I. When Morning Came.
the Meeting
Heart in Battle Dress,
face scared from previous hunts
and tangles with Love’s imminent fangs.
I lurk on a stool in an alcohol Jungle,
armed for skirmish.
Bow taunt,
arrow in hand straight and sharp.
I glanced about,
all around
circles stain the bar from my drink.
If at that point, you’d asked me
w/ face smeared black for battle,
-Had my spirit defected?
I would’ve answered, -Yea;
albeit, I saw it that night.
It was an electrical moment.
which shook me,
jolting me back
up against the polyurethane wood of the bar.
I saw Picasso’s Incandescent Angel;
she came over and spoke to me.
The light was blinding.
Her blazing blue eyes caused seeds to sprout.
Leaves unfold, catching the radiating light.
With her hand on mine,
the Incandescent Angel’s words,
delicate in their arrival,
wrap around me slowly tightening.
The arrow, sliding from my fingers,
splintered upon the floor.
I place my bow in the trash can
with the plastic cups and beer bottles,
as we walked up the sidewalk
to get something to eat.
I chose to be myself
following the way of the spirit,
the way of the hunter was too painful.
Angel, I come with no presents,
only the wind at my back.
I can only give you words
threaded together in a necklace called poem
and leave with the hope,
that you, too,
desire to continue our conversation on another day.
A Morning Poem
I have named you morning
because when you appear
all the birds sing in my body;
the rivers flow through my heart,
and shake the sky.
A hickory sprouts up
and grows out from the canopy.
A song fills the air,
that only you and I, my love,
can hear.
II. Desire: the Rising of the Sun
A Wish for Kiss
The powdered green flowered sofa
held Picasso’s Incandescent Angel with kind anticipation
like a foliage between the bubbles and water of the Elder.
I leaned over to say good-bye;
however, as I did,
something took me.
The bubbles and blossoms broke out from the water
in a sudden rush over the rocks
to be received farther down the Elder
among the schools of fish
playing in the silt of the Delta.
A wish for a kiss,
which I had not the nerve to let bloom.
A sigh ripples through my veins.
The ocean’s tide rises upon the Delta
brimming over
with immovable precision
and the blossoms spin off into the sand.
Twin blue incandescent suns shine upon me,
brightening my night.
Water or dream
her delicate face burned in my mind’s eye
for hours, days, weeks.
The blossoms rose from the ocean.
My heart and the voices who reside within my mind
stagger about ambiguously
and merge with the ocean.
The Blessing
Dew covered my windshield
as I entered the truck.
A push of the MIST button
and the windshield wipers do the task:
making it lucid enough
for me to gaze out
down a road that lead straight.
Straight into morning.
It was a bit chilly
and the stars were out once more
after five days of rain
which began on my birthday.
Morning remarked I was blessed
because of the rain.
My blessings flooded over the banks of the river,
across the land to touch the road.
A touch.
Morning’s fingers circumvent my lips
careful to memorize each line and crevice,
mapping them out for the approach and landing
of her loving fully blessed lips.
Shuddering forth from a breath,
her laughter flusters and vibrates the motel walls,
bathes the palms of my hands
and walks through my eyes.
When Morning Came
When Morning Came into my life
the wind moaned in my ear.
She trembled
as I touched my mouth to her lips,
tongues crossing the gap,
entwining,
conveying in French,
the lovers language,
a language of no words.
I strolled through a night of dreams
waiting for morning to show.
Her hands reach out to touch me.
Her earthly fragrance rifting into my sloped nose
and her words entangling with mine.
Now that Morning has come
how could I ever want to sleep.
Anna Ruby Falls
Two waterfalls meet,
white liquid air.
A proud hickory towers into the canopy,
as Morning’s fingers entwine through the leaves.
The shadows mesh with the dark rock spots,
spirited lacerated beauty.
Many have died upon those rocks,
walls, separation, oceans.
The water continues
not listening nor worrying
entangled with a mysterious thread.
The bed of rocks tremble under the force of the water
as it plunged downward with a delicate pounding
and the blossomed heart sprung open
giving forth life farther down.
Morning’s light runs down the path,
followed by morning herself
laughter bounces off the rocks
and the sphinx, perched upon the rocks
sticks its head above the canopy
to proclaim the meeting of the two.
The minute we had parted
There is always that moment
when suddenly we are naked,
exposed and shy.
The minute we had parted,
I started looking,
not knowing why.
I reach out my hand,
secretly in your direction
but I pause
not an end
but a pause to see.
nothing.
I open my mouth.
I don’t understand.
Sometimes I wonder
why it’s all here.
Did you feel it?
III. The fog rises From the Ground
A DaDa Day
The morning burned the fog from the sky,
as the Sun rose to meet the Moon.
I sat on my front porch watching,
I can see the wall being built.
She says she wants to be with me;
but, after every word a brick takes its place.
Name-giver walked up to me,
“Listen to your heart,
and move accordingly.
“You have always had a simple heart,
the complexities of the world bring forth difficulties;
just love simple love,
no wants, no needs,
just friendship.
By experiencing the innocence of simple love
you can see the wholeness, understanding, and
ripeness in the conditioning of the heart.”
Listening for your Wings.
I have looked and found, heavily,
a strange agony,
when Sun and Moon shared the morning.
The salt from my tears do not forgive me;
my chapped lips burn.
I wanted to be a part of,
not a conflict.
The leaves turn mean red
as they release themselves from the tree,
and dance with the wind of complexity.
I swim up the current;
the swollen black tar river pulls me
under the icy waters.
I reach out…grab a branch hanging out over the bank.
My mind recalls horrors of past attempts
to lift myself out of these waters.
I pray my eyes never shut.
I need my mouth to sing,
my body to carry my soul,
my arms to swim up these cold currents,
my eyes to search for the morning sun,
my lips to feel yours again.
and my ears to listen for your wings.
The Eyes Make Sorry Story-tellers
The eyes make sorry story-tellers.
They do not know words of the heart.
They cannot speak of hopes,
full of layers and secrets;
let alone sleep on fine canopied beds.
No, they rise with the despair
feeding off the fog.
It is the heart, in its strength
which accepts being used
in an act of satisfying urges.
It is the heart
which sees through the fog,
and forgives.
Let’s open a new book,
not written by eyes nor hands,
but with the soul & heart.
Let’s not run blind through the dreams of the night;
but sleep with hand in hand and
soak in the radiance of the sun.
Leave Room for the Stars
The heat of the day dispersed with the clouds
exposing the stars.
The nip of Wind has filled the gap.
The black tar river rises up,
brilliantly rushing through the trees.
in it’s wake to the city,
it claims the land
and all that resides upon it.
I step from my truck.
my head bent back,
gazing at the stars.
I carried my heavy hybrid heart up the stairs
Putting it just inside the doorway.
The star, which had reached me,
went nova a million years ago.
“You should always leave room in your heart for the stars.”
Name giver’s voice comes in from behind me,
her hand gently resting on my shoulder.
“You have come forth clean, naked,
completely radiant,
you sparkle through the slits in the blinds.”
“I would like for once
to be able to step out,
stand under that dark sky, and
not be engulfed.” I replied.
Shutting the door,
I stared out the window up at the stars.
“Surely one of those stars must still exist.”
IV. Picasso Hangs behind the Incandescent Angel
Picasso’s Incandescent Angel
Last night I dreamt I was a painter.
I stood behind a large blank canvas,
to paint you working on a potter’s wheel.
There was a gentle fullness about the canvas
that I needed to touch,
I stuck my brush in the wet paint,
and placed it upon the naked canvas.
I move my hand up.
Painting,
your foot pumping the steel pedal.
Painting,
your knee bending;
the long shirt,
which covered your legs,
ruffle as your hands work the stark earth.
Painting
your waist twisting,
your stomache tight,
smooth upon the canvas.
Painting,
your breasts quivering
as your torso rotated,
creating torque for your foot to move the wheel.
Painting your earth covered face,
with its deep blue eyes
entranced with the form you make rise
upon the spinning wheel.
Painting your earthen hair
as it danced about your face.
Painting until I came to the right temple;
white doves formed, flew out
fluttered and surged about me.
The white doves stick to my finger tips
I kiss each one lightly upon the beak.
I shivered as they entered me.
I opened up my palm to touch the canvas;
Your potter’s hand reached out from the canvas
opened up upon my check,
and pulled me gingerly into the painting.
Melding paint and clay.
Petrified
The night air petrified about me,
I could feel the cool breeze through the weave of my clothes stiffen.
So many things to figure out;
so many things to do;
as a young man I’d get so frustrated,
when I peered back at my accomplishments,
I’d feel that I had achieved nothing,
nothing to say “Look, this is what I am.”
But I was mistaken.
If you study it in more detail you will notice the movements.
It almost resembles the fluttering of wings climbing into the sky.
Look at the moon, was it not full just the other night;
yet where it is now?
Are you sure it had ever been full?
“Oh yes,” Snaps Spider, “I felt it within me.
It is not a matter of observation; this is soul stuff.”
The elders came out from the trees dancing and singing,
and a young man stepped forward, smiled grimly.
“Why , if we are to call things by their right names,
we might well find that the Romans are the champions of our Law,
and are not they our enemies,
whom are now inside the very land of our ancestors,
inside the very mountain that once was sacred?” “Old habits are hard to break;” the elders sang.”newer ones are harder to form take shape.”
And Spider replied, “Behold my children,
these are the results of inaction;
and in that inaction are not the movements dim
and without resolution as the moon may seem to be now?
However the brightness of the sun forever radiates the moon.
It is only your perception of it that makes it appear dim and out of reach.
I shook my head and the voices became maracas
being shook vigorously to the beat of a mariachi band,
until they burst open and the seeds scattered across the ground.
Now some of the seeds landed on rocks
and did not have a chance to grow
because the animals came and ate them;
while some of the seeds landed among weeds,
however the weeds kept them stoned,
so they had no energy to grow;
some of the seeds landed onto a freshly plowed fertilized field
and shot up baring fruit:
hundreds of maracas sounding off in the winter wind,
flinging their seeds everywhere.
Ocean
Days go by and I do not understand a word you say,
as your waves rise and lower upon the bed.
I think maybe I should have begun to understand;
but the words you speak are the notes of a song
sung many generations ago in a language
handed down only in etched stone.
The melody of your voice is simple but steady
and who can not admire the grace of step,
the giving of skin,
as you roll across sea-oats and shell beds.
The droplets of sweat that form and glisten
are both wet and salty to the touch of the tongue.
Nevertheless,
I am afraid as all men probably are,
apprehensive
as I attempt to swim to the core of your soul,
that you would storm and I drown.
So I build walls of rock and concrete upon the sands
to try to keep you at bay.
And only visit you when your waters are calm.
But this doesn’t work, a single tone from you
would shatter every window in my house.
So I have chosen the only solution:
to camp out upon the shell beds in your arms
under the stars
and wait and listen for a reply,
for you to instruct me how to fathom your love.
Smyon-Pa 