Sample Poems

Yea Plunge

Please imagine if you can,
the fingertips of “that I am.”

Letting go of, with a flick,
sending sailing through the tick,

a bottle spinning in the air,
twirling slowly, in a prayer.

Flipped on purpose from His hand
to the river through the land,

where it skips across the water--
found the current,
                      and then fought her.

Bobbing roughly on the surface
with a purposeless purpose.

Where it’s going, I don’t know. 
It’s just following the flow.

And it travels all alone
‘til you find it, in this poem.

And within God put a letter,
at least I hope, to make me better—

What it shows us words can’t tell you,
maybe stories from the bayou,

of the acts of that Giver—
tossed that bottle in that river—




Now returning to the vision,
let me tell of my decision.

Please imagine if you dare,
that bottle spinning in mid-air.

And please refrain from any laughter,
as you learn—
                    I jumped in after . . . .



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Exasper 

There’s a dream knocking on
    commemoration’s door partially closed.
I can see through the crack, partly.
I know it is there, but I can’t remember it—
something about a ship--or I know--a boat.

Oh yes! 

On a river!

I float calmly in a secluded scene of glorious
    trees and sandy banks and blue water,
sighing and looking up at the clear blue sky,
free of all obstructions, in the middle of the river,
hearing my heart deem:

“how nice.”

Yes, I remember—
floating there, centered there
    caressed by the proud rays of the sun,
finally free of the worry in me,

when I perceive
another boat floating there, all alone, drifting
upstream from me. 
Upstream . . . .

“How nice,” I breath again, feeling serene enough
    to share my serenity with another,
and I return my self to the sky,
where I perceive a lonely cloud. 

But the other boat seems to be
coming right at me, and I sit up.

“It’s coming right at me,” repeats my mind,
so I toss out a “hey” . . . . . .

but I am not respected with a reply.

“Damn” says the mind,
and throws another “Hey!”
With still no reply my mind stiffens,
then hurls an “ahoy!”


Soon I am on my feet, balancing myself with an
    old unused wooden oar,
yelling and shaking my fist. 

“What a jerk!”

Yet the boat keeps coming silently at me,
coming at me until it crashes right into me.

And as my anger ducks away,
back into its
    crazy creepy corner of my old wooden boat—
I notice the other boat is empty,
holding nothing but a taught rope,
apparently connected
down through the clear blue water—

to an anchor.


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Un-repressing

I had the courage to clean my closet,
and let me caution you—
I created catastrophe with the clutter.

Oh, the monsters are no longer there.
Instead, they stomp around my house—
scaring my girls and my cats and dogs.

There’s the fat one sitting
with legs spread wide,
on the middle of the couch,

hand half in bag and
other half in mouth,
a mouth that criticizes
every channel we choose.

Then there’s the angry one,
standing at the foosball table,
ready to ram the ball rudely
down your plastic man’s throat.

And then there’s the one sitting
at my writing table,
rubbing his head again and again,
with turmoil and irritation,

tears staining his paper,
wondering why it was so
wise to whisk the closet out
in the first damned place.


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Another Butterfly Effect

I came from the Garden,
arms bearing fruit,
and rounding a corner
found cobwebs en route.

Grief grabbed my heart
when I saw they had snagged
a butterfly bright,
and proud like a flag.

(But then in the wind,
I noticed a Movement,
and realized my chance
to offer improvement.

I took great offense
like all who resents,
and tore the entangled
tress of detent.)

And smiling I watched it
fly off to the sun,
flitting and pretty,
its freedom I’d won,

and reaching to gather
my Fruit off the ground,
I noticed the spider—
starving and stound . . .



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21st Century Contrition

Hello there, little honey bee!
I’ll move away, very slowly—
so you won’t need to sting me.
If you did, I’d mourn you deeply.

I’ll just stand here quietly, withdrawn,
I’ll just watch you from this lawn.
‘Cause if you sting me who would carryon?
To do your work after you’re gone?

And please,
after you finish with these rows,
could you please pollinate my tomatoes?
Unless you saw me and already chose’
to fly away from my hacks and hoes.

And oh,
I’m sorry if I had swat at you,
in the happier days of the last season or two.
I didn’t think then, even though I knew,
your hive had suffered from a virus or a flu.

My kind has known for quite a while,
that we’re the animal who is vile,
who ruins the air, just for style.
I guess it started when we ruled the Nile.

We learned through trial, to use our bigger brain,
to “get atop” the proverbial food chain.
And yet upon the earth, we left a stain,
for our brain became nature’s bane.

And yes,
“atop” meant more than procreate ,
it meant to kill; not from need, but hate.
It eventually led us to this fate:
there aren’t enough bees to pollinate.

So now,
I notice you in my garden,
And swat you not, instead a pardon.
And yes I’ll cheer you now and then,
and pray you’ll return here, once again.



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Presence          

Addiction
means standing
on a wonderful beach
under the dawn sky
and wishing
you were in that sailboat.

Guilt
means standing
on the wonderful beach
in the brilliant dusk
and thinking
only of the words—
the mean words—
you said to your lover
in the sailboat.

Presence
is waiting
on the beach
aware—
of the sailboat
and the words—
and saying out loud:

“How beautiful!”



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Blade

Though I walk through the door
of either or
no more, no more;
I find a new hall of doors
through what I go for,
and at the end, a window
to my life: an onion.
Until now one layer
at a time, coming off—
revealing the odious next layer,
finding nothing more than the same, the same, the same.
The same I know, the same old layer I beheld before.

So I walk towards the new;
the unlocked door
when through, when through;
I see a point on the floor
and I discover
another blade, another blade;
and I smell: an odor
until now was hidden
by my glum consciousness.

But I learn this repulsive
new fragrance will bring
nothing more than
more tears, more tears.

More tears pour out,
the tears that would not
be without, within.

Now I hold sharp,
the blade I found
and I slice, I slice,
and see?  I can peel
the layer again and
again I peel it, I peel
it off and off more
and more come off
and then surprise,—
beneath the surface,
emerges another,
other, odious
odorous
layer.

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Sequence

I’m
puzzled—
Listening
to raindrops falling
with a rhythm on the rooftop.

Are
rhythms
happening
by prearrangement,
like a pattern that connects us?

A
number
trickery—
the Fibonacci—
is a series what describes us?

Or
just some
ludicrous
coincidences
linking poems and art and numbers?

And
raindrops,
causing me
to write about them
as they drum upon my conscious.


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Ocean Intention

If all I had to do, was come and swim in you,
I’d be a happy swimmer, my hope would have a glimmer.
But all that I can see, is water smashing me.
My God I need a dimmer, my temper needs to simmer.

If all I had to do, was come and float in you,
I’d plunge right in that river, to Hope I’d be a giver.
But all that I can see, more lessons thrown at me.
My God I need to take, for once I need a break.

If all that fear was me, and gone since I’ve seen the sea,
I’d walk across the land, and help all to understand.
But still it stays around, so that on land I’d drown.
My God it lives in me:  the river, the fear, the sea.

If all I had to do, was teach and practice too,
I’d do it all again, the stream until the end.
Yet all we feel is fear; ignore the love that’s here.
But God, I’ll enter hell, to help and learn as well.

If all is one and all, I wish to all a call.
To face the fear you feel, to learn it isn’t real.
But now I start to see, the river is the sea.
The Ocean is my fate; to fear, evaporate.


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Not Like I Thought

When I woke up, in the morning,
a little boy, having slept through the night,
the dark was not like I thought.

When I fell in love, in my teens,
scared and focused and dreaming,
love was not like I thought.

Graduating and going out
into the real world—
not like I thought.

Falling in love for real
this time, and this and this—
not like I thought.

Meeting you and having her,
and turning into my father—
not like I thought.

Growing old and fat, groaning
out of the couch, grandkids—
not like I thought.

Slipping into the river again
and again, and finally finding the sea—
not like I thought.

Dying—
not like I—