At My Desk

Post apocalyptic cataleptic 

frozen by the age I am

the time I’m in

on a cusp of switcheroo...

my desk looks like a battlefield.

I’m a casualty of a causality

I never saw coming, still invisible

to most people, but inevitable,

like when water recedes

before a tsunami catastrophe.

Might as well be sitting at a cafe

in Nagasaki that morning

when everything changed

without warning.

The day Kennedy was shot, 

the world felt it.

Today, everyone going crazy

in anticipation of…who knows what…

but knows something just ain’t right.

Anticipation of shoe fall;

size: infinity.

Cosmic Reflection

moon on still pond surface

surface of moon in water

reflected in mind’s mirror

all an image, a vision, 

a mirage,

like my feelings 

kaleidoscoping

matter over mind

matter of mind

matter is energy

slowed down

alley-oop

the great switcheroo

looking at itself…

“This arm, that table, both

are part of me….whatever 

me is, or, 

I’m just part of that.”

We are made of matter

containing energy organized

into self awareness,

awareness of other,

confused into belief in a self

separate from other,

two pieces of the same mirror.

Empty Heart

Garden perfect in wabi-sabi indifference.

When a soldier drops next to you, 

you just keep walking.

What happens to the love when you die?

Where is the love when you don’t feel it?

Civilization just another word for nothing

meant to last.

We have paintings, poems, music; captured

moments of beauty to be relived.

All that too will be gone.

The only joy is that beauty, humor, love arise

wherever mind does. 

Eternity of ephemeral circumstance,

serendipity of causality,

nothing left to chance,

wrote a song about it…

want to hear it?

Goes like this:

Stormenza

Lights on/off/on/off

pop-boom-bang-bwang

rain rushing this way/that way

cloudz treez windoze whoosh

raw whipped up elementalz…

natural catastrophe gotta be

what with everything flying 

through space and all…

earth gone tomorrow, no one

knowz why…I enjoyz the show…

don’t worry…

…nothing is ever lost.

Cerebral Event

distant thunder

violet leading blue

red flowers green 

shrubs shrugging  

shaggy shoulders

rumble nimbus mumble

clear blue gray clouds

ancient rock and roll

archaic rhythm raga

stone soul driver

nailed by cold fox 

flash shock lights out

smell of bacon cooking…

Gravestoned

etched into the moment

no two alike 

same song is new again

cascade of unfolding

free fall land where they may 

seeds internal eternity

victory over inevitability

herding cataclysms

herding Descartes

no two philosophies alike

you don’t have to think,

and only Buddha figured it out…

there is nothing next, hence,

a red wheelbarrow

yo mamma

Still born, after all these years,

(so many lives in one life),

not dragged down like so many…

face a smiling epitaph, each line

carved into the meat and memory,

grateful to not be living dead.

We had it right for a second 

in the sixties…

that’s all we needed.

Dark Star

You could call the heart that;

pumping same as shining…

starts at the beginning of life,

doesn’t stop ’til the end.

Each of us a universe born 

and dies.

A dark matter, the heart,

meaning the center, 

of the issue, the creation,

empty potential from which

everything springs

without precedent;

a song, a platypus,

Buddha, Ali…

the universe takes each breath

a billion years.

Hamlet And Eggs

To be

or not to be,

or, to be above it all…

no one thought of 

the third possibility.

To be, not to be, both,

or neither…the only four

questions Buddha wouldn’t

answer.

You gotta crack a few heads

to make a Hamlet. How many Danes

does it take to eschew in a lightbulb?

A: a rotten fish. Surrealism wasn’t

born in Denmark, but, it helped.

A conflict of interest causes

bankruptcy of trust. “Walking

on water wasn’t built in a day.”

The Indians called Columbus’ ships

UFO’s: Unidentified Floating Objects.

“Don’t fire ’til you see the whites of

their eggs!” ….and, because of that

misunderstood order, the British

quelled the revolution….bummer!

Pan-o-rama

Bread of the Gods…

view overarching all…

to be above it all…

observing monkey boy

from a safe distance.

Armchair quarterback,

master of the world,

“I could have told you that”

echoes throughout family 

rooms of America… “I don’t

watch the other network,

because, of course, 

they’re biased.”

You’re holding on to part of 

the elephant in the room,

which, you insist, is the whole,

and you’re so damned angry,

which gives you heart disease…

you die coaching little league.

Critics will pan the first part of

century twenty one as a pimple

on the visage of humanity, lanced

by men of vision and perspective

to facelift our view to face reality

squarely in the face. 

At least, 

that’s the way it looks 

from up here.

Right Up My Alley

in the zone…

the groove…

vipashana…

awake…

tuned in…

authentic presence…

zen moment…

beginner’s mind…

square one…

bottom line…

bare truth.

Morality Police?

forces of nature, the homing device,

gets us to the nipple, the diploma,

the badge and gun, hopefully with

a back porch to live on in afternoons...

save me from morality more complex

than the hunger in my belly, 

the love in my heart,

knowing right from wrong.

Don't legislate/tread on me.

Random Word Poem # (random number here)

Good flaming beginning…

hot off the presses, collar, griddle…

food for thought?

Maybe.

Cosmic glue holding the whole

thing together?

You wish…

how could you ever know?

If uncertainty wasn’t built in,

there wouldn’t be so much belief.

“I believe.”

“Can’t you do better than that?”

Houseguests on a life boat…

what does it take…an earthquake, 

plane crash, the second World War?

If you lived here, 

you’d be awake by now.

You see,

you always have to have three,

that’s why there’s a moon…

that’s why they believe in God…

it seems chaos has order…

and art is the decoder.

Eroica

Manbranding…

painting the world…

marking his territory…

eternal cry for pussy…

art presages orgasm.

Rock stars drip groupies

in aphrodisia of fame.

Humanity is always ready

to party, take a break from

holocaust…baby boom after

A bomb.

Celebration of the ephemeral…

great art only eternal in the mind…

why Mozart hit the piano running,

why Rimbaud deranged,

Kerouac drank,

Burroughs shot up:

because they knew they weren’t

getting a second chance.

Crossroads

Hirsute downtown swindle

public circus freakish elegant

bigmouth flashing philosophy

(later jailed for bigamy)

you go where the action is…

it doesn’t look like that from here…

when are you going to get real? 

Big decision…to be, or, to pull 

the trigger of not to be…you

could still be alive, 

but, as a shadow,

no memory of who

you once were.

When you have nothing,

you have nothing to lose.

When you are nothing, 

there is absolutely

no problem.

Elderberry Wine (for Elton John)

How can I ever

get it together

without a mind 

that’s mine?

The sea in the summer,

the sky in the fall,

walking out where we

could not stand

on a shore of sand

intoxicated to a man,

how can I ever

get it together

without my life in line?

There’s a fly in the window

a dog in the yard,

“and the eyes of it’s eyes

are as lost as you’ll find”.

“Drunk all the time 

feel’n fine 

on elderberry wine.”

Inventory July 19, 2018

peanut M&Ms,

three new lighters

a delicious new pen

plenty of stew

on the internet/stove…

cigarettes

submerged

silent running

beneath the storm

over the ocean…

in my man cave

unmolested by vicissitude

feigning verisimilitude…

I don’t run a tight ship

chaos is the order of the day…

the chips and the sailors

tinkers and tailors

will fall where they may.