All real philosophies are best read
Through art.
All real artist are translators into the symbolic
Of what was already said in other words.

//
The problems of how to exist well
Have been with us for some time.
But that we exist and can consider it
Mutes non-being. Put in other words
The baby starts to speak after screaming.

//
Tiny cardinal bird
Fresh out and already alone
With one pink nearly red streak showing
On its tiny breast-
Chirps or rather beeps at me
As if I had always known his mother.

//
Wisdom

How deeply to engage
How much to know
Which doors to knock on softly
And which to break down with force
(Especially in people’s hearts). And, of course,
How to do both
In Love.
“A butterfly can break through
A window
At the right angle
And with precise timing.
I’m sure it’s the same
With doors,” she whispers
To me, gently.

Three I wrote today:

//

To make life burn,
You have to throw yourself in.
It will not meet you halfway—you leap
It catches. Only One
Comes knocking on your door at night
And that to say,
Tomorrow leap son
Leap as far and deep as you can see.
I’m here now, and I’ll be
Your landing soon enough!

//
Had a dream
I saw a hot air balloon trapped in telephone wires
As I could fly, I went up to help
The kids inside had been drinking and not even noticed
They were stuck in the electrical wires above.
Like tinker bell I slipped between wires
And pushed the balloon free.
The kids didn’t see me, but started applauding the sky
On the way back down I singed my leg on one of the wires.
Still have the scar of helping those kids get untangled.

//

“Just get drunk and mow the lawn”
My friend told me. “Makes it more sacred”.
As a kid I mowed lawns for a living
I sill have a method developed then.
It did not involve drinking, but thinking
Of the person I was mowing for
Like a mantra the whole time. I’ll stick with that way for now.

Not down
To the hot bar
Today
Even to play,
I’ve decided,
It’s simply too hot to live today or
To talk to friends
In the right way.
So I’ll write poems instead
And wait for the dread
Of forgetting everyone’s
Birthdays.
Maybe clean the barn
Or spin a yarn
Or something which doesn’t
Require the consequences
Of our mutual glories.

To my professors above, shrouded in love by now:

The cloud, now in glory, of witnesses-

You guys all still talk to me daily
As if you are still working from above–what’s up friends. Tell me what i need to know!

To mend it all into Glow!
Writing your books with more love now, I’m sure
To us who are still strangers in this land. Thanks for that. And more
That you want to keep guiding us while here, wherever we all are.
Just so you know, when you died,
I never felt an interruption in
Our talks together.
And what ongoing chatter and texts
You guys send!
I hear it within. And your humor

has gotten better and more needed now (whenever now is)

What a great rattle and joke you guys keep telling!

Keeping us alive, as you converse with us. And thanks

for letting us overhear your chatter! Like

old St John overheard His prayer rant-just before He went-

which must’ve saved us all

I’m sure.

You guys and gals are cool-

thanks for talking shit with me today,

as i’m sure we are all fools.

(In honor of all the writers who got judged after they died. To judge is to evaluate another’s worth…..may you evaluate as you would wish to be!)

Did something a little different today
Actually wrote, actually played, and noticed
Three new types of birds I did not know
In my neighborhood.
And the old lady tryin’ to get to her car next door.
Finally, got her name! At the same time,
Thought about old Flannery O’Connor dying so young
After barely starting to say what she was saying
(“Our most promising writer”, they said when she was alive)
To hum what she was humming under her breath
And choosing to bring it to light and speak it without fright.
That is to write.
And how, after death, everyone critiques you more-
How we presume to re-write another’s tombstone so blitely-
Because they couldn’t to your face. Thought of her face
The birds, death and writing, and all the stories we all really are inside.
Made me sigh with the baby cardinals, owls and these new strangers, and those others I don’t rightly
Know yet, but prayerfully will one day. Made me think of Robert Bly, Galway Kinnell, and the other writers
I met who were, or turned out to be, what they seemed to be. At least to me.
Made me want to live on a peacock farm and take the risk of words, with
The prophet Amos, who wrote exactly what he saw, even, if later, others
saw it differently-or in his case, you might get killed by people who imagine themselves to be priest. That is, it made me want to be me.
And for that, I thank the Day-light on our words and writers- and those who shed light in play,
In dark times through words which keep causing trouble
For us all.
It’s easy to criticize the dead, and hard to love the living,
I suppose, but what if the judgement was just to take the risk
Of saying so. Be careful how you evaluate, your neighbor,
She might say. Even if they are just writing and staring at new birds all Day.
In the alleyways of the dead.
She was a priest and perhaps a prophet.
Be careful how you bury the prophets
Especially those who took the time to write it down for us.

Get good at death
Practice it each night you go to sleep
My mentor rattled.
When death becomes a teacher
Death dies and Life is all that is left.
And he said that, just before he died.

//

Two ways to practice death
Morbidly- means because you hated life all along.
That is to choose death as better than life.
The other way is this poem.
//

Some are attracted to death like perfume
Just wanting to get out of this life like a fly in a web-trapped.
On the way, they tear and burn tear and yearn to feel the contours
Of their skin’s exit. The shape of their torn wings. Others
Stand patiently with death at their end
And live facing a backwards in thanks for each hour…
Ticking like a Hebrew clock…
Teaching them to number their days.
Even calling some laughter
Their lives read backwards become a praise song.

//
Shadow of a woman contour on a church steeple

just below which,
Someone is crying and being baptized professionally
Preachers smacking the book

worship team waiting in the wings to escalate things…..
I’m shaking in my front row seat—something has entered me.
Something has come down from the baptistry
And chilled my skin like a ghost at a haunted house

or that character in Amelie who in mask breaths on his love’s neck in the fun house

before this,.
I saw backstage, where the mics, communion treys, cups for communion, props of sanctity-the glory was there too.

Usually at this part of the service, they break to welcome visitors-

as kids we would always find “the candy lady”

who gave us all gum, smarties…we knew where the treasure was; but

this day was different. Missionaries were speaking about Africa

and people being raised from the dead……
I met the broken missionaries
And looked into their eyes.
I saw all the shadows, and still do
chose only
The Light.

I chose even then The Candy Lady’s kisses and smarties!

But they had been sanctified into bread and wine that day!

//
Live as if dying today
Ikuri says
It’s terminal
Everything is terminal
And the terminal is Light.
//
Buber saw
Everything
As relational.
How deeply we relate
Is the temple of The Living God.
//
I don’t believe me
Even when I pray
But when I shut up
God only hears
My true word.
What I said
When I was sleeping,
That is.
//
I watched enough of that movie
To know it by heart. Some art
Is like that, enter at any point of the river
And know the whole thing.
Like when you meet a stranger
And know their whole story.
//
America says back
We are making money
And buying new cars. I’m writing mystical poetry
About corralling stars
As a kid on my chipped red
Rocking horse,
I said to her
I’m writing mystical poetry again
I don’t need a new house
I need to find the one I’m in
I am a house with many rooms
Some of which I’ve never entered.
And America says back
I’ll be back at 5
Dinner is in the microwave
I’m taking one of those AI driverless cars
To the gym, see you at ten.
Ok, I’ll be here writing mystical poetry
And corralling the stars by then dear.

//

When Frank died
They found poems everywhere.
On receipts, horse tickets
Ball game stubs, gum wrappers
Fish tackle boxes, book sleeves
The guy couldn’t not write it all down
They had to call in the linguistic team
To clean the mess, and edit it.

//
You have enough footage to last you
For eternity son. Thanks God.
And enough words to make a sea or two.
//

On the artist’s desire to make at least one piece which contains their whole being:

“Hope to find a work that will accommodate all which I have felt.”
We hope to make one whole statement.
Something which embodies and gives skin
To our best sightings, best thoughts, feels, instances, glimpses….
We want to make a whole animal which can walk around forever.
On it’s own two feet.
And to make and draw blood from words.

//

“Hopelessness is where sin settles.”

//
The old man
Had to
Get one of
Those driverless cars
Or manless as he calls them.
If you want to take away someone’s manhood
Make his car driverless.
//
The old man had to get one. He had watched them driving by his house overnight. Cars with no men in them, with cameras everywhere. These driverless AI cars had taken over his city.Some were scared, others curious, some bold one, interactive. At first he had hated them. “How emasculating!” He said to his wife.
But then the accident happened, and he still wanted to go to work in his own car. After all, he was American! And cars are a right. It’s in the constitution under some amendment I’m sure.
So he did it. Broke down and got one from the new local factory, who traded trees for Teslas.
Now his car parallel parks better than he did.
But now he shows up to work, with his head slightly lowered having perfectly parked for the first time in his life. He knew everyone could tell the difference. His car was a better driver than he had ever been.
And one has to work with that feeling.
//
The laws of relationships require love.

Unfinished dates:

The old man and retired tennis star were leaning in very close over some nachos and cheese from the local pub. It was their first date.
She asked him about his daughter.
“Well she married a nice Mexican man who can’t speak a lick of English, but best to them; I’ll be dead soon, and at least she’s moving forwards and happy, even though I know myself her Spanish is terrible. I mean, Que horrible!”
“She’s a good kid though, but got knocked up pretty early on, but the fellow seems to be a gentleman. They’ve been married 23 years by now.”
“And you, do you have kids?” He asked, savoring the jalapeño he had placed on the top of the cheese cheso.
“I’ve had great success in sports, but little in parenting.” She said, remarking that she had moved up north to escape the heat, but did miss this spicy cheso sauce they made in these parts.
“Yeah, they now have hundred of salsas down here at the market, he said.
“Some even made of cactus with peach or mango—whatever you want. Things have gotten sophisticated in the south.”
“I was about to leave myself, then my daughter got married and I got old. So decided to stay, and wait it out.”
“Where did you want to move to,” he asked, noticing them playing an old Waylon Jenning’s song.
“Scotland” he replied without thinking. That’s where my real family are from.
“Real family?” She asked.
“Yeah, the inlets of Scotland are filled with my blood.”
“Even down here, I just try to find things that remind me of, I guess what they would call, “the homeland of the heart”—that is if you wanna talk fancy. I just call it plain old nostalgia for someplace you know you came from, but can’t get back to.”
The waiter came and once again filled to the brim their enormous iced tea cups.
“No shortage of tea down here though!’ He ended his thought with.
“I’ve never been to Scotland she said, but did play a tournament in London once.”
“Is that right! You must’ve been. Big shot then.”
“Not at that point, I was just beginning. But it was amazing to see the churches and castles in that place as a young woman. Everything I’d hoped it would be really.”
“But then I had to come back and finish school, and learn to make a living in case tennis fell through.”
“Did it eventually fall through?”
Oh no, I thought it said on the dating app, I ended up being a champion for three years straight. Best in class. Brought short money, but I’m glad I finished my degree.”
What did you study?
The suffrage movement.
Oh.
The nachos ran out, so he turned to get the waiter’s attention.
“Could we get some more chips sir?”
“You bet!”
“Hey, where are you from, they don’t say-“you bet” down here.”
“Ha-I’m from the Canadian border sir, just going to school down here myself.”
“Is that right? What are you studying?”
Nuerology, but to be more specific genetic theory!
“Is that right, you must be pretty smart then, since I’m not even certain what that field entails?” He asked with slight curiousity, perhaps avoiding returning to the women’s suffrage conversation.
“Well, you’ll have to tell me about it sometime when you’re not working. I come in here all the time. I’m nearly regular.”
The waiter got another huge basket of chips piled in a red plastic bowl.
“They’ve been using these bowls since I was in college here, and that’s many moons ago.”
“When did you go to college?”
“Well I started three times, but when I finally went was 68. That’s when it took hold of me—you know knowledge and learning. Before then, I just saw it all as a way to make money or get a good job. What did you want to be when you grew up”, he added, a bit surprised he had.
“Well, you won’t believe this, but I wanted to be a priest, and since that wasn’t possible, a nun. But I quickly learned that neither were in my stars. I was good at tennis by age eight, and everyone said, It would be very unwise to head toward the church for any sort of reasonable career. And, I suppose they were right, but I always have wondered. I mean, I wouldn’t have made any money, but maybe I would have been something more like content. Don’t get me wrong, getting back to your question, I was able to put both my kids through university with no debt, and one’s a teacher and the other a film maker now; but I do wonder what a more monastic life would’ve been like.”
“That’s interesting, I never wanted to be a priest, but I did think of becoming an artist for a while. But it seemed as impractical as your priesthood dream. Just no real work in art, so I went for law. Even had my own firm for a while. I doodle these days from time to time, mostly flowers and birds, but a little abstract; even had a show of my work recently in a little local gallery; but I do at times wonder if I missed my calling. You said “content”-yeah, that’s a good word for what it feels like when I’m making art. I never felt content from law. But it was lucrative to be sure.”
They two had cleared nearly another half stack of nachos, when they both simultaneously decided to ask one another out on another date.

The tattoo artist was out of her depths that day. He was more than she had seen.
Having written the stories of at least five people on their bodies that day, with such great articulation, that each went away knowing themselves much more; she was now exhausted from seeing.
She grew up in a protestant church which emphasized the ears not the eyes, but from a young age, she knew she had the gift of sight more than hearing.
She became a catholic because they seemed to like the visual arts, and instead of becoming a nun, decided for tattoo art.
Still when with clients she rarely spoke. She let her eyes tell the story.
And see it.
She would look at the person starting in the eyes, then work her way down to where they wanted each tattoo.
Then go to her sketch book for about thirty minutes before returning for her showing. The clients were nearly always shocked by how keenly she had discovered what they themselves often could not articulate.
Then she would get to the work of incarnating this person’s image onto their bodies.
It was a like a silent therapy she was offering for those who knew they needed something, but just weren’t sure what.
They went away knowing much more about who they were, and where they were at on their journey. For many it was the first time they had risk inscribing anything on their bodies which would last the rest of their lives.
She did this for years. But today, she had come across a rare client which she was having trouble reading.
She had to look at the them longer than usual; and was having trouble even seeing into their eyes, much less reading the stories of their bodies.
No, today she would need more than her sketch book, she was going to have to return to prayer, where she had learned to see in the first place.
As a child, when she prayed, the heavens would open, and she could see angels and creatures coming and going. In fact, even at this age, every time she prayed, she would start seeing things.
This was just how God talked to her, she would tell me one day.
Pure silent image, and then she would just know what He was saying.
This is how she came to believe that God didn’t just have a thousand thoughts towards each person, but a thousand visions about them daily. When she took to time to pause and see, she nearly always saw an image for each person, one which related to their needs.
In this sense she felt herself a visionary, but one who applied her craft to people and their bodies, drawing out their inner identities in ink.
She was writing their stories on their skin.
But this tall lanky fellow who had come in was giving her trouble.
Was he just not open to being read—like one who goes to a palm reader with clinched fists? Or, were her own eyes cloudy that day. She would not know until she went to pray.
So she told him, I’ll be back in forty minutes, I need to seek this image.
As she closed her eyes to see in her little back room, where she usually sketched; she saw a great void. There were no edges, and it was something like liquid dark purple lava stretching out endlessly like a sea which was tilted upright. A wall of nothingness, one like she had never seen. After the image would not recede, she returned to the tall man and asked: what is your name?
He looked down and ashamed, and said, well that is one of the reasons I’m here. I have amnesia and really can’t recall. Like that fellow in Bourne identity, I have forgotten who I am.
“When did you forget your name?”
“Well it started when my wife died several months back. She died in our bed unexpectedly, and the very next day, I was able to remember all the families numbers and the right emergency services to call and all those laborious details one must do upon death, but just that very morning, the ambulance driver, looked into my eyes with care, and asked me my name, and I simply couldn’t remember it.”
He continued: “I’m an artist and make collage from found street poster art from particular cities, and I try to tell the identity of neighborhoods by montaging all their discarded or left behind posters—band posters, and invitations to yard sales, and scraps from alleyways and bathrooms….but the thing is, I never sign my pieces. So I couldn’t look there. Although, again, I remembered all those neighborhoods by name and place and date.”
She had read once about “selective dementia” that some develop after trauma—where one forgets of blocks out certain events because they are so painful. But she could not imagine why this sad sir would have blocked out only his own name.
Was it shame or some guilt he felt about his wife’s death?
“The night she died”, he went on, “We had been out drinking and smoking at a Jazz club. I knew she wasn’t supposed to be smoking as she had had some heart problems the previous year; but we both just needed to have one of those jazzy nights which make you feel fully alive again. So I let it go. After going to bed that night, about an hour later, her heart just stopped.”
That helps she said, “Do you mind if I try to take a break and see again, before starting then?”
“Not at all, if you think it will help.”
She returned to her prayer closet. Closing her eyes, this time, she saw the exact same image, but something was slightly astir. The lava like void was slightly rippling-a barely perceivable undulation had happened.
Excitedly, but still not given and image, she returned to talk to the tall still slouching man.
“I did not yet get a clear image for you, could you return in one week, and I will see if I can see enough to get started on something for you sir.”
They parted.
A week later, the man returned slouching even more, but his eyes a bit more lucid from the potential for hope.
During her week, she had become obsessed by the man; all her dreams were occupied by it, and her waking life too. But the second day, she had decided-remembering the desert monks from her catholic lessons and those early church practices-she had decided to fast.
After the second day of fasting, something remarkable occurred.
She was in her prayer closet at the tattoo shop, when it did.
She closed her eyes, as usual, and focused on the tall man.
She once again saw the grand towering void of dark purple lava, slightly undulating. Then suddenly, an enormous voice like gentle thunder spoke,
“His name is Bob”! She had never had her visions speak. She had never her the audible voice behind or within her visions. But it was clear, loud and in such a kind tone, she was transfixed on it! It was as if silent film had shifted to talkies. That moment the voices were heard. She was in something like wonder.
She opened her eyes, when the Voice came. In shock mostly.
She went back to the main room to see if others had heard the voice.
No one had.
She immediately called the man and asked him to return to the shop. He came that hour. And when he arrived, she simply said, “I think I know what to tattoo on you now friend.”
She took out her inks, and slowly over two hours, inscribed the letters BOB on the man’s right arm, where he could see it clearly.
She asked that he close his eyes until she was done.
When he opened them and looked down, he began weeping and then looked up right into her eyes, standing fully tall he saluted her with his right arm freshly tattooed, and turned and walked out into what was the bright sun, that day.

I chased her with a yellow tulip.
She was not home.
She had no home, So
I chased her with a yellow tulip until I found her
Beneath the bridge.
Too late she said
It’s for my funeral now
But what of easter
As a train crossed over us
Your favorite is next week
And I promised to deliver this tulip
And take you home.

Amos, a shepherd poet
Sang dark wooly warnings to
The exploding cows of bashan
To the splitting mountains of the nations
Thunder came
Rocks stones and trees split
In fact everyone split
At the voice coming from this
Little good shepherd poet.

//
Before the internet:
Back when we had poems and songs which were only ours.
Back when you could trout fish alone with Richard Brautigan
And look at the sky through telephone lines
And consider death with Rilke
Or smoke in some alley with Paul Westerberg-
Without being overheard
Or overseen.
Back when there were private conversations-
Words meant just for you.
Back when you could even read the Bible
For yourself, and see things Luther never dreamed
Back when everything was a fresh discovery in Love
With babies heads popping out of the wet private womb
Of wonder. With only angels watching over us.
//

One poem
Is a morning prayer
For society
The writer
Is doing invisible work
For the whole
Catching a fish for us all.
Cohen, Brautigan and the gang
All the fishers of dimensions
Kandinsky and Christo included
Are fishing for us all with a flashlight
in the lake
Called night.

//

Before the internet:Back when we had poems and songs which were only ours.
Back when you could trout fish alone with Richard Brautigan
And consider death with Rilke
Or smoke in some alley with Paul Westerberg-
Without being overheard
Or overseen.
Back when there were private conversations-
Words meant just for you.
Back when you could even read the Bible
For yourself, and see things Luther never dreamed
Back when everything was a fresh discovery in Love
With babies heads popping out of the wet private womb
Of wonder. With only angels watching over us.