Merry Happy Christmas

Ho! Ho! Ho!  Merry Christmas to all!  I am so thankful to have you as friends.  Hope I spread a little cheer with this blog--perhaps it would be better though with a little nog.  As I peruse my old and new poems, I see a dark side to many.  Most have a spirit of optimism that is underlain in the poems.  OOps, I promised not to go over to the dark side in this blog.  Maybe I am not as reflective in my manic moments and don't have time to write them down because I am having to much fun.  Perhaps, you have helped me to record that state of happiness.  The following is the best I can do.

This poem was inspired by the beautiful Picea orientalis 'Skylands' which must be in full sun to be the best, brightest gold.  Let's all get out into the full light--we become the best we are.

                                                  Skyland Christmas

                                                 On Christmas day

                                                 I will plant one tree for you

                                                 One spruce for me

                                                 So when we are old

                                                 We can lay in the moss

                                                 Under the shade of gold

                                                 No fear of banks lost

                                                  Reaped riches untold

This musing is from the Moss Diaries , an unfinished book of mine.  It seems appropriate at Christmas time, although I think it works all the time.

I went to visit the old moss man.  I asked him to teach me the meaning of unconditional love.  He said there is no such thing for a male.  I thought this could be true for he was a wise man, all wrinkled.  I lived with my wife for twenty years.  I observed her bleeding many times for her children.  She was always there for me in things that you do not have to vow to do any more, like sickness and health and poverty of spirit.  There were times when she did not come to me and I would still take my pleasure.

One time I gave her a beautiful jewel wrapped in gold tissue.  The present gave her joy and laughter.  She gave me nothing in return but the kiss of her smile.  It was then that I learned unconditional love, for I did not get anything back, yet I was completely and happily satisfied.  I think the moss man was wrong.  A man is capable of unconditional love.  Sometimes it just takes a while to learn it.  And from my experience, it must be learned, practiced, and relearned.


Perhaps there is no one crazier proud than a grandparent.  My daughter, Alisa and I with baby Maisy on the top, were standing carts opposed in Costco talking.  All of the sudden this lady stops to admire Maisy and pulled out her pictures of her new grandson at the same time.  "Oh, they would make a beautiful couple."  You get my drift?

                                 
           Defining Heaven

What could  you say of hell

One would perhaps brimstone smell

The  chimnea embers danced hot

Butter on the skillet gone forgot

Could it be as they say

A presence never to visit or stay

I know the beauty of today

Heaped up around us lay

Sad never to hear see joy

Being grandparents to a baby girl or boy

 This last poem is what your friendship gives me.

                        

Finding Home In Winter


Why must I always be the slave in irons

Indentured to the lust for life

So rich with fat minestrone stew

Wanting and wanting and wanting

You

The green is not buried in some root cellar

I roll on a mattress of hundred dollar bills

Sleep for an old man in this dark season

Love can only be the reason

When life is the rain rushing stream

And there is no meaning but the flow

I will let it carry me past snowy places

Where I see only friends faces

I am out of the dark cold gone home

   

One Christmas story and other musings

Sometimes Christmas brings depression or melancholy.  Other times we can be possessed  by a manic state.  Do we have control over these places our personalities arrive at, or are triggered by present tense events or memories in our soul?  Who can say I don't know.  Maybe.  Maybe not.


                                                  Another Christmas Story 
                                                        RumPumPumPum

                                          I woke up dead this morning
                                                    Forgotten
                                          Now I understand the zombie syndrome
                                           I am one
                                           Again the theme of choice
                                                     Free will
                                           Shall I be
                                           Shall I not be
                                                      A bot
                                           Good and evil
                                           I want to be feeling alive
                                           I want to take a 104 degree soak with you
                                           Does Christmas ever hit you hard between the eyes
                                           There are all kinds of migraines
                                                        Pain
                                           You are alive again
                                            For awhile is here
                                            Make it good reject try
                                                        Not Novocain

                                             

To Be Forgotten

Apples on the orchard ground

Chaff and straw everywhere

That was a good garden

That was a good year

Now its gone

Bare floor even of rotten fruit

Can you remember spring

When there was hope

More flowers than you could crowd onto a Dutch canvass 

Stones that looked like there were once writings on them

Dark thirty at four thirty

So bleak so black

Gone

I cannot remember

 Often a little fermentation can help--not memory however.   Our good friends T+H gave us a Japanese wine made from the ume fruit and four ume rested in the bottom.  It created a great anticipation and yet made us have some restraint as it was fairly strong.  This Haiku-5/7/5  was in the bottom of the bottle.

                                                                            Waiting For Spring

                                                                            Searching for the fruit

                                                                            The bottle not yet empty

                                                                             Waiting for ume

Blog 3 will be all happy/gaga/manic

In The Beginning

                              
It is with great trepidation that I begin taking baby steps--no, not even crawling--helpless in the crib--mewling out into the 21st century my blog.  Having erased my first blog accidentally into the ether, I feel even more humble coming to you.  Maybe you will watch me grow up.  I have heard it said that poetry is only read by English scholars or friends of the poet.  Here I come, dearest friends.
  
Poetry should be read out loud.  The reader recreates the poem and brings his reality and feelings to the verse.  It becomes your poem and hopefully touches universal human feelings, or brings you to new awareness of yourself or the world we live in.  I don't want to be a bully and say this is what I meant ex cathedra.  Poetry is a road to discovery and sharing human thought and philosophy--you might disagree with my words--good!

I do not use punctuation in my verse because sometimes a pause at the end of a line or a pause running into the middle of the next line can change the meaning so that I have said two things.  Sometimes, your comments/feedback can make me say, "Wow, I didn't know I said that!"  The poetry police might not agree, but I have been an anarchist most of my life.

The poems in this blog will be fresh into print or experiences of my 63 years.  They will tell my secrets, lies, greatest joys, deepest depressions, and always obsessions.  Let the musings begin!


This first poem explains why we call our home Sacred Ground--a home we bled for.  Ask me the story.

   Sacred Ground

Oh holy ground oh sacred ground

Your life blood is in my veins

Crushed deep with mortar and pestle

To fine crumbly soil

It fills my soul

Then you rain oh mother life

I woke up living on this rich mantle of earth

I cannot kiss or embrace you more

You fill out my bones

You give my body reason

     Escaping Bach to the Simpler


What could be wrong with a simpler melody

There would be only several drummed ripples on the water

Dimples lost if you were not watching

Them vanishing like they were never there

Getting crazy once more

The bumble bees dancing crescendo

To tell the place of honey

We follow out of breath

Then there is death

Not an at hand wish

But someday thankful for a quiet rest