and this be the new year
a day of melting, smelting
a day of coyote, eagle
a day of false divisions
and daring to dream nonetheless
this is a day for mind opening
heart bonding
gut un-wrenching
this is the day of all days
as are all days
when the forked tongue heals
and the soul laps upon the shores of eternity

spaces filled with dreams
looking outward eyes
and fear turning love
upside-down, inside-out
and backwards

this morning i find myself riding low
the moon bright and sinking
the sun nosing pink through the mist
first sign of sky for days
but i have no desire to run outside with my camera
instead i sit as stories run through my mind
scuffing hurts and poking tears
but i know them now to be stories
so i notice as they come and go
and map their depths for charge

i feel as though i should be someplace else
but i don't have a sense of direction
all arrows pointing down
as i drift through dark waters

so do i give up all the self-improvement?
all the endeavors that i now see were just me
trying to make myself presentable?
because it never really worked, did it?
i feel like something needs to be given up
some chronic efforting, like background noise
a hum of ever-present low-grade striving

i was always so earnest (ha!) in how i wanted to LIVE
i thought it was real, not just a cover-up sham
following my nose through my many passions
expressing myself through so many mediums
as LIFE bloomed from within me like a fountain
and i guess beneath all that thinking and not-thinking
i thought it would work, if i worked real hard
to become beautiful to earn love
that someone would notice that pretty little flower in the meadow
for herself
not for her foliage
once too pretty
now not pretty enough
and peering about the meadow
i see nobody with eyes to see me after all
me playing to no audience at all
noticing so few really trying to see anyone, really
beneath all the shams
between everyone barking and clapping like seals
for their own curtain call

isn't that funny?
as i slip into my later years
waking up in time to find myself
still getting older
still feeling sorry for myself
thinking that what i hope to experience
is more important that what i do experience
when it is all just experience, isn't it?
no experience of more value than any other, really
like somehow where i am and what i am is devoid of meaning
as compared to where i dream i should be

but this is where i am
and i am working to stay here
not to keep up my wallowing in the bottomlands
but to remain present to the wallowing
though right now it isn't feeling so great
but the homework has piled up for long enough
i s'pose it needs some slogging through
so i just keep on digging through the delusions
like i always have been
(how was i to know how thick the muck, how deep the fog?)
now for no reason other, it seems
than to find the clear outlines
of my grave

and my only dream remaining
is to place what remains of a REAL person there
after a lifetime of faking it

so
this is where i am
on the way to meet Death
standing in my unbeauty
offering me up like tarnished silver
in a bin for bargain shoppers at the flea-market today
my last stop before the city dump
where we all end up for recycling

so maybe nothing i think i can know can really be known
and my dream is as real as any dream
and that's really where all the arrows point
to this big dead end
where i must strip my meanings down to a blank canvas
and only dream because there is nothing else to do
which robs it of some of its luster, doesn't it?
why dream in half-tones?

but perhaps that is better than wasting all my energy
propping up my sham of a public-relations campaign
spending my life spiraling down into disappointments
to recharge for the next assault of the slippery-slopes of respectability
which doesn't even work when it works
maybe works even less succeeding than failing
as people will always see with blind eyes
only the surface features anyway
only the foliage
never the essential self
as if their sight of essence is what makes it real
sliding like film through their diopters

but the funny thing is, i anticipated this
and thought, or rationalized, that all my creative endeavors
my pursuits for the fruits of my curiosity
were providing for myself the essential nutrients
to become a real flower
not just a fakey-phony made-up one
painted up like a pinocchio-child
trying not to look like a wallflower
dancing on the strings of light from people's eyes
in lieu of love

not to worry, my overself chides
like glinda, the good witch of the north
pointing at my ruby-red slippers
which have always majicked me to the prairie-lands
to the soughing breeze and the highland meadows
where my blossoms so beautifully ripple and dance
and open so shamelessly
to cup the sun

it is a lonely place
to have so much to give
and no one to partake
but the Mama
and she smiles nonetheless
and keeps pouring
even when we all go deaf
dumb and blind
and our hearts crumble to dust
and dessicate in the hot desert wind
still she pours forth
through her gullies and washes and canyons and arroyos
and chasms and gorges and arterial sluices
of her beat beat beating heart
and i thought i would do that too
pour forth forever into the aquifer
with none to hear my waters flow red
to the beat beat beat of my own heart dripping
the blood of this passing song
like a lone coyote howl
in the wilderness

i feel a lingering anomie
in the sense of alienation and lack of social control
as opposed to lawlessness
i had to stop watching nature documentaries, which i used to love
but can't tolerate the continual loss and no solution
and can't trust the agendas anymore
people seeming to want my allegiance and my money
so they can solve the problem somehow
in a way that is never quite clear

and meanwhile my sense of crescendo increases
the mounting chaos and unraveling of the old ways
and the mounting tsunami of intelligence and nascent knowings
and all i can do is muddle in my puddle
and dig as deep as i can
with this little plastic trowel and bucket
and the beautiful sky in candy wrappers spinning above
and the thrum of iron crystal spinning below
and my head and heart and belly all spinning within
and this body a future corpse still breathing
still dancing and warm and wild
and wanting to wiggle lots of which-ways
from full to empty and back again
in and amongst all the wigglers
or cut off and alone, in the wilderness of me
all that emptiness
inside and out

strange, how there is more than one flavor of emptiness
the slow, existential cool-down when we are empty of meaning
the dreary exhaustion and depletion beneath emptiness of energy, motivation
and the howling vortex inside experienced
when we are empty of mattering
empty of love

but this new emptiness emerges full of dark-light and joy
in my mind, recognizing this singular point of awareness
in the vast emptiness of mind
which is exalted emptiness with no beginning or end
always there when i come to sit
and peer at the inky silence from this rim
into a void crackling and pregnant with potentials
this emptiness of mine

i used to feel the howling vortex within
but that is long since healed ;-)
and my work is to hold this tiny thimble
beneath the waters of niagara
and catch who and what i can
and pray for us all
concentrating in my mind
all the magic we are
and willing us all to live
LIVE!
i have all of myself wired in, there
all my subneurons pumping juice
through the sluice gait of my heart
thrown wide for the waters to flow
from pus to blood to clear

i have walked into my wild
and learned that happiness needs to be shared
only i didn't die the same as that beautiful boy
i died the slow inside dessicating way
but when spring rolled around
the river was high, but not so high
i could not grab the hands reaching out to me

watching that movie
into the wild
i thought of the foolishness of groan-ups
always slapping and shoving and hollering
and i wondered how people can take themselves so seriously
all acting out parts in different dreams together
in a stilting marionette dance
a shadow-play on as many screens
as there are eyes to see

last week a string of disasters
a crescendo of descending
minor and major scales
but in between, the ascending scales
like life dancing up and down the spiral staircase
and you and i, we keep whirling, don't we
stirring up the deeps to rearrange
the winners and losers in our hands
for holding or folding or walking away

so life is full and empty
like cones rainbow-stacked and dripping
all ooey-gooey sweet and sour
natural textures and flavors
disappearing down the gullet
and not one napkin to be found
in the mama's kitchen
she the wild, wild woman
who loves us all
as she feeds us merrily
and spanks our bottoms
and shoos us out the banging screen door
into the wild wild woods
to play

i am learning to accept
thoughts of love coming
and love going
and the raw experience of
releasing hope
suspended in the tension of opposites
every which-way, like moorings
breathing in, breathing out
alone in all directions
as far as i can see

and understanding that nobody really calls the shots
all these comings and goings are choreography
inside a larger design
than my little chip can integrate
being so small and impossibly packaged
with operating instructions
coded in Life's own hand
carefully tri-folded in nine dimensions
and dangled like a baited hook
for the curious mind
to tease itself awake

and i am beginning to accept
that even were i to ask
the answer is ineffable
because nobody knows what's cooking
in the Mama's kitchen
although we all have our ideas
and finely honed opinions
all shined up and proper
looking for all the world like our best sunday suit
so certain are we of our verities

but in my experience there is just me here, breathing
through these hollow tubes
and my spindle of mirrors a story-generator
a wheel of dreams
and my long lines of resonance
trilling my spine with sensation
triggering states of open-to-closed
and responses from flow-to-recoil

so i watch the movie
and my body reacts
i change the channel
and my body reacts
always a dance
first this, then that

i imagine this alone place
and i sit with the feelings
again and again and again
so now it becomes the main story
with death the only outcome
no hope, no expectations
can spin this wheel away
when my hand is so strong on the tiller

so me and my little dinghy
head out to open water
black beneath the stars
and my heart thrills to the adventure
of entering the mystery
just me and me
blessing all the gifts that are given
the gentle nudges and wave-slap on my hull
reminding me that i have position and properties
that feed back to the ocean
which feeds back to me
what i need of my coordinates
and movement along these continuums
and i see many dinghies
with solitary captains
all rowing alone
together

and my spine trills to the sadness
spreading like oil upon the water
and i wonder how we ever truly meet
with all that lies between us
so much space
so empty
yet so full

so you and i
can never really know each other
even as we remain a mystery to ourselves
your words impart meanings you do not intend
as my mind spindles your thoughts into my movie
unless i am very careful
and able to embrace the one certainty
that there is none

so now
i am coping
i am learning
and letting go

and full of gratitude
and wonder
that we ever touch at all
even for a moment
and wonder at how beautiful the dream
that would set my sail so surely
to tack so hard into the wind
bearing your scent
and this other dream, now
that steadies me in the water
opens me to the silent spaces
while the storms recede
and the rocking of the waves
and the lullaby of the deeps
cradle me
and sing me awake

sometimes i see what is
and sometimes i see what isn't
rarely do i see the truth

but i can billow wide the net
of rainbow-light fibers
and illuminate the void

and that feels like love to me
a glowing luminescence, like gravity
making me matter, and
calling me home