JUST WORDS A Collection of Poems 2015
JUST WORDS 2016
A Collection of Poetry
PAY ATTENTION
Pay Attention
The waters are receding
Pay Attention
The Bees are dying
Pay Attention
The Last Black Rhino stands alone
Looking back into the memory of a gentler time
A time when “Evolutionary Dead End”
Was not such a familiar phrase
Spoken without terror
Pay Attention
The soldiers gather
They are so very young, not yet 13
With seething anger
They pick up their Russian made weapons
They scream threats to us
As we drive through the throng of children
Eyes red with tears
Parents lying dead on the ground
Brother gone
Sister gone
Family no more
ATTENDING TO THE SOUND
The day begins
I crawl through the opening
A barrier between this plane and this reality,
Into the dense images produced through
Attentive Listening
Listening for the portal, I jump through
Allowing my body to become the tool
Automatically stretching the sound in my ear,
To the touch of my fingers, through the pen
I am in my body
I imagine space
A dark background, the stars like smoke or fog, so dense, so thick, almost cloud like
Pushing and pulling sound
Like a Hoffman painting, thick with color
Meant to open the channels of inner space
That one low range
Always the lower chakra
Hitting and stirring sensations
Moving now into a spiral form
Each note expanding
Push
Pull
EMPTY & WILLIN’
The SYMPTOMS were evident
In the Arts, In the Political Structure, the church, and the Family
It was the calm before the storm
The CRISIS before the TRANSFORMATION of an entire civilization
Doomsday speakers had their say
There is always a place in this world for the negative
It was the ones who thought positively
They were the TARGET!
To THEM we represented the PAST
The CONFRONTATION between the YOUNG and the OLD
FREEDOM and CONFORMITY
TRUTH and DECEPTION
But even as we grew, and became more a part of the system
They didn’t see us for who we really were
If they had listened to the voices in the sky who had inspired our minds
PERHAPS we would have spared the world such pain
But our world was set up
From the START our PLANET was involved in a CONSPIRACY in HEAVEN
That SHE took no part in
THAT WAS THE ANGEL’S BATTLE!
Those were Cosmic consequences that the planet had grown up with
EMPTY & WILLIN’
SPEAKING OF LOVE
I speak of love
It is not of the flesh
You speak of love
It is not of desire
I speak of light
It is not the sun
You speak of light
It is not the moon
I listen to the wind
You hear the wind
I follow the path
You know the path
I speak to the future
You are timeless
I wait for a sign
You wait for an answer
I called you by name
I think this is possible
Sure
Endless Talking
In street cafes and coffeehouses
I sit talking endlessly about the mysteries of the universe
I, who know almost nothing
Risk exposure by the ones who think they know all
They who know nothing ask me
I give my impressions
They tell me theirs
I beg to differ sir,
I say
It is in each one of us to be
God
Boredom
boredom
is the
feeling
i get in
the savoy
the instant
i realize
that not only
are there
no new faces
but mine is
the same to them
as theirs is
to Me
The Sea Has Met The Sky
If we all have a purpose in life
And if to some we have the right
To choose Heaven
Or choose Hell
Then Spirits leap out and begin
To show the world a new direction
To save them all from this war’s destruction
They have built up cities and torn down lives
They have washed the beaches with the stains of oil
And made mockeries of the poor man’s toil
They have watched the children go unfed
And they take the food away from the living dead
They believe in nothing
They live and die
Without a thought to what they came here for
Or a thought, to which they will answer,
For the wrongs and the sins of a race of men,
Who have failed the creator and fallen again
But I still believe there is a glimmer
Of hope in the world, as the moonlight
Beams down from Heaven
And shows me a sight
And keeps me singing and spreading light
And spreading a sound that comes from above
Words born of Heaven and lifted through Love
Fly on Earth Child
Take to the Sky
Or down under the ocean
To live with the sands
Ever shifting, ever settling
The sea has met the sky
Cinderella Struggles
On a Stormy night in the twilight hour
Cinderella struggle with her packages
The wind was howling down from the east
The melody echoed
In her mind
The bike suddenly loses balance and she drops her goods
In her struggle her anxiety awakens the pain
And she loses herself in the howling wind
It’s all too much she cries out suddenly
Bent down over the bike she begins to weep
She sees an oncoming ruck and it just misses hitting her
As she tries to struggle with the situation
She glances up at the moon
In all of it’s fullness it is still haunting to all of us she thinks
She feels so silly paying so much attention to herself
She begins to think about the folks who live across the highway
Old beat up houses guarded by dogs who look as hungry as their owners
Black faces girls walking in front of her smiling as they pass her in the night air’
“Need some help?” He asks her, passing by in his
clean, white, shiny Cadillac
Looking out of place to some in this shanty side of the neighborhood,
but to her, as fitting as the SARI-SARI stores of
Camalig
Ballad to St. Roch on the Night of the 7th Day
Night of the 7th day
Time for us to face up to the facts
Hat we see is the way it is supposed to be
It confuses me to the point of exhaustion
When I realize that what I thought was real
Was only false devotion
So I turn my gaze and look into the eyes
To see if I can find him
The point is I feel the time may pass
And this time around we will miss him
The hurricane storms the streets
My insides pour out now
Who knows the pain of losing what you took for granted?
And cannot except that parts of life, like death, are permanent
So I try to retrace my steps and I hold myself in check
Until I can be reborn again into another world
Maybe the fact is that solitude is the price you pay
When you only live by what you believe
The judge speaks to me of his sorrow
And laughs while tears roll down his wrinkled cheeks
Like raindrops on a winter’s storm
On a gloomy Christmas Day
When no one could find the truth anywhereSome said it was in her silent suffering
In the way she was accepting
She grows cold now
She freezes up inside for s afraid she has been mistaken again
She knows the danger
She can see the signs
But she cannot solve his problems
She has learned through the pain of her own
That we all must find our souls
We must touch our own hearts
We must love ourselves
We must find a way to give to the ones we love
But beware of the day you learn of your mistake
Beware of the night of the 7th day
When the new moon is on the rise
And the simple twist of fate moves her closer to her heart’s desire
She lives too tangled in this poet’s web
She feels trapped by time and alone on the planet
She knows she is not crazy
She could not go so far, be so brave, or see so much
But she cannot see what she knows is there
She tries to fit the pieces together
To figure out where she began this search
Through the symbols and the clues to her own reality
Daybreak
Daybreak brings rebirth
Each of us emerging from a sea of darkness
Like birth it brings clarity of vision
It is emergence from water to air
It is transformation
It is change
The secure embrace ends
One is then emerged
In an unfamiliar space
It is dying and rebirth
Recognizing transition and passage
Inevitable ruptures and fulfillments
In situations and relationships
Unexpectedly
It is a world of desire, feeling, and expectation
Death and birth experience
The two reference points of all initiation
In emergence, initiation begins with death
Submission and a return to the womb
Acknowledging the Labyrinth
We plunge into chaos
Chaos brings confusion and return to clarity
Clarity only in the realization of error
Error in the unexpected
Awareness by pain and doubt
Confusion can bring clarity
Allowing one to realize a glimpse of truth
Clarity
In the hours following clarity
The clouds hover over me
Just like the threat of a storm
They tease my emotions into fear
Fear from the future
Fear from the past
Just the last glance from the tear
Am I to run again?
Or loosen shall I loosen the ties of my boots
And ease, ease on into the sound of the fog
Here by the bay I have found some peace
Neither is it Paradise
Nor Hell
Limbo
But More
A resting place she called it
For tired space travelers
For tired horses in the sun
For tired is the light of one song in my ear
Fear again fills my head
Doubt me he said, I said, God…
Dodging corners in the fog
Easing pain that is lifetimes deep
Catching glimpses of truth
Then falling to sleep only to wake up confused
But willing to go on as before
Belonging to No One
Caught between the devil and deep blue sea
Man’s place on this earth seems rather frightening to me
To realize you are not alone or neither are you here
But sons and daughters grow and soon time begins to show
And you realize the danger and you see a perfect strange
And you cannot pay the price for giving them your soul
You belong to no one
You owe nothing to anyone
Success is failure by my man’s code
Sacrifice what gives men soul
Not games and this man’s schemes
This one is too close to being free
This one is Me
Sweet Loretta
Funny how the laughter is rising inside my body
My body My body
Since I was let out of the cage in the city
Filled with the marginalized forgotten citizens of society
Who get dragged off the streets
and sheltered by the taxes that you pay
Do you know what it is like inside those walls?
Women brought in, printed and photographed
Jewels and clothes taken away
Then thrown in with the rest of the fools
In the front are the ones who have done a slight wrong
In the back, the heavies, that is where they occupy space
Way in the back so no one can see
They seek out each other for security
But bring them no harm
Repeating the cycle of their own design
They keep coming back time after time
They keep on doing what keeps them inside
I saw women with faces all haggard and worn
And young girls with no future, except more of the same
And I found all the kindness in the world
In one junkie’s eyes
She was older than me, about 33
She had been all over the world
Caught by glamour of needle and pin
She was reeling and wailing when I finally left the room
Sweet Loretta from the south
She had a sweet and mournful voice
And we laughed all afternoon
And found no reason to sing out our fears
So we sang some tunes from the 60’s
And Janis joined us there that day
While the clouds grew dark
At dinner the same woman kept on edge
Passed by me and I smiled
Not to excite her neurotic mind
Not to cause her any harm
Just for the record I was angry with the guards
They favored the sick
And cheated the real
And they have no idea the way that it feels
To walk into that place quite alone with defense
I guess it was the final test to show them that I care
Lost
I want to write this song today
But I’s stuck in New York City
With my insides pouring out
And I can’t seem to find the answers
And the questions become clearer
And the images are far more real than
The steps that I am taking
And my heart begins an aching
That I cannot seem to shake
So tell me why in a city
So large and so alive
Why do I find myself amazed?
At the animals I see
Inside of tortured children
Who are robbed of their lives
They are doomed to see a world
In a cloud with no horizon
And my thoughts wonder slowly out the door
And my ears keep hearing people tell me
What my life is made of
And the colors that I hear
No longer make me happy
And my thoughts turn from the blue eyes of my lover
To the blue eyes of his brother
And I find myself in a cloud
And I can feel the pain of mankind
And my head and heart are tangled in a dream
That keeps me crying’
And I wonder anymore if there is any sense in trying
But my heart is golden
And my eyes have seen the damage
And these legs have walked in gardens
Where children’s eyes are filled with wonder
And mountains loom up in volcanoes
And I have walked the streets with children
In a jungle made of hustle
And I worry that I will not find an answer
And my hands are shaking
And my head is spinning
And my ears keep tuning my heart
For things that I see dawning
In an early morning rain
Way out on a highway
To place I never dreamed of
And I love I cannot deny
To myself, or to them, or to him, or to you
Because each time I have this vision
I can see why there is religion
And my heart is Blue
I don’t know what “I Love You” Means
Drone out the sounds of love dying with the
Drone Drone Drone of your spin
Face to face with danger again, tell your sad tale to the wind
Nowhere is love in sight
Nowhere is this love all right
Tell it to the wind
Runaway from the dream
I don’t know what it means when you say, “I love you”
Can’t you see the girls is on the floor
Dying
Drone out the world you live in, turn the screw a little tighter
You’re the man in the mirror who fills her with fear
Then say, “I love her”
Here’s a knife, strike the hurt, catch a star as she ‘s falling
Dust to Dust
Earth to Earth
If you had a secret lover, would you tell the truth?
If you never said, ‘”I love you” would you take the hurt away?
Tell it to the wind
My love is aching for a taste, looking for a place to lay my head on
My heart filled with sorrow, my world has called the demon to my table
Tell it to the wind
Dust to dust, earth to earth
You laugh; cover your hurt, run away from the danger,
And hide behind what you say is love
Tell me while I sit inside this pain, what this love is worth
How much longer will you wait?
Tell it to the wind
Whose heart is breaking?
Whose life is awake enough to scream out the agony?
Scream out the pain
Tell it to the wind
Pity me, My love has lost it’s way
Listen
Listen well I said
These are words form the master’s hand
They do not hide inside my head
They pour out wonder into my mind
And I lift the veil and climb inside your mind
I like what I see inside this void
Nothing real
Nothing fake
Only images that come and go
Floating by like streamers from a long parade
I tune up the voice
I push the sounds into my throat
I hear the melody and I become enraptured
I need to make that sound again, high and sweet
Listen well I said
Pay Attention to the sounds you hear
The bus, like percussion
I hear it rattling down the boulevard
I hear the horns, and the sounds of high heeled shoes on concrete
Listen I said, to the city sounds
Not crickets by the lake
Or bees swarming nearby
No not nature do I hear
But the sounds of humanity, bustling to and fro
from the workplace
From their constructed toil
I like what I saw inside that void
Nothing real
Nothing fake