Poem #6-2013 Mortality

On waking this morning:
a hintergedanken
Something, slippery ... unspoken
Looming just out of consciousness

Drove to the nearest cemetery
Lay down in the grass atop John Siemens
Never heard of him before
He was mortal like me

Climbed up and sat on his headstone
My feet dangled
Heels bounced on the etched dates:
1945 - 2004

His entire life unfolded in that one-inch dash
Didn't even make sixty years
Wonder if I will
John said it was unlikely

Other dead spoke to me
Mothers and fathers
Gone angels spinning
Around my disbelief

Jumping down
I left two footprints
Dug into the grave
A defiant act not contained in John's dash

Bought an ice cream cone on the way home







                                      Submitted to Dversepoets.com Open Link Night #97

Poem #5-2013 Forest Haiku

Symptom of nature
I walk through the piney woods
Through myself darkly












                                   Submitted to Dversepoets.com Open Link Night #96

Poem #4-2013 Saying No to Death

Saying no to death is not enough

one must also say yes to life

else living becomes a

timid pursuit of breath

shallow triumph of mediocrity

joyless bite of the apple

listless step on someone else's journey

I am a cadaver, walking

among those who haven't

seen the darkness

who revel in the blinding light

darkening the darkness

for those who said

no to death

but forgot to say yes to life

                                         Submitted to dversepoets.com for Open Link Night #95

Poem #3-2013 Rosemary's Hike

Rocky promontory
Natural seating
Whittier pond 700 feet below
The white dots? Ducks
Great and Long Pond in the distance
...and mountain peaks
Turkey vulture soaring gracefully -- eye level
(buzzard is a vulgar term)
Fragrance of new buds
Titmouse crying cheerfully
Calming hum of a passing plane
Whispering branches
All this . . .
ALL OF THIS!

And you had to go and die this morning



                                               Submitted to dversepoets.com for Open Link Night #94

Poem #2-2013 A Spring Day in Academe

With thanks to Gary Snyder for
Four Poems for Robin/A spring night in Shokoko-ji

Last year at this time
I was a whole human being
Teaching (or trying to) at university.
All I knew at that time
Seems lost to me now, except feelings.
Sitting here in class
In my "professor's chair"
I hear voices telling me I can't
And I think about what it's like
To be incomplete.





                                    Submitted to dversepoets.com for Open Link Night #91

Poem #1-2013 The Boundless Blackness of Heart

Until you've planned your own demise
Until you've been locked away
Until you've been "checked on" every 15 minutes 24 hours a day for a week
Until you're not allowed to have shoelaces or a belt or a pen
Until you're told what you can and cannot watch on TV
Until you've seen insanity firsthand
Until you've had your brain chemistry fucked with by doctors who are, at best, "experimenting"
Until you've looked into the boundless blackness of your own heart

Until all of that . . . and more (unmentionably dark more)
Do not expect to understand my suffering

Submitted to dversepoets.com for Open Link Night #90

Poem #20-2012 Empty dreams

Help me lose my way
Layer me with marble
I'm on my last shakes
and the police don't care
Can you tell?
My dreams are empty
     as a miscarried womb
--misery bloodworm canker cancer rotten meat --
Feel it in your deep down!
Anesthesia
Tangled up in blood
Shit-filled fantasies
Wheelbound and
hellbent
Dark headspace
     spins me out of orbit
Black thighs
  squeezing my brain
     instead of my soul
Scorched in sin
swollen to bursting
Eat with me
Sleep with me
Be with me
           Tristessa

Contributed to dVersePoets.com

Open Link Night