Peace In The Valley

The valley is filled with rustling leaves

I walk alone as in a foreign land

Listening to strange languages being sung

From high in the branches

My feet are mindful of their steps

And I cannot help feeling

There is an older order of things

Residing in me

A vestigial memory

Of a life I never lived

A memory written

into my blood

An ancient lesson refusing

to let itself be forgotten

Harbor Light

She lives in an apartment by the port.
Harbor light fills her room at night.
She's got no TV but she watches
all the faces as they go by.
She tells me to come over
but never answers the door.
She watches as I walk away.
She watches my face as I go.

On Happiness

Not everything you think will make you happy
will actually make it so. In fact, some of these
things may actually impede happiness. 

Life is a long drawn out process that forces us 
to be able to discern between the two.

A Question for Morning

The song of morning is one of 

renewal and birth

Have you ever wondered

what words are being sung

by the birds in the trees

outside your window?

Half Dream

Half awake when I saw you
Floating through the cobbled 
paths of my mind

There was no sound to your step
What words could be said
None were fit to be uttered

Watching you pass me by
Before you joined the horizon
You turned to look at me

Sedoka #1

rise to greet the sun
quiet hours in this new day
bare arm resting on covers

golden hair fields light
flicker of life in your eyes
lips taking the shape of words

summer flowers bloom
when will fall winds come to pass
ask the moon tonight

Amphora

The dream always leaves before I have time to remember it.
My mornings are a blur of cloudy thoughts and physical needs
to be taken care of. Why must waking be so time consuming?
I wish I could wake and be ready in an instant. I can't be too
cheery so early in the day. I have to work up to happiness.
Forcing feelings that are not there has never helped anyone.
During summer months I leave the windows in my room
open while I sleep. The coolness of the late nights calms me
as I listen to the sound of the world breathing slow. Sleeping
and waking, waking and sleeping, so much of life happens
between the two, though, we would be lessened without
our need for sleep and subconscious fantasy. It is warm this
day and I know the moon is in repose but when she is fully
ascended I will once more leave myself to be an open amphora.

File Away For Future Use

Sad Conversations with Happy People

wake and see
wake and breathe
wake and be in balance
and harmony

Non / Work

Do not tell me 
what does not work

Tell me what has 
despite all obstacles

Learning

If I were not broke
I would not know
what it is like to be whole.

When I am wounded
I recall what it is to be
free from pain.

When I regret a choice
I learn judgement.

Learning by opposite
effects

           can be the most
effective of all educators.

There is no shame in failure,
only in failing to acknowledge
what has ceased to work. 

Life Support

Still breathing

Don't call it living


Still moving

        and seeing

Still beating

        wounded metronome

                  keeping time

or trying to


Is that a fly

buzzing

in this still room

                   What a portent

to see


Still breathing

For now

              is long enough

Let's build a new life 
upon these broken bones. 

The Journey Begins in the Morning

I am awake because I slept for hours and hours
until my body could no longer tolerate
the restful sleep of a bed.

I woke up achey and uncertain
but certain that I was awake
because I had that at least.

I am awake and certain that
whatever is coming next
is on its way.

I will be on my way
soon enough and
I'll be where I

need to be
even sooner.

Song Without Words

Don't worry about words
There are none for this song.

Open your mouth,
move your tongue
and lips.

Those will always be
the right ones
at the right time.

Weight of a Sentence

The notebook is never empty

it only gives that impression.

Write something for me.

Tell me a truth

and I will tell you one.

Pulling at words

and thoughts

stretching them

until the sentence

is ready to fall a part

from the line and dro p

                                     off

the page

entirely.

You can only live the same dream for so long. 

In this well
are only ashes. 

Lucky in an indifferent world. 

I've got a frozen tongue in the freezer
that's got nothing to say. 

Nothing matters
Everything is worth saving

Life Feeds on Life

Something
Somewhere
Must die every day
For you to live

To contemplate the visage. 

The weighted wreck of expectation. 

Bubbles, Spheres, and Planes of Intersection. 

Daydreams float like seeds 
On the wind.

Which will fall to the soil
And seed the Earth?

Cut through the bullshit and find what matters most to you. 

I don't want to be the bad man I know I've been. 

To fall in love from a distance is the only folly. 

I want to be able to forgive myself. 

Broken Cymbal Symphony

We conquer our inadequacies or are consumed by them. 

Creative Cruelty

I'm just a shadow of myself.
I'm not the me I could have been.
I'm not the me I could still be. 

To be alive is to be in a state of perpetual fragility.

There is no growth without hardship and pain.

Even the faintest light 
can take us to where we need to be.

Stringing the Present

This desire must be fulfilled even if
only for a moment.

Pain and panic -
Thoughts of survival and triage.

What voice does your mind speak with?

My thoughts break up into digestible words
that fall short of actual intent.

The arm of the tree withers.
How much longer can it hold on?

Am I disappointed in my childhood
for not giving a more realistic expectation of life?

Coddled and safe -
I am weary of the change I need.

Your dreams are as beautiful
as I have known you to be. 

slow parade

A slow parade of discovery
with no drum major leading
the band. Music in and
out of time, rhythm
merely a suggestion.

Classifying Dreams

Classify my dreams as
likely, unlikely, 
never going to happen.

You'd be right as often
as you'd be wrong.

Things change so slow
that we forget 
what quick can look like.

I don't know your dreams
well enough to do 
the same for you.

I can guess and be as 
right as often as you were
about mine. 

Is it beautiful out there?

We have a drink
and listen to the sounds
of the neighborhood
in between brief
pauses in conversation

It has been a long day
and the only question left
to answer

How soon until we go
to sleep
so we can try this again?

Echo Park Summer

Haze of heat 
My body covers itself in sweat
The city seeps into the soles of my shoes
and I breathe it out

Walking the streets
choked full of youth on such
a summer day

I am as old as I have ever been

Nature has always made it easy 
for man to believe in gods.

La Virgen de Echo Park

I found her in an alley
painted on a dirty wall
with a light
shining upon her.
Her face was of divine
peace and compassion.
I parked my car in front of her-
perhaps - I thought -
that would keep it safe.
I am not religious
or even superstitious
but I was born on her feast day.
It could be mere coincidence
or not
but I acknowledge her
any time we encounter one another.
It couldn't hurt and
there's nothing to lose.

The proof is everywhere.

freewrite 8/6/15

Words are nothing thoughts are nothing and I
am nothing until I decide to be something when
I become something I will become someone
and when I become someone I will not be
forgotten by those who see and those who see
me will hold me in the closet of their thoughts
the door for it opening on occasion and that
occasion needs not be important or at length
merely a passing moment that serves as a
reminder of something and nothing that is what
we veer between something and nothing and
when we become something it is only because
we are on our way to being nothing again
this is no source for worry just an unceasing
continuum becoming is a process with no end
and no real beginning we can observe the rising
of the sun and its setting we can observe the
ascension of the moon and its descent we will
never see the end of their lives but they will
see the end of ours and continue their orbits
like nothing happened

The ground opened like a mouth

and swallowed me whole

I move in dank darkness

and speak and scream

for any way out