Volunteer Park

4p.m. 2/15/12

Beetle boots crunch and crackle 

On a stone-lined path

Jet engine and prop plane hum above

Her pea-coat is open

And a camera nuzzles into her chest

Her feet silently wait on the grass

The wind blows past eddying inaudible whispers

That can only be felt

The waves of her brunette hair are moved

By the wind's expressions

The path crackles 

She opens her arms

To receive her friend

And his camera knocks hers 

As they kiss. 

Snuffboxes

Seattle Asian Art Museum, 2/15/12

Rank and file stand the snuffboxes

Waiting for inspection.

Their only uniformity: their usage.

Some were grace with delicate brushwork

Depicting maybe a horse grazing beneath a tree

Or a heron wetting is toes

Waiting for a chance to spear 

Something to whet its appetite 

Others are mimics of geisha girls

Or bulge-eyed coy, dragonfly or

A nephrite rabbit mid munch.

They all hold a musky scent of aged tobacco

Laced with the aromatics of mint, compher, or jasmine

They stand in failing light

Awaiting inspection

But never granted the release

Of validation.

d'If

I am the gatekeeper of your heart
I hold the skeleton key to all you feel
I, like Pandora, release your fiends
But imprison your celestial light
Only gleams and glimmers can escape
Through cracks at your edges

I'll dispassionately watch
As Hope and Dream - two of my prisoners -
Slowly dry out to desiccated shadows gasping for breath
I hear, and ignore, the pounding
Of love against the heavy timbered door of my censorship
Pleas for companionship meet my deaf ears and die out
No reverberant echo to carry
Any inkling to a sympathetic ear
As Hope, Dream and Love etch with worn fingertips
An escape

They merely burrow deeper within you
Unaware that their attempt are self defeating
I will grow old as you count days like Monte Cristo
But I will grow no less powerful
Knowing for certain that, like Pandora
Trapping hope within her box,
That it is for your own good.

Hurricane Season

It is always hurricane season

In my soul

The violent tempest tosses 

My better judgment

Whips like wind

With no leeward shelter

From wayward drives

I'm a category 4, at least

But the strength of my storm

Is secret (until it's not) 

Though the deluge may begin as a depression
The rising waters always rage
And though I've tried my best
To shore up levees to stand
Up to the brackish waters
Escaping bayous
The floods waters brim
At the edges of control
And like the puzzle pieces adrift
In the back of my mother's station wagon
I'll never really find solution

The pressure builds
Threatening absolute destruction
When the levee gives
Will you have what it takes
To stand against the crash
Of fists
Rushing like water

Pet

Am I another stray?

Alone and abandoned

Or am I a runaway?

Escaping from limits imposed

I know for sure the itch I couldn't scratch 

Let me loose

I don't know why I flea or dip

Only that I chase my own tail 

Getting me nowhere

But a leash

Is not prison, but possession

And to be had

Is not necessarily to roll over

And even I'm backed up

Belly up

I'm not scared

But trusting

That your next touch

Invites me to be your pet

Incantations

We have almost forgotten

That words are magic

Encased in screens and smart phones

Or words have lost the essential

Like a lion in a zoo -

Power present, but imprisoned

In our shared past

Words lived only on the wind 

And would encircle us like embers from a shared fire

Bards and wanderers would spin yarns

Into complex tapestries 

Inserting visions where none had been

And leading all onto a forest path

On which we will all find our own end

The world the canvas; 

the words the color; 

the tongue the brush

Pictures painted more vividly

Than any facsimile could cop

Poets were sorcerers

Manipulating words that underpin the foundation of reality

Quaking earth with clauses

Raising participles to precipices

Imbuing life through interjection

The oldest magic still resides

In expressions of love 

And these can be the most earth-shattering incantations

We are all wizard and warlock

As we all know the power

That lives in 'I love you'

To both break

And mend hearts.  

Grading

Between my finger and my thumb

Thre red pen rests awaiting its assignment

Thre dishevelled stack of essays teetering

On the edge of evaluation

Held up in hands

Like sinners above a flaming rubric

'A' salvation or damning failure

What mastery? What content? 

Can I be content to report progress? 

I'd like to snap this pen in half

Breaking the enchantment of its assessment

I'd like to pour out the red ink

In equal measure

With the kaleidoscopic outpourings

Of your hearts and minds

Accepting there is no sin in error

And the root of evalution is 'evil'

Passing as a grade

And a grade passing as truth

The only flying colors I care about

Are the vibrant discussions

That move past 

The red and black edge of a ledger 

A push out of the comforting confines of 'A' to 'F'

Not failing, but free-falling 

Through thr expanse of alpha to omega

Cycles

For the water cycle:

It gets hot, it gets heavy,  it comes down

For my pay cycle:

It gets thin,  it gets light,  it comes hard

Pay day would break like cloudburst

But my nickels and dimes would evaporate

Faster than they could infiltrate

My bank account

I'd have no ground water to tap

Parched in drought at the end of the month

I'd raise my eyes to the sky and wish for rain

But as money dried up,  I'd wet the nib of my pen

And spill my all upon a page

And though my reservoir rarely held enough for more than a McChicken

It filled with thoughts, hopes, jokes and notes

As I reached down into it -

My fingers searching within like roots -

I'd bloom in song and verse

Soul rich and penny poor

My concerns would gather like puddles

Reflecting the arching rainbow above

A promise that times wouldn't be so tough

Or if it did,  I'd have enough

For my narrative cycle: 

It gets heavy,  it gets light,  I come up

untitled (9/13/19)

I am the long-cast shadow of legacy 

I bathe you in shade

And swaddle you in expectation

The light of your sun

Cannot penetrate the thick undergrowth of heritage

Leaving your roots to wither

And your leaves to droop

You cannot rise above the musty smell of forgotten heirlooms

Hand-me-downs weighing you down

I tower above you -

An imperious redwood grown high through my labors

Your withered bloom 

Dropping petals

Like bread crumbs

That you cannot follow home

To father 

The birds of my boughs

Have picked apart your planned path

You are lost

And can use only the moss on my shoulders 

To follow my way

Poetry is...

The rhythm of every breath

And every beat of every heart 

The siren call of every birdsong 

And every noise in nature

The trail of every tear down every forlorn cheek

And the stain of every bruise and all that is inked

The music of every sphere in the universe

And every silence waiting in anticipation

The breakup of every love

And the fire of every fury

The promise of every dream

And the breakdown of every promise

The every thing

And the ever