My T.V.
Grim-faced men with jowls
intone from the television their respect
for life, and morals and propriety.
"Are they talking to me?"
"Are you talking to me?"
as if I were living in some taxi-driver psychosis,
with talking t.v.'s directly linked to my moral in-box.
Pundits and stock-touts fill the screen with speculations,
sung with the weight of German Opera.
"Take this seriously," my t.v. announces, sotto voce.
"Fair & balanced, fair & balanced,"
I hear it as parrot talk, "Polly want a cracker?"
Sqwaaaaak, sqwaaaaak........
Some people are hugging on Maury Povich,
celebrating the deliverance of their 8 year-old daughter
from the street life.
Their saviors, disguised as drill instructors,
have frightened them into obedience, adjustment, and love.
The women of the Psychic Hot-line
are enlightening me and my wallet both.
They seem to enjoy their show, but with
no claims to "fairness or balance."
They are the country music of infomercials,
well-schooled in who is sleeping with whom,
and behind who's back.
They are all trapped in the picture tube,
like some photonic Plato's Cave
on a wall of t.v.'s at the electronic's store,
each little drama or speculative nuance
defines their grim reality.
But, still, it's just t.v. isn't it?
The play of light and sound and shadow
across space and time,
and when one wants, one can--
change the channel.
BEAUTY
"What is beauty?" my friend asked.
"I can’t answer," I said.
My thoughts drifted off------
my friend’s image appeared in my mind.
I thought of her long, flexible hands,
her fingers shaped just so,
and how her feet stretched gracefully,
resting on her high spongy shoes,
so high because she wants to be taller.
The whole shape and flow of her,
her long lines of energy and feeling,
mesh and focus and reflect upon themselves.
I thought of her hands again and
how she rubbed them with sweet-smelling lotion
and showed me her new French manicure.
There are worlds in her,
her hands have become atoms,
the atoms collapse into electrons,
the electrons burst into stars,
they shine like a lattice-work
of swirling colors, bright and subtle,
she flows through space
like a pathway to another dimension,
pulling her through time,
she stands suffused in light,
her essence shining, a supernova
of energy woven together,
she is a dance of love,
a melody of thought,
a joyful texture of tender feeling,
she is strong in her being,
she draws creative breath,
and renews herself in waking.
She expands through time,
her presence lights the way
with a joyful wit,
wrapped in a smile,
concealed in a mock-serious tone.
She is a distillation of many beauties,
but none can be defined.
"What is beauty?" my friend asked.
"I can’t answer," I said.
The Materialist
She is the kind who would nurse small birds,
whose heart takes flight in a child’s smile,
and thrills at the chance to still another’s pain.
You can see her soul in her eyes, bright, clear and soft,
she resonates to beautiful melodies and moves
in shapes that swirl forth and celebrate life.
"I’m very materialistic", she says,
looking at me with an ethereal grace
that silently mocks her words.
"I see", say I, but what I see
is not her words, but her music.
It flows forth from her in subtle colors,
here a bright spark of yellow,
there a powder blue cloud.
She is green with new growth,
even her darker shades sing
of vulnerability tempered by pain,
forged by time and disillusion,
she exacts control at a high price.
She is a materialist, she says.
I give her small gifts,
tokens of a natural affection between us,
simple material manifestations
that she is pleasantly in my awareness,
occupying a space surrounded by smiles,
she draws thoughts to her like small birds.
She accepts my gift,
but suddenly questions the propriety.
I smile at her and ask, "Why?"
She smiles back and says, "I forgot."
But I don’t forget,
I sense her tender heart,
and sharp, concerned mind.
I hear the music of her soul
and smile as she moves through time.
I see her insecurities, entwined
in a beauty that just escapes her view,
that just eludes the edges of her control.
She guards it with
the illusion of material desire,
but it flies out like those small birds.
Real beauty cannot be cloaked,
it escapes any shroud,
it is not material,
it is eternal.
And so is she.
AMERICAN DREAM 1971-76
I woke in the tear-drop morning
trying to shake
the dream from my eyes
for
in that beautiful misty dream
was
that freedom thing
America.
And when
my dream began to fade
I remembered
in the screaming morning sun
the creased khaki
and
gold braid with swagger sticks
welded into bayonets
and rifles
and bullets
tearing through bamboo impaled guts
dripping from yellow coolie hats
with golden spikes
and slanted
red
better dead
eyes
dropped from eagle-feathered airplane wings
swinging from sexy-nylon parachutes
black
with the burning children
throwing hand grenades
covered with chopsticks like candy-apple baseballs
and hot dogs and beer
wrenched from the stomach
thrown up
all over the general
who had everybody court-martialed for immorality
because
you see
he lost his money on the football game
while screwing his secretary in the orderly room
because she moaned
too loudly
tipping his wife
who
or is it whom to be correct
shot the general
for indeed the sexist pig
should die
by the hand of women's lib
and set them free
from the marching mothers to end war
who sent their sons
to kill the burning children
and burn the killing children
anyway
because the poll said
the people's will
was to make a bloody mess
and scorch the earth with
policy
and police the earth
so that
the peace
could be kept
in an urn
by the
altar
of the president
who made it perfectly clear
that
with our oil-hungry reaper
we would gather
and grind
our
human grist
bake our bread
of sand
grease
our palms
and profit
from
that misty dream
that
freedom thing
As I Lay
T
onight, as I lay basking in the light;the beauty of things entered my soul,
while my sweet love continued her battles,
her resilient will, the logic of her heart
struggling toward freedom from dark cynicism,
from earthly experience.
I sent her thoughts of love across the miles,
I basked in images of her golden beauty.
I reached for her in my soul,
saw the fine threads of her essence pulsating,
I entered her light, her struggle, her fine-laced beauty,
her ineffable being---I lay basking in the light.
"I loaf and invite my soul", wrote Whitman.
But my soul invites me, as I invite her,
embraced,
engulfed in the sumptuous logic of the heart.
In beauty beyond beauty,
beyond light,
beyond freedom.
Beyond everything.
SUNRISE
There is something so beautiful
and soft in her,
hard to contain,
it bursts from her laughter
in a warm glow,
as if her smile was a sunburst,
or the chords of sunrise
in the Alpine Symphony.
The bright colors surround her face,
Swirl gracefully,
and in the grace of the moment,
you can see her heart.
A familiar heart,
like an old friend in trouble,
calling me;
connected by invisible strands
across space and time.
Through the illusions of the moment,
I see her pain, and stretch out my hand.
Through tears of love, tears of strength,
tears of healing, I reach for her soul,
reach for what is so beautiful and soft in her.
I hold in my hand a sunrise,
my tears implore her,
reach out in the grace of the moment,
and
take it.
We Met In The Cave
We met in the cave,
but she was always in the light,
she may not have known it,
but it was clear as the bright noon sun.
Abandoning her chains,
she walked from that cave naked;
and her light blocked out the sun.
She was present at her own birth,
she took flight without wings,
and soared high above the earth,
slowly, she began to know her natural element;
The chains of the cave lay broken in the shadows,
rotting, their dull metal barely reflecting
the dim light she once took for the sun.
Overhead, she floats on the wind,
borne aloft by the birth of her freedom,
the currents of her heart lighter than wings.
We met in the cave,
but joined hearts in the air,
took flight together,
and returned to earth, no more.
Flying Roller-Coasters
Flying home, the ground lumbered by,
an old green and brown pioneer woman’s quilt
from 30,000 feet.
Out my window, I saw myself
the victor
in a World War II dogfight,
as my opponent's fighter flamed
toward the earth
in it's death dive.
It made such artful airy spirals
As it plunged toward the
quilted earth like a scene from "Hellcats of the Navy."
Transfixed, I imagined my opponent's final
dive, the heroism, the poetry of
being strapped into some flaming roller-coaster
launched
to a white-hot death
from 30,000 feet.
My opponents death is my
poetic triumph,
mine
a fiery tragedy.
We watch our brother
go down in flames
and
write poetry on his corpse.
Soon the plane will land.
I want off
this roller-coaster.