AIDED BY THE NIGHT

Aided by the night
And the sounds of the forest
They were riddles
For a generation
That lived in ignorance
That scoured
The underbelly of the world
Eating the scraps
That fell
From the king's tables
Happy and pleased
At their good fortune

THE WINE YOU DRINK

The noise is not too bad
It allows me to continue
As long as concentration
Is less than total
And as long as life
Is not too demanding

If someone follows
The road of the Lord
Where will it take him?
Will new vistas
Re-invigorate the mind?
Will new landscapes
Fire the imagination?
Will he find himself
Capturing his essence?
Being something he always was
But prevented by circumstance
From being?

What do you do
When the Devil recognizes the truth?
Doesn't leave much room
For telling lies
But the truth is not so much
An iron hand
As it is a branding iron
It scalds all falsehood

The city reeks
With open wounds
And desolation
The time is now
To run to the hills

Voices
Heard but not understood
But even if comprehended
How can mere words
Change anything?
Change is not from within
But comes from pressure
Like rocks stratified
Inside the earth
Like planets
Impacted by giant meteors

We never saw it coming
We were still blind when it was here
Too bad
Such a long journey was wasted
Better luck next time

The wine you drink
Should not be confused
With the grapes in the vineyard
At the moment
You taste the wine
The grapes have yet to be picked

Yesterday was a day of rest
So was today
Tomorrow though
We may have to go to work

Choosing the important
In an infinity of choices
Is just another way
Of describing reality

THE MOMENT

The moment
They said goodbye
There was
This sense of doom
Juggernauts
Were on the horizon
But soon
There was calm
When destruction
Became inevitable

EARLY MORNING

I wonder
Who I am
In the
Early morning
I should know
I guess
By now
But these matters
Of self-identity
Are more elusive
Than one might
Think
I'm probably
Pretty much the same
As I was
Yesterday
And even a year
Or so ago
But the question is
Who was I then?

AT THE FARMER'S MARKET

They make decisions
In a vacuum
They laugh all the days

Among the vegetables
At the Farmer's Market
They squeeze the melons
And declare them too ripe
They go home
To squalor
And revel in it

To be acquainted
With the ramblings of a madman
Is not too far apart
Than sitting at a dinner table
For one

Does Abraham yet live?
Was he brought forth
From the dust
To taste life yet again
How about Israel and Jacob?

Was just a moment ago
Wasn't it?
When all seemed out of place
Who can say
It was or wasn't

Not so much either way
But somewhere in between
Must be a revelation
Personal disaster lurks
Around every corner
Waiting to pounce
On both guilty
And innocent

Awareness of something deeper
Beyond the everyday cares
Born anew
Into a world
Of falling expectations
Seeking solace
You find none
Walking quickly
Away from the sun

Descending from on high
The one who creates us all
He falters not
At daybreak
Neither is he hindered
By the wind or the rain
His life force
Is irresistible
His plans cannot be
Thwarted
At some point
We forgot to believe
In miracles
It's slightly unusual
For a man
To stand upon the earth
And to predict
That one day
He'll fly

I don't see the dust
It's too small and fine to see
But it does its evil work
And leaves me clogged
From head to foot

IN THE CORNER OF THE ROOM

There's an empty chair
In the corner of the room
Beside the chair is a lamp
Beside the lamp lies an open book
On the wall
Are photographs
Hanging from the ceiling
A fan

I never know where I'm going
Until I get there

Your memories are fading
They weren't really that strong
In the first place
You practiced selective recall
And the past that you see
Is really your future

You have all the things
That money can buy
Materially
You are well-endowed
Then why the worry
On your face
Do you yet fear the madding crowd

Some people travel far
Yet they do not leave this world
Because the points connect
And the path
Circles back on itself

Preciseness
Is a laudable goal
Though it reeks
Of artificiality
What bounds has the Universe?
None as far
As one can see
Then why should we
Attempt to categorize
Our earthly existence
God is invisible
So is everything
That matters

Service to a greater cause
Means self-rejection
But it should
Never mean
Unnecessary violence

Where is our place
Of worship
If it's everywhere
Then we're in trouble
There's strength in numbers
Unless you can't count

I dare to look around me
But all I see
Are pre-arranged shapes
They have a fleeting reality
But the same could be said
For the microscopic forces
That make them up
It's one day among many
But it's not the day
I've been waiting for

MAYBE NEXT TIME

I forgot
To listen in
On myself
I might have
Learned something
Found a reason
To change
But I didn't
And so I
Remain
As I was
Before
That said
Maybe next time
I'll turn
One ear
In my direction

TEN YEARS SQUARE

Hanging on
By a thread
Another 100 years
Just beginning
I won't be
There at the end
Of this latest
Ten years square
But those
Who will be
Will find themselves
Surprised
At the chances

We were that way
Once
Now all things
Seem old
And worn
And newness
Is not a commodity
We can buy

RECOLLECTIONS

My own personal
Recollections
Are of hot, muggy
Afternoons
Breaking late
Into cracks of thunder
And jagged
Lightning bolts
Then rain dripping off
Leaves of trees
Still standing

BRIEF INTERLUDE

In the midst of summer
I recognize the signs
They tell me
Strange happenings
I manage to stay
Cool somehow
And I find myself grateful
For this brief interlude
That we call life

CHILDREN OF EDEN

As the storm rages outside
And the rain pelts the surface of the earth
The temperature falls and the winds swirl
Meanwhile the children of Eden
Are feeling the effects
Of a mundane existence

ALONG A WIDE AVENUE

This world has no antecedents
At least none that we know of
Light years beyond our experience
Along a wide avenue
The sun is shining softly
And we are transported into the heart of the city
Only a few feet above the ground

FROM WAY UP HIGH

From way up high
And from all around
We sense power
Everything is more
Not less
All we are
Is not all
And these seeds
We plant
Are not in vain

THE WORKING CLASS

This new dawn
Is mercurial
And whether wise men
Say wise things
Or repeat
Shibboleths
It remains
For the working class
To find new avenues
Of benign construction
Your day
Is not my day
And it can't ever be
To sing a
Different song
Would require a
Face lift
And a unique
Perspective

COCOON

Cold mornings
We awake to find
That we are
Still alive
Wrapped in a cocoon
Of artificial energy
And when we cross
The threshold
And enter
The outside world
We see that
The cocoon is growing
Beginning to dominate
The natural order
Of things
And as this
Sphere of artificialty
Continues to expand
We wonder at
What point
The two
Shall become one

NEXT TIME I PASS BY

Next time I pass by
I'll be sure to wave
That's an action
You can measure
May not seem much
But much of life
Is like that
You don't always
Have to go
To extreme measures
To feel like
You're alive

LOOKING UPWARD

Slapped in the face
Freely falling
To the ground
On the back
Looking upward
Wondering if
I'll rendezvous
With the cloud
In the middle
Closing my eyes
I'm engulfed
By darkness
But my mind
Is still working
And I raise my hands
Asking for enlightenment
But none is coming
So I take a nap

SEEMS SO LONG AGO

It seems so long ago
That emotion
Swayed the mind
Now you are exhausted
By living one day
At a time
Why not skip ahead
A few years
And taste
The future

OTHERWISE

Otherwise
It would seem
To be
A foggy morning
But somehow
I can see clearly
Despite the haze
And if I'm lucky
I will avoid
A head-on collision
With another human

HOW DO YOU KNOW

How do you know
That summer is near
You just know
Don't you?

And how do you know
When it's time to change
You don't
Because it's already happened

It's evil that you hate
But you can't defeat it
Some part always remains
But that doesn't mean
You shouldn't keep trying

SIDEWAYS INTO THE VOID

I can barely see
The end of the tunnel
But I'm looking
Sideways into the void
Dreaming that I'm awake
Deceiving not only others
But myself also
I wonder if
There's any way
To be sure
That I really
Do exist
And this Phantom existence
Has meaning

We can't seem
To leave
Each other alone
We prefer interaction
Even if it means
Hostility
And friction
If we could stand
Only on mountains
Separated by
Barren tracts of land

They wanted him
To be king
But he wasn't ready
So they killed him

IN OUR CONFUSION

I have no choice
But to choose
The road
That I have already traveled
I have no sense of who I am
Each day I wonder out loud
Who occupies this space?
Leaning backward
I hold onto
A misshapen piece of steel
It bends, then breaks
And then I fall
There is no gravity
There is nothing
But emptiness
And I realize
I've been treading water
For far too long
He walks beside us
Invisible to searching eyes
Yet as real
As real can be
But in our confusion
He slips away

TAUTOLOGY

In the midst of summer
I remember the fall
Afraid of heights
Afflicted by vertigo

The world is a tautology
The places that I go
Remind me of those times
I spent in the trees
Looking down
Not realizing my fear

But I don't dream
Of yesterdays
That never happened
Instead I believe
In the bankrupt promises
Of tomorrow

There doesn't seem to be
A sense of proportion
To the reckoning
Of the present generation
There only seems to be
A retrenching
And a retreat
Toward an inner wall
This wall is an analogy
That reflects
Upon our stubbornness
And our inability
To see ourselves
As we really are

What are we
After all
We're nothing more
Than a somewhat cohesive
Band of molecules
Floating through
A limitless universe
Knowing full well
That total dissipation
Is just around
The corner

ZERO TIME

It's zero time
It's time slipping away
It's a long haul
Going nowhere


Between this reality
And another
There is none


Today is not the day
To find solace
In natural things
No, today is better for
Disseminating
All the wonders
Of mechanical devices
And artificial
Simplicities

EITHER/OR WORLD

In your either/or world
You have lost the ability
To say 'Maybe'

You no longer
Wonder
Nor speculate

In your mind
You have reached
The End of
All Knowledge

So you might as well
Retire