Poetry of Michael Scott Lewis


My Voice is My Drum
Velvet Revolution
Between a Rock & a Water Place
First Concerto
If Humans Had Tails
Ode on an Oil Can
Holding Your Breath
Pastaierie Mystique
Prime Time
Once Upon a Time, Remember Me
Port Hueneme
Bell Curve Blues
The Heiress
Things that Fall from the Sky
The Apprentice's Tools
Sex, Drugs, and Poetry
Scenes from an Imagination
Under the Big Top
Death Mountain Dream Poem
Reno Love Poem
A Ship Without Name
Soul Zones
Death is My Tailor
From Rocks to Wings
Sailing Across the End of the World
Tank Full of God
Ode to Emergency!
Rhyme of the Time
Industrial Smoke Stack
Millenium Poem
United State of Consciousness
Moon Shine Melody
Shasta Awakening
Frequent See of Sound
This Poem Will Read You
Bolinas Talent Show Poem
Southern Comfort

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My Voice is My Drum

My voice is my drum,
beating out each syllable from the encrypted message of my soul.
My voice is my drum,
pounding out each step of my spirit dancing across this ground.

My voice is my drum,
retelling the story of my tribal origins,
yelling into this concrete jungle:
the warrior's challenge to the roar of corporate tigers.

My voice is my drum,
making time with the rapid melody of mind.
My voice is my drum,
keeping in synch with the swish of blood,
and the pump of this metronome heart.

My voice is my drum
com-mun-i-cat-ing-to-you.

Join me in an acoustic conversation,
and we will talk upon the taut skin
of our consciousness stretching towards high heaven.
We will heal each other through the deep bass tones
of our hollowed longings.
We will release ourselves to the longest of rhythms.

My voice is my drum,
praising each beat, and hushing
all musical meanderings toward meaning
into silence.

Velvet Revolution

Happy are those who are pleased
to lick a chocolate covered Jesus.
Fucking for money is a better religion.

I?ve no intentions beyond creating your offense:
an act of benevolence--misconstrued.

It doesn?t matter how much you want
to be the next great poet of the age.
You must stick to the images which burn you.
Murder your reasoning. Rape the moon.
Empty your veins into the stew.
Then you can begin dying again.

Oh no, here I go,
dying again.

No wonder my mother gave
birth from the coffin:
I live to say these words:
Speak as if you were just born.
Listen as if you are already dead.
Nothing else should make any difference,
as LIFE IS BEING WRITTEN IN ALL CAPS
and death is an exclamation point (!)
just beyond the horizon ...

Between a Rock and a Water Place

If life should be compared to a river,
Roll days like wet stones against other stones,
Chipping off fossils of the past, and bones.
Grind granite to grit. Smooth sand to stiver.
Take away yourself to be the giver.
This is the sure way to stay not moss-grown:
Be polished like water--softest of stones.
Swallow dreams by the droplet. Be sifter
Between simple grains and bigger pebbles:
Friction which can be reduced to fine dust
Will not sink you, but float you on your way.
Mix with particles of flint, slate, cobble.
Dream soft, dream smooth, dream shapely--you must,
For dreams are the bubbles between your days.

First Concerto

Mutually together,
sharing limbs,
in artistic composition,
our figures come alive,
as water colors do, dancing
on cotton canvas.
Her airbrush kisses
stipple my ear,
as she whispers
a note,
a wispy, welcomed word.

We settle into a harmonic theme:
trusting alto under teasing tenor.
Our vocal melodies chase
like dueling violins, starving
for a fresh crescendo.
A desired mode transposes.
Teeth catch inspiration,
developing minor key into major.

Calling out,
in operatic rhapsody,
we bridge.
My fingers play impulsively,
stimulating a sensitive touch
into mood,
like arousing brass progression,
caressing a euphonious form.

Meter up-beats for variation.
A new movement ascends the scale,
accelerating rhythm.
Tone strains. Pitch sharp,
like long, pressing fingernails.

Tension surpasses,
sending finale into flames.
As a symphonic choir
of angels descends,
they bring resonance into spirit.
And a branded climax
brushes our lips,
as echoing kisses fade.

If Humans Had Tails

I'm working past midnight on hard,
oak desk top. Brass lamp light
allows blank paper the necessary white
for contrast of the darker words I write.

In a dim corner of the den
a ball of cat sleeps like a soft stone.
Her tic-tac nose twitches, telling tales
of sniffing summer dandelions and dancing
after peacocks or hopping pickerel,
and napping under robin egg skies and enough sun
to shine for half-dropped eyes.
She opens them like flowers
to the nibbling sounds of your thoughts
and your pencil scratching the page.

Making a timeless decision,
she rises, dressed in fur
soaked of a whole day's ginger sun.
This cat flows through the room,
and pauses on four to balance before
leaping up on soundless paws
which walk like winter socks and stop
on the poem you?ve been etching
out of your mind.

Wound up like a childish toy,
she begins the slow and anxious dance of paws.
Then to the tune of vibrating whiskers,
she sings the bubbly milk song, and sweeps
a broomy tail at the speed of whispers:
all to the blissful beat
of her dreamy, peacock thoughts.

You scratch her magic spots,
then leave her to lie down and ponder
words she cannot understand.

A saucer of milk would reflect moonlight
this time of night.
You return to find her already content
in the cushion you left alone and warmed.
Pondering you with golden eyes,
she sings her song and swings a feathered tail
through the dark, telling you tales
you cannot understand.

Ode on an Oil Can

I

Thou prostitute from prehistoric time,
Thou black echo of extinction, product
Of ruined evolution, who canst thus express
An era sealed under an air-tight lid:
What fossil grains slick thy lubrication
Of stone or bone, or of both,
In refinery or sands or Iraq?
What molecules or moments are these? What reptiles loath?
What tragic fall? What struggle to live?
What pipes and drills? What wild desires?


II

Staying home is sweet, but going out
Is sweeter; therefore, ye deep drills, drill on,
Not for want of utility, but, more important,
Drill for the necessity of no need:
Fair youth buying the Toyota, thou canst not leave
Without checking thy oil first;
Bold yuppy, never canst thou spend too much
Though crediting near the goal--yet, don't stress;
Bills can be paid, though thou works night and day,
Sunday wilt thou shop, and add more credit.


III

Ah, happy, happy malls! that cannot close
Your shops, nor ever bid the sales adieu;
And, happy consumer, unworriéd,
For the moment spending for something new;
More happy want! more happy, happy want!
Forever filling and still to be full;
Forever scratch, and forever itch
All sucking fermented desire deep inside,
That leaves an account empty or over-drawn,
No Orange Julius, and a parched king.


IV

Who are these coming to the repossession?
From whose castle garage, O IRS man,
Take'st thou that "Beamer" valued for image,
And all her spitting pistons with oil dressed?
What city by foaming river or acid sea,
Or factory built with noisy citadel,
Is clamantly striking tools, this smoggy morn?
And, metropolis, thy streets in decades
Will silent be; and not a honk to tell
Why thou automobile, can e'er return.


V

O cylinder shape! Fair tin! With label
Of luring logo and attractive design,
With super coupon and the guarantee;
Thou, appealing form, dost tease us to think
Forever will be: Liquid Dinosaur!
When quart after quart shall generations waste,
Thou shalt expire again, in midst of others? survival
Than yours, an expenditure to man, to whom thou say'st,
"Survival is slick. Simply slip and fall,"--that is all
Ye need to know, and all ye should know to need.

Holding Your Breath

Many bodies, young and old, have drowned here under similar conditions. The water was just as gray, murky, and calm. The mud was just as soft and warm. The bubbles clung just as easily, like green beads around the back of the neck. There was also a similar moment when breath no longer called to be filled, and air turned into water, and water turned into air--and below, cold turned into darkness--and above, everything turned into light.

When the town's people found the bodies--lying like large, spongy insects on the sea-shore, with sand filling the cracks in their faces--the people became concerned. Some of them cried. Some of them offered comforting shoulders. Some of them wiped away the tears with neatly-starched handkerchiefs. Some of them claimed not to have known the bodies well enough. Some of them pretended not to care. All of them were afraid of something. "Maybe tomorrow," some said, "we will forget." And some of them . . . most of them forgot.

Tomorrow, on the west side of town, through the second story window of a weather-worn beach house, a salty, old man will peak a glance at the school girls who walk the promenade. In the sand, three boys, dressed with orange-knit caps, will dig a pit deep enough for their father. Twelve miles out at sea, rising upon the glossy, blue crest of an ocean swell, a cod boat will carry several unshaven men as they spit and bait hooks with blackened squid. The bodies, when they were like these people--spying and scraping and baiting--had never imagined how deep an ocean could be.

Many people, similar to you, will swim here too. They may not swim today. They may not even prefer to wade in. But eventually, something cold, dark, and ugly will come after them--like a sea-weed covered creature crawling onto shore. And it will go anywhere, and it will do anything, to drag you back into the sea.

Pastaierie Mystique

Life was brought to you fresh,
warm, and glazed:
a deep-fried fritter,
a doughnut for dunking.
You should have kissed it then,
while it was still soft, powdered
by sweet perfection.

But in celebration of all complete circles,
desire took a mouthful, and the gaps between
your teeth have made the mark
of a beginning and an end.
Since that crispy bite through crust,
pure sweetness has sifted away with the past.
Now only a dust of lesser joy remains,
clinging in far corners,
teasing your tongue to seek
that first sublime taste.

Well now you know: only a number of nibbles
and this short snack is done.
And like any mystery, truth lies
near the center:
a doughnut cannot be whole
without its hole.

Swallow it down like empty air,
or fill it up, like the jelly in your soul.

Prime Time

I am sitting like I am
in a box, while watching the T.V.
I am not comfortable, but I'll keep doing it, anyway.
When my Higher Self walks into the room,
He shows me the way
to sit like the lotus flower,
to breath like the mountain sky,
to see without looking
into the television.

I know. I know. I know.
But I don't even feel
like getting up to change
channels during commercial break.
My Higher Self fades away
like electric tubes, dimming out.
The path to enlightenment
is overlooked like static
between my favorite sitcoms.

I am still sitting in a box, empty
and alone at night. The screen glows,
illuminating the room with blue light.
But something else permeates
like an untuned signal,
an undiscovered broadcasting station,
ready to interrupt with a special announcement:
that the time has finally arrived
to stand up, get out of the box, and adjust
the antennae towards higher frequencies.
It's only a matter of pushing the right buttons
on the remotest of controls.

I fall into sleep and dream:
the power is turned off,
the antennae are retracted,
the entertainment is gone,
and the last, little dot of light
dissolves into the darkness of the screen.
Then I see myself awakened,
new and vibrant in Technicolor.
And the world is broader than video or stereo.
Life opens like a peacock spreading its rainbow plume.

Once Upon a Time, Remember Me

When my life was much different than it is now,
oh, just about last Tuesday,
or was it just today,
the day that my dog, Flip, died on the road in front of my place,
and I threw her in the garbage can,
because I just can't find that shovel anywhere,
and I ripped a hole in my only pair of briefs,
and that guy was seeing you,
and you were seeing me,
and I was . . .
well, I was just getting out of bed,
and I almost remembered what you'd said to me,
but now I forget,
because those hands feel oh-so-good on the soles of my feet,

and anyway, after all that happened,
oh, just after breakfast,
when my car broke down and I walked all the way to the mall to buy a new shovel,
and I got this little blister, right here, under my little toe,
and that guy had come by and saw you and he knew what he had done to Flip,
and you had me come over to your place with you,
and I had . . .
well, I hadn't done much of anything,
and I almost remembered what you'd said to me,
but now I forget,
because I never really thought that my dog would die so soon,

and then, just when things started to change for the brighter,
oh, just after lunch,
when you were undressing me and you laughed at the hole in my briefs,
and I was really concerned about that and you said I was being "crotchety,"
and that guy called again and said that he needed you,
and you said you wanted me,
and I said . . .
well, I didn't say much of anything,
and I remembered what you had said to me,
but now I forget,
because I don't think I have ever been kissed there before,

anyway, just then, when things started to get really exciting,
oh, just after we had sex,
and I suddenly had a purpose, a direction, and had become a different kind of person,
and you told me about the germ you have inside of you,
and that guy felt that he hated you,
and you felt that you loved me,
and I felt . . .
well, I didn't feel much of anything,
and I almost remembered again,
but now I forget,
because I'd never imagined that I'd loose my virginity,

and now, at this very moment,
as my body lies here in bed,
and I think I'm floating somewhere else and I see my mother dancing in the clouds,
and that guy is standing over me pointing a gun and is yelling at you,
and you are standing against the wall and are yelling at me,
and I am . . .
well, I don't stand a chance and I just can't stand yelling,
so I close my eyes,
and BLAM!!!
and then BLAM!!! BLAM!!!
and then he BLAM!!!
and you BLAM!!!
and I . . .
well, BLAM!!! BLAM!!! BLAM!!!
and BLAM!!!

And Now I Feel So Much Different,
So Much Better,
And Now I Still Forget What You Said To Me,
Because I Never Imagined What It Would Be Like To Die,
And, Hey, There's Flip. Here Boy!
And I Never Thought That . . .
I Never Thought,
And Now I Remember,
And I Can Hear You Saying It,
Your Saying:

"Always Remember,
Remember The Loss,
Remember The Pain,
And Remember The Joy,
See Beyond Knowing,
Ask Your Higher Wisdom
If It Is Not True
That Without Worry,
Without Fear,
You Would Have Arrived
Exactly Where You Are

Now

And Much More Pleasantly?"

And I Remember Now,
And I Have Arrived Very Pleasantly.

Port Hueneme

Consequence once brought me to my birthplace.
Now it's another trip away from home.

And here I am, vacationed on the beach,
though not like some dying whale,
deliberately sustaining its senses.
I'm busily relaxing and with effort
memorizing prayers, rehearsing
spiritual algorithms, and experimenting
with more subtle tactics towards my happiness.
I can toss thoughts out across the sea,
over certainties that sink and swell,
and like skipping stones, they don't come back.
They stay sunk. Deep thoughts:
like how many moons since my ancestor sea-frog
first wiggled itself up onto an amphibian shore?
Or like how many grains of sand separate
me from those same pulling tides?
Quantities, maybe, of the smaller infinities?
It's that age-old, primordial voice of the sea
telling me the questions,
like one wave crest after the next,
continuously washing nothing onto shore.

Consequence brought me this far from home.
Maybe distance itself can move me further.
That's the desire I don't know where
it's coming from.

Consequence will bring me to my death place too.
Though not like some beached whale.
No, not anywhere near shallow shores at all.

Bell Curve Blues

Young students seem to sink in
their seats as the calculating professor draws
the ascending slopes of chalked curves
on academic black-
boards, interchangeably predicting the future
population of pet hamsters in America,
crime in Harlem, crop failures
in India, rain forest depletion,
thermal temperatures of
nuclear explosions, atmospheric
concentrations of carbon dioxide,
suicides in Norway, teenage
pregnancies, seventh-grade drug revenues,
inflation, pollution, oppression,
litigation, corruption, and general
population at large.

I draw a picture of a hamster on my desktop
with a number two pencil. I draw
a wheel for the creature to run around on.

The clock above the chalk board
ticks onward towards our release
into summer vacation,
while Mr. Zinger stresses
the important distinction
between the logically proven
value of an analytical theorem
and the unreasonable assumptions
of non-scientific persons
of the modern sociological system.

He says, "When you are confronted
by any complex social system . . .

(such as an urban center or a hamster)

. . . with things about it you're dissatisfied with
and you anxiously want to fix,
you cannot just step in and set about fixing
without much hope of helping . . ."

One hamster leg looks a bit too small
so I erase it and draw a new one. Perfect.

". . . unless you apply analysed presumptions
or methodical examinations.
Similar sorts of restrictions
bound the admissible solutions
to theoretical problems
involving the state of any complex system,"
says Mr. Zinger, pointing to the black-
board where all lines converge,
as asymptotes to catastrophe--
like the Liberty Bell, swinging
towards the one inevitable gong
that will reverberate throughout history
as the cracking of all familiar sounds.

Only seventeen seconds until summer arrives.
It feels like something big is about to happen.

The Heiress

My daughter lit the wick of the sun.
The sky was blind, but I saw her do it.
She held the candle like a crayon.
Those clouds moving along the horizon:
she put them there with her fingers.
They are cumulus, and full of puff.

That was only my imagination.
I have no daughter born, really.
A princess. My kingdom for a princess.

Poetry, music, and other smooth rhythms
gallop like horses, unbridled over slope and plain.
In pastures, ideas graze like plump heifers.
Royal orchards are ripe with words
like apricot, persimmon, and lime.
But there is no child
for the kingdom's devotion.

What is the king doing confined in the dungeon?
His hands are shackled.
His eyes stare into the wall.
Perhaps he was blinded trying to see too far,
like the Cyclops who squints at the bulging sun.
The king is still pregnant and waiting.

Things that Fall from the Sky

The sun is the center of our solar system.
We live in the second house, underneath
a walnut tree. Chipped paint falls from the walls
like white feathers. Early in the morning,
father lifts his feet to the airplane
factory. Mother hangs damp laundry on the line.
Big Billy watches Loony Toons at breakfast.
I watch everything.
Then I run to school.

Wild E. Coyote chases the Roadrunner
like a locomotive out of control.
He's about to get what he wants before
a twelve-ton mountain boulder falls
from nowhere. He is crushed like a nut,
flattened into a thin disc which whimpers
and wobbles away.
Again and again, he fails
to catch his wildest dream.
I laugh, again and again.
The television antenna reaches upward
allowing everything possible.

The earth is the third planet from the sun.
We live in the second house, underneath
a walnut tree. Cracked pipes drip drops
from the ceiling. Late at night,
father flies through the house chasing me
like a mad man, until he must sit down and drop off
to sleep. Mother carries in crushed
walnut cookies. Then she darns our socks.
Big Billy listens to Led Zeppelin at the dinner table.
I watch everything.
Then I drop my body onto father,
landing like an Acme anvil,
and waking him from his dream.
Father laughs and reaches his arms upward,
allowing everything possible.
I tell him everything I learned today.
I tell him everything I did.

The Apprentice's Tools

I saw the carpenter laying down long boards,
setting the nails, tacking the hinge and latch.
His mute son, the wood chopper, is living
on that smoky hill of oak and skeleton pine.
He will teach you about grinding the blade,
throwing the axe, and splitting hard wood.

You've spent time watching the oak tree growing,
reaching up for limbs, digging down for roots.
But that famous tree is as good as dead.
Listen to the leaves as they quiver in the wind.

I saw the ditch digger shoveling dirt.
He was quick. Water did not fill the hole.
His deaf dad, the fire tender, is living
under the furnace at the chimney factory.
He will teach you about mixing the coals,
and stirring the embers with a short stick.

You've spent time kindling the fragile twigs,
sparking the flint, feeding tinder to the flame.
But those coals will soon be cold as charred stones.
Feel how low the wisps of soot smoke fall.

I saw the stone mason chipping your name
onto a block of metamorphic rock.
His blind brother, the blacksmith, is living
by the foggy mire, in a tin-built shack.
He will teach you about forging the steel,
and striking the metal when it is white hot.

Every being is born without their best bent.
Each acorn will sprout under the blunt blade
of a forever unsheathing, double-edged sky.
You cannot master all elements, but
you can sharpen your own fine edge, and swing
with your hands as young as oak bark is old.

Sex, Drugs, and Poetry

Today, while a nice man is reading from a book of poetry,
alone in his dim hotel room, his wife is having wild sex
with a strange man who just sold her a big bag of drugs.
She has taken the strange man to her home, while her good
husband is away on business. If you look closely, gray
can be found in his hair. He has never known such evil.

Once, when he was a nice boy, his father said that "evil"
spelled backwards is "live." His father could write poetry
like a king, god, and Kublai Kahn. But when the thin gray
hairs appeared, all abilities to write, or even have sex,
disappeared. When his father died, leaving behind many good
memories, the doctors demanded money for the required drugs.

The nice man's mother lived long without any medical drugs.
Until her final day, she attended church, learning of Evil
Satan, Hell Below, Jesus Christ, Heaven Above, and the Good
Lord. His mother would read the Bible to him like poetry,
or tell him what's right and wrong--but never spoke of sex.
The day she lived no more, it rained from clouds of gray.

Before the nice man got married, he lived alone in a gray
motor-home, spending a little money on ordinary drugs:
nicotine, caffeine, and gasoline. He refused to have sex
before marriage because he believed that the rules of evil
have no boundaries--but the limits of love are like poetry:
no rules, except that it must always, necessarily be good.

When they met, the nice man took her on a date to a good
restaurant where the waiters served red wine and wore gray
carnations. He ordered in French--which sounded like poetry
to her ears. The leek soup was tasty, but she forgot drugs
for her leek allergy, so she ate his halibut with an evil
appetite. Soon after dinner, they got married and had sex.

Yesterday, while on the front porch watching flies have sex
on the screen-door, he asked her, "Are you going to be good
while I'm gone?" But she asked him, "Do you think I'm evil?"
Nothing was answered in black or white. Only a hazy, gray
understanding was left between them. Tomorrow, her drugs
will be gone when he returns. She'll pretend to read poetry.

Her eyes flutter hints of sex and corruption. He thinks gray
thoughts, not knowing for good. Then love, like some new drug,
brings out from a life of evil, the colorful moments of poetry.

Scenes from an Imagination

If you may imagine how a fortune cookie snaps to reveal only a hollow inside,
how old boots steam like boiled fish by the fireside,
how the Spanish street sweepers sing in the city of Solsona,
how a chicken cackles from the bottom of a mossy well,
how the albino fly lands onto a plate of black-eyed peas,
how a blank wall screams to you from across a vacant room,
how Aunt Edna tosses her carrot-raisin salad with her mouth full of words,
how the bass line bongo drums beat from the bamboo forest,
how a mural of a peacock spreads across a subway wall,
how a summer sunset melts a bowl of strawberry-orange sherbet,
how a hummingbird hovers like a rainbow,
how children giggle at popping bubbles,
how powder wafts from a butterfly's wings,
how a dolphin's squeaky skin reflects the color of your eyes,
how a lover lays down to receive a tan by moonlight,
how the moon sometimes hangs like a thumb-nail in the sky,
how hot sex could melt honey comb,
how diamonds drop into a glass of Italian wine,
how Sweet Vermouth tastes from the kiss of a lover?s lips,
how the silhouettes of seagulls might look like crows,
how a rusty shovel slices into sand,
how rat poison burns the tip of the tongue,
how gunshots ring at an urban dawn,
how dogs yelp from the alley-ways of distant towns,
how a carp sucks mud off the bottom of a murky creek,
how alligators swim in your dreams, and crocodiles in your nightmares,
how to twang a tune on a twelve-string guitar,
how hail hits the top of a hot, tin roof,
how dead gnats float on the surface of a pond,
how a pebble tosses from the palm of a hand,
how a new knife slices through fresh zucchini,
how cattle crunch and munch the grass mulch,
how thunder rolls over old hills, numbing the marrow in your bones,
if you may imagine how you may imagine,
then see the imagination move . . .

Under the Big Top

From your eye, I move with the objects
of your past: like the circus elephant who balanced
one dozen bowling pins
upon his newly, unjungled head,
or the lion who roared
his fears between your knees,
or the ape who stared you through
your golden locks and bangs. You see
me stomping between your heart beats. Like tea cups full
of your last lover's blood, your blood
swishes from rim to rim--while I carry them like the clown
who was made to make you laugh,
yet spins the very platter that holds
the objects of our future.

[for Amber, 97?]

Death Mountain Dream Poem

I can hear death rising up over that mountain top!

Rumbling over like the migration
of all the world's most momentous animals!

Strong as the buffalo's hoof,
but gentle as the push of the lizard's paw against the soil.

Delicate as a butterfly's flutter,
yet sharp as the skeleton of an angel's wings!

I am dying!

Reno Love Poem

I lost my heart in Reno, Nevada,
betting for a bigger one.

My lover is there still,
paying the dues:

heart aching,
pulsing with the rhythm of neon signs,
sputtering out pain
like stray tokens onto the sidewalk.

She is there still, waiting

maybe.

Doors open once, then
like a slot machine spun too much,
the odds go way down.

But "risk" was a word the mind created
for its own entertainment.
Any casino boasts the same logic:
without a stake to loose, you can never gain to win.

The heart will gamble everyday,
spinning its lucky wheels,
and sputtering out golden passions
with every jackpot beat.


[for Amber October, 1997]

A Ship Without Name

The powder salt of eternity's dry ocean
is rusting my achor-chain thin.
As thin as drool.

How do I quench
a thirst for liquid dreams
among sand dunes that crest up dust froth
and dry ripple, soaking in every drop?

No need to stay in desperate
burnt cinnamon thirst.

I abandon my ship, her
flotsam ribs and jetsam spine
curving a scowl, upward
to the face of the sun.

I elevate myself into flight
with immaculate feathered finger tips,
grapple the clouds,
and pry the atmosphere open
with a howl.

The rain serves me,
washing away all other seasons but spring,
bouncing in tulip bowls full of dew.

Now I am as free as Jesus,
sloshed, and riding a bicycle
across the waters' surface,
and without training wheels.

There is a thin balance here.
As thin as drool.
And as wet as dreams are deep.

Soul Zones

Driving towards home through seven states, I wash my eyes in views of green fields beyond the windshield. Ahead on the road, lightning bolts peck at the horizon line. From this distance, I see god flashing there in a silent code. Perhaps it is the answer to my prayers, lost in a weather-tossed encryption. I do not understand what god is trying to tell me from so far away. But I imagine it is a blatant message for the few who may stand near.

The radio is off, the headlights are on, the sparkplugs continue to tap signals into the iron-chambers of the engine that make this car go. Electrical energy is our natural communicator. Within each cell of our being are all the answers, charged-up to assist us in any of our cosmic decisions. Every question of the mind is linked to the heart that way. And every heart to each and every heart.

Over the gloss of the road, head-lights flash toward me in high beams, reminded me to turn my lights down low. A single memory passes through my mind again and again like the rhythm of this traffic over the puddled concrete. The same car passes by again and again, in the same dull shades of gray, fading again into the passenger-side-mirror. The empty passenger-side-mirror. The empty passenger side, again and again, my thoughts of her pass.

The person I've left behind: electricity still binds us. The shock our lives made in the meeting, the friction between our souls, remains in a static attraction. Though I go miles down a separate road, energy jumps the time zones, and arches the zones of heart and the zones of soul. My passions continue to tap signals into the chambers of my heart that make this body go.

More bolts strike ahead in the distance, spanning the gap between the mirrors of earth and sky. As thunder rolls over with the next passing car, god's message is becoming more and more clear. Then something hits the windshield like a teardrop.

The road moves empty under the sky. Energy is everywhere. The objects in the mirror are closer than they appear.

Death is My Tailor

Death is my tailor.

Allow me to wear these words for you,
dress myself up like your favorite Disney land character,
an Asian Prince, or a holiday bimbo--
if that will make it any easier for you.
Allow me then to do a little dance for you,
a kind of strip-tease
as I remove these words again, one at a time:

Tailor . . . my . . . is . . . death.

Shocking! Exciting! Stimulating!
Now try them on for your self:

Death is my tailor.

Snug isn't it? A little tight in the chest?
Maybe make an adjustment here:

DEATH is my tailor.

Or maybe here:

Death is MY tailor.

Still too tight?
Doesn't fit you?
Maybe it will fit your daughter,
or your son, or your mother-in-law.
Or your boss at work.

Death is my tailor.

Surely, you know someone
who can fit into it. No?
Fine, then. Come back again. Maybe after your new diet.

Death is my tailor.

You can wear it later on,
to a very special event.

Death is my tailor.

And afterwards, when you're finally ready to relax,
you can take it all off,
remove those words
like a tight jacket,
and toss them over your shoulder,
once and for all,
as you walk out the door, naked
once and for all.

"If you have built castles in the air, your work need not be lost; that is where they should be. Now put the foundations under them."

--Thoreau

From Rocks to Wings

For the King who had stolen
every stone from the land,
dust sifts his fingers, the sand from his hands.
Walking the dunes,
grain by grain,
he returns each rock to it's origin of place,
dropping his sorrow in pebbled weights.

Within the shape of a cloud
is the face of a Queen:
Queen for the King, Queen of King's dreams.
Still as the mist,
fast as wind,
she lives in a castle built upon the air.
Cream of wonders--how it rose to be there.

As a cloud weighs of water in the sky,
he holds out a hand into the rain and cries.

As the sun spreads its fire through the rain,
he drops a feather from the other in pain.

Of everything that fell and rose before,
what goes up now must be built from the floor.
Like the roots of homes where birds live and die,
it's within the weight of a stone that dreams learn to fly.


[for Amber, March 1998]

Sailing Across the End of the World

The sky will answer in deep vocals at the end
of the day, saying "Forgiveness is your ship
to sail into this sunset." So we tack our wings
into the wind, like the flock of birds we are, sailing
through the air, under the bridge,
and across the sea of star-lit faith.

Tank Full of God

An old man from the future
is waiting for you
near the street corner.

He is waiting for you
and for the next bus to arrive.

Somewhere down Main Street,
the broad, silver wall rolls past the crowds,
a mirror in motion:
reflecting the objects of a cultural montage:
a bag lady, some pigeons, the wires in the trees.

But he is waiting for you to see
clarity on the inside of the glass.

What is your body holding?
All alone in the bus seat,
the smashing bones can finally relax,
dropping all 300 pounds of soul fat and grizzle.

Wouldn?t that be a miracle
of this iron-cast and rusting paradise,
to discover your own weight in gold?

Maybe even the bus tires
could crush diamonds on this concrete reality.

Just relax, then ... death will become rich, rich, rich ...

And he is waiting for you
with his hands in his pockets.
Between some fingers,
he holds a ticket for you.

This world ...
... that world.

rich, rich, rich

Is this next stop yours?
Lucky for you to carry no luggage.

For there he is. And here you are.
Nothing left to do but thank the driver.

For all your life has distilled the fuel. And the clouds
part to a road nobody sees with open eyes.

Dark as asphalt,
and soft as diamond wheels of light,

this vehicle moves
by the inspiration of your dust:
each particle, a passenger bound for Forgiveness,
settling into the comfort of your self,
and loosing your self...

Emptiness.


Perhaps there is a vacant seat.

Ode to Emergency!

Ode to the sirens of this city,
screaming in wild anticipation
of your father?s next heart attack,
of your mother being mugged in the park,
of your baby brother poisoned blue in the face.

Ode to the sirens of this city,
screaming in wild anticipation
of street blocks polluted in sound and vision,
of skyscrapers--scraping away the very sky,
of grey-suited corporate drones, lost
in the maze of cubicals and 40 hour work weeks,
of mop-gripping house wives and single mothers,
of gun-slinging postmen,
and of their gun-slinging children,
of tourists and terrorists in taxi cabs,
of chrome-plated consumers
in ignorant corosion to this rusting paradise.

Ode to the sirens of this city,
screaming in wild anticipation
of earthquakes, tidal waves, and cyclones,
of world-wide epidemics, and nuclear explosions,
of government conspiracies, meteorites, UFO?s, and alien abductions.

Ode to the sirens of this city,
screaming in wild anticipation
of the cataclysm of a cultural crisis,
of the coma of a mass consciousness,
of the environmental evacuation,
of the heart attack of a world nation,

of the human race,
screaming,
and in a critical condition.

Rhyme of the Time

Drum from the heart beat of the revolution.

Make rhythm in your mind for the new time.

Move to the groove in your belly to choose

A system of solution as simple as rhyme.

Industrial Smoke Stack

I see a smoke signal being sent,
spiraling upward to God from below.
Like a white ivory tower, monument to the elephants
for their skins, laid out smooth
like asphalt in all directions.

Standing over a jungle, this world looks green
only in the eyes of the chief hunter,
who hangs his trophies upon his bedroom walls:
the faces of animals just like us,
caught scared between the impingement of life and death,
growling all through the night
while the chief man has shut his green eyes to see
more green dreams.

What do you dream of, hunter?
The skin-wrapped fortitude of the last elephant
charging your sights.
Raise your rifle, send a bullet to the horizon, piercing
a heart which had pulsed to a rhythm
in only slight syncopation from your own.

Another monument falls.
A ribbon of smoke wafts from the barrel,
spiraling upwards,
toward God.

Millenium Poem

She's flying towards us now:
like a drunken pigeon, wings cocked
at an uncertain angle.

Or are we flying towards her:
wearily, anxiously, unconsciously,
anything but aware, our spiritual wings cocked
at an unceratin angle?

Maybe we fly toward eachother:
a drunken pigeon, flailing towards the windshield
of an airplane steered by unpraying hands,
controlled by the mind of a pilot,
drunken, maybe, upon the jet-fuel fumes of modern opportinuty,
driving faster than the speed of
good decisions.

I've heard tragic stories about what jet planes can do to birds,
and about what birds can do to jet planes.

But I choose . . . to maintain . . . my optimism.

Maybe . . . we fly with eachother:
a drunken pigeon and a human with machanical wings,
bound together by a drunken desire just to fly.

And we glide towards the end of some cosmic corridor:
a dead-end alley way to the pigeon,
a too-short runway for the pilot.
Either way, looming ahead

Or is there an open window somewhere,
somewhere high, high above?

United State of Consciousness

What are we going to do with America?
America, the pristine diamond
set upon the priceless ring of the world.
America, the highly polished diamond,
rubbed soft by the dreams
of half the worlds? migrating races.
America, cut to sharp edges by the multi-cultural grind and slice.
America, the refracted light of souls, and a multi-faceted gleaming.
America, the hard diamond, formed
under the high pressure of 200 years
of a declared independence to be something
the rest of the world is not:
America, some kind of a cultural chrysanthemum,
folding in upon itself into the negative-space jewel,
placed within the attic of the tower of Babel for all to ponder in utter confusion.
America, upon whose finger shall we place
this jewelled ring? And is she a diamond
worth engaging for?

What are we going to do with America?
What are going to do with her hungry farmers?
What are we going to do with her single housewives and mothers?
What are we going to do with her gun-slinging children?
What are we going to do with her homeless,
and where are we going to find America a home?

Maybe we should just go on rolling across her pioneer-pocked skin,
looking for the next new thing,
moving her threaded highways beneath our tires,
and continue down this long, sunset road.
And after the lights go down
(and they are going down),
cruising the highway of the night,
the air will be colder and darker,
then you and I, we can stretch our arms out,
reaching again for the highest and brightest of diamonds in the sky.

There is a free nation out there, somewhere under God.
There is a banner of stars
and stripes waving in amber bands of photon light.
There is a liberty bell ringing across something called eternity.
There is a cosmic anthem heard by angels and sung by us.
There is a United State of Consciousness.
One nation, one motion--one notion of God.

Moon Shine Melody

Scientists have discovered water on the moon!
They plan to extract it from her powdered skin,
distil fuel for rockets, for further phallic explorations
into the deep, dark unknown.

From these facts of the time,
I distil the following metaphors for you
to sip and swallow and ignite your own engines
for further explorations into your own unknown:

Liquid on the moon!?
I knew this as a young boy,
reaching my hands into the moonlight, holding
her distant lunar nipple and weaning
not water--but the milk of sweet mystery.
Yet the sun continues to parch my thirst.
And the flames of patriarchical fires have burned
since the first little Sputnik was launched through a political erection.

I seek to orbit other spheres.
I seek the light that shines beyond myself,
and bounces like a photon pulsation off of you.

Will it be you, sweet sister?
With soft, white mountains
and a smooth, deep crater,
who will quench my taste for luminous licking?
Will it be you, brave brother?
With rocketing height,
and combustible propulsion
who may launch me upon the lunar sea?

Brothers and Sisters!
As the moon shines full
(a mirror for the sun's light of life),
each of you reflects my own light.
And as a man, now reaching my hands into your orbits,
I see the moon light rippling upon the surface of your calm sincerity,
reflections of our common ebbs and tides.

And in clear waves of deep compassion,
moon light trickles between my finger tips,
spilling into the cup of this heart,
from which I drink the sifted spectrum of all your flavours.

For you are suns and moons and stars who dip and swim
in the ocean of these watering eyes.
And in my vision, I see our vision--unified.
Together we form a galaxy of beautiful perceptions,
turning in whirlpool motion--spiralling
within the simple pond ripple of love for each other.

Be it water, milk, or moonshine whiskey,
I am in love, and eternally drunken of you.

Shasta Awakening

Shasta flashes across the gap of an aeon moment,
a wide lightening bolt, charged
by the grindings of the earth,
and resonating her silent thunder.

A mountain prism, channelling white light,
she rises up toward the summit
of all geological spectrums:
up from deep red lava,
up from orange fire,
up yellow sparks,
up and out into green forests,
up and within the blue waters,
up into indigo sky,
up into purple spirit ethers.

And as I stand here before this snow-glazed canvas,
a vacant tee-pee house to the energies of earth and sky,
I holler out through the faint pulses of my stone sized brain.
I holler out to glide this message through the air between us.
I holler out my warm breath
perhaps to melt a drop from her snow-capped crown:

Behold me, mountain!
For I may only hope to dream you in lucid altitudes after I've gone:
dreams of snowy ascents upon rabbit-filled burrows and slopes,
dreams of climbing soft cliffs without my fingers nor my toes,
dreams of making the final step with only the feathers of my spirit
onto the pinnacle of all dreams ever dreamed:
to rise above myself,
as you have risen, mountain,
beyond your volcanic innocence,
into the stratosphere of spiritual purity and power.

And as I stand here--a small chink in your granite time,
I ask only if you should rise again in this moment,
mixing stone and fire into the sky,
that I might rise with you,
in a rainbow eruption,
like the mountain I am
and the mountain I dream to be realised.

Frequent See of Sound

From one star-dusty corner of the universe
light and sound spill into my crown:

the seven hues of wisdom

I dabble them upon the palette of my mind
and paint the totem of my spine:

red
orange yellow
green
blue indigo
violet

and the seven tones of compassion

I tune them within the chamber of my heart
and play upon the keys of my spine:

ti
la
so
fa
mi
re
do

And by grace of wisdom,
a rainbow bleeds through my prism mind.
And by strength of compassion,
a melody weaves through my body flute.

I sing and dance in celebration
of sight and sound,
in love with all frequencies, like love

of Christ and Buddha:
the window washers
of my stained-glass soul

letting the light shine through,
while the sound
becomes silence within.

Release 1.0--April 9, 1998

Time continues to release me.
And during the past few months, releasing
has become my past-time.
First my child, my lover, my dog, my jeep, my apartment.
Then half my clothes, half my books, half my blood, and half the moon.
Now the floor beneath my feet,
the pigeon of my heart,
and the side-blinders upon the horse of my passions.
Always my pain,
and often my joys.

Time continues to release me.
Today I release a tax form
worth over $400 to an Uncle
whom none of us is completely satisfied to be related to.
Included in this envelope, I have sent away
my indolent attitude towards financial prosperity.
I see dollar bills, ripening
with the green spring.

I then released some saliva onto the stamp.

Time continues to release me.
I hold only this moment:
the ritual of more release.

Release 2.0 -- April 15, 1998

Time continues to release me.
During the past few days, releasing
has been my heart from time of the future and past.

Under the fullness of the moon, I released
some sun light from memories of two Springs ago
when new love grew as fast and bright as yellow flowers.
Under the fullness of the moon, I released
some star light from imaginings of two Springs ahead
when new love will grow as fast and bright as super novas.
Under the fullness of the moon, I became more empty,
the light of forgiveness waning my face into shadow.

Time continues to release me.
Today, I hear that Bank of America has released
8,000 employees from San Francisco.
8,000 employees and their dogs and wives and children and dreams,
released into the grid cracks of corporate structure.
Meanwhile, Camel and Volkswagen and CK have released
several new bulletin-board-sized-image-to-fill-your-eternal-void
vortexes, open for the release of our strength and integrity and power,

if we choose to release our power,
to release ourselves into fierce consumption,
to buy and credit and lay-away our time.

Time continues to release me.
I open my arms in swift acceptance,
unlike the opening of an hour,
releasing myself from time.
I hold only the power of this moment:
the ritual of more release.

Release 3.0 --May 3, 1998

Time continues to release me.
And space keeps holding on.
Between these two, my consciousness
breathes into the birthing of one.

One-billion stars, scattered like seeds.
And who am I?
One bio bit of
One solar cell of
One galactic Starfish of
One. Once released,
I float the dark liquid motion and flush
of perpetual change and chaos, streaming through
my bio-psychic gills. I must breath well or
I will drown in the frothy waves of star light.

Breath now, and release
those thoughts like paper-folded birds
out from the air tunnel of mind. Release
those feelings like hermit crabs
scuttling out from the ocean-cave heart,
into the mother salt sea lung,
into the final bob and sinking breath
with all other deep and slippery creatures.

Inhale, now, and hold
a finger to the lips.

Full belly,
bursting heart,
pregnant mind

from father time and mother space:
a fifth dimensional baby is on her way.

What will we name her?
Miles? Parsec? Fathom?
September? Eye-blink? De-Ja-Vu?
Each is a word just syllables short of Eternity.

Time will whisper her name during the release.
Can you feel the moment growing?
The longer we hold, the larger she gets,
expanding as large as the womb of life and beyond.
As large as the world.
At least as large as the world.

And in her arrival, bruise-blue and glossy,
slipping like a spectral stream trout
between the 20 fingers of father time,
into the 13 physical affections of mother space,
a death will be welcomed too.
Thank you, mother.
Thank you, father.

Exhale, now, and release.

Each star seed flowers
for aeons. In a single moment
I may bloom an illumination
that lasts an entire day.

Happy Birthday,
everyday.

Time continues to release me.
I hold only this moment:
the ritual of more release.

Release 4.0--May 21, 1998

Time continues to release me.
So where does this pain come from?
How do some moments drag
over me like a corpse with sharp bones,
while other moments glide
over me like an angel with soft wings?
Either way, I'm dying.

Maybe memory suffers a certain friction:
gritty thoughts like sand paper, smoothing
over my mind and heart into perfect jewels.

Or maybe memory is like a tracer of light,
falling behind matter in glow trail,
as the bright mind shoots forward, stretching
the power cord plugged into
the juice sockets of the neon heart.

Yes, adrenaline!
I see tracers like highway lights on LSD.
Memory is my mind racing recklessly in the fast lane,
while my heart is an ambulance caught in traffic.*

It has been four months since I released
my child, my lover, my dog, my jeep, my apartment,
half my clothes, half my books, half my blood, and half the moon.
Now I release another half
of the half I've been holding on.

Time continues to release me.
And this weekend is a perfect end
to the pain of holding on.
This weekend is a perfect end
for a garage sale of soul,
a free heart,
and a clean mind.

Time continues to release me.
I hold only this moment,
the ritual of more release.


*(partial metaphore barrowed from my good friend, Sara Wisby)

Release 5.0--June, 1998

Time continues to release us,
and this past year,
32 million beepers went off-line
due to a satellite that fell
too deeply into love with the earth.

That's what an orbit is all about:
keeping in balance to the gravity of love.
Remembering love,
without faltering into love.

I orbit you,
again and again.

I love you,
I beep you,
I won't forget you,
until I fall into you,
crashing into my own kind of death,
or until I am released
out of this wide orbit:
the love of life,
and into the infinite space vacuum
where there is no memory,
but the faint eternal beeping.

Release 6.0

Release 7.0 --September 25, 1998
(in tribute to the Harmonix Universal Gathering)

Time continues to release me.
And my heart holds each beat
of first arriving with my eyes wide open to green
hills of Oregon, and the rain welcomes
me back to my true home.
Under a blanket of clouds. Tears fall
sometimes from places outside of ourselves.

And my heart holds each beat
upon the beach where I stripped
my clothes upon the sand,
stripped my ego as I ran,
stripped the chill by imagination of charging into a forest fire,
stripped my fear like a dead shark into the waves,
allowing mother ocean to strip me
from the Burning Man I was
into a watery grave where shell and pearl are made,
being reborn a strung necklace of a new man
out from the rising hands of the tide.

And my heart holds each beat
climbing within the hollow beach cave,
curious with our fingers
against sea rock, and our empty heads
exploring beyond sight, beyond sound...
until nothing remains
but the depth of our final ending
near the bottom. A candle is lit
and we digest ourselves
between the gritty tongues of light and dark,
dancing our shadows against the breathing walls,
and chanting within the bowels
of this earth tomb...

...womb of the planet, rebirthing a lit wick of a new man,
I crawl from the cave by Plato's creed:
first I hear the sea,
then I see the light,
then I met Shammette,
stepping onto the beach:
a goddess mermaid,
revisiting the sea from solid ground.

And my heart holds each beat
when constellations gather in witness to
a circle formed around a circle formed around
a circle of lovers formed around love.
I hold a spiral lantern,
while James weaves the web.
And wove by the love there becomes words,
and wove by the words there becomes light,
and wove by the light there becomes stars,
and wove by the stars there becomes a sphere
and wove by the sphere there becomes love
of Randy and Valerie:
galactic husband and wife.

And my heart holds each beat
of dancing in communal jubilation
to silky tunes spun by DJ forest spiders
that enhance my trance through the grass:
a scarecrow, wet in the fluid motion of ecstasy,
a kundalini snake flaming up in mushroom power.
And Shammette flows across the field
moving in aquatic rhythms,
pulling upon my grounded passions
with a grace as wide as the Pacific,
a strength reaching planets in gravity,
and beauty ebbing upon the ocean face of the moon.

My joys leap as dolphins between waves of bliss.
An opportune moment ascends and glimmers
like Jupiter climbing through the trees.
Musical melodies call me to enter the water,
promising to rebirth me a new man
from the solitary sea-cave of this heart.

Yet up comes the tidal wave of my mind
crashing over me--and sinking this ship named Opportunity.
And I am washed ashore
once again upon my own lonely island,
hungry, and all soaked in foamy love.

And my heart holds each beat
of being rescued from ecstatic collapse
by Jodi, my velvet sister who smooths
a momentary heart ache with crystal clarity,
and reads me the significance of the moment
through tarot cards:
swords and cups and the moon...

So I slice an intention
to become Captain within the vessel of my self-love,
and build myself another ship to sail upon the new phase.

And my heart holds each beat
of all of my relations
as I enter the Indian sweat lodge,
where fire and water mix
to alchemate our spirits into trance,
to call in the great bear,
to chase away tricky coyote.

I pray for release.
I chant for release.
I sweat for release.

And the lodge releases me,
being reborn a clean steam of a new man.
And all of my relations:
we enter the creek by the skin of our toes,
where fire and water mix
to alchemate our spirits into chance.
With a trickle of humbleness
and a gentle splash of courage,
I share with Shammette my release...
rippling out upon the surface of smooth sincerity
towards a possible waterfall of manifestation.

And my heart holds each beat
of pulling away
from H.U.G. onto HWY 101.
Waves shudder along the shore line
of this most tender muscle.
This heart rises in large swells of joy,
quivering to have lifted such old sorrows
like beach logs onto dry land,
to have washed away broken castles
into a fresh place of smooth sand.

And my heart holds each beat
upon the intentions planted in that field,
upon the bridges built across rushing waters,
upon that new moon...
and all sails cast to fill with wind
blowing across distant horizons,
and onwards toward new shores.

Time continues to release me.
And my heart holds each beat.

RELEASE 8.0--November 22, 1998

Time continues to release me.
And I'm dying to be let go...

Almost one year ago since I released
my child, my lover, my dog, my jeep, my apartment.
And this vacancy within my heart
has been as illuminating and daunting
as a flashing neon sign:

VACANCY VACANCY VACANCY

along side some dark and rainy road
out-of-state. Out of mind.
Blank slate.
Vacant.

So I left for vacation
weeks ago, and I never came back.
Who writes here now
became so vacant that the truth,
and all of truth's family moved in for the winter:
father, mother, daughter, brother,
great godfather, and grandchild truth.

Truth's dog, even,
pawed up and licked me in the face
during my stay in Boise.
That's the way truth speaks, sometimes:
with a tongue--soft and moist as lapping waves,
yet with a grit and slight stench
straight from the belly of the warm dog.
Truth erupts from the center,
speaks from the mouth,
but sometimes without words.

I met grandchild truth in Portland.
She approached me like the seed of a dandelion
floating upon a draft within the margins of a dream.
How painful truth can be as a child:
though so pure--a gentle seed
planted into the tilled field of my adulthood--
she digs roots into places lost from my remembering.
What can you say to a child who tells you
through eyes, sharp, bright, and young
as the very stars,
"You have made your first great mistake."
Here, truths blooms in colors
seen only with eyes closed.

In Kalifornia, at Vipassina Meditation Center,
I dove like a naked Buddha, deep
into the black pool, submerged
within my own consciousness, and stirred
the murky bottom with my own hand.
Truths rose and floated like jewelled bubbles,
popping to neither my dis- or satisfaction.
And within these spheres appeared
truth's ancestors, older than the shape of the sky,
ascending upon the rungs of my genetic ladder,
rushing up and overflowing
across the brim of my possible evolution.
Nothing to do but swallow
truth like warm honey across the tonsils of my soul:
the very nectar of my essential being,
flavored by a message carried across lifetimes,
wafted across these delicate nostrils
as the sweet scent of ultimate liberation:

released

from the divine flower that is continually blooming,
season after lifetime after season...

Returning home,
truth's relatives live within me.
And we all arrive, just in time ...
for Thanks Giving to be spent
at the house of my dying grandfather.

When truth does come in words,
I'll know to soon be stepping into a new reality.

Yesterday morning (White Cosmic World Bridger day),
I begin my daily meditation with subtle sensations
of grandfather within my presence.

THE TELEPHONE RINGS
vibrating on the edge of truth...

Meditating, I do not answer.
Then, settled within a calm mind and radiant heart,
I dedicate all energy
to the essence of grandfather's impending change.

Then I check my voice mail,
and truth speaks to me in pre-recorded words...

Thanks Given to you, grandfather.
Thanks Given to you, truth.

Released ...

Time continues to release me.
And I'm dying to be let go...

Release 9.0--(final edition), October 10, 1999


Time continues to release me.
I?ve told you this before.
But this is the last time,
and it?s about time,

that I?m beginning to understand
the language of my own nose
in trying to smell itself--
these communications of ?release,?
channeled through the inspiration of you.

Yes, time continues to release me.
Releasing me through its grand flight,
yet grasping very tight,
like the eagle that holds
the struggling field mouse
like a soft stone in claw,

and rising high above. I see
the details of my past, each blade
of grass
within the vast prairie frontier of this life,
and the careless spark,
the tower of smoke,
over an entire ego-system set ablaze in fire.

Time continues to release me.
But I?ve long resisted to let go of time.

its been two years since I lost
my child, my lover, my dog, my jeep, my apartment,
half my clothes, half my books, half my blood, and half the moon.
And I?ve since released another half.
But, like some new element,
a glowing chunk of emotionalium,
my feelings radiate with a half-life,
gradually decreasing by eye-dropping increments,
and dwindling steps from the previous whole ...

Could such a heavy particle of sorrow
eat away a hole in life?

Is time the disease
or is time the cure?

its been a year since release 8.0
... now this release comes crawling in late,
belly-up like a shriveled crocodile on your door-mat,
found pathetically lost under the threat of the sun,
having been pulled back ... then drawn forward again
by the gravity of some secret body of water
hidden in the basement of this sunken heart.

The room was flooded
when I discovered it even existed--
filled by the pipes of a broken past:
a time that was supposed to have been fixed
as easily as calling the plumber,
or writing his name upon the water ...

But floating in here, logged in heavy liquid memory,
are the sodden objects, still:

my child, my lover, my dog ...

dead gone now from my life,
and once believed to have been washed away far and clean.
Instead, flushed down into the hollow depth and recess
of a root-cellar stocked full of pickled memories.

Opening a jar,
I can barely stand to breathe the stench:
the fumes of my own ignorance,
and the stale decision responsible for this profound pickle.
its a dank and spicy mixture of fermented desires,
a pungency of the soul, drowning
out the true and delicate flavors
of the original fruit,
so graciously offered to me
from the glimmering tree of plump life.

If ever there was such a thing called sin ...
then I not only made sin,
I destroyed sin?s only child.

. . .

But more LIGHT to you, readers ...
I know these words might have better been marked
not through cyber-cloning and massive digital transfer,
but rather upon a single page of black-scratched ink, alone.

For the distribution of darkness has nothing
to do with the light between the stars,

... except only for the essential distance
involved in sharing the sky.

Yet, while we walk upon the same sphere,
some barrier to the bright truth
is casting a long shadow over me now.
This is only the view from my side,
my space,
my time,

... and time continues to release me.

So I?m sliding down this ancient chimney,
(the one we all have a turn to play cleaner too)
eyes wide open for the smallest vestige of light,
while hollering out with soot in my teeth
and ink in my mouth ...

But now these words would best be spoken pure,
like fire against fire,
and standing up
on the burnt plain of this smoke-hazy life,
planting these rare seeds
into the charred ground for future fields to grow:

I AM THE ONE WHO RELEASED

my child, my lover, my dog ...
before our time to part.

I AM THE ONE WHO RELEASED

those treasures,
the very keys to my soulful liberation.

I AM THE ONE WHO RELEASED

life from life.


And now I live the consequences,
and die into the utter possibilities.


... into time, I surrender,
into yet another of the trillion modes of love:

this time, like a gnat
who will measure the gradual curve
across the surface of the sun.

... wing tip to wing tip ...

and every degree of freedom in between.


I RELEASE MYSELF

now

and allow the sodder of my past demise
to ignite a flame of wisdom for you:

who ever you are being,
wherever you are being,
why ever you are being

treasure all being as it becomes to you.

Without grasping.
Without tossing away.

Allow the treasures of your life
to rest gently upon your open palm.


As time continues ...

... to behold us ...


I release this release ...

This Poem Will Read You

Words can be confusing,
sometimes, and other times,
other things can seem
more simple.
But I'm going to show
you, through the magic of
poetry, what seems to be
confusing can, sometimes,
be more simple,
as you will know
by the time
you read
the last word.

Southern Comfort

Folks always said Deputy Otis was weak for women.

?I wanna make love to you, Otis,? she said. ?I wanna
melt with you like honeycomb in June sunshine.?

Morning brings the light
by which the bodies are found.

Pa and Jethro stroll
home from the riverbank.
There is a quiet thrush of leaves,
as mud-caked boots cross through the orchard.
The sun throws it?s glow like gold
onto a sweet glistening of apricots on dewey trees.

Pa turns to Jethro, ?You run git the dog boy quick,?
and Jethro bolts. Pa kneels
into the leaves and cries.

News is Blake shot Otis in the back
?cause Josephine did favors for the deputy.
Lady Sal was begging Blake not to do it.
Blake shot lady Sal and Josephine too.

?There?s a fine line,? says the Sheriff,
?between making a mistake and committing a crime.?
The Sheriff is careful to judge
his words before he speaks.
?But Blake ain?t nowhere near it.?

Far down the highway, crossing the county line,
Blake drives a ford truck into twilight.

A jackrabbit dashes onto the road, into the headlights,
then back into the tumbleweeds.
Scarred critters know
when there is little time to run.

Jethro brings the dog to Pa,
who is wiping tears under the leaves of an apricot tree.
The morning dew begins to melt away.

?Like honeycomb in June sunshine,?

Josephine?s lips move slow
like water at the mouth
of a muddy river.

Bolinas Talent Show Poem

(following an act by a man who balanced seven nails upon the head of one)

Now, for my final act,
I will carefully balance
seven razor sharp paradigms
upon the edge of this single mind:

[drum roll]

On the edge of this continent.
On the edge of this history.
On the edge of my consciousness.
On the edge of my tongue.
On the edge of true talent.
On the edge of the stage.
On the edge of your seats ....

Time continues to release me.
And space keeps holding on.
Between these two, my consciousness
is breathing into the birthing of one.

all poems here copyright 1999, Michael Scott Lewis