dinner with socrates

i love the true debates of my youth. as a debater we were presented with two sides of an issue. build the dam. let nature determine the flow of water. we would study both sides. flip a coin and be assigned a ‘side’. during our preparation we had filled a large three ring binder with each flank of the issue. when you knew the argument assigned to you ‘flipped’ the binder to the side you had prepared for that case. often my own thoughts changed while exploring the ‘other’. then as luck would have it i would be selected to defeat my own personal beliefs. sometimes my own logical presentation changed me back to my original convictions. there is always data and logical arguments but there are very few if any ‘facts’. the heavens are less a mystery than our own views and constructions are to ourselves.

locked
in a prison of opinions
i stage a breakout

how the poems come

they just appear. as raindrops on my glasses. you cant ignore them and they must be dealt with. either look through their prisms and discover new worlds. or wipe them away assiduously as you would a mustard stain on your new tie. oh and the lines drawn through imprecise thoughts lead the way.

weather report
i blot runny words
from my notebook

frightened by time

just had a birthday. seventy two. so many people wish they had more time. well i have had more time than anyone expected. i remember vividly richard farinias book ‘been down so long it looks like up to me’. he died in a motorcycle accident shortly after it was published. ‘cult classic’ is what they call it. so young and he was just a passenger on that bike.

never ask why…
the stars in the milky way
rearrange themselves

color wheel

when you take a photograph you are not capturing anything real. knowing that i fuck with my photos a lot. color. highlights. contrast. brightness. and my favorite ‘local tone mapping’. i love to pull my own colors out of the silicone air of a computer. there is no such thing as truth in an image. we have to make that up as we go along.

this present moment
stolen
from a past life

visionary reality

the best side of me is not grounded in reality. my habit is to stretch what we call reality into something more. reality is a fabric of our making but to be visionary you need to see through and past these constructions. the fruit of a walnut resides within.

impossibly
rain fills the barrel
with a rainbow

dont get up i am just passing through

wondering. still wondering. wondering more. just a little more wonder and my can of wonder will be empty.

as the pond settles
up pops
buddhas reflection

encounter within a poem

weird as it may seem my own thoughts are often very startling to me. sometimes they scare me. other times they make me aware of my own abilities. my singing bowl cant carry a tune today so filled it is with my thoughts. i think we neither fear nor appreciate our own thoughts the way we should. they just breeze past us and we fail to experience them. my singing bowl cant carry a tune today so filled it is with my thoughts. i refuse to fear dying. since i have no data to base any fear on. i mean i am typing this right now and that is not dying. or at least i dont ‘think’ it is. poetry gives thoughts their own experience i believe. my singing bowl cant carry a tune today so filled it is with my thoughts.

spring snowstorm
every path becomes
a meditation bell

thumbprints on a mala

nothing can replace the peace we provide ourselves. dont get me wrong i love people. well almost all people. the tools of seasons from humankind and nature all come together. if we will just get out of the way.

i sing
a mantra
of blooming jasmine