I DREAMT OF A HEYÓKȞA

(heyókȟa aíwičhawahaŋble…perhaps)

hallowed in the eye of a storm

enwombed by nature's beat

you and I dance in the deluge

óver currents ours alone

keeping peace with thunder's beat

ȟailing its lightning spark

as water flows to feed all that grows.

and in that space of a dream

i let go of all things preconceived

with the abandon of a human wild

in the cold, in the rain, in the snow

čharmed by the wind

howling songs of our travels

around the sun -

which will shine -

as the ground suckles moisture

held in billows of cloud

and life, unconditional in its countenance,

ŋumb to the judgements of any,

beams in the grace of its indifference

letting the rhythm of time come and go

even as we embrace when the sky shines blue.

WE ARE THE END OF THE RAINBOW

What is mind?

Every moment

A thought reverberates

Recording rhythms and harmonies

Embodied within systems

That we call I. Swirls

Held together by bonds

Ever so improbable.

Every beat perceived echoes

Notes that reflect each experience sensed, and

Dins the patterns of life’s time

Over currents that flow through skins

Forming the boundaries of systems

That we call I. Swirls

Holding perception forever inside,

Except as all observations

Result in changes to systems -

Actions, so to speak,

Informed only by what has been,

Not what will be.

But what is mind?

Other than the reflection within of the time

We have swirling in space with all we’ve touched

IMAGINE MAKE BELIEVE

Imagine

Make believe

As once it was -

Gleaming brilliant

In eyes untrained

No winning or losing

Exchanging only dreams

How the wonder

Of play changes

With the introduction of games -

Yearning to win

Or feeling disappointment with loss

Under competition's yoke.

And imagination fades

Replaced by rules,

Expectations and judgements

Taught again and again

And play

Melts into work

Eroding make believe gone by

Dunned by orders of rule.

When I was young,

The closet,

Where my outermost layer of skin

Dangled from hangers in the night

Along with objects in boxes forgotten,

Made me scared.

Now with age that’s gray

I look into the closet

And wonder about fear -

A prison for so many dreams.

Forged of events gone awry

Or untested.

In foundries stoked by judgements of other,

With expectations,

Failures, and dangers real.

Too scared back then,

I wanted to stand alone

In the closet dark

Powerless

To ravens and bears,

In a boat

With waves

Crashing

Over.

And now

I wonder

About so many dreams

Locked in a prison

Of fear

IF ONLY WERE WEREN'T SO ATTRACTED TO REFINEMENT

In the litany of interests and injustices

That paint the soul of humanity

Colored with streaks of belief and identity

One lies blended into the miasma of society

Under the clouds of stereotypes

Labeled and captured in categories

Dinned into patterns of perception

Born of every interaction

Epistemologically framed as if knowing

But alas

Each one is an individual

True to the experiences unique

Touching the material of their form

Even as it evolves

Replicating so many patterns of life.

LIGHTS FLASHING ON A SCREEN

Sitting still more or less

As crystals grow electric under glass,

Letting colors unmoved emulate life unlived

In vicarious abandon to experiences untouched -

Entertaining or educating or passing away time.

Nothing really but lights on a screen

Capturing meaning from behind captive eyes.

Even as tides come and go.

METAMORPHOSIS

Many times I’ve stared at crystal screens feeling as if I’m alive

Each pixel combining to mimic the perception of another

To shape an experience flowing through connection to a screen

As if I were a nerve on the skin of some organism unknown

Making observations my own that feed its collection of senses and thoughts

Over circuits of metal and stone flowing with the current of electricity

Relaying memes that shape its actions with me on its ethereal flesh

Parsing information sent back to its whole over clicks and posts by so many like me

Holding its dreams in a cacophony fed by the hidden thoughts of our own

Ominously it matures into a larval cloud taking on life of its own

So here I sit on evolutions’s ever unfolding cusp

In wonder uneasy with this creature’s emerging birth

Set in motion by flocks of people following its siren lure

REELING WITH THE MOON

How proud a species walks upright

Under the spell of industry and wires and waves

Behind walls, driving in cars and watching screens

Reaching to claim the mantle of heaven and earth

Innately groping for prediction, control and convenience.

Still, the winds and oceans dance over earth 'round the sun, reeling with the moon.

PAY TIME FORWARD OR BACK

Poking and prodding,

Armed with gizmos supreme,

You may wonder about atoms,

Those things that make us.

Inscrutable and fickle,

Misbehaving, like you or me.

Everything is everywhere,

Forever and at once.

Oh, but what is it inside?

Really, one never will know

What life inside makes it so.

Atom smashers may try -

Riving their being.

Delivering only shadows and screams

Observed from outside -

Reflections of everything, everywhere only at once.

But what if you were the atom

And another tried to see?

Could it be they’d see inside your heart, your dreams or sorrows…and…

Know the soul giving shape to your form.

DISSOCIATE

Dissolving

Into

Soup

Sublime

Of

Cosmos

Including

All

That

Exists

PATTERNS, MAN, PATTERNS

Perhaps all there is are beats

A cacophony in frequencies giving shape to naught

Tuned on pitches with range deeper than sky

That hum harmonies of moments all

Entwined in a dance of interference pulsing its way

Rippling superpositions of galaxies, stars, planets, atoms and you

Nadirs and zeniths amplified in a concert of probability

Sung out from everything there is

Making an illusion of boundaries on each edge of perception

As rhythms resonate on courses unbound

None knowing the tremolo of all together

Patterns take shape in each combination of pitch

And in that space of harmonics shared

The window of perception opens with resonance of tone

Taking a reflection of life travelling along the pulse of beats

Each rhythm combining with others passing through

Reverberating together with the ripple that is you

Notes playing through a symphony of space and time and whatever else may be

So perhaps all there is are beats

WHO ARE WE TO KNOW

What makes I?

Held together as atoms

Or waves

Among a sea of the same

Roiling together taking the form of self,

Even as composition evolves

With echoes reverberating and matter coming and going.

Each element finding its place

Together as a sum

Of identity,

Keeping a momentum of life

None outside know -

Of the ripples shimmering

With the reflection of time.

SWIRLS

Swirling along in the current of now

Wisping through oceans of time breathing life their own

I flow in the momentum of all that surrounds

Replicating an experience of each moment touched

Letting memories shimmer in the eddies of my soul

So be it…perhaps

BASKING IN A RAIN OF PHOTONS

Standing on a mountain top in the embrace of night's company

Under the twinkle of stars spinning along the Milky Way's spiral arms and beyond

Basking in the rain of photons sprinkling down from the heavens around

Long since liberated from stars and galaxies reaching out from their celestial homes

In travels unimaginable across the unimpeded vastness of space

Making their final destination rest as a sparkle in my eyes and radiance within

Entwining me in the life and fate of so many far, far away stars

STEPPING OUT

So how would it be to step out of me

To overflow the skin that seems to hold me in

Extending my senses over the wisps of wind that surround us

Perceiving no longer as me but as the atmosphere would see

Pulsing from troposphere to exosphere in concert with clouds round hemispheres

Intersecting with space to relish perspective from a new place

Nuzzled beside a moon that makes tides

Going along an orbit with planets and comets that are sunlit.

Oh just to feel with an essence thats real

Under breezes that course along ridges and shores

The dreams and desires of that atmosphere under whose skin I adhere.

FALLING INTO A BLACK HOLE - SINGULARITY

Swirling as a star

In a dance of collapse

Nearing the center of a galaxy,

Getting drawn in by a mass

Unlit and unknown.

Letting time stretch

As moments become forever.

Releasing final gasps

In passing

Through the event horizon.

Yet there, where light is no more, all is singular and everlasting.

I WOULD MISBEHAVE

If I were a subatomic particle

With the presence of a man,

Of me, you could never really know.

Under observation I would snap into a form

Like the man you perceive -

Defined by interactions we share,

Mindful of judgements and rules dinned into senses

In overlapping spheres of the worlds we live.

So let it be - I may confirm your hypothesis or force one anew.

But, when free of expectations and bonds that tie

Existence for me runs wild and unfettered -

Having thoughts and dreams that carry me away

Anywhere, even all at once -

Vacillating between your world and mine.

Ephemeral as a reflection of a life none can ever really know.

HALL OF MIRRORS

How would it be if within were similar to without?

An infinite space of things occupy the world outside -

Like rocks and plants, clouds and creatures along with stars, galaxies and all

Living in some convoluted fabric of space and time.

On the inside, too, it’s an infinite space of ever smaller.

Filled with things like organs and blood, air and cells, as well as atoms, quarks and all.

Maybe, it would be that cognition, or thought, would be like points of symmetry

In a space without substance

Reflecting a myriad of experiences from one direction out the other,

Repeated in infinite iterations of being across you, me and everything else.

On that surface without density, like between the world around and an image on a mirror

Reality would reside with ideas and feelings, fears and joys, plus wonders and loves and so much more.

So if that reflection were I, let me walk in a world wild and untamed with an unruly heart the same.

HORTON HEARS A WHO!

Scales of perception

Make me wonder

As I sit on a rock by the side of the sea

(Like perhaps a germ would be

Lolling about on the surface of me)

Well, now think of a ripple ‘twixt particle and wave

On the skin of an electron buzzing away

Rapidly fading in the hum of its life

Looking out to a sky from its lepton that flies

Doing orbits round quarks all reacting together

With molecules too far and big ever to see -

Each ripple so small it could never know me

Likewise I look past the horizon of earth

In the bright light of the sun over my life so brief

Vistas at night filled with constellations and stars

Even galaxies afar unfathomably large

I wonder then if like the ripple and me

Next on the scale what else could be

1 Inch Tall

US ARE ALL WE HAVE

Upon a shooting star

So many wishes

Are dreamt in the night.

Reflections of lives

Each of us carry

Along our way.

Like the sparkles of stars

Lighting the dark of eve

With the hopes of galaxies.

Each beaming a bit of

Heaven's moments

As none of us can hear

Vanishing like dreams

Evaporated with a shooting star.

Untitled

LET IT BE

Light from a moonlit sky

Eyes glow unknown in the dark

To songs that celebrate stars

In the hazy shimmer of night

The rhythm of earth

Beats an answer its own

Even as eyes unknown glance away

Untitled

Beauty, shovels and a hand of nothing

Steal yor face #1

Steal your face #2

Sea of Dreams

Flight

Making peace

CAT'S VIEW FROM OAK TREE

Isn't it strange

That when you look forward

All you see

Is in the past -

Not very far if it's close -

'Tis as far back in time

As it takes a photon

To travel the distance

Along its way to your gaze

Looking back through time

Like everything is now

Some sights, far, far away

Travelled from long, long ago

Reaching your sight

Along with all between

None but you touching now

Giving sight to a rainbow of time

Ever reaching to touch your soul

NOW IS NO LONGER (for Ken Nordine)

Now, that moment that escapes measurement

Of time,

Will be gone soon as perceived - a thing of the past.

It’s place always in the mirrored intersection of coming and going,

So fleeting, as each instance going brings change and a new coming,

No longer with the same image reflected.

Only all the while, nows from longs ago - stars and such -

Look out to light the night sky

Of the now for me.

Not seen, there are also black holes and things like that,

Giants collapsed into a density as big as nothing is small,

Each one collecting nows into singularity without time

Recording moments eternal - so what is now?

COLLAPSING IN THE DENSITY OF TIME WITH ABANDON

Memories of the time we've passed through

Exist as wisps of change

That touch landscapes only known within

As one floats along the space of time

Pulled, as if, by the gravity of will be

Holding place on the gossamer sheer of has been -

Yesterdays passed by yesterdays and on, past galaxies far away -

Shimmering in furls none can see with the fabric of all thats observed

In a fall that can never end

Coalescing into a singularity of moments.

So what.

Dreaming of buildings falling down

IN DEATH (Will you rise away all)

When the momentum

Inside of you

Lets go -

Like, in a sense, the instant

You hear the last beat

Of a concert and turn to go away -

Untied bonds let your substance

Radiate apart on paths their own.

Inside, the sound of the concert is no more.

So let times be

Epic or sweet like a song -

As if the concert

Was you,

And the crowd

You walk out with

Are passing remains

Leaving what once was no more -

Lighting a path its own, remembering songs of beauty

LIVING IN A MOMENT NEW

Each time I die -

And with every moment passing

Chances are it's happening,

Held only in times gone by -

Memories

Of so many lives echo

Mortality and rebirth -

Each moment touched

Never comes again

Though they shape all that follows

Into the brilliance of now

Shimmering with life anew

Set to the cadence of time

Places come and go

Even as nothing can ever be the same

Chased by all that was

I let go

And welcome all to be

Living in a moment new

Untitled

AWESOMENESS

And what if you and I

Were like the skin of a cosmic flare

Exploding with light

Shining from the spiral arm of a galaxy

Out off in space, far, far away

Making our way as photons and such

Ever travelling as a radiating collection of ripples

No longer living as that cluster of stars

Eternally refracting through the winds of space

So all who observe, even worlds away,

See what once was

DIALETHEISM JIVE 1

Domesticated rests

In contrast to wild -

An order

Letting domination

Envelope

The spirit other -

Having restrictions

Enabling boundaries

In a structure

Serving orders of rule -

Making fences, ceilings and walls

Juxtaposed with wild

In a world unruly

Visions of helplessness

Evoke uncomfortable confusion

DIALETHEISM JIVE 2

Domesticated rests

In contrast to wild -

A space of safety

Led by consideration

Embodied by rules

That comfort

Holding order

Enabling experience

In harmony shared

Serving a greater whole -

Making friendships, family and community

Juxtaposed to wild

In a space unruly

Values of others unknown

Enable wandering abandon

CASTLE CLIFFS

Over ledges and pinnacles

Through cracks and up corners

Hopping rocks and wading through brush

Each step touching something unknown

Raw and untamed

Where a tree grows from the rock

On the edge of its arete

Roots exposed clutch the stone

Leaving a lattice of wood

Defining a path through shards

Left behind by blocks that fell.

You make your way with a gentle touch.

MOUNTAINS ARE MY CATHEDRALS

Maybe on the side of a mountain

Or in a thicket of brush

Up clefts carved in stone

'Neath stars shining past clouds

There, where the wind blows

And wild things sing

In terrain unfiltered

Naked I dream

Scapes not fabricated by the hands of man

And fear bursts into exhileration

Rigor to ease

Ecstatic in the texture of earth

Making peace with whims of time

Yearning only for the abandon of now

Crystals unpolished carry my weight

And plants sprout with life untamed

To give home to creatures seen and unseen

Hardiness overcomes convenience

Each step powered by none but me

Drawn by the light of being

Relinquishing the hubris of control

As possibility outshines caution

Letting the world hold my being as its own

Swirling in a dance with the sun

["Mountains are my cathedrals" - Anatoli Bukreev]

TO BE POWERFUL LIKE WATER

To be powerful

Like water

Falling from clouds

Caressing a mountain ridge

Shimmering in crystals

Resting on slopes

That melt in the warmth

Of a star shining above

Flowing down

Through creeks and valleys

Over falls

Eddying and rushing

Gathering

In rivers and lakes

On the way

To seas that breathe

In the rhythm of tides

For a planet blue...

Or to a cup

Pouring through lips

Bringing life

To all I love

Without a care

- for George, the Hawaiin Tree Snail who was the last his kind. ¡Presente!

COMFORT'S VEIL

Adventure is...

The space of dreams.

Where possible blossoms

In landscapes improbable.

Letting go of boundaries

Drawn to insulate

The possible from the improbable -

Held in place by comfort's veil

Encircling risks unknown.

Released from that sheer of safety,

Experiences unfiltered

In spaces rarely touched

Shine in the brilliance of liberation

Made beautiful with humility

As all that surrounds

Gives way to the abandon of life

In a world untamed

Cherished as a dream of beauty.

PRAISE BE TO THE VERY SMALL

Patterns in the building blocks of being

Rock my soul through the cradle of perception

As the current of now carries me along

In the river of time everlasting

Surrounded by the vastness

Encompassed by all and beyond.

Born of all that has been l am

Even as I whither in all that will be,

Tucked in the skin I call me

On the edge of all that's within.

There inside that space

Held together with grace

Everything has its place.

Veins, organs, bones and nerves

Each holding cells in membranes their own

Raveled together in patterns of evermore

Yet made of atoms joined as molecules.

Swirling in space vast as tiny can be

Muons and electrons, bosons and quarks

All surely made of things smaller still

Limited in scale only by never reaching null.

Let it be with reverence, then, to hold all that is small .

BOW HUMBLY

Between our arms, an infinity,

Outside our arms, an infinity,

Within our arms, an infinity,

Holding on to nothing

Under skies that never end

Molded of substance ever smaller.

But what does any of it matter?

Like a flower in morning light you shine

Yearning for life beautiful as can be.

How does beauty go

As it resonates in the eyes of the beholder

Radiating with the power of ripples it’s own

Making a way with all around in a harmony

Of form and balance

Not to overwhelm or coerce

Yearning only to shine in the juxtapositions of coexistence

NECTAR FOR POLLEN

How would it be

To trade for a day

The essence of a flower

Blossoming in a field

For the identity

I call my own

.

I suppose

I'd shine out to the sky

From the end of my stem

Calling out to bees and bugs

In hopes that for nectar

Pollen they may trade

As I waft in the vapors of air

Wilting with the passage of time

.

And the flower would be me

.

Just ‘til the next morn

BY THE ROCKY SHORE

If I could live just a moment brief

As a wave rolling through an ocean deep

Maybe I would relish the touch of wind

Shaping my crest as it blends into sky

Or be tickled by reefs and rocks

Making me swell and burst into spray

Even as the call of the moon feeds my swell

Holding forth in tides.

In turn, maybe that wave could be me

Nestled on a perch above the rocky shore

Giving witness the power of its form.

DOVES FLY WITH HAWKS

For love

Of whatever -

Redeem inside and out -

Grace rests

In absence of judgement,

Vanity melting into empathy -

Even as turbulence disrupts -

Nudging resentment of loss

Entwined with whims discordant

Satisfying courses

Set by that whatever -

In conflict

So natural -

Doves fly with hawks

In skies I love -

Vying for their place

In patterns of life

None need to change -

Even as doves cry -

And let it be -

Love rests with grace

As vanity melts away -

So ever be forgiving

Mine yours theirs ours yes share

I AM WHAT I AM

If you were a universe expanding

And I was the same

Made up each of so many others just the same

We would grow one alongside one another

Holding on to the ripples of our time

As touched in a universe expanding just the same

Tumbling with life

Intertwined like so many things of beauty

And together we'd travel each on our way

Making those waves that mark our time

LET IT BE BEAUTIFUL

Oh time

How you carry me along

Leaving only stories that fade

Embodying all that has been

To shape the texture of what is

In memories carving the landscape

That splashes into now

Blurred with each moment between

Echoing across eternities

Bound in space

Entangled in densities and proportions

And hued with things like color and sound

Unfathomably scaled from nothing to all

Trued with every presence to fill the horizon and beyond

In every angle radiating all around

Flowing to the cadence of motion and time

Untetherable from all that has been and is yet to come.

Let it be beautiful as can be.

Maybe They're More Like Cats

BRISTLECONE

With hands full of humble

In spaces unbound

Like a beast, you or me

Daring to be nothing but free

.

Gentle over feet unshod

Rambling through textures of earth

Under the glow of sun and mystery of dark

Blown by wind and washed by rain

Beaming as bridles and bits melt away

Yearning to touch the world unfiltered

.

Healing with every hurt along the way

Undaunted by creatures blurred in shadow

Melting fear into calm, anger to peace

And celebrating the music of life

Not ours alone

NOTE TO SELF (What I Would Try to Say If I Only I Could Call You Friend)

Don't value their money

Or idols of power

Comnmanding your attention or coaxing your awe

In pictures and stories with expectations not your own.

Let fulfillment of your heart that's true,

Embodied in harmony with the world around,

Be the guidestar for you.

Undo boundaries that restrain your path

To touch those spaces that are yours alone.

Put industry aside, at least from time to time -

Only sustain, flaunting the drive for growth with the grace of what is -

Wondering at the beauty of the earth giving rest to the soles of your feet,

Everything in the sky caressing your face, and oceans flowing with the moon.

Revel in the adventures of a life that's shared with all around -

Flowers and creatures and rocks and all - each humming with beauty in being

Under the same canopy of clouds and planets and stars.

Let atoms lie, who the fuck really needs to know whats inside.

And...like Moses could have been mulling in a daydream

Tripping in thought at the base of Jebel Musa...

Each one of us only truly knows ourselves,

And what god could one know other than you.

So put judgements of none before your own and reject the lure of coins graven with value -

Each moment is yours to live as best you can 'til your heart let's go of its beat.

Contrary Psalm