I Dreamed

May 10^th, 2009

It came

I sought

I lost.

In confusion

Scrambled.

Lesser things came,

Happiness.

Exploration.

For a time.

The dream is raw

Rotting.

Older dreams than recent dreams

dreamt are redrawn.

New vigor

New vision.

Dreaming continues

Until night

When the last, long dream begins.

There Is a Point

June 19^th, 2010

A moment so sudden,

At the end of a list

On the return from a party.

Succes first the feeling

Turned lost and asunder.

Don't know where to go

Nor quite what to do.

I sit here and ponder

The life I just knew.

Transparent yet sensory,

Looking for something forgotten--

Remembering what it was to do--

Someone about to come--

The end of the sidewalk--

A cliff to the sea--

The last station of the line.

Not knowing what will be

Life continues

As the trail is now gone--

Mapless wilderness so foreign you aren't scared;

It's but crumbs and fantasy.

Anything fast

Fill up the senses

Pleasure me now as

The stranger keeps knocking,

As if his dark entrance

Might my exit light.

Without remembering

one must forget,

and will kill if the mind stays

on the question too long.

Square By Square

May 10^th, 2009

House by house.

Some have swirls

Or smaller quarters.

The barren desert disappears

In water

In sod

In concrete

In light.

How far will nature fly?

Not as far as our reach.

Because it has not wings

Or the will to leave

Or the perception of its end.

We see potential,

It sees limitations.

It gives all it can

Yet we take more than it offers

And squander it on fountains

And lawns

And pools without number

Or concern.

A once unique miracle of life

Can be seen daily at the Bilagio.

It’s origin is unquestioned.

Our miricle of gamling cities

arid suburbs

And desert golf courses

Will soon end.

Our dead will overflow from yards

To sidewalks

To the gutter

Just as people begin to ask where it all went.

With her last breath

Nature will say

She offered herself freely

And we raped her anyway,

Not feeling the raping of ourselves.

A Wedding Letter

Chére,

When I think of the years we’ve known eachother, I realize it doesn’t seem like that long. I can bring to mind several friends I had growing up that I consider “childhood friends,” but you are not in that category; you surpass it. While others came and went, flowered and fell, we have always been able to reconnect, and by that I consider you a life long friend. And to be here for this day brings me great joy for you.

Looking back on the times sitting in Northland’s stackable chairs on Saturday nights, taking French lessons at the kitchen table, making sand castles with PVC pipes and coffee cans, I saw you searching for your place and your passion. Your eyes and sight were beyond your age. While the people around you lived for and by various shallow truths and blind longings, you could not join them because you sought something greater.

In finding a voice, and voicing a song, the melody lead you to Illinois, and by divine fate, to him. With him your passion you found, and your song you named. I wish I could have been there for you in those days before but my eyes had things yet to see, and other journeys to take, and while I was just as blind as the rest, I see enough now to know that you have found your place, and today you sign the deed to build a home on it, and what a grad home it will be:

Made of love, grace, and vintage things,

By hands that work for greater deeds,

Dealing hope out for all in need.

In the etiquette of Emily Gilmore, I give you the best of wishes, and to Michael, Congratualations.

Ton ami toujours,

Past Facts for a Future without the Present

Spring 2009

Is it fair to admit a truth

that would break a promise?

A bond set on course

but not yet moored.

Has this truth come too late

or just in time?

Is it unjust to the presence of the past

or to the present oversea investments?

Which is greater?

Which has priority in the continuum in time?

Can the fact wait

Lie

Die?

Is it misunderstood?

Is it worth saving myself from its crushing weight,

A life of regret and unrequiting longing,

If it perhaps becomes theirs with a burden multiplied of unknowable density,

Altogether different structures of lattice crystal.

And in the light I carry for such a one

would that lattice break?

In destroying one furture would another be gained

Or would both be forever tainted?

The final question must be

Of this light’s strength and length and origins.

If it is great and frequent and pure,

It must be shown,

For either to torch or to pyre,

Otherwise the light will consume itself

And its lighter in combustion that leaves embers burning;

Faded and isolated in space and time

To taint all other flames.

The only other possibility is that it would dwindle to a whisper

Of smoke giving way to darkness

That lacks resources and energy to strike

Anew a future.

My love is dead, refused, missed, or misplaced.

But love endures

Whether its around or in my hands

Or in the hands of others.

What would I really have to offer

But a soul tossed about by pressure

People

Places

Pleasures.

And in the tortuosity lose

The fact and the love

Left in years apart

And pieces of brokenness

For her and her present tense.

Time enough

To wait

To dwindle the flame,

And twiddle another branch

Now greening.