Category: Photo/Poem

What Remains

The awning stretches forward,
thin steel bones,
holding the weight of absence.
A cracked line of pavement,
its edges curling upward,
a slow retreat
from purpose.

Weeds twist
between fractures,
their stubborn green
cutting through the gray,
a quiet defiance
unnoticed,
persistent.

The sky folds low,
soft with clouds—
no sun,
only a dim light
slipping across the surface,
settling into shadow.

What was here
is no longer here,
yet the space remembers,
waiting,
its silence
a language we
cannot yet speak.

Mount Laurel, New Jersey

Santa in the Corner

Standing steady above the bar,
A red glow against the geometry of walls,
Illuminated through his plastic skin,
Abiding warmth in the darkest nights.

Santa, unswerved amid chaos,
Beckons the timeless mirror of imagination,
Reflecting anticipation,
Bestowing rewards for those

Who sustain unwavering belief in the spirit of hope,
His gaze fixed on it all down below,
An emblem of steadfast persistence when
The season shifts from festivity to memory.

Oak Bluffs, Massachusetts

Stolen Slippers

Footloose,
Untethered,
Stolen.

Or if you believe such things,
Simply slipping through
Invisible portals,
Vanishing without warning.

Worn out steps of dancing feet.
Previously confident ,
Across the path of practice,
Passages of musical time
Indefinitely suspended.

Once loved evidence of  
Masterful pointes and whirling pirouettes,
Retired by inevitable exhaustion.

Hiding in plain sight,
Consumed by the greengrass cloak
Of enigmatic loss,
This mystery of misplacement
Happens to us all.

Like the consequence of stolen moments,
Disrupting the order of things,
It produces a void,
And a haunted memory of things
That can never be replaced.

Dead Whale – July 1, 2023

Saturday
on the southern side of the island,  
just past Leviathan Cottage, 
a dead minke whale washed ashore. 

Word traveled fast;
a steady stream of locals
stopping to gaze,
a sense of awe
permeating the landscape
of seagrass and rocks.

The shape and size,  
contours and textures
of the corpse, 
its briny scent 
not yet replaced by decomposition, 
and especially 
the grand stillness 
of this once living creature, 
emanates a peaceful spirit.

Beached in the bardo state
before body parts disconnect
and dignity surrenders to putrefaction,
there remains
in this plangent reverence
a reminder of what awaits us all,
and the hope
that we too
have lived in grace.

Nothing But Experience

Uncommon gestures and embroiled accidents,

Suggestions and half truths,

The rush to be home before dark,

Anything you don’t do yourself

Is hard to handle.


The fiction of our lives resembles dreams,

The importance of fighting for miracles.

There’s a lunatic pride in accepting that

It all starts with nothing but experience,

And for some,

A rich imagination.


Nothing?


Except being

Encumbered by crashing waves of

Chaos,

Conflict, 

Desires.


It doesn’t make any difference.

Shoulder the belief that 

when you escape your past

You’re not about to return voluntarily.

You’re not who you think you are.


Realize the number of imponderables in life.

And,

If nothing else,

Start with the glory of a summer evening by the ocean.

Flats

Start with the Hand Jive:

Slap both hands twice on your knees.
Raise your hands chest high, spread your fingers apart.
Hold the left hand above and parallel to the right hand.
Slide the left hand over the right hand and then reverse the process.
Pound your left fist twice on your right fist.
Pound your right fist on your left fist.
Touch your left elbow twice with your right hand.
Touch your right elbow twice with your left hand.

And so I say:

Been moving too long and not far enough
Behind there is a vacuous angle of an arbitrary turn
Close to the bone my senses are attuned to changes
Crawling into my own original space, I cannot remember any of the places I have been through
Distinctions pile up and run over each other
Effect has long since been separated from cause
Fatigue strangles my concentration
Hearing a joke I laugh with the downtown side of my mouth
I accept my words without attachment
I am here now and that’s where I’m looking, straight ahead, standing here, at this time
I am on top of my own collapse, riding it down like a freight elevator
I am thrown into a solitude of numbers
I distrust emotions that come directly from words
I don't want to become involved in priorities
I don’t pay attention
I feel the urge to create signals and signs
I have no intentions
I have no questions or thoughts, only the momentum braced and conditioned by a future turn
I have no sense of having come from somewhere or that I am, indeed, going anywhere
I have to keep these words moving to hide the emptiness

Overhead a blue light. Blinked twice.
An engine droned.

I haven’t gazed at the sky in years
I hear voices but don’t have the curiosity to distinguish individual words, preferring the hum
I need a haven to ensure myself a static interlude, a place where I won’t have to talk to myself
I need a task to give a focus, to prevent distractions 
I would have preferred not to get into this
I would rather forget about time, wrapping myself into oblivion, if need be
I would rather maneuver among the politics of displacement
I'm open to a greater line
I’m not too well wrapped
I’m not trying to retrace my steps or find a guide
I’m played out
I’m trying to realize a focus before everything fades  or changes too fast
In front there is the same proposition
It doesn’t matter that I have become inaccessible
It is a relief not to know where I have to go
Listen, I’m just trying to get through the night
Motives are hard to come by when the issues have discintigrated
Names and places move around me as well as inside of me
Never mind the map. The terrain doesn’t matter. You take what you can get
Not for relief, for balance, I need to state a resolution

Overhead a blue light. Blinked twice.
An engine droned.

Nothing picks up, nothing rushes forward toward an exclamation or conclusion
On top of my own collapse, I ride it down like a freight elevator
Perhaps this prepares me for the murder of my own solutions
Somewhere, in one of us, control lurks
Surely I know how to move through space without attaching myself to local definitions
The horizon is limited
There are moments when I’ve lost control, when I became too oblique even to myself
There are no more voices
There are no reminders, no hidden move with which to trip me back into the past
There is an emptiness I am unable to fill
There is no problem so there is no solution
There is no transition, beginnings having happened somewhere else
These last moments hint toward consequences
They comfort me when comfort is impossible 
This is my own stumble through the night
To invent a problem is quite a shuck
When you come to the end of it you come to the end of it
Yet there is danger
You go as far as you can and then you don’t go anymore

And so it begins again…

Phrases found and collected from Flats by Rudolph Wurlitzer

How to Find the Sacred

Space is the place.
	-Sun Ra


Enter into
	this thing,
	this place
	this gesture.

Words get in the way.

Mute the mind
	with a silent explosion 
	of all-encompassing wholeness.

Shhhhh.

In the dark, on the edge of the ocean
sense rather than see situations
of flux and uncertainty;
caress the illumination.

Neither look for 
nor attempt to make anything happen.
You cannot manufacture serendipity.
Merely be open to its happening.

Liberate yourself wholly
from the amplification 
of this modern world.
Defend against ugly cacophony,
ennui and stagnation by
putting your faith in the belief that
things are not what they seem.

In a state beyond texture and temperature;
Drop all expectations given by others. 

We carry our home with us
wherever we go,
so no need to hurry.

Go in peace and grace - 
unfold all eight right prescriptions
And let them be your map.

Wholly presence,
Obscured by the aura of noise
That has become our gross survival.

Survival is not enough.

Prepare yourself wholly,
with patience and presence,
quietly aware that everything
you need to know is present.

Lie down in crabgrass and daffodils.
Sing the body electric.
Allow time and tide to pass
without comment,
while wholly waiting out the turmoil.

Catch your breath and wholly embrace 
the entirety of now,
finding compensation 
for what you have lost.

Wholly allow the world to be itself-
winning the moment,
in the boundless sky
of patience.

Wholly waiting.

Be vigilant of temptations 
whispering sweet nothings
in your ear;
this seductive noise of promise
for something better,
which you will discover
isn’t.

Know your heartbreak,
with confidence that it will pass
like a flash of lightning,
illuminating the immeasurable midnight sky.

Know the depths of uncertainty,
cancel your junk time subscription,
decommission your pinwheel of anticipation,
wholly distance yourself from the
antics of your mind.

The sacred is a reset
towards boundless mystery;
Be with that which is -
Wholly,
Wholly,
Wholly.