THE SERIAL SOBRIQUETIST

 

Nobody knows

but her.

 

Not the barista

behind the counter.

 

Not anyone standing

in line. Not even  

 

those who are waiting,

like her, to collect

 

their drink order.

She does it solely

 

to entertain herself,

to make life

 

a little less

hum-drum,

 

a little less

run-of-the-mill,

 

you might say.

She takes

 

an ordinary event,

like getting

 

a cup of coffee,

and turns it

 

into something

silently sensational

 

by infusing it with

some good old-fashion

 

imagination. The barista

sets her drink

 

on the counter

and barks like

 

an auctioneer

to no one in particular,

 

Norton. Our heroine,

feeling a bit

 

like a child shoplifter

stealing a pack of Wrigley’s

 

from the corner drug store

unnoticed,

 

sweeps in to scoop

up her drink,

 

now donning a name

that’s not hers.

 

Her fake-name is 

her little secret.

 

Her artful

improvisation.

 

Today it’s Norton

tomorrow

 

it may be Everest 

or MacGuffin.

 

Her whimsy will

decide - which

 

reminds me

of the prank, Pessoa,

 

the great Portuguese poet

would pull 

on hot summer days

in Lisbon: he would 

toss his blue wool hat

to strangers

in the street

to watch them

 

become a little 

less strange

as their hands 

fumbled nervously, 

poetically

to make the catch.

 

Her fake-coffee-name is

her way of making herself

 

a little less strange

in a world that keeps

 

getting alarmingly stranger

one prosaic day at a time.

 THOUGHTS DURING MEDITATION

When they arrive

drunk and stumbling

across the dance floor

during the toast,

crashing a wedding 

they weren’t invited to, 

pay them no mind. Return

 your attention to

the empty plate

in front of you

and know that 

this white porcelain  

disc of nothingness

is the meal

the Bride and Groom 

ordered, had catered

especially for you - the guest

who came with

an insufferable and insatiable

hunger in their heart,

hoping to meet, 

quite by accident,

their Beloved

to be.

POLLEN*

Seeking quiet

I sometimes go 

into the cave

of my own mind.

If I sit long enough

I will see 

Sanskrit letters

Buddhist sutras or mantras

all inscribed and glowing 

in the stone of the walls.

And if I sit longer still

I will hear voices 

of nearby ascetics 

and sages chanting

in their caves. 

So many voices

scriptures and teachings 

come to me

in the hollow 

of my mind.

And if I sit longer still

the cave becomes 

a hive

a magnificent buzzing

a swarm filled 

with its hunger 

for pollen

and the image 

of bobbing in flight

among the poppy petals.

*Inspired by the book, Tantric Quest: An Encounter with Absolute Love, by Daniel Odier

WHEN THE GHOST IS GONE

a phantom limb 

and the pain it knows

or the promise 

of a promise

either is 

an option

a cipher

is a zero

or a circle  

catching dreams

 LEAVES TO THE LEFT

Heart shaped

and verdant. 

Sun pumping 

through them

through their rivers 

of raised veins.

So much rawness 

gathered in one place

is nearly too much to bear.

Yet, I step in among them

to get a closer look

to be surrounded by branches

to be inside a thicket 

of leaves, leavings.

Their green fuse is on fire.

I can almost hear the crackling.

A sound like Sirens singing

like songs, sonnets, sung

to Orpheus–who also knew 

something about grief and loss

and what it meant to be left 

and then subsequently

 torn apart. 

FEATHERING THE FIRMAMENT

A feathering 

made possible 

by the light 

of the sun

A wing

that beats

as leaf, sky

and cloud

A bird, brilliant

and soaring

A firmament thronged

in green, blue and white

THE SECRET OF SILK

There is a poetry in you 

that is primordial, imaginal.

Let this time 

be your chrysalis.

Spin, spin, spin. 

Abandon the old self.

Your new life is

 the secret inside the silk.

THE KOAN

She disappeared

In an ether of silence

Without warning

There were no 

Hands clapping

No forest

No trees

Only the sound

Of falling, falling

CHEATING THE MAZE*

Put your pencil at the center—

the place you want to end up—

and work your way out

to where you actually are.

 

Now you can start.

Now you can move

toward the heart of the maze.

This is the fastest and surest way

forward. It’s the path 

with the fewest obstacles, 

baffles and dead ends,

because the backtracking

shows you the routes

not to take. To win 

at the game of life

you must outsmart the mind’s

machinating maze.

You must cheat it to beat it.

*Inspired by Ken Page’s Deeper Dating podcast, [E003].

THE STUDENT 

I thought it would be 

the perfect ritual.

I really did.

But it wasn’t.

I wanted to do to Beauty 

what Beauty 

had done to me.

I thought it would burn 

like I did. 

But it didn’t.

The petals, the perfume,

the thorns 

of the freshly cut blossom

just wouldn’t 

catch fire.

It refused

to turn to ash

in the drizzling rain

and under 

the unblinking eye

of the magic mountain

at my back.

Because it didn’t burn

I had to throw 

the whole damn rose 

into the Shasta headwaters.

The wild current

should have carried 

the hardly charred blossom 

downsriver.

But it didn’t.

Instead it got caught

in a bevy 

of branches 

and rock.

And there it stayed,

so very far 

from the ocean

I meant it to travel to.

I had my reasons 

for this ritual. 

But my reasons 

weren’t reason enough

for loss to leave me

the way I imagined 

it would.

Maybe Beauty’s defiance 

was her way 

of saying: 

I have more, 

so much more

to teach you. 

You are, 

after all,

my favorite 

student. 

 WHAT WE CAN AND CANNOT SAY 

There is 

no word 

for the sound 

of a cormorant wing 

touching water 

in flight.

Just as 

there isn't

an expression

that describes 

the moment 

when the breath 

whispers yes 

to touch.

And yet 

when dry soil

receives  

a season's 

first rain 

petrichor is 

what we call

the release

of Mother Nature's

loamy perfume.

It's curious

what we have

names for 

and don't.

SCIENCE CLASS

Remember the microscopes, 

the beakers, the petri dishes?

Remember the saline solution?

Much of what we looked at up close

in grade school was in that salt water.

Saline is another word for salt.

Salt is a crystal.

Salience is a word that means clear.

Solution is a word that means 

answer. 

Crystal clarity is 

what’s needed to solve problems.

And that kind of clarity 

can be hard to come by.

To arrive at a solution 

you almost have to first 

become the problem, 

immerse yourself in the soup 

of the issue. You have to know 

how the problem behaves,

how it moves. 

You have to watch it 

like an amoeba

under a microscope.

Human beings swim in

the problem/solution petri dish 

a lot of the time. It takes 

the poet/scientist, within us, though 

to see that permeability is 

where it’s at - that we are better off

 just living the questions.

In other words: salience is 

in the act of osmosis, not in

the cilia and the cytoplasm.

AN AUTUMN RERUN

While stopped at an intersection

I saw the tiniest maple leaf

spiral its way

to the ground,

from branch to pavement.

The descent was over

before I knew it.

Before the light turned green.

I had the great desire

to return

the little red leaf

to its perch.

I wanted to see

it do what it did

again, but in slow

motion so the moment

would last longer,

so I could stay

longer inside

of those precious

autumn spirals,

so I could learn 

what circles 

have to teach me

before I go forward 

thinking the light is green

when it's really 

still red.

CHARIOT TO THE SUN

They spin

inside me,

the chariot wheels.

I am racing now

to meet the sun,

to merge with it,

to meld with the divine disk 

of sovereignty.

Sometimes it takes an invader—

a darkness from the outside

that enters—

to release the king within,

to set the wheels 

in motion,

for the spokes to cycle into 

the whirling wells 

of light 

they have always been.

CABANA BOY BLUE 

There is a cabana

that can be hard to find.

 

It is on a remote island

surrounded by

 

an ocean

vast and deep.

 

Its beach stretches

as far as the eye can see.

 

Here the sun is 

always shining.

 

This cabana has a name.

It is called self-love.

 

It has a color also.

It is blue like the sea.

 

Tropical. A blend of

say aqua

 

and azure.

I know a man

 

who knows this cabana well.

He is not afraid to wear

 

its color. He has painted

the nails of his toes with it—

 

the part of his body

he finds least attractive.

 

And yet with this paint

he makes his feet–

 

that walk him across the sandy earth

in stride with his dignity–

as beautiful and as sacred 

as the rest of him is.

Divinely adorned and anointed 

with the color of love

as his pedestal

he stands like an Adonis 

attentive and waiting

ready to be of service.

 GHOSTS & SAINTS

Even the lamp posts

in the light 

and heat of day

have their ghosts

in New Orleans. 

So many eyes, angels and halos 

hover above 

as the little creatures below 

enact their armored antics. 

Human beings 

really do try hard 

to be saints 

when they're not being devils.

THE ILLUSTRATED MAN

A man stands 

like a Corinthian column.

Ancient and eternal.

He is naked

before a full length mirror,

a mirror haloed in light. 

He is breathing.

He is being his own breath.

His gaze is sharp and clear, 

an arrow aimed at infinity

as if it were a single point of light.

He is looking at himself, looking 

at his body, at himself studying it.

Every inch is inked

in tattoos, with images 

of men, faces of men 

lined, written over with questions,

with stories, well-worn stories.

Each face is a different portrait 

made by a different artist.

As the wounds of this man 

awaken, as if from a dream, 

to the healer within him,

his breath finds its deeper rhythm.

He vibrates, and he sees 

that each illustration is now 

transmuting into flower,

a lotus blossom blossoming.

No two sets of petals are the same.

Each has its own shape, size and color.

Each is a whirling, swirling wheel, 

a pulsing vortex of light.

An arrangement of exquisite intricacies,

emanations and incarnations

rooting and ascending

at once.

Every male face, every tattoo

gorgeously arrayed on this body,

is constellating on and in it.

This man is a living cosmos, 

an epic and elegant astronomy.

A star map made flesh.

This man stands not as a Viking 

admiring his own armor

but as a Guardian

of muted energies 

that he stewards into song. 

Into anthems.

He is a space maker. 

A peace maker. 

A love maker.

He has so much to say.

So much to give.

He is humming and buzzing with

potential, purpose and passion.

He knows it is time -

time to manifest, to deliver 

the cargo he carries.

He knows this like

he knows his own heart beat,

the sound of his own voice, 

the sound of water, wind and flame.

He sees – and maybe for the first time – 

in the mirror, his beauty, 

his masculinity looking back at him. 

It beholds him, with tears in its eyes.

Breathing still, 

his breath on fire, 

breath-taken,

he steps forward

and walks through the glass,

the door into his divinity

with gratitude and grace

as the newly formed wings on his back.

And the world 

gasps with joy.

It has been waiting for him. 

It has been missing him.

It sighs, because,

he has finally and fully 

arrived.