was to have artists design a light sculpture for the steel shell as it was going up. The building law required light bulbs to be scattered on all floors during construction. It didn’t happen. It is still a good idea as new buildings go up – Anywhere.
Bottomless hole,
Disembodied bowels of
Subterranean connections;
Cut in the base rock of
Clay-footed Gotham.
Storehouses for the choking wastes
That convey, not transport.
Hollow skeleton,
Cold, linear, unfeeling –
Empty skull,
Whose sockets lead to pulled buckets.
Steel-roped nerves,
Synapsed with non-feeling.
Innerwear,
Sprayed and stuffed,
Added to dress cold steel.
Fibrous sinews
That will never stretch,
Seeking new horizons
Covering wired nerves;
While liquid conduits
Are added to serve
Each cellular unit.
On this base,
This unfeeling monster,
There is created
A home.
A home
Away from home;
How to humanize?
********************
Seek
As a bee seeks nectar
From all kinds of flowers,
Seek teachings everywhere.
Like a cow that finds
A quiet place to graze,
Seek seclusion to digest all
You have gathered.
Like a freed slave,
Finding the ‘beyond’
Of former limits,
Go wherever you please.
Live like a lion,
Completely free
Of all fear.
We are here to experience;
To learn;
To take back all we become
To the Eternal Sea.
********************
To The Eternal Soup
With color fading
Into all shades of Orange and Brown –
Leaves cry out for more paint
And creative outpouring.
I ride through it
As I move my fulcrum,
Still thinking
I can move the World.
That I can add
From my experiences –
Those unique and special
Gifts and opportunities
That have emerged
From the Eternal Sea –
Is the conscious understanding
I have evolved to reach.
These spark the incoming whooshes
Of angels and energy and
Drive out to all kin
A table of delights.
Life is full, and my cup
Is forever open
To more love,
More experience,
More offerings,
More opportunities
To add and serve.
I awake each day praising the Creator
For the opportunity to be present and aware.
Thanks be.
Here we are – as ONE.
********************
Thank You
I got to spend a lot of time working in various ginseng gardens that I set up, both under artificial shade and in natural woods settings. Not wanting to use chemicals to keep down weeds, it turned out the weeds [plants in the wrong place] loved the beds that had been made. So a lot of time and effort was invested to pull weeds and free up the ginseng plants so they could breathe and grow. I truly loved this physical labor as compared to all the ‘desk jobs’ that I had and the “tiredness” at the end of the day was such a good one! So, this poem is what the plants gave back. I did have one relatively transcendent experience relating to harvesting the entire crop at the garden along the Hudson River. There was disease and the crop wasn’t at all what we had hoped. We decided to plant another garden back into the
Catskills where it was cooler and the soil more conducive to this crop.
I had a conversation with the plants from several rows and told them that I would replant them in the new garden if they would promise me that they would resist any disease. I thought I had agreement.
Fast forward . . . three years. The new garden, again, got a fair amount of disease and pretty low yield . . . except, except for the two long rows of plants that had been transplanted and with whom I had an agreement. Yes, these plants prospered, did not get diseased and produced a lovely yield. I leave it to you to ponder the interaction. I am a believer and continue to dialogue with these cousins of creation.
Hey!
Give us a chance.
You made all that effort
To give us
Life.
Now clear the path,
Give us air, food, Love.
We’ll grow and contribute.
Whew! . . .
That’s nice!
Jumble, jungle, straightening:
Air, light, space.
Bring ‘em back around!
Hidden and lost,
Restored to their space.
A sigh . . .
A stretch . . .
Gone are those neighbors;
We are ready
For nourishment,
So, good friend,
Go fetch.
Let’s make a deal,
And this is for real,
Keep us breathing
And for you we’ll have appeal.
We can exist,
We can persist,
And all we insist
Is that no weeds shall persist.
Maybe it is a non-starter, an impossible dream, or a complete non-sequitur when one puts men and women together and anticipates that happiness can somehow be yielded. Or, is a real basis for happiness the joining of the two sexes in a truly loving and mutually respectful and mutually supportive relationship? In my forays looking to find bases for happiness, I ran into John Cowper Powys (1872-1963) who was described as “one of the great puzzles of 20th century literature.” He wrote over 50 volumes, including novels, poetry, essays and philosophical works. In his “Art of Happiness,” Powys portrayed women in a very dated way (at least to my way of thinking). He held women on a pedestal that most women today would not climb upon. In any event, I was inspired to use his musings as a basis for some descriptive-type poetry that I suggest could best be enjoyed by being read aloud (as are most poems I do believe).
Just to be clear: I am of the belief that women are a superior race.
********************
Woman
A woman is an artist
Who creates an atmosphere
Into which she can escape;
Where she can stay
Whole and independent
While her mate
Is perpetually dragging her
To engage in purposes,
Undertakings and mental images
All of his own.
Her world and his
Are separate crystal spheres
That actually touch
At only one point:
The point of enjoyment of each other
–An enjoyment
That would lose its zest
If what touched
Were two flat boards
And not a magnetic point
On the curve of a planetary circle.
Women are closer to nature;
Women savor deeply
And mysteriously
The general spectacle of the world.
They relish, with an indescribable glow,
This motley procession
Of sights and sounds;
Of changing moods
As the fitful fever of life
Foams and ferments around them.
The sub-aqueous pleasure of theirs –
In the chaotic motion of the life-stream –
Belongs to the innermost
Nerves of their being.Only the wisest of them
Are aware of their deepest happiness;
And, aware or not,
They all enjoy it,
Drawing their miraculous endurance from it.
They are all mediums
Of its occulted revelations.
Every woman is a sea shell,
Within whose hollow curves
The great ocean of life
Murmurs it hidden secrets.
This mystic realism of theirs
Evokes that indescribable smile
When they listen to man.Man: the abstractor of essences;
Man: the projector of theories;
Man: the creator of ideas;
Man: the discoverer of laws –
Droning on like a great metaphysical
Bumble bee on the high shore
Of the many-sounding deep.
A woman’s world
Is a coral pleasure dome,
Built upon the depths
Of the fabulous gulf-stream
Of life.
It is hard to re-enter
This earthly paradise
When the pressure of common life,
Of custom and recurrence
Have once closed those magic gates.
She escapes into her own world
Of sensation and creation –
A world that links her girlhood
With her womanhood –
A world that all other women
Can make shiver to its foundations;
A world about which
No man –
From the beginning of history –
Has any clue!
When a woman loves,
She loves a man’s inalienable self
(recognizing here that love can span one’s own gender also)
That self which his dignity –
His pride and his masterfulness –
His grandiose gestures,
As well as what his lust
And weakness conceal.
These things are concealed
Not only from the world,
But also from man, himself.
A woman’s happiness
Is rarely a mental thing –
Rarely a self-conscious thing.
A woman’s happiness is indeed,
At its deepest and most natural,
Just that very pleasure
That there is in life itself.
For a man to be happy,
His pride needs to be satisfied;
His lust satisfied;
His conscience satisfied;
His love of work,
And his love of play
Satisfied.For a woman
It is much more complicated.
Conscience has nothing to do with it;
Pride very little;
Lust hardly at all;
Neither work or play
Emerge as of primary importance.
She – woman – must have
Scope to live to herself:
To build a self-stylized
Work of Art that surrounds her
Like a mother-of-pearl shell,
Projecting her essential soul.
Happiness For Man And Woman
So, is there, then, an answer – a formula – to achieving happiness in a relationship? Let’s leave aside for this exploration same sex relationships although the roles assumed may also benefit from this one.
To be happy –
With that deep, fluid, pervasive happiness –
Waiting to brim over
From the Sacred Fount
To invade every nerve and fiber –
A woman needs to feel
Her desirability.
Her desirability relates first
To her relationship with the common elements –
Things appearing solid
(which we know they are not)
And things so related
To how the things
She interacts with –
To the cosmos.
Then, with regard to herself,
To other women,
To her particular man:
She needs to yield herself up
To that mysterious
Embrace of the Universe
Where she feels
That she loves
Everything in the world –
And everything in the world
Loves her.
She becomes
A bride of the Universe.
What man loves
Is girlhood in the abstract.
He then becomes possessed
By a mysterious and strange Being
Whose ways are not his ways;
Whose thoughts are not his thoughts.
So what is he to do?
Confess his sins,
Offer up on the altar
His conquests and his pride.
It is better to be a shameless fool
In Paradise,
Than a discreet and honorable gentleman
In Hell.
Hold her as
The wickedest of all women;
And when you have gone the limit –
Think of her
As you love her best;
As you admire her most:
All fault forgotten.
The wickedest will then have died
And your angel returned to life.
Assume it is impossible for her to change;
Yet always possible
For you to change.
She is an elemental force of nature.If you, as man, are to be happy –
Your first rapturous epoch
Of love-making now past –
You must forever stimulate
That magical lust
Which a woman’s body
And the expressions on her face
So excite you.
Use every passing glimpse
Of other long-for caskets of mystery
To enhance diffused satisfaction
In the one at your side.
This “bird in the hand,”
Is a living embodiment of
All the infinite allurements
That so attract you.
So, in the end,
What is the formula –
The equation, the potion,
The posture, the stance
That will enable each –
And together –
To recapture and hol
The magic of romance?
The whole glory of going onward
Is wrapped in the formula:
That he should be man to the limit – And That she should be woman as she was born.
Happiness is then Forever being renewed By the eternal building of new bridges Over the everlasting gulf.
Creativity, of which poetry and other writings is a part, is not a one-way street. And the experiences and stimuli that engender what gets created are often shared and not just something affecting or relating to the author/creator. Some of what follows I categorized as “incoming.” Love and feelings and perceptions are spoken of and shared. I have taken a few ‘liberties’ with the writings that were mostly shared on ‘scraps’ of various kinds of paper. There were few titles and a little punctuation has been added here and there. The rest is pretty much as was resurrected. Enjoy!
A Message
I received this message;
I sent it on to you:elements in a universe
realized we are in space
the largest we become in each other’s arms.
are we to be alchemists joining in the answers
while we are the forces pulling wonder to form?
there is a part of me which is the worldless scientist,
star gazer,
earth mender
serving the perfection
of mind and desire.
a hugeness about us,
an open-ended scheme,
mandate: explore and record
react together,
opening our time to weightlessness, there are no wiser fools.
********************
The Playground With The Fastest Swings
you and I awake,
having a cup of tea,
nothing set before us in the day;
the sun would break through;
the rain would seem to stop.it became a much more
crowded world last night –
a place for lovers only in the mind.
there is no doing away with
the other’s lover – no thought of it;
but is there a ramble path through the other’s?can the stroking of black curls
in Ashland up to the morning
be felt in Woodstock hollows
on a walking head of salt & pepper
pressed to the life of another
found soul?plow horses riding the early morning,
a bluesy yawn, and all the solemn promises
play the futures on a nod.you’re an important man in my life;
your presence as “evolved” man
shapes a space for my womanhood.
you’re an environment for my history, present and past;
the Playground with the fastest swings;
the museum with the lushest walls.but time is tight this year as
everyone knows and creative centers
close early – may the luck of
being locked in, staying all night –
do gents gossip?the preview of the growth
ahead of you excites me
like the promise of a carnival
for one night only.the notion
to become lovers is a sweet notion;
strangers exchange lives in a moment –
carbon arcs.the need to talk to you;
the must of dialogue
last night (Sunday, Our Town)
set you as “not me,”
“other than me” –
Separate and beyond the region of monologue.so I write you, two cups of tea,
music to move me along,
and spoken conversation awaiting
a call.I find this all interesting,
the way humans feel;
what they choose to sustain recreation
(I love you)
can I touch your sweet lips?after speaking to you –
in the most complicated
association;
two humans,
I speak in images of simplicity,
almost ritual.tea, the smelling of air
with rain stuck in its teeth,
the licking of sandstone,
the making of each other human;
perhaps the creating of each other by touch,
anointed with sun, lips, earth, wind.
we are of the same mind.
there is consent to exchange knowledge.
I lie open to your imagery.
********************
Carpetbaggers Of Love
I am exhausted and walking with
the thought of you.The evening light is a saturation.
words are forming like February
buds on my limbs:
skin gardens of poems for you,
aiming one love on the light
and the other is held
like mercury in crystal.
as I drive,
the sky melts on my eyes,
clouds are holding the romantic era
and I travel in the folds.
We’ve made summer plantings of winter’s gardens
(we become carpet-baggers of love)
********************
Winding My Way
Light fades:
Each day
Shorter.Tree’s soul signals,
Leaf’s lifeline dries;
My spirit, using rainbow brush
Touches leaf.
Spirit also paints you;
But mind’s eye,
And soul’s touch
Won’t cover your glimmer –
Your inner radiance.
God! So lovely!
Formed by that laughter
You patented and own.
Another laughter comes to mind,
Touched off by sensual play:
The music that you make
As I ride along.
You peer from familiar spot:
I put you, your light,
In favorite places to be.
My alone time is with you
As I reach, stretch out.
My senses try their wings
And I FLY
In ways I can’t fathom,
Except by touching thee.
My thoughts brush softly
The sides of your cheeks:
Finely covered,
Pink spheres introverted.
I salvate,
Seeking your tongue;
Juices flowing,
Seeking those fields
Where your puddles lay.
I am sky and cloud,
You mountain –
To lay upon and surround:
So softly,
So lightly,
Finding ways to unite.
Our skins, our covers,
Shatter as souls, juices, thoughts
Burst through
To unite . . . to fly;
To mix and tumble;
To intertwine;
To become as ONE.
The effort is exhausting.
I have changed.
I have given all.
All to know that I love
And am loved:
Knowing that fills
All my days.
And as the days shorten,
Light fades –
And so doth our time together?
Perhaps not;
There are ways . . .
Summer lovers?
Comets touching?
Wildflowers mating?
Trying phase after phase.
Remembering and re-living:
Intertwining by the fire –
Becoming the fire –
Touching, licking, burning,
Flaming side by side:
Two bear hides
Slowly rubbing,
Interminable hibernation:
A different way of dancing –
One of Love’s
Many faces.
Oh, there is something
Burning inside:
Growing spirit
More in love with you –
It is so easy then to fly:
Just plug into DC.
So love, I’m connect;
I draw from your current;
Your flows and your energy;
Your spirit and drive.
Your swings are the fastest
And on them I do ride.
Keep the flag flying
When tears we are crying;
They make a river
On which we can flow.
In these waters,
We can join and mingle
Our hearts,
Our minds,
Our souls.
Our ripples come together:
Under and over –
Making circles and eddies
That will forever remember
Our lives and our loves.
What, then, does it matter
If our bodies are apart?
So shortening days
You are welcome;
The change of season
Merely stimulates other ways
To reach out and be touched.
May I now paint you
With rainbow;
Blow upon thee with cool breeze;
Cover you with falling leaves?
I caress your sweet warmness;
Your lumpy nextness;
Your twinkling presence;
Your luxurious languor.
We exist forever
In our togetherness World.
********************
My Cells Howl
Lover, who are you, gentle in my bed,
the power of lions in your jungle strokes?
my cells howl at the moon for you:
man who’s very, very bright –
soul and passions as soft and holy as candle’s light.particles, waves,
ether suspensions and a floating walk,
until the touch –
the teeth shown, the tongue coiled:
the deepest heaven.rest,
fold your hands held in my arms,
tones burst forth around our love.
********************
We Are The Players
tumbling forward in the autumn light,
lovers peel back my eyes,
hello my sweet.
lascivious giants –
carnival jugglers with my possible lines,
and I prefer you
feeling your way through
and giving
shelter in the personal unknown.Sunday
There is instinct urgency
and the opening of a smile at the “ain’t that just somethin’”
lunar docking, click, of no touch – vapor joy –
desks and furniture wise as all get out.my love,
we are the players of each other’s mystery.
Bright star
From afar,
What magic attraction?
You could be cool,
A mere fragment
Of that mysterious firmament,
Forever adding just a spot
To my dreams of you
And night.Eyes wander
With forced thought
To other constellations –
Other bodies who spin and glow,
Who call with siren’s song,
Falling on my ears
As only the static
Of the Universe.Bright star,
Growing sun,
Filling my nights
With blinding glow
Of all the suns
Of my days.Days past, whose clouds
Are burned to nothing
By the light and warmth
Of each tomorrow’s sun,
Shining through my heart
To inner eye,
Delighting my soul.Shining star,
From afar,
I rise and grow
To fill the space
And time in between.My dust and parts
Coalesce and burn,
Falling in, while falling up
To critical mass.I, too, am star.
I rise and grow,
Gaining equal orbit,
Matching light and heat.
Twin suns,
Feeding each other
As matter flies
In passionate exchange.
Symbiotic orbits,
Drawing in from near and far –
Matter and force,
We spin –
Each a sun.Together we suns
Are a new galaxy,
Finding new power,
New force,
With each orbit
Of our special days.I rise and grow
To your call and light.
This truth
Is our fate,
Is our destiny.
********************
Unresolved
my mind is muddled –
dreams from days ago fall into
morning tea –
as unresolved
as the future.I’m afraid
Of the truth in worried ideas,
pile on the load;
there are no endings
in the bleak tenderness,
just building corrals
for the quality of life.I am clattering
the knives on the bars.
********************
Molecular Fog
roving internal burn alchemists,
with standing onslaughts
by ‘aura.’
dazzling molecular fog,
lipstuck to our skins and
falling in veils.molecular fog –
particles of our spoken thought,
ranging desires
and color
chewed on and spit.love me the color of
moon’s skin tonight.
********************
Reverie
In a spot for reverie,
Love’s sacred and roaming monks set the tones;
I cannot carry anger or cynicism within it.I go there for the secrets we discuss most freely academic.
I lay me down on springs of laughing souls –
simple cacophonies (of blown notes)
tune the buoyant lunacy.
embers cross my lips with songs
(century twine)
slung like South American sleeping hammocks
in this rambling mind;
a restful perusal of all that has been;
(that you are laying in a hammock
of centuries from which you gaze
at times).
********************
Luxury
I’ve thought of a luxury I’d like to share with you.
The luxury of laying about, sometimes propped up,
with books each held in silent opportunity for thought –
that active passion we rarely share the enjoyment of.Each of us reading quietly, agreeing, passing,
breaking in inaudible cheers.
Side-by-toe or head-to-belly
Until an extravagant break into kisses ‘’
Exchanging the workings of an author’s ideas
as we fold them into our minds.
The exuberance of reasoned reaction to someone’s work;
The pleasure of expressing one’s sense of it all up to now –
making the love of scholars pleased with themselves
and looking for the perfect mean.
********************
Walk But A Bit With Me
Why can’t we sometimes see
The forest for the trees?
Sun’s glare, moon’s glow,
Casts out the mind freeing
And never ending possibilities
Of a trip through the vast Universe
That lies beyond.Spirit entwined
At the mouth of the cave,
High on purple mount
Struggles to free itself –
To look first
At the endless green and stretch
Of the fields and valley below.Spirit yearns to soar
O’er peak upon peak.
But how, when entwined,
At the mouth of the cave,
High on purple mount?I stand and grow,
As forest over tree;
As Universe beyond sun and moon;
As endless valley and reaching range
Of snow-roofed peaks.I reach
To clear eyes and ears;
I call to show the way
And light the path
To realization.Walk not ahead or behind,
But by my step
To test the tread.Listen but a bit to words,
Echoing the mumblings
Of soul’s furnace,
And to the sounds
Of wind, of bird,
Of rustling tree
Of roaring brooks,
And snowy tread.Share a bit –
For no matter what,
It will stretch your soul;
More room for feeling and giving.Walk a bit with me;
Look at forest, Universe,
Plain and peaks.
Fear not for yourself
Your love,
Our seed.I am gentleness born on the wind,
Riding a leaf over gushing stream,
The sparkle in the web
Lit by fire’s glow.Fear not –
Love
********************
Motes In The Air
it is in my soul that I love you,
so it is that I read:
(skimming centuries; a sleek flat rock on mind’s skin)
Pythagoras, who grants us to be born
with the music of the spheres
in answer to its silence
and souls pulled from the void as numbers.The soul is the motes in the air.
Motes of their own nature continually move,
even in complete calm.The soul is attunement.
The soul is . . .
but the body.
the body is to receive it;
diving to the soul,
we love in tender storms –
the day is held,
and we are the day.In the afternoons
I dress in the muse,
exhausting myself
on fantasies and rhyme,
leaning on the evening light
‘til fallen asleep by.I accept lovers,
and all of them
are you.
********************
Where Silence Thundered
We minded the crystal jewels
from surfaces of moon glitter
and rode them
down snowy dunes
into shadows of stillness
where silence thundered.I thank the gods for sweet night
which opens heaven to my soul.
I thank you, my sweet friend
for flowering in my sight of joy.you coached the morning
pastel colors to my door
and covered my wakened eyes
with your soft glow of rose
hovering over mountain breasts.
********************
Moments Of Ours
suddenly it hurts
to think of you
or touch lip to face and palm to falling hair.
a thousand times we’ll never laugh together;
time chews you open and I am alone.there are moments of ours –
a kiss lasting or when you,
with ancient hunger only, wet my hair
with your tongue and chew soft circle
of darkness in the gold.
tell me the truth with your hands,
you know that thought blows wild,
invisible in the gathering woods;
warming dragons’ bone dust, and
century-old light to burning night,
we will sustain the flesh of summer.
********************
Apart – For Togetherness
Give me some air,
Some room,
SPACE
For growing;
For looking down
And around.To me,
Inside has to grow.
All about you,
I want to know
The bits and pieces
I want to sew,
Creating the fullest life
That we can have.We will make air,
Room and space,
And time for soul,
Body and face;
For smiles, laughter, and delight;
For tears, turmoil,
Pain, and empty nights;
For rekindling flames;
Relearning names;
Contemplating from below,
Aside and above:
Time, space, room
Researching the love
That was there,
Covered over and hurt;
If it is true and strong
Out it will spurt.So it begins –
This experiment,
Testing strongly
If for each other
We were meant.I throw myself in
With strength;
Confidence and grace,
To let love
Come back,
Through time,
Room,
And Space.
********************
Do I Reach You?
I feel,
I can project my thoughts;
My experiences;
My feelings
To you
Across whatever time
And distance separates.
It is scary
And exciting.You fill empty pockets
In my being –
Blank spaces
In my thoughts;
Dips in my emotions.Here,
On the edge of so many things,
Are you to be a part –
A partner –
A vehicle?
A destroyer of recreation?
What?I’ve been reaching out;
I’ve been aching.
Do I reach you?
Can you feel those threads
Moving around you,
Running up your limbs,
Caressing each patch of flesh,
Brushing by and rubbing against
Each hair,
Resting in warm spots –
Moist spots;
Running and flowing
With your juices,
Being swallowed
And entering the inside of you –
Maybe becoming a part?Do you feel that?
Do I reach you?I ache from
Loving you.
© Mary Lou Quinn
© Mary Lou Quinn
© Mary Lou Quinn
© Mary Lou Quinn
The Eternal Sea of Creativity 