Tag Archives: poetry

The Beauty Of Nothingness

Posted on by
1

a thought arises, seemingly
from nowhere unfolding
like a blooming flower
filling my mind with wonder
at its simplicity and beauty
and then a shift of thought
and it’s gone and I, weeping
at its loss because it
seemed so perfect, so right
and now it’s lost and I
can’t remember it other than
to say it was the answer
to every question, every
person has ever asked.

and now I am alone with my
thoughts, drab and mundane
in comparison with the
perfection of THE thought
which was in fact so right
that my mind couldn’t grasp
it and it fled, disapparated,
dissolved into nothingness
but left its essence, a pure
quintessence telling me I will
never reach this height again.

saddened by the vacancy, the
hole, the blank space left
behind, empty at knowing I
grasped it for only a second
it now seems unreal, that
maybe I didn’t really think
it at all that maybe this
feeling is something else
that maybe I’m just hungry
and I go to the fridge
for satisfaction.

Advertisements

In Your Dreams, Quietly

Posted on by
Reply


For one who wanted to travel,
but could never find a way
we are doing it for you

Seeing for you, experiencing for
you, your memory holds us strong,
binds us together as we go

Giving ourselves to these places,
leaving our hearts behind and leaving
you as a token of our lost love

Your ashes now reside close
to home and in faraway countries

Across the sea and across
the mountains, places you loved
in your dreams, quietly
cherishing all you had never seen

We embrace the world for you
and give you to the nature
you loved so dearly

New haiku

Posted on by
Reply

pale brown mountains
rise up from a deep green sea
sailboats and sunlight

ancient rituals
of a people long dead
brings them back to us

carrying north men
the ancient boat plies the waves
flaming red hair

mountains rise to reach
an ancient people of lore
the celts embrace me

of the ocean waves
salt and spray release me
time out of time

naked and free
in the standing stone circle
ancestors gather

of sunlight and sorrow
and a blue green tide
of a steadfast people

A Morning Meditation

Posted on by
1

A misty thunderstorm breeze
waves the flags of our fathers
over a memorial to their
sacrificed lives

Garden flowers bow
to each other in imagined
reverence like Buddhist
monks before morning meditation

A sound of thunder in
the distance premeditates
the weather’s intent,
a dog barks at nothing

The swollen river flows
endlessly in projected
indifference to the
surrounding landscape

Geese, marshaling their young
from the intrusion of
a human swim away from
shore to safety within current

And I with wet boots and
quiet regard cannot add to
or take away anything from this,
that will make any difference

A Leaving

Posted on by
Reply


The bitterness of his reproach
for what she gave but wasn’t wanted
lies on her skin, a filth
that washing will not remove

The heat that rises
from the foulness of his disdain
The prickles of sweat
as she turns from him

Having given what he
needed to hear
was all she could do

The sound of his house
key hitting the table
where she drops it,
the dull metallic
discordant note
of cheap metal

Haibun

Posted on by
Reply


A few days ago, a good friend introduced me to Haibun poetry. Haibun has its origins in Japan where haiku also comes from. I confess, even after writing haiku for a few years now, and even publishing a haiku book, I have never heard of Haibun. I must be kind of sheltered, I guess. So I looked into it and I find it fascinating. There are some loose rules to writing haibun, and here is a link to an article about it. Here is another link with guidelines for writing haibun.

After a few attempts, I came up with this:

An Off Spring

On a stone step, in front of the green painted wooden door of an ancient crofters cottage sit a pair of old, worn work boots flecked with brown dirt. Irish brogue voices drifting from an open window framed with shutters of the same color, reflect the somber mood within. An elderly woman speaks of the garden, her voice parched with age, telling a young boy that the planting has gone badly. With the earth as dry as dust she suggests they may not have a good harvest in the autumn. With an “aye” here and there, the boy’s voice, reminiscent of many long forgotten summers agrees, but tells the woman to be patient, a rare quality in one so young. Suddenly, the door creaks open and the old woman appears, gray hair tied in a bun with fly-away wisps at her temples. The smell of a peat fire drifts outward into the air. Deliberately lifting each foot slowly, she places them into the old, cracked leather boots as a car drives by on the road, the occupant tooting its horn. Lifting her hand in greeting she tells the boy over her shoulder, to take money from the jar and walk to the village for some eggs, the last of which they had for breakfast. As she reaches for her hoe, the boy, red haired and blue eyed, now in the doorway, looks across the open fields. Dark clouds with sheets of rain above the mountains to the west, move toward them. The woman’s boots clump on the flagstones of the walk, laid down years ago by her long dead husband, as she moves for a closer look. As the first rain drops fall, they turn their faces to the sky, feeling the warm wetness trickle down their cheeks and praise the gods of wind and rain for their good fortune.

in darkness they wait
placed by old and caring hands
to sprout into life

I showed it to my friend and she liked it. I’m always interested in learning something new so I’m grateful for the opportunity she gave me. Haibun, from what I’ve learned is a combination of prose and poetry. The prose part should be very descriptive; telling a story or presenting an idea in such a way that the reader can really see what the writer is saying. You can see the cottage, and smell the peat fire. (If you’ve never smelled burning peat, you’re in for a real treat.) The haiku portion usually comes after the prose and should have something to do with the story line in the prose section. It can sum up what was said, or add to it, directly or vaguely. Haibun can be a single paragraph with one haiku or two or more paragraphs with a haiku between each. I broke a rule of haiku here by implying that seeds wait. Seeds cannot wait but hey, Western haiku, right? So this is my first attempt at haibun and I had fun with it so I think I’ll try some more.

Breaking Words Episode 5

Posted on by
Reply


Again, I apologize for the mix up in episode numbers. With that being said, Episode 5 is out today! Even though when you listen to it I say it’s episode 4. Here are the pieces you’ll hear:

Breakthrough Story

I made spaghetti today. When I finished, it looked like a bomb had exploded on the stove. Sauce sprayed in a blood splatter pattern, noodles and bits of hamburger like scenes from a horror movie. Unfortunately, it often looks like this when I cook. I think of children in countries where they don’t have enough to eat and feel guilty writing about my food exploits. But I do it anyway. We do a lot of things we shouldn’t, and justify them in various ways to feel better about ourselves. Just another day in the life.

What if being human is a mental illness? What if all of us so called “normal” people who go to our jobs, raise families, and cook our dinners are mentally ill? Maybe we were shipped here from some distant planet, some place where they decided to rid their society of their less than desirable people. Like the British did when they sent boat loads of people to Australia. Maybe we are the descendants of the worst of an alien society that now enjoys life without people who routinely blow up their stoves at mealtime. Are they watching us, do you suppose? Are they wondering how long it will be before they have to intervene to keep their refuse from infecting the universe?

I scanned the radio dial this morning. I heard conservatives screaming about liberals. I heard Nirvana songs. Lots of talk about the environment and children in cages. I heard Hip-Hop music. I turned the radio off and went out and stood in the rain. But the radio still played. Lots of sounds and voices and screams. And music. Country and Rock and Rap. And more voices telling me what I didn’t want to hear. I longed for the sweet sounds of water lapping at a shore and the calls of loons across the lake. Life is like a radio that never shuts off. And half the time there’s too much static to discern what I’m hearing.

So I cleaned up the stove, and ate my spaghetti. I used fresh Basil from my little herb garden. Turned out pretty good. As all these words started swirling around in my mind I knew I was on the edge of a breakthrough book or at least a prize winning article. I sat down at the keyboard, electricity tingling my fingertips. I felt like Edward R. Murrow about to break an earth shattering story and then what came out was this. A story about exploding my stove and the guilt of writing about eating. Who are we, anyway?

The First Time

There has never been anything
quite like a boy’s first slow dance
with a girl. The feeling of her breasts,
pressed against your chest.
The warmth of her body, held close.
Her breath, tickling the hairs on your neck.
And the lovely smell of her freshly washed hair
filling your teenaged senses
with indescribable feelings.
The song you danced to didn’t matter,
and it was over way too soon.
And the only thing you could
think at that moment was that
you wanted to do that again.
And again, and again.
No, there has never been a feeling
quite like that.
And there never will.

Distraction

The cat, in the field, concentrating ever so diligently on the small mouse hiding under leaves and dry grass, is annoyed by my footsteps in gravel on the side of the road. As I stop to watch this Scottish version of the common house pet, her ears pitched forward toward the mouse, I notice that she doesn’t look Scottish at all. Not that I would know what a Scottish cat is supposed to look like, but when you’re in Scotland well, everything is Scottish. Her right ear, the one closest to me, suddenly pivots toward me as I take a step and the sparse gravel beneath my foot crunches loudly in the still, evening air. I stand still, and just as suddenly, the ear twitches again and returns to it’s former attentive position. Her body tenses, her head lowers and, I take another step. This time her head turns, she focuses on my face and I am the recipient of an evil glare that seems to say, “I know where your hotel is. Later I will find you there, and I will kill you in your sleep.”

Watching Life

I cut my finger on the
dulled and stained
edge on the blade of my
pocket knife.
The blood runs quickly,
bright red as gravity
pulls it to the white sheet
of paper that lies on the
table, dark, almost black
as it is absorbed into
the carpet beneath my feet.

Thickly flowing from my
finger, I stand mesmerized
as drops splatter on my shoe,
the carpet, and the kitchen
floor as I finally move to
the sink to let the blood
drops mix with water on
the bottom of the sink fresh
from the tap that I ran
moments before cutting myself.

The blood joins water droplets
and begins to flow toward
the drain mimicking a river
who’s water finds the easiest
path. I stand and watch as
my life seeps out through
the hole I created at the end
of my finger. Platelets rush
through my blood stream and
work to stop the flow, keep
the life inside.

And I do nothing but watch.

Just Breathe

Posted on by
Reply


Random crystal snowflakes fell through the yellow
sodium light of a pathway lamp and on into shadow.
The breeze was light as ducks on the river voiced
their displeasure at the interruption of my passing.

My breath counting came into unison with my footsteps
and suddenly everything slowed as I slowed and the
snow and the ducks and my breath and the air and
my thoughts all came into perfect harmony and

I, for the first time in my life experienced what
Buddhist nuns and monks have spent centuries
seeking, perfect enlightenment. A feeling of such
beauty and peace as to be indescribable.

Harmony of body and soul, and of mind were mine
and in one split second were gone and I felt
such a profound sense of loss, an ache of heart
that I fell to my knees and wept.

Why, I asked, would the universe come together
for me to experience, just to have it ripped away
and leave a truck sized hole in my middle?
Why should I, a random person, be given this?

Only to have it taken away again so that even
moments later I could hardly remember what it was
like at all. Breathing as if I were punched in
the stomach, I stayed on my knees and felt emptiness.

And now, hours later I have to ask myself, did I
really find enlightenment on the path, in the park
of a small mid-western town in Winter or did I
just imagine what my mind told me it might be like?

Imagine, the unimaginable? Did I tell myself this
is what you’ve been seeking, you and everyone who’s
ever went down this path and you’ve hardly begun
your journey but here’s a taste of it, so here ya go?

And now I sit with the feeling of loss for something
I’ve not even gained, the loss of something I can’t
explain, or describe. All I can do it seems is, sit
and breathe and not think about it. Just breathe.

Podcasting

Posted on by
Reply


I just finished recording the 6th episode of Breaking Words. Breaking Words is a weekly podcast where I read my poetry and prose pieces, sometimes with a music background and sometimes without. This has been a fun experiment and for the foreseeable future, I plan to continue. For those of you that have listened, I hope you have enjoyed it. Here is the link to Breaking Words: breakingwords.libsyn.com

Unfortunately, I am not a professional at this. My hope is, that I get better with time. Podcasting has become huge over the last ten years and the really great thing I realized, is that anyone can do it. It takes a minimal amount of equipment and a short learning period to get the basics down. What I mean by “minimal equipment” is this: You need a computer with an internet connection, a pair of headphones and a microphone. That’s it! That’s all you need to start a podcast that can be heard the world over. Simple, isn’t it?

The first thing I did, was read a lot of information. I got a couple of books on podcasting, and I read a lot of online articles and watched a lot of You Tube videos. There’s tons of information about podcasting out there, and it’s all free. You will learn about the technical side like how to use a DAW or, Digital Audio Workstation. That’s a fancy name for a recording program. You’ll learn about the different podcast hosting platforms, which are websites that you upload your podcast to for distribution. You’ll learn about microphones for podcasting and about lots of other equipment you can use (but don’t really need) at least to get started. And again, anyone can do this!

One of the first questions I had was, what does it cost? Being newly retired, my income is somewhat limited. I’m not hurting for money but I can’t go out and drop hundreds on new equipment. So that’s an important consideration. Thankfully there is a lot of free stuff for you to take advantage of. Computers and microphones are usually not free of course, but you can certainly find used equipment for a good price. There are some recording programs that are free, like Audacity, which is what I use. It’s a free download and is a really good program. There are also free podcast hosting platforms to upload your podcasts to. Here is the link to the Audacity website.

Next, I needed to figure out what my podcast was going to be about. I had lots of ideas, but the bottom line is this: Your podcast needs to be about something you know well. If you’re going to gain an audience and keep them entertained, you need to talk about something you know and are well informed on. Otherwise listeners won’t stay. A podcast is for entertainment or for information. If you don’t have one of those aspects, you won’t have listeners. Now, as I said earlier, I’m not an expert at this. That only comes with time and practice. My podcast doesn’t have a lot of listeners yet, but it’s growing. Slowly. It can be frustrating at times to see that no one has downloaded an episode for a few days. But what I have learned is that I really enjoy doing this, so I’m going to keep doing it. I can’t expect to be the next world wide phenomena and don’t necessarily want to be. But with time and perseverance I hope to attract more listeners.

Sounds like fun, right? Well it is. One of the advantages in starting to podcast is being a good speaker. There’s nothing worse than listening to someone stumbling over their words, or mispronouncing them, or not being comfortable with speaking. But if you’re not a good speaker, don’t let that stop you. It’s a skill that can be learned! Just like getting comfortable with the equipment, you can learn to speak well too. And the advantage to learning to speak well for podcasting is that you don’t have an audience staring at you. You’re alone! And not only that, but you will learn how to edit your recorded program. You can take out most of the ums and ahs, and all the other filler words we use when we hesitate while speaking. You’re not doing anything live. Although some podcasters do live shows, that is a choice you can make.

So why not start a podcast? It’s a fun hobby that I have found I really enjoy. And it’s a new vehicle for getting my poetry out to people. As any of you who write poetry know, it’s not the most popular form of writing. So any way of getting more people interested is a good thing, right? Listening to podcasts has become very popular over the last few years. Mainly I think, because you can do it while you’re doing something else. People listen to podcasts while driving, or working out. They listen while they’re taking a walk. When you read, you have to invest the time to reading. That’s not always easy in today’s busy world. But if you can listen to a podcast while cooking or commuting or whatever, that’s a real advantage. So people are doing it. There are literally thousands of podcasts on any subject you can think of. Politics, religion, business, comedy, drama, poetry, and anything and everything. the list is endless. So why not start a podcast? That’s a good question.

Breaking Words Episode 4

Posted on by
Reply

Hey! Episode 4 is out there baby! Careful listeners will find there is a mix up between what the podcast player says and what I say the episode number is on the podcast. Just ignore it. It is episode 4 even though I say it’s episode 3. I don’t always know what I’m talking about! As most people know, the gun debate, the debate over 2nd amendment rights is a huge thing in then country today. So this first poem, “What if…” is in response to that. Here it is:

What if I was sleeping in my bed,
and you broke into my house?
What if you had a drug problem
and needed to steal for money?

What if I woke up and shot you
with my gun?
My legally acquired, paid for
conceal and carry gun.

Is your life worth less than mine?
What if you have a mother?
Would she cry and say no mother
should have to bury her son?

Do you deserve to die
because you did something foolish?
Do I have the right
to take your life away?

Maybe you have children.
What if I had to face them
and tell them why
I took their daddy away.

What if I believe in God?
And I stand before God on my judgement day.
And God says “You killed one of my children.”
And I say “Yes Lord, but he was trying to steal my T.V.

Yeah, so that’s my commentary on that. This next one, “Steam Was Almost Gone,” has to do with trains, which I have loved since I was little. Northfield has a train yard with 3 or 4 sidings to it right in town. Late at night when I was supposed to be sleeping I could here the switcher engine roaring in the yard, moving box cars around. Northfield had it’s own railroad called, The Minneapolis, Northfield and Southern. That was pretty exciting for me as a kid because I loved trains. So I would listen to them at night in the summer with the windows wide open because it was hot, and even in the Winter you can’t keep the sound out. Here is, “Steam Was Almost Gone:

And the music came through the open window
as I would lie, not sleeping,
as my mother intended.

The screech and squeal of steel on steel.
The engine rumbling up to a roar,
the cars, banging together.

A bill of lading for each
connected together and bound for
well, who knows where?

Carrying what? I didn’t know.
Circus animals? Bombs for the war?
My 11 year old mind full of wonder.

And who drove those trains?
What kind of men were they?
As men they would have to be.

Bib overalls, engineer caps, boots.
Those weren’t things for girls.
They were big, strong, men.

They would shovel that coal,
stoke that boiler and
the steam would pour out the stack.

For maybe, the last time.
The Diesel’s were taking over.
Steam, was almost gone.

As sleep overcame I heard the whistle
and the rumble as the train pulled out.
And I prayed that steam, wasn’t gone.

And this last one, “Minnesota.” All these names were taken right off a Minnesota map. They’re all alphabetized, and that’s why I mention that there are no lakes or towns beginning with “X.” Now I could be wrong about that so if anyone knows of some, please let me know. There are over 11,000 lakes in Minnesota and some don’t even have names or roads to get there! It’s a great place to live. Here is, Minnesota:

I love this state. Conifer and Hardwood forests, rolling hills, farmland and prairie.
There is enough pink and black and white granite to make 10 billion headstones,
but we’re not the Granite state. That’s New Hampshire. We are the land of 10,000 lakes.
More like 15,000. Some don’t have names. For those that do, there are,
Angleworm Lake,
Bad Axe Lake,
Calamity Lake,
Dead Fish Lake,
East Four Legged Lake,
First Dog Lake,
Gibibwisher Lake,
Hanging Horn Lake,
Ice Cracking Lake,
Jock Mock Lake,
Kaapoo Lake,
Little Dead Horse Lake,
Magnetic Lake,
Nameless Lake,
Ox Hide Lake,
Pea Soup lake,
Quick Lake,
Rain Barrel Lake,
Skeleton Lake,
Thirty One Lake,
Unknown Lake,
Vegetable Lake,
Wawa Lake,
No lakes beginning with X,
Yodeler Lake,
and Zig Zag Lake.
And little towns scattered all across the state like,
Antlers Park,
Ball Club,
Carp,
Dent,
Embarrass,
Funkley,
Guckeen,
Heatwole,
Ideal Corners,
Judge,
Key West,
Lude,
Magnolia,
Nimrod,
Org,
Pigeon Center,
Quamba,
Rattlesnake Point,
Savage,
Toad Lake,
Utica,
Vern,
Welcome,
No towns beginning with X,
Yucatan,
and Zerkel.
The town of Rice is not in Rice county, it’s in Benton County.
The town of Faribault is not in Faribault County, It’s in Rice County.
The town of Blue Earth is not in Blue Earth County, It’s in Faribault County.
The town of Becker is not in Becker County, it’s in Sherburne County.
The town of Cook is not in Cook County, it’s in St. Louis County.
The town of St. Louis is not in St. Louis County, it’s in Missouri.
The town of Cottonwood is not in Cottonwood County, it’s in Lyon County.
The town of Grant is not in Grant County, it’s in Ramsey County.
The town of Marshall is not in Marshall County, it’s in Lyon County.
As far as I know, there are no Lions in Lyon County.
And, The Mississippi River does not begin in Mississippi,
it begins in… Minnesota! in Itasca State Park, which by the way, is not in Itasca County.
And last but not least, I hear there is great fishing on Alcohol Creek!

So that’s it for Episode 4! As always, The music for each episode is from the Free Music Archives and the sound effects are from Zapsplat! Thanks for listening.

She Doesn’t Know

Posted on by
Reply


Talking about car tires
in line at the grocery store
with the woman behind me,
our lives so different.
Her skin so brown,
mine so pale,
and yet,
we have car tires to worry about.
I wonder about her
when I’ve gone.
When I’ve left the store.
Wonder why our lives crossed
at that moment,
in that place.
She doesn’t know
that I will use her
as fodder for the cannon
that is my keyboard.
Doesn’t know
that I will think of her
and wonder
if we could be friends,
or lovers,
or enemies.
She doesn’t know
that my mind twists
in a hundred different directions
at once
trying to decipher
all the sensory input.
Trying to make sense
of war, politics, pain.
Of love.
Trying to understand
something as simple
as a conversation
in the grocery store.
She doesn’t know.

Breaking Words Episode 3

Posted on by
Reply

Episode three has been released and you can find it here: The first piece is a prose commentary on the state of fear we find in the US today. The second is about war and death (happy subjects) and the final is about missing my wife, Ann. With so much garbage in the news today I felt I had to make some kind of response and that’s why I wrote “Fear” just a couple days ago. Here are the words to episode 3’s three pieces. I hope they help you to think hard about the state of our world.

Fear

Today’s political climate in the United States has me thinking about fear. There seems to be a lot of it these days. Fear of the “other.” Meaning, fear of others. Other people, to be exact. Fear of what we don’t understand. We seem to be in an iron fisted grip of fear. And if you look back in history, I’m sure you’ll find that every generation had their fears. Your parents, and their parents back to the beginning, had fears. Fears that drove them to survive, to protect what was theirs. Because they feared losing it. Whatever “it” was. Their lives, their property, their freedom. Fear drove them to survive. As it drives us. Science tells us that modern humans have existed on this planet for about 200,000 years. And yet with all our science and technological advancement, we still it seems, have not advanced very far. We are still basically fearful creatures hiding in our caves. Afraid that others will come and take what we have.

Early humans were afraid of natural phenomena. Earthquakes, lightening, wind and flood. They had no science or history to look back on to tell them what these things were. There was no known cause. And yet humans are driven to find reasons for everything. And so, Gods were invented. Roman Gods, Greek Gods, Norse Gods. Having angry Gods gave people answers to the questions of why things happened. When I was a kid I remember being told that thunder was the sound of God bowling in heaven. It made me less afraid. Now I had an answer for what this noise was that shook the house and scared me. And I knew that God had my best interest at heart, so I needn’t fear thunder. And now of course, I understand the science that explains thunder, so there’s no more fear associated with it. But what became of that fear? Did it just disappear? Or did I find something else to fear instead?

All throughout history, people have risen up and claimed that they were the answer to your fears. They were the ones who could save you from the things that go bump in the night. “Follow me” they say, And I’ll make things right. “Elect me” and I’ll save our country. I’ll chase away the “others.” Some of them were good leaders. Some of them were charlatans. But if you look back at all our past history you’ll find that no matter how many demons have been chased away, no matter how much science explains why natural things happen, we still find something to fear. Unfortunately, there have always been those who understand this and take full advantage of it. First, they manufacture something to fear. And then tell you that they are the only ones who can save you from it.

And fear, I don’t think, is our basic problem. Fear, keeps you from sticking a fork in a light socket. Fear, keeps you from putting your hand in a fire. The fear of dying or at least, great bodily harm, keeps you from stepping out into traffic. In those examples, fear is a good thing. Our primitive instinct tells us we need fear to survive. Without it, we wouldn’t be here. And yet we see fear working in many harmful ways. As I write this, there are thousands of people walking through Mexico, presumably heading to the United States. Our news agencies are ripe with stories as to why this is happening. Our government is telling us we need to fear these people. They are coming for our jobs. They are coming for free money. They are harboring terrorists. They are the “other.” And they blame those that they want us to fear. Democrats. Liberals. Migrants walking across Mexico. If you fear something long enough, you will begin to hate it. You hate it for making you afraid. This is the dark side of fear. What’s happening right now in the U S is a prime example of how people manipulate our fears and use them to control us. A good healthy fear of stepping into traffic, will keep us alive. A manufactured fear of others will destroy us.
Unfortunately, I don’t know if I have a good answer to the problem. I’m certainly not going to shout, “Follow Me,” and I’ll show you the way. One bit of advice I could give is a quote from the Dalai Lama: “Our prime purpose in this life is to help others. And if you can’t help them, at least don’t hurt them.” I think there are many people in the world who don’t have any interest in helping others. And too many times I have seen people deliberately hurt others to make themselves feel better. It seems it is it common for people to look for others that are worse off than themselves, thus boosting their own confidence And if they can’t find them, they’ll manufacture them by treating them badly to see them suffer. President Lyndon B. Johnson once said, “If you can convince the lowest white man he’s better than the best colored man, he won’t notice you’re picking his pocket. Hell, give him somebody to look down on, and he’ll empty his pockets for you.”

This, it seems to me, is what’s happening in the U S today. We are being fed fear. A steady diet of which will eventually cause us to hate. And hate always manifests itself in negative ways. Fear can be a good thing. Something to help us to survive and even thrive. But the fear that causes us to hate others is destructive will eventually tear us apart.

The Sword Of Freedom


As hands are brushed together, dead bodies fall like dust
and a girl in a dress called freedom whirls and twirls
but makes no sound but the sound of a mothers cry.

With the constitution in one hand and a bible in the other,
flames suddenly leap and turn them to ash and
they blow away on the wind called justice.

Crowds leave the synagogue, cathedral and mosque and file
into the furnace while factories make more furnaces
and governments send more children to burn.

The minds eye is blind and feeling it’s way to find
emptiness and sorrow where love once lived.
Time turns backward to other wars with the same stench.

Liberty’s crack grows wider and the clapper has
disappeared to be replaced by the
sword of freedom, and a mother cries again.

And do we watch with hands folded in laps and on
our knees pray to a god who doesn’t listen? And do
we tell our children that this is righteousness?

As our world disappears in flame and ash do
we wish we had done the right thing? Do we say the
words that will set all to right, or collect our pay?

As the wars rage on and refugees muliply we go to our
jobs with blinders in place and plugs in our ears and
pretend we do not see the girl dancing. And bleeding.

And as she falls to the ground her wounds ooze into
the sand and she reaches out to be picked up but
we turn away, not wanting to get our clothes dirty.

With clean hands and clothes some walk away, but
some stoop to carry away the hurt and their
voices are being heard. Quietly now, but getting louder.

Waking Dreams

Like a cricket I can’t find
in my bedroom at night,
your memory haunts me.
Insistent, yet melodic,
you are there,
robbing me of sleep.

Floating through
my waking dreams
you stand on the other
side of a darkened glass.
I reach out to you
but you do not reach back.

You watch me with
placid face as I move
about my day, I, always
reaching. I cannot see your
smile, from where you are,
from where I am.

I long to be released
from this dream of you,
this dream of not you,
and yet, it is the only
way I see you anymore,
except in pictures.

Why Not Now?

Posted on by
Reply


Remember that night that you drank too much
and then you went outside and threw up on
your shoes
and then the world turned upside down
because you fell over in your puke
and saw the trees from the bottom up
and everything suddenly made sense?
Remember that time you were walking on
the dock and you tripped and fell in the
water and watched a fish swim past as
you thought you were drowning
and suddenly everything just seemed so right?
And that other time you were driving and
a car swerved into your lane and you thought
you were going to die and everything
suddenly became so clear?
You can’t keep having times like that because
you’re not going to make it through one of them
and you’re going to find out what the other
side looks like unless that’s what you’re after.
Those things that we grasp that we think we
just got to have aren’t so important when
you’re facing not coming back from something
you’ve done and you think, damn that was
stupid but hey, I made it all those other times
So why not now?
Yeah, I mean, why not now?

Breaking Words Episode 2

Posted on by
Reply


Episode 2 is out and ready for you to listen to. There are three poems on episode 2, A House, Nine Pelicans, and She.
I like old houses. The architecture is amazing, and maybe it’s because of my childhood but I think old houses have a more homey feel to them. Here are the words. Also, if you haven’t heard it, the new Minnesota song and video is really great. Alex Frecon got tired of the misconceptions about our great sate and decided to do a video, clearing some of them up:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H31bBU4EL44

A House:

At the end of a dirt road with corn fields on each side and woods behind, sits a house.
Shingles are missing, windows are broken and the gate hangs by one hinge.
It’s been like that for some time now. Empty. Alone.

The house was built 100 years ago by a young man and his bride. With trees cut
from the property, love and care, a home was raised. There were 10 children. And
happiness and sorrow, laughter and tears, Christmas’s and birthdays and funerals.

And many years later, times grew hard and a Great Grandchild lost the house to the bank.
It sat empty for a time and then a young couple came along. There is a picture of them
in a broken frame on the floor. Two women and a young girl, their daughter.

And they made this house a home. There was happiness and sorrow, laughter and tears,
Christmas’s and birthdays and funerals. The daughter grew up and went across the country
to college. The couple moved to be closer to her. And the house has been empty since.

Until just this very day. A car was seen driving up to the old house. A man got out with a
SOLD sign in his hand. And also out of the car came a women, three children and a dog.
And there will be Happiness and sorrow, laughter and tears, once again.

Nine Pelicans.

I take Sophie, my Husky, Malamute cross dog for a walk every day. We walk along trails along the river. There is lots of wildlife there like, pelicans, geese, ducks, deer, beaver, eagles, etc. We see them all the time and I have a habit of anthropomorphizing them because they sometimes really look like they’re thinking certain things that humans would think. If only they could talk to me!

Nine Pelicans:

Standing along the river bank,
dignified in their ungainly grace,
nine pelicans stand or sit and watch
like some prehistoric judges
as the river parades slowly past.

A little further along the bank
geese, flapping, fluttering, and
stomping in the mud, voice
their discontent, loudly, as if
the river is wholly unacceptable
in its proceeding and stance.

A deer, on the opposite bank,
lifts its head and observes
both groups, with measured
indifference, as it chews something
it found among the weeds.

One pelican raises its orange
bill in the direction of the deer
and then away, as if to say he’s
bored and determines this river
to be insufficient for his needs.

But he cannot align himself with the
unruly, peasant-like geese, he
being, after all, a pelican of
some standing, among his peers.

And of course, there’s “She.” I wrote this one because of the sadness of losing my wife Ann, to cancer. I have a 4 episode podcast about that called, “A New Life.” (anewlife.libsyn.com)

She:

And now I sit alone,
with reminders of her everywhere;
rocks and pictures and paintings.

And now I sit alone,
not lonely, but sad.
Sad at the loss of her,

who shared my life
and sang with me in the car.

She who shared my bed,
and my most intimate moments,
is gone now, forever.

She, who’s laugh made me laugh,
who’s tears made me cry,
is gone now, forever.
I don’t sing in the car, anymore.

Breaking Words

Posted on by
Reply


The first episode of Breaking Words is out! You can click on the RSS feed to the right on the main page here, and listen to it there. The first poem is “The Fiddle Player and The Dancer”:

As he packed up to leave, an old women approached.
“Can you play that thing?” she asked,
motioning toward the fiddle.
“I can, but I can’t make any money here,”
he said, showing her the empty cup.
“Put that fiddle under your chin, boy.
Play somethin’ gypsy, somethin’ that moves.
And as he played, she began to dance.
Bells appeared on her fingers
tinkling in the breeze.
Swaying and swirling to his rhythm
her ragged clothes suddenly seemed new.
Sequins and colors flashed brilliant in the sun.
The people came, and fell in love with her
that day. She twirled, and the sound flowed,
entwining together to become one thing.
Finally the music faltered, as if nothing
could compete with her beauty.
As she twirled her last,
he offered her the money from the cup, now full.
“You keep it boy,” she said with a smile.
“I only wanted to dance.”

And the second one is, “Blue Moon”:

After sending her 2.3 children to play
with the neighbors down the street, the
housewife, in her new, crisp, pink pastel
dress, serves her husband ice tea on a
sunny, suburban, Sunday afternoon.

When yellow foam mixed with blood
ejects from his mouth, wetting his
gray trousers, and he falls from his
lawn chair in agony gasping for air,
she kneels beside him, grass staining
her new dress and asks him if his tea
is as spicy as his new secretary.

As her husband dies on the freshly mown
lawn, she calls her mother, to pick
up the children and then calls the police.
The children of course, will not
understand, for they are to young
to know that the blue moon, is not blue.

I hope you enjoy the podcast as much as I did making it! If you click the “subscribe” button, each new episode will be downloaded automatically. Have fun, and Thanks!