Poem for Aunt Shirley

The Facebook posting

Of your passing only

Just now having been seen

Brings me around

To recollection of prior

And deeper truths

You illuminated

Your entire life

Through the abiding electric

Connection you maintained

Not battery powered as  

Was the chair in which

You sat uncomplaining

So much as you moved

Yourself about by dint

Of love’s most enduring

And knowing power

Never remotely operated

But always in the flesh itself

And never imprisoned

Notwithstanding the pain

But sitting high on a corona 

Of good words and deeds 

So now may only the bluest

Of eternity’s flowers

Be laid out to denote
The much of you
That still remains

A Passerine Fancy

 

 
A journey of
Ten thousand lashes

Marks the sparrow’s path

Without record
Of its passing
Air takes its bite from the

Passerine’s supplest  flesh

While with beak hard pressed
It looks askance
And rarely to never

Dares to laugh

Bay Avenue Meditation (每精通五行)

 

Along the crook

Of Fourth Neck to

Its most easterly extent

Proceeding out on

A thin isthmus

Of asphalt and doubt

To a wooden bench

At the end of the pier

Where only tenuously

Connected to the

Sandbar behind me 

I sit and reflect upon

The sky’s reflection

And surrender to

The still wintry air

Watching daylight ascend

In layers and columns

To a higher redoubt

A dog barks

Down the street

A serene breeze

Stirs the red

Bandana affixed

To a pole

In the mouth

Of the Bay --

A slight tremor portends

Elijah and his fiery chariot

May finally be drawing near

Each packet of wind

Has its own trope

This is no projection

Or sympathetic fallacy

Merely an observation

Of the tendencies

On clear display

Out here in the harbor

As reality goes about its task

Defining a clear smooth path 

Out past the No Wake zone and

Through the Bay’s fill and chop 

Clear beyond the Point of No Return

As the waters continue parting

With a slight nod of the crown

Drawing us onward

Into the far greater depths

That lie straight ahead

Another Year

It’s Christmas day

And anomalously

Just now I plucked

A dandelion from the

Front lawn with a white

Plumose Crown

And my mother said
To me: You can’t
Be too sure otherwise

Those seeds will be airborne
Before we get to New Year’s

And I thought to myself 
Another year another war

But it seems as if

This time around

With trowel close to hand
And a new Moon sitting
Two fingers adrift in
The western sky

The spheres have turned
And the growing season 

Is already here

 

On Hold Christmas Day - 2014 (每精通五行)

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for Frank

  

It’s Christmas Day

And just now when you

Asked me to hold

I noticed a few

Snowflakes

Drifting by

On the computer

Screen as if scattered

By some Java script

Onto the email below and then

I overheard you speaking

With the X-ray technician which

Didn't exactly fill me with

Holiday cheer and it being 50

Degrees plus out here on 

The East End I figure

That virtual snow is all

We’re likely to see on

Christmas this year

Frank on Christmas Day - 2014

On the Five Phases of the Spirit's Journey (每精通五行)

How robust life is

In all respects

The rapid recovery

Truck sits just beyond

The front lawn all day long

Capable of addressing

Present disasters even if  

Woefully inadequate

When it comes to  

Those we imagine

 And how our continued

Sense of well being hangs

By the slenderest of threads

Through many harvests  

Through regime change

And bottoming out

In short through

All five phases of Being

When at last we emerge

From Reality’s cocoon

Our term of imprisonment

Under Five Phase Mountain

Having been abruptly commuted

Upon the arrival of

A dragon with wings
Tipped with pennants of fire

A rapid recovery truck outside the window

A Wintry Mix

For Christine Stansell

Chongyam Trungpa

Steve Davis and all

The other mentors

Real or imagined

Who taught by example

 (good and/or bad)

About the dangers

And rewards of

Mixing the personal

With the spiritual

And political realms

How the Lotus of Life unfolds

In the most intricate of ways

Please understand

From now until

New Year’s more

Than a fortnight hence

I have no frigging idea

On any given night whether

I'll end up in bed alone

Gnashing my teeth

Blessed or utterly stoned

Which was the very same

Wintry mix displayed

On the streets

Of Midtown yesterday

A surcharge of the craziness

We’re lately awash in

Anguish and insight  

With an antic twist
It's a two-step line dance called
The Armageddon Shuffle

In this case arising as a

Column of protest marchers

Chanting that Black Lives Matter

Made its way up 6^th Avenue

Into the heart of Herald Square

Where a phalanx of Drunken Santas

Had already laid claim to the turf

In their riotous good cheer

They careened about

Under the street lamps

Swaying and cantilevered

Undeterred as the

Marchers proceeded

Uptown and East

While helicopters

Hovered overhead

And a cordon of cruisers

With blue and red flashing lights

Sealed off all alternate

Routes of escape

Hemmed in

On all four sides

Of the barricades

We were laid bare

In the urban grid

 Drawn and quartered

By the same police power

Those of us angry

And those of us willing

And those of us

Besotted too

All of us could

Suddenly see

Exactly where

Things stood