Raised with the absolutes

Raised with the absolutes

The always and ever

Finding myself wanting

Sometimes and not never

Mondrian to Rothko

Fine lines to edges soft

With primary colors

Bleeding together oft

How did you end up here

How did you end up here

Surely this is not home

Were lighthouses absent

In your drifting and roam

Instead on a light pole

With presence still regal

How is it you became

A parking lot seagull

Unwanted and unplanned

Unwanted and unplanned

Trees growing in chainlink

Absorbing the crosshatch

Like skin and tattoo ink

Fighting for survival

Struggling but with success

Branches crown above their

Branded trunks of distress

Boating past burnt bridges

Boating past burnt bridges

Franz Kline water graveyard

Efforts to reconcile

Has Truth in disregard

And here, firm as before

A non-deluded choice

I am in reality

And comprehend my voice

Gnarly Rodin scultpure

Gnarly Rodin sculpture

A stocky sycamore

Grappling to stand upright

Pillar, ceiling to floor

The hardship of being

Tireless grunt of the gut

And there beneath its feet

A squirrel and its nut

We had our brief bursts of

We had our brief bursts of

Beauty in time and place

A few sparks sprouting stars

Hurling for outerspace

So many fireworks flashed

Billowing smoky clouds

Dissipating drifters

In temporary shrouds

I wanted more for you

I wanted more for you

A greater happiness

A sense of worth, like gold

Comforting tenderness

Be mother and father

To your innermost child

And protect your dreams in

The wide open and wild

The yellow is waiting

The yellow is waiting

Chasing the rising sun

Envelopes opening

Landscapes where chickens run

And into the city

Museums full of Art

Avenues of unknown 

And back again to start

We had to save ourselves

We had to save ourselves

Maintain our sense of be

Leaving loved ones behind

In order to be free

We were impoverished

But were wealthy with will

Looking back, years passing

And they are same and still

Never questioning All

Never questioning All

The butterfly, the bee

The spider and the owl

The ant and manatee

Yet when ever Life is

Threatened or could be lost

The fight for existence

Explicates at all cost

The light is painting gray

The light is painting gray

And in my center sea

Red in morning rising

On the melancholy

Solo applause clapping

On the sides of my boat

The feeling I'm always

In a circular moat

Why could you not love us

Why could you not love us

Hugging you, no hug back

Worhipping and bow down

The one avenue, one track

Discrediting dissent

Insisting our madness

Competing, but you win

Here's your trophy - Sadness

Without an erasure

Without an erasure

The missteps and mistakes

Alongside achievements

And the luckiest breaks

Having pride and regret

Succumb and overcome

Routinely turning soil

To find a greener thumb

Great painting of unknown

Great painting of unknown

Provenance or artist

Unrecognized talent

Art abandoned carcass

Like a cabinet card

Portrait dressed in finest

Finding obscurity

Accoladed minus

An afternoon of grace

An afternoon of grace 

Clouds creating shadows 

A sense of slow motion 

Nature in full repose

The lone honeybee and

Birds resting their voices 

Here without story, no

Ulysses James Joyce’s

I know who I am and

I know who I am and

See greater potential 

Deeper roots, higher limbs

Desert or torrential 

Both dredging and dreaming 

The shovel and ladder

To succeed by trying

Stem and bloom both matter

The whole world feeling small

The whole world feeling small

Oceans are a bathtub

The stars are circling birds

The sun a yellow nub

Gently small cargo is

Being spooned overboard

Poems are gentle eggs

Nay umbilical cord

Hard being me today

Hard being me today

Sensitive, down and raw

Climbing for sunlight as

The jaws of sorrow gnaw

Seeking to soothe my soul

Afraid to disappoint

Both self-flagellation

And wanting to annoint

Green before the summer

Green before the summer

Pales the fresh look of youth

Who knows what weather holds

But time is steady Truth

The stars liked loved ones gone

Cold and bright in darkness

An unreachable light

In the abyss starkness

I was wrong in thinking

I was wrong in thinking

You were without feeling

Double agent father

Mastering a dealing

Heartfelt generosity

In the wrong currency

Deemed a poor offering

During our urgency

This consumer is full

This consumer is full

Emotions and landscape

The feelings of others

Impossible escape

Yet my consistency

Has limited power

It seems people grow bored

Of my orchid flower

Poetry transcribing

Poetry transcribing

A telugu feeling

The swirls of Starry Night

Are cresting clouds kneeling

Abstract reality

Tar spills on the highway

Verb nounification

Motion under x-ray

Not a nest in the heart

Not a nest in the heart

Just a confronting smile

A wink and icy glare

Pylons at every mile

Baby cake, powder cake

Throwing temper tantrums

Reasoning abandoned

For injury phantoms

Backside of needlework

Backside of needlework 

The crisscross and the knots

The tree with exposed roots

Varicose with blood clots 

The roughness of my palms 

Scars where the wounds have healed 

The broken and repaired 

In the openness revealed

Cherishing the beauty

Cherishing the beauty

Spectacular and spot

The wide and the narrow

A three-sixty and dot

Mothering a moment

All encompassing love

Pulling close, letting go

And releasing thereof

Icebergs and polar bears

Icebergs and polar bears

Gorillas and jungles

Oceans and coral reef

Human garden bungles

Plastic water bottles

Throw away sippy straws

Coal and carbon fuels

Luxury design flaws

Conclusions wound so tight

Conclusions wound so tight

Walnuts in walnut shells

No loose threads or stragglers

No room for ringing bells

Stacks of non-fiction books

New facts only support

This place of decisions

In our final report 

With these sticks and onions

With these sticks and onions

Making the most of it

Success in steps and not

Just climbs to the summit

Indian murderers

Now protecting their steal

From foreign outsiders

I ask, how does that feel

In our search for meaning

In our search for meaning

Our lives such happenstance

Together, untethered

Unchoreographed dance

When time no longer asks

We must try not to cry

And sing for each other

A goodbye lullaby

The hollyhocks broken

The hollyhocks broken

By a much needed storm

A thirsty earth gulping

In a climate abnorm

A sacrifice was made

For greater and better

The landscape or flower

The desert or wetter

Denying existence

Denying existence

Yet here is my story

Unpolished and raw

A gravel of glory

All colors make white light

And in its refraction

Diversity is Truth

We are One of all fraction

There is no school for this

There is no school for this

No paper or degree

Or a curriculum

Course one and two or three

Great distances are here

In the solar plexus

Running fast and in place

Mental muscle flexes

Pinching each moment as

Pinching each moment as

They funnel into then

Constant disappearing

A Ground Zero fountain

Holding them a second

Like a canvas being stretched

Saying I'll remember

Memorial name etched

The quiet of always

The quiet of always

On the girders of trust

Above the placid pools

Of commitment and must

Individual I

In the collective soul

A seat at the table

Fractions adding to whole

Here in the black and blue

Here in the black and blue

A ripe peach pinata

But the internal is

A Moonlight Sonata

So many obstacles

Don't allow them to stay

If we do not fight them

They just become the way