Riffs

As I stirred the fireplace embers I shivered once more in that bitter cold

The empty, hopeless sounds of frozen gray dawns again overwhelmed me

You placed a hand gently on my shoulder, asking when I would be to bed

After the explosion I lay deafened, curled up and unwilling to move again

After what seemed like minutes the wail of the sirens drew near

Your blood felt warm upon my skin in the bright winter sun of the desert

I nodded under the shade trees in the park during the balmy summer twilight

Snatches of long-forgotten conversations filled my head in brief, popping bubbles

At last I heard mothers calling all us kids home for supper

I would always dream I had skipped a very difficult class right up until finals week

Nonetheless I would not give up my plans for graduation

Sometimes I would let that rowdy boy laugh at the old fool he found himself within

As the rusty red sun rose again over gray streets, July lacked a purpose

Pulling on our dirty work clothes once more, we found it difficult to hurry

A tinny radio greeted us in the beat up old truck as the dog watched us go

She saw too much for many years working intake at the emergency room

She took care of others and watched herself as she let go

Just the same, she still remembered that young Nurse Nancy in her new white cap

As the hot, dry wind came up again I remembered rainy summer days

We were on call for heart attacks, drunks and motorcycle wrecks

As the tones vibrated me to my feet, briefly I recalled a dream that I had left

Laying in sweat and dirt under the car I thanked Jesus for his help, once again

It occurred to me that I would not reflect back upon this time with pleasure

I was fumbling blindly for a missing tool when I heard the children laugh at play

Long after my injury I tried to recall moving without first considering the pain

The neighbors often greeted me kindly as I slowly shuffled by

I wondered if my mind was as worn out as my body, but simply could not let me know

Though I was not affected by the layoffs I still found it difficult to sleep

I needed to reconsider family debt in this new and uncertain light

The sleepy boredom of my children helped calm me in the morning

Decades later they briefly visited us while comparing notes with each other

I felt uncomfortable and small in the presence of those brave foreign pilots

They had brought the war to this village that they could barely see from so far above

I felt I stood among them as they gazed down upon my broken body

I helped them to position me for treatment and turned on the oxygen

It was not until much later that they awoke me with the grinding pain

They kept fairly low profiles as they pulled strings and bought and sold

They paid off officials to rezone, built cheaply and congratulated each other

They did not begin to worry until their expensive tires were slashed again

He spent time cleaning up the riverside campsites that others left behind

The meadow was immaculate and pure but his clothes were torn and dirty

He often went for days on end without a decent media immersion

After the baby was born she tucked him in a discarded milk container

She was surprised and astonished upon delivering the afterbirth

Later that same day liberals heard the child’s weak cries from a green recycling bin

The intrepid, overweight hunter removed his glasses to use the rifle scope

The great bear skinned the giant salmon with his awful teeth

The fatal stroke had already claimed him but he reflexively pulled the trigger

He missed the camaraderie, the danger and the excitement of prison life

It was almost a relief when he was again convicted of assault and possession -

For no one but his jail posse could ever understand his life experience

I bookmarked my musings upon imagined slights and got up for the next big meeting

It was another make or break decision for which we must all get on board

Though my plate was full, I promised to stay on message with the take away

They surprised me as I ripped through their shit, looking for things to sell

The guy looked pretty scared but the woman screamed for my blood

I pulled up and twisted hard as my knife went to its hilt inside his stomach

Safely buzzed, I wasn’t tormented by the soft voices of our Ancient Ones

The merciless sun beat down on our government modular and our trash blew downwind

Dust clouds smudged the desert sky again as I returned with more cold beer

They worked me so hard I even dreamed about the problems they set before me

Though I achieved the certificate, I remembered clearly my many weaknesses

It was like that many years later when I would often dream of dying

I bade them fix the books with a wink and a nod which made me rich

Later I convinced myself that I honestly said I had no knowledge of their fabrications

Council advised me to say only how eagerly I looked forward to clearing my name

I was overturned and swimming before I had the slightest inkling

As I fought for the surface the current washed me into a quiet eddy

In that brief transcendent moment, I needed consider nothing else

Subliminal Logic

I went searching for algebra and found shiny wrestlers in makeup on steroids

You needed to form complete sentences but you wound up simply texting

On the trail of Latin etymologies there were several signs for real estate

Hoping for the Sports Section, protease inhibitors brought me disappointment

With the Physics Lust upon me, I wound up running fantasy computer Hos

Looking for a fast-food drive-through you stumbled on a partial integration

Imagining the count of stars in a galaxy, I saw infinite litter on the ground

After taking the shrooms, nanoscale quantum effects brought on tears of joy

Understanding the earth’s precession earned rewards of caffeine and sugar

Groping the remote yielded only a cross-section of a stupid shield volcano

Elliptical symmetry brought me in contact with the Tibetan Buddhist monks

Suddenly big screen Dolby StarWars became a black and white chemistry text

IPod shuffling along I reckoned which way the earth rotated under my feet

Bored with the Federalist Papers, you summoned PuffDaddy for a real lesson

Trying to win your heart, I brought you a copy of Newton’s Principia

She found the remains of a failed numerical integration in her makeup kit

The herd chewed their cuds patiently awaiting some singularity or another

The immigrant gave up on English and began speaking only computer codes

Struggling to find the exit they were surrounded by closely packed isobars

Seeing a Big Bang simulation he tried to remember what movie it was from

Following ignorant intuition I managed to re-invent cold fusion in a jar

Asphyxiating the zebra, the lion was unaware of the passing equinox

Gazing in the microscope she was appalled at what crawled in her mouth

Frightened by the frank uncertainty of the scientists they clung uneasily to their Bibles

Stumbling with tensors I found great relief in merely sweeping floors

Hungry for meat, salt and fat they found photosynthesis less than a miracle

Peering inside the simulation, I saw that it squirmed with differential equations

Magnetic Resonance Imagery clearly showed the unborn Crack baby’s grasping hand

I stumbled over the dog in the dark despite his obvious infrared signature

Hurrying to Wal*Mart, the family struck and killed a wandering singular matrix

Tired of my long confusion, I sought a chaos theory based solution

Reaching for a beer the trucker was struck by the fractal beauty of the highway

jogging through the park I caught just a glimpse of a tiny prancing Eocene horse

Looking for a parking spot he ran straight over evidence of plate tectonics

I saw blazing porch lights obscure photons billions of years old streaking from the sky

Amidst broken bottles and discarded needles, you found an irregular German infinitive

Stalled in traffic, I became a placid notochord in a vast and warm inland sea

Rising too quickly she hyperventilated images of complexity and uncertainty

Struggling up the Waterfall Model, I felt my colors fade like some tired salmon

The thick layer of ash, several million years old, did not effect her sales pitch, one iota

I used a laser to burn microscopic pits into a plastic DVD to backup my confessions

Distracted by her cellphone, she continued in motion relative to her car and the tree

I had had nothing to eat that day outside of an arbitrary constant of integration

He flipped channels idly searching for curvaceous Jungian archetypes

In the eyes of a boy with Down’s Syndrome I saw a single gene expressed

Facing the geological history in the Grand Canyon, he invoked a Biblical flood

Entering the abandoned cave I realized how much man needed dogs and fire

The fortune teller was nonplussed by her client’s vision of that Schrodinger’s cat

I contrasted the infinite with the uncountable pushing my cart down aisle 5

After the party, he dreamed of sensing a neutrino in an underground aquifer

Walking on the beach, I pondered those fossil human footprints from Africa

They found the Aurora Borealis far less spectacular than Disney’s wondrous fireworks

As we held each other tightly, the purpose of galactic clusters eluded me

The candidate dared not flipflop though the earth’s magnetic pole had reversed many times

Stumbling over quantum uncertainty, I whacked into one of Plato’s Ideals

He did not question where in Maslow’s Hierarchy his loud new pickup muffler fit

The sound of her medieval surname recalled in me Tolkein’s love of ancient Norse

Recoiling from the so-called fossils, she thanked Jesus for bilateral symmetry

Hearing their rancorous debate, I puzzled over the study of Creation Myths

They sought relief inhaling petroleum distillates from sealed plastic bags

Crawling on my hands and knees while scrubbing, I thought of approaching c

Bathing naked in ultraviolet rays, I mused upon their birth in far-off nuclear fission

Thinking of my trillion living cells, I felt my sense of self begin slowly to dissolve

Chronic inhalation of the particulates around her crib curbed her growth

I just made it better than it had to be and ensured that it was easy to repair

I hoped with our passing that this wonderful awareness did not simply disappear

I was struck by the unnecessary beauty of leaves without their chlorophyll

I observed orderly crystallization of atmospheric moisture into myriad snowflakes

Casually responding, a million reactions occurred simultaneously in my brain

I pondered whether the Golden Mean was truth revealed or facts discovered

At the turnstile, I had a vision of a supercomputer jet wing vortex simulation

She accepted perspective drawing without thinking, based upon so many examples

My attempts to decipher whale songs lead not to English but tended more towards Bach

His team raced to catalogue new life forms barely ahead of their extinction

I had trouble convincing myself that this hummingbird was not actually a miracle

Unconsciously I continued integrating discrete instants into a continuous past

Quiet Coming

In the quiet of the early morning, before the sun comes up

          when the birds are still hidden sleeping

and the dew is on the grass

In the time before those things start over

          that make it like it is today

when the world seems as it was before we ever came this way

In the building light of the coming dawn, colors grow ever clearer

          as if my eyes were born again

in the details of the mountains, just beginning to emerge

In the quiet that I find within myself in the early morning

          I glimpse once more the things that I am missing still

but soon they disappear again in the brightness of the sun

In that rare stillness that comprises the very early morning

          when issues have been slept away

the potential of all the world brims over with possible new beginnings

In the cool sweet stillness left behind by the evening rain

          there is a sense of preservation

and an unearned cleansing mercy daubs my sleepy eyes

In the light that rims the horizon before the sun appears

          come colors to the landscape emerging from the gray

perspectives created quickly that must fade during the heat of day

In those early moments when the world can still make sense

          I awaken slowly with the birds and a draught of predawn cool

and through such a lens our previous despair seems very much out of place

In the hour where respectful whispers do not disturb the peaceful shadows

          the images of a nighttime's dreaming briefly coat this world

then they must evaporate with the dew at the end of the dawn

In the time when night lights fade away

          and hope once more can raise our hearts

then we trust there can be no end to these renewable beginnings

In those moments when the world is changing as quickly as the light

          there we sense so strongly the passage of our time

then I see most clearly a path that I should follow

In the precious little time before the awful noise begins again

          I regain any strength that I still retain

For there is no cover I might seek and there is no place that I could hide

In the gracious hour between the dark and the light

          Just before the hoarse cries begin again

there is still time to consider what's to come from what is passed

In the fresh air of a new day when the world is born again

          There can be time to take accounts and sense the larger flow

Instead of rushing randomly once more towards some fuzzy goals

Almost Over

I saw the starry night sky whirling about up above me once again, long ago

And I knew that it was almost over for me just the same as for all of you

As I turned the pages in your wondrous books with a warm satisfaction

It slowly came to me that it would not always be like this

Gliding down the hills with thoughtless skill and senses still intact

It grew so much sweeter as I felt my time grow ever more quickly, shorter

Listening to the soft music as the million snowflakes fell

Tears filled my eyes from gratitude as well as the approaching emptiness

Standing still but quivering with every sense on fire

It grew stronger the more I realized how soon it would be no more

Immersed in the observation of one of earth’s tiny wonders

Great hunger arose within me to see them all before the darkness bound me

As the gentle melodies brought moments of peace to my angry life

How hard I tried to stay there even though they arrived without an effort

As I heard the thunder roll about from east to west through that gentle rain

I grew so full with its meaning I might have left in peace right then

Just as anger poisoned every thought and life seemed completely pointless

A song would come to calm me and I saw again how it was almost over

When my skull was too long pierced by violent, random, pointless noise

Then proper harmony and rhythm slowed me down to show me once again

As each new world opened up to me in endless interesting possibilities

With so much left to do I knew my time must seem to come too soon

Leaping out of ordinary circumstance like some psychedelic trout

I tingled in that other atmosphere gathering brief but shining images

In your arms I lay in peace and happiness with the world held briefly at arm’s length

I flashed upon many billions of years and knew that, it was almost over

Gazing up with every molecule of every cell at peace for just one moment

Those intervals were too few in the fleeting blur that was the passing of my life

I tried to string together those brief instants when everything made sense

Tried to wear them like some beads, walking on towards rushing darkness

Got lost and turned around, cried out and stumbled blindly

Awoke inside strange dreams pointing unavoidably towards the precipice

Shattered your harmony and trampled finely-wrought creations underfoot

Awoke at intervals to apologize, unable to pay for all my guilt with simple shame

And just as I achieved the apex of my tiny leap

Glancing quickly about I sensed all at once that, it was almost over

It has always been almost over and nearly time to slip back to nowhere

My short life spent in preparation for a return to a nothing filled without even emptiness

Mandala

surrounding the perimeter lies the infinite corona of the void

          closer in lies a region of pure faith congealed from distilled facts

nearer is an area of fuzzy understanding and conjecture based on education

          moving inward there are those places I have been to in my short life

closer still are all the people that I have ever met in my small travels

          next to me are my friends and wife and family, alive as well as dead

inside my waking mind is the ability to reason about the within and without

          writing helps to dislodge the many thoughts that bind me so tightly

the sounds of my emotions emerge in the music that I make

          from the unconscious emerges the contemplation of the universals

the void is whence my memories emerge and my experiences will end

          my faith wells unbidden and is correct without a proof

scattered facts and structured learning seethe in and out of thought

          sometimes I see similarities in different mountain ranges

people I have met return to finish things in dreams

          the ones who nurtured me always remain at my shoulder

I strive at once to grasp the science and to understand my imagination

          I write to bear witness to all this foolishness mixing with free beauty

I play a music which is a pipeline to my innermost state of mind

          I feel the power of images stirred by natural patterns in the stones

I peer at the void but often find only fear that there is no uncertainty

          Faith bubbles up like water in the current of a river clean and deep

The beauty of the calculus bespeaks a worthwhile striving

          The place that I am staying might remind me of another from long ago

All those that I have met may be the same cards dealt from different decks

          The great aunts and the newborns get mixed up inside me over time

My mind never takes any holidays but rests quite well at night

          Fingers to the keyboard, I summon grammar, syntax and vocabulary

Music is, for me, much more freeform and lacks any pretense

          Waking from a dream, a much deeper channel briefly opens to me

Death waits to re-merge me with a much larger process

          I believe in things that come to me where reason is not a tool

Observations of the known universe must be woven into patterns

          Travel broadens me through the stripping of mindless daily routines

Often when I speak it is with the voice of one who has gone away

          Sometimes when I feel, it is because of what they gave me

Day by day I pack more facts and figures almost safely somewhere within

          Writing organizes the beauty, shame and wonder that I know

Music emerges from and connects with a different and wordless level

          The things I thought I almost saw come from somewhere we all share

Saving Grace

Tomorrow's come a long, long way to help you, Yes, it's your saving grace… Steve Miller

Whenever I came to the thought that I had at last seen way too much

          There was still her calm voice that just would not let me go

All those times it seemed too hard to stand tall for just another hour

          That wordless patience and her kindness, from somewhere, reappeared

When the darkness fell upon me and there was nowhere I could turn

          Came to me finally carrying gentle slumber and awoke me feeling better

In the grim silence that no one else could open

          A gentle nuzzle reminded me of the man I had to be

When I sat, head in hands, alone and full of empty desolation

          She came quietly and patiently, her hand softly on my knee  

As I thrashed about in the anger at all my waste and confusion

          I did not rely upon her presence and never realized what it meant

Despite my dirt and noise, sins, failings, mistakes and omissions

          Somehow that gentle quiet north light never left me for very long

In the great rush at foolishness that was the brief passing of my life

          It took too long for me to see her grace so perfect, yet only behind the scenes

Against all the odds and the heat, dust and the never-ending shouting

          Nonetheless, in interludes of quiet one knew, her gentle strength existed

Through all the years of stubbornness at the ignorance and destruction

          One sweet chord would always resonate when things were in their places

Looking back through memories windows now I see that light fell gently thru

          Hurrying in my pride I struggled and I floundered and she saw it all again

When it all turned black and I lost faith in everything, but mostly in myself

          Later came a feeling that was not a thought and a hope not born of reason

Awakened, as I often was, from restless dreams of my many failures

          A gentle presence glided in just before the morning birds began to call

Often when I summed up to little, the events and actions of my life, she came

          Asking nothing from me, saying nothing to me, quiet, yet so complete

Charging forward to unknown destinations, cursing myself and the world

          Never realizing the quiet web she spun so lightly all around me

Howling out my isolation in cold and bitter emptiness, I sometimes wept

          Now I am ashamed that my needless blasphemies broke her blessed stillness

Full of toxic hubris, I plunged on alone through my private weeds

          A sad, faint smile played upon her face, for she had seen it all before

Wasting time and resources and making lots of noise, I groped so blindly on

          Even then, for brief quiet moments, I caught glimpses of a different way

For many years as I wandered that knife edge of self-destruction

          She bore silent witness that I had learned nothing from other’s failures

Whirling like a nervous dervish and kicking up the dust, so I passed my life

          Believing that her scattered images were the only illusions that I held

Often would I try and escape through drugs and mindless recreation

          And she would merely remain in silence, waiting off at some safe distance

As I trampled mindlessly on things beautiful that did not defend themselves

          She stood in sadness to see if I, like others, would slip away in blindness

Sometimes when I could see no cause to find hope in my endeavors

          Later there would come a peaceful merest stirring of gentle leaves

Now I just hope I can restore bits of what I have broken and thrown away

          Maybe remain quiet sometimes, instead of always shouting hoarsely

And these days when it gets too noisy and acrid smoke is choking me

          At least now I finally see the uselessness of the silly rage that fills me

Seeing so much precious time gone by in empty bitterness brings tears to my eyes

          But I am sure that in all her grace and mercy, I need not be forgiven

Tracers

Arriving in a rush, but disappearing with the slightest breeze

Overwhelming in an unguarded moment, but only until scrutinized

Dissolving like a dream in the light of conscious thought

Like dreams, always returning, because they exist everywhere

Yielding a glimpse of strange meaning beyond our everyday concerns

Bringing on fear, hope and emptiness as well as great content

Dripping from a wet, fallen and decaying tree

Incising its mystic patterns upon red desert sandstone

Overheard in the springtime soliloquies of the streams

Leaving with all that has gone away since we first arrived

Surrounding an echo thrown across a canyon

Part of the glint off an ice spring far up on that distant peak

Radiating about the edges of the many-colored thunder clouds

Hovering in a rainbow tune with the buzzing hummingbirds

Embedded in the past as it overtakes us on occasion

Hinted at by beautiful mathematical revelations

Valued companion when it is our time to slip away

Harmonically attuned to our finest vibrations

Integral component of the growing pre-dawn magic

Evaporating like the dew with our noise and confusion

Yet likely not diminished despite our destructive efforts

But certainly obscured by the rending of our progress

Density unaffected by the expansion of the universe

Tracing an outline that changes simply with our perception

Frozen forever in the melting winter ice

Captured complete in one flowing river instant

Disturbing to those groping their own infinitesimal portion

Indescribable as the ocean from a bit of foam blown off a wave

Scorned and rejected by the materialistic and powerful

Sought just the same when they lay down at last

Whispering in the breeze that passes through the pines

Rustling in the background through the leaves of the fall

Making up the silence that is the natural order of things

Only rarely dwelling in the constructs of man

Potentially giving rise to those dark-haired sisters, mercy and grace

Subtle enough to be accidentally crushed underfoot

Dissolving in an instant at the slightest disturbance

Neither created nor destroyed or even effected by time

Sensed everywhere but welling up from within

Blindly trampled by the hordes in their mindless peregrinations

Pure and clear in the smell of a large fish brought alive to shore

Frightening in its absence from our ongoing business

Locked in a slanting ray of sunshine on a day in early June

Escaping us in its flight from our mindless entertainment

Valued very little by powerful entrepreneurs

Part of that god in whom we trust with our dollar bills

Disregarded by the clergy, fossilized amidst odd ceremonies

Sought by those young people of good but restless hearts

Flying overhead in the foggy echo of a wild goose

Revealed in the wonder at a child’s quiet wisdom

Refracted by the colors given off in an ocean sunset

Quickly evaporating during bickering or fighting

Lost in the endless chase for the newest shiny toy

Not really glimpsed during the hypnosis of the purchase

Part of the aura surrounding those captured by madness

Dried up and blown away by our hoarse and empty voices

Caught with a fly in a drop of golden amber 300 million years ago

Inscribed by a glacier into a message on a boulder

Twinkling like a far-off galaxy in the vast starry night

Quiet behind this blue sky under which we children play