I Could Cry

An eighty two year old stabbed
his wife who was ten years younger.
It could have been funny
except that he killed her.

They had Spanish names and lived
in a neighborhood that used to be
cornfields and barns but now is
jam-packed with houses that
all look the same.

And I think the whole family lives there,
their kids and their kids
which makes it more tragic
than we can bear to think.

It's obvious grandpa was nuts,
losing his mind and he always yelled
at grandma but no one thought
anything like this could ever happen.

Oh my God, I could cry.

In The Silence.

In the silence I behold

my thoughts

coming and going

kaleidoscope of colours

dancing and spinning

They are just existing

on their own and I perceive

that they make me

and not I them

They are like currents in a river

that I chose to swim

and seeing it that way

I still like to swim.

Options on becoming a being (or a whole lotta J's)

Be a Jerboa

have strong muscled legs

and jump really quick

Be a Jackal

snickering terror

sly fevered teeth

Be Jehovistic

conjuring plaques

portents of wrath

Create jaundiced justice

like Janus who japed

while Sandy swamped

New Jersey shores.

The Shadow

How you treat others
is how you love yourself.

But your shadow,
he knows the truth.

Standing dimly to the right
or left or behind,
sometimes covering where you walk.

You tend to meet him in your dreams,
where you run about in hiding.

But his desire is never to catch you,
because he is you he knows

you never meant to hurt anyone;
you just hated yourself.

For Aranka

Schwish Schwish
Mmwhine Mmwhine
the sound of the wipers
me and my baby
driving in rain
soaking the roads
splashing up hard

We drive this road
each week every year
in the heat and the snow
in the rain and the fog
steering our lives
through dangerous corners
risking for love.

And we talk and we laugh
we shout and we cry
but we never regret
having got in this car
to drive on forever
mapping our route
to the bright morning star

The Journey/The Awakening

The Journey
By Mary Oliver

One day you finally knew
what you had to do, and began,
though the voices around you
kept shouting
their bad advice—
though the whole house
began to tremble
and you felt the old tug
at your ankles.
“Mend my life!”
each voice cried.
But you didn’t stop.
You knew what you had to do,
though the wind pried
with its stiff fingers
at the very foundations,
though their melancholy
was terrible.
It was already late
enough, and a wild night,
and the road full of fallen
branches and stones.
But little by little,
as you left their voices behind,
the stars began to burn
through the sheets of clouds,
and there was a new voice
which you slowly
recognized as your own,
that kept you company
as you strode deeper and deeper
into the world,
determined to do
the only thing you could do—
determined to save
the only life you could save.

Awakening 
by Me

Have you ever stopped
when the moon is brilliant
either full or half
quarter or crescent
and the sky is clear
and never ending.
Did you realize then
that this same moon
and this same sky
have always been with you?
And you have returned
subconsciously to them
again and again and again?
But today is an awakening
that you have always been here
in one way or another
year after year
millennium after millennium
and that your awakening
has always come
and it always will.

The New Beginning

I want to touch you

Reach into your night

Drink of the stillness

You harbour inside

I want to bewitch you

With deep tender voice

Make you forgetful 

Of everything else

No more of the lies 

We once believed

Held us together

Gave us our ease

We crossed the bridge

And then we burned

We are transparent 

Now that we're here 

Gladness abounds

Just look around

But for us dear

It must be a choice