So I had to take a class on the existentialists
Part of my major
James Madison University
1989

I can't stand Sartre
Still love Camus
Honeymoon in Paris
World of strange design

Or maybe no design
Or maybe abandoned by God
1937
Picasso. Guernica

And Dietrich Bonhoeffer
The Cost of Discipleship
Simone Weil in Assisi
****** on the rise

At times at night
Just now in fact
The terror, The darkness
Dread annihilation

Gratitude for movies
Susanna, Judith, Hamnet
Staunton aglow in snow
Dr. Cohen's dedication

    Rene Thornton as Prospero
           Standing Ovation

Snow Falling on Cedars
               Rieko
             Arigato

Westley is a man of action
Unbecome by lies
1987
I laugh until I cries

I am a disabled man
Broken in my brain
Inner silences
Fear. Hear. Pain.

Gratitude stands guard
Threats indeed abound
Guns and ignorance
Confusion all around

I walk my dailiness
Ain't lookin' for a fight
Looking for vocation
Looking for the light

          Still I write.

sins, faults, failings
always already present

sons, hopes, fine feelings
lift me above the evident

Dear God, I pray - we pray:
Please grant us a decent President.

                         Amen.

Tokyo to Kyoto
  What would Kobayashi Issa say?
                   Spirited Away

For both Bruno and the Buddhists
Our minds are the mothers of time

Let’s then care well for our children
Yours as well as mine

Creativity quite cosmic
Seek and ye shall find

Those wild horses (Ah, ****!)
The beauty riding kind

David Markson
The Notecard Quartet

October 5th: death of Tecumseh
October 6th: feast of St. Bruno
October 7th: I think she bumps ya
October 8th: Mexicans who know

Halloween is closing in
Platform 9 and 3 quarters
Abuelitos feeling fine
She can cross your borders

I might be Dumbledore
Or Gandalf or Merlin say hey!
Oxford through the Open Door
Twilight yesterday

           Twilight still to pray.
               Twilight Octubre.

I had to write the poems
The poems come from pain

Please pray for my wife
I'm near La Mancha, Spain

The sadness will last forever
37 years

La Florida my past
La Florida, my dears

Sunt lacrimae rerum
Tears, idle tears

awake in the night
cold coyote calls
All Walls Fall

6 in the 5th place means:
Repeatedly I’ll, nevertheless does not die

I think of this quite often
And I’ll tell you why

I’ve never read the I Ching
That’s the truth and not a lie

But I’ve known books of changes
And seen the Chinese sky

I’ve spent some time in hospitals
Then I recover and I try

To cast my spells on the hopeless hate
Destroy it with words, Oh my!

Some think I’m quite crazy
But I’m just a Texas hexes guy :)

Maybe a fine madness
Maybe biochem
Maybe the Wicked Witch
Maybe Auntie Em

Rilke and his Angels
Me and snowy Vienna
Honeymoon in Rome
Duomo in Siena

All Walls Fall
I fall too
I plot and place
She crawls through

           New!

Sick and suffering?
Yes, but that is life.

Pascal was right.
Endless strife.

No, I don't like my nation
Too much Empire

I like staycation
Music is higher

The universities
They deny her

But Sophia, my love
For you - I'd walk the wire

The torment of it
I want her
Decades
Want.

Solamente uno email
Curious
?
Taunt.

Fantasies
Positions
Whispers
Words

Trave­ls
Devices
Madmen
Nerds

                Hers!

Vaguely headachy
Need for real rest

I lie awake, sir,
Black shirt on my chest

Hagia Sophia
Istanbul may be best

Rick Steves can lead me
Qualyxian Quest

Then to Seattle
Like a bird to its nest

Ferry boats at twilight
Windwater Northwest

A contradiction, at times a joke, to myself
But still I keep on writing
I have no real hope
I have a need for fighting

My sons are my joys
My marriage agonia
No love with any real women
But they call the wind Mariah

                     Mariah!

farewell and be kind
     my advice to my own mind
               midnight's broken toll to find...


                            clocktower blues

religion isn't true
but I find it fascinating

peace for you (me too)
not theological debating

grey day grey:  greyblue
am I hallucinating?

comin' home to you
(would that we were mating!:)

Leaving San Francisco Bay
Heading for Hong Kong harbor
See an old friend, good for the soul

New Year shines from the water
Fireworks above, gentle waves below
Mutation my salvation and goal

Time to leave the past behind:

                               Dropping off
                                                 body
                                                        and
                                                              mind

They say the bipolars are shamans
I wish this were the case
I am not healing my tribe
But I am obsessed with Space

A gazillion exoplanets
Light of bazillion suns
The reason I miss her so
She was so much fun!

But that too is illusion
Postcards now for me
Bookstores around the world
Ishmael: the sea! the sea!

walk home from school
      not King Lear, rather the Fool
                             stubborn as a mule ...

                     teaching time.

most of my fears are not real
but they oppress me anyway

just want to see my sons
remember Callooh! Callay!

life is suffering
quietness: xie xie

waiting for the phone calls
waiting all the day

               hey! hey!

his homeless feet were blistery
     Time - the relentless warring history
          I feel intensely this life meaningless...


But is it also, somehow, a mystery?

closeness, compassion, tenderness
Francis as a teacher

Satellite Beach in '86
me sitting in the bleachers

Susan sitting softly
Wendy cheers below

Ishmael, O Ishmael!
softfall cedar snow

        on we go

Not who I am
Or who I ever was
That's what she said to me

1987
2023

Chapel Hill, North Carolina
Chapel of the Cross
Prince is His Purpleness
Bruce Springsteen is the Boss

        Downbound tray aya ayain!

Protective prayers
From the terror in the night
The arrow that flies by day
Keep him safe from harm
Keep him. Callooh! Callay!

Celtics on the break
Wizards surely May
Friends and teams, good dreams
Melville y Taipei

         Yea verily. Yea.

a day to sing for Martin King
   his courage in spite of everything
       revolutionary change he helped bring

                       April 4 still forming.

In the form of Buddhism
Flowing from Nagarjuna
The purpose of language
Is to negate language
Argument
To undermine all argument

Then we sit in silence

Maybe in Bangalore
Maybe in Kyoto
Maybe in Charlotte


You and me.

The solitary we:

         7273.

I woke from terror in the Night
A dream grotesque and gory

I ran in haste through wild starlight
To my Irish companion Rory

What, I cried, did he really say
That man who lives alone beyond the
                                                        quarry?

Take heed, he replied, it works this way
She loves to tell scary stories

Be strong, he urged, we must endure
Still more before She grants us glory

But fear not, my friend, history’s horror
                                                                  ends
And we will all live in illo tempore

vast torrents of reading
    both silence and pleading
             the Impossible

we three free in the Reno snow
   one more soon - Californio
              (valley below)

He tells me Germans are either stiff or crazy
But I still wanna go
Was 3 days in Vienna
Like a fairy tale in snow

Wanna go to Heidelberg
Wanna see Berlin
Eckhart is incredible
Wanna read Holderlin

Many German Americans
But they changed their names
Long live George Wurzbach!
Modern Man be Fame

I never drank much beer
But I do like Bavarian pretzels
Keep writing Mr. Jens Muhling
Keep writing Emily Wetzel

               Deutschland!

My long attraction to religion
Why, Judi, Why?
Exoplanets spin
I reread Life of Pi

Yo momma was my teacher
Space Shuttle died in sky
Florida, the Land of Flowers
My father too did fly

Japan jaw dropping amazement
I don't like to say goodbye
The Shinkansen almost silent
Cedarsnow does sigh

Charlotte is your past
Charlotte is my future
Deer appear at night
I Thai Wai

         Ay! Ay! Ay!

Some think our life unserious
Their practice: to laugh at themselves

I, however, delirious
So many books upon my shelves

Sacramento
Mission bells

                    Book of Kells

Most people do not have my anxiety level
And that's a good thing too
Mohandas K. Gandhi
Muslim Christian Jew

Harper's Ferry today
Fall 2022
Halloween. Things Not Seen.
Reno Rendezvous

            Sage Ridge, John, y tu

It was not created for us
It will endure without us
That's what Stephen Jay Gould said
She and I and Life of Pi in our lover's bed

The moon was glowing yellow
Misty clouds above
My son on his way to Magic
Cool grey City of Love

It had to be poetry
Just had to be
Motorcycle taxis
3773

Let it be ambiguous
Let them call me mad
Let her see the truth
Sweet Sir Galahad

    Thank you. Thank you, Dad.

My nonreligious friends
Don't understand theological thinking
They associate religion with ignorance
Consign it to the past

I read Moby ****
Think about exoplanets
Experience coincidence
Wish to Overthrow

It's best not to hunt the Whale
Wait to see her spout
What is she about?
Golden doubloon nailed to the mast

My wife had a friend from Lima
I read a little Borges
The Old Patagonia Express
Si, yo espero

                 Santa Rosa

Tomorrow to Taipei
Back to you, Tienmu

Won ton soup in winter
Taxi to be true

101 at night
Teaching in the day

Daoist mystic flight
Silently Xie Xie

Just live your life, the psychiatrist said
Don't go to extremes

But I love Don Quixote
And I have Impossible Dreams!

In America, gay people can marry
But not in the Catholic church

Ah! But mysteries hide in Jesus' story
You have to deeply search

I like Things Not Seen
And birds upon a perch

Fly away, flap your wings
Your mate is not your merch

It's been almost 10 years
Since I started writing the poems
Burning down the days
Awake in the restless night

Will anything get through?
Susan Meek not Sue
Carolina blue
The little way is light

              mystic flight

Sittin' in the back of the church
Did not attend the Mass
Did not drink the Wine
Studyin' the stained glass

Very few children
Pero, Aeropostale '87
Statue of St. Therese
Talked to Chelsea, Kevin

Hablo Espanyol
Pero solamente un pequito
Me here in Mary's Land
My mother buried in Toledo

Why no female priests?
Where did the children go?
One man come he to justify
One man to Overthrow!

            Yoko yo yo ...

Platonic contemplation
        e.e. elevation
         instantiation

desperation drives to silence
silent I drive home

wind and water watching
this night I am alone

coincidence is curious
as is the trippy twilight zone

but the meaning is a mystery
so onward I still roam

Basketball courts are full
So I walk around the campus

Solitude at the church
Silent where the lamp is

Stars shine up above
Black the endless sky

No answer, still no answer
To the Cosmic Why

I'm very very very tired
But stillness I still try

Joseph Goebbels, pH.D.

Parvati in the mail
Shiva does his dance
Flowers in her hair
Flowers from far France

Thailand now a memory
Probably won't travel again
The Buddha follows me here
Silently my friend

Mr. Richard Dreyfuss
Jaws, Close Encounters
Jewish and bipolar
Stand By Me without her

54 and forming
I play the long term game
Rest, quiet rest
Green lights, blue fame

                     Watching.

Jerusalem to Tel Aviv
Dancing with Lee Tal's cousins
                 Mazel Tov!