Poetry

There are many reasons
To travel to Egypt,
One of which is to inquire of the Sphinx,
”What should a man do?”
The instructions you are given specify only that you inquire
And make note of what you next perceive.
How you inquire is up to you.
 
1.

Approaching from the south
On your magnificent white steed
The sphinx faces east
To greet the sun, to thank the Nile
As it has every day
For over 5000 years
Over a million sunrises.
A lucky man may see one
A persistent man many
The same sun for 100 generations
Rises up and exposes the sphinx.

 
The steed and the man approach as close as possible
Close enough to see her damaged nose
Her whiskers twitching in the wind from the south
She can smell you before she sees you,
The man with the question.
It is noisy, you can hear the adjacent city
Horns, sirens, the sounds of other horses, camels, asses, humans, flies
You sit your mount hoping for the moment.
The constant Sahara stops whistling and biting your face
Then as if bidden, for no apparent reason,
The wind subsides, and the city stands still.

So you reach out to her, for the iron is hot
And say out loud, loud enough for a deaf sphinx to hear,
”What should a man do, Sphinx?”
And then you listen.
The high shriek of a hunting bird comes first
Then the song of many birds
Had they always been singing and you just
Didn’t hear them?
Or had their song just arisen?
You may count twenty thousand new suns
And still you will not know
Although it is now a little clearer what a man should do.
 
2.

Approaching from the north
On foot, as close as you can
Close enough to see her damaged nose
The sound of a muezzin calling
Signals the time to stop and be still.
A chorus of male voices joins in the chanting
Then another caller calls
And more chanters respond
All vowels emerging from the swollen gut of the soiled city
Saccharine, sacred
It is all too real
You must sit down in wonder
Awaiting quiet
Aware of the ancient cemetery
The clatter of camel hooves
The voices of your kin
When all of a sudden, and for no apparent reason,
But as you knew it must,
The hoof beats cease
The chanting ceases
The wagon wheels stop turning, stop grinding
The wind subsides,
And the city is still.
So you say out loud, loud enough so the sphinx may hear,
”What should a man do, Sphinx?”
And the voice of a young boy in a silenced carriage
Says,”Baba.  Baba.”
 
Did you hear that, Baba?
You may count your twenty thousand new suns
And still you cannot know
Although it is now a little clearer
what a man should do.

During the night a warm front
Passes over the frozen snowpack
And with it a sense of hope
And forbearance
Of limited visibility
Thickened air
And the pregnant
Odors captured in foggy droplets
That wolves and hunters know
Air warmer than the earth
Cats mewling
As we are mewling
In darkened bedrooms
Resentment, regret, and sorrow
All now like snow on the ground
Hidden in the wondrous fog

We stones don’t speak very loudly
Start there.
And although we can yelp and scrape
And bang into one another as well and as loudly as most matter you’d know of
The fact is that stones are mostly quiet
Introverted some would say
Not like creatures with their mouths open and life cycles measured in milliseconds
No, we go back before the stone age, waaay back,
Part of the molten age
After the gas age
When all was one blended brand
Before the Great Differentiation
Before air, before water.
Before I was whole
Before I was broke
Mostly quiet
Often wet
Rolling a lot and for a long time
And getting better at it
On a beach somewhere
Recently deposited
After many long journeys
Well rounded
Attuned
Mobile
Maybe even curious by now
Aware of the heat of the sun
And the cool of the night
The soft of the sand
And the soft of the hand
That lifts me
And numbers of my kin
And brings us to something called home
And arranges us he says
In some design he says
That is absolutely unintelligible to us.
But it is nice to be resting again
And I seem to be in contact with other stones
Who also came home with me
From the beach.
I like change
And I like rest.
And just bein’ a stone is alright with me.

I live among barbarians
People who fart at the dining room table
People who eat cows
And kick dogs
Business account executives
Wasting the gift of time
Negotiating abstractions
People living apart from one another

I hide from them
In the woods and the dunes
In alleyways and tents
Trying to move in obscurity and safety
To not rattle the rows and rows of opened cages
To not awaken their eager indifferent war machines
Their hungover stupors
Their trigger happy play
To not awaken their collective anger
And mythic gods
To not care about tit contour shaping brassieres
Golf scores
Relative wealth
Some daily disaster that passes as news
While all that is good and free is ignored,
Taken for granted, not acknowledged
Not honored
Not even seen.
Life among the barbarians

© 2016

Heavily armed police are everywhere.
The Pentagon provides these servants of public safety
With surplus offensive weaponry
The clock is loudly ticking
The Military Industrial Complex
doing well everywhere
Well-armed, well paid. 
Thriving in dysfunctionality  
Caught in a whirlwind of ill chosen choices
Toilets flushing shit into oceans by the billions
garbage everywhere
Many hungry and homeless
The hint of German accents in times of war
Of truly mad men
Unfortunate men
Presidents, generals,
corrupt corporate executives
unwilling to return to the dream time
unable to sing
in the wrong place at the wrong time
like a creature trying to find his way out of a pitch dark room
you can hear their shuffling pace
as they trace the outline of the wall
with their fingertips
bumping into chairs and bureaus
edging past windows and closets
trying to find a door which opens
to reveal the earth as she is
hurtling thru time and space
east to west
spinning deliriously
the hint of light
a bird so clearly wounded it has to be dying
by the woodshed
laying in gray and blue and soft white feathers
fluttering in leaves and twig
in darkness
to die
before the nuclear power plants kill us all
outdated, leaking, toxic
destroying the planet
poetry, music, song, dance
lost as midwives to unpredictability
humans unable to solve these problems
placing the death factories precisely where they will do the most harm.

The choice
Was stark
Sit at my desk drafting legal memoranda
Or go to the beach
To watch the sunrise.
The dog was very clear,
Wise some might say.
The boat with the red light on
Moving silently across the horizon
had also gotten the message.
The seals
The solitary fisherman
His baited hook sailing thru the air
The cigarette dangling from the fisherman’s lips
The brilliant colors
The couple hugging
Seagulls
A photographer
An infant
The dead creature the dog was rolling in
The hopes and promises inherent in the spinning of our planet
The spinning of the dervishes
The spinning of the hook

I count
as far as my eyes can see
North and south along the border between earth and sea
Between sea and sky
One hundred footprints
reminders of one hundred journeys
One thousand stones
rolled here by ancient glaciers
And restless seas
Stretch marks visible on their distended bellies
The light that travels ninety three million miles
To brighten the dawn
The first glimpse of mother’s face
The first taste of mother’s milk
Knowing what warm is
What winning feels like
How joy thrives in acceptance
The papers still waiting on my desk
The words unwritten
The thoughts unformed
Geese traveling south
Our earth spinning eastward
The black dog and the white dog playing
Glad the seasonal restriction on their presence has been lifted
Labor Day a distant memory
The fishing line cast
The tide retreating
The illusion of time
The growing space between the sun
And the distant sea’s edge
No longer daybreak
No longer dawn
The day upon us
The magnificent seal
now paused on her journey
To stare at the foreign shore.

in the car
driving from the shore into the city
from the bedroom to the courtroom
from a day in which I had not
put on one piece of clothing,
not a sock or a towel,
a day in which the snowy fields and salted marsh
were in my soul and in my nostrils constantly
to a day where I am wearing a suit
stiff shoes
matching knee-high socks
and bearing two ties
having not decided
what costume
best fits my fancy.

the roads are clear
the traffic light
snow covers the ground
and few other people
have arrived at the notion
that getting up
to put on a costume
and drive into any city
is such a good idea
at any time.

brt (c) 2007

1.
You long to know what you will do
With the rest of your life
with the finite time left.
You want to be brutally honest
And brave.
You also know you have but one death
And choosing your fate has appeal.
2.
The journey begins with a vision of deeper discoveries
Of walking in beauty,
Which may be done
 pretty much anywhere. 
Although it is important to remember
that walking in beauty 
is different than talking
of walking in beauty.
3.
All journeys begin
with an intention
Some also with a fatal execution
your partner leaving, 
you leaving,
ending, separating,
each declaring the joint venture over
she needing to be by herself
the woman who chose work over time with you
a perfectly rational choice
except for a person who says
Love is the most important thing
That you are her true love
And deeply matter.
But oaths lose
And pledges lose
And you are a different you than the one she wanted
Though she will care for your dog while you’re away
As your dog will care for her
Each on their own spiritual journey.
Maybe it will be her dog.
4.
Near the beginning of the voyage
A woman appears
Out of thin air
Divine and ethereal
A woman slumbering
Like Briar Rose
Under the same spell for decades
The same weight
The same burdens 
Now awakened
A sleeping beauty
Stretching
Reaching out
unencumbered by earthly constraints
Sans job, home, or husband
With but one son, one dog, two grandchildren, and three cats
One of whom is dying
She well knows the special role she plays in their lives
And leaves them
all of them
for you.
Do not ask how her son sees all that.
At least the kids still talk with her.
5.
You and she fill her van to the gunnels with supplies
To bring to the Standing Rock Sioux,
To the Water Protectors in North Dakota
Cannonball North Dakota: One rundown store and a gas pump
Blankets, winter clothing, propane, wood, a wood splitting maul,
an axe, sleeping bags, tents, a stove, a tarp,
bolt cutters, hand and foot warmers, earplugs.
There is not enough room left under the van’s roof
to slide in one thin sheet of paper.
6.
They are housed and hosted
Succored on their journey across the continent.
Across mountains and sacred rivers
by friends who are happy to serve
new and old friends
friends who live in castles above olden rivers
people who live in apple orchards, in cities,
with children here and children on the way,
with shared custody arrangements
in rooms belonging to eight year old and ten year old boys
rooms filed with team jerseys, photographs, hats, trophies,
gloves for four different sports.
7.
In Minneapolis he goes into some form of skin shedding
Says he is transitioning.
Vaporous.
Dizzy.
Nauseous.
As if overcome
Does not eat.
People think he looks sickly
They feel concern for
the farting old man
who says he has six years to live.
Who says he is not going into any nursing home
Who says he is not hanging around
If he can’t toilet himself.
8.
They convince him they are frightened for him
They convince him to be seen in Urgent Care
To have x-rays, ultrasounds, and blood tests
The doctors and labs find nothing wrong w him,
Other than a depression at the lower end of his left lung,
something he’s not sure he needed to know.
He tells the doctor he is shedding his skin.
At least one of them believes him.
9.
They visit the Sioux at Pine Ridge and Standing Rock
Sioux fighting for 500 years to remain Sioux
Still fighting
Proud, determined
Reverent, persistent
Worshippers of ancestors
Of Mother Earth
Her soil, plants,
her air and waters
Of the four leggeds
and the beings that fly.
They are sure we are all related
That people are Earth protectors
The Earth our garden and well.
10.
There is Oregon
All of California
Encampment at Oak Flat
The police in Oklahoma
Lobbying Congress
The humorous truth
That they travel together
For 18 thousand miles
For 18 weeks
And break up 18 times.
And then no more.

Before I leave for SE Asia
I ask Beau to wait until my return
before leaving this Earth
Though we also say our goodbyes.
Then, a week before my return
My ex-wife calls to say
She’s not sure Beau will make it
And while I am flying home
The always happy,
always kind and affectionate,
highest jumper in his class,
the fleet of foot gentleman
who understood far more than I
of love and sticks
our Beau takes his last breath.

He looks palsied in death
Eyes opened
Lips parted
His fur as soft and golden to the touch
As it has ever been
Legs stretched out
In the way he would love to do
I see him shaking with pleasure.
Wrapped in a sheet
buried in the yard
between two cedar trees
with some dog food
a seashell from the Indian Ocean
His collar and tags still on him
And a piece of the rare candy
He’d sometimes delight in the sugary first rush of
Licking his lips
then grimacing with disdain
for the bitter aftertaste.
Llife’s like this I think
as we cover him with earth
a stone with his name on it
painted with his favorite red nail polish
a libation of red wine
sandalwood incense burning
two hawks on a thermal high in the sky
circling over Beau’s buried body
in honor of their fallen brother.
He was such a good dog.