Sexy Rhymes

The alignment's right for some sexy poems,
Sized on sight by respectable tomes,
Whatever's struck down, when once on the town,
Is permission to romp as we roam.

Delving

Delving into philosophical questions,
‘Did Paul guess? How?
What were his chances?
1/256 or 1/2^8, five or twelve, 

into numbers we’ll delve.

2 to the eighth,
now Schrödinger's cat.
Quantum Theory and all that,
How did a mollusk, forced into solace,
Understand the waveform collapse.

Particles of light, infinitesimal yet bright,
Paul not at all.
Suppose it was planned,
A soccer ball playing the field,
rigged by dreams.

Dark

This piece was a gift from your father.
It was lost during your tour of the galaxy,
and was stolen by that woman
you envied, yet whom you learned from.
You're just jelly in the sea,
you grew but stopped glowing.
Your body will be devoured,
or you will be in Orion
before I ring the bell.

Almeria

A solution came,
Watched by fire, I held my tongue.
What kind of pen is this?
Raisin Bran means Raven or Bran,
a clever boy plays a soldier’s tune

It’s a battle or a dream
This language given here
Come magical refrain, come on, come!
See Almeria, the bridge.
Soldier, you’re the trouble I needed to hear.

El Corazón de la Frambuesa

Mi amor,

Entender cómo., ni por qué,
valentines aparecen.
   en los pisos de los edificios
   o en el corazón de rubí, bayas.

Estas son señales solamente,
   sientes lo que estoy sintiendo.

Mirar hacia arriba, mira hacia abajo,
  en todas las direcciones
    encontrará pruebas,
    como si, 

de todos modos no creer.

Entienda esto
y que entiende
el universo que nos une
           nos guste,
           o no.

Te digo esto,
    no porque no sea así,
    pero porque.

Ellos son.
Nosotros somos.
Es.

What is a Mystic?

the lock
  a coat hanger,
    one of the pins from her hair

What is a mystic?

One that uses experience to distill truth from life, that seeks conjugal harmony with all existence? One that seeks to fly with the heart over every plain and hill, to stand with the soul in every stream, to lie in the rushes with every tiny insect that chirps at night, to be at piece with every man and woman in their very own beds, to gallop with the mind across the starry heavens, to fuse in spirit with every wild bird and every great creature that prowls in the forest, to be at one with all creation in one burst, acknowledging all.

I empty my mind when it is full, and when it is half full I also empty it.

Even when it is empty, clearing it out does no harm.

All else must be finished by the day, when all else I dreamed of will be thrown away.

Light by night, and light by day.

burnt sun
 murals

on the
    courtyard walls

Language, like Food, has Energy

I breathe air, you breathe air. . is the air we breathe the same? . . . The consciousness/identity issue is something like that . . . we have a 'lease' so to speak on consciousness, a lease granted when we took occupancy of our bodies, of our lives.

Wait, so that implies something that inhabits us, lives within us, is on sometimes, off at other times. It varies, with sleep, wakefulness, how much we're paying attention.

Or does it?  If consciousness is always 'on' what vacillates our subjective perception of it? We've hit some kind of circular argument, consciousness relying upon itself to know it is there. Like attributions to a divinity, could early concepts of "God' simply have been the projections of an elevated form of self-awareness in early man?

Yet consciousness exists. But where? The question asks if there's materiality to something that doesn't possess a material dimension.

Egyptians regarded the heart as the organ responsible for consciousness. The brain, a reservoir of mucus, was removed and discarded before the rest of the body was embalmed for a journey to the stars.

We're looking for where consciousness lives! If consciousness resides somewhere, does it have a locus? A focus?

In an early anatomical drawing by Leonardo of a dissected brain, his note in cryptic Italian reads "Is this where the soul resides?". There's a small arrow pointing to a spot just above the pineal gland.

'Soul' doesn't mean 'consciousness' in the same way to modern psychologists seeking solutions to the hard problem, the subjective "I". Soul doesn't carry an ego-driven 'conscious' label with it; the soul isn't about itself.

Carl Jung and followers tried to caution against Western science's stampede into the conscious sphere claiming that the soul, or subconscious was being overlooked, misunderstood, and frankly ignored at the peril of our very left-brained society. Modern cognitive psychologists for the most part haven't even listened to the Jungian dialogue, representing it as 'artsy', based on myths, and not accessible to the neurologist's probing electrodes. Jung, Hillman and others countered that the greatest hazards posed to the modern world were almost entirely of man's conscious creation, resulting perhaps from his biggest tragedy, failing to know himself.

But whose soul is it? Should we take clues from Jung who introduced us to the collective unconscious? Heightened states of being attained by yogis and Buddhists practice at emptying the mind, clearing it of conscious thought. Doesn't this imply freedom is found away from the subjective conscious experience? Isn't the most powerful 'consciousness' one that is unencumbered, and doesn't require the serial tool of subjective identity?

As always, science has arrived late to a definition of the problem, and even more poignantly, has missed the solution entirely. The West chases a phantom machine, an apparatus lost somewhere in the body of matter.

It may be the soul is everywhere, but that 'consciousness' is fugitive, never setting up shop for more than a few microseconds in one place, characteristic of most illusions.

If we are speaking of a greater consciousness not centered on the ego, where does it disappear to after we die? Is it even ours to begin with? Can it be be possessed, or owned by some other being? These hands that are typing are 'my' hands, attached to me. Without the rest of me they can't work. Man has found ways to transplant body organs, eyes, hearts, kidneys, but not consciousness, not the soul, nor the contents of memory.

If this greater consciousness is fugitive does it elude attempts to locate or entrap it? A. Is the deer in the forest alive without the forest?

The natural root of language indeed produces something useful. Consciousness is language, and one byproduct of that language may be science itself. Science verifies the subjective conscious experience that created it, producing technology, enabling our economy of rising populations, that has made our civilization possible. The Gods are with us, or rather, the myth of science seems with us. For now.

Yet we are in neglect of a greater consciousness, that which we share with all nature. Is our subconscious, our soul, simply a victim of repression by a new sort of self-flattering parasite that has taken over the wheel? We're enamored of the subjective experience, the language using, category creating, diary writing effacer of the earth. Yet what we are, that is a question we do not like to ponder. Is western consciousness, if we dare call it such, a belief based mythos, an illusion, not a truth?

Think of This

Having come to the conclusion that all matter is to a degree conscious, we might ask isn’t all matter ultimately unconscious of its consciousness? If so, then a materialist dichotomy is preserved. Matter and consciousness are separate. If matter is the unconscious mother of consciousness, then can consciousness survive without matter?

Such an argument may at once seem tautological. Matter a vehicle for consciousness, if so, any bit of matter can aid in that process, all of it does or none of it does . . . or . . .  is matter itself conscious? Our notions about matter, and consciousness are completely primitive, limited as it were by the materialist thinkers of centuries ago.

Instead I argue matter without consciousness is the impossibility. All of it may be alive, and the conscious part preeminent, for a thing to exist the knowing of it must be there too.

Is our conscious mind the fisherman, who brings the fish from the deep?

Western philosophical investigations of human thought haven’t established anything. Philosophy at best has imagined a tour of the architecture, neurologists with their probes have poked around, taken voltage readings, mapped neural activity, without encountering any inhabitants. Consciousness remains as elusive as the unicorn.

What cognitive psychologists call ‘consciousness’ may only be a recently evolved and tiny subset of a much greater conscious awareness. In fact the stream of consciousness in language driven humans today may in reality be a distraction from a higher form of consciousness that is repressed.

To accept consciousness on a universal level, one must abandon the ego, the “I”, the self-referencing component to this entire dialogue. Consciousness is not about ‘me’. The notion that a self-divining root of language flits about the mind and pretends that ‘it’ is conscious, while the rest is ‘unaware’, ‘unknowing’ and obscured in darkness does more to persuade the enlightened that the busy mind may really be the least conscious mind of all.

Why do we assume the whole of the world around us, from weather patterns to flocks of communicating birds, to entire galaxies of massive energetic stars, is separate and inert. Only in recent years have we admitted that animals may possess forms of higher thought and might be ‘conscious’. Yet our view is that aside from animal life, consciousness is nowhere else to be found. Our civilization is locked in an infantile fantasy that it exists at the center. Having discovered our own self-awareness, and developed a language to document it, we believe in our own domination of conscious thought.

Such a fantasy may indeed be part of a necessary stage of development in the transition to a higher level of consciousness. When the ego is abandoned and a kind of universal consciousness is finally accepted as a universal property, when Western science has come to realize what the Vedanta has known for millennia, then perhaps our we can recognize consciousness as a universal phenomena, and not something belonging to the ‘I’.

As for sub-conscious intelligence let’s call sub-ego so that we don’t confuse ourselves. For how often have we heard from someone working on a difficult problem, “let me sleep on it”? Indeed solutions to complex problems without language are not the work of the most self-aware state of the mind. ‘Eureka’ moments seem to materialize out of thin air, indeed it is our ‘consciousness’ which has only become aware that the problem has been solved?  Let’s refer to that sub-conscious intelligence sub-ego so that we don’t confuse ourselves.  If you prefer another metaphor, consciousness resembles the mysterious cleverness of nature, the weather, birds, or the mind of a pet, which we can attempt to fathom but cannot necessarily read.

Yet I posit that this subconsciousness, the sub-ego, the sub-self-aware faculty, is the true consciousness that pervades the universe. Our self-aware thinking processes function more as an executive diary, the dashboard of instruments, the servo-mechanism, for executive action, and and the fulfilling of set goals. It believes that it is in control of a much vaster system, but as mankind may shortly learn, that executive in a Tolstoy-ish reversal, works for the greater consciousness without an ego, without the ‘I’. Self-awareness may not be such an advance as we imagine.

This essay has brought the topic of consciousness to a bifurcation, into a self-aware faculty, “I am thinking’, and the part that thinks, arrives with solutions, but hides its methods from the upstart.

What the Western ego has named its conscious faculties, on the other hand, may only be an illusion, an illustration as it were, posted and pictured by a much larger sub-ego operating system below it. What a perfect conclusion to a infantile illustration, a nascent self-conscious mind, operating with a tool called science, believes it has discovered something unique and precious when it becomes self aware.

Consciousness the Messenger

A friend asks, "Is this page alive?"

We notice a fundamental correspondence, instinctively, a correlation between matter, life, and consciousness.

The notion that consciousness has no definite boundaries, and thus is present wherever energy or information is processed is attractive. My friend said page but he could also have meant paper page, web page, or someone reading something aloud, or even words as remembered dimly after a passage of time. What about a bookmark?

Useable conscious product is not necessarily as conscious as the conscious process that creates it. The page is a messenger, yes it has conscious dimension. If a writer were to pass, and all his works locked up in a password protected computer, what happens if his relatives wipe the hard drive?

Does consciousness die?

We're talking about something not unlike the fundamental physics of heat, and entropy. There has to be an expression akin to the second law of thermodynamics, that embraces consciousness as a form of reverse entropy. An alternative to static or chemical order, say for instance the order present in a fully charged battery. Is a battery conscious? The discovery of the Dead Sea Scrolls after 2000 years represents a transference of consciousness - they were only pieces of rotting parchment were they not?

Naughty Love Bits

A sky diva from Shanghai fell hard from the sky,

Broke just one ankle for which she is thankful !

What flocks of collective nouns,

Infects the syntax of these sounds.

A raft of mallards ready to pluck,

Is no unkindness to a raven’s luck.

As selkies bathing in a coire. 

We’ll doff our skins and wash our ire!

When poetry of youth is gone,

. . . adultery hears truth in song.

Imagine a dandy, who mooches off a hooker,

Candied ginger, with Kambucha and sugar!

One of the ways I'll start counting days,

To get through our time with the weather.

For whatever you say, this won't be just play,

I promise we'll like working together.

In what nether deeps of flesh,

Burn the embers of my wish?

With what feather shall I tickle

What's the spot to make you giggle?

What lips, what a feast,

Torments the fires within my beast.

Who would think one so desired,

Could ever make a man grow tired?

I'll not place blame, nor will I claim,

That menace is just sex by name.

What's the forge, what dread spark,

Urges my midships to embark?

Grasped were facts, of life as it was,
Tasked by acts, of strife between love.

Pain is a whisper that takes a small breath,
From the center of all to a knowledge of Death.

Years of sleeping in northern abodes,
And tears from bug bites on legs and toes.
In winter I got even, when I took my bedclothes,
And that big old mattress, and set it there to froze.

Memory feeds pain, in a heart that is longing,
Reveries a chain, a part of belonging.

If a memory I have is of a lady I tossed,
A century might pass, as I die and am lost.

Tina oh Tina, do send me your pictures,
Supine I now sense the trend of your scriptures!

Diana of Hartford, my true neighbor,
Do come to New Haven to play and then caper!

Leah Kate though not a hater,
Your photo suggests a switch and baiter!

Once I tried to throw out a kiss,
I knew it arrived and did not miss.

On campus a stout of Rooibos and Rose,
A Fynbos is allowed for smokers who grow.

So I knelt by feelings saved,
Dealt by kneeling, got enslaved.

Come to my studio any day,
There I'll feed you my DNA!

Jeanie I'm dreaming of Athens Texas,
I see Jeanie on my weenie in the back of a Lexus!

Kristen Kristen, now I'm listening!

Wild-and-divine likes rhymes by ravenofferings,
Get riled, drink wine, and smoke some mind altering!

Though Carol from the chorus had lowly mores,
I met a pharaoh from Egypt who worshipped Horus!

A profound question from Heather's Tinder,
Is existence a lesson you can't remember?

Yvonne Berry is very caring.
I see beyond what Yvonne is wearing.

The clay on this earth in the not distant future,
Will portray mankind as a planetary moocher.

Get on Yvonne, a new horizon,
Upon you Yvonne I feast my eyes on.

Yvonne Yvonne flaunt and be merry,
Yvonne come on, I want that cherry.

Ashley do flash me or my hopes will so dash me!

On your cam we can barely mesh,
But on the lam we'll share some flesh.

Ashley Ashley is especially attractive,
Tell me Ashley, you sexually active?

The osprey in me does hiss to me, what I wish for free is a fish from thee.

Aarika, like paprika, is a lass that's fiery hot!
Alas Aarika's across America, so sadly we cannot.

Rooibos of Fynbos is tea that is hearty,
Thrives thus with Couscous, to make one less farty.

On these breasts I pour my gravy,
A taste of beans from His Majesty's navy.

Megan I'm beggin', let me give you a peggin'!

First I'll arouse you as we drive around,
Then I'll de-trouse you and we'll go to town!

So I said to Jennifer, of Culver Indiana,
"Will you be my lover if possibly you can-a?"

"Sex is best yes, in the back of a Lexus.

Doris in the chorus has nothing to say,
But Doris won't bore us if she stops by to play.

Yvonne so fair, lies down in the sun,
No bikini line there, Yvonne ain't wearing one!

Back in the nineteen eighties,
While doing cocaine and dating,
We snorted to get high,
through Jackson's right eye,
And listened to Blondie while mating.

In order to be your Tinder lover,
I'll have to win you from under cover!

Adrianna, Adrianna I like that ring!
It makes me daydream, hey what's your thing?

Lauren, Lauren let's go touring'

Bethanie doesn't mess with me;
She bets I'll guess there's a nesting fee.

Alexa I betcha get wet when I text ya!

Coretta Coretta, jump into my Corvette-a!

Erica, Erica, your work is too clerical,
If my love works a miracle do stop being hysterical.

Susu if I lose you 'twill be impossible to goose you!

Bluetooth is local but SuSu is global!

The fishes give kisses of immortality.

The dish that's before yee, is the fish that implores thee.

What eats ends up eaten - that's finality.

Can't Get Enough of that Rhythm

Goodbye snow, frozen ice,
Polar woes bring solar highs.
Now the ocean waves are lapping,
How the city knaves are clapping.

Somewhere in this pile is a sock that matches
If I sort awhile, and make matching batches.

A sock once paired, decreases the job,
Of finding mates, for the sock that's odd.

A sock that's odd, or a sock that's flawed,
May ridicule or blister cause.
Once thrown out, the other will haunt,
Like a lover without any toes.

The twirping of birds, the buzzing of bees,

Makes learning how words are like apiaries.

I remove my shoes to catch the draft,
Of frozen air, whatever's left.

I texted a gal back in school yea,
A Connecticut pal named Julia,
We spoke of love, and the gods up above,
And how money and sex can fool ya.

A digital hug is best on a rug,
but a virtual kiss is a tryst that was missed.

If I kiss that berry in her well,
I'll know the risk of going to Hell!

I dreamt of stars, galaxies above,
The entire Cosmos, and all she wove.

Letters, lines, verses, pages,
In fetters try to learn in stages.
Play on strings, feed the crow,
Tell you things you need to know.

Grab that pencil, open your letter,
Make sure you read it, start feeling better.

When misery and hatred have left the earth,
Will the visibly sacred bring a deft rebirth?

If a memory you have, is of a lady you tossed,
Then a century might pass, as she fades and is lost.

Memory eats, at a heart that is longing,
Reveries a feat, to part from belonging.

Pain is a whisper, that makes a small breath,
From the center of all, to the knowledge of Death.

Grasped were the facts, of life as it was,
Tasked by some acts, of strifes between love.

If a basin of tears means sacrificed love,
What's waiting for fear of devices above?

What militant computers lack in heart,
Diligent suitors hack with art.

Russia's ruble is cheaper than oil,
Yet Putin's shoe-bill is as dear as his girl!

Then and there shards were broken,
Men beware what words are spoken.

Go on the lam until they shoot ya,
Me and my bottle of ole kambucha!

Something's worse than fecal matter,
And that's the curse of legal data.

Lauren Lauren I hear water pouring!
Lauren Lauren it won't be boring!

Paris stumbled, asked if he'd fallen,
Into the formidable crevasse of his dear Helen.

Sharenne, my dream are you carrying?
Sharenne, my queen what are you wearing?

Was the pussy shot a feline shot?
Or a glimpse of crotch just done ad hoc?

Before a tearful yellow dazzle,
Germany scores seven at football Brazil.

The worst is to suffer from an internet fling,
She isn't your lover but hurts like a sting.

Lelia Ophelia, how does life deal ya?

If I kiss the berry in your well,
I'll know the risk of going to Hell.

While he searches, she'll return to him,
A lovers urge for for eternal whim,

I'll pinch those strings and hold them tight,
and with my tongue I'll push all night.

Stroke your doves, let them be shown,
Sex is a bitch who loves to moan.

A shed of stars warps galaxies above,
Where looms a Cosmos and all she wove.

When the question rose what form to turn,
An answer lept forth as from an urn.
Thoughts coalesced, lit into a word,
'Throw a bowl' said the form interred.

Putin gasped in Rasputin's chapel,
"Why falls my ruble, like Newton's apple?"

What builders conceive takes effort to believe,
Starts far from the standard plan.
Though possible to say that blueprints portray
A treasure that one day is man's.

What cries and gnaws, but doesn't hurt?
A lover with fuzz, who makes you work.

On motion'd feet I carry speech,
But when you eat, I've got no beat.
Close by a yard, or ocean waves,
Spoke by a Bard, or Celtic Vate.

What adds but cannot think,
Or ferments to a hearty drink.
Newton's notion of a forces unseen,
Sits between me, and what you're seeing.

What rules, hear howls.
There are wolves in us all.

All the gals that got away,

Are still the ones I hope to bed someday.

Alas our time is running short,

My list grows longer I sadly report.

A quick review of those inspired hussies,

Who flew by my window, and left me crusty.

Many seemed they wanted to nest,

Not enough who wanted good bed rest.

My ego pursues a fox,
Through sunlight and the dark,
Should it happen in a forest?
Or should we do it in a park?

Whether the Euro members mesh,
Germany will take a pound of flesh.
Printed funds from a paper sock,
To buy Grecian homes on white bare rock.

Riptide in a town that was tawdry and dark
I met an old fish with a guitar made of bark.

Medicine or poison done just right .
I’ve drunk so much, I've lost my sight.

Those warmongers won't take blame,
They want more war for their defense-gate game.

Caffeine goes, peed away,
Poisons generated, unfortunately stay.

What fair trade is coffee black?
Kali’s drink, welcomes me back.

What ominous spire makes a crow inquire,
And perch to look out below.
The heights of empire shall not equal a flyer,
So much as the most humble crow.

Which from the Crypt doth first appear,
The Raven or her Master?
One drinks and feeds, while the subject bleeds,
Death comes on so much faster.

If the myths of state are history,
Bricks of fate are illusory.

Ride to Town

You appeared in my dream as a succubus,
A demon who worked with an Octopus.
Together we boarded an Omnibus,
Then rode to town all three of us.

Buzzing around Love's Flower

One day I'll live in a swinging state!
It's nice to vote, but ideal to date!

Some say truth is learning,
Knowledge sits in books.
All young hearts are yearning,
Love's every place I look.

Now the dollar’s going down.
It was supposed to make me rich.
Play me in your rock band,

or drown me in a ditch.

Flights from earth are overbooked.
Returning berths, alas, overlooked.

Slice up onions, stir in meat,
Add hot spices, simmer and steep.
Dice your tomatoes chop up thyme,
Reduce with fire, to the color of wine.

One sad problem,
Of my vampire leanings,
Are stacks in the laundry room,
And down at dry cleaning.

It's never quite dark enough, to make love in a parking lot!

Upon a grey ocean I was struck by the notion,
To look for the almighty one.
Way overhead, dark clouds of lead,
Made space for their old friend the sun.

Sweet angel come to me,
I'll caress your darling face.
Let me call you beauty
Then lie in my arms for days.

That hairdresser working seems very tender!
Imagine her twerking, she'll gladly bend ya!

My soul dwells in valleys,
   my mind talks of feats.
My spirit soars then dallies,
   my heart just walks the beat.

The Ouroboros circles without fail
In eternal search of his own tail.

This ebony flower you must not miss
It will earned this poet a beautiful kiss.

When I awake and blood won't move
I drink sake to give my mood a shove.

Surplus bacon, surplus gas,
Surplus cars and surplus ass.
A farce in money's making debt,
They'll all loose it, you can bet.

Is Love not favoring thee?
Put a flower on my lingham and then you'll see,
A ritual from the best of Shaman,
Would be your Petal on my Stamen!

They don't teach love in college,
They make you read about it
For the rest of life you barely manage,
To take full advantage of it.

Take note of a philosopher's wattle,
Make measure of a great thinker's shine.
From the treasures of Aristotle,
To the bloats of Wittgenstein.

Trucking water, flying food,
I wonder how to trim my needs.
What lovely change of mood it'd be,
If in you I was planting seeds.

Now I'm a fan, of the hubby of Dianne,
Who no longer takes bubbly baths.
His Jag runs on wine, all very sublime,
Saves a few quid, according to his maths.

Doing naked yoga, I'm craving brut cafe,
Spoon in sacred sugar, to make a good latte.

After a rich meal washed down with wine
Tell me your bitchy tales of nymphos and swine.

How did I meet you?
Let me count the ways.
You sat at my Brooklyn table
And together we ate some grapes.

Love these days is what anyone says,
Not tied to a college or sect.
We're models of clay, made for screenplays,
Our knots are tied for effect

I'll dance your name for days on end,
I don't ever want to stop . .
I dedicate my heart to you, then,
You'll get it when I drop!

On a road through rural Kansas,
I stopped in an old cafe.
I asked for a cup of coffee,
And a piece of pie to stay . . .

What self-appointed deans of Art
Deem to tell us where to Fart.

All that was old,
Or ever could be . . .
Dazzled us with gold,
And dissolved in mystery.

Natasha's to be married on Saturday,
On a boat in Long Island Sound.
I will be there in black tie,
And Natasha will be honeymoon bound .

They say you love smutty stories,
And all sorts of off color jokes.
You use your morning for glories.
Of all the things that you smoke!

What are you cooking?
Let me have a nip,
Then let me taste some nookie,
Sitting in your chocolate chip.

You're a no good you're a louse
I'm throwing sheep at your house.
Hop on over, hop on down
Hop like mice around the town.

Put down that pile, make poetry awhile.
I’ll A-muse you . . . and you a-Muse me . . .
To the end of time we will see.

Every game has rules for playing more
Every pleasure comes with pain
Every gentleman has his whore.
And every footman has his dame.

Girls like boys that are coy with their toys
Boys like girls that toy with their curls.

An ultrasound strobe that vibrates and stuns
Excavates precious dentin and rips out its guns.

Patti scrubbed barnacles from my barques and my frigates,
Dental-ed her floss like she marked to re-rig it.
Aside from the dross, and brown coffee stains
Patti said that my fleet, can start munching again.

I'll not baulk if you're stalking
But if you mock I'll come knocking.

When the rhyme and meter
start getting frothy,
It's time that my feet
begin heading for coffee.

Sometimes mystery shows a face
An enigma with nothing to hide
No questions you can't ask her,
No race to see inside.

You pour from a mountain above,
You descend straight into the bay
I wonder then if your fountain of love,
Is intending to maybe get laid.

Best not pursue fortune,
Wealth or even fame,
Rather just do the things
You can live with by your name.

We all have wants . . We all have needs.
 A penny for your thoughts . . A dollar for your deeds.

Some say truth is learning . . That knowledge is in a book . .
I just know my heart is yearning . . . And love is where I look.

I passed through Eden to get to St. Paul.
I drove from St. Peter but Eve didn't call.

I got my self sore, after I done got bold.
I got me some more, had a son, then got old.

Abbreviate pain, claim it don't hurt,
Deviate and abstain and hope I'm not burnt.

Put down that pile, make poetry awhile
I’ll A-muse you . . . and you A-Muse me . .

If see my king around, I'll make my plea
If I poke my queen, will she poke me?

Every lake's a lakeshore, every sea a strand.
Every galaxy a perimeter, every illness a mend.

What undoes what's already said?
How to re-make an unmade bed?
Get beneath covers, slip back in time,
Take out your old lovers, edit out just one line.

Folding socks is easy, though folding bras is queasy.
A panty in hand will make me stand,
But bluejeans keep me needy!

I love such synchronicities,
They demonstrate love's power.
They prove we're just a bunch of bees,
Buzzing around love's flower.

The Eyelid

In machine costume
the door flies open,

light flies,

in a chain of frames,

as prayer beads

count time and unwind.
Eyelids flutter

move across

the photon screen

at the rear of my third eye.

A Camera Gate

I wait at the chapel gate

     for a prayer . . . 

Years drawing bobbins sprockets, 

    things that turned . . . 

I made cameras with bobbins

    then some films

    turned.

The bobbins spun pots,

sprocket edges became lips,

     thirsty lips

     edges

     crafted for a metal ending.

Potters know of lips

smoothed by wet chamois,

     how alpacas sacrificed their skin.

I walked through that gate, 

     went into that chapel.

Turned, poured one to the other . 

     did I pray?

     pour sacred water into vessels?

.  

Muddy Waters and other Rhymes

Muddy Waters' blues is t'wang.
So he taught us, about playin' pain.
Strings is flyin' off his fret,
Sings he's dyin', home in bed.

The strangest sensation for this old train,
Is to pull out pots I saw in my brain,
Or was it in dreams that streamed to and fro,
Entangled by time in dances with snow.

The Death of a great, or the loss of what's wild,
Reminds us we're late, to pause for a child.

One day I'll show motive in a swinging state,
It would be nicer to vote, but would be better to date.

See actors, sharp on stage,
'Neath clover, dark in shade.
Above them, grows a ficus forest,
 'Neath them all, a fawn adores us.

I see elephants brushing paint.
Never rushing, they sweep and feint!

A day of bright sun becomes a day of white light,
A day for my spoon, which is silvery bright.

Poetry descends, photons in a cloud,
I send them back, make her electrons go wild.

If I tell you what all poetry is,
 . . . you'll go stark raving mad.
If I tell you what the darkness is,
 . . . can we promise to keep it in bed?

Mind is craved by soul, the way water needs a bowl.
Soul give worth to mind the way coal gives birth to light.

Find this note, don't go this way,
I left it here, then got taken away.
Life isn't perfect, fate isn't fair.
I'm no more, but you shouldn't care.

Love and Lust are never missed,
You’ll find them both on most guest lists.
One is trusty, the the other arty,
Those who notice, crash both parties.

'Who’s that bunny that laid eggs in leaves?
And that plump little elf who jumps down chimneys?

He stays locked up, and pounds my drum,
He wants outside, to loose a rhythm.

Went west birding on a holiday,
I saw Wren-tits of Family Sylviidae
True I saw Tits, I saw more than two,
But no bushy Tits, from clan Aegithalidae!

Arjun had a chariot, best in the Maha-battle!
Krishna gave a ride in it, in spokes that were pulled by cattle!

Like is to Sign,
as Metaphor is to Symbol.
I liken Design,
as a Door to a Thimble.

In one bold felony, I stole to acquire,
A cold dark mystery, set in golden fire.

I knew you in a previous lifetime,
   you were my previous lifetime gal.
I knew you so well it's frightening,
   Now you're my lifeline pal.

I see you're a joker, never look at clocks.
Your suit's for a poser, with two colors of socks.

Mercury's gone retrograde,
   time to write some poems.
I'll paint some pots with rhyme instead
   that my kiln will be firing soon.

The bloodless word has made me tire,
Of a gutless world that went 'vampire'.

You jumped in deep scheisse, took tea with Carol's hatter,
That pumped up your siz-e, and made that devil madder!

I'm goin' down, drunk my precious blood!
Towards another town, another bed of mud!

To whomever you barked, whatever you attracted,
Your curses in the dark, are one day enacted.

Life is a rumble where we all get to fumble
Get out and choose and put on your juice!

Wherever you parked, wherever you backed it,
Your farces in the dark, will one day get compacted.

Religion's just a crucible to hold what's molten and unknown,
Vision must be reducible, into what's golden and forlorn.

My father was a wolfhound,
   my mother a full-blood terrier,
He would rather run for love,
   than come back home to marry her.

What's indivisible and isn't named, . . . is fleeing,
But with that deserved name, . . . it is seen.

Put cash into your passion, then your passion's always awake,
Make your passion into a job, then your thirst is never slaked!

Tigers roam my imagination, whales bellow in my dreams.
Birds circle our machine nation, so we long for what she means.

If you fashion your passion, then your passion will surely break,

Your crashin' will be fashion, if your passion never slakes.

Human survival's not a biblical game.
Even what's written can't make Nature tame.

Her bitter talk flushed a lie,
Hawked a thrush, in winter rye.

The baby has no memory,
Its Mommy has two mammaries.

Walk to where you walk upright,
Talk to her, who learns from Light.

Go to where whistling sounds are strong,
Listen there for stillness, and Song.

Take a sip of the Housatonic,
Get so sick, too Loose-A-Tonic!

Poetry sets sail with a mast that breaks,
Gets caught in a gale, a psyche that shakes.

So these poems are never done.
The words are rounding, from two to one.

She says what she says and will not repeat.
Unplug your ears and stand on both feet.

Dylan sang a burst, in his apocalyptic brand new band,
Then I heard him drop some words, I wished I could understand.

For sure she's a poet if she called it Sci-fi,
She doesn't know it, it's all about sky!

The neti I bought has an elephant's long nose,
It puts water in my trunk, without a bong or hose!

You say you are my Oracle,
    You say you are my Muse,
Why are you being so practical?
    Why can't you let me choose?

We all showed up at U-Mass,
   there we heard Bob Dylan.
A heap load of blues and bass,
   that really was extremely thrilling'.

You're just missing me, and I'm just missin' you.
Let's wait patiently, till our moment comes through.

I knew I had caught her, when she poured that hot water
    and cried two tears in my tea.

Ten thousand visits have graced this page,

'Offers to Raven' has come of age.

Lyrics of joy, torments of rage.

A pyrrhic moment, a passing stage.

Balkan Politicians & Voodoo Economics

Who caused it all? I'm not talkin', 

But it ain't the fault of the subprime Balkans.

Berlusconi can't take aid, from the one and only IMF maid. 

If she was young he might have asked, for bunga-bunga but those times are past.

Greek bonds got weak, German banks got wormy,
thanks to the French the rot stench is germy!

Italian paper's coming down,
a fire-sale in your home town.

Swallow burdock as media medicine. 

Follow Murdoch if you need to jettison!

Emperor Silvio dreads a high rate bond. 

Fate will reveal a dead Euro, conned.

More bears are coming to Italy, 

to gore Berlusconi finally.

What print empire can fuss and strut,
Conspire, sin, say 'sorry' in smut. 

What karma prying into private lives,
Comes to haunt even Murdoch's lies.

Commons is to Murdoch as blank is to bored. 

Amens are encouraged since he won't be called Lord.

Greedy feeding at the trough,
Weeping wives and lovers lost, 

Brooks and Murdoch not enough,
To pay busted lies, and karma tossed.

If Jabba the Hut was really King Tut, and Murdoch was not a vulture,

The case is shut, the PM's a slut, and smut is really just culture.

My Printer's a Scanner

I've owned a device that prints on paper, for at least six years. It's a Canon, has performed admirably, albeit at quite a cost for cartridges and ink. It's one of those dual function machines, except it was entirely impossible for us to get the scanner working.

I'd print stuff for my accountant, my resume, etc. Twenty years ago when you wrote something, you printed it. There weren't those nice places on the web where you can tuck a daily diary entry, or photos, or remember someone's birthday.

Suddenly today, for some inscrutable electronic mystery, my printer died as a printer, but was reborn as the scanner it was always meant to be.

Printing documents is such an undesirable chore. But drawings! Drawings done with pen and ink can be scanned, made digital, combined with text, flow towards a digital life!

My printer died, but his head is up; he scans the world around him. . .

I'll Row you to Komodo

Tired of earthquakes, I'm off to Malaysia,
Less venomous snakes there, I'll smell the acacias.

And if you should dispatch, to Sulawesi,
Study your Dutch goed, then catch the ferry.

Chant Shinto, and make fire with flint-o,
I'll learn Voodoo, and incant like a Hindu.

Tremors in Timor means lava in Java,
Dance rhumbas in Sumba, for folly in Jakarta.

We'll get good food oh yeah, in dear ole Malaysia.

Fetter your feet to my mast my dear Mistress,
Better to beat me, than face a low mattress.

Don a kimono and I'll row you to Komodo,
In Kowloon we'll go saloon, I'll be your dear Frodo.

In my dream you were a succubus,
A demon who worked with an Octopus.
Together we all boarded an Omnibus,
And then rode to town the three of us.

My hopes are to climb, a sloped volcano,
Don a kimono, and row you to Komodo.

There are deer in Komodo, though people don't stag hunt,
There's a queer sort of fear of the resident dragon!

We'll tan yes, it's obvious, if we hike up Vesuvius.
Don't call me a genius, if things suddenly get igneous.

Once we start napping on the peaks of Merapi,
We'll wangle an angle on a rented serapi.

I'll grope your nappies on the slopes of Merapi,

We'll fangle an angle on a dope head's serapi.

Finding this ditty too graphic and corny though?

I'll try to be witty, after we blast through old Borneo.

Tiny poems tend to be volcanic eruptions,
that bring me back to Platonic corruptions.

The First Five Reels

Wednesday December 14, 1983

Yesterday we viewed the first rough-cut reels of "The Bostonians" at MovieLab, on the West Side by 12th Avenue. Ruth Jhabvala, Jim Ivory, Ismail Merchant, the whole editing crew including J____ and Cathy Wenning, as well as myself, were present.

At the end of the screening words were kept to a minimum. You could hear the seats creak. We disbanded, heads low, into different cabs, Assistant editors Joe, and Lori with  J_____ in one cab with the boxes of film to go back to the editing room, Ruth and Jim in another to talk alone. A single pretty woman came out of building so we let her take the third taxi. In the shuffle, Ismail and myself were left by ourselves. He was cracking his fingers nervously. A heavy rain was falling, and there being no more taxis nearby, we walked back to the office on foot, getting ourselves thoroughly soaked.

I understood from Ismail's spangled gait how things were going to play out. Gesture for him was absolute communication. The cutting on the film was so bad that the resolve to fire J_____ had strengthened. I would be hired as editor, along with Cathy, who presumably would be made chief and that my days of writing, reading and contemplation would soon be at an end.

Late this morning Jim and Ismail both called at the same time, and we had a three way conversation about a plan to finish the film. Jim said I would share an editor credit with Cathy. J_____ was being let go today. When salary came up Jim said, "This is where I get off." Ismail and I agreed on a price of eight hundred and fifty dollars a week. That's more than I've ever been paid, though actually is less than what J_____  was earning, and far less than experienced union editors that work on fully budgeted Hollywood pictures. Anyway, I am happy, happy that at least once I am getting the chance to show my mettle in the cutting room before retiring from this racket. I'm happy also that my relationship with both Jim and Ismail has elevated me in one giant bound to a new level of trust.

Humphrey called to hear all the news and gave me all the tips he could think of about making cuts and overlaps. "It's the return of the prodigal son," he said chuckling. I know I have Humphrey to thank for this - he recommended they take the leap and hire his old assistant, as an editor.

In the space of a month my outlook changed.. By October end I assigned a different destiny for myself, away from film towards some other occupation that would support me and my vagabond musings. Film has come to be the thing that will give me work. I see writing, but only after learning better discipline, and more experiences. Literary loves will be indulged during the small morning hours, and at night after long days on film. Written work will have to wait, maybe years.

Three jobs await, picture edit of "The Bostonians", completion of the soundtrack and music in London, then production on "The Deceivers".

My sights and designs are way ahead, while my energies are free to focus on the moment.