VISUAL HAIKU

Three lines, no syllables

Just a sun rising, beneath

A crow and a crescent moon

THE CLOUD

Give, what 
you call

knowing, over
to the cloud

passing by
Your soul's

inside and waiting 
for you to hear

each syllable
the billowing

silence is carrying 
as the sounding 

of all that's
unsayable

 

I hope to see you at my poetry workshop

this Sunday, March 16,

at 2pm PST.

There is limited space, so register soon. 

For more information on the workshop, 

please visit this page.

WHERE TO PUT IT?

As an exercise to ward off the worry

that can gather in the mind

one might imaginatively 

decide to put all that mental mayhem

into an enormous

shipping container 

and send it out to sea.

Relocate it to a far away place

to be free of 

the relentless cacophony.

Others might put their worry

in different rooms 

in a high rise hotel.

Like the Ritz-Carlton

or The Hyatt Regency.

Or, rent out rooms in

Rumi’s Guest House.

I on the other hand 

would likely take 

the opposite approach

because I fancy trying to fit

the biggest of things 

into the smallest of places.

That’s just what I do.

Yeah, so I’d probably take 

all my tornados of distress

and stuff them back into 

the arabesque genie’s bottle. 

And cork in it.

The rantings and ravings now

nothing more than 

a tinny whimper.

No… that’s not it.

The lamp, the lantern

is not small enough. 

A grain of sand... 

that’s the ticket.

William Blake, I think,

 would be in favor this poetic choice.

Yes, I’d put all my anxious agonizing

in that infinitesimal speck of shoreline

and then tuck it inside an oyster 

and then place that little purse 

at bottom of the deepest ocean

for safe keeping.

I’d let it lie there 

under the weight

of all that water

and then I’d wait 

and wait 

and wait

for the day 

when the collective irritant 

of my worry 

had fashioned itself 

into something 

quite spectacular and perfect:

the world’s most precious pearl.

Yep, that’s what I’d do

with all my worry, if my imagination 

was up to the task.

Hello All,

I am hosting my first online 

poetry workshop for non-poets. 

It is called 

COME TO YOUR SENSES. 

It will be offered monthly 

beginning Sunday, Mar. 16, at 2pm PST. 

There is limited space, so register earlier! 

For more information, please visit this page. 

I hope you can join us!

THE ASSIGNMENT*

The Zen teacher

gave out twigs, 

pebbles and flowers.

His students were to 

draw each of them

one at a time

but not progress 

from one to the next

until the drawing 

was identical to

the item they had placed 

on the page 

before them. The only

instruction was: Draw

what you see, not 

what you don’t see.

The teacher went around 

the room examining 

the student work. Mostly 

what he saw was 

what the students

hadn’t seen but drew 

anyway. These students

had to start over. Later 

in the day the teacher 

came upon a young woman. 

There was only the white lily lying

 on the blank page. 

She hadn’t drawn anything.

She was crying.

Why are you crying,

the teacher asked:

The flower is dying, she said.

The flower is dying! 

She, unlike the other students, 

did not have to start over. 

She was her drawing.

She was the flower dying.

*Inspired by a story told by James Finely

 in his podcast, Turning to the Mystics (31;57)

Hello All,

I am hosting my first online 

poetry workshop for non-poets. 

It is called 

COME TO YOUR SENSES. 

It will be offered monthly 

beginning Sunday, Mar. 16, at 2pm PST. 

There is limited space, so register earlier!

For more information, please visit this page. 

I hope you can join us!

AMBIENCE

Start here, with this image.

Then, add in a roaring fire,

some Woody Guthrie on the speakers

behind the bar, a few billiard tables

at the other end of the room and 

yards of barren green velvet

looking lost and lonely under

the harsh track lighting. 

Then, see the barkeep

by himself at the bar 

drinking Fernet-Branca

while folding white napkins.

Then, hear him start singing

I Ain’t Got No Home 

In This World Anymore

right along with Woody, 

their voices blending as one. 

I am in this moment,

completely, like a bug in amber.

I am drinking in every last ounce

of this ambience 

as if it were a hazy ale 

on an aimless afternoon.

THE TRANSCRIPTION

I felt like an ant carrying 

three times its body weight in dirt

as it moved toward the hill it was making 

with its colony.

The hill is called Love.

I felt this way because

I was listening to a recorded talk 

about the relationship between 

the Dark Night of the Soul, Love 

and the Infinite Presence of God.

I was so moved by what I was hearing

and by the depth of the talk’s message

that I felt the need to transcribe it

just so I could be closer

to the words being spoken.

Every letter I wrote down 

was like the dirt on the ant’s back.

And yet I had the startling sensation 

that the more I wrote 

the lighter I became

as I moved assiduously

toward the hill of Love.

*I am hosting my first online poetry workshop for non-poets. 

It is called COME TO YOUR SENSES. It will be offered monthly 

beginning Sunday, Mar. 16, at 2pm PST. 

There is limited space, so register earlier!

For more information, please visit this page. I hope you can join us!