Life along the Liffey
Riverruns and keeps on running

In this misty musical city
I keep playing praying punning

Post-modernity arrives
I reJoyce and am not shunning

Though much is taken, much abides
Including silence, exile, and cunning.

- Ulysses Everett McGill

both Moby and Phillip K. ****
      the book I love and the flicks
              try the best I Kan, indeed Als Ick ...

                                 wifestrife!

not great things from Up Above
just little things done with great love

a haiku, a flower, a whisper kiss
a minute, an hour, a word-resist

visiting a friend from long ago
sending a poem so at least she’ll know

throwing the ball on the misty beach
origami that dragons reach

a little meal shared with friends
a bow good-bye before The End.

America is and always has been
A deeply racist country
Genocide. Slave labor.
Lynchings. Segregation.

It's got the wrong religion
Too much Calvinism
Too much white man greed
Too many people in prison

Bangkok was chaotic but fun
Street food. Motorcycle taxis.
Sandal monks
Silent meditation

Astrobiology?
Exoplanets
Account for Joan.
The Mission

Wrote David Markson.

(Viva!)

..................Crossing the Baltic ......................
                    Young sons sung
                         Exoplanets!

I'm a troubled soul
With a bipolar mind
I take my injections
I hope you treat me kind

I like True Grit
Star Trek, O Brother
23 years later
I still miss my mother

California snow
Reno black smoke sky
Courage, please courage,
When it comes my time to die

                Aye! Aye! Aye!

The closer I get to it
The scarier it's gonna get

Friends!
Don't forget. TV set.

Daily life
Ordinary
     Slow

consciousness creating reality
or reality creating mind?

if it's both, as he does think,
what is there to find?

unusual things have happened
the synchronicity kind

mental illness or mental health?
apophenia or strangely signs?


                                        what is chance?
                                        what is design?

I been 'buked and scorned
I been disrespected

No stranger now to solitude
No stranger to rejected

Took the train from Tokyo
Saw Kyoto rain

Never been to heaven
Never been to Spain

O life! protect my children
Safety in the night

A little wonder story
A little morning light

         Fair flight.

2 outs in the 7th
Harry Carey, Chicago Cubs
Father Andrew Greeley
Animals not clubs

Oracular at times
Oracular, I admit
But oracles can be wrong
Gonna have to interpret it

Moran, McCarthy, Malahide
Daddy Mac, Moynihan
Susan Darlene Meek
Ishmael, Afghanistan

I play the long term game
Run the distance race
Centuries, not decades
Aliens in space?

        Gonna have to chase ...

Un Escritor, Un Escritor
And so I slowly go
One man aging damaged
One man to Overthrow!

Titanaboa
Raging Reno snow
Fire on the Mountain
Black smoke yoko yo

Rilke's beauty and terror
Lead kindly light
Small brown chapel
Sor Juana's mystic flight

Episcopaliens
Time is the Cross
Kamakura Buddha
Neither Gain nor Loss

        Viva Tel Aviv!

the summer sun is too hot
so I stay inside
the mass shooters will
**** others in WalMart
or church or movie theaters

I protest
and post
against the American gun nuts
and the evil NRA
but no one here listens
or even cares.

think I’ll fly to Dublin tonight:
I hear
the Brazen Head pub
Holds a tale or two.

The rain is comforting
Softly does it fall
Buddhamind in Bangkok
River Eden, Wetheral

              Hey y'all

Oxford evening, Eagle and Child
      Twilight blue, wonder wild
                 historical myth?
                     truly I wish

The wrong kind of silence
Is deepest pain

The sweet southern sunlight
And grey day rain

Make me miss
Gamla Stan again

Scifi bookstore
Malmo train

Emily and Markson meditation
        solitude as staycation
                 word wars
                 revelations!

Life along the Liffey
Riverruns and keeps on running

In this misty musical city
I keep playing, praying, punning

Post-modernity arrives
I reJoyce and am not shunning

Though much is taken, much abides
Including silence, exile, and cunning

if meaningless, then little things
    lunches, walks home, books, car sings
                          they grow up, I lose the ring ...


                              at twilight I dream of traveling.

teachers teach
professors profess

delivery drivers drive
and sometimes guess

fights, faults, and failings
I too confess

Ocean's 11
Danny and Tess

Buddha lamp
Enlightenment?  Yes.

Love not money
art too can bless

1:37 rollin’ round
         Niels Bohr nature comes to town
                   if one is up, then one is down ...

                         Copenhagen!

Asks George Bernard Shaw.

I'm haunted by the 80s
Here in 2021

And by 2 80s ladies
Now I have 3 sons

Obsessions linger long
Confessions linger too

But silence lingers longer
Buddha stone statue

                to view

Fernando Suarez taught me Spanish
But I wasn't a very good student
Sometimes fall asleep in class
Tired from basketball

Dali Museum in Florida
Last Supper in DC
Lorca killed for being gay
Body never found

My son born in Santa Rosa
Spring break in Santa Fe
Tapas in DC
Paella in the Fall

Venezuelans at the Border
Romero assassinated
Jarritos Mexican soda
Adios Ezra Pound

          Maria! Maria!

Fr. Greeley and Paris, France
      Shenandoah Shiva, shamanic trance
                       Lord of the Dance!

The ascetic medieval saint
Noticed Mr. Chesterton
Is indeed all skin and bones
Much like other religious men

But if you look quite carefully
You may become surprised
For in his evident torture
You see he opens wide his eyes

His gaze it ventures forth
A world is what he sees
He kneels as Christians do
But when he rises from his knees

He walks upon the Earth
Sees creatures large and small
And if his name is Francis
He loves them each and all

We have mysteries within
I can feel them too
I revere true Buddhist wisdom
No dualism between me and you

But Chesterton is quite right
A mystery most profound
When we open wide our eyes
Being itself abounds

The Very Soul of the Universe
Still yet another name for God
Contracts and then creates
Gives birth to things so odd

Hummingbirds and herons
Chartres cathedral found in France
My uncle Marty, a man for others
Beautiful women who love to dance

We awaken in a world
We ourselves did not create
We gaze in wonder for a brief moment
And with joy we patiently wait

What will we discover?
Are cosmic seas near distant stars?
Do they also teem with Fish?
Is their Creator One like ours?

Students from China
          Red Pine
            ni hau

The Tao Te Ching advises quiescence, and wu wei, taking no action that is contrary to nature.  It also exalts the humble and lowly with the compelling image of water that always moves to the lowest place, and yet can wear away stone.

                      - Understanding Taoism
                     Jennifer Oldstone-Moore

research begun
    young sons sung
         Trappist-1!

Harriet Tubman, not Thomas Jefferson
On the D.C. Mall

Go down, Moses.
Go down. It will fall.

Sacramento, California
I played basketball

Florida, the Land of Flowers
Satellite Beach so small.

Unable to relax
Unable to be happy
Unable to be satisfied
I love the misty rain

Library today
German Jesuit
Life is suffering
Pain on rain on train

Seek, Ms. Susan Meek
Like Agent Starling
In my solitude
In your commuter plane

     Vienna. Budapest. Avila, Spain.

Father Greeley gave me Ireland
I gave Trinity him

Larry Bird alone
In the Celtics gym

My youngest son is Cambrian
Cambrian can swim

Katniss Everdeen
Takes the place of Prim

       The odds. Slim.

good to talk to him
      another day
            sleep

gas stations and cheap hotels, threat of eternal Night
but I breathe upon the balcony, stars provide their light
             Luna's beauty view, exoplanets spin
                          madness is the mind
                        I choose, I lose, we win

Asian California
        sunlight
         la playa

She had the slanky size
Tellin' me no lies
But I couldn't hold her
Because time flies

In 119 Verdi Cries
Have you seen Gandalf the Wise?
He returns
But everything dies

we face annihilation
the thought of dread and terror

when I was a child
I once served as a ring-bearer

I sent the letters lonely
to be a secret sharer

she’s my one and only
faire and elvish fairer

According to Gilbert Keith Chesterton

not a coincidence, is what he said
the policeman from Puerto Rico

I told him my marriage was a Mess
he believed me, at least I think so

he played a little music on the way
to the hospital, I could tell

maybe because I condemned this country
with words from Blind Willie Mctell

Allowed Leo X

According to Anonymous

First class I took in college
Philosophy 101
The professor a Plato scholar
Leave the Cave, see the sun

I keep searching for Sophia
To give her all my love
They say few can ever find her
Who is she thinking of?

Does she also seek a lover?
A tender touch, a warm caress?
Will she meet me in the moonlight
And let fall her evening dress?

Oh yes! My sweet Sophia
I love you more than I can say
Lead me lonely through the nighttime
Teach me once again to play

For poets, madmen, lovers
Seek your charms, know your ways
Like shameless nameless others
I too will sing your praise

When my time is over
And my song for you is sung
Let me slip into your silence
And remain forever young

Young like you, Sophia
Yet older than the stars
Your devoted true companion
In this long love affair of ours.

So some people are gay
You might want to tell the Church
A gazillion exoplanets
Buddhism in my search

Solitude is peaceful
And lonely as the rain
Tokyo to Kyoto
Upon the bullet train

Kamakura snow
Reno in December
E I E I O
Her destiny is Denver

             I remember ...

Lightnin' Hopkins

Life along the Liffey
Riverruns and keeps on running

In this misty, musical city
I keep playing, praying, punning

Post-modernity arrives
I reJoyce and am not shunning

Though much is taken, much abides
Including silence, exile, and cunning

In Kyoto, the Golden Temple
     she dresses as a princess, I a samurai
       train (not driving), and us arriving
                           at arigato.

Please help me relax
When anxiety attacks
The sound of flowing water
Safe inside my home

In Xanadu did Kublai Khan
In Santa Fe did I
Silence of the Lambs
In the Y the Life of Pi

       relax. relax. relax.

                     try

Bob Dylan on Cornel West:
Livin' out loud

Emile Zola
Accusing the Dreyfus crowd

Italian father
Probably quite proud

Coffin ready
Mystery shrouds