First Poems: Remnants

all the things that wrap your mind
stalk and chase, serve to blind,
that work to warp, create the binds
of self inflicted tragedies
melded thin the wires fine
slips 'round your neck a christmas twine
severs quick those few short
times of hope gone by
 

it crept up on me
fireball red
eluded and ran away yellow
by five, ball two, come orange
be blue, by yellow
green
 

1970

 

Back to da University of Hawaii

shut your mouth and open your mind
talking only double binds
short and sweet
one guarantee
you won't get out alive
drop out
turn on
tune in
fuck up
crawl back
an' start again

dust to dust
 

 Autumn,1970

 

Working at the Queen's Medical Center

ya see, it's true
the new catatonic
functions in part time jobs
and things that might have been
eats when hungry, because he has to
in fact does everyting
expected of him
 
 

Summer,1971

 

Visions Along Hotel Street

split words drive their tongues
and daemons do exist!
on street corners standing
baring clenched fists .  .  .  .  .
gnashing their teeth,
beneath glaring street lamps
hateful glances, paranoid, they shout
over the left shoulder (of death)

driving home, from work or school
there is no hope, and
the children's teeth are set on edge!
 

Spring, 1972

 

Mango

fiber teeth, sour sweet
mighty fine, kinda neat
double treat (some delight)
slurp slop dribble drop
what'd ya say it was?
it's a mango !
lick your foot and suck your toe
it's a mango !

there in the forest
at the base of the thigh
mighty fine, kinda neat
double treat (fudge delight)
slurp slop dribble drop
what'd you say it was?
it's a mango  .  .  .  .  .

but they again
maybe it's a strawberry
guava

 Autumn, 1972

 

Empty Dharmas

(8) eight spokes has the wheel
with many blind men feeling
the object is to stay on top
while others ride upon the hub
and think that they have won
but find they too are crushed straw
beneath the silent dharma

yet he who truly knows
accepts the law, and flowing
becomes one whole .  .  .  .  .

the space between the spokes.

Autumn, 1973

 

Fragmented

Yet the kings still hold their armies
dropping them into the urn sacrifice
once more crushing our limp hopes
the great wheel turns over,
ages dying, destruction
death, old age and disease.

And we would be birds of the universe
using metallic gliders, frisbee like
to fling ourselves hurtling across
unimagined lifetimes
riding the jet streams of the stars
inter-galactic winds
far into non-euclidean realms
inside ourselves

Bullshit ! A curse on you fools
The streets of your cities
Will one day overflow
With the tears of your children weeping

bitterly weeping, choked
and gasping for breath
deaf and blind from years of media wars
and endless violence,
they will gather at dusk
in deserted industrial wharehouse districts,
park their transportation
and burst into tears
 

Summer, 1974

 

Continuing Fragments

while in fact our servants of death
build dark atomic whales of destruction
(but think of the jobs we've created)
they strive to carve new empires
in the hopeless mind, fragmented world
bound by interlocking defensive networks
leviathan systemic madness
infecting us all .  .  .  .  .

WE ARE ALL PRISONERS
     OF WAR !
 

04/14/76

 

Monsoon

the water in the sky fills my eyes
billowing white light movements
across everchanging forms
of life's pastel blue,
     a pillow for my weary mind
blustering now against dark gray
     electric
       and gushing,
rushes down overflowing gutters.

thunder and lightning,
     like you've never seen before!

it is the rainy season
and thoughts of time
no longer then nor there
become now
 

10/74  Bangkok, Thailand

 

Mindfullness

keep the mind clear
as lightning blue
into the sky

trails of a quiet man .  .  .
who,
craving nothing, lives
without fear
moving amid the crowds
effortlessly .  .  .   .  .
angry, sad, happy, pleased
all of these be
with the clouds
a calm ocean
as is your mind
in samadhi
 

10/74  Bangkok, Thailand

 

Wandering/Wondering 
About Wat Mahadhat

inside the temple's sacred walls
radios blare 'til late at night
and temple boys pop caps all day.
motorcycles scramble along the lanes
where school girls meet
their lovers.             at dinner time
between six and eight, the ice-cream man
rings his bell and waits,
standing in front of section 5.
but tonight the monks are busy
meditating? no, watching Thai boxing on TV
channel seven, round 3, ding ding,
ding aling, don't you want some ice-cream
aren't you hungry tonight
Buddha

11/74  Bangkok, Thailand

 

Bintabata (Collecting Alms)

the flutter of a wing brushes
unseen against my forehead.
crossing the street
like floating on air,
slow walking
barefoot and receiving alms,
an early morning wish/desire
fulfilled.

     i accept that tangerine
and her respectful affection
     when two slow steps away
          i realize my hopes will be  .  .  .
                            but wait
                                 now,
                                   be careful,
                                  &n bsp;     they say
                              you'll get whatever you wish for

02/75

 

Wind Chimes Three Times

listen to the wind
     chimes silent bodhi mind
               each sound steps closer

five million wind chimes
     on every watch a wrist times
               forgotten heart mind

listen to the wind
     chimes we are all tathagata
               silent cicada

09/76

 

Thirty Minutes to "No Dinner" (Hi ji ki)
 

alone at twilight walking
walking misty Hiei San
mountain trails
silent
except for the sound of geta   ..  ..  ....
karong kalong, karong kalong,
     a bird song
and the day's rain drops
falling from nihon cyprus

stockingless in october
I am the big crescent moon
hiding in the darkening sky
above lake Biwa
 

10/76  Mt. Hiei, Japan

 

Typhoons in Kyoto

in the center of the storm
(inside) the eye is warm and
still, cloud covered muggy skies
fill with rain, that never really
threatens and seldom falls

on occasion,
the sky opens up, but
the mood is slow, and the days
rumble by weighted
with lightning bolts
CRAAACK !!!
exclaiming the silence
 

08/77

 

Seven Stars to the North

seven stars to the north
dipping forever into
the big bears milky river.
pinpoints, in clear and bright
with not one cloud --
this chilly spring evening
the night air cuts
like and ice pick,
through my light clothes.
then a glimpse of old friends
above the rooftops
walking the narrow passage
home from the public bath,
warms my heart.
 

4/77

 

Skating Figure Eights   8

this first death came in spring
to prove to real, that life beyond
and after a sort, must forever
continuing be  .  .  .
undone    and oozing pain,
out of every crack
and ruptured soft of gray, still smashed
against the popcycle brittle neurons,
of one's own delusions packed in dry ice

these small causalities  .  .  .    striking out
in a sense, freeze you in your tracks
and stiffen your back for months on end,
but you will continue to function.
then their words (of encouragement or not)
will resound hollow, as your cries for help
from within .  .  .   .  .  the meat packers cold
storage box  .  .  .    and you know that you
are really out to lunch!

on the second mourning
you say, you come to it
this tomb, to find the stone
rolled back, and the damage was gone?

well, for Christ sake . . .
don't be surprised,
for here be we all, but
nailed to the cross
roads of the universe . . . . .
with no end in sight
 

11/8/78

 

Silence

silent mind
a quiet lake,
reflecting the seasons
moon, fading, disappears
over the tree tops .  .  .
returning tomorrow or tomorrow forever
to complete the cycle
in silence.
noise
thinking pebble drops
into the mirror lake
mind waves, (silence stops)

self:concentric circles
without any center
 

10/76  Mt. Hiei, Japan

 

Tanabata

he and she, like vagrants stand
or sit, tapping their feet to the rhythms, unmoved,
in one place, in this world, they are looking out
through the shit soup of this universe.
looking out from behind the nebulas, quasars
and black holes of their own tangled constellations
.  .  .   .  .  .   laughing out loud,
at the stars, lights another cigarette, smiling,
guarded faces, pours another beer,
having a good time, to the ventures,
walk don't run.  .  .   .  .
he, with the sheepish dogs and wolves of the city,
and she, locked tight behind but still pining !
they run away their moments ebb and burn rubber
down on mainstreet. nowhere else to go at night,
in this world ! in this universe. so we run, so fast,
that if, from within ourselves, even only once a year
our stars come together,  .  .  .   .  .  the gears mesh
with a horrible grind, we snap an axle,
break a trans, or bust a u-joint
and leave the driveline lying down on mainstreet,
where once again, it's rainin'
 

01/09/79

 

Returning Home

woven into the very fabric of this gospel
is the love from which all the preceding
messages, visions, mantras,  prayers, and
light  are being brought to you through
the dedication  and works of laborers
there:in, so that happiness or some other
force or stimuli from within,  totally
indescribable, and simple as truth itself,
might be revealed

two wrongs, two rights, where lies the power?
where lies the spirit of the law?

do unto others, love one another,
searching for justice, and walk
with the ways of the lord
 

05/21/80 Hemet, California

 

July 25, 1980

by city street lamp
     the lawn sprinklers' damp spray
waters our night,
     cascading saxophones
and delights in my thirsting senses

a blue moon and full
     she smiles and lulls
the dreams of truth and light,
     the pale blue and wintry white
of pearlessence

in the silence
     the white goddess sings,
bright guitar solos without strings
     and dancing a slow dance, rains velvet
her beams of crisp illusion
 
 

such a moon
that by my rights,
it rains a dew like misty light
and
summer softly speaks!

7/25/80  Denver, Colorado

 

At Summer's Way Station

this all hallow's eve
float a candle for me.
lit straight and standing
leave it flow out denver's gate
and away from colorado.

be quick !  time will not wait
and with that stick burns my soul
brightly melting, letting go
in a folded paper boat
with folding paper sails
and a rudder
 

7/26/80

 

14:28 Mark -- Where Is this Galilee?

still,
in a boat and stormy seas, to thee
our frightened voices reach out  .  .  .
a plea, across the waters shaken
and cry, as one who feels forsaken
shouts in silent screams of broken hopes
and dreams of what could be  .  .  .
 

09/80  Milwaukee, Wisconsin

 

Drunken Tongues Becoming Clear

in the mist of early morning
through the blurs of too much beer
we kissed as friends or brothers,
our drunken tongues becoming clear.
an then she spoke out as one and yearning
so clean that it stung me ear

I JUST NEED SOME ONE TO HEAR ME
TO TELL ME THAT THEY REALLY NEED
               ME

these words flung out to the quarter
that white half circle in the sky,
on this seventeenth of october
while we held each other, laughing
     (above our anger)
and found no need to cry
 

10/17/80  Milwaukee, Wisconsin

 

Six Years

Six years in slumber
the gentle beast asleep and
hibernating; not hiding but waiting.
building strength for the dance,
pausing within the modulation of the muse,
and the persona rhythms of one life
entwined with the sacred unity of the living.
the slow process of growth, decoding messages,
unfolding singularly hopeful expressions
in spatial and temporal procession.

now rubbing sleepy eyes
feeling older as the adolescent
child awakens standing adult
beside the bed, naked and shaken
at the cliffs edge of another maturity,
looking down upon the love  .  .  .
and seeds of peace sewn
knowing they will conquer
time.
 

03/03/81  Milwaukee, Wisconsin

 

Another Chapter

here by providence and will combined
the sojourner now resides
in Deutschland,
Offenbach am Main

and while here, where hides his muse?

in the hues of yellow and brown
in the leaves fallen to the ground
and still clinging to the trees

in the rare patches of blue
breaking through the rainy days
and soft gray skies around Frankfurt

in the furry green lumps of moss thriving
isles on the sea of earthen tiles
outside my southern window!

03.11.81  Ff/M, BRD

 

Standing Johnny Too Shy

standing by tongue tied
inside the Hard Rock saloon  .  .  .
Johnny too shy
can only return
on weekends
or occasionally
hoping for
some bright smile
to while away the time
standing too shy John  .  .  .   .  .
Johnny at the bar, the outsider
up against the wall, the desperado
night after night, drinking hard
rock-n-roll, laughing and silent, he shouts
unheard above the din, in his head
crying out! somebody
touch me
 

07.1.82  Offenbach am Main, BRD

 

With the Almighty - Nothing Is Caused
Everything Is - Not Because of
But Within - the Lord

is it not,      he thought
the workings of a mind
the sum total of all the random
selective possibilities, chance
and changing in time (sein oder
gar nichts sein) this, our mental
material world system  .  .  .

     i believe so  .  .  .

and is it not that which we do not know
having seen through and beyond the didactic
lectures' pretentiousness, which is about
all we really do know  .  .  .   .  .
is it not indeed the vast gaps
in our knowing, to which we refer
with awe and reverence,
with that three letter word
or any other designations of the sacred?

(you know GOD is a four letter word in German)

then what we affirm through life, and Christ
Jesus, faith, is something like . . .
the working of the random in history
and evolution is an attempt on the part
of the entire mind system to create
love in a steady state
 

01.06.82  Ff/M, BRD

 

Of Dreams and Broken Clocks

on the beach of summer,
a clear spot
warmed in orange
sunshine.
hourglass sand, cloudless blue
skylight tumbles from your hands, grasping
     at nothing.
the micro dots of a youth well spent,
gliding through forests of bamboo shoots
     sprouting and wild hibiscus . . . 
gushing dreams and melting clocks,
at dawn and twilight
ushering dark
and ebbing tides, with lightning bolts
white hot into the wasp waist of our aging

shards and shatters the crystal fullness
the illusion of your flight

a river overflowing, flooding its banks
inundates your senses, and melts your
     biased perceptions . . .
while you, in spite of it all
survive, even thriving 
never the less
     minus your smugness
 

17.07.82  Ff/M, BRD

 

Sunday Morning Jazz for Free
At the Historische Museum

for those of us who see
what could be breaking through
against what has been and remains,
the puss which pours forth
from the torn and opened wounds
of our shrinking, beleaguered world
is such a bloody waste !

i offer these words,
not in despair,
to the one what holds our world
together;
to whom every man who labors
for peace and selfless society
offers his work.

may we all yet hear
if not see, and through
your grace, or whatever,
may we find our way
to harmony.
 

18.07.82

 

Heroes

broken souls these
women and men who've given
up their hearts as whores
or tarts of the night,
and can no more see
they've been forgiven

with their tote bags and tattered clothing
their rags, probably once so fine
as yours (or mine).
their mis-shapen faces
mirror the ravaged inner city,
ashen and discolored. no,
not a pretty sight.
no wonder we can't look them in the eye

broken and vagrant
what have they lost
or gained?
they awaken in a morning damp
and cold on back streets or
under bridges, shake the dust
off their clothes, scratch for chiggers
and start off into the sun
rising to drink another day
of darkness . . . . .

these heroes of our cities
are survivors
we call 'em losers
outsiders,
we'd rather ignore them,
but they keep the city soul
alive
 

07.11.82  Ff/M, BRD 

 

Find Your Own Punctuation

Out of the mirrors marching
they are marching with death
their only intent neatly ordered
densely packed and lawless
starvation their only harvest
higher taxes and ruin
their only successes
marching through the centuries
they return these bloody brigands
in the guise of our ownly defenses
ferocious maggots and terrible worms
wielding 'Mattel' it's swell toy weapons
wrapped warmly in cold steel
titanium cocoons
under the tannenbaum incubating
tanks and missiles
multiplying with frightful confusion
only too real father yuletide

sorry santa
if it sounds too surrealistisch, but
you can hear the children whimpering
this year
I want for christmas
 

Yet, the baby Jesus knows all we want
this year and forever
is the quiet
extinction
of the warrior classes
at every point on the compass
 

17.12.82  Ff/M, BRD 

 

Tenuously

cables and wires twisted
strings and fibers tightly
     encircling our thriving world,
existence on a suspension bridge
          a cat's cradle of silken thread,
welfare's hammock,
or society's safety net,

a spider's web
woven in the wind  .  .  .
holding us together,  all
too tenuously !

snip one too many stitches
with war, a nuclear knife,
     our polluted mid-wifery
or overcooking population
          pressures, then watch,
the seams split and unravel
exponentually
 

19.01.83   Ff/M, BRD

 

But For Life
the poet in me
facing death, fears aging
shriveled in sunburnt winds
clinging to the vine
an old wine gone sour
vinegar and oil, a mixed salad
for promising grapes . . . . .

the poet in you is inclusive
and hoping to mature
maybe someday
or simply grow out of it
{gazing timidly into the mirror's
Brownian movement}
or maybe finds a substitute
but still hoping
faces death daily.
.

your poets who
having faced death
remain
no longer waiting for
nor expecting
maturity,
one last struggle with posterity, or an ocean,
to bring acclaim . . . . .
. . . still continues daily
celebrating,
living and breathing
life
against death
!

09.02.83  Ff/M, BRD