AGADIR

Here.
Where the earth twenty years earlier
swallowed fifteen thousand lives,
she said she could feel the ghosts
late at night on the beach.

They sat huddled together for warmth.

He thought the space had been
impressed for them-
stamped through catastrophe.

Only the most serious listener could hear.

In the morning it would be
the same story in another voice,
a gray tone, rich and immutable,
the sorrowful surf genuflecting under a shroud sky.

The oceans are nature's timepieces.

Here.
the measured history is a wailful remembrance.
Not so much for those who survived,
but to the ocean that felt itself
rearranged with jarring jolts,
deep rumbling screams as it
tore through its design.

Here.
Where the earth had
swallowed fifteen thousand lives,
it is the ocean that whispers
with memory and regret
the warning-
"This too will change."

Only the most serious listener could hear.

Disaster had stopped this steady rhythm.
The rhythm had resumed
and a wiser, more experienced ocean speaks.

Each day the sun strips
away the gray shroud,
each night the ghosts appear,
each morning mourns.

MANIFESTO

Should my spirit soar with singing and careless express itself
or rather to be measured and counted out so as to example good meter?
I had better use of my time than to work slavishly at Precision's bidding
and trust more fully my own heart's praising.
Let me, as Spring, seemingly overnight erupt fully present
And not to men's criticism fear so that eked out cautiously I reveal myself.
Glorious sun I take as my model!
Whose own light heralds it brilliant self.
Outside my window a bird's chorus teaches me nature's love of spontaneity,
and to seek less the good favor of men than my own perfect self in God.

GRACE

Through our unconscious we
even more alive and vital
to a greater working out of
Providence.
Be gentle to your conscious self,
It is most flailing
at the rim of the light
Projected through the cosmic dark,
Grace is there always
in the deep down bottom of your heart.
Your greatest fears
And grandest dreams
Kiss there.
Be there, revealed
And the light of the world
Is your reward
And gift.

Decemebr 7, 1991

Emergence

Genetic disruptions,
the discharge of madness-
Unforeseen anomalies.
Photographic evidence
of Bikini atoll
atomic blast-
The young men
protected by
sunglasses,
later ravaged
by decimating
cancer-
The crown of the head
of an Iraqi neonate,
deformed by
depleted uranium
tipped ammunition.
Ignorance and awareness,
Cosmic gestalts-
the bent of the mind,
the tyranny of consciousness
horrors from the id.
My future faced propulsion
into a collapsing Universe.
And the realm of Faery?
Love's redemptive power?
My responsibility
in Everything-
Always yes, Yes, YES
in louder
more desperate
screaming.
The circle around
the Yin/Yang.
The human race
to oblivion
or transformation.
Each of our part
in Everything-
Stay focused
on the highest possible
Vibration
as Assassins
follow orders.
Bleed throughs
from other
Realities-
the eddies,
the Whirlpool,
being sucked down
into a wormhole
to Atlantis.
Sisyphus's rock
while I roll
the dice.
Rolling the dice
The chances,
the changes
Mitosis/Meiosis
Overwhelmed,
Under examined.
The relentless march,
the Joyful Journey
And us,
each of us-
Everyday
casting our lot,
deciding our Fate
the Cumulus Nimbus
of Being.

Sawgrass Lake

When we were boys

we would play capture the flag there,

Or go climbing up the vines

that made a net up and over the trees.

The cow spiders lived there and

every so often you would

confront a web before your face,

with a large spider in the center,

Suddenly you were pumping adrenaline

and your heart was racing.

When we were boys

Sawgrass Lake was forbidden territory

(all the really fun places were,)

but most afternoon we were there.

Although I had my solitary times-

I’d walk to the lake on paths

covered with fallen rust colored pine needles.

Occasionally I’d be startled and terrified

by one of the large black hissers

essing its way across my path.

It was a personal archeological excavation.

The path ended in a protected clearing

where there was a discarded mattress,

several empty beer bottles -

and used condoms.

Relics of primal behavior,

My imagination would be piqued-

And sometimes I would make a detour on the way home

to a place I knew under the vine covered trees.

I can still see the mottled light

that filtered through the vines and leaves,

making a natural cathedral of the spot,

a place sacred and holy.

where I would kneel

and leave something of myself,

A sacrifice to the Mystery

that had inflamed my soul.

Years later when I returned home on a visit,

I discovered the county

had preserved Sawgrass Lake,

turned it into an environmental park.

I like to think my earlier pilgrimages there,

and my personal consecration of the earth

had something to do with this.

I still go there,

now that I have returned home,

and remember those times.

Sometimes I can hear our shouts

and see us scampering

through the jungle,

savages on the hunt.

Now there is a wooden boardwalk

that takes you to a lookout tower

so you can view the lake.

No mattresses,

empty beer bottles,

or used condums

That I can see.

It was really a tract of undeveloped land

Between two residential neighborhoods,

Meadowlawn and Fairview Estates,

Names more apt

before the construction

of hundreds of uniform

pastel colored,

Sparklecrete homes

with television antennaes

Like crucifixes,

attached to the side.

I thought,

when the interstate was built

it was doomed,

But only further tamed,

Civilization’s progress

concession to all

it had destroyed.

A last of prehistoric Florida,

A concentration camp

For the native wildlife

And for me

still sacred and

Like most holy sites-

Miraculous and horrifying.

You Here Now

You here now,
the one I feared would never come-
do not be shy.

Yes, our youthful beauty
was not ours to share,
But my embrace is no less full.
The seasoned selves we offer
have exquisite gifts
our younger versions had
only as potential.
The bud is lovely,
but nothing pleases more
than the full blossomed rose.
The beauty of that rose
is still in the wisdom
of the rose whose
first petals wilt and fall.
I see you look at the petals
on the table top
and know how well
you comprenend their meaning.

Needless are comparisons
to other times and selves,
All are here.
The sweet, subtle scent of each
are breathed in every smell I take of you.
All of them make
appearances still in your face.
The body I run my hands up and down
has the power to inflame me
with my most expansive desire.
All of the world I hold
when you I fold in my arms.

You here now,
the one I feared would never come-
Do not be shy.

January 9, 2011