Evolution's Blank Slate

(A ceremonial magician's visualization spell presaging November 9, 1989.)

I

The postulate, Janus, narrowed focus to breath:
inhale - two, three, four; hold - two, three, four;
exhale - two, three, four; hold - two, three, four. He slid
through a portal into a calming meditation. Lingering
decay, the final chord from "A Day in the Life," rang
memory's eardrum. Within his mind's eye loomed
a vision - a snake stretched out before Janus, writhing
emptyspace. The snake slithered into a winding
path, coalescing into solid footing. A lion approached
Janus, nuzzled against the man's leg, purred
and urged him forward. They strode into blackness.
Janus observed the snake-bridge spanned
from Mars to Jupiter, arching over asteroids.
Almost instantly, Janus and the lion reached
Jupiter. The archway poured out the astral
travelers at a solitary sentried, purple pyramid.

II

"Who approaches?" "Janus, Universal Law's humble
servant." "Define Universal Law?" "Why, Tzadkiel,
it is harmonious integration of the cosmos." "Be more
specific." "Unity's infinite, individual expressions,
which underlie Multiplicity." "How is this distilled?"
"Through Love's ewer." "Welcome, Master Janus."

III

Tzadkiel led the way into a tunnel. Elaborate hieroglyphs
covered the walls. Lapis Lazuli stones adorned silver censor
chalices, emitting pungent, cedar-scented wafts. Tzadkiel
handed Janus a torch and grabbed another for himself.
Together, they crossed the telescoping corridor's icy,
stone floor. "This plane dwells outside spacetime," Janus
considered as they arrived at an anteroom's veiled entrance
on the right, deep in the pyramid's bowels.

IV

"A sarcophagus stood, propped up in anteroom chamber's
center, lid opened and facing the sole blank wall within
the pyramid," Janus mentally noted as he blew into the room
alone, like a fall breeze, torch flashing as it flickered. Hieroglyphs
etched into the other three walls revealed magical formulas -
spells cast and designed to transmute the postulate's soul
and elevate imaginings into resonating overtones
upon the magnetosphere. Janus placed his torch's hilt
into a wall fixture and relaxed back into the sarcophagus.

V

"My will is blind,
all aspirations suspect;
dream's purity sublime -
let love's will, not mine,
be made manifest!"

VI

The blank wall before him hummed in E as Janus
beheld a spectacle, the apparently opportune offering,
an auspicious harbinger. Eyes gaping wide observed
a great wall crumble under common hands, a joyous
celebration of symbolic relief from bondage. He wept
as human spirit spit in tyranny's face. He grinned
broadly, knowing freedom can never be denied
when every shadowed face asserts Free Will
in one voice - one non-violent, yet unbending,
common will. Freedom's birthright! Janus
peered harder as the image dissipated, riding
a sudden chilling breeze.

VII

Janus grasped his torch, spent and exhilarated. He
rejoined Tzadkiel in the corridor. Instantly, they faced
pyramid's entrance. "You must return every night
for one year, Master Janus." "Is that all?" he chuckled.
"No. Invest your most fervent intentions into the vision,
move beyond merely believing reality will conform -
know with conviction reality already conformed to will."

VIII

The lion accompanied Janus back across the path,
but Janus rode the lion this time. With each step
the lion took, the path shortened, until soon, they
reached the snake-path's beginnings. Janus
dismounted and ruffled the lion's mane gratefully.
The lion roared back!

IX

From seemingly nowhere, yet simultaneously
everywhere, a brilliant flash awoke the postulate
to the softly decaying fade from "A Day in the Life,"
again and again, nightly, for a year. Then, Janus
released the vision with trust and conviction,
soon, entirely forgetting it.

X

(November 9, 1989.) Dreams' imperfections
express eternally, even from Love's will. The blank
wall awaits a new pyramidal weaver to etch
upon evolution's blank slate and wrought
civilization's ironclad restrictions into liberating
infinite potential, which grand libations to Beltane's
bonfires' exhortations forever describe.

Riddles

A fervent cry from the deepest reaches
Within caverns burrowed into the earth
Bemoans the plaintive mourning screeches
Which avail gods to re-invent mirth;
The only answer to these beseeches
Whisper riddles on the relative worth
Posed by arguments held in mind's niches
And whether they existed before birth:

Does folly seek meaning in drama?
Can a being compel tides to rise?
Must insight and growth incite through trauma,
Or does immanence live in compromise?
Do truth's seeds grow in myths of Rama?
Did the Buddha explain all he surmised?
Why do high cliffs house llamas and lamas?
Explain why nature must be revised.

Love's Labor's Lost and Found

Shadows across a wall.
Diffused moonlight
filters through curtains
fluttering in a breezy
stillness. He bolted
upright, awakening
to nystagmic dizziness.

Sudden vision,
a single photon
emerging - form's
stretched hint,
a glowing, coalescing,
looming irrationality.

A woman's figure,
soft focus fuzzy,
pastel yellow
raimented. Her form
revealed behind the mirror -
a rose scented,
amber hued,
sun-daughter,
moonchild.
A vestal vessel,
nakedly flush
her beatific blush -
emerald radiations -
glinted adorations,
the eternal epitome.

His slack
gaping jaws
pre-spoke.

Startled reassurance
emerged from silence,
mental whispers,
brimmed over,
a steaming elixir.

She sang,
"Exude yourself
beyond remuneration,
freedom from longing
for teeming sales tags
finds satisfaction
in interest cubed
upon unfathomable banks,
where account ledgers'
conditionless, fruitful trees
bear endless individuality
in a bountiful universe."

He smiled into her
questionlessly quenched
eyes, forever's offerings -
a self-contained reward.

"Sharing becomes adored."
She smiled.

Sparkling eyed
students acing tests
turn dripped candle wax
into castle moats' flood
as psalmic incantations
incite darkening
spheres, and ears
drown discord
in love's labor's
lost and found.

No Tomb for Ptolemy

Ptolemy's barq cavorted
upon a stormy river,
lithe chameleon's future genesis
yawned a chasm in response
to thunder clapped
mountain's exhortations.

Pyrrhonic revelations'
misspent tear torrents -
Pythia's Delphic lament -
foretold an unnatural, native-born,
mercenary, Mephistophelian vehemence,
fester ridden, within expanding continents
suffocated by a sweltering
ghetto screamed din.

"I live within the sarcophagus
and awaken in Necropolis,"
Ptolemy wailed from clutch's grasp -
Cleopatra's poisonous asp's pointed
fangs. Sirens' hymns for martyred,
seafaring Phoenicians epitomized
a Saracen sacrifice to satyr's satiety.

The sky flamed with summer
sunsets on coastal plains -
and Alaskan winter night
Northern Lights. Earth Mothers
wilted in Persephone's ignored gaze.

Meanwhile, Prometheus stole
another great fiery lick
from Olympus to re-temper
the Phoenix in its forge.

When, at last, will time
release Prometheus
from slavery to god?

A Horus-eyed hawk soars
over summits, sharing vestigially
glimpsed, tethered rings. Tolling
bells peal out Pharaoh's lineage
in mourning for Egyptian willful
abeyance to Cleopatra's ambition.

Dionysian rites never sprouted
their grape in Kem. So,
Augustus crushed rebellion
into a bitter flavored whine.

In earlier, still-more-ancient,
Egyptian dynastic reigns,
every citizen joyfully contributed
to erecting Pharaoh's majestic resting
edifices. Each Pharaoh's Ka redeemed
everyone within the realm during
his reign. By Pharaoh passing Maat's
test, a whole society found
its motives and merits judged
on Pharaoh's weightless heart.

Re-enacting Osirian rites
opens Abydos only to those
whose culture reveres harmony
with nature and all other cultures.

Cleopatra denied homage
to her brother and Pharaoh,
Ptolemy, like her time's Tut.
Her hand bore his blood's seed
even as she opened lotus
petals before laurel
wreathed Julius.
International ambition's lure
amid imperial design's
honeysuckle scent
and Roman luxuriant excess
turned Egyptian hearts away
from Ptolemy, who would have
gladly borne their sins.
Abydos' gates sealed.

No tomb was built for Ptolemy.
No funerary scrolls were written.
The teenage Pharaoh had no barq
to sail the river Styx.
He was not mummified - no canopic
jars bore his organs. Lost, eternally,
Ptolemy never found Maat, his Ka
forever unjudged. His soul,
together with the collective
Egyptian soul, like the Sphinx,
became entombed
by perpetually
shifting Saharan sands.

I'll provide some historical background, and a few bits of information below:

Many famous men named Ptolemy have walked eastern Mediterranean lands. The Ptolemy to whom this poem refers was the Pharaoh, Ptolemy XIV of Egypt, brother and husband of Cleopatra VII.

It was customary in Egypt during their time period for Egyptian rule's vesting to pass to the previous Pharaoh's eldest daughter's husband, and that the siblings would marry and the two would reign together. At the time of his marriage to Cleopatra VII, Ptolemy XIII (her first husband) was about 12 years old and Cleopatra about 17 or 18. This marriage was one of convenience (assisting Cleopatra to consolidate and validate her ruling position) and in name only (with Ptolemy so young, the marriage was never consummated).

Their rule's first three years issued from Cleopatra’s sole authority and policies. By 48 B.C., Ptolemy’s advisers sought to wrest power from Cleopatra, so they stripped her of power and forced her into exile in Syria. This occurred contemporaneously with the struggle between Julius Caesar and Pompeii for control over Rome. Pompeii sought assistance from his presumed ally Ptolemy XIII. However, the Pharaoh, almost literally, stabbed Pompeii in the back, as he sought to form a new alliance with Caesar. However, Caesar was appalled when presented with Pompeii’s head on a platter as a gift.

Caesar seized control of Alexandria, took command of the government, and demanded both Ptolemy and Cleopatra to appear before him. Cleopatra, knowing that Ptolemy’s men would kill her on sight, had herself smuggled into Caesar’s presence (legend has it, Cleopatra was rolled in a rug given to Caesar). Civil war arose out of the jealousy and greed for power. Ptolemy XIII ultimately died in the struggle.

Cleopatra then married her next-oldest, younger brother, Ptolemy XIV (who was 11 or 12 at the time), in order to re-legitimize her right to the throne. Cleopatra soon bore Julius Caesar a son (Ptolemy XV, aka Caesarian). Later, Caesar brought Cleopatra, Caesarian and Ptolemy XIV to Rome. After Caesar’s assassination, all three returned to Egypt. Wearied from her regal legitimacy being tied to men she could not control, Cleopatra had Ptolemy XIV assassinated by poison after their return to Egypt and married her very young son, Caesarian (Ptolemy XV), to permanently seal her legitimacy.

Pyrrhonism has to do with the doctrines established by Pyrrho, who founded a school of thought in ancient Greece which maintained radical skepticism as the attitude and posture toward offerings of answers to all questions.

Pythia was a priestess and prophetess dedicated to Apollo at Delphi.

Prometheus, in Greek mythology, was a Titan who stole some divine fire which belonged to Zeus and was kept on Olympus. Prometheus gave that fire to humanity. In punishment for this audacity, Zeus decreed first that humans would be forced to endure a love of and for pain embodied within the newly created Pandora.

Pandora possessed great beauty. However, she carried with her beauty's charm a box containing grief. Pandora’s beauty seduced humanity into accepting her presence as a gift from Zeus. Up to this time, humans experienced no evil upon Earth, they resided in a Utopian garden. However, when humanity accepted Pandora, she opened her box and unleashed all forms of evil and suffering upon everyone living or yet to be born.

Prometheus, though a Titan, was subservient to Zeus. Zeus was enraged that his sacred fire had been shared with humanity. He wanted to punish Prometheus in a manner guaranteed to deter any other immortal from aiding the mortal humans ever again by sharing with them godly gifts. So, Prometheus was chained to the Caucasus Mountains' highest point, had a vertical pillar driven through his body's center, and left there for an eagle to eat his liver by day, which would grow back at night in order to facilitate its being eaten again with each new day. The punishment was to last for 30 thousand years (the longest time period conceived by humans in the era when this legend originated, so essentially, for eternity). [Notice how the legend reveals a god who presented humanity with a great gift and was made to suffer for humanity upon a kind of crucifix of those times.]

Zeus, however, at a later time decided he wanted to bestow fame upon his son Heracles. So, Zeus awarded Heracles the office of releasing Prometheus. Heracles shot the eagle with a poisoned arrow and released Prometheus from the chains and pillar.

The Phoenix was, to ancient Egyptians, a legendary bird which lived for five or six centuries. The bird submitted to fire by an act of its own volition and arose from the ashes refreshed by new youth.

Dionysian rites were sensuous, frenzied and orgiastic, and devoted to Dionysus, the youngest of Zeus’ sons (Dionysus, it was said, was conceived during Zeus’ rape of his own daughter, Persephone). Dionysus later took Ariadne as his wife. Dionysus was also the Greek god of wine, salvation and redemption, and death and rebirth, and the Greek god who assumed the mantle of reign over the gods after Zeus’ reign ended.

Ancient Egyptians called their homeland by the name, Kem.

Augustus Caesar was the name taken by Octavian after defeating Marc Antony and enthroning himself as Rome’s Emperor.

The Egyptian lineage of Cleopatra's time belonged to descendants of Alexander, and elements from Greek culture encroached into Egyptian royalty. The traditional Egyptian gods held too strong of a hold on the people for them to ever worship gods and goddesses from the Greek culture.

Eternal Carousel

Reverie witnessed
snowflakes
fluttering down,
intermittently drifting,
landing one upon
another, piling up.

Ceaseless silence
swallowed a single
snowflake. It slithered
into the terrestrial womb.

Birthing a new Aeon,
the insemination
streamed fresh water
through the ocean's
briny body
at midnight
on an eternal carousel.

Our Shared, Gasped Embrace

We traipsed along the shoreline,
her hand engulfed by mine. Her eyes -
shining, sparkling-tipped
waves - rapt attention spanned
every luxuriant, eternal instant.

Wingless, we soared on updrafts,
our childlike innocence billowing
the same sails which navigated
Pelagius' course.

Excitement rose as bumps
upon her flesh as she strained into
our shared, gasped embrace.

We sat in planetary
alignment's warm
countenance, visualizing
the same, single yearning
in the electromagnetic afterglow
shimmering on an august, harmonic
convergence. Our souls
mated on the clouds.

The sky, blushed sunset
witnessing our passion and turned
its eyes to the roaring surf,
which insisted wave after wave
to crash in foamy
splashes. Quickening pulses
lapped at our cold, wet flesh
until our nakedly unashamed
stardust entwined into
our shared, gasped embrace.

Ancient, Nocturnal Lady

Ancient, nocturnal lady,
ladle yourself over my flesh
like hot fudge topping
dripping over a banana split.

Swim with me
in an electric whirlpool,
eddying between seasons
change, centered in the eye
of a hurricane, outside
warm rain's reach.

Stand next to me -
withstand the solar wind's brunt
as we emanate our own magnetosphere!
Plasma, in un-deplete-able quantities,
auroras - flashing, shimmering,
pulsing waves - galactic
nightglow erupts.

Insistence demands
no more whispers,
for Samhain's rites
cleave the sky at midnight,
moonlessly awakening
genetic memory.

Petulant fingers thrum
upon a cozmic tabletop.

"I could spend a lifetime
holding, gently but firmly,
your nipple in a toothy vise,
breathing and tasting," He realizes.

Electromagnetic chemistry
ignited empathic curiosity
as worry's own tears
washed forgiveness
into a Venice Beach
lightning striking night.

"I would forgo sleep
through every night,
squandering sweet existence,
just to learn to read
the braille in your
ivory fleshed curves."

Seemlessly, we embrace
the ocean's salty flavors
as we skinny dip
in an icy ocean
more alive than human
senses can reveal.

Ancient, nocturnal lady
your night never ends,
lucid dreams reign supreme,
fathoming every possibility
which ever welled up into Himalayas
from the deepest ocean floor -
monumental edifices erected
to memorialize
original cause,
opposites' insistent attraction.

Amerika

Amerika clothes in golden garments, glitter and gold paint adorns its face;
Amerika dyes its hair fiery red - green blood inundates its veins.
Amerika drowns in a modern tar pit, white phosphorous clouds its brain.
Amerika, go to bed, don't wall up your borders or ship relocating immigrants back in planes -
Amerika, you succumb to fears of mosques, while men named Abdul cringe from your plastic, tolerant distaste.
Amerika forcibly exports Thomas Jefferson's bastard children, and calls Palestinian, Lebanese and Venezuelan votes a disgrace.
Amerika, the flame from the torch in Liberty's hand flickers in systematic winds which blow the Bill of Rights into space.
Amerika, self-proclaimed land of opportunity, you leave the homeless, ailing, and needy on the curb, unembraced;
Amerika, black widow, weave your web across the globe - a political and economic order with you as its ace.
Amerika stokes a planetary furnace, fueling climate change with its waste;
Amerika demands all others' respect, but offerings back? I see not a trace.
Amerika polices WMDs in other countries, but uses its own, stockpiling more, "Just in case."
Amerika orbits our Earth with spy satellites and argues now it must weaponize space;
Amerika, once the populist hope, now a threat to the whole human race.

This is an edited version of the poem which was originally published by Eleventh Transmission in their March of 2008, Volume 2 Issue 3. A link to the archived publication is provided on the right hand column.

Climate Changed

Eagle soars through a cloudless sky,
Plants scorched dry to unblinking eye.

Skulls, skeletons, dry riverbeds;
Unraveled dread erodes homesteads.

Long, lawless war: a human blight -
Water rights at oil's might.

Withering, fatal, green-eyed lust,
Shriveling leaves gust past charred crust.

A faint memory -
iced tea.

Soil turns to sand
at wealth's command.

This is an edited version of the poem which was originally published by Blood Moon Rising Magazine in their July of 2008 issue. A link to the archived publication has been placed on the right column (5 poems on Blood Moon Rising Magazine).

Desire Whispers

Outside Chartres' walls in clay
Thorns menace a rose;
Inside a palace in Marseilles
A painting of Camille Corot's
Waits patiently to say
What parentheses eternally enclose.

Desire whispers in the night
Lifting moonlit veils,
Fulfilled oration can't delight
Homeric ships which have no sails;
Though winds may howl, "Take flight!"
Ulysses anchors while Circe serves him ales.

Diamonds' polished and gleaming
Facets fascinate
The darkest vestige within priests,
Whose black robes fail to suffocate
Nature's urge unexpunged:
No instinct's easy to ameliorate.

Flickering Candlelight

A canyon echoes with harmonics
and overtones as a gong
tolls on drifting autumn leaves
from the pagoda, shrouded in fog's web-like
fingers; irises open to vibrations
and cast a fragrantly seductive spell
upon each dew droplet that trickles.

Doves' wings fluttered against the not-quite-still
breeze; the glitter in nights' reveries receded
behind purple mountain stairways under the fading
indigo canopy. Sleeveless, the doves wore
their hearts on their beaks, coo-coo-cooing
a song that stretched and yawned
through olive branched tongues.

Like children laughing at kittens
tugging at a yarn ball,
the day's seasons
etch across the sundial's face,
even as the year's hours
inch constellations across the heavens -
moment after memory after wish after dream.

The spider embraced its web,
escaping honeysuckle's aroma
flavored, never-puckering lips
with first hissed seductive silence.

Pregnant presence tingles,
shivering up daybreak's spine,
drenching the day with pomegranate
juice; fingered acupuncture needles'
pricks form tiny ripples, glass skating,
languidly bobbing a way
beyond the imaginary horizon.

Conversations caressed cheeks
with a newborn's breath,
expectantly hovering
over its mother's nipple,
while offering succulent sighs, content
in quiet, moonlit harbors
where grunion ran upon red tide.

Lacking the proper mushrooms,
I recited Ferlinghetti
between the looming shadows cast by
flickering candlelight. Her Plato
suffered the interruption.

A dove family chirps and peeps from a nest
in a tree outside my window, singing
reminders: gathering daisies and snapdragons
to place on her yellow Austin America's windshield
all during 1971's spring. As if there could be
any other.

Memories creep into light
from behind the foggy haze
residing at eyelid corners,
illuminated within a corridor -
similarly cast looming
shadows, dancing and singing between
echoed reverberations' call and answer -
resound in flickering candlelight.

One Simple Rose Petal

When we were but wee ones
and watched drifting clouds
upon wayward happenstance,
our little minds played make-believe
and imagination reconfigured the sky.

Not too many years distant, we spent
our mid-summer mornings rolling
on clover covered hills, the sweet
smell in our hair and clothes jumped rope
among late afternoon oak trees; later, playing
hide and seek in the grove's after-dusk orange.

We raced our bicycles through autumn streets,
fallen leaves floating up in zooming tires'
whooshing wake; we zig-zagged by mud
puddles on our way to the creek in the field
marsh where we caught frogs in our hands
and collected tadpoles in glass jars.

We hunted through flower beds' honeysuckle
trellised patios trying to catch butterflies
with index finger and thumb; often, they
fluttered all around us, staying just beyond
our grasp, so we'd giggle off to the swing
set and try to soar above the Sun.

I used to pick four daisies every single
school day to bring home to Mommy;
sometimes, I found some marigolds to add
to her bouquet, but I never found even one
simple rose petal that human minds could sway.

Dawn's Urgency

Within dawn's
urgency resides
seductive articulation's
expression into depths
individually plumbed;
nirvana's gateway.

Carnal delights
shop at twilight
for fragrant promises.

The liquid sky
bathes circumstance
with choice's
haphazard opportunity.

Palm trees wave,
silhouetted against
the night sky, and dance
a beckoning aloha
to "Lucy in the Sky
with Diamonds," singing
at 33 and a third rpm,
scratching and crackling
on an old record
player - the walls
sweat acid - while
on an island, ukuleles
strum one unending
refrain, "Everybody
must get lei'd."

Can you
navigate
the straits
of jacket?

A small,
semi-certain
centrifuge
twists up
dove-tailed
serenity,
lingering languidly
in exhaustive,
incandescently
radiant, rain clouds.

In touch's longing,
through aching
dreams and upon
flaming soul's trails
does one soar
into satori.

I Sense; I Love

I sense honey nectar in a fragrant rose
As unfolding buds branch from stems;
I sense a sweet aroma weaving invisible webs
Which sparkle like crystals, refracting colors,
While captivating hand-holding, strolling lovers;
I love how they wind through seductive twilight.

I sense flimsy, eucalyptus leaves flapping
As the breeze lackadaisically flutters by,
Bobbing on currents' eddies
Without rhyme or reason why;
I love nature's breath -
Arcing white, cotton-candy cloud puffs
Across the immaculate, azure, midday sky.

I sense the movie's starring role, etching
Images on life's theater screen, extends
An offering to everyone alive - most remain
Content as extras or supporting characters;
I sense emotions all locked in cages,
Anxious to erupt molten fury,
Spewing their lava liquids
Across the desert wasteland we call lives spent
As spinning wheels, gears in neutral, disengaged.

I implore, "Mourning, take your clothes off,
And bewilder, shed your haze;
Prevent worries' creep into couplets
Scribbled in the margins of life's screenplay's page."
I sense rumor and innuendo's ignorance
Expressed in every part played off stage;
I love the bold, uncompromising choices
Made by every altruistic sage.

I sense evolution's grand ballet
Revolve in pirouettes;
I love that nature induces change daily,
Moment by moment,
Without ever resorting
To threats or violence.

I sense no line or stanza more important
Than those Mother Nature recites right now;
I love how the Earth fulfills her purpose
Without a question or sigh,
But through the perpetual erosion
That grows and ebbs on every tide.

I sense my lover's body warmth
As we cuddle through the night,
And feel her smooth, silky flesh
As my fingertips tremble across her cheek,
Eliciting anticipation-shudders;
I sense our heartbeat pound -
Quickening as we linger in embrace,
And taste electric longing's charge
When tongue and teeth graze over lips;
I sense our pulse race in exultation
Through shared hypnotic, wide-eyed gazes;
I love understanding's depth
Arising from honestly exposing
The niches in our minds' inner mazes.

I sense vital ardor
Expressed on every street
Life twists its path along;
I love the thrill - drums,
pounding out ancient, sacred rhythms,
urging every byways' exploration.

Visible Webs

Kittens' squeaky, musing mews ease
Rippling muscles' tensed strains
Like penetrating fingers massaging
Aches. A man strolls beside a stream,
Hearing mud's fertile scent exaggerate
Curved etchings through the dell. Seeking
Its source, he steps over deadwood,
ascending a hill's rocky stairway.

Out from shadows which interrupt a clearing,
A zephyr whistles at aspens' golden shimmer,
While wood nymphs urge folly in deer.
A fox laps at stream's edge, then scampers -
Human scent enunciates caution,
So she scurries her pups to a wilder haven.
The man leans down, touching where her tongue
Lapped the water and marvels at her breath,
Hovering languidly still.

The wood nymph's siren song, a hypnotic spell, plants
The man's feet firmly, like marsh reeds. Undaunted,
roaring laughter, he uproots the firmament, and cradles
The cosmic egg to the glen's dead end
Where he buries the egg beside a splashing waterfall.

Exciting throbbing in every spectral hue,
A sparkling mist rainbows the sun
And serendipitously glides like a kite;
Nowhere and everywhere embrace,
Waltzing through then and now and will be,
Asking no questions, seeking no answers,
Twirling and spinning like galaxies,
Filling no ledgers, accruing no interest,
Reveling in sublime natural elegance.

"Nothing stands isolated, boundary demarcates illusion,"
Remarks the stream's succulent rush over rocks;
While scooping a pool by burrowing the land,
The same ceaseless mystery is bared:
Quasars and pulsars and the expanding universe
Blast forth from within every seeds' DNA;
While a mother suckles her newborn,
Identity sparkles in waves' tips off shore.

Whispered hugs and sighed caresses
Inseminate children's innocent giggles.
Eggs hatch to kisses' incantations, odes
Sing accompaniment as fires exhaust
All fuel sources, waning into slumber.
My sun rises as your sun sets -
Visible webs tie all islands together.

Freedom Sizzles

Leap frog children
squeal mid-afternoon.

"Tag, you're it,"
gleeful giggles resound.

Donkey tail pinned
blindfolded, heart racing.

Tug of war free-for-all
stretched salt water taffy.

Freedom
sizzles.

captivate caress

intent eyes focus,
offerings' slightest suggestion,
wrapped around lip-corners;
dry-throated swallowless
hallucinogenic fevered
fingertips curl down
cheeks, scattering drawings
traced across pores'
trembling flesh; secret
little sacred rivulets flow,
tidal insistence gasps
hotly, tingling
earlobe breaths, hands
loosely cup memories -
laughter and tears
ooze past now's grasp;
feather-light thumbs'
marvel - chin's hesitation;
quivering longing
adorns retreating horizon's
solitary moonbeam
eliciting aura's
unblushed innocence:
eternally locked pupils'
uninterrupted conversation
discards all trappings
longing begs
captivate caress

sparkling pools

waterfall droplets
puddle sparkling pools
mourning amber light

daybroken stillness
grassy knoll's lurking shadow
rising teary mist

gravity defied
orchid's sweet scent breezes by
pollen's nectar sip

mother tongue vocals
echo Neolithic toned
trumpet conch shell tribes

meadowlark's warbled
delightful cacophony
too soon forgotten

carnal appetites'
satyrs slash past nymphs' gash gate
ancient grove altar

Pan's reedy Syrinx
teases succulent flavors
butterflies' slurping

stark silence-clapped reigns
rear against scampering fawns'
hooves beating dirt paths

past sublime doorsteps
ancient cave dwelling paintings
invite us enter

witness amber hued
sparkling pools puddle
droplet waterfalls

Silent Woods

Silent woods
breathe
white, windless,
shivering air -
Dante's
sleepless nights:
dreams'
steamily exhaled
blanket.

Broad, powdered
plain yawns
arms out,
encircling
footprintless
silent woods.

Dotted islands
diaspora-like dispersal
mute howls,
shushed hushes,
involuntarily well up
primordial instincts;
oozing into every
barren tear duct,
one unending forest
breathes,
silent woods
in unison.

Chicago Calling Arts Festival Reading with Count Leonard de Montbrun - "The Park in Winter," "Support Our Troops" and "Tropical Illusions"

Today, I enjoyed the honor of participating in the annual Chicago Calling Arts Festival. For readers unfamiliar with CCAF, the sponsors pair poets residing in Chicago with poets residing outside of Chicago. The poets work together to provide the live Chicago audience attending the event with a unique experience, a collaborative reading by two poets.

I was paired with Count Leonard de Montbrun. The Count and I never met previously. However, we found much common ground during the communication we shared while collaborating. I am sure each pairing of poets worked out a unique approach to their collaboration. Count de Montbrun and I, almost immediately, found we shared some common concerns, antiwar sentiments and compassion for the lasting effects war wrecks on cultures by psychologically and emotionally eviscerating soldiers of their stability through PTSD (Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder). Both the Count and I already had created poems expressing those themes, so we found the right pieces to string together from previously written material. Count de Montbrun shared two brief pieces, "The Park in Winter" and "Tropical Illusions", which provided bookends for my slightly longer poem, "Support Our Troops" (previously published by Eleventh Transmission in their Vol. 2, Issue 3, March of 2008 edition, the link o which is provided as 8 poems for Eleventh Transmission).

I do not, at least yet, have the rights to publish Count Leonard de Montbrun's poems here. I have requested rights to publish his poems here with mine in the order read. Assuming Leonard does grant the permissions, I will edit this posting and include the additional and accompanying poetry. However, I can include, and am including, "Support Our Troops" to commemorate the event.

The Park in Winter

Through the wrought-iron bars of the park,
darkened by failed street lights,
winter dusk had the rural flavour of winter
slowly approaching spring:
The dark celdon of dormant grass,
the first display of yellow tulips
for sale at the nearby florist.

This quality lights
the weeks of Carnival
approaching Candlemas,
translucent as in the rose garden
years ago.
One could see dormant plants,
no longer with sunlight
nor yet with the moon.

In tension between lights,
the dark celadon of dormancy
resonated clearly,
resonated the return of spring.

Politics murmured in the rose garden
in opposites:
Never quite there,
never quite absent,
never communicating resolution.

In those years of war in Vietnam
the question of dusk in the rose garden
held the question,
in stasis:
An undeclared war,
undeclarable peace.

In that time, the lamps of logic failed,
as the street lamps by the park,
and so
the celadon of the teapot,
remelted in the earthquake in San Francisco,
vibrated in the dusk
between peace and war.

Copyright 2008 Count Leonard de Montrun

Support Our Troops

A seedy looking, white-bearded beggar
Stood daily on an island
In the street serving as the entrance
And exit of a strip mall's parking lot.
The man always held the same cardboard sign;
Indicating his veteran status,
And pleaded for money to help him survive.

I watched car after car each stop
At the light, awaiting green permission
To leave, ignore his presence.
Not one driver even gazed in his direction.

When he was young and vital:
He ought to have dated his one true love
He should have waxed his first car every Saturday
He could have played ball in the park with his friends
He dreamed of being present for a Koufax no-hitter
He would have bought the new Beatles' album
He longed to share eggnogs around the Christmas tree
He missed shooting the curl on that board in the garage
He was absent for barbecues and beer in the backyard
He didn't get to add his voice to Thanksgiving prayers.

Instead, the draft board sent him a notice
And then shipped him out to 'Nam.
His one true love donned love beads
And gave her virginity to a hippie
In the Haight. Koufax retired.
The Beatles broke up. His parents
Sold his surfboard and car, and placed
No presents with his name under the tree.

These thoughts climbed around
The jungle gym of his mind
As each driver refused to glance his way.

"I went there for all of you,"
He wanted to yell in anger,
"Then you shamed me and left me
A broken Humpty Dumpty.
I can't get a job, couldn't feed
My wife and kids;
Now they left
And won't take my calls."

He just stared plaintively, pleading into each
Implacable and non-responsive, sun-glared
Windshield belonging to smugly superior voters.

"Show me your thanks,
Your Christian charity!"
He longed to cry out;
But stilled his voice,
Trying to get what he could.

They pulled up beside that island
In Mercedes and Beemers and SUVs
With bumper stickers on the back,
"Support Our Troops" written
Upon the image of yellow ribbons.
No one gave him one thin dime.
He recalled how people stateside
Used the same phrase during 'Nam.

Now he knows what they meant:
Keep them over there to die and be disfigured
Keep them there to kill and destroy
Send more to join and escalate the violence
Make them suffer from Agent Orange
Send even more to witness the horrors
Make them stay till incapacitated by PTSD
Keep them there so nightmares will haunt them
The President's will must be imposed.

I pulled up in line next to that island
In a beat up van awaiting the green;
There was no yellow ribbon on my back bumper
Just a peace sign on my hat as I looked into his eyes.

I reached in my wallet and pulled out a five
And noticed the hesitation in his gait
As he wondered, "Should I take money from that old
Hippie, someone to chicken to join me in the jungle?"

With each slow step of his defeated stride
He saw no smugness, no distaste in my gaze;
The vet wanted to eat, buy a bottle, score some bud,
So I just smiled and told him, "Take care."

Then in my mirror, I saw mall security
Approach the veteran with sign in hand -
They pointed and prodded and pushed just a little
And ushered him off like a stray dog with no tags.

Copyright 2008 Don Coorough

Tropical Illusions

Illusion of tropical cafes,
possibly African,
possibly South American.

Immobile before the artists,
with Stolichnaya just beyond reach.
At stated times
I could drink.
The lime cut the vodka clearly.

I continued to sit
in a safari coat of khaki,
wearing a planter's straw hat,
symbols of bygone days.

Planters may no longer sit languidly
in tropical sun.
Tourists may sit there now:
No difference exists for casual observers.
No difference may exist for the servers.

Enforced silence in the silent studio,
enforced pose,
motionless in dry December air,
the studio somewhat overheated.

The periods of permitted drinking
coalesced in conversation with the artists.
Six artists had produced works
which differ radically,
yet they represent the same subject,
the same illusions.

Copyright 2008 Count Leonard de Montrun

Alone

He held her in night's hush,
an arm curled around her waist -
his breath lingered on her shoulder;
horizon colored eyes smiled
through a dew drop
stained windowpane.

Taut flesh pressed together
casketed warmth cascaded:
urgently,
silently radiating
contentment's afterglow.

Her lower lip's flavor
still washed his tongue
while her breasts moaned
at the haunting memory
left by raspy teeth tips' graze.

A light porch breeze tickled
wind chimes as the ocean's
murmurous roar resounded
beyond earshot.

Daybreak pried open
his eyes, he reached out,
expecting joy's snuggle;
sensory intruded upon reverie
and he stood, gazing
at Van Gogh's
empty bedsheets.

America's Gift to Iraq

Distant sands

Harnessed
Iraqi youth
straps tautly flush
smooth skin
scrapes white
baggy robes
flesh and harness
separate
trepidation's
clammy sweat

Patrolling soldiers'
Humvee saddled
nervous guffaws
sing fear-numbing
derision
enemy songs
forlorn

Children clad
asphalt pitch
giggles
kick-shot escapes
tedious
torturous
death odds'
exponential

Sand grains
single filed
hour glass
descent

Ingredient laden
mothers gaggle
strolling evening
meals down
asphalt pitch street

Dreaming
Thierrys
Beckhams
Peles
dusk blinded

Harness hiding
Iraqi youth
veer-merges
pointing out
shots
moves
deft angles

Consuming thoughts
occupying infidels' hands
slaughtered
parents
siblings

Humvee soldiers
roar up
asphalt pitch street's
converged restive scene
complacency elicited
casually interrupts
invasive weapons'
neighborhood mission
search and seizure

Youth led children
regale soldiers
hungry-eyed pleas
tittering cries
chocolate
candy

Mothers flock
children
shoo-shoo
home

Makeshift football
pitch confluence
boisterous glee
eruption
explodes
flesh ripping
blood splattering
bone shattering
searing flames
putrid smoke

Gathered arms
Iraqi youths'
burden borne
onus soaked
de-liberating
liberators'
invisible gift

Saturn's Rings

Awaken me!
Tomorrow's world -
excoriated, dimly lit
corridor-lined doorways
never creaking open.

Sleepwalk through fog
unguided, lampless;
wade an icy stream
between galaxies,
the bed falling away,
bottomless;
webbed myrrh tendrils
evoke ageless ghosts,
intuition sits silently.

Surreptitious eyes
steal furtive glances -
moonlit intrusion.

Nettle netting clutches
any passing prey;
black hole whirlpools
eddy up, randomly;
echoed,
sardonic chortles.

Distance,
light's sliver
winks,
pulse
quasar.

Tied laces -
our fingers
bow knot,
gripping souls
expose radiant flames,
burst dawn!

Dare open
coffin, step out
frolic:
Saturn's rings.