Flying White

D Press  1999  Sebastopol
Cover collage by Claude Smith
Artwork by the author






RISING FROM THE RIVER, FALLING FROM THE SKY


Nymph, sylph, gopi, elf, seraphim, wild
and silent, outrageous and innocent,
you say my poems are notes for poems

a blind shadow looms
on the door of my tongue
casting a shrine to nothing

while ripples of snow and wind
hang by their thumbs
for astonishing rewards

an extra inch or two
lets the faucet flow
kinder than the ocean

arms and legs spread
around a cloud learning
potent remembrances

hang on, baby, wait a sec,
let me...



OMNI-SPATIAL MATRIX


Fire dances in the hearth.
Clouds swirl across the sky.
Water leaps on sand.
Land rises and falls.

The sky, the clouds, my breath,
the scent of rabbitear sage.
A La La Ho!
A feast of space.



MANDALA


Where am I, and how did I get here?
Why do I feel I must be somewhere?
Did I miss something?
When does it start?
Where will it leave off?



I VOTED FOR IKE WHEN I WAS EIGHT


The Incredible Bureau does not discriminate
between polished shoes and Greek statues,
and I didn't always talk with a stutter,
and I didn't always live in a gutter.



HISTORY ON HER HANDS AND KNEES


She hunts in rubble
for a way beyond
novelty

to fulfill the promise
of organism
and will.

I've heard it said,
Time flies like an arrow;
fruit flies like a banana.




IN FIRST LIGHT


Crows fly up, and I divine
your name in their flight.
The world's new and true and lovely,
nothing else to be.




11:55 AM ON THIS PLANET


song
bird
word
word
heard
third

I pick up
the phone and dial
thyme
since I'm unhinged
and can't tell the hour
from the flower.



TURNING AND MIRRORING


Bliss.
Not conditioned.
Enjoying being
undefined
by the circumstance
of sitting in this cafe.

Ha! Ha!
This is magical ground.
I see what this is.
But whose?

Instant presence.
A pretty girl sits
at the keyboard playing
Smoke Gets in My Eyes.

I smile and receive
a smile.
I catch myself
looking at my-
self looking at
myself.




FULL MOON


Which switch?
The witch switch?
You turn on
the witch switch,
and what happens?

Archaic
Old
Provincial
Yes, and
Yes, closed—Yoga
Concise
Long Poems

in Latin it means,
that's strange, DNA
Enzymes

I am transported to a place of clarity
and movement.
She smiles, and I am transfigured.



MUSIC OF HER FACE


making ecstasy
beating up the heart
sweat welds
deep, deep

limp limbs
plumbline
what to do?
what to say?

short sweet
swing
hard to forget
what's it to you

blue man?
chew the
dog car bark
swim park woods



YES, REPEAT, NO


What constitutes outer avant garde?
inner avant garde, secret avant garde?
innermost secret avant garde?

Escaping foreword.
Attacking backwards.
Pushing the river.
Drinking the clouds.

All oink in the ink.
All in order on a plate of gas.
Beuys buys a refrigerator.
Rimbaud rides a skateboard.
Tension in a vacuum.
Hazard in a blank space.
Sweet unbearableness.

No eyes, no ears, no body.
No ideas but in my undershorts.


ACROSS NO DIVIDES


Dry creek, cool canyon.
Music from the rocks as you pass.



SONG AT MIDNIGHT


Hard whites, infernal yellows,
sulfur and yellowgreen.



EYE ROVING OVER BLUE HILLS


The I merges with the All
but remains I.

All is bright red.



TRACE TONES AND AFTER DOTS


Smells of fungus and fir
rough bark and smooth rock
remind me of a boy

escaping up a creek
in search of Excaliber
or ever elusive El Dorado.

Now, on the more traveled path,
I rein in my passions and
act on consequence.

Crisp though I am from compromise,
a salty will o' the wisp
turned into a vulture snack,

my mind still shifts and drifts.



APPROACHABLE BUT OUT OF REACH


Knocked out, loaded.
After you left, I drank the wine
from your cup.

It's fine, you said, under the stars,
although we looked into the dark
between us.

Pay attention, whatever you do,
to the grain of the inlay
and the twist of the grass.



WHEN MY WORK IS DONE I'LL


Work to live to drink
to live to work to live
to work to work.



LOOK FOR THE SEVEN-HEADED BEAST


A lot to experience
in the instant of a sneeze
or a blow to the heart.

Why assume the sun
will show tomorrow?

Why assume
October's final night will not
trick us
and repeat—

29, 30, 31, 29, 30, 31,
and again
for a thousand years?

This year
painted jack-o-lanterns
decorate my block,
and I am told
the children's costumes
have been catching
fire.



HEART'S LOVE & YEARNING MISERY


Sensuality. Intimacy.
The tastes of the body.

Sympathy in the original sense
of feeling with another,
which rises within me

when you tell your stories,
share your hopes and disappointments.

What ails the maiden?
Would she like breakfast at Perkins?
The Grail is in the asking.



FLYING WHITE


Rising with sun,
arguing with darkness,

I set my hand to move
willynilly through a repertory
of cyclic gestures, assembling
lines which wittily approximate
a sea a tree a hill a face.

This is the best day to be alive
because if I'm dead, I'm dead,
and even if I'm dying while I'm alive,
Creation is receding to it's center
to make room for me.

Glory! Glory! Glory!



SOUL LIGHT


After midnight.
Your image is still before me.
After midnight.
Hours have passed.

Encountering each tiny sensation,
I gather up the warm truths
and the sad ones
in the late light.

Riddled by love,
shot full of shafts,
I fly through the roof
into a night of stars.

Stay, like a star,
until dawn.
Turn,
but return.



LUMINOUS FORM
        For Sito


I'm looking up.
I'm looking down.
I'm looking ahead.
I'm looking around

among dying shadows and wet leaves.
I hear vultures argue
in the topmost branch of an eucalyptus.

An old man with his pockets of pain sits
on a bench among the white gravestones
eating snow.

A city full of hungry ghosts is never full.
I drift off somewhere.
Later, I hear, "Poetry's useful if it shows
its emptiness, leaves its skeleton."

Did you see that pale, pasty old fellow,
wild hair and bloated cheeks,
dance into the fountain mountain
star cloud sea tree?






AT THE CENTER IS FIRE


I take note of the naked
zero

in the spinning fall of leaves

and guage the browns and reds
of frost.



FULLY AWAKE IN YOUR LOOK


Fierce dakini shimmering.
Radiant rupture of my dreamstream.

Misery of mine, I twist and turn,
caught between the rock
and the bottom line.

All I can think to say is, "Nice shoes."



To Volume 4, Book 2