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Sleepiness
Filtering through the sludge of sleep
still heavy in my veins
the soft light of morning
its coolness the hope of a new day
I awaken slowly without skill.
I arrive at the sink
dare not look up
to see my puffy face
and the small brown islands,
discolorings of my decades.
Slowly almost as if they are
great rusty cranes
my arms move my hands
to turn the faucet knobs
and water appears
miraculous in its freshness
and begins to wash away the cells
that have died during the night.
From my calloused hands
stirring the sleepy cobwebs
it transmits to my mind
the day's first idea.
I wonder why it is
in the surely rested state of my body
a deep almost imperceptible
underground river of feeling
heavies my limbs
making each movement a decision.
I sit here now writing on the glass table
trying to see through the clouds
still gathered in my unconsciousness
the droppings of Wednesday's bad news
not dissipated by my seven hour sleep.
Disappointment, sadness, and fear
pour out of my pen
onto the gray lines of my journal.
I wonder in words
how God avoids despair
observing the carnage and meanness
of my species.
And then in the ink sliding
across the page with ease
I see mothers arising from their beds
before all the others in the house
preparing food for the children.
I see teachers teaching
and workers constructing
and children laughing.
I hear church bells ringing
and choirboys singing
and banjos strumming
and grandmas humming.
I hear poets' rhymes
and the silence of times
spent by friends listening,
and old men telling children
stories of adventures
real and imagined.
Do I hear God smiling
in the trillions of moments
that humans choose to love
and make peace in a day?
I chuckle to myself
at my myopic vision
the stupidity of my conclusions
born from TV and FM news
from the smaller regions
of our humanity.
08/03/2006
The Singular Force of Flight
The far eastern region of my orb
too far to see or hear
beyond the window of my despair
a faint fluttering there.
The singular force of their flight
reached inside and summoned me
and without a will to see
I turned to the right.
From fathoms deep in sky
a great black wave
a translucent veil gave
its self to me.
From one eternal instant joined
I swooped and cut thin arcs
in gusts and boiling wind
born from raging buildings.
I was dizzy from the dance
enfolded in weightless trance
lifted up with infinite grace
into their frothy space.
This moment vanished me –
groundless, timorous and tiny –
but in this altered state
in their universe I was free.
Back to my office chair
in cool florescent light
I'll not forget that sweet flight
to the place where life is air…
08/03/2006
Author's Note: I wrote this years ago,
perhaps posted it on poesie.com
when it was still going. I found it in an old notebook and remembered that
moment in my downtown office when out of the corner of my eye I saw a
great flock of birds flying west. I like this poem and wanted to share it
with you.
A Conversation With Buildings
“...The present is too much for
the senses, Too crowding, too confusing--
Too present to imagine" From Carpe Diem by: Robert Frost
We commuters see you across the pallid plains
that link work and home
as we travel up the veins
where we exchange our life.
From a distance, a gathering of tiny prisms,
you reach your small arms into the horizon.
From here you seem so slight so humble --
not a roar but a soft beckoning voice--
but we know, even from afar,
you are the beating heart of our city.
Closer in we hear you declare
our creative collective intelligence.
Your urgings-- day after day without fail--
have bent our backs and our hearts
and caused us to create possibilities.
We pour ourselves into your womb--
humming with fertile waiting
to make our small lives bigger.
You towering glass,
still glowing the night shift's light,
you massive mystery--
can we match your might, your height?
But you smaller ones closer to the ground
where we walk by your rocky-textured hide
of brown and maroon and faded gold,
people live in you.
They make their dreams beyond their schemes.
They touch and laugh and nourish their humanity.
But all of you-- making us together--
you bid OUR buildings not our tearing-downs.
We erect in you again and again our dailyness.
You give place to the rituals and routines
that weave our national fabric.
We come to you to begin our buildings,
sweeping aside the dust of our depression.
Inside your belly we build our new presents.
Not denying the past still attaching its sorrow to our souls,
we turn from the predator feeding on our wounds,
beyond our crowding confusing senses,
imagining and making ourselves with our buildings.
12/28/2001
The Water Tower
It stands there on its four round legs
on miraculous soil
tilled quietly in the evening
by a few assembled gardeners
who break the ground with their honesty
and fertilize it with the humor of their humanity
pouring out their wounds and mistakes
mixed with victories accumulated one day at a time
watered with their tears
planted with tiny seeds of hope
and laughter and gentle jibes.
That water tower so unnoticed
so uncelebrated by a world
beset with the turmoil
of power, the pestilence of intolerance,
and all the dark monuments
of the human ego.
That humble water tower,
its blue belly full of liquid life,
of experience, strength, and hope
makes us look up beyond our ruins
and, like the moon,
remains steady, loyal and true
in its quiet majesty.
08/03/2006
Author's Note: Dedicated to my Thursday
night group.
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