ALWAYS THE GARMENT

Quiet and a lit candle.

Time and whispered

yearnings. Anchors

to the moment.

These are the fabric,

the warp and weft,

the pull and pump,

of a living rhythm

I weave

by being creating,

by settling into

a space I make

like a garment

that keeps me

safe and warm

in winter

and always,

if only I remember

to sit down before

the loom of Now.

IDENTITY THEFT

I woke up this morning

and felt like

I had been ransacked

in the night.

I felt like a part of me

was missing.

And then I remembered

what I had done

the night before

and who I was with

and that everything,

everything that happened,

and the loss
that came with it,

came from the choices

I had made.

It was then I knew

that I was the thief

in the night, that I had

stolen from myself again.

HOMONYMS

If we don’t see

the idea of SKY

in the open sore

and suffering

within a wound

we can’t soar.

If we only

pine and whine

about the depth

and darkness

of the hole

we’re standing in

and forget

we’re actually in

a WELL, well then 

there’s no way we will

feel whole and at one

with ourselves.

We must be with

where we are, always—

listening for the here,

in what we hear,

the experience,

strength and hope

that’s at the core of

who we are. In other words:

we need to look

for the living

homonym hidden

inside our humanity.

The name 

in anonymous.

THE OVERCOAT

I hang dormant 

in the cave of your closet.

I am a beast

waiting for the season

to wake me.

For you to

finally have

a need for me,

my girth and length.

Climb into me 

like a lover. Let me

surround you,

the whole of you,

like a lover,

so you become the man

you are meant to be.

Wear me like a king’s cloak.

Winter is coming.

Together we will

stand fortified

against the besieging storms.

Claim your kingdom

and the gold inside

one jeweled button at a time. 

FRESH AIR

What if you were so moved

by the movie you just saw

that you channeled Terry Gross

as you left the theater

and asked the stranger next to you:

Why did you choose to see 

this film and not another today?

Did it make you remember your life

and how you’ve been broken

and how you came to be healed again?

Whatever provoked you to wear

rainbow-colored spandex in public?

Does the name of your dog sweeten your day?

Was your son promoted this week and were you proud?

What makes a crime a crime?

Where are you headed now?

 for a drink, across a bridge, into a fog,

or to an orphanage in your mind?

Do you know where you’re going?

Are you a tourist or a traveler?

The film made you curious,

made you want to interview

each and every by-stander

about their deepest desire,

so strangers became less strange

and humanity became more human.

You want your questions to take you,

without censorship or any hesitation,

into the magic,

into the mystery,

into the grand tour of life.

You want to know your brothers

and sisters of the world

in all their colors and complexity.

You want to peel back the layers

of the living and see there is

a beating heart inside.

You want to believe that trust

is not a nonsense song

with lyrics like Semolina pilchard

but is full of hidden anthems

and the trill of a high-pitched horn

and a singing satellite.

If you actually had these conversations

with strangers in public places

then maybe you could leave

whatever movie you were just in,

step into a November night,

and really breath the outside air, 

the fresh air, like a gratitude 

that fills the lungs and life

with all that’s needed: love.

THE MIX

Source after source,

layer upon layer,

are woven into one track.

We call this density music.

Sometimes, well-intentioned engineers

lost in the act of bringing

so many disparate elements

together in one place

mistake distortion for harmonics,

merger for marriage.

There is no fixing a mix like this

when every sound

is wedded to every other sound

and is overwrought

and can’t be uncoupled.

The only thing to do is to start over,

to scrub the tracks clean

and return to the source material,

to the native sounds

before they were married,

before their essence

got lost in the mix.

SHRINES

Build them 

everywhere 

and with 

anything you can.

With nursing bras,

life vests,

even lighthouses.

From conversations

had from middle seats,

from fugitive oceans,

or for the sake

of the sudden arrival

of a hospice bed.

Make them from

the playa of life

to remember

what’s been lost

and the journeys 

dutifully taken.

Your green fuse

will blossom 

and make room

for more life 

when you do.

Be like the Asian moth

that causes the elephant

to cry and then feasts

upon its faithful tears,

like a babe
at its mother's breast.

TOUCHING TARANTULAS

A terrarium

called Life

overrun with

tarantulas.

This is what we see

when we put

paralysis between

us and the glass room.

Why not

chunk fear down

into nibby bits

we manage

a piece at a time.

The distance between

us and our phobias

disappears if we do,

along with our 

fear of fear.

When it does

maybe then we’ll venture

behind the glass,

march into the room,

and let the little beasties

cover us

from head to toe

and not care.

TENDER AND TENUOUS

Everything seems

so precarious

these days

with so much wind,

fire and smoke,

and rolling blackouts

in the mix. This

morning, in one room

then another,

quite suddenly

and by accident,

sugar plum

tomatoes and

push pins fell

from their counter-

tops to the floor

to make a carpet

I dared not walk on.

QUESTIONS

Quarks and red dwarfs

wouldn’t exist,

you might say,

without them,

the instruments of science.

Questions, framed

just so, and deftly employed

are like microscopes

and telescopes, eyes

into the human spirit.

They allow us to see

realms within ourselves

we might otherwise

be blind to.

So think twice

before you offer up

ready-made advice

to someone lost

in life’s mystery.

Where listening

and curiosity meet

is the quantum

mechanics and cosmology

of self-discovery,

a music of the spheres

that knows no scale.

DEADHEADING

These days

my thinking

is made of them:

blossoms,

dry and rotting

stalk upon stalk.

Deadheading

is what’s needed

to keep this spoilage
from spreading,

from seeding further.

May this poem

be the shears

to spawn new growth.

And the prayer 

to the perennials

that could flourish

in my mind.

THE CURTAIN

A life spent on stage

acting and directing

is now holed up

in a hospice ward

swaddled in dementia,

cradled by cancer.

A curtain

divides the room.

This veil between,

this undulation of light,

enraptures the man

and has him pointing,

 as if to say:

There, on the other side, is

where my next play

takes place.

His arm, getting heavy,

falters, falls.

His lids bow

to the curtain.

Eyes close

to dream.

This thespian life,

more and more each day,

 gives sway

to Silence’s soliloquy 

and rounds

itself to Sleep.