who's right

charlatan peacemakers
puppets of aggression
meaning well is meaningless
destroying the world, incidental
for those who mean no harm
just want what they feel is right
right the right
I’m right, who’s left? First base!

let down your anger
righteous indignation turns your mind
into a red state
think of rain over the ocean
where coolness meets its match
the fire eating the Earth alive
running to meet the faultline
from both sides
is hushed quiet
a finger to each ones lips
we stop for a turn of the clock to think
that pause, the saving gift

Nature's Oasis

organic rain droplets
sustainable greenery
blocking the view of the church
that tells its self-pitying tales
of a savior who cannot fill
those front row pews like he used to

I can barely make out that church
sipping my fair trade coffee
in the Nature's Oasis cafe
catty corner
from Lakewood Methodist

and neo-hippies
one of which I am not qualified to be
with long beards and bicycles
yoga mats and yoga pants
absorbed in their bland, grooveless, acoustic music
their oh-so fashionable revolutionary politics
have no care for God
no belief, no connection
save for the trance while on the road in the bike lane
the hum of gears clicking into place
the Om of the 5-minute meditation
beginning every 40-minute Vinyasa yoga session

how the ark of the covenant lost its way

it was sailing unknown rivers
for unspoken ocean

sirens to our ghosts
delivered strong souls
unto weak incarnations
(blood on the rocks of the shoals
of cosmic eddies)

they jailed the innocent
exalted the guilty
all for the turning

all to pull the heart
to protest
to bring back
the holy of holies

to sunken pavement
abandoned streets
lives carved by their own limbs
from mahogany and ash

waiting in blue

note the walls
painted slate-blue
like the ocean at a distance
the examination table
a vibrant blue plastic
activates my throat chakra
Vishuddha, node of expression
heaven and hell
all of space

I want to let you know
your having me wait
in dullness and anxiety
introduces me
to the beauty
of who I am

what the grave says

my grandiose plot
to soothe my waters
the fifty year plan
a self-illumined man

no one reaches Bodh Gaya
but through impenetrable thicket
not a coalescence of monks
with pre-season tickets

and I couldn't outsmart
my own lack of simple
when the ocean whispers
then roars with no ripple

the old man's truth
the young man's lie
"what the grave says,
the nest denies."


quote -- Theodore Roethke

beyond the great beyond

a Universal solvent
a cosmic solution
a toad that sweats
a cancer cure
a corollary to the Constitution
that grants the same freedoms
to everyone simultaneously
without effort, without cost
a galaxy where for everyone of us
there is a star without our names on it
something we cannot own
something we cannot hold
something to teach us
loss and grief
and the goodness of our being
beyond religion
beyond allegiance
beyond any reason
beyond belief