Mortal beings like caulk
Flaking with time and use;
Like artists blowing away dust,
Dusting away brief accumulations -
These moral beings. Transactional movements.

Some of us do not function well in chaos
Some of us can function quite well
And some maintain the status quo

Some of us will rise above
Even as some will sink below
There will be hands to slap away

Even as there will be hands to hold
And as time will undoubtedly go
What, in the end, will be your story told

One night I was swimming in my bed
At least I was swimming in my head
When a great bird flapping, suddenly
Flies off the screen of my theater-eyes
Its flit was quite swift, and it was fleet
As I run after it on bright shiny streets
I realize that I am in a hospital dying
Running after the bird was me trying
To stay alive

Alt. ending:  To stay alive, kept me from dying

The warning was clear
If you leave
You can never come back
And with that
They killed off the character

Two lives fusing
      as one
Intertwined
“Ieo vos tien foi tenes le moy,”-
“I hold your faith, hold mine.”

Wrapped in a gossamer bag
Translucent and light
Shimmering with many threads

Finely woven together.
Your gold to my silver
Will forever hold our love.

Pretty lips on a pretty boy
But those pretty lips will
Never bring me any joy

Because his lips belong
To his pretty boy-toy
And it rankles me ‘cause

He used to be mine

(This poem is not autobiographical.  It is about someone I used to know.)

Ducks and geese and floating feathers
Falling amidst the shimmering sparkles on the bay;
All to the tune of children’s laughter
As they spin and twirl and play.

Just sit and bathe in wonder.
And as you breathe,
I mean really breathe
Let wonder bathe over you
Washing your dusty soul,
Cleansing the murkiness
From your eyes, then just smile.
That will be gift enough.

Inspired by a comment on Sabrina Benaim  

When you realize
What you didn't know,
You are well and truly
On your own.

You fight alone.

Self-awareness is
A lucid torment of
The cruelest part of anxiety,
Mental unrest.

You make me ashamed
to ever write a line
and call it poetry.

Exquisitely, you drag
my heart from my chest
caress and replace,

Forever enhanced,
improved, and more pliable
at the experience.

The sky was a fabric of cloud cover.
The threadbare heaven was covered
In moth-ridden holes with frayed edges.
Stringy clouds, as if the loose openings,
With a ratty-tatty weave created a gauze
Of tangled threads.

My words in writing will sit with you, and
They will not judge.  

They listen when no one else listens.
They will hear what you wanted them to say.

Then speak them to your heart.

Skyward skylark,
Fly.  Skyward go!  

Freedom's reality can be stark
As only you should know.

I wish that I could fly
Like a bird from this cage

To get that true feeling
That so very few have known.

Skyward skylark fly from night
Onward into the daylight;

Fly, hit the sky to break the seal
And let the day leak away.

Night, crowded with a pale haze, a lavender mystery
Even darkness was grateful that the moon wasn't having it
As it beamed through low whispered wind and intrigue intermingling
Continue your deep slumber, uninterrupted by any queries or controversies
The last few lights go out as dreams are counted one by one, longings promised
Yet, unfulfilled and unfulfillable when the night sky has other plans for sleeping heads
The oldest secrets are explained in unknown languages in encrypted symbols held within a fog
Across galaxies streaming onwards from its origins into the present constellations of understanding
The moon and its mythology wrap the night around a soul that wants to hide among the warm lavender night

Fleeting moments cannot be captured
Never really possessing true permanence
Haiku-like moments experienced
But never touched by hands
Mere reflected glints on a heart
Recalled within the poetry of a mind

My life was formed.
My fully-grown adult feet,
Firmly planted,
And then the shifting sand.

Accepting the moment in which we find ourselves
Allow reason and meaning to regather as we turn away
From the unacceptable things we find we are sinking in
Reconnecting to the truthful, to the beautiful.
Aspects of goodness you saw once in others.  
Aspects you know are deeply embedded within you.

Reconnect to the good in others we know is there
To find some heart recover yours in the shining glow
Of love, of goodness, of that which you've known
Tarnish must be polished away from other heart
Cleanse own's own heart if we are to be of any use
Have the courage to live another day.  

Enjoy what you can as you can.
The healing will come from those regions
Which the core foundation remains and can never erode.
How did you learn to love?  Who initially gave you hope?
You did when you decided to love, to be loved, to reach higher.
Trust that a higher power unseen will guide and will lead.

Follow the breadcrumbs that you know were laid for you.

Life is just uncertainty
Everything, a mess
The alternate thing is only death

Run your fingers through my hair
And rest
Answers are everywhere

I saw strange things in my dream last night.
A book read that "life is more random than we think.
And, yet it is not so random that we have no control."

A woman (she was random) said to me, "Nothing
In dis life be random."  I guess other than her.
There was a door randomly appearing leading out.

I took it and saw many random things strewn about.
I began picking each one up, turning them in my hand.
"There are so many random aspects to each", I marveled.

Life and sameness are just controlled random abstractions.

The scissors marched across her forehead;
When Mommy stuck her head in
Baby Girl said

"Not now Mommy. I'm cutting my hair."

And sure enough, the horror was true.
Baby Girl's hair lay there on the floor
In little tufts of such pretty curls.

A tear rolled down Mommy's cheeks like a tiny pearl.

Springs and spirals cling and climb.  
Ever upwards, ever onward day by day.
Greening our everyday lives along their way.

Love ignited flames, the torch threw
Sleep sweet, my Only - to rise anew
Faith & steady hope, I know to be true

But, my Only, I will be missing you
For my love, my Only, you died too soon
And I will wait, if need be, for an eternity

Dropped from the same tree
Within the same orchard
The nuts soon cracked open
And out they popped
Dried and shriveled up
The fruitage which carries
The same DNA of the tree
The meat inside is rotten
Eating it is very bitter
And all who do eventually
Die from salacious lies.

Ballerina clouds dance overhead
elephants, rabbits, pigs, and bears
Pirouetting here and there
with an alligator nipping at their heels.
When quickly appears giant hands that come
to gently clear them all away.
And the sun suddenly shows its face
as it comes out to play.

On the dry and empty ground
Covered in stubble brittle and bleached
Nothing exciting could have ever happened
In this barren place.
 
Yet, there, beneath them lay clues all around
Pointing to the ancient just within reach,
By an inquiring mind who goes out to seek.
They were men of that sort on bended knee.
 
The wastes between the Dead Sea
And beyond the Gulf of Aqaba pleaded,
"I am lost, come find me."
So, they unpacked their shovels, brushes & trowels,
At the foot of sandstone cliffs and started to dig.
 
Together with the Bedouins, the group slept on
A ground covered in their robes.  Strewn about lay
Piles of black ****, byproduct of copper smelting
Beckoning.  So, they ate the unleavened bread,
Just as did the freed Israelites who were fleeing Egypt. 
 
But then, of course.  Nothing ever happened here.

He was secretly gay
I don’t care one way
Or the other.  Brother!

But he’s the one who
Set himself up as
The judge of morality

All the while he knew
He was completely past
Having to live in reality

All the boys and men
That power can control
At will are never set free.

The poetry of life, like a big dog, sinks
It's teeth into you and shakes you.
Bitten to the bone you are infected.

It has been said that
A man will shape his tools
Then his tools will shape him.
It is true of male or female.
Necessity is the parent of invention,
Invention becomes the driving force,
The power to move forward towards
Life.

Written in 2014
(Dedicated to the memory of my Daddy, Dan A. Hacker, Jr.)
The heartbeat grows before we ever arrive;
Finally, the tires crunch on the briny soil as we pull in.
Daddy walks around and opens the door for me;
He is wearing his sliver aluminum hardhat;
I slide down the seat and clumsily out of the truck.
The heartbeat is overwhelming now,
Too loud for a human voice,
Provided anyone was inclined to speak;
Daddy is already checking gauges.
The smell of shell and oil and salt and gas
Blend into the cologne, it is the scent of my daddy.

My oh my
Look at those pretty birds fly

But here am I
Stuck on the ground

Sigh

For miles the white path
My nose and feet are too cold
Silent crisp air fills spaces

Listen to the slow blooming of these words
Unhurried in their ink soaking into paper,

Like flesh consuming and being consumed,
Like water drowning and being drowned.

They rush in, yet slowly are moving forward
Wrapping the brain in cellophane to smother.

It will decay and the rot will feed, be fed,
As the words and our brains grow anew.

“If only I had wings like a dove!
I would fly away and reside in safety.” Ps. 55:6
Yet, you see my struggles, hear my prayers,
For your mercies never end.

Like the stone that sank into Goliath’s head
Became the turning point of the battle
In the safety of your power, I reside,
For your mercies never end.

And even if my own father
and mother abandon me,
You, yourself, will take me in. Ps. 27:10
For your mercies never end.

Though we may suffer
We see not death.

Heart be cool, it is not yet.
Heart be cool, perfectly.

And heart, be calm continually.
We suffer, but not death, as yet.

A voice, as if afar, speaks
Sweetly to me, "So, be at rest."

I happened upon a sad little birdie sitting in a tree.
"What's the matter little birdie?  You cry.  Why?"
"The notes in my throat are all caught." was the reply.

But said I, "Music is in your bones with every melody.
There's no song more important than the one you sing.  
And I can look through you and see.  Sing your songs for me."

And with love, patience, and encouragement, it began to sing.
Will you?

Experiencing love for the first time,
The heart constricts, the throat catches in a dry strangle,

Lightheaded, one grasps to breathe in the dense, thick air.
The full sensory of time and space constricts, pinpointed on the ‘THEM’!

And then you touch and evaporate into a mist of sensory overload.

Leaves in wind
Acrobatic life
Tumbling death

Love is
A river
That rages
In stages.
Wanting to be
Free it climbs
Its banks as if
Wanting to see
What is on
Each side.
So comes
Forth the poem
From just
One line
"Time is a river."

Inspired by Bulletcookie and William J Donovan

Laborers and bees
Swarm in simple ignorance
Dancing in sun-dreams.
The owner's laugh
Among giant oak shades
Is very bitter.  He sniffs,
"A day off, is barely paid."
Striped to their waists,
Glistening in bright rays
They float like lovers in a bath
Wanting nothing but wages.

She has a kind of magical thinking about her life.
She sees her name written across the sky, in stars,
In clouds, in sunbeams, written in the sunset.

She finds a penny, knows it was placed there, especially for her.

In her magical thinking, the universe is cheering her on,
Setting her up, leading her to somewhere she doesn't know.
In her magical thinking, she finds the delights and she goes. . .

We,
The nest.
I, the twigs,
You the branch.
Our eggs safe
Nestled within.
Until the day
Our fledglings fly.
With open hands
We cheer them
upward.

The next round is rolling up
As everything goes down

You look like you lost a $10
But only found $1

Trust me, you will bleed
Green and blood

He will never be bled to death
But you certainly will

In a forest, I hugged a tree
And this tree spoke to me.
It said I have branches above
And I have branches beneath.
I have leaves for photosynthesis,
Just look at my wondrous work.
I take in carbon to release oxygen,
I allow you to be able to breathe,
As I take sunlight into my leaves.
Take off your shoes.
Feel this life with your feet,
The process continues below.
Beneath your very feet
A highway for travel exists.
My roots, pushing through
The soil in hairy branches
Spreading out in all directions.
With chemical trails, they speak
To tell bacteria to wake up!
My sweet treat takes up, then
Share with our microbe friends.
Dear human, I want you to know
The phyla inside me and inside you
Are four and exactly the same.
Together we can feed all life.

At times I'm consumed by oceans of words
And the many grains of the sands of notions.
All of which I desperately want to set in motion.

Other times, I might go to the water and it be dry.
But perish that I should sit and wonder why.
I dig like h-e-double-l letting dirt and sand fly!

Because you see, exploration makes one wise.
So, I'm not worried.   After all, hey,
Hakuna matata ends with a TA,

To be announced. . .

A simple concrete step, a stoop; it is just a step, a stoop
Until it is associated with memories of sitting, watching,
                             and waiting.

Watching life as it parades past; neighbors, strangers, cars,
things that are blown about.

All become associated with that well-worn act, repeated with
                           religious devotion,

Of spending time on a simple neighborhood stoop.

A chance encounter.

So precious and fleeting is this brush of one life against another
that we may never realize the impact it has on our life or theirs.  

The impression is, nonetheless, left.
A chance encounter,

How fulfilling it can be when it is brought full circle.

You could just as well
Turn off the sky

Or block the sun from view
As to stop my loving you

Could one take the stars
And place them on Mars

Or grab the moon
And to place in your room

No!  For time rushes on
And opportunities can be gone

Yet, there are universal truths
That offer us much proof

Love is mightier than the universe
If only I could put time in reverse

I'd still be with you

My wounds were generally not self-inflicted.
Most represent lessons learned, many from people that I love, still.
Now that I am older, at times, I will locate the scars,
Seeking them out, reaching into uncomfortable regions
To feel the now smooth flesh-covering,
Wrinkles in the brain.

You are a papercut,
An irritant in this life.
A sting to the tongue
When licking envelopes.
Insane like the crowd
Shouting, "Do it, do it!"
To the one on the ledge.
Your only goal, it seems
To be a harm to others,
Of which you succeed
Often and repeatedly.
Somehow, it makes you
Feel like a superior man.
But only shines a mirror
To your inferior interior.