One:
I am grateful for the sand between my toes,
that finds me in the coziest
of places, that works away and makes me
softer. That reminds me I live near the ocean.
Two:
I am grateful for the lithe sleek
bicycle I pedal down University avenue
until I can’t pump hard enough and must
let gravity take me.
Three:
I am grateful to have a job, a task,
something to put my name on, to sweat for,
to sit down and feel it for. To have a reason
to love a cold water shower.
Continue reading “5-Step Process to Get What You Want Out of Life”
Relax
:
cash in
on
adventures;
uncharacteristic
people
r
theexplorers.
We were
without question
the
desert sands
the glass-cased
Arabian
desert.
If the hair on your head
heightens and heightens,
enlarging like the alarmed housecat
frazzled by herself–
and if the clouds that swim
between the curling ferns of our
sister, Mountain, swimming like
ancient phantom-mermaids, reach toward us–
and if the lizards, brown and
green, with knowing grins and lithe
bodies, dart and scale
the box air conditioner that bulges from outside the door–
then you (and me) understand
the non-complexity of impending rain.
What I yearn for—like you—is a just a notch of catastrophe. Rising up from the soul like pewter rainbows, swimming golden lead, funny and relevant all at the same time—catastrophe. Secret substance of hope, infectious balance; if nothing’s broken it’s all boring.
Boredom is safe, too secure. Too responsible. So predictable. Left handle of balance, tipped so easily in this modern day of ours, this bright-eyed America this lit sculpture.
She took her bow low
and sweeping, languidly
squalid, barely breathing
penned up in honey and exhaust
she caught their fumes with her soiled mattress.
Trade winds swept up the dust
that lingered in street corners; I biked past
seeing the drafts crown her brow.
I’m cross legged at the only outdoor table open on the east side
of Manoa road cafe.
There are three other tables here,
& on either side of me
sit men and women with Safeway trolleys
loaded to capacity with all their belongings.
this act is an act of listening,
not of saying. Articulation
in the sense that I am a headless disjointed creature;
shifting around and moving an elbow here and there
hearing it shiver and re-joint.
Observe
creation flows hot and salty like sea-lava.
I can hear my soul;
and it’s not boring
and it’s not short.
My hair grows longer in these moments.
Flowing, like Ariel, and
I fear the muteness.
I fear what the legs might bring.
I am the human bird.
Weightless
flightless—
songs of discord mingle sweetly
peace and passion seeping lightly
I tuck my head against fern shoulders
and mock the honeydew.
Salty tears;
salty sweat.
So much life
flows around me
more than I could gift to the holy forest floor–
“I am here,” I whisper
and stack stone on stone. They reply:
it’s not us you try to convince.
Below me dangles mossy river, tangling
rising reeds and stone clothed stone I could slip
but grooves are cut in these stones
in shapes of circles.
It is in the emptiness that I am wide and
endless–
There I was, sitting cross-legged on that big stone in the middle of the creek.
The mountains were celebrating or something, cause the water barely lapped halfway up the stone; if I straightened my legs out they wouldn’t touch water at all. It was high summer, too, it being the southern hemisphere–ever felt a day this warm in January? Not me.
The trees lining the rocky stream were full to bursting with greens and yellows and pinks, and the pine trees backing them up looking velvet. Made me want to jump in the shallow water and towel off with a pine branch.
My feet were falling asleep, but I couldn’t leave just yet.
No complaint
just art.
Languidly as day might
linger, the tavern muse with
slight delay; touched awake
by unstaid starlight, the egg-dropped banks of buildings
balloon from village scene.
Bakers lean out burgundy house blinds
waving cast iron shapes and
wheels of cheese. All who go will
wander; branches on streams
lazy-catch the algae reeds.
It will be okay–
It has always been okay.
Vonnegut got it right,
like really right, like
Bokonon himself I, too
am enchanted by the mystery
of coming ashore naked on an unfamiliar island.
Enticed to life by these
sandy toes, sand that’s slid
down my salty knees, peppering
abundance of purple tulips
knowing nothing, I see we are endless–
Resolved to see just how far
man might go.
