a thought

Sidewalk chalk equals YouTube for children. And the Net is their CNN.

The Trance of Habit

Japanese has this word, kaizen, that tricks you
the way the air holds water. You wait, it hangs,
the storm clouds accelerate or dissipate but
don't propigate a drop.

My friends fall into patterns, superstitions
no different than shrinking from black cats or
wiping your inner screen of them, circling you,
mewling before you.

Both confuse move with improve - the way
a derrick rigs, a piston fires, up and down.
Up and down. Up and down.

When was Part 2 ever better than the first time?

You are mine. We are one, I will direct
the rest to you.

Perhaps you should be us, cursed universal;
thus, we monkey through forests by the same
worn steps that were, once, chosen.

This is neither philosophy or poem but hope
for the fall of the Rome you have fed yourself.

Let it burn, mythed bird, and rise anew.

Intriguing

I am reading a book about a man who
was sent to prison a gentleman
bank robber, scaled a wall in the midday sun
and lammed to India where he fell in with
slums and thieves and loves,
freedom fighters and expats and forgers,
smack addicts and prostitutes and
fell in love,
only to have love betray him
because he had never accepted himself.

Those last two lines - the last
two parts interest me
because one can predict all the rest;
most folks run like jackrabbits or try
and corner the world at bay before
any one of them will accept the mirror, before
any one of them will trust another,
and when a person commits
that's when the world opens up
and the unknown floods in,
a phenomenon scarier than prison
or addiction could ever be.

New Year Morn

What's left of the cool air pops open my eyes
in time to slide on sandals and amble into
the stone courtyard, the corner housing
chickens with sticks and barbed wire.

A noise floats across a field of silence -
pip pip pip - the sound of escape, the sound
of new, chicks sprung from eggs on the
morn of the new year in the

same place that my father will later ring
with firecrackers, sending forth black smoke
that kindles the mirth in his eye,
his giggles a reminder beneath the pop pop pop

of youth. I envision the night, smile, then crouch,
yellow feet wobbling across mortar, chirping for more.

Dog Fog Days

Even canines know things that have slipped from memory
like a straight razor across skin. Consider your
hometown. All flop-eared and flea-chewed, a dog will plod through fog,
removing that grey veil in steps before the nose perks, twitches,
smells a familiar, finds its dampened dream-house,
ducks under a redwood doorway, turns around
once
twice
thrice
and eases its bones down to a pillowed earth. Meanwhile
its fog-bound master roams, searching for an ideal
as elusive as dew drops while man's behest friend
lies right where birth found him, close-eyed and feeling
he would and will gladly die there.

American Spirit

If each breath is an affirmation of life then
each smoke is a bow to its opposite.

Flying

A swing reveals to a child how it might feel
to spread feathered wings and gloss the air,
if only for a few precious seconds.

Rotary Phone

A black rotary phone is modern noir.
An old rotary is corded, rooted back
when people were trees.

Craftsman

God damn good woodwork is smooth, with fingers
eroding the grains the way glaciers cut grooves
in the earth and leave only layered beauty behind.

The Only One on the Dance Floor

A jukebox is the soul's release -
for only a quarter.

Kawai'i, Dawn

Waves are our Creator's attempt to
cradle, to gather the air and the odd
human, whether it be errant or brave,
into a love embrace. How our Creator
can hug so completely and then
dissipate is a trick only she knows.

The Freire Farmhouse

A farm at its best is unity,
between the land and man,
between man and animal,
ordered so that things rise
and fall, live and die
in our closest approximation
of the way things
ought to be.

Pre-Word

Walking sole to earth now
with soil squishing gaps between long-curled toes
carries me to the beginning
when my emotions bubbled boiled frozen rose
a purity unmarred by words
a strength revealed by vehemence
a simple movement capturing
the energies of the world
and if you were looking at all
you could only see it
in my widened eyes
staring at the ground
feeling its wet blood
reacting to the oozedirt of the earth
climbing the knife edge of my parafeet
creeping over my outstretched toes
bare metatarsals clothed
in wordless soundless joy