Definitions

Once every four years
(and few centuries)
We remember
that a calender
is just our attempt
at conforming nature.

We want things
to fit in boxes.

A year
A species
A law
Pi

These are just words
to describe things
that we can't understand.

Poetry Night

Alright Team Legend. There are many of you out there (at least three, including myself) that read this thing. The time for passivity is over. Now its your turn. On Saturday, March 1, I will be holding the world's second "Non-Rhyming Urban Poetry Night" at 7:30. Come if you can, if you can't send me your work and we will read it in proxy. Comment to this post if you have any questions or need directions. Thanks again for validating my creativity, this gives me a chance to validate yours.

Longing

A golden haze speckles my windshield
I am driving into the setting sun
West to adventure
to visit the land of my Father.

Two weeks gone.
Leaving my appetite unfulfilled
like drinking water
to slake hunger.

Now the images flash on my screen saver
and I hesitate to move my mouse
when it is time to work again
I see the red rock
smell the sage
feel the path sing underfoot.

I long to return
to the land of my Father
and your Fathers
But I realize that the longing
is the richest part of the journey.

Final Emergance

The world gapes wide
a Grand Canyon of opportunity
with plenty of places to jump.

Through Navajo sandstone
cut by the grinding currents
of five million years
-a blink geologically.

And as you fall,
past the granaries
and mining trails
you become a speck in time
ambivalent to impact.

For your goal
is never to hit-
you are aiming for
the Emergence
Sipapu

And so you drop not to this world,
but to the one before
and the one after
So what you do now
doesn't really matter.

Antarctica

Where have gone the Shakleton's?
The Amundsens and the Scotts?
Are they still out there
Frozen by pride or friendship?

Or have they endured,
into astronauts and scientists?
Who push the boundaries
of maps and knowledge
with Diplomas and Dissertations.

Maybe they have instead deferred,
suppressed their nature.
Choosing instead RPG's
Loud music, and movies.
Inoculated themselves
against the vast greatness
of human potential.

I'm somewhere still on the ice,
playing football on the melting floe,
the boat crushed
but full of hope.

The Package

The package came today
it was small
insured
and expected.

There was no surprise
When I saw the address
the handwriting
neat like the text on a diploma.

Still I tore it open,
and put the pieces on my front seat.
Inside a red box
once given in love.

I put it in my coat pocket
and sat on it at work
now it's in my sock drawer
what else can you do with a ring?

The Challenge to Become

God-

I do those things that are easy
I stop when others are stopped
I listen when an ear is needed
I invite, call, and persuade
I bring my own grocery bags
I try to forgive and forget.

But my heart is not cooperating
Help me to do the things that are hard.

Social Capital

How far we have wandered
as a people
from village roots.
Where every child was your own.
Because those of your seed
may not last the winter.

Doors were only
to keep the warmth in
and not people out,
wealth was measured
in extra place settings.

Now-
We live fractured,
where church, school, and job
bind tighter than humanity.

What can tie human hearts?
Thread long enough to cross oceans
and strong enough to knit stone.

Give me the needle
we'll try this one stitch as a time.

Pearls Before Swine

“Paul Bunyan's Potty”
the map said.
In ignorance I buy the pass
and twist it to my pack..

I walk barefoot
through a red-sanded serpent
banked by thirsty Tamarisk,
watching for Salt Creek.

The serpent sheds
and I walk on its dry skin
that sinks with every step
Tamarisk now cliffs.

Until I reach the crapper-
A grand skylight
An ancient cathedral
A stone sermon.

Who was the moron
that renamed this place?

Pagan

Our mothers-
danced under the full moon
singing pagan verse
to the trees, the sky, and the stars.

We know better now
God is our Father,
and lives in the bible
and in heaven
and in our hearts.

But as I travel under the full moon
on a field of white-
alone
and see Coyote,
Ceder,
and feel the frost,
I really can't blame them.

Dance mothers, Dance.

Kraken

Some people
would say an uncut 25” X 25” square
was too constrictive
that it stifled
creativity,
ability,
and potential.

Just a square?
No cuts?
Only folding?
Too many rules,
Too many restrictions.

Well then, who would create this
given only paper
and license to do anything

Death

I used to fear death,
Think about it more than proper.
The mystery,
the finality.

So I took a mustang skull
put thick glasses across its snout
and set it on my bed stand
to greet me as the sun rose.

Now when I think of dying
I see a bespectacled horse
that knows more about mortality
than I do.

Strange Tails

To all those
that say dinosaurs didn't become birds-
what would you say
if I showed you a rooster
with teeth?

Or the hipbone of a whale,
and a man born with tail?

Then you could ask me
for my golden book
and I would have nothing to say.
I guess we both can be right.

Time

I was once talking to a Ute,
In a valley of Ancients
and she took us to pictures
carved in the rock
chipped with stone
and colored with animal fat mixed with red ocher.

“These spirals represent the passing of time-
so the Hopi say”
and I looked
and wondered
is time spiraling out,
or in?
To eternity-
or to the end?

Outdoor Consumer

I live in my own place now,
So if I want to build a fort
and sleep on the couch
and eat Nachos at midnight
and ice cream for dinner
I will

And if I want to spend my money
on skiing and Rugby
and books I'll never read
and trips I'll never take
I will

Until I realize
that my legend-
my adventure
is not found in plastic
or paper
but in a quiet sweaty moment
where I am alone
with nothing but the desert wind
and the whispers from the dust.

Soma

Soma
was to be the opiate of the masses
rationed by a nation built on Ford
now
we instead produce our own bromide
and post it for the users
in two minute flashes
of drunken squirrels
and climbing Russians
Thanks YouTube.

I want my life back now.

Planetery Tango

When two celestial bodies meet
as they travel through the sky-
they have three options:

Sometimes they swirl around each other
like a cosmic slingshot
and one sails into space
faster than when it started.

Sometimes they draw close-
spin around each other for a season
and crash together
becoming one.

Oh so rarely-
do they meet and orbit
around each other
a stellar waltz
into eternity.

As we travel through the sky
what do we want?
To spring from world to world?
To collide and unite?
Or to dance for all time-
through the void, together?

Happy Valentine's Day!

Warrior

Fierce,
Unconquerable,
Are the eyes of youth.

A thousand rejections
only spring desire
A million disappointments
only breed flame

Left bleeding on a battlefield
give me a child warrior
over a legion of mercenary

For the soldier fights with grit and pride
but the child fights with hope.

Duality

Distracted is an understatement
My mind
my body
are in two different places

You may chain me to a desk
but my spirit?
It's taken up Telemark Skiing.

I just hope
One day
that my body can keep up.

Perfection

Perfection is getting up 100 times
when you've fallen down 99.
Its saying sorry after screwing up
and making a U turn
when the roads are dark.

Perfection is-
imperfectly trying continually
-or at least sporadically-
not marked by gradual progression
but simply by getting up
one more time
than you've fallen down.

Maggot

“Hey,
I got something to say to you!
A few things as a matter of fact.
it is you that forgetful,
you that has no future,
you that has the problems,
you can't turn a single person against me,
I am the king of this town!
And you are a maggot.”

We said
before going to our separate places
and realizing we were right.

The Bomb

“They nuked it!”
The botanist told me
referring to a strip of land by the highway.

Nothing stood green after the blast.
And why?
Because they had to plant trees.
In a grid
with big machines and few hands
To make the roadside pretty.

Turn It Up

Sometimes its best to let thing boil over
To turn the heat up
and let the soup sizzle on the burner
and fill your kitchen with black plumes

Because it beats waiting
and not knowing
if things are going to get hot enough.

I'll turn the heat up
and see what happens
because I'm really not concerned
with getting burned.

Passport

I bought a passport
Anxious to see the pages filled
with many stamps-
Kenya, Tanzania, Chad, Pakistan
I put it in my blue accordion folder
with all my other important documents.
And there it has stayed.

E-Brakes at WSU

I pushed a car from a parking space today
The Driver,
he was an old man
wizened in years and education
a friendly smile
a grateful wave.

But still he had problems
moving
once freed from the snow
on flat pavement
conversed with ice

until my friend realized his folly!
I had to go into my car
to not laugh
at the wizened man
with a friendly smile
and friendly wave.

But how often have we
spun out with our front wheels
while our backs
are still held by the E-brake?

Kool-Aid© Icicles

Once,
I thought about sprinkling Kool-Aid© on my roof,
right before a snow
so when the snow melted
and dripped icicles across the gutter
-like a crystal comb-
they would be blood red
giant Popsicles

But then I remembered,
I don't like Kool-Aid©
and things never turn out like I imagine.

http://www.kraftfoods.com/koolaid/

Contemplation I

I'm almost certain,
That as a space ship leaves a ragged trail across the sky
and ceramic tiles flake and burn away
those inside shake like a can of paint
and one turns to the other and says
“y'know, we still got to be in outer space,”
and the other says
“But it's all over now!”
They were right.

I'm almost certain,
that before getting mauled by a tiger
someone has thought,
“this is such a beautiful animal
to die by,
it sure beats Alzheimer”

I am certain
that as I lay awake
and think how it all ended up
I won't be riding any spaceships
or visiting any zoos
for a long time.

1680

In the pueblo revolt of 1680
the Indians became brutal
drug a monk with his own burro through the streets,
until he died and his brother leaped from the Mesa
They killed many innocents
and broke many sacred things
and danced like savages
through the flames

In the pueblo revolt of 1680
the tribes united to throw off a yolk
A crown that took children away for the mines
Replaced by church bells that still ring
Chapels built on broken backs...yet still sacred
guided by a knotted rope
carried with speed on the feet of youth
Hundreds of miles
Dancing the old dances
free from the savages
through the flames.

Everything

There is so much in me
that I want out
and so much outside
that I would like in.

I set my alarms
and repeat mantras into the night
to make me into something
that I am not

At the same time,
I am completely happy with who I am
I revel in my every nuance
happy to float and feel
with my prejudice and virtue

So I roll in contented discontent
happy to be nothing and everything at the same time.

Black and Blue Skies

I've heard a person can climb so high
that they break through the atmosphere
down they see a blanket of blue
up they see a shroud of black

The sky is blue because as light fights its way to earth
color by color is stripped away
until all is blue

Some say the sky is black
because its not that old or that big
and as we look into the stars
we look back in time
to point before light.

And as I straddle these two worlds
I wonder which is right
is the sky black?
Or is it blue?

then I realize
they are the same sky
and the only difference is time.