A Wake in the Current @ Viewpoint Gallery

Genesises

You forget again…

Your slack baking backwater
in some stuck swamp
will, in time,
burst cooly from the clouds
over some new generation
who needs a relief.

You are worn out
in these endless repetitions,
ceaseless sunsets
over ever less of what came before.

We are moving forwards
towards no words,
waiting for God
to send the next flood
and carry us back
to The Beginning.

Dear Life,

In The Beginning…
there wasn’t one.

What you thought
created what you thought,
you thought,
and you are now completely lost.

What you seek
sank behind your senses
and waits quietly
underneath your last breath.

Wait for the Ending…
there won’t be one.

Start over again,
this time notice
we are holding on to you
for dear life.

Bodies, of Water

Mind still, adrift,
dazed in the wake.
The narrator abandoned us,
without steps to retrace at sea,
force exhausted, lapping waves
nudging us nowhere.

So long,
abandon the narrator.
Floating at the mercy of an empty voice
is a courage.

By the face of God,
simple light reveals emergence,
the past creating the current,
we are never without within.

Awaken again to containment,
the grace that these bodies can hold us.

We have arrived now,
the only endless beginning.

Good Bye

Mountains sleep solemn,
reflecting echoes of ancestors.

In wide open spaces,
the air kisses you with kindness.

You become born,
a new language.

Slip into the breeze,
you belong to this.

Left In, Complete

The only thing God is without
is limits, and so
we were all born,
and time to capture us,
maybe like butterflies under glass,
or the world’s full-length documentary
without end or credits.
Left looking between horizons,
at best we laugh
(the waves do crest),
but always bound by nature’s edges,
enveloped in mind,
succumbing to need,
whirling in this world
through shadows cast from the future or past,
somehow sometimes smiling
while carrying our cross.
We don’t get to know,
only attempt to accept,
and perhaps drip our poetry,
becoming a wake in the current.

(Silence)

God is still,

and within us,

and without us,

God is, still.

Without Meaning Too

What we see while alive
is the universe looking at itself
without meaning.

Rods, cones, sensors,
synapse lightning,
neuronic flares of
star-fueled fever dreams,
delivered in drifts and drops.

The truth is always something in addition
to what is thought.
What is thought.
What is thought is not real.

Mothers’ sweetness,
fathers’ effort.
All of us here together,
then alone at last.
Time erases history,
phases fade away.
Our minds end,
in darkness
every time.

Name anything you notice,
and then let it go,
live with/in tension,
help those who come after us
help those who come after us.

Mind Fullness Meditation

Breathing in,
I know I am breathing in.
Breathing out,
I know I am breathing out.

Breathing in,
I know I am breathing in.
Breathing out,
I think I am losing my mind.

Breathing in,
I remember to somehow smile.
Breathing out,
I wonder where it all went wrong.

Breathing in,
I find scattered pieces.
Breathing out,
I lose touch with senses.

Breathing in,
fear of letting go.
Breathing out,
relief it won’t last.

Breathing in,
I know I am breathing in
air that has been circulated
since life begins.
Breathing out,
I know I am breathing out.

Breathing in,
never enough.
Breathing out,
always too much.

Breathing in,
we are all breathing in.
Breathing out,
there’s so much more to do.

Breathing in,
I know, no matter.
Breathing out,
still part.

Breathing in,
I am finished.
Breathing out,
I am unfinished.

Breathing in,
I know I am still breathing in.
I know I am still.
Breathing out…

Since Someday This Will All Make Sense

Just roughed in,
filling with hardening doubt,
what made sense no longer sensed,
a lone one,
acting out all ways
formed in womb,
again in wound,
unable to let things all fall apart,
where they belong.
Not knowing,
nothing you say is true,
no straight lines in our nature,
no end in sight to incite us,
or give insight into us,
only endless genesis is,
timeless turning into eternity.
Breathing our lives together,
conceding our union,
walking each other home
is the present,
the relationship the real,
even longing belonging,
be longing to be found,
and you are found,
hear with us.
in a space, still,
empty for your new voice.

The Noticing
(with Angela Weldon)

The mind forgets

Words

Not only language

Silence

Light between leaves

Space

Sitting is Under Standing

Forty years of depressed,
wound up wound up,
stuck on the first story,
be for the journey
beyond walls and garden,
into new metaphor
the old ceremony,
it makes sense to die
over and over,
the only way to know
we’ve been here before
all over again.

It gets easy
when we see
this, time,
the fabric weaved by
some, people
want to help us.
Our guides glide in
all sorts
of strange arrangements.
Deep eyes
see dancing in the dark
places.

Waves of such warm friends
wash us on shore.
We wait for love
with such broken arms
and it is revealed.

Still Life

Let all your words
drain into the ground
beneath your mind,
slow your steps,
then stop,
and know now,
there is a point,
at the core,
of the core,
of the Earth,
that heats your feets,
holds you tight,
gives you weight,
draws you down.

Up above,
we get empty sky,
then forever.
In between,
the magic of God’s colors
bleeding together.
A chance to feel
moments just like this,
until we forget to remember.
A loss, a gain,
again, again.

Pre-Tending to Ourselves

A moment,
a flick,
a twist of the wrist,
and we are outta here.

Washed from our bodies,
reunited to the land and air,
leaving love in our wake,
and friends to bury bones.

Are we free then?
Does God sing louder in our ears?

And then,
when we do it again,
a new heart re-members us,
as we are bound to boundless love.

Here for ever,
back again for good,
maybe even better.

The Bare Minimum

Love is
particles
that wave to me
and through me
and in me
and is me
or are me
in the field
of vibrations
a where of
practically
particularly
the whole
the part
the stars
our hours
the waves
go in
the whole

Going in
owing
nothing

The part
I call
a particle
I call art
an article
behaves
in waves

Dissolved
is solved
evolved
is loved
is love

Rest in Peace

After the last of our line

looks for the last time

out through a fading haze,

hope will evaporate,

the past is dissolved,

and animals carry

their dumb dignity

to the end of the world.

Resighting

Earth turns,
now reveals,
then re-veils.

Earth re-turns,
now reveals,
then re-veils.

Light returns,
trees relief, reveal,
new veils.

Earth turns,
Now reveals
no veils.

Last Testament of Will

Write now,
seeing only the shadow of the whole,
veiled by funny lies
that look good on paper
while your people are suffering,
sacrificing their life force
in the hopes that you can redeem them.

You can’t of course,
and they love you anyway,
more than they could ever love themselves.

Your parents, young once,
the mouth of a river
that poured you here,
into this worded world.

Why are you thinking
when no thoughts belong.
Can you remember whatever God is
or finally let yourself become
uncomfortable song?

Lodge
(with Brent Gonyea)

The heat unlocks
steam from stone.
We breathe,
burst,
are born.
From Earth,
woman,
then Earth.
We crawl,
walk,
run,
then hide.
Hiding,
for fun,
fear,
then habit.
Holding breath,
steeped in the shadows,
we gather dust,
pinned down,
stuck sound,
suffering enough
to rupture,
and set pent spirit free.
The heat unlocks
steam from stone.
We breathe,
burst,
are born,
again and again,
lost to be found,
until there is none of us left.

Relativity
(with Mike Gunther)

How is it he remembered you
holding his infant body
in a childhood he could barely recall,
in a world you had left
before he was conceived?

Why is it I know the pang of hunger,
though I've always had food?
The fear of darkness,
though I've always had shelter?
The slip of mud in Flanders Field,
the monsoon roar of Vietnam,
though I never took up arms?

Interlocked barbs emerge from quill-like locking lattice of frost on winter windows.
Like a child’s hand reflexively grasping, agile and pliable against one sure and stiff
with learned experience.

The feather’s structure is its memory,
linking, fraying, tearing,
clasping together again,
in perfect pattern,
in precise posture.
Flat for flight.
A culmination of fear and fearlessness,
abandon and caution,
instinct and love.

Played in the thin veil,
the downy gauzy light
of ancient Milky Way stars.
The occluded concise code
of boxcar monikers,
the cardioid pulse of shelled wheels.

I know you were there,
and you knew I would be.

Hell, but colder
(with Todd Lintner)

This truth is not something
you have not heard.

Lights, wheels, and direction.
An ambulance
but more likely made
to make you move fire.

Every stop is unnecessary
until we are here.
No need
to ride, and it makes sense to die
as songs freeze–

a north shore roar
superior overprocessed

constellation records
chains of fathers

tongues real
different from how
We do. Or I hear
Her sing.

(in memory of Mimi Parker)

This Leads To This
(with Matt Olson)

Do you wish your life was
different
Do you wish the world was
different

Is it hard to be a trout stream
Or a pond
How do we know something
‘by heart’

What do we mean when we say
‘make believe’
How is it different from
‘believing’

What does it mean to
‘for-get’
Where are we when we think we
‘re-member’

And who is hearing when
we ask?

How much of your life did
you choose
How much of the world did
you choose

Do you believe you get what
you need
Do you pay your attention to
your attention

When is any song good
enough
Will be your last question
ever be answered

Why do we forget our
deepest truths
Where are we when we think
we ‘re-member’

And who will be around for
the ending?