Something Guan Yin Hinted at Last Night

It is a kind of

Living death

Our attachment

To reality

So steadfast

We cast our lot

But the spirit

Knows otherwise

And strains to remind us

From time to time

Opening the window

Of the Oversoul

And letting in old

Familiar voices

From the streets

Below

Sidewalk Selfie

A selfie can be a poem as well as a photo.  To qualify in this new sub-genre the poem must be composed on the fly, as it were, spontaneously in the street, and whenever possible, accompanied by some sort of visual record of the event.

 *  *  *  *  *

Shoulder set back

As if tacking windward

Central Parking System

Be damned here I am

Yet again sailing

Down the block and

Blogging about how my

Central nervous system keeps

Firing with abandon

Wide open and alert

Gliding along as if under 

Kerouac's command or
In some other slipstream

*  *  *  *  *

A Selfie Composed in the Barbershop Chair

Indelibly connected
To the visible world
Or else cast adrift
Forever deep into
Meditative space
I float along
In the barbershop chair
A razor close to my face

Up the Creek Without an iPad

Up the Creek tonight

Without an iPad or pen

Near to hand
All the better that I

May now commit

The sanctity of this evening

To long term storage

Closing my eyes

To see every passing ripple

And crease along the surface
Lodging deep as an icon

Within the innermost ear

Right where the cochlea

Abuts cognitive functioning

To be embedded forever

Like the refrain 

Of a popular song

*  *  *  *  *  *

My friend Peter Rippon visited us earlier this summer and we had a chance to paddle on the Creek just before sunset.  And then later we walked out to the pier on Bay Avenue to watch the moon rise over Shinnecock Bay.  Here is one of Peter's drawings that seems well matched to this particular poem.  By the way, Peter often uses an iPad for sketching, which may also help you better understand the title of the poem.

Poem Written in a Lawn Chair (looking into a garden)

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Submissive to everything

Open and alert

This is how Kerouac

Set about composing life

Off and on the road

Debauched as

A bee in the pollen

Of a trumpet rose

With pen for proboscis

He scribbled everywhere

In his secret notebooks

In the midst of discovering

Life’s secret-most forms

And so too I have come

To a point in my 57^th year

Where I find my desktop

Littered about with folders

And files in a joyful mess

Overflowing all

Reasonable bounds

And I have hurried but lately

Strived to sketch the flow

Of spirits passing

Outside the doorway

In the streets below

And the shimmers of light

Discernable only to

The innermost I

As they have been cast 

Upon the eyelid’s wall

*  *  *  *  *  *

This poem has a little back story which may worth mentioning. Yesterday my wife sent me an email which really sparked my interest.  It was a list of 30 writing tips put together by Jack Kerouac -- a few essential pointers for composing more compelling hipster prose.   And I found myself strongly agreeing with nearly everything Jack recommended, especially the first five items (set forth below) which in fact inspired me to write the preceding poem.

1. Scribbled secret notebooks, and wild typewritten pages, for yr own joy
2. Submissive to everything, open, listening
3. Try never get drunk outside yr own house
4. Be in love with yr life
5. Something that you feel will find its own form