Evolution

It took a long time to become human
Days of Biblical proportion
A coalescing of cells up from the water’s edge
A long time for bone to reform
Though the fangs and claws can still show
A long time for consciousness to turn on itself
Before some learned transcendence.
It takes a long time to become human
Lifetimes of error,
Of missing the mark,
Burdened with endless hunger,
Endless desire,
Offering loving kindness
While the fangs and claws still show
Trapped in mirrors
In an isolated cell
Keeping company only with fear
Then, poised at death’s gate,
Cycling back to the primordial self
Grasping, seizing--
Lifetimes as an insect, a rodent, a jackal,
Rising again slowly through cycles
From a paw that rips
To a hand that writes sonnets
Rising to a love beyond greed and dominion
Where baseless hatred is condemned.
Such a long, long time to become human
Through thousands of falls
And millions of rebirths.
To become fully human
It is peace that awaits--
Don’t fall back!

Dreamtime

The universe is dreaming
Days woven into the dream
Punctuated by the waning moon
Sleep upon sleep
Time dissolving into the spiraling sky
Softened by the heavy clouds,
And the damp foliage of the humid forest
Days flowing into the dark river
Underneath the cave of memory
A sleep of rocks
A tracing
A tortoise carved on a boulder
An aboriginal dream of the vast plains
Your hand touching the other
Faces, a kiss, a cry
A child giving birth to his father
Age descending into youth
Dreaming until we die awake
To dream again.

Fear to behold
What lies within
The cunning eyes
The hardened grin
The mouthed excuses
The impossible lies
The emptiness
When all love dies
Fear to hold
What clutches fast
A touch so cold
It makes you gasp
The feigned affection
The calculated grasp
The tale you’re told
That all will last
So close the fear
It hovers on the breath
So familiar the pain
It eases into death.

Sonnet

You are your thoughts; they define what is you:
Happy, depressed, angry, fearful, or calm.
They determine everything that you do
Whether your steps lead to safety or harm.
Important then to have the proper thoughts
For guidance on the path that you must take
They set the goal and tell you how you ought
Obtain what is desired for your sake.
But though these thoughts are coursing through your head,
May not some force provide these thoughts unbidden
With ideas sewn to flower from a dark seed bed?
Thus, the source of all your thoughts is hidden.
Behind all your actions, thoughts are the cause.
That your thoughts are given must give you pause.

EON

In the cloud
Out of the cloud
Where in the filaments,
The wisps, is the object
Revealed?
An object slides into shadow
The ground of being obscured
A dense forest of shading trees
The tapering of alleys and streets
How known? Consciousness
Itself an object, the object
Sliding, tapering,
Its light in penumbral darkness.

The mission: Keeping the King’s Secret
Bisected, the outward show
Of cleavage and rouged bosom
Assignation in the boudoir
Eyes above a fan
The lips in a painted pout
Beyond the window
The geometric garden recedes in perspective.
In cold Russia, holding the secret close
Это очень красивая девушка
A very lovely girl…
Alliances forged in deception
But deceiving whom?

Holding the secret, the secret that kept you safe
Among the fops of London
Who gambled on your sex
The ground of being obscured
The secret that led you back to France
La Folle Journée
Forced to dressed in the epicene court
Of curled wigs and ruffled silks
As the woman who was a man
Who was a woman
Bartering the secret the King held dear
A prisoner or liberated
Among the epigrams of Voltaire and Rousseau?


And then the Revolution
The Bastille taken
The streets riot in the name of liberty
Figaro as worthy as an aristocrat
The ancient regime fallen
The Enlightenment shining
But ringed with the dark reign of terror.

Your struggle continued
In skirts with a sword
Fencing, fighting
An Amazon or a dragoon
Either, both
Not reducible to a surgeon’s report.

In the end, wandering through cold London
You hold the secret close
The ground of being obscured
A lesson, a challenge, an enigma
What you say you are, you are,
Or are you?

The Missing Sister

Postcards, she sends
Unexpectedly
From a distant city
Wishing you were there
But you can’t follow
Can’t trace her steps
Your job, your friends,
The daily obligations
You’ve pushed her away
Yet see her face in every mirror
Your delightful, banished twin
You save each card
Until you burn them
Trying to forget

Cold shock
Birds fall out of the sky
The pain when a boundary
Can never be crossed.
Hidden anger
Fish float up dead in the water
The desperation in loss of time that
Can never be redeemed.
Suffering is suffused
Through the sensate world
While prayers rise like smoke
In the twilight.