Waning Flower

It was the night that

Waning Flowers under a crescent moon

whispered Remember You

we gathered in the belly of a hungry tiger

where stars wore guitars on their eyes and the world cheered for more

I was thinking about things dying

about death poems

and dark chocolate easter bunnies that tear out your heart

remember me I say

like a chant to the mirror conjuring old me's to the surface

remember me,

I try to remember what I am but what I am is this remembering 

this endlessness of remembering what I am

silence seems logical, I have spoken too much

I remember me, before I was this,

when I wanted to be everything,

when I didn’t really care

how it got done.

Thank you my friend,

we so easily forget ourselves.

Jitters

the word crawling

seems to do so

across the page

crawling

crabbing sideways

skin can do it

like drunk babies

shuffling. scuttling.

it’s time we start

letting the animals

run the zoo

Steven's Day

It is check day

run to the bank and flirt with Katy day

wishing I could think of clever things to make her smile day

it’s the day after not-enough-money-to-eat day

so its smiling miles through a happy mist day

its turn the music up and let them hear you sing day

it is stop in and get some tacos day

it was going to be a “hey, homeless guy, get the fuck out of my way” day

thinking about running over the old man day

it is a look in the review mirror and see his pain-languaged body day

it is a park my rusted truck and wave him over day

a real pleasure to meet you kind of day

we both marvel at how easy it is to have a good day

it is a order whatever you want and here’s five bucks for later day

it’s a tell me your story day

a I was born in Kansas day

spent most of my life in prison day

reformatory at thirteen day

I am too old for this shit day

one of those listening kind of days

turns out to be a he has two sons named Jeffrey day

a “are you a man of god? You must be a man of god.” day

and it is a real “atheist” says “yes, I am.” kind of day

 

The Taste of Saltwater

I fell off the boat

man-overboard!

the rescue never found me

the eleven o’clock news put me between

a drunk driver mini-van family fiasco

and a faceless, homeless man beaten to death

8 seconds and then I was forgotten

I drifted on angry, lonely, crested pushes

rocked to lullaby on ocean currents

they went to my funeral

the albatross told me

or was he a seagull

I floated out there

learning to swim

I actually found a rhythm

that made treading water a song

and there were Men-of-War all around

It was the porpoise that taught me purpose

I began to enjoy the taste of saltwater

imagining it to be the creek of dreams and crawdads

I built a religion on being lost

not found, drift wood’s destiny

Sooner or later, I feared someone would find me

and molest the serenity from my heart

I don’t know how long it was. It was forever, enough for me.

Then I found your shore

washed up willingly 

your sandy beach

glittering and warm

I remember waking

feeling the sun on my back, the sun’s heat emanating from the golden sand under my chest and belly

then the tide gentleness delivered me inch by inch on to the island of your soul

I had been so long at sea, that I could only rest, breathing easy smile face rest.

On the shore I lived, never never venturing into your forest, I imagined terrible things there,

I tried to leave little footprints

I sang songs to the sand, to the pelicans,

 through my makeshift kelp microphone,

I worshipped it all

the nights were beautiful stars on ocean reflection magnificence

sweating and howling like wild things

primal

Hurricane season turned out to be a real bummer.

the wind started up

changing directions and forces and always sharp, never wrong

the rains chilled the flesh and made me beg for sunshine

like when I begged for my mother to not really be dead

In the night my hut ripped from the earth

tossed to the sea

I held on to a tree in the storm

not willing to give up

believing in the warmth

afraid of the cold sea

torn from the shore

I floated again

wondering if I would ever see that island

unsure if it would ever be the same

choppy aggressive waves tossing me around

relearned the rhythm of surviving

I'll take my chances with the sharks

sensing a belonging coming over me

I think I can learn to love the taste of saltwater.

Truth

(a sermon)
Every single beautiful terrible day

you are alive

give, take, want, need, hunger,

please remember to forgive yourself

to believe in more than what you have seen

to know

I never understood that being

isn’t always about happiness

Have I not come to color in all the colors?

we suffer ourselves

drenching in guilt, rubbing shame in like lotion, flying kites on the drafts from our regrets,

our past becomes this dead animal that we drag through the forest

bury it where you stand

How does an ex-junkie, nine-time felon, dead-beat dad, look at himself in the mirror?

its rather simple really

I found a truth

a truth that may be yours too

I am

not the things the I have done

but the things I am doing.

amen.

Origin

I am from clothes smelling of wood smoke

I am from the uncoiling fern shoot in spring’s warmth

I am the rainbow trout caught on creekside banks

I am from the flyrod pocket-knifed from green shoot of yellow cedar

from tying flies of osprey feathers, tree sap and sharpened staples,

I am from hummingbird fields on mountain tops

lapping at the heartstopping nectar of foxgloves  

I am from blackcap, huckle, and salmon

I am from lost lakes where orange bellied newts do the backstroke

discovered by leaving the trail and not worrying about getting lost

I am the coyote howls on clear nights under a forest of stars

only seen in jigsaw pieces through a canopy of douglas

I am from brown bats whizzing at mayflies

and tossed rocks into crystal pools

I am from lichen on granite in morning dews

from cliffs carved by rain and roaring rivers

I am the dampness of decaying pine needles under bare feet

moss gardens in shadowed glens

I am from grasshopper hunting and deer tracks in mud

from wood sorrel belly aches and horsefly bites

I am Fish Creek.

Know This

I know this.

I must prove I have suffered to receive compassion. That one cannot come without the other. Suffering. Becomes a new inner self. A worship of the dark places left where no candle can go. I am less of more. chiseled from clay.

Half my face is paralyzed.

Oh, they say, as if they all of a sudden comprehend what that means. I am restrained in the most human of all communications, expression. and so I write, trying to smile on paper, scowling in meter, grimacing with rhythm and tempo, I suffer a river worth of words.

and I want to go someplace, faraway, where I won’t be alone anymore, someplace secluded, without people. I lived here in this decrepit ovary of roses. But I am from Fish Creek, the Clackamas River, Agate Beach, Seal Rock, Painted Hills, Crown Point.

the water in its love, demand justice, document the sediment, the contaminates, the overview,  a video narrative of the entire aqua system. ecosystem breakdown. one drop of water from the top at Timothy lake, down streams, rivers, through dams, and to the sewage dump. Real. what is natural? why do children fear insects and animals and slugs. Jesus Christ it’s the real world, not the concrete hand-sanitizer fuck hole world these slimes are ravaging in.

So what If I am crazy? I think I am losing my mind. Or maybe I am just throwing out the parts I don’t need any more.  Like getting rid of old clothes that don’t fit any more. Ideas that didn’t pan out, opinions that got me nowhere, biases that were past their sell-by date, all gone. 

I swim in the Willamette. Not because I believe it is clean. But because if it dies, I should die too.