The Moment

The Moment

The kid screams and throws a fit.

The wife chews me out.

The boss calls me up on that

And I exit so pissed off.

And then the wife takes kid to bed.

I turn the cell phone off.

The humid day fades and fades

And it begins to rain.

Sound of trilling in the dark,

Crickets stop and start,

A cool damp breeze through the screen

As I sit alone.

I let it all go, open mind

Allowing me to be

One with nothing, empty free

Being, just being, being.

The right place, at the right time

Dr. John had it right,

because they never line up,

the time and the place

until destiny forges a moment,

like a spike driven through

the veil of your chaos.

Such force to produce

the still small voice.

This is the time.

This is the place,

to hazard it all

on a chance so slim,

it will determine your life.

Yellow Submarine

Abandon,

I once had it

Staying out all night

Wandering star webs

Humidity like dew

Condensing like sweat

On young tense skin

We were heroes in space

Sitting in sand

On a hill in the Ganny

Listening to Ringo ask

Where is he
the nowhere man
Did he fall into a black hole
Did a blue meanie find him

Call out for Jeremy
who disappeared
I hope he returns
in  magical mystery
with a bright coloured jacket
and long sparkling hair
and white dazzling eyes
Something to free us
again

Friends

Friends are a place of cool sweet air,
the lake beaching in soft loose curls,
seagulls riding waves of the breeze
with the fierce independence of eagles.

Enemies are thunderstorms that rise
expanding in clouds like smoke,
building mischief into the ground,
releasing charges of light frenetic.

One follows the other.
The other follows the one.
Both are freedom wanted.
Both are freedom gained.

White

A friend once told me she liked to paint herself each morning,

a colour for a mood.

Red was porous and bleeding out.

Purple was energizing; good for what she knew would be a hell of a day.

Yellow was for cheerful and happy, like dandelions or buttercups.

Green was for sex, feeling fecund, wanting to grow something inside.

Orange was for formal, evoking good taste.

Brown was for earth, getting soiled inside, letting the hubris compost,

a time for waiting, a time for caring for everything.

Black was her favorite, a time for nothing at all.

I liked to drink vodka most of the time.

She liked to paint as you know.

I took to dropping acid so I could see colours.

And then when I became too paranoid the vodka would help.

That's why I found her.

I was afraid of my colours.

I did not like threatening my world.

But when I finally gave up I found white was my best,

the colour of explosion,

the colour that breaks things apart

when the atom lets go.

When I admitted you were right.

I had done all those things,

things became white.

Over time I allowed the other colours to bleed in.

Red became the suffering I caused.

Blue became the sea that swallowed what was lost.

Black I avoided and avoid still, at all cost.

Definitions

There is no quiet

but an absence of sound.

There is no dark

but an absence of light.

There is no turmoil

but an absence of peace.

There is no hatred

but an absence of love.

There is no sickness

but the absence of health.

There is no hell

but the absence of God.

There is no me

but the absence of you.

Food Court Patrons

Waiting for my friend,

while sitting in the food court

at a round green table

with steel chairs attatched.

An old man reading a free newspaper,

Lifting colorful pages against the air

and they fold peacefully into place.

Groups of Greek elders,

Socrates and Plato

scraping caked ink 

off the lottery game cards

and blowing chaff with weak lungs.

Thick glassed eyes

telling tales of old,

of events that happened to them,

free of the editors mind,

the splendid ego

on a rampage.

A pretty Asian girl in slim slacks,

and fine ruby red sweater

and stiletto boots,

walking, texting, talking.

Old women,

complain about hospitals

and nurses while sipping

from coffee time and shaking their heads 

in disbelief.

I am 

waiting for my friend

in whom schizophrenia

has reigned  for many years.

I see

him walk in from the opposite side,

furtively glancing,

until I walk over.

His smile is an awakening

at first,

but then his countenance lowers 

onto his face like wrinkled wax paper,

red and welted with bloodshot eyes 

and half his smile knocked out.

He tells me gambling stories

and of women who are burning to have sex.

How he won two thousand dollars

then gave it all to a friend

week by week

until it was spent.

because she needed food for the kids.

"Do you have the Holy Spirit?"

he says.

"I can't tell anyone

but I can tell you

the secrets of the kingdom."

He rubs his palms,

"I know something I can't tell,

I'm going to change into a baby."

I look

At infants in strollers

with so many mothers,

and believe him.