Can't Go Wrong

I heard a voice so small and strong
It told me Man you won’t be here long
Come on—get out and get it on
When this is living in you man, you know you can’t go wrong

I saw some birds soar in the sky
I saw some clouds with faces flying by
It was like—everything was alive
Now when I look up I can find them every time

I passed a place and in the glass
I saw my face but it was another man’s
It made no difference
Whether I was him or if he is who I am

I know a voice so small and strong
It tells me Man you won’t be here long
Come on—get out and get it on
When this is living in you man, you know you can’t go wrong



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On Finding Faces

Finding faces in unusual places such as clouds, rocks, and vegetation is a favorite practice of mine.

Faces can be found not only in the natural world, but also in such artificial objects as a peeling wall or a rumpled heap of clothes.

These faces tend to be human, but can also be those of animals. Sometimes part of one face is also part of another. Frequently these faces appear to be engaged in an utterance. In my experience, these utterances have always been soundless.

Upon finding a face, one can gaze at it exclusively, or seek other faces near about. Upon looking away from a face, one can readily find it again. Cloud faces tend to distort more rapidly, making them harder to find again.

These faces are profoundly expressive. Each has a unique character and mood. A face that shares part of itself with another face is distinctly different from the face with which it is conjoined.

One can return to a place and find again a face previously found in rocks, certain artificial objects, and, to some extent, vegetation. One is more likely to find again a face in a tree’s bark, for example, than in the arrangement of its leaves.

Wind can animate some faces, especially those found in clouds and vegetation. A face found in the arrangement of a tree’s leaves, for example, can suddenly appear to be speaking—although soundlessly, in my experience.

Finding faces in unusual places is a form of meditation that can lead to cosmic speculation, and has no known value in the marketplace.



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6 Haiku

A melting world watched
through a window blurred with rain—
early morning train

Some black crows flap by
in the enormous blue sky
while white gulls circle

Caressing the cat
with my ear to her belly—
a purring cosmos

*

I’m too tired to move
under a vast dying sky—
early spring evening

Glow of two breaklights
smeared red on wet asphalt—
rainy winter night

Beneath a blue sky
with wide-winged gulls gliding by
and somewhere—sirens!



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Border Boys

Make way!
A cosmic voice says
Today
Makes absolute rays
We trace
A strange and shapely grace
We take
Our place in silences

Border boys are roaming
Gonna show what they have found
Gonna spread the message all around

You’ve gone
As though you had no choice
But you’ve grown
Sick of all the noise
You don’t
Rejoice in all their toys
You know
There’s poison in their ploys

Border boys are roaming
Gonna show what they have found
Gonna spread the message all around

(Borders blur and the bound’ries blend and then
The wind begins to bend
Into a hint of whisper
And it says...)

You run
From a constant hum
That comes
From wires strung among us
They pump
A jolt in the commotion
Can one
Ever come undone?

Border boys are roaming
Gonna show what they have found
Gonna spread the message all around


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When The Wind Is Right

I’m too tired to move myself
I’m thinking with a sigh
I lie beneath the twilight
While I eye a dying sky
And I don’t mind

Our passions are elapsing
As we pass into the night

This morning I was staring at
Some dewy blades of grass
I bent my head to block the sun
And then a dewdrop flashed
As dazzling as

A far-flung foreign star that fell
And landed in my lap

On the street I passed a man
Whose head was in his hands
He stumbled mumbling but I couldn’t
Make out what he said
And on he went

Something spinning in him had been
Twisting up his head

I asked a friend I work with
“What’s the title of our song?”
And through a rocky grin he said
“ ‘Be Strong and Play Along’—
You think I’m wrong?”

“It’s better that you get it quick
And don’t get strung along”

I’m guessing at the blessing
Of some rusty melody
I’m grabbing at the flashes
Of some ghostly poetry
What does it mean?

I think there’s something bigger
In the glimpses we see

Ever felt that you were held
In otherworldly hands?
As though your life were guided by
A slender silver strand?
Who understands

The undiscovered wonders
Of an undeluded man?

How can we get from under
Such an ugly lonely sham?
And discover all the wonders
Of an undeluded man?

Sometimes I think we might
When the wind is right

When the wind is right



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Flashes 10

Title
for a novel:
The Prince Of Poop Valley

“Poetry is not a careful thing—
poetry is lamb dust”
—Jack Kerouac

A clear spot
where the stress falls:
hunger

Try not to let
the greedheads
rape your heart of love

*

"Once you’ve said it—
say it again
(with different words)"

Depression:
opportunity
to be a hero

Feeling this
living music
flowing through you now

*

Death:
the means for being
born into one’s origin

I learn more from birds
than from words
of learned men



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More And More

Can’t conceive it
Can’t conceive it at all

Can’t believe it
Can’t believe it would fall
Not at all

We know it’s rotten and we’re
Throwing the whole lot away
Right away

Stars are gleaming
We can see them tonight

Like a blind man
Finding diamonds in his eyes
A big surprise

It’s awful humbling when you
Know you stumbled onto this
And almost missed

(Wasting days gazing through a crooked maze
And through the haze came a simple spoken phrase
And it said You’re not dead
So you’d better go ahead)

With such a hunger
Rumbling under the floor

It makes you wonder
What we were under before
That’s for sure

We started knocking and they
Started unlocking the doors
More and more

We started knocking and they
Started unlocking the doors
More and more
More and more
More and more



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