Let

Cat Asleep on Rug

Ineffable Present
careening, seething,
(gelatinous collision of
past and future)
Universe breathing.

Mute Mother
(whispering) (yes),
perilous fusion
resonating us.
There is no choice
but to give in
to terrifying

Bliss (consciousness).

Honor the seed, the flower,
the book, the hour
(and the subtle, singing space between)
Forgive as you go.
Let rest
all this.

This is another “everything” poem. I seem to yearn for the big picture, wouldn’t you say? Anyway, I’ll be away a few weeks, driving East in my new (’01) Volvo S60 T5, floating along the highway with Mahler or Sedaris or Steve Reich blasting. I’ll hike in the Adirondacks, then see a friend’s family in Vermont, then visit my father on the Cape, then attend and play at my second cousins wedding, then visit with my mother a week, then back here. Let’s just hope I really like my car after nearly 2000 miles in two weeks!

Somehow


Sallow fruit of doubt (guilty, rotting holes,
smashed hope, mute possibility, pause for complacency),
whose lazy seeds spawn
contorted fragments of forget;
tattered, moot sentences,
                                                hesitations,
echoes of fear,
                                                following fear of fear.
Craning, one can hear
their long lost sorrows attached
to our own, thumping heart.

Mind’s hoary soliloquy
flaps frantically,
fitfully free; while
          quintessential doors of perception
(five of them)
          filter cosmic, white heat
          through prisms of colors-
          lapis, ochre, sienna
rainbow’s light,
dark unraveling.

Decoding time into days,
we clutch at pebbles in the stream
dreaming the gurgling flow
into pomegranate’s passion,
guzzling its nectar, pits and all.

Vignettes, billions, (perpetual unfolding)
trembling plays with no set-
Characters (you and me) act
on shifting grains of
windswept dunes in
Sahara’s raw dance.

Yet, selfish insistence,
pearly data of birth
assembles uncannily-
             mapping gravity’s clout.

Dikes of persistence
shape tomorrow’s fortunes
from today’s regrets.
Torrential rivers
of love and pain, joy and betrayal
flow past eroding banks,
             through unequal silences of
             sorrow and shame.

Pandora’s plethora of tarnished ennui
sinks overloaded barges-
               good intentions, weighed down
               with neglect.
Compost condensed beneath timeless
yearning, crushed into syrupy coal,
morphs
to become diamonds.

After all is said, all is done,
After Time spins out
when doubt is spent, words gone-

Somehow, Silent
from amongst this clutter
callow wings unfurl, revealing a Pearl.
Salubrious jewel.
Tabula rasa.

Memories

Conch/Bug shadow

Memories give us amnesia
about what we could know:
spooks telling truths
in cunningly coy
closed, secret sessions.

They wrap us in myths,
conjuring dreamy, alluring
vapid mirages
                         which may guide us-
                         beguiling as
                         stars in the distance
while receding further, further
as we approach.

Memories shatter moments
of fragile truth, (unwillingly)
drawing us
irresistibly, to their
tinseled cocoons.

They corrode love’s
fresh childish rapture with
sugar and rust
syrup and dust.

Memories lock us in
windowless rooms
as we stare longingly at
faded, curling photographs
of the way
we once wished
we once dreamed
we might have been,
but may never know-
for haunted oldness coats
new moments like thick, black grease.

Now forget all this
and peel open your heart.

I wasn’t too happy when I wrote this. I had been rejected by a long term lover. But it has a certain bitter truth to it about clinging to the past.

Incandescent Nectar

Incandescent Nectar of Life,
conscious of Itself through our senses,
breathing our breath; and which,
with our caring awareness of one another,
breathes Life full with Love.

Here only, forever Now is,
which, breaking with by and by
becomes again the Full Emptiness,
where the billows of ruminating Dust
show in relief the shadow of Time,
and a brief glimpse
through Fate’s curtain
into who we are.

This sums up my mystical take on life. It’s a “glimpse” of where we came from, where we are, and where we’re going.

This poem is also featured on my new Zaadz profile: GarnetDavid. Stop by and say hello. Peace.

Babbling Drops

Rain plunks babbling drops on the skylight glass above…
                 Xylophonic riffs
                         ( jazzy counterpoints of
                         clustered rhythms)
                ebb and roll
                singing a sweet, wet, tinkling blues.

Shiny, chartreuse oak leaves
born just days ago
                glow
                glisten
                joyfully jiggling under the gurgling drizzle.

Spring froths forth, foaming green.
My eyes limp across this languid scene.
The dripping tunes, tipping drooping leaves
become my only need.

I’m a little late with this poem, which was written in late Spring. I tried to imitate the rhythms of the dripping drops in the poem.