PR–186

I’d Believe in Fairy Tales

I’d believe in fairy tales
Not the grim ones
The pretty ones

With happy endings
If belief
Made them real

And so I believe
In fairy tales
Not the grim ones
 

PR–559

At the Orchard End of the Orphanage

I remembered the peach blossom breeze
At the orchard end of the orphanage
And I wondered how it would be different

If I’d had instead a disorphanaged situation
But then I thought of when my mother
Told me a fistful of wistful for her lost first love:

She was earnest to explain to show me
In the mirror where my now brown eyes
This time would have been blue
 

PR—605

The Good Thing About Pollyanna Stuff

The good thing about Pollyanna stuff
Is the rope fear factor
That jute law that says
It has to be designed to withstand four

Times its possible load
And so maybe my Pollyanna cup
Only runneth over from the beer foam
But it does leave some not small beer
 

PR3–401

Some of Those Pretty Chimes

Sometimes
(When all else fails)

A sense of humor avails
(And some of those pretty chimes)
 

PR3–405

A Miracle Every Minute

By golly
I’m joyly in a good mood
And it’s jolly good
By lack of folly I expect

A miracle
Every minute
And I am always in it
(Ask and it shall be given)

And the only need for forgiven
Is not having been on knees
At sunrise
(At heart sighs)
 

PR3–406

Simple Fodder for a Kaleidoscope

It is said that word choice
Is critical in a poem
And yet isn’t it like life?
If I’d not tarried at that airport

Or made a different choice or spoke with
A different voice or made a different
Call-and-response painting
With a different wife

Who’s to say that the barn burner
Page turner adventure that arose
Would have had less or looser rivets?
Been less a triumph of finger exercises

And when hush came to shove less music
From above because isn’t all just simple fodder
For a kaleidoscope and have you ever seen
An ugly image in one of those?
 

PR3–408

The Way an Ice Dancer Hasn’t Fallen

I’ve been saying a lot lately
I’m happy
But I should clarify

I am happy the way an ice dancer
Hasn’t fallen
(But I’m vigilant about that danger)

Yet you can’t let that keep you down
Because if you do fall down
It’s going to be educational and just

A brief incident and remember those angels
(Whose whispers have been making you happy)
Are fun first grade teachers
 

PR3–409

How to Use the Stars

I dream to have a dream
And if the dream comes to fruition
We’ve got ignition

But if not
Well be honest we’ve all seen
Things work out best

In the long haul
(I don’t still miss my first mate)
Yes it’s best to be captain of your barge

And too to know (at large)
How to use the stars
And an astrolabe
 

PR3–411

(I Speak Now of Darkness)

Light exists
But is absence of something existence?
(I speak now of darkness)

Some people say well it’s true
If I look around there will be flowers
And some sweet smiles

But actually there is a lot more of ugly
In fact ugly predominates
So I have cocked your hat with that

But this is extraordinary logic
To say that because it takes a ton of gravel
To find an ounce of gold

And because flowers are outnumbered
Even in your garden ergo
Schizo ipso: beauty does not amount

(Although it’s interesting about light
How little darkness you have to go through
To find some)
 

PR3–412

The Comfort of Beauty

Perhaps it’s as simple
As Zen advertised koans:
A lightning flash moment

Which fixes the photograph
To be consulted again any time
When immersed in the comfort of

Beauty seems preferable
To the dross of this world
The cross of this world
 

PR3–413

Fallen Dark Wraiths, Dark Lords, and Stars

Sometimes I feel empowered like Chief Joseph
Of the Nez Perce
(Famous for his “I will fight no more forever”)
Who led the U. S. cavalry on a scary chase

For three vastly out-numbered years whose
Campaign was even written up in the ROTC
Training manuals in military theory
Right up there with von Clausewitz Napoleon

And the Chinese practitioner
(That’s Sun Tzu to you)
So today I’m all about stratagems:
Maybe a surprise attack of blinding light

Of disarming insight
But my drift is better with re-forged swords:
The amusing of the Prince of Peace:
The prophet

But with profit from a military perspective which
While it does excite a Saint Joan parallel
Need not involve fallen soldiers
(Better to have fallen dark wraiths dark lords and stars)
 

PR3–421

Amusing Talk About Your Miracles

Sure it’s stupid stuff when you pray
To expect pie now or at least today
Pie on demand in fact

(Except perhaps then in your face)
But it’s a pure and yes amazing grace
In my experience

(Under the sky)
How obliging comes the fierce reply
When what you’re asking for is merely

More beatitude in your attitude
Why
Just now I was teetering on

Your full alabaster disaster
Mood-wise when things weren’t going well
But then I turned to certified

Moonrise Moonshine Wine
And asked well basically
To make me laugh about it

And suddenly it all seemed very
Amusing talk about your miracles
Talk about knock on doors which open (wide)
 

PR3–423

It Was Something in the Light

There’s a cost for transports of joy
(All transportation has to be won)
It’s a contrast thing:

Thinking back reflective
About past sadness
It was something in the light

Some quality there
With tears in it:
That’s the price you pay with light:

It holds dissolved lagrimas
But bright cold like in a glacier
Which erodes with implacable trysts and

Then when it turns again to tears to mist
In the sun stuff is deposited
Locally which had been quite far away

Or so it had seemed but
In truth you were redeemed because
Also angels were dissolved in the light
 

PR3–427

In Lieu of Despair, I Studied the Dancers

Normally I am mildly traumatized
At parties I subtly panic
And yet things are moving right along
Like last night was Mardi Gras

Right?
And there was dancing and I watched the dancers
I wondered at the fact that they enjoyed that
But then they all could dance but I

Felt like the illiterate dunce
At the poetry contest but guess what?
In lieu of despair over what I couldn’t do
I studied the dancers

With their hands outstretched hips snaking
I looked at their eyes
And I saw how it’s done
(You dance with your eyes)
 

PR3–428

Play Fetch with Your Heart

“Towards the One, the perfection of love, harmony, and beauty, the only being, united with all the illuminated souls who form the embodiment of the master, the spirit of guidance.”
          –Hazrat Inayat Khan (Invocation) 

The great threat to “religion” is boredom
But what do the people want?
Or even the cats?

We all seek adventure
Adventure is not boring
Prospecting is fun

(Always the chance of a glint of gold)
And if “perfection” seems far fetched
Fetch something nearer

Play fetch with your heart
Remembering that God is
Dog spelled backwards
 

PR3–429

The Ending Echo of the Ode to Joy

Let me regale you with some regal rede:
Flowers are for instance code:
They come and go
But they keep coming up (like orisons)

And if they die so did
The ending echo of the Ode to Joy
But boy Beethoven and even Cummings
They kept on coming back

Until they also died
Just like the flowers had done
But it’s an honor is it not
To be a metaphor

That God relies on?
Isn’t it sweet then
To be (like the roses)
A part of that signet and signal show?
 

PR3–430

The Oil and Water Syndrome

It’s not you see
That my angst is so fierce
Or the ennui so irksome
So hard to abide

Piece of cake that
No worse than going to work at
A job you don’t like of course
No doubt that’s pretty bad

But I think it’s just the absence of glad
And not as you might think
No that too is bearable
What’s unbearable is the dichotomy:

The oil and water syndrome
Of angst and ennui on one side
And God (read love)
On the other
 

PR3–431

Your Finite Mind Detective Perspective

Tricky God is complicated
Especially when viewed from your finite mind
Detective perspective

This concept shouldn’t be hard to divine
For who understands even her own heart?
Which after all is God’s ambassador

God’s white light white knight stalking horse
Looking for those whose artistic faith is
The wizard’s steed Shadowfax who will not

Let your heart fall even as the fearsome
Wraiths follow hard behind but not at all
Because it was a thing to comprehend

Except as apprehend and feel in steel
When art pulses in the heart’s tuning fork
Archetypal type of homing signal sign
 

PR3–432

Go Native, Choose Beauty

I felt stupid with Pangloss Pollyanna
So I let slip the dogs of corollaries

And then the proofs gang up like this:
What’s the alternative?

So If nothing rules go native
Choose beauty:

(Brave beauty–because
There is no other)
 

PR3–435

It’s Like with Eurydice

I am like Orpheus:
When I sing out front in the sun
God knows where to find me
But behind me are shadows so

Too it’s like with Eurydice:
There’s no sin in it if
You don’t doubt and look back
It’s obvious:

The shadows burn with candlewicks
And even the night turns out
To have quicksilver stars in it
(Because our sun is one of those)
 

PR3–436

Joy Is What God Is Dressed In

If you posit this:
Joy is dependent on sadness
And if joy is the supreme good

(As indeed it should be)
Then so also would be sorrow:
It’s cupid-drawn from Hegel’s bow

Or the negative space in a drawing:
You cannot draw a chair and leave
Out the not chair part and if joy is what

God is dressed in–like Dresden china:
Antique mystique
Fair and irreplaceable

Well then it’s meet to meet sorrow
With grin with no chagrin from fears
For that it then absolves

(Dissolves) into some sun-drenched mist
Of lonely clouds which ache for tryst
(Precursor clouds that turn to tears)
 

PR3–437

I’d Believe in Fairy Tales

I’d believe in fairy tales
Not the grim ones
The pretty ones

With happy endings
If belief
Made them real

And so I believe
In fairy tales
Not the grim ones
 

PR3–438

A Shrine for Having Shone

In my bone-skinny youth
One student day
There came in the mail
Ten dollars in cash

Wrapped around all white
With paper
And while for many reasons
(Many of them good)

I do think it’s best
Not to know who it was
It does have benefits
Not least that now

Every person I remember
(I suspect a teacher)
Is a shrine for having shown
Their love gloves were off
 

PR3–451

Hang Out by the Fire on a Winter’s Night

It’s weird though people say
I’m nice the truth is it’s self-oriented
But it’s not bad way selfish

To hang out by the fire
On a winter’s night it’s just
Common sense since when I am

“Nice” I love the smiles I get:
They warm my heart
My hearth
 

PR3–453

The Dark and Boring Stuff Won’t Stand and Fight

Perhaps this marks me as some kind of fanciful
But I swear I’ve been over (and under) whelmed
All over again and when then comes the rain
Or at least daunting clouds of sad ennui

Well I’ve found a magic wand hat trick thing
In which I just must reign in my ego
With a Patented who’s king and who’s not
Show of shall we call it persuasion

With the added of some tell tale signet
Seal of light on it
And bingo facto the dark
(And boring)

Stuff won’t stand and fight
In fact the shadows they just slink away
Like those slinkys do down the stairs
(No dignity at all)
 

PR3–454

I Was Just Watching an Old Movie

I was just watching an old movie
Wallace Beery et al
But no matter
(On the classic channel)

And it was I guess half over
But I just started following along
With the developing dialogue:
Turns out you can always

Just cut in anywhere
And start winging it and I think
Writing poetry is like that:
For example you just see a rose

Dancing without a partner and well
You don’t of course have to cut in
You can just write about the rose
How you found it is a good start

How it excites your heart will do
(And even more as a restored metaphor)
And then that rose will have lived forever
(You too)
 

PR3–455

The Heart People Take a Scenic Path

It’s a failure to communicate between
The intellect people and the heart people:
The heart people take a scenic path
Which makes them feel good

Feeling good being
Their way to truth by definition
We’re called convenience operators but
Heart’s any convenience is a camouflaged

Signet ring conveyance and then we’re
Sub rosa under cover roses which have
The most fun since true fun is heart stark
And personal and thus truth personified

Because in this perforce fluid world
The fluids turn to snows or to tears
As the case may be
(But it all flows to the ocean)