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Mesquite Dunes
The sun has set behind the Panamint Mountains
Before me are a pair of well-worn shoes,
A blanket,
The finest sand eons ever created,
Just this side of fairy dust
Outside of Stovetop Wells
Having chewed on the lord’s finest blue veined mushrooms.
The moon, did I say that it was full, arisen
The sand still fine
People speaking foreign languages disappearing
Those picnicking by the light of the moon gone back to their rental vans
Children no longer somersaulting down sand dunes
Outside Badwater the lowest point on the continent
And the Artists’ Palatte
Where god glorifies form and color.
Perhaps a memory here
Three years old
Wanting mother to know as much about me
And my needs and limits
As I knew of hers.
Perhaps a beautiful woman
Perhaps a distant auto slowing
There was a sign down a way,
Obviously placed there for me.
It read, Restoration in Process
Only there was nothing needing restoring
And then I was again alone.
Poetry
- 99 Gratitudes in 3 Minutes – A Yoga Chanting Poem
- A Poem is Born
- After The News
- Alan
- Alan Is Dead
- American Wedding, 2011
- Ask the Sphinx – 2 approaches
- Baggage Claim
- Beach Plum Jam
- Beau Dies
- between spiders
- Burnt Wood – for Bubi
- Call it what it is
- Conversation With A Ladle
- Coyote in the House
- Crow’s Song
- Day break
- Death Factories
- Death of the Dolphin
- Furry Bug
- Gospel of the Redwood
- Insects in Amber
- It: In Honor of Dr. Seuss
- Journey to Standing Rock
- Kevin Garnett in Africa
- Life among the barbarians
- Long ago, perhaps yesterday
- Mandalay Hills
- Mesquite Dunes
- Miles’ Ashes
- Miles’ Journey
- My First Yoga Teacher
- One Drop of Rain
- Salton Sea
- Self Love
- Sunrise
- The Love Life of Clams
- Throwing Away
- Uncle Sol
- What The Stones Say
- when spring arrives ice flows out of the bay
- Whispering Among The Gods
- Willow
- Winter Fog
- Work and Love are What Really Matter: a reunion poem for the BHS class of 1958 reunion
Crow’s Song
1.
Ancestor crow hear me:
fire of black crow wing,
dragonfly.
What wonderfulness is life,
that I and thou in each others’ presence
pick hungrily at dead animals
in needle pines, in the forest of the city
Soaring with our altercrows
over freeways to the sand dunes
Singing our rhythmic song.
2.
Gathering forces we glide,
black crowfeather carries us
on air and prayer.
Maybe we will espy some matters delicious:
dead flesh soft and fragrant
colonels of corn naked in the furrows
some water at somewaters edge.
Easy pickings.
Lovely.
3.
My father was crow and my mother was too
all my sisters and brothers
and, of course, me and you
all our entire nation
vast jet black infestation
we must wed midst our kin
meet our needs from within.
4.
In the airwaves we flutter
dipsy doodle and mutter
this is all that we know
as we go to and fro
there is nothing to strive towards
all we’re given are rewards
simple foods, airs, and waters
and the love of our daughters.
5.
I love to eat me grasshoppers.
6.
In large flocks we gather,
the cawing of our species fills the air.
Our movements ponderous and gracious
we hide in tall grasses
from treetops we call,
the fat cat, the red winged, the human.
Still we multiply.
7.
Time is to flight as shoreline is to sea
Altercrow calls from branch site
Bouncing over stones I press air beneath me
Working hard my wings I lift off
The currents carry me to tall tree.
I am clear and invisible.
Hey you. Caw.
brtaub – 1978
Poetry
- 99 Gratitudes in 3 Minutes – A Yoga Chanting Poem
- A Poem is Born
- After The News
- Alan
- Alan Is Dead
- American Wedding, 2011
- Ask the Sphinx – 2 approaches
- Baggage Claim
- Beach Plum Jam
- Beau Dies
- between spiders
- Burnt Wood – for Bubi
- Call it what it is
- Conversation With A Ladle
- Coyote in the House
- Crow’s Song
- Day break
- Death Factories
- Death of the Dolphin
- Furry Bug
- Gospel of the Redwood
- Insects in Amber
- It: In Honor of Dr. Seuss
- Journey to Standing Rock
- Kevin Garnett in Africa
- Life among the barbarians
- Long ago, perhaps yesterday
- Mandalay Hills
- Mesquite Dunes
- Miles’ Ashes
- Miles’ Journey
- My First Yoga Teacher
- One Drop of Rain
- Salton Sea
- Self Love
- Sunrise
- The Love Life of Clams
- Throwing Away
- Uncle Sol
- What The Stones Say
- when spring arrives ice flows out of the bay
- Whispering Among The Gods
- Willow
- Winter Fog
- Work and Love are What Really Matter: a reunion poem for the BHS class of 1958 reunion
Salton Sea
I discover my whitened bones in the desert
where they have resided for decades.
My head is detached from what was once my body
and lies some distance away from my ribs and chest cavity,
which have been gnawed upon by wind, wild animals,
grains of sand, and the passage of time
until naught remained but bone.
And although the bones were scattered
reconfiguration was easy.
We estimate this to have been a male,
an older specimen,
who weighed approximately 85 kilos and was 190cm tall.
Evidence suggests the cause of death
to have been starvation or perhaps a blow to the heart.
Several natural teeth showing signs of wear and care
are still embedded in the mandible.
Six thin metal springs each the size of a blood vessel
are discovered behind his breastplate.
We know no more.
Poetry
- 99 Gratitudes in 3 Minutes – A Yoga Chanting Poem
- A Poem is Born
- After The News
- Alan
- Alan Is Dead
- American Wedding, 2011
- Ask the Sphinx – 2 approaches
- Baggage Claim
- Beach Plum Jam
- Beau Dies
- between spiders
- Burnt Wood – for Bubi
- Call it what it is
- Conversation With A Ladle
- Coyote in the House
- Crow’s Song
- Day break
- Death Factories
- Death of the Dolphin
- Furry Bug
- Gospel of the Redwood
- Insects in Amber
- It: In Honor of Dr. Seuss
- Journey to Standing Rock
- Kevin Garnett in Africa
- Life among the barbarians
- Long ago, perhaps yesterday
- Mandalay Hills
- Mesquite Dunes
- Miles’ Ashes
- Miles’ Journey
- My First Yoga Teacher
- One Drop of Rain
- Salton Sea
- Self Love
- Sunrise
- The Love Life of Clams
- Throwing Away
- Uncle Sol
- What The Stones Say
- when spring arrives ice flows out of the bay
- Whispering Among The Gods
- Willow
- Winter Fog
- Work and Love are What Really Matter: a reunion poem for the BHS class of 1958 reunion
Insects in Amber
We are as insects trapped in amber
Last alive in the Eocene,
Which makes us very old,
Moths perhaps.
Our resinous coffins shaped, shined, and fondled
By Cro-Magnon and Baltic men and women
Who burn with wonder
That we were and are and aren’t.
I don’t want to be a bug in amber I cried
And it is hardly being a bug that troubles me
It is being stuck in this terminal goo forever
A prison
A shiver of fear
The terrifying reality of sticky feathers.
I love the pattern on my wings
my dusty pigmented scales
that evoke
female pheromones
and pheromone receptors
sensory neurons
olfactory sensilla
male antennae.
I did not intend this amber fate
He says, as they rest atop one another
atop the branch
on which they are delirious and invisible.
Oh blessed entomology
What is possible
What is true
There is me
And there is you.
Poetry
- 99 Gratitudes in 3 Minutes – A Yoga Chanting Poem
- A Poem is Born
- After The News
- Alan
- Alan Is Dead
- American Wedding, 2011
- Ask the Sphinx – 2 approaches
- Baggage Claim
- Beach Plum Jam
- Beau Dies
- between spiders
- Burnt Wood – for Bubi
- Call it what it is
- Conversation With A Ladle
- Coyote in the House
- Crow’s Song
- Day break
- Death Factories
- Death of the Dolphin
- Furry Bug
- Gospel of the Redwood
- Insects in Amber
- It: In Honor of Dr. Seuss
- Journey to Standing Rock
- Kevin Garnett in Africa
- Life among the barbarians
- Long ago, perhaps yesterday
- Mandalay Hills
- Mesquite Dunes
- Miles’ Ashes
- Miles’ Journey
- My First Yoga Teacher
- One Drop of Rain
- Salton Sea
- Self Love
- Sunrise
- The Love Life of Clams
- Throwing Away
- Uncle Sol
- What The Stones Say
- when spring arrives ice flows out of the bay
- Whispering Among The Gods
- Willow
- Winter Fog
- Work and Love are What Really Matter: a reunion poem for the BHS class of 1958 reunion
99 Gratitudes in 3 Minutes – A Yoga Chanting Poem
At the end of my first thirty day yoga teacher training course (which I took with Anna Forrest in Santa Monica in the 1990’s) the attendees were offered the opportunity to speak for 3 minutes and I offered this “poem,” which is meant to be chanted at a pace to be completed in under 3 minutes. Out loud. Try it. Mean it. Or not. Even disobedience deserves a gratitude.
Gratitude is an attitude
Not a platitude.
Be Gratitude.
See Gratitude.
Sculpt Gratitude.
Wear Gratitude.
Where’s Gratitude?
Here’s Gratitude.
Practice gratitude.
Standing. Gratitude.
Death. Gratitude.
Breath. Gratitude.
Downward dog. Gratitude.
To the injured. Gratitude.
To the healers. Gratitude.
In suppression. Gratitude.
For expression. Gratitude.
Courage. Gratitude.
Caring. Gratitude.
Not caring. Gratitude.
Wish it were different. Gratitude.
Wish I were different. Gratitude.
Accepting what is true. Gratitude.
Openness. Gratitude.
To pain, to pleasure, to change. Gratitude.
To jealousy. Gratitude.
To crow pose, to lion, to life. Gratitude.
To the teachers. Gratitude.
To their flaws. Gratitude.
To the slights. Gratitude.
To the mind. Gratitude.
To the heart. Gratitude.
To muscle, sinew, joints, and bone. Our gratitude.
Electrons. Gratitude.
DNA. Gratitude
Our spirit. Gratitude.
Ancestors. Gratitude.
Continuity and flow. Gratitude.
To distrust. Gratitude.
In trusting. Gratitude.
Pranayama. Gratitude.
It’s a feeling. Gratitude.
It’s all thought. Gratitude.
Love of beauty. Gratitude.
Look before you leap. Gratitude.
She who hesitates is lost. Gratitude.
No matter how much I try … Gratitude.
It will never change. Gratitude.
In the rocks and in the stones our gratitude.
Step in the stream. Gratitude.
Don’t give a damn. Gratitude.
I’d give my life. Gratitude.
For our genitals. Gratitude.
And our effort. Gratitude.
Inspiration. Gratitude
Transformation. Gratitude.
Warriors I, II, III. Gratitude.
To the liberators. Gratitude.
Thinking. Gratitude.
Don’t know mind. Gratitude.
Fish, fire, phoenix. Gratitude.
Mother, brother, straddle. Gratitude.
Tomorrow. Gratitude.
Bird of paradise. Gratitude.
In beauty. Gratitude.
The hoop of our people. Gratitude.
Loved and lost. Gratitude.
Humility. Gratitude.
Futility. Gratitude.
Magic. Gratitude.
Tragic. Gratitude.
The arrival. Gratitude.
The departure. Gratitude.
The explicit. Gratitude.
The unstated. Gratitude.
In the Word. Gratitude.
The inversions. Gratitude.
The unconscious. Gratitude.
All the dreams. Gratitude.
And the dreamers. Gratitude.
To be small. Gratitude.
To be huge. Gratitude.
Active feet. Gratitude.
Chanting. Gratitude.
To the monk. Gratitude.
To those present. Gratitude
And those absent. Gratitude.
To our graces. Gratitude.
For the dolphins. Gratitude.
Tears and fears. Gratitude.
Competition. Gratitude.
To the guys. Gratitude.
And the goddess. Gratitude.
No one asks. Gratitude.
Bring it on. Gratitude.
Forward bend. Gratitude.
In the dark. Gratitude.
In the light. Gratitude.
Namaste. Gratitude.
Blessed silence. Gratitude.
Poetry
- 99 Gratitudes in 3 Minutes – A Yoga Chanting Poem
- A Poem is Born
- After The News
- Alan
- Alan Is Dead
- American Wedding, 2011
- Ask the Sphinx – 2 approaches
- Baggage Claim
- Beach Plum Jam
- Beau Dies
- between spiders
- Burnt Wood – for Bubi
- Call it what it is
- Conversation With A Ladle
- Coyote in the House
- Crow’s Song
- Day break
- Death Factories
- Death of the Dolphin
- Furry Bug
- Gospel of the Redwood
- Insects in Amber
- It: In Honor of Dr. Seuss
- Journey to Standing Rock
- Kevin Garnett in Africa
- Life among the barbarians
- Long ago, perhaps yesterday
- Mandalay Hills
- Mesquite Dunes
- Miles’ Ashes
- Miles’ Journey
- My First Yoga Teacher
- One Drop of Rain
- Salton Sea
- Self Love
- Sunrise
- The Love Life of Clams
- Throwing Away
- Uncle Sol
- What The Stones Say
- when spring arrives ice flows out of the bay
- Whispering Among The Gods
- Willow
- Winter Fog
- Work and Love are What Really Matter: a reunion poem for the BHS class of 1958 reunion