Friday, October 19, 2012

Morning Meditation

The steam twirls and twists as it ascends 

morning thoughts gently twisting and rising

Mist upon the cold windows, warmth within

Awaken gently to be gentle with the world

Friday, October 12, 2012

20 year watercolors



They Took Everything Except One Odd Thing

Singly focused on one thought filling the mind
an instinctual rage that the camp was attacked
the outsider crossed from them into us.
I'm driven by a need to attack only barely aware of what I don't know.

They had said you have been robbed.
No, they said, sorry to hear about it
and I knew not about what
pointed in a direction, I spit nails
     pounded them into the ground
           with each step.

Only after the police left
did my mind empty.
After being so full of just one thought
my mind was blank
I wandered aimlessly around the crime scene, my apartment.

If it was worth taking it was gone.
I wasn't even staring at the empty spots
or filling the incomplete list of what was gone, what was missing,
just wandering like the way you enter a room with purpose and then forget what it was
searching for what was missing from me
what had been but was now an emptiness.
Truth be told in this modern age
they took everything except one odd thing:
my desire for things material -- objects that do not fill the loneliness of emptiness inside
would that I could leave the chain off
leave the door unlatched on the place
where my desire to consume is housed.

Tuesday, October 09, 2012

The Little Things


Some days
I miss tying shoelaces
much more
than wearing shoes.

But if I had shoes big enough for me to fill
my skin is so hard
I'd wear the insides down to the sole
not the other way round.

Never mind that my fingers
as dexterous as cucumbers
could never tie laces.
The four of us forget the little things.

Like writing.
I'm a scientist with a PhD
yet I hold a pen
buried in the middle of a fist.

Only metal pens
everything else snaps
even the strongest things
break sometimes under pressure.

Saving the world
has become normal
fitting into the world
is too fantastic a feat.

-- The Thing
    Four Freedoms Plaza