the space between dreams

He doesn't know
how I feel
I don't think
he doesn't know how
his eyes make me flush

he doesn't know
I would give him the world
if I could

He was a dream
Half a life ago
and I feel so
complete near him

this time
the passion is different
this time
it is old & familiar

a fire that smolders
deep & comfortable
how I wish
I knew how to tell him

I want to reach
across the chasm
between us
and simply
take his hand

I think in our case
the truth would
speak volumes
we can't admit are there

He doesn't know
what my heart feels
Where do I find
the courage to tell him

stone heart

I lost my heart today

I got up and looked
but it was gone.

I guess it was
tired of the abuse
and neglect
and decided
to move on

I carried it in my
pocket,
because it was easier
than wearing it on
my sleeve

It felt
I suppose
I had no more use
for it,
and so decided
to leave


heartbeat

tiny heartbeat

too soft for the world
to hear



where are you lying now
with no one to tend
to your fear


I needed you
if only
to carry what I
can no longer bear

if I knew where to look
I would bring you
home with care


in the middle of
this mortal coil
swimming in this
life of illusion
I have little enough
to hold on to

and now even less

I wonder where a
heart of stone
goes to find reprieve

I would tell it I
would trade places
now
if it would just
choose not to leave

This is the End

I choose here to end this.

I choose to cut off its head,
poison dripping from fangs
into my wounded soul.

I choose to bury it
on sacred ground
that it might never
bite again.

I choose the coward's
way out
because all else has
failed me miserably.

I shut the door.
I lose the key.
I turn my back.
I walk away.

I cannot take this
one more time.

Epitaph

I feel like a soda bottle
lid screwed off one too many times
fizz seeping away a little more
each time

the coveted prize
stamped so clearly on my head
remains elusive
no matter how I try

I know only this:
the words written inside that
lid
will guide this world to
knowing this soul
when it is gone
by words carved deeply
into the stone:

"Sorry, not a winner.
Please try again."

nameless here forever more

I am dying inside.

I have been for years I suppose.
It is just brought home more vividly this day.

One to whom I had dedicated my emotions has said no and expects

me to just take it and move on like it was no big deal.

Fuck him.

I do not accept.

My heart, my affections are not toys to be dicarded when you no longer care about
them.
I am a living breathing person and I deserve that respect.

I am so sick of this.

I never get anything in this life that I want.
no person.
no thing.
no answer.
no rhyme or reason.


What i want doesn’t seem unreasonable to me.
A person to walk with who gives a fuck what I feel and am.
A place to be with that person.
A time of relative peace in this soul, without having to resort to a frontal lobotomy

there is no place for people like me, who are born out side the parameters all the other mundanes choose to live in. I am a poet, a player of words, a mirror for the human condition

If I am truly a reflection of the honest level of that condition right now,
this species is in a shit load of trouble. I am falling apart, for lack of the right kind of nurturing ever being present in this lifetime.
No one wants to nurture the wounded.

no one wants to admit we exist,
though we are but you , living in honesty.

there is only one reason I have not yet stopped my own pain :
karmic law.
It would require that I do it all over again.

I tell you now
that excuse is running thinner by the hour.

Requiem

Two pennies for my eyes
Let them not forget
The ferry man will pass me by
and I the world to wander

It seems the world
Has no solace
for lonely souls
as I

I get to crossroads
to find the way blocked
and I cannot see
which way to turn

Left,right
forward,back
they are the only choices

unless I choose to jump
the track
and leave the beaten path

so remember the old ways for me
pay the ferryman his due
Close these eyes to all the world
that I might start anew.

one more time, it seems

love is a cheat
played upon the soul
like so many games
at the penny arcade

a handful of coins
to be spent or hoarded
as wisdom says
if only I’d known

I would have
put them aside
to waste at
another time

a diffferent soul
to spend my
time upon

a waste of change
thrown to the world
by one too naive
to know the difference

Now I stand here
penniless
ashamed
defeated
yet again


the runes said
this pattern
could not
be repeated
without
consequence

I did not take
The Gods
seriously

such am I
made into Icarus


Would that it was enough
to burn me away
to mere ash

As it is
I plummet to
the ground

little more than
a puddle of
useless wax

Yet again
has that deceiver Love
left me damned

damned forever
here
to question my
Self

I accept now
that I am to be alone
for whatever
reason
whatever karma
I have earned
through folly large
or small

I will cease to ask
for any further boon

and ask only of
the One
that It teach me dispassion


that I might never feel like this

again.






I love you anyway
no distance
no time
no other person

will ever change that.

Staring Into The Sun

I come to my own understanding
the blinding light of realization

Staring at the world thru pinholes
the scream of the solar wind
tearing through my skull

the visions of mystics threaten
at the door,
my only desire- for clarity & silence.

Clarity of mind born from dispassion
control- alternative-delete

and begin again.

_______________________________

A bug in the system-
creeping, gnawing, feeding
and the Source reveals itself

patterns
I see patterns
square
sphere
tri-ang-le


Alone in a crowd
alone in the world
I would bleed
for my god

if I had one.

_________________________

patterns
ebb & flow
a beach washed away
and born in one

God is a beachcomber
searching out that
perfect shell

I found the bug
finally
amid the gel of thought



Purest of pure
are the only ones
born to utter
the Word

How many of those
can there possibly
be

Silence between the
digits
It's coming clearer


Stop trying to stop
the voices the screaming
Let the sun in it burns
it burns away the
impurities


I am free.



All is One

the pattern emerged
while staring into
the One.

prose at a pose

A Perfect Cup of Tea



I found a cupid lying solitary on the desk. My mother had slipped it into a valentine’s card the same year she died. every now and then one turns up in the strangest place. this one more so than usual, as a bead from the work I do was sitting as though clasped in its hands. It was a hematite heart.
How weird is that.
I spent the day, nay even the weekend, wondering of my lot in this life, the level of aloneness I find myself in, to the point of abject loneliness sometimes, and then here this thing is. I have been at that desk all day. It wasn’t there this morning when I was raging against my machine (e-mail acting up)

i have to wonder if it is my mom, from somewhere on the otherside of the Veil, trying to tell me that love is within my grasp. Or is it me searching again for that companion I just can’t seem to find.. Is it mere coincidence, or did I subconciously make it happen. Maybe someone else did.

Love is such a vague and stupid thing sometimes. I think what should be emphasized is really finding that person to share space and time with who doesn’t chap your hide as badly as the others, and who can put up with you. Goddess knows, I am no saint. Bad temper. emotional roller coaster. unpredictable, even to myself.. Brilliantly creative and scared shitless by it. Smart to the point of my brain frying with the pressure of it all. so shy it can sometimes be physically painful.
what a ridiculous mix. at least, I know from talking to some people that I am not alone in my oddities.

i read recently that children are born already wired to be happy or be unhappy. from pictures taken of me at a young age, i would have thought i was one of the happy ones, despite illness almost from birth. it is hard to figure that one out when i stop and look at my life now. i feel like i wear so many masks that i sometimes cannot decipher what’s real of me anymore. there is some piece buried deep down inside that is still no more that 5 years old that is seeking something in the way of human companionship. that’s the thing the masks are all there to protect. i wish i knew how to help it not be so bloody afraid, because as long as it is, it will go on being alone and thus unhappy.

i had a beloved teacher once, a person i MUST have trusted, because i let her into my hidden self through my poetry- a place i rarely let anyone until only last year-
Madame Rabke (goddess protect that beautiful soul) responded very gently to one of my pieces that had laid bare this aloneness of mine by pointing out that alone and lonely are not the same thing. i have never forgotten those words. the piece of paper is still in the notebook i used to collect the poems in. i sometimes wish she was still around, to see if she could give me any insight into distinguishing the difference. i am afraid i have failed to find it on my own.

i know an awful lot of people who married or got involved with another almost at a level of compromise. “ I didn’t think I would ever find anything better.” cannot say how many times i have heard those words and felt sorry, both for the sayer of them and the one they were said about. that’s pretty sad.

when i hear things like that, i know that part of me is better off. i may be alone, but i have not “settled”. i am still looking for someone to compliment my Self- a person who is an individual and yet feels like a part of me too. my best friend casey is the closest i have found. sadly, he’s gay, or it might have been perfect. ‘course, if he’d been straight, it would’ve been a totally different relationship anyway.


************************************************************************

a book i am readin just came out with a line from the main character that struck home with me, the poet. “Poetry is, I think, the ultimate form of self-deception.”
ouch.
that means by proxy that much of my life’s work has been in self-delusion. I cannot find any reason to be happy about that one. i have had little enough to leave behind me to remind the world i ever existed. perhaps it will someday be found that through my own self-deception, i have added to the greater good by giving some lonely, remorsing soul a mirror by which to gaze upon his/her own soul, and find salvation. whatever form that might take, i can only venture the vaguest of guesses. one can never be certain the affect one’s art can truly have on others. too much of the response is bound to stay buried inside and become mired in with all the other life experiences shaping that person.


see? there i go again. ever the poet, even in prose.

think i will go seek the perfect cup of tea.

OBLIVION

when total numbness just isn’t enough.......



Sounds like a postcard
mailed from my soul
to the One out there
Asking for respite


I understand Poe
So much better than
Before

We are creatures
made not of blood & sinew
but love and need,
desperation beyond measure.


Be assured.
It is possible to die
from a broken heart,
Shattered by one’s own self.

I am so used to feeling
perhaps too much for one soul
that to go numb doesn’t work.

I need the input.
Dare I say
I need the pain?

It is the one thing
reminding me
always
I am still alive.

*****************************

What bothers me most
is that others say
all this is self-inflicted.


Not that I look
for a place to lay
blame

but I have to wonder
why any would do
to him/herself
what I supposedly
do to me.

It is, I think,
the self-containment
that bothers me the
most.


When I walk among the stars
(those of the sky, not
human making)
I am One again, not alone.

Locked in this flesh
bound by this world
I feel so seperate

and I am desperate
to be anything but.

Soul's Memory

I knew you in a past life
you were my paramour
A face that lit my life
from within
and does even today
when I remember
thru those eyes

It’s something in the eyes.
I’ve known them for millenia-
a tenderness and
a connection I have
known no where else

How I pine in this life-
to be so close
and yet so seperated.

It seems that though
our lives this time
are to touch,
we are never to be as it was.

I stand on the sidelines,
my insides aching to touch,
to prove again my undying
love

and have to watch
as each time you walk by
only the barest flicker
of remembering.

I cannot blame you,


yet it hurts.


You were the one I gave
it all for- the centre
of my very world. All
else was merely interference
or perhaps enhancement
but when we were together
I felt complete.


It is said that all
existence
is merely smaller pieces
of the One,
that it all fits together
in one gigantic puzzle.

I feel like a solitary piece
sometimes
floating in time
wanting to find the one
piece to complete me.

It is unfair,
no matter now well I
knew you,
to expect you to be
that piece.

Yet you once were.
and I know it.
and I have yet to
find another path
in this life.



Forgive me.


I do not always know
the path I am to take
here.
Looking within does
not seem to shed light.
I seek what I knew
because what I have
does not seem to fill
the gaps.

And, as I did before,
so shall I love you
now,
even from afar.
That, at least,
the Gods would
know as
sacred.

signs

guideposts

I am always looking
for guideposts in this life

a map as I wander
the back roads
to tell where I am
& which way to turn

Never quite sure what
it is I am looking for
I look to the outside
to rediscover the In

It doesn't always work
well

like any map, its needs
to be updated

how do others do it
do they just flounder
or is there some instinct
that gives them an idea
which turn is right
at the crossroads

Lots of advice
tons, in fact
and yet none truly applies to me

******************************

talk and talk
and all of one's own self
for in the end,
it is what we know best

the tunnel vision of ego
keeps knowledge on a
personal bent

and leaves those searching
with only skewed points of view

it is never easy
to walk the mile in
another's mocassins

and even less so when
asked opinion over a
sympathic ear

9-24-85

In the winter of my day
I contemplate thee

My love

My lover

child golden yet unborn
known to me

as are you

so you are

I do not know what fire
hast kept thee
out among the trees
Out among the stars

But I know it burns
Deeply in thy chest
warm and loving
fiery and charmed


indeed you are so charmed

1985

Shadows so black
they looked like burn marks
in the dry brown grass.
The Texas sun bit viciously
into the earth.

The changes are coming.
Look well to the
grass & trees.
They sing of sorrow,
of infinite patience,
of desperation.
All this will change
soon....but soon enough?
Cry for the onea who
do not see.
Cry for the loss of
all we know
or knew.

Merciless ships
laden with unforgiving
sun and struggling
clouds. Few creatures
venture far in this
daylight. The night comes,
with breezes for respite,
and the day's heat
lies quiet, forgotten.
but not forgiven.
Life is leeched out
inch by careful inch.
Where are the rains,
Goddess,
to feed your starving
children?

Owa Tafoo Liam

paper squid in the road
triangled moon in the sky
lies&lies&lies

I can no longer
believe in myself
base self-deceiver
that I am.

I walk the halls
of this life
and peek through
closed doors and keyholes

hoping to find
someone to play with,
forgetting the lesson:
as we come into this world
so we leave it.

unfinished sonata
fades from the keyboard
a tune both pale and sweet
It was my soul once
when daylight did not make me cringe

midnight dreams of
warm strong hands
a scent other than
my own
are now so much grave dust
blown aloft by passing shades



Ah the life alone
it makes for passions
both deep and dank
drawing on the fear we
all share
and live in delusion
the better to ignore

that biting ceature
made of self-doubt
born when just a kid
borne for a lifetime
as a badge of protection
and a gnawing demon
of self inflicted hurt


Yes, I was to blame, me alone, in the end.


I believed another's ugly words,
let it settle in as truth,
it being in fact the farthest from
and it has cost me at every turn
ever since.

I sabotage before there is a chance,
for to let it happen
would risk that pain of
"this really isn't for me"
The words cut too deeply,
and yet back I go,
to do it just the same
one more time.

Those with their eyes open,
those who look at reflection
and can see enough to laugh,
a chant for the moment
of complete self-realization:

Owa Tafoo Liam.

Peeling Away

pieces of my mother
a life by the wayside

five years it's taken
but slowly it chips away

As the butterfly emerges
the caterpillar mourns


it astounds how
another's life can
so thoroughly
envelope
to lose one's self
in the noise

I listen for a clear
ringing of my own
small voice
once again
in the din of the world

Runesmith

reader of fates
caster of stones
and now the message
screams loudly
for me-

Break down the walls
open the windows
breathe the air
of spiritual freedom

Sing to the world
of that gentle heart
the one that cries
at small creatures' passing

the shouting, the shoving
needs to die away
so the gift within
can finally glow

that light under the bushel
was never about praise to God
but living so that one
IS a glory to the One

it is the cruel Temptress
of this world
who teaches to hide, protect,
fail to trust ever again

and all that one can do with
that
is die inside a little
more each day

Such lessons are easily said
but not so easy to apply
I feel a change in the wind
it sings of freedom finally

22 April 93

Sometimes I wonder why I fear
And what it is I fear.
I argue my limitations
and sure enough they are.
I demand to be heard
but when the floor is mine
I forget what I was
yelling about.

Is it truly that success
scares the living hell out of me.
Is it that I fear the Source
within me will dry up.
Is matyrdom so preferable
to exploring my art to its depth.
Do I fear that what I do
Cannot stand the test
of Time.

I do not like the aloneness.
Sometimes it threatens to break me.
I do not like the floundering in the
mud of mediocrity because
I fear.
What I do not know
is how to break down the door
that I've so long refused to
open.

and no one else can do it for me.

a thought or two

Okay, not poetry, but from the poet anyway.
I have become aware in the last week or so how very self-centered, how egotistical, poetry truly is. It has been a journey for me to try to lose that ego part of myself, to face it and let it go, and has come as no surprise that I have in fact been feeding it. Ego was once a majour survival tool for us, and it is not so easy to sublimate. This is particularly true in our American society, where the ME generation set a precendence about putting ourselves and OUR needs and desires above others'. Service is seen as a weakness, not a virtue. For true peace to come to this society, there will need to be a shift of attitude. The giving of one's self, time and effort is truly the only thing of value anyone can give to another. This is especially true when it comes to one's children. We have bred a generation of neurotic and insensitive kids who do not know how to deal with the world at large, merely by not giving them the gift of attention from one or both parents.
Well, revelation yet again.
I have to wonder to myself how it will change my writing. It has been an uphill battle to change myself, but one of my gifts to this world is my art, the painting and the writing. What will I do with it now?

05-10-82

Why do I travail so?
I know you are out of my reach,
Out of the scope of my possession
Though I would never try to own
Such a high-flying bird.

Why do I pine over a face?
It is a face that shall be Wisdom
to some, though I don't think it knows
But I think my thoughts are too radical;
I am setting myself up for a letdown.

I hope you never fall out of grace,dear one,
Never come to question what seems
to make you happy now.
Though the woman in me would like
To permeate your private side,
The spirit in me sees much
That is to become of you.
You are strangely wise for your years,
Yet flooded with amazing innocence.
I hope they shall both be your friend
And not your demise.








*********************************************************************





I cannot bend my knee to pray-
You see, my "god" and I just discuss
Things, when the world gets out of hand.
All the books, all the rabble-rousing
of religion are most distressing to me.


My god is Infinite (good name for it, too.)
My god is everyone and thing known
And a lot more that isn't.
I do not expect hellfire, nor sympathy,
but Patience and a Shoulder to lean on
When this Lesson I am here for
Gets me down.

There really isn't much more to it than that.


I am an infant piece of a gigantic....Existence.
So are you.
Why make more of it than that,
when all that is required
Is that you be happy,
that you work hard,
and that you know eventually,
through you Lessons,
You will fill the space made for you
before our limited scope as humans
sought to measure Time.


There's the only catch:
It's simple.
Simplicity seems to escape humans.

So they invented complexity.
Now we have 3 pieces to the Puzzle,
and the rest of us just sit about
wondering if someday we'll be
graced with the chance to
be part of a part of a Piece.
Better yet, why not call it
PEACE.

But we were never less than
The Whole of It.
children of God?
No, a piece of God Itself.
(I put no limits, not even a sex, to the Is.)
In fact, blasphemous as it would be said to be,
We are God.

That's putting it in plain English.
Only, despite being plain,
It is still far fromthat easy.
I mean, I'm talking of a Universe.
Do you realise how vast that is?
No, you can't.
It is beyond human comprehension at this point.
Perhaps someday.

But it is a lot bigger than this continent,
Or our beautiful Terra
Or even our Solar system.


Still, we are one with all of It
and It with all of us.
I hope someday to help you feel
The Pulse of the Universe,
the very movement of Life Itself,....

the very breath of God.

..................................