WINDFALL
D Press 2000 Sebastopol

Artwork by S. Mutt






ALOHA MEANS DON'T CRASH ON THE ROCKS


I sit below the ruins of Pu'nkohola Heian,
a temple built by Kapoukahi
on the Hill of the Whale,
dedicated to Kukailimoku, a war god,
built with a human chain of rock.

I feel lonely and off-centered
listening to the silence behind the hum of insects.
Not questioning,
just staring dumbly at the water slapping me awake,
wondering
what draws me to this savage place, to eel and shark.

I find my way—
I put on my wet suit, take my spear
and swim out.



AT MAHUKONA BEACH PARK


I caught a bottom fish off the lava cliffs
made of winding lava called Pali's hair,
where Pali touches the sea.

The road is closed by a lava flow,
ahaha lava dotted with pink and yellow
marriage flowers.

Love carved on a park bench.
Buds in the rain.
Jaws on grasshoppers.
A gekko in the telephone coin return.

Easy to see
there is something bigger than myself.



EAST WIND, WEST WIND


A beach bum plays classical guitar.
I look up and see a girl
dancing to the last rays of the day.
Her eyes closed,
her hips in sync to the strumming,
her feet pattern the sand.
I'm transported to a green place.

I turn my head.
What is this? Where am I?
Festival day at Spencer Park.
The natives glare at the howies.
It may be Spencer Park to us,
but it's The King's Beach to them.
Their eyes say Private Property.



INSTALLATION
        for Gay


Turning off Fulton onto 12
manuvering to the left
no, right

Fan belt whine on the freeway
skill saw whine in the supermarket

Different scripts reverberate
in the silent inclined
box with masking
tape, paint, brushes, pan
& roller tumbling
to the floor

The doors to my senses
open—I see my room
in the gallery—
eyes, ears, nose, mouth

Black rectangles the size of doors
painted on the interior walls
thin strips of black

running parallel
to the black kick board
using stick pins, black yarn
mixed with wire & colored cloth
neither nest nor web

A handful of fog
mirrors and masks
a collection of wrapped thoughts
& small boxed images
revealing the true phantom
speaks the truth


JUXT POSE
        for Meg


Here, rock stillness.
Here, a falcon's freefall.
Here, dangling tassels of wisteria.
Here, a Tibetan mudra mystery.



SIT LIKE A MOUNTAIN


I'm in the tent of self-produced mind
late at night, candles flickering
soaking up his mind essence, like being in Tibet a thousand years ago
with Guru Rinpoche, tough and gentle.

He taught 3 words that hit the point
this old lama doing it the hard way
sitting on his ass in a cave for 20 years
until his bone touched the stone
listening to waves of bliss-emptiness
crash on the shore of nirvana.

Noise floods in from the street.
Here in the pure land of Santa Rosa—
one taste in the supermarket aisle
and new asanas for highway maneuvers.




GREEN PASTURES


I push water
I keep the cowpies out of the corrugation
I spread it out
run it up hill if I can

There's an art to irrigation
and the cows eat the grass
and when they are done
they move to greener pastures
and then
there's the delicing, tagging, dehorning
shots, shine and a shave



NIMA'S FIRST SWEAT


New Zealand
To the Continental Divide
At the edge of the firepit

Vincent tells this warrior
To sit in front, and Nima sits
As close he can sit

The scar tissue of an old wound
The scar tissue of his past
Blisters in the babbled prayers

Ute and Maori know
In the beginning something is broken



MOTHER OF ALL SWEATS
        for smallfeather


It's the equinox
a lot of newbees in the lodge
maybe too many bodies for 40 rocks
because in the first round
a girl behind me starts to cry
and in the second round
Jack, a veteran of many sweats
passes out.

Vincent tells Jack to sit up
and Jack sits up
but soon his head is in my lap.
Third round
a boy near the door asks to be let out
and the girl behind me, moaning now
says her body is numb.
She is shocked by this big Ute
spitting water in her face.

We're in the womb.
No one leaves prematurely.

Teetering at the edge of the pit
a man is talking to his selves.
The spirits are moving.
He's asking why he is here—
"Let me out of here, I can't take it."
Vincent has never seen such a thing
but he lets them out.

The Tibetans have a saying
Until the head is cooked
of what use is the tongue?




POISED
        for Webster


Why is there a Universe!
How did the Universe come into being!
Shouts of joy or fear or accusation.

Bumping my head against the wall
like La Motta in Raging Bull,
"Stupid! Stupid! Stupid!"

Bertrand Russel's frustration
when, as a child, he asked,
"What is matter?"

And the answer, "Nevermind."
"What is mind?"
"It doesn't matter."

The Universe is big
and getting bigger, expanding fast
and ever faster—a basketball

crossing twenty-four time zones
on its way to the hoop.
Only there is no hoop.


No end to an expanding Universe.
I drift in infinite space
(or no space), an illusion

of myself in an obscure place,
a floating reflection,
nothing holding me up.

What's nothing's circumference!
Pi and light
the defining functions.

A circumference of no-space expands
@ speed of light towards a critical radius.
The impalpable algebra of infinity.

This U
a sub-atomic structure
of a larger U.

No U, just dots on a time line,
or like a bulb on a timer
on/off.

Vacuum soup. Eternal Mind.
An egg , a holy word, a string.
Winos and zinos in stasis.

Black bodies, black holes, blue lights.
Anti-matter, negative space, and big bangs.
The quarks of love and strangeness

and the quirkiness of God.
No limits: multiple Universes.
Limits: a one night stand.

Singularity is the "instant"
the Universe appears, every region
squeezed into a single point

on an "axis" of time.
Poised.
A=pi r²-1/Threshold/+1E=MC²

Empty: does not exist,
has never existed,
will never exist.

Empty: has potential to exist.
Primordial mind pool.
Heap of awareness.

What is truly empty!
Every minim has stuff—
even without mass, there's spin.

Exists and not-exists at the same time.
Either/or, neither/nor, both and.
Nothing spinning—no word for this.

Given previously annihilated U,
then there's potential
for a new U to come into existence.

Things are already out of hand
by the time the Prime Mover
produces/invents/creates the U.

Angels cruise by in a `00 Ford Escort
with automatic weapons on their laps.
I hear them peel out

on the corner of Hall & Piezzi,
laying down a streak of rubber
before their Dunlops dig in.

A mirror in the void.
A flight of photons
against the force of darkness.

Can't see the bullets coming.
A bullet from the past
and one from the future.

A bullet on the chart
and one to the heart.
Spirit tries to reach me,

but it hits an event horizon
like a bug
on the windshield of a car.



NOVEMBER MIST


I'll accept the emptiness
and give
the sullied figments
form.

I'll follow these ruts
back to a field
filled
with blue light on snow.




BUILDING A FIRE FOR THE MEDICINE MAN


I throw a few leaves in the fire pit
add a cluster of twigs
stuff in a napkin
stir the ashes and
light a match to the confusion.

A puff of smoke from the leaves
a branch catches, crackles
and goes out.

Horse asks, "What are you doing?"
"Making a fool of myself," I answer.
"Just wondering," he says.



ALL MIMSY WERE THE BOROGOVES


Feeling queasy having eaten
a handful of oriental party mix
and a dozen ginger snaps.
Just moved into this house.
A new sound—a grasshopper
who lets out a single chirp.
He's adopted me.

2 a.m. I'm paranoid.
My dope sits in the open,
and I get a head change
discovering the grasshopper
in a crevice of my coffee table
right beneath my stash.
I can see this dude clearly
and my paranoia vanishes
because, now, I know
I'm not bugged by the narcs.

I sit down
to a thunderclap in the south
from the firing range
where the Army plays war games.
Laser wars.
Fluorescence and weird harmonics.

The wind picks up.
A helicopter passes overhead.
Sirens in town.
Maybe they've contacted Venus.

I meditate on my psychedelic posters.
Andy Warhol and His Plastic Inevitable
Plus the Mothers of Invention $2.00
Friday May 27 Filmore & Geary Streets

I'm relaxed and feeling a new groove.

The grasshopper chirps.



DHARMA TALK


My studio opens on a gravel yard where prayer flags flutter.
A jay drinks
from one of my offering bowls.
I try to teach this jay to chant without much success.
He nods inquisitively
then continues his way beyond training.




POSTCARD FROM THE STATE OF DISASTER


These mountains—
mountains
mountains.

I read a note in a trail box
that said there are too many rocks
in the mountains, so please
dynamite these obstacles
into ski slopes.

In the scree of time
dynamite is a joke.



DISCOVERY


Come to this.
How to know?

I trusted.
I dreamed a bit.

I'm a stranger
even to myself.



To Volume 5, Book 1