A Non-Standard Christmas Message

Events lately have resurrected and modified an old idea of mine, namely that for everyone on the planet, there are 60 (blind ballpark figure) people to support them…think of it as 6-10 billion fruit trees that share, only we’re humans, not trees. That said, it depends on us and how we use the technologies that are with us and coming to us. Do we open up and connect? Or do we hunker down and isolate ourselves out of fear? The government and corporations with which we seem to share a love/hate relationship are really only enablers of our collective nature. Look at the Iranian government’s oppression of its own population, and how the whole rest of the world worked together to get the word out and oppose that oppression. It can happen again; albeit so can the opposite. China clamps down hard on its people’s use of the internet, but there exist elements of tech-resistance to that particular oppression, especially out here on the other side of their control.

It comes down to this: Us. What do we allow to be done to ourselves and those who share our lot behind other walls? What do we do with the tools and toys in our own hands? Which is stronger? The good or the bad side of human nature? If, as I hope and suspect, the good is stronger, then the technologies of connectivity will ultimately do for us what we need them to do: allow all of us to financially and emotionally support each other to the very last person on the planet, so that we can all live productive lives of our own reasonable choosing. That’s what I hope for.

Merry Christmas, Everyone. 

The Top

Balanced on the wire
My feet feel the fire
Of friction endless
Even merciless
Down is disaster
Up is not allowed
The Stratosphere of others
For me disavowed
Here the median
Maintaining heat again
There is but one path
Out -- I know the math
Burn out
Ashes in my mouth
Smoke rises where once denied
While soot falls lifelessly south

"Exchange"

Knowledge

Remember that day
When your face took in the sun?
The winds howled snow
On the ice sheet had their run
What was mortality then?
Whence the pale horse?
On the plains of those middle years
Distant trumpets had no force
Sure we watched others
Close yet almost lost
Far from our position
Their souls already touching frost
How could we not but reach
Towards what they must have felt?
And yet utterly fumble fingers
That still caused frost to melt
Did your heart feel the ghost
Of future self, free of distance?
Mine has from the first
Yet frostbite holds this instance.
(9/30/09)

Surrender

This valley is big
and small
at the end
we see the wall
it casts a shadow
near the base
against the sun
there's no disgrace
Everyone
will stand before it
you and I
must learn to face it
but we pass through
each to the other side
and there who knows?
Go with the tide.

Singularity

I am the yellow sun
burning slow, running steady
life takes its time
every moment when it's ready
I am the point verge
now, yesterday, now
tomorrow doesn't matter
take the second that is now
Tell me that this landscape
can't be mapped, can't be traveled
Tell me that we're sleeping
that we're all slowly unraveled
Are we still alive?
Do we yet run the run?
Can I hear your voice?
Am I not reaching for the sun?
The sky has no end
the earth has no center
that is not also ours
that we must not also enter
Can you say that God is not
also that which is also us?
Honesty struggles desperately
with the word in each of us.
(8/14/09)

Surge

The truest question
starves for an answer
caught in the current
faster and faster
Infinity holds
it tightly bound
in the hope
that is never found
For the truest answer
need not be stated
and the very utterance
is utterly hated
Its breath, its life,
its point vierge
is to existence
a terrible surge.

Portal
What say you
from out there?
Disconnected yet
not so unfamiliar
is there a thread
between us still
a slender doorway
of light we fill
Let's tarry some
and strike the wedge
so that we might
not lose our edge

Endless

The end is near
and the beginning too
There's a place, a point
where the crossing is two
I walk a path steady
though I ply my speed
In arrogant rebellion
I don't take heed
One can dig heel
or race on ahead
But how to avoid
that which is wed?
Can the soul flee the body
before the time's true?
The old become young?
Worn become new?
The path is the life
not the shell that contains
Water is endless
the glass just remains
Each river flowing
never the same
Step in it twice
each time a new name

Just one of a 52-pic series taken last night.

We all tread water
for a time
and then some of us
drown
...find land
......tread more
The drowners panic
reach out and grab
they might be
your boss
...your nephew
......your lover
water is life
Life forces our growth
Drowning doesn't mean death
But it makes us panic.

This

Shine for me
Be my light
Enter day
Be gone the night
Tear the veil
Part this curtain
Let me see
What is for certain
Is nothing then?
Not even thee?
Spare me this
Dichotomy
(7/6/09)

Oiled an old (first) sculpture from 2000...quite a difference. Had I known then what I know now...

The Call

There’s no one else
But you for someone
Standing at the edge
Like the sun
A tether
In her emptiness
The lifeline
To his happiness
All that stands
Against the end
To something
You’re its only friend.
A god by any other name
Is you to someone, something
When you look up
Look down, remembering
That what you wish
For your own succor
Is another’s cry
Outside the door
An animal’s need
To be taken in
An insect’s last chance
Before you step on him
To every thing
Its own has worth
Each mind given
Of its birth
You and I
God to the other
When we serve the lowest
We’re worth the bother

Wish

Tell me truth is strong
That it is mighty, unassailable
That it perseveres
And all else is fallible
Paint it in purity
Sculpt its face in stone
Preach that it never loses
That it’s in our very bones
Point it out boldly
Teach it to the youth
Instruct them that it conquers all
Then tell them the truth.

Temple Mist is finished:

Pure Water

Resonant truth
never left my side
I thought I'd left it
No, I did not abide
Weak, I stumbled
onto an ignorant path
Gave myself over
to the lesser math
Out of my stupor
of anger and fear
I'm pulled to clarity
I cannot but hear

Kicked up the dust today...it's unfinished but a good start I think.






Insidious

Everyone a grain of sand
Quick, wet, clinging to others
Thick mass populating
This pit of humanity bothers—
the touch of God
How can he not drowning reap?
Trying to reach the one
at bottom, deepest of deep?

We are leaves
New in spring
Dry in winter
Crumbling
Heaven, Hell
False dilemma
Both false faces
Of our schizophrenia
Somewhere
Before and behind
Where we think we see
This line of time
There’s a purity
Neither happy nor sad
Tasteless water
We will and once had
Did we leave it
Unsatisfied?
Trading life
Just to die?
Am I being told
With my existence
What it is to feel
Consequence of resistance?
(5/18/09)