Tao Writer (April 17, 1948 -) **For my friend Bob McGuinn** Be careful of growing old, he tells me.It happens so suddenly over the years.One day you are young, in love, full of energythe next day you are old, loveless, lackingboth muscle mass and strength.The legs are the first to go, he continues,but from my …
A Heart Attack
I had just closed the door When it came from all directions A weight upon my chest A pain not previously known Caused by a swelling of my heart. The veins contracting down the back of my neck. My left arm, stiffens in pain. Training or memory I know not which... Aspirin I find the …
Indigo Blues
Confidence in daybreak modifies dusk. Emily Elizabeth Dickinson It is that deep dark indigo kinda of blues The kind you will most likely get through if you just keep on digging Easier than trying to climb out of the hole you are already in In the indigo blues every one is the same Like a …
Presence
Being fully present isn’t something that happens once and then you have achieved it; it’s being awake to the ebb and flow and movement and creation of life, being alive to the process of life itself. Pema Chödrön (July 14, 1936 -) You were here this morning when I woke lying somewhere between the rays …
Layers Of Memory
Layers Of Memory You unfold in layers like the sheet, blanket, and comforter wrapped around me. You are a memory, alive from not long ago. Why now do you rise up from your nothingness to awaken in my mind. This body asleep? I would have remembered you in a time more suited to your grandeur. …
Everything
Manifest plainness, Embrace simplicity, Reduce selfishness, Have few desires. —Lao-Tzu It’s happening again— the swelling of waves inside this vessel I call my body. I become the ocean and the sky. I am the stars spreading light across this darkness. Everything is inside of me In this world where I am everything.
Of Love, Remembrance
Of Love, Remembrance The smell and feel of sun dried sheets This Earth Mornings with nothing to do Freedom The serene silence of meditation Solitude Croaking of the evening frogs Words Rainbows floating across my room Imagination Waddling ducks along the stream Nature The sandbox where I play and dream Fun The whispered touch of …
January 6, 2002
Each friend represents a world in us possibly not born until they arrive, and it is only by this meeting that a new world is born. —Anaïs Nin We met while walking in different directions going to and from a memory of the past on that bright warm January morn. It’s strange how life just …
A Speck Of StarDust
A Speck Of StarDust I saw in a dream… Last night a speck of stardust fell through my closed eyelid and lodged itself, unmovable, into my existence. I woke this morning at a lost for words to describe the experience of this dream. What word could explain or extrapolate this feeling I am? Words would …
I Want
I Want I want to write more than words that say I love you. I want to write poetry that fills your heart with ecstasy, your mind with wonder, your body with burning desire. I want to write words which move your eyes to tears, fill your ears with the sweetness of the loon’s lonely …
A Serendipitous Occasion
A Serendipitous Occasion You ask where you will lie after your death? Where lie the souls unborn? — Seneca We exchanged our vows between a rising full moon and an ocean setting sun a top a dune made of sand, Two different points of reference, not an ending or a beginning, but a blending of …
Desires
Desires At what point do we no longer desire our desires? Like a dream forgotten in an instant. The details no longer alive— Hiding there in the corners of the foreboding dark shadows. Do we forget, So that we might dream again, of the things we so desire?
Let’s Not Say GoodBye
Let’s Not Say GoodBye Neither of us slept soundly last night You, thinking about your early morning flight to a place far away, and not wanting to oversleep. Me, holding onto and thinking about you...leaving. I tried to see you in the darkness but your closed eyelids protected your green, brown eyes from my wanton …
Dream of Dying
Dream of Dying It is difficult to distinguish reality in a dream. Last night I fell into a sub-zero chemical vat. I fought my way to the side and pulled myself out as the freezing death worked its way up my body. Colleagues froze in fear, as the outcome was certain. She cried, as I …
I Will Write All Day
I Will Write All Day I will write all day, today, not try to squeeze creativity between a this or a that, between nowhere and somewhere to be. My imagination will stretch with the bright morning shadows creeping slowly across the green shimmering leaves. I will see a flower and create a dedication, dive into …
The Written Word
The Written Word I write because I am a lover of words. I want to breathe hope into this joy of being alive. Give it air to make a sound then shape and mold the sound into a word. Give it meaning, so one day I will read these words and remember, why I am …
Dream Of Execution
Dream Of Execution I saw in a dream... That was me standing there in front of the firing squad, my hands tied behind me, an unlit cigarette dangling from my lips, reliving the story of a life which truly I did not know I had lived. Was I the General who lead the people's revolt …
This Love That I’m Feeling
This Love That I’m Feeling I awaken to your light, your smell, the morning dew. You are everything I love. My beloved, my life. You are the thoughts I string into possibilities. My dreams, the pages of a book. We fit together, intermingling ourselves into the words of the other's sentences. You are the verbs …
I Am Here! – The Poem
I Am Here! - The Poem There is one other thing to know...when you have expressed yourself to the fullest, then and only then will it dawn upon you that everything has already been expressed, not in words alone but in deed, and that all you need really do is say Amen! — Henry Miller …
This Hollow Emptiness In My Soul
This Hollow Emptiness In My Soul At a time like this I want to write about the joy of your life and not my pain. I want everyone to share your wisdom, hear your laughter, know your devotion to Jehovah, but all I feel is sorrow and devastation. I want to share stories of our …
Moments
Moments If I could master just one art, it would be the art of letting go: of people I have known and loved, of places I’ve traveled to and lived of sunsets and full moons I’ve witnessed. I would let go of this moment as quickly as it appears, faster if I could. I would …
Listening
Listening I have been listening my entire life First to my mother’s heart beat as I floated in her mixture of embryonic fluids. What else was there for me to do, but listen in amazement to the surroundings of my new self. To witness sound while my closed eyes waited to open. I listened to …
This Time Alone
This Time Alone And so I spend my time remembering that brightness which fills my soul and tears apart my heart. The courtship of queen and king, the journeys shared and taken, the love which held us together when no hope could save us. I open each door hoping you’ll appear if only as a …
In The Absence Of Time
In The Absence Of Time I know a place where time has no points of reference to hold onto, no hands sweeps across its well worn face, no seconds eat away at existence, no flashing light marks the arrival or passing. Here, in this infinite space, all dreams live forever. Everything, is expressed in the …
Three O’clock In The Morning
Three O’clock In The Morning I like my coffee black, my whiskey on the rocks, my wine chilled in a flat bottom glass— the way they serve it in Italy. I like my woman in ecstasy, moaning my name out loud. My eggs, scrambled, moist but not runny. I like my sheets and towels made …
Wisdom
Wisdom The invariable mark of wisdom is to see the miraculous in the common. — Ralph Waldo Emerson These things I know— The soft words of love. The solitary dreams of a poet. The song of a thousand crickets. The voice of a crying heart. The pain and serenity of death. The foretelling of dreams. …
One Word
One Word But above all, the poet, is he who names things... And that's the poet's mission, profound and sacred communication. And another word for that is love. – Carlos Fuentes If I could have but one word to describe you, it would not be a word like "love" or "God," for although both of …
If
If Anything you can think of is likely to pass away. —Rumi If I had held you more tightly, would you still have pushed me away If I had loved you more passionately, would you still have lied about him If I had given you all of me, would you still have held something back …
Take Me Death
Take Me Death Like a ghost from times passed You creep up silently behind me. Unwilling to confront me eye to eye. You remain hidden in my blind spot. Then you tap me on my shoulder And quickly disappear back into your hell, As I turn around to find no one is there. Why do …
Song Of The Cricket
Song Of The Cricket It is only when we can believe that we are creating the soul that life has any meaning, but when we can believe it—and I do and always have—then there is nothing we do that is without meaning and nothing that we suffer that does not hold the seed of creation …
The Crushing Weight Of GoodBye
The Crushing Weight Of GoodBye She told him what had kept her away was Death. But he rejected that excuse—for Death, he said, can never come between lovers. — Maguib Mahdouz I never thought the last time we said, “Good bye,” would be the last time. If I had known, I would have done it …
Life’s Greatest Gift
Life’s Greatest Gift What keeps me alive is found between the images, between the words, between thought, the emptiness of feeling, and in the emptiness of the body...there arises the fullness and significance of life… —Basarab Nicolescu I have received so many gifts, appearing as presents from you. The still, shadowy, vapor filled clouds you …
Remember To Remember Me
Remember To Remember Me There is something in the pang of change — More than the heart can bear — Unhappiness remembering happiness. — Euripides When all that remains of me are my cremated ashes don’t store them in an urn upon the mantel. No love is in that stone — a shrine to a …
