shortly after dawn

this one kind of says what it says, then skeedaddles.



grey,
everything grey,
the pavement ---- grey,
the black chairs and black metal tables
on the coffeeshop porch,
dulling grey in the pale grey light of early morning.

only the tall-grass blades by the window
shine with their sheer openness,
green and light-green,
kelly-green and yellow-green and white-green;
the poms on the tips of the burlap-grasses,
a hint of red
and milk-weed white,
shy, blissful rejoinders
to a sound of wind and voices and traffic I cannot hear
behind this window,
here,
sipping sugar-cream coffee and ice-water.

what I did at work today

the reading material
I brought
is coarse
and luscious,
brimstone, treacle
and transcendence

love the taste
of those
Buddhist heart
murmurings,
love the
songwriters' tales,
the unknowns and
halfblown geniuses
and the Kenneth Rexroth poetry,
Chinese style shorts
and original, leaf-turning
chicken medallions
with honey barbeque
glaze

I could give up this job
and pile books to read
for endless anonymous afternoons,
but I don't think I'd enjoy
them as much
if I weren't sneaking them in,
paragraph by paragraph,
between clients

my books

had been thinking of the insight meditation books I've been reading when I wrote this, but it applies to Ursula LeGuin and all of the poetry I've been reading (Rilke, Neruda, W.C. Williams, Lorca, et cetera) and other books, of course.


my books
old friends
dead letters
living under
leaf
of dried, browned, bound pages,
lifting life
to new heights,
new levels of light

and each new breath,
each word or phrase,
each mark of punctuation
a new step
into deepest, blackest night,
forevermore...

no return,
no retreat,
no hope
of scaling
a peace that takes
no prisoners,
with not a word,
without a
fight

what it has all been for

why friendships have broken my heart only to heal it again -1) because, until recently, I hadn't had friends for years and years and became a kind of social moron, and 2) because of the below...



blossoming
heart,
fire in belly,
burning through,
water flow,
fresh, free and clear,
stone at foot of mountain,
layer of rock and rubble
holding up layer
of rock and rubble,
holding up, carelessly, ceaselessly
until peak is reached.

whole Earth, bare,
rooted in ether
and swirling
rivulet streams
of golden light,
moving, living gold,
watching --

we are not alone,
this I know,
this is what it has all been for --
we are not alone.

introvertabrate

Wondering one night at a coffeeshop how I can be a dazzling social butterfly, but only until I turn back into a pumpkin.




garrulous
tonight
for short shocks
of sullen,
sorryass
5 minute
bursts of conversation,
bumbling at the end of each
then leaving off
and going back, going back,
to put my face in a book.