From The Air

Once again I go mobile as my
social nature beckons past
the pain I always knew outcast
the only girl in a boy tribe–
I became a scribe–the earth
sign among the air brothers,
left-handed awkward. My mother’s
despair, I didn’t seem to care.
Round peg rattling around the boxes
which never held securely.
Always toppling out immaturely
at inopportune moments until
today, uphill, I recognize
the convoluted path of my
endurance from the skies.
Pure chance, the window seat
shows the flows I meet
dancing winding reaching touching
water meanders through the clutching
squareness of farm-field plots.
Sniffing a copse,
backtracking for a kiss and on a slow
curve following the movement of life,
round and brimming undermining strife
on my linear track. Looking down,
I see I’ll not take up the slack.
Canyons are carved by running streams
and so I’ll continue riding this jet stream
alive, awake, contained at last
my open heart can hold the past.

Inspired by: Endurance, Social, Go and Track.

Featured image from Steve Hillebrand.

Soundcloud recording here.

Exponential Leap

The moving walkway is coming to an end.  Please watch your step.~Recorded airport announcement

Your evanescent dreams disappear
as if the iteration of you

dancing into this space fears
to be seen, not enough, untrue,

just wrong. As if you need
an alteration to fit the story

modify your heartbeat
because the rap of history

spit relentless by affluent
victors with strong prospects

collected from your half-ruined
hopes, distracted you expect

linear like stepping onto
the moving walkway, carried

in a fog as we’re all drawn to
the tales we live and breathe.

Today right now opens night
songs and sheer poetry

this field of pulsing light
resting, held in dark mystery

we finally celebrate.
Take care. The world’s in flux.

Don’t take the bait,
the lure of hate; it’s love

that powers the new plan
together we connect

and span the living bridge
the time and space open our range

hearts full of bars
we sing in perfect pitch

earth-rooted, heads in stars
a song praising our change.

Inspired by: History, Evanescent, Affluent and Prospect.

Soundcloud recording here.

Holding A Mirror

“Healing is ultimately restoring the web of life and it’s restoring relation. It’s restoring our capacity to resonate with each other.”~Thomas Huebl

Lately I have sworn a mission
to unearth deadly superstitions
my self-created artifice
a heavy-handed fist.
A child in danger finds euphoria
in mystical incantations, a story of
what would be most desirable
in a world of known trouble.
I wake woven into the lines
I’ve spun, fairy-tale fashion,
how childhood’s begun, sing-song
battles of evil and good.
On the snow-covered sidewalk I pace
wary while a man with a masked face
in a trance seems to dance
in high-tech second skin, so thin,
running easily past the treachery
I perceive: the wind a brutal hiss
for me, while he’s in bliss.
He’s free in ways I’ve not conceived
another creative way I self-deceive
clear in the mirror he’s unknowingly
holding gently and showing me.
As simply as appearing in the cold air
we heal each other.  Life’s a love affair.

Inspired by: Euphoric, Most-Desirable, Superstition and Artifice.

Soundcloud recording here.

Trying

And I would not be convicted by a jury of my peers.~Paul Simon

I receive my invitation to bitch
and frankly, all the dogs in the ‘hood
are howling, the uproar’s pitch
kidnaps serenity.

Ransom demands I rage against
inequality/moral scruples now cynical/
abandon tin-whistle marches through the capitol
when war is palpable.

We finally see the global military
empire feeds in battle.
Cages might rattle but I know
they will acquit before the trial.

The roiling unrest, ’cause shit…
The few dial in, take and defend
and we haven’t yet beseeched
snarling junkyard dogs chained out of reach

weaponized and mindless, intent to take
a bite of juicy steak
dangled in the empty air
a lure devised by a billionaire.

But we’re on our way, yipping and cowed
urged by machines’ monotone shrill/
inner peace unplowed/in overkill
we’re losing ground/the mystery

earth walled off and separate
out of time that hurries
us to our doom/it’s all gloom
until we see life’s unfair on the surface

but go deep: magnetic presence
powers us when we are locked
in sth/squabbling lies crafted
just to guide our energy/

that valuable asset
we so willingly provide.
Who gathers up our sweat
and gushes, well, at least you tried?

Inspired by Kidnap, Scruples, Acquit, Inequality and two dogs enjoying the beach near Lima, Peru.

Soundcloud recording here.

What’s Coming

At the top of my list, of course,
is breath, but my next best friend

is death. They walk me, teasing,
loyal life wants to live

escorted in the arms of lovers
dancing in the flavors love

layers. Naming every birth
we create separation illusions

with our powerful beliefs
that sweep us past and future

rocketing by the song-now.
Birds chittering through oldgrowth

forests sound the alarm as we
play foreigners, our roots forgotten

we emerge from trees
and soil, composted

through uncountable millenia.
We chirp until named, we spread

our wings in arrogant denial
a flurry of greed to clothe ourselves

in what we buy in fear of
our imminent demise. Missing

the call to shine, eminent
moment of this particular voice

in this astral alignment.
When we walk in peace with our death

unafraid, we open up the stranglehold
past, let go of the predetermined

future at last, the patterns blown
in our explosive joy.

Death isn’t lurking, looming, it’s coming
for you now in deep orgasmic waves thrumming:

Our only prerogative, let’s be clear,
is to be alive right now, right here.

Inspired by Prerogative, Explosive, Foreigner and Eminent.

Soundcloud recording here.

The Leading Edge

Our vibration goes up when we serve.~Thomas Huebl

A baby won’t ask for anything
you can’t give. All you have
requested by life that wants
to live. And I’m not trash talkin’
your mama, so caught in tight
ancestral trauma that a cry
in that wailing treble lands
like a devil in those spaces
genetically disheveled.
There is no blame, the centuries
laid out clearly but we can’t see
the hidden sculpture, life
is not as it seems. We think the
pain may become our mainstay
if we don’t struggle. Make way.
We find ourselves while running
from what’s wronging
flee the leading edge, our
most farfetched longing
arms we hold outstretched
we’re cautious, sniff the aromatic
clues, scents enigmatic and so
problematic and yet
a child knows when it’s time
to snuggle, surrender to the
fear. So often trouble
is the gift. When we accept
unwrap, perplexed, but willing
to be still upon the lap
we’ve cried for, all that rises
in connection the winds,
the seas, the branches bending
low to feel our wailing cease.
Finally heard, we acquiesce
and “carry me!’

Inspired by Mainstay, Devil, Century and Aromatic.

Soundcloud recording here.

A Thousand Miles Begins

Only when I walk forever, I have time for now and for you.~Thomas Huebl.

Like a curious time traveller
I arrive into the tribal
village, shaking my rain-
laden hair, blurring the ink
on these cryptic pages.
What is precise is
beyond words. Still, we
chant by campfire. Now
is true love peering
a surprised town crier.

Swimming an electric river
every atom buzzing, aquiver.
Forget the clock claiming
it’s time to scream, 3 a.m.
and nothing to do, only
to be aware of the false lonely.
Attempts to demarcate are made
afraid. This journey, a cascade,
is our masterpiece, ringing,
each essential voice singing

in our own key, a symphony
with all that should be
swirling through the fear
sometimes welcome here.
Allowing what is essential
to burn in this ancestral
fire’s focused laser weaving
lessons of millennia believing
us like chained sleepwalking bells
pulling sounds of now into our cells.

Inspired by: the palindromic date 02022020, Tribal, Journey, Masterpiece and Demarcate. And the song 3 a.m. by Matchbox Twenty since my poem emerged when the clock showed 3. And Lao Tzu’s, “the journey of a thousand miles begins beneath one’s feet.”

Sound recording here.