A 

Passion 

for Pruning

I’m doing the wind’s work

pruning the geraniums 

with impersonal care

though I love them (sort of)

do they even know I’m there?

Pruning is my favorite pastime,

I’d weed and shape myself (and I do!)

knowing how buds are easily born

by beheading a stalk or two.

Lord, let me never tire of growing,

no matter when it comes or where;

out of my element or off my game,

I refuse ever to cease to take care.

For all of us are like flowers,

whether our petals are pink or red.

We need the rain, the wind, and sun,

to insure we’re properly bred.

If beauty’s in the eye of the beholder,

then we gardeners have work to do,

because being in charge of a flower

is a privilege when it falls to you.

If you’ve no interest in blooming

here, there, now or ever again,

then what’s the point of beauty

if it can’t be offered to a friend?

We are tulips with burnished edges,

roses with a sunset’s purple hue,

dandelions meant to wander

filling in a field with yellow (or two!).

Being both gardeners and flowers

is a conundrum that’s for sure.

But the purpose of our horticulture

is to be the cause of one’s own cure.

09/09/21

The Difference Between

Yourself and Your Self

Is as simple as 

night and day

One can only be

put on, while

the other can be

taken away.

One like paint

on a canvas,

the other

an image

that fades.

One that knows

all the answers

while the other

plays solo 

charades.

One is awake

and responsive,

the other asleep

in its bed.

While the first

is one with nature,

the second lives

on in its head.

My advice to you

every evening is

take yourself off

and

lay your self down,

drape it on a chair

if you have to

then sit in silence

all around.

Be barely you

and hardly there

knowing everything

has its disguise.

Try to be true

as the look

that accrues

in the depth of

a wise man’s eyes.

When there’s

no stopping

anything from

happening

and nowhere

else to go,

nothing to see,

nothing to hear,

be vulnerable as

a winter crow.

That’s when 

your contrasts

reach their zenith;

darkness and light

both needed

to call your

shadow home.

09/07/21

 

HOT 

PINK 

BUDDHA

She let me in to clean up

her grungy one room apartment

with its unobstructed view of Saturn.

I knew how to stifle that part

of my brain that judges

but, really, I’m only human.

This chick was reference grade skank

and it was immediately clear 

her taste was

all in her mouth.

At the center of the room 

was what looked like a torture device

but was in fact a treadmill machine

straddling 4 sound-proofing pillows

“My neighbor says I make too much noise”

graced by a polka dot bra 

dangling off it's handlebar.

Some would call that

a tone setter for the room, that is

until you saw the hot pink Buddha

seated indian-style 

atop the mini-fridge.

“I take it you know what to do,”

she said in her paisley crop top

and turquoise spandex capris. 

“No problem,” I said, seeing as she

was living her life out loud

right in front of me

with such perfect abandon.

For all I knew she was putting

her best foot forward. Even so,

I’d found a way not to care

who says or does what.

It always helps.

“Should I start in the bathroom?”

I asked, bracing for bacteria.

“Sure. Just pretend I’m not here.”

I couldn’t think of anything less possible.

But I’d learned how to stay in my zone.

Whether I was a poet who secretly cleans toilets

or a toilet cleaner who secretly writes poems

it hardly mattered, though

I’d discovered a long time ago:

intelligence makes people wary.

So I try not to be eloquent.

The whole apartment smelled 

like that artificial air-freshener

they use in truck stop rest areas

hopelessly camouflaging

the unromantic nature of real life.

I made my way to the bathroom

with my cleaning supplies.

“You know, I’m a teacher,” 

she said out of the blue. 

“Oh, really,” I said, trying

not to appear gobsmacked.

“Yeah, we start back to school next week.”

“Wow, that must be challenging,”

considering all the Covid restrictions

mercilessly in place.

“Kids today are a lot to live up to.

I need my stamina. 

They’ll take you down if you’re not

100 percent on your toes.

I’m not gonna lie, 

my feet hurt already,”.

Faced with the hymen colored walls 

inside the pit-stop of the bathroom

I could feel the oxygen level

dip and close in

as I came face to face

with the transformative job at hand:

the mirror spattered with spray,

the sink spotted with flesh-tone gook,

the back of the toilet cluttered

with bottles and jars of all sizes

purchased for their promise of beautification.

The collective smell prickled my nose,

fabricating a scent not found in nature,

feminizing me by sheer osmosis.

Or was it some insidious infiltration?

And then it happened.

She and I were suddenly one;

my consciousness reincarnated.

I want to be pretty 

no matter what I am doing,

Walking, shopping, working out,

teaching the grateful and ungrateful

alike. But just when others think

all I am is pretty, I'll hit them with

the hard won reformation

of my inner character. 

I am nobodies pretty fool.

I have grit and gumption

and emotional intelligence

that can top any muscle headed

man and if that weren’t enough

I can enlarge or shrink myself 

to any size because 

my heart, having been so

repeatedly broken, no longer

needs to be loved in order

to love

anyone or anything 

in any way.

09/02/21

 

Some Tears Water the Earth

Mornings are for 

remembering ourselves;

casualties of the night

slowly coming to.

Our bags still packed

from last night's holiday

we return 

bringing everything

we own to someplace

less new,

as if the familiar

were our

only comfort.

Last night I aligned

myself with the moon,

preferring its strange

but indigenous gravity.

There my life

weighs less,

as I bounce slowly 

between experiences 

with magnetic

affinities 

all their own;

a cotton-mouthed astronaut 

determined to dowse 

the mind for

one last 

moist mirage.

If a desert is

to be survived,

the burden 

of our history

must lie in 

an absence 

of water.

I refuse to exclude 

even a glimmer of

 definitive, yet

 unfelt emotion.

So I agree 

to grieve,

because tomorrow

my only choice

may be

 to weep

a river

from the well

of feeling

my dreams

have sown.

8/22/2021

 

Ray, of the Light

I was crossing Columbus

when I saw him, 

his warped face

gawking at itself

in a storefront window

holding his mother’s hand

as she jerked him

to move on.

Resisting her tug

she stepped up her effort

with a loud “Come on, Ray!”, 

and an even louder 

“We’ve got to keep going!”

only to be followed 

by an equally exasperated:

“I don’t wannoo!”.

At that moment I was his.

And in his corner.

In that same moment 

the glare of a car’s

side mirror

bounced off a ladies

silver necklace

flashing in my face

and in the blink of an eye

I was changed.

Suddenly 

I knew what it was

to be a Picasso in a ghetto,

as if I'd been painted as

The Scream instead of Munch;

a still-life turned cubist

with my life bleeding

through transparent 

paint.

Turning away stunned 

I caught my reflection

in the window 

of the boutique.

I was a bird

that had hit 

a glass pane 

in mid-flight.

I clenched my throat

stifling the desire 

to cry out.

How cruel and vivid

and various was creation

and how perilous it was

being different, deformed, 

unusual, even as I began 

to imagine how freeing… 

to be let off intelligence's hook,

to live a life of endless

low expectations

with such unspoken

understanding.

Yet to know 

such unabashed joy,

to not care if 

my clothes matched

or be expected to excel 

at the art of anything. 

To stare boldfaced at others

and bare witness 

to the blemishes

on a stranger’s 

pockmarked face 

out loud. 

To hug a random person

without the slightest hesitation.

To traffic in atrociousness.

To dance off the beat 

with uncontrollable effeminacy.

To never second guess

my motives or question 

the grander scheme.

To be shameless 

and show offy

in the middle of the street.

To mimic the mannequins, 

sticking my tongue out

at the shopkeeper’s frown,

and at last

to cry for what I want

the very moment 

I wanted it.

8/22/2021

 

A Dream is a Mandala

Drawn Down by the Soul

Recalling a dream

as if it were

a hit & run, 

I’m unable

to identify

the driver 

behind 

the wheel;

whether 

it’s me

or not.

Every night

I explore

another 

mandala

knowing

the soul

is made

entirely 

out of

it's own

attentiveness.

I begin

by leaving

my self portrait

out on

the street

in the dark,

watching as

passersby

mistake me

for us both.

Last night

I watched

as a tornado

whose circular 

funnel

can cause only

abstraction

further obliterate

my logic

like so much

scattered

bric a brac.

Now it will take

an art

to call out to

others 

without appearing

desperate.

Yet

I go on

searching for

the center,

unsure whether

it lie in 

the mind,

the heart, 

or even

the hands,

let alone

one's liver.

08/18/21