Category: 2021

Categories
2021 Garden Psalms LOVE Poems

I Love You

These words don’t suffice
For the depths of their meaning
So deep, an azure pool
Sky blue at the top
Navy in the middle
And a pitch blackness
Where no light can penetrate
Save the thought of you!
For true depth is darkness
And true love is the
Light that shines on
In your mind when
All else is dark.
That beacon that carries
You through darker moments,
Lonely nights and terrible possibilities
For even as we talk about
The “depth” of something
We rarely break down
What “deep” represents.
Like deep in the ground where
Well-springs hold dark waters
That once coaxed to the surface
Brings thirst-quenching Life!
Is the depth of my soul
A dark place as well?
It can’t be — For You are
The Light at the center of my Spirit
¡My Love!

Categories
2021 American Place Oklahoma Poems

Cuba

The table’s set, the food is made
Here we sit and give this grace
We’ve gathered here to share our wits
A funny quip, a story with grit

I remember the grand house on the Cimmaron
I’d play in the woods when told to “run along”
In the hills and trees and on sandy shores
The red, red dirt where the water pours

Those days of youth when I was carefree
Not burdened by this loss that’s coming for me
Of my gracious aunt whose lovely smile
Was warm as the hearth after a cold country mile

Never the center piece like her beloved Yellow Rose
But always the backbone for all of those
Who have come and gone doing God’s work
Filling trucks full of clothes and food for the Church

No she was never the center of attention
Just a helping hand, a cup of coffee from the kitchen
An open door to her welcoming home
A meal, a blanket, a place to rest weary bones

I never once heard her ask for her turn
Always on task to help those who yearn
To find God’s grace in an unforgiving land
To help without question her fellow man

Her radiant smile, her questions about you
So gracious, so kind, so ready to do
Anything she could to make things run smooth
All she would do to comfort and soothe

Her presence is missed as we gather today
One more moment or kiss or kind word to say
From this lady of grace who asked for no return
On her investment in you, your life, your concern

We should all be so bold to live life like this
To give all that we have of ourselves in kindness
Like our fair lady who we lay here to rest
Who spent her whole life giving only her best.

Categories
2021 American Place Ars Poetica Footnotes New Mexico Poems

What Am I Missing?

If I stop and take
A minute to write
Or a photograph
How much Life
Am I missing?

If a notational ear
Or observant eye
Can pull from the landscape
Into Memory than my
Experience my be more enlightening…

What is your approach?
Coleridge’s observational reproach?
Or Wordsworth’s walking as he wrote?
Which will glean and which will gloss?
Who will find meaning? What will be lost?

I find myself quite often
At a loss for themes, my memory softened
If I take too long from my observations
The meter fades and the propositions
Wash away and become forgotten.

Yet if in the moment I focus too much
On this art I offer and the places I touch
Do I leave too little of this world explored?
And proffer false narratives for you to adore?
Not the depths of this moment I’m here to explore…

Categories
2021 Poems

The Accountant

The Accountant

As the pages
Of another year
Are written
And turned

We pour
Over them
The diligent
Accountant

Looking for
The errors
That must be corrected
On our records

So often we
Build walls —
Shrines to our
Failures

Rather than
Raising temples
To myriad
Accomplishments

The roads
That become maps
Of where we’ve been
Never the map we plan

For the road
Is paved by the pebbles
Of small decisions —
Unclear Impressionism

Until you step back
From the time spent
Nose down
Trodding onward

And look from
A distance
The many miles
You have travelled.

It is easy
for the road
To be washed out
by the river of misdirection

But for now the sun
Still rises in the East
And sets in the West
And one foot must precede the other

We carry on
Hand in Hand
Together to see
What this next day will bring.

Categories
2021 Poems

You Can’t Pick Your Family

You tied me to a tree, sisterly, despising me.
I was little, not remembering this cruelty.
Only family mythology that we carry.

I left my scissors in the couch. I remember
Them sticking out of your leg where now a cave
Remains for the reminder.

You took me to the record store. We bought
“My Sharona” and you colored o’er Sharona’s
Transparent tank top with ball point pen. What a sin.

We were headed to the movies and you were driving
The VW Bug. Not sure how it unfolded but the front got molded
By the back of a pick-up truck and that poor VW got folded up.
What once was round in the front was squared on its forward trunk.

And then there was the time I fake farted in your face
Blocking the TV until you were enraged which evolved
Into a full blown cat-fight brawl with Dad. A wrestling match
Paired with my first hearing of the words “Chauvinist Pig!”

Yes, we had an antagonistic relationship. You took my room
And threw away my shit. I was far from the perfect brother.
Usually the first to tattle to mother.

But with age comes appreciation and we evolved to become musicians.
You were always an ardent fan and we shared the love of playing in a band.
And now we, both, are just these old farts.
Ready for this next chapter to start.

Categories
2021 American Place New Mexico Poems

UFO

Terrifying
Is the first sensation that
creeps up my spine as the
long trail of stars creeps
across the just blackened night
Sky of dusk out in the desert

The stream of lights arched from
Horizon to Horizon – a steady
pace of objects un-evenly spaced
giving it the illusion of a
Naturally occurring phenomenon

Without internet out in the dark
Night sky of our camping spot
We could neither deny nor
Confirm the spectacle we had witnessed
By referring to the digital brain

We could only speculate the
Nature of these UFOs with
Our New Mexican mythology
Some 160 miles north of
Roswell in the darkness at Villanueva

Categories
2021 Ars Philosophica Ars Poetica Art(i)fact Breaking Muse Footnotes Poems

Ithas (a sketch)

1 The son of the revolution was raised perfectly
2 Taught music and mastery of mind and body
3 A proud arbiter of the grand vision of The Republic
4 Soon to stand among the chosen few Philosopher Kings
5 Prometheus was a natural leader, a talented student and
6 A fierce fighter — His meter was measured and
7 His corps moved with the grace of the river
8 Yet, in his heart was a discordant song of sorrow
9 Stirred by the tours in the artist internment camps
10 Where those who dared to create were
11 Locked away and insured never to corrupt the culture
12 They were people – passionate, emotional, irrational yes
13 But people of his land, this country he was sworn to protect
14 Now from these people who threaten order with chaos
15 Now condemned for free will, free expression, challenging
16 The rational order of The Republic with their 3rd hand visions
17 Their expressions in word and paint and sculptures of the imperfect world.

Categories
2021 American Place Ars Poetica Footnotes New Mexico Poems

Remove yourself

It’s hard not to insert myself into
The Poem
Of course these are my feelings
Expressed herein
To de-objectify my experience
Is often a poetic sin
For how am I to communicate
These thoughts and dreams
If I don’t put myself at
The Center of Things
My desire to write has come
And gone but it is
My love of Nature that brings
Out these songs
I must denote these beautiful places
That bring me joy in these outward spaces

Categories
2021 American Place New Mexico Poems

Villanueva

The winds whip
the wiley willows
Young with spring fronds
The waters swish
and turn as the morning birds
search for meal
They caw and call
As they peck the soil
And live to breed another day
New Village
Pecos River
Peace and Heaven

Categories
2021 Poems

May Day

May Day, May Day
“Somebody Help Me!”
I’ve got too much of what I want!

What do you do
As you sit in Abiquiu
Soaking in the sun after dawn?

A comfortable place to lay my head
Anywhere in the country I want a homestead
4000 lbs. of everything you need

Two sweet dogs laying next to me
A lovely wife, my best friend indeed
Two sweet children in their bunks asleep

All is quiet by the morning fire
The air is crisp and
All of my desires

Are quenched as I commune
With the waters of the Lake as I breath
In this May Day under the red rock moon…

(Written the first morning of our new travel trailer on Abiquiu Reservoir)