Poetry for Scientists
-------------------------------- Give and Take Imagine a universe where things almost happen... but never fully d... Where life is a series of poten.... that never actually actua... A collage of beginnings and beginnings that merge into one another ever changing. A hint of... A glimmer... Imagine another universe where things remained the same: A stage set forever that we come visiting. No-- we are set loose in an interactive universe with give that takes direction. We and it dance and change each other as we go, until something extraordinary happens. We release gravity and fly away! ******* Tree Spirits? March 17, 2001 There are many ways to root to ground. Where there is a way, there is a will to follow. I think a tree would want to become a bird, or the night sky. Our tall brothers and sisters watch over us; hold things in place. Wild afro-earth-frosting, carpet for the underbelly of the heavens, I like what you do with the wind: telling jokes and hiding your laughter. Did you hear about the evergreen that had nothing to wear on St. Patty's Day? When you put your bushy green heads together, do you think each other's thoughts? And when you intertwine your roots, does it get your sap flowing? You can tell I'm new at this. Some of you stand outside my window looking in like you know what I'm doing. The oaks will be the last to give up their brown leaves in the Winter. Stubborn? They save them for the Spring Wind, to drop in her hair like confetti. She comes cleaning for the Mother; inventories will be taken, things tidied up. Chaos will turn into, turn into the rolling force.of nature that will carry the landscape forward galloping onward like some wild horse pumped and snorting. And we hold on. ******* Fire and Ice February 2001 Every part of this landscape will shine today: the sun is coming. Every snow and ice covered needle and bough will sparkle: the sun is coming! Before nightfall every minutia of this day will light up like a lightbulb. All this attention. An affair. This respect is the bounty of their prayers: the sun is coming. ******* Truly Political Animal-- Inorganic Beings Feb 20, 2001 Hold onto someone best if it be you. When the waves come crashing in on YOUR shore, their thunder will obliterate YOUR peace and their pounding will wash all YOURself away, and you will become part of the tide, lifting and falling. The onslaught is impersonal: inorganic beings bring them about. They look like you and me, but there's nothing alive or truly wonderful about them. Not recognizing life signs, they make themselves a nuisance. Hold onto land when they come by; they can't help but make waves. Like the dead moon pulls at the night, the way shadows eat light, non-living beings make their presence known. Black holes: they can empty a whole galaxy of love and goodness. (Inorganic beings, Castaneda, The Active Side of Infinity) ******* Priorities There will be a commercial break in the middle of: Armageddon, your orgasm, her heart attack, his funeral their baby's birth. ******* Sidekick May 23, 1999 I live in New England and I can predict the weather. I can tell you what my name is where I live and how old I am. I can tell you the time of day without looking. I can tell where I am in a town I've never been in before. I can tell you the end of a movie I've never seen, the name of a song I've never heard, a book I've never read. I can tell you the end of this poem. I know when my truck needs gas, tires need air, and oil needs changing. I can tell you what's on the menu and your mind. I can tell you when the coffee's done and the milk is bad. I can tell a good driver from a bad one and a sad song from a happy one. I can tell when the laundry's dry and where all my socks are. I know which way the wind blows. I know what the meaning of life is. I know what people fear and what makes them laugh. .I know when the ball will fall and where the Frisbee will land, I can tell what you're about to say and where you're about to move your queen. I can tell you what politicians will do, and my father too. I can tell you when the end of the world will be, what the outcome of 8 times 7 is, and how much you weigh. I can tell you what cats are thinking. I can tell you tomorrow's headlines; tonight's dreams, and where your kids are. I know how many grains of sand there are on all the beaches of the world. I know how many jellybeans are in the jar, I know your favorite color. I can tell you what the Thinker was thinking, what Picasso meant, and where the Magic Eye is hidden. And I know when an audience has had enough. I can tell you when the sun will set, when you aren't listening, and you're about to walk away. I can tell what dreams will be crushed, what words will go unanswered, and what you feel alone in your bed. I can tell you the beginning, middle and end of your passion. I can tell you why men hide and women change, and find comfort in one another. And I can tell you where your keys are, but I can't tell if you love me. ******* We are the gods in whose hands the world has been entrusted. Can't you tell? ******* |
Poems from the Heart
-------------------------------- If one hand were clapping, that would leave the other to push the river. ******* Information: plastic rain growing more plastic. Consciousness rises when fed the Constant Way. Although plastic is forever, true nourishment is made fresh daily. ******* Do you really believe that evil exists so that we can recognize the good? The good stands on its own. That truth illuminates the sun. ******* Knock Knock February 10, 1983 Who's there? The answer that truly satisfies is the response one receives at the open door of love. ******* December 25, 1982 When dancing with the Creator, the Creator leads. ******* Hovering, life suckles breath into one. A fire all aglow draws in each breath to become time. ******* While in the material world. spirit does as the Romans do. Adapting it animates giving purpose. We have the power to change the world. ******* Sunrise moonrise selfrise, onward and upward into fulfillment and gratitude... when love breathes you. ******* March 13, 1982 If we begin with the premise that we are part of God, then maybe we wouldn't let so much bullshit run through us. ******* Dish Are we just a food chain event? The purpose of this world is to churn ahead: form, change, move on. Reason being?? Are we here just to grind along, eat or be eaten? Tasteless you might say but not so. Form, change. move on... We are food for the gods, divine cuisine. They eat us breath by breath and we become holy. Every bite numbs with ecstasy. A compassionate dish indeed. ******* A word is worth a thousand pictures. ******* January 29, 1982 Your life can be a prayer: the acknowledgement of the reverence in your gratitude. ******* Living in the heart where can mind go? Quiet still radiant, mind melts through and through. Without barriers arrive home and live there. ******* May 13, 1987 Cherry blossoms-- do what they must, after doing what they could-- raining down like Buddha's joyful tears. ******* Bridge January 1988 Life is prayed into existence; devotions that utter universes. Galaxies of stars and planets are spoken as ultimate truth. Blessings light up a million suns. Shhh... that murmur you hear frees the soul. The world records the divine desires, captures the essence and opens. Mountains echo holy sounds. Life-- this prayer, our blessing-- grows ever greater when we acknowledge something anything in love. ******* September 14, 1986 Stay busy with the sun. Let the light touch you. No shadows. Wind and rain are friends that temper, if you let them. Stay busy with the sun. ******* Existence in the Making The shape of the spiral suggests continual cause. The place where the circle breaks away from itself; an experiment, an adventure, somewhere else to go. Will it eventually meet itself again becoming a fancy circle? Are spirals consorting with strings? Just a theory... But what I really want to know is what is that around which it spirals? This aperture is the sweet honey of light, sound and being; the invisible, ongoing, creative gesture that declares all to be, yet holding to its center. That journey pierces the moment of this life. This breath paces the movement of this moment. ******* |
Observations
------------------------------- Worship or Serve? December 8, 1989 The day fast food came to town heavy equipment broke the landscape, and the forest fell to a newly paved road. The banging of hammers clamor off beat. The unearthly mantra of machinery in reverse. Road in, frames up, commercials made. The right people zoned out the wrong people and zoned in the new. The planning board voted and vowed that fast food wouldn't come to this coastal village. They knew, and you knew it would. We are victims of our commercial unconscious. Pipes buried, wires strung to knit and matrix in a profitable image. It's the sound of the sight that harms at a distance: beep beep beep... let my country go. ******* Pirates in Transit The trees hear rumors flying: someone's ship has come in. By their expressions, something's coming and it don't look good. The mumbling runs from tree to tree-- something bad is on the wind. "There used to be grass over there; and the lilac bushes... the whole family's gone." When the telescope on three legs shows up, destruction follows. That harbinger of death spies the future. ******* September 26, 1988 When promises break hearts follow. When words betray, lovers have fallen. Eyes staring blind and distant are building walls. When backs turn only truth and imagination remain. ******* He looked into the heart of the sun and was blinded. Blinded still, he sees only the light. Dark shadows burn and fall away. Love is the light that shines on his thoughts, although he knows there are dark dreams within him. She looked into the heart of the sun and was blinded. Blinded no more, she sees only shadows that stalk her because she looks at them. Fear is the light that shines on her thoughts, and the path leading away. ******* If Words can sometimes make no sense; the realm of the philosopher. Words can be linked, coupled, joined and bound together to speak in a fool's language: if a tree falls in the forest, does it make a sound if there's no one there to hear it? We make sense of these arrangements that make no sense. The more complicated and less real, the more we like them. Of course a tree fell in the forest. ******* A white lily in soiled hands; dirty fingertips, dirty nails, grease sweaty palms of soot and grime. Filth in every cut, callous.and pore. And a white lily. ******* Route 95 South Easter Sunday A bouquet of flowers takes an exit-- red roses with a beatific aura. Moving so very far away,. white baby breaths manage to breathe life onto this page. ******* What we say and do counts It's what we mean, where forgiveness hides. ******* The grapevine climbs onto the arbor and without trying, pulls it down. In our way, we mount our bodies, and ride them into the ground. ******* Once you've surrendered your soul, the world doesn't ask for much. ******* Anti-Gravity Optimists Standing before the stone I awaited my transfusion; not a drop flowed. In hell I waited for ice to form; lemonade was out of the question. Raising my dukes to city hall, my fists slid off the slick. Hopeful wishes launched toward a star... we wait. ******* Onward and Upward Unsightly, slightly insightfully dim., they watched time passing, slipping into the shadows graying, and yet to turn around and rise above the ages dancing! ******* Stream Water stream washing clean the hillside pass, cutting deep as underfoot the wind does lay the grass. Capstone ruins beside your bank, reveal what can't be told; a time has come, a time has past, undercurrents' shadows cast. What is growth is in decay, as one is carried, and one is stopped along the waterway. Always leaving, ever advancing, like the hour slipping past... Water stream washing clean the valley's furrowed flats, meanders round the fertile ground and frees the trodden grass. ******* Signs October 9, 2000 A sinister plot is afoot to bring everyone to freedom. The insidiousness is taking place at the grassroots level: the children. They mask the freedom as fun, play, laughter, lightheartedness. Absentmindedness... wonderment... Being cute. You know better, everyone knows better, they want control, power, to do as they wish, to follow "natural instincts" to run on the road to ruin. Watch your children for these signs: endless mindless play singing out of tune coloring outside the book skipping and twirling for no reason smiling and talking to strangers idleness in the guise of wonder. Crush them now before they spread. Stop the utopian fantasies of liberty! Skipping, running, twirling, outrageous. ******* |