JakTraks

Disclaimer

All below's not meant to be
completely finished poetry,
Spontaneous or reworked verse
both printed here: best & worst.

Rules of the Game

We play the game "Survival is the Goal"
offensively to wield a club of clout,
defensively so what we love may stay.

Late autumn falls again, the daylight's doled,
all women track the moon's circular route,
dense clouds drop rain to rinse out life's decay

and ferry nutrients deep into the soil.
Assume we then our axioms the same--
we're pawns unfortunately made of clay

aware the piece does not outlast its role
we cast for hope by throwing dice of doubt
to know we matter more than what we weigh,

our moral mud is plied to save the soul.
Yet we may choose the rules of mind with heart:
abiding those makes gods of us in play.

All Boats Float

if you're sluicing life a row boat
and your s.o. with a motor,
is this a problem or a difference
to be enjoyed, and employed?

my s.o. saw the boats as problem
while I thought the difference good,
I learned to race a motor boat
he learned to slow and take a look.

defined as problem it was wedge
as difference the very spice of life,
he criticized the rowing about,
in the end the wedge won out.

since outcome came from attitude,
in affairs of mind and heart
complementary should be
the yin and yang: not lose or win.

ban the opposites of life
unless your filling up the tub,
making ice or blowing steam,
playing the rival softball team.

True Blue Rose

This eternal rose is always a bud,
Always unfolding, always fully open;
Reason recognizes its perfume
Unsullied by assume or justification -
We call it love, are fed by its beauty,
May trust the scent to point precisely north,
A course for Life, one bold breath away.

Dummy

I just deleted the entry
I began entering 2 hours ago
when an idea entered my mind
and I entertained it until
the first line made an entrance
as a phrase and entrained with
others entered the world of
words except I forgot to enter:
save.

It was a brilliant piece of
writing, my piece de resistance
meant to be a piece of my latest
book which I've been piecing
together like pieces of a
quilt like my grandma pieced
together only out of cloth pieces
but I missed the last piece
for which I now have no peace:
save.

What I really mean to say is:
shit.

Puff, Tango, Plash

This morning, remembering
the daily hour drive east to college
into the sunrise sky
dance of imagination
widening sleep-drawn eyes
with solar soaked art,
dewy kiss, day's first smile,
light's color-coded prayer
for all of us
across its one horizon.

Violet puffs the pipe of dawn,
tango of tangled orange and reds,
pointillist dots petal pink and lime,
plash of gold and scarlet mountains
reflecting Tibet,
sometimes indigo alone
bleaching to cloudless turquoise,
or closed blinds black and gray,
each dawn a postcard to "Dear Me,"
signed, "I'm on my way."

Btwn Flat and Brat

Cats are brats -
(why I like them so much)
more fun than being flat
if you recall, before brat
was slapped out of you.

Not that bratty works at work
or in casual relationships,
the impulse behind it
what we should never lose:
brought back to innocence it
cannot bruise.

Brats annoy on purpose,
say what they think regardless,
push buttons for power pleasure or gain,
blackmailer, tattle-taler, truth sayer,
an assertion of self at best
or heart of manipulative player.

Innocent, its mischief,
risk exchanged for delight
yours and theirs, jabs at serious,
foil for how things should go,
It says your way may be necessary -
that its crap, we know.

It is . . .
a fine line to wing
carrying fire.

Finding Enough Light

I
Java lays down
slaps his tail on the carpet,
I'm waiting it says
impatiently.
He knows I'll cave . . .
and I do.
Rub a dub dub.

II
Its been raining for days;
now the sunlight falls
on this paper, my sweatshirt
too warm, coffee cooling.
Many will be cheered by the bright,
but lost on me
who just hissed at the cats.

III
Some plants find enough light
in the shade.

Alternate Endings

Rumi wrote his poems from Heaven
Frost penned at his farm,
Whyte writes from an inner edge
Dickinson from the heart.

Different places, yet the same,
Still I'd like to know
Where I write from most the time,
Where Muse and I are one.

Perhaps I write on top a bridge
(Perhaps the bridge: my poems),
To my right is cosmic flight
To my left are stones.

Underneath, mystery flows
Its running quiets soul,
Wind stirs embers in the mind --
Muse begins to row.

Poles of paradox: rock and space
By them I'm torn apart,
But on this bridge where two are one:
My Muse and I find art.

[alternate ending]
My muse and I both fart.

Down the Slide of Life on Waxed Paper

In grade school 1960's I was taught
in the second half of all our lives
brains lose cells
without regenerating,
the brain they said goes moldy, loses spark.

What a tightly wrapped box beliefs can be,
we didn't know that neuro-genesis
can happen even as our years wiz by
down the slide of life on waxed paper.

The old idea was a stultifying
inevitability. Lights off.
Now we know the current
flows into our future
holding open possibility.

Axioms all must end in question marks
or asterisks to signify a footnote:
though we know this to be true today
it could line the bird cage of tomorrow
for this is how it works: white pushes
black pushes white.

Sensitive beings seek to see and matter,
rational ones make discoveries,
mind moves to recreate itself --
the three shift perception and belief.

We stop a moment. Then seek to see some more.

A Sink Full of Paradise

For ten seconds
the dirty dishes in my sink were holy,
why then and never
again like that. Now I carry the knowledge:
the precious nature
inherent in plates, and our talent to witness
as a flyer for islands paradise,
allure of that one uplifted conversation --
a single perfect golf swing lets you play
for hopeful years, the rush to recapture.
Today the place
is looking most mundane (and dusty) so I
re-read the brochure,
bump-up the phrases in my mental bin,
relive the swing,
before washing my sink of ordinary.

Watching Ice Melt

Each day's a new block of ice
frozen at dawn, running down hill
as hours melt to thin memory,
rivulets pooling together somewhere (or nowhere).

Do memories visually pool with their like
forming layers on layers of similar scenes . . .

Are there tanks with various settings, collecting
specific qualities of recollection:
light water, heavy, murky or luminous,
drinkable or highly poisonous
(even though humans are not there
to analyze and provide such labels). . .

Is there a memory mixer, all histories
dancing or awkwardly gawking at one another . . .

Does the daily runoff evaporate
becoming the slight, fluffy or ominous clouds
of future days, our past drifting past . . .

Perhaps all recall is neutralized, or nothing
concerning us today but patiently waiting
for each person's next go-around
or visionaries' taking a sneak peak.

Sun Moon Void

Writing poems,
either sparks of light
or, so what,
sun, moon and void:
today from shadows,
tomorrow a clear lens
next Saturday -
darkness from Pluto.

Light never
can hide from itself,
no expectant
search or "ah" in find,
nothing that isn't
itself to receive.
What would light write
without craftsmen,
nothing I suspect
in alphabet.

I Think I Was Cumulus

Walking down the road
a blowsy October day,
moving fast under weak rays
in and out, for warmth.

Overhead clouds race:
a herd of workers catching
the six pm train on Friday,
eager to start the weekend.

Looking straight up
I rose a little, and began
flowing with the clouds,
flew, charged, raced, rolled
with them, my legs
two tails on a kite.

Does anyone see me;
lady in the yellow house
with red flowers,
family with the pine
like a one-armed cactus?

A car approaches and
looking to see it, land
as if a practiced fairy
smooth and light on a petal.

If you ever wonder
what goes on with clouds
blowsy October days
I can tell you . . .
they are laughing.

Tell Me, Why Rocks?

I have always known
my soul is with the rocks;
heavy, they are grounding,
light, they skip water.

I try to embrace this,
most of me naturally does
except a section wanting
flight with birds, or comets.

Comet! Why that's it!
Sir stubborn part can be
a flying rock, duh;
still it wonders, why rock.

Why not a Tiger Lily
or sweet mountain stream,
the fully skirted pine
or slice of an April sky?

As a child I loved all rocks
ragged and sharp, silk smooth,
stones multi and mono colored.
I must talk to the child.

Throwing Seed

It feels the bravest thing to do:
create your life as you want it
when the longing's not to hold a hand,
but throw seed into contrary winds
to fall where they may between blusters
taking root or not. Still, somewhere
in the one and only book of poets
every seed's possibility, recorded.

see artwork Here

So Far Friday

Breakfast, coffee and book;
bought a new rug for the bathroom,
a carpet sweeper, cat food,
socks-undies-camisole, batteries.

Its a green sweeper meaning
powered by a human,
the blue-green rug matches the bath better,
batteries tucked-in the monoxide alarm,
filling one cupboard - a fancy feast,
the rest still on my bed:
Hanes hi-cuts white as the camisole,
brown socks, black socks,
beige cream gray and striped.

Minestrone soup for lunch, spilled some,
peanut butter sandwich for desert,
ferried out the garbage,
greenly swept the dark brown carpet
free of stray litter and cat hair
like the box said it would,
and that's my day so far.

Cosmic Butterfly

Docked
on the bush beside me:
butterfly
lowers its wings,
wide,

each one:
black,
an occasional purple
or indigo sheen
there,
then gone.

The midnight velvet:
eternity,
a void so full
to bursting with bliss
it sang itself
into this beauty.

Edges of infinity:
tipped
in banana joy,
Icarus innocence,
lemon crayon love
lined with

eyes, blue:
April sky
to ocean depths,
lily pads
with night vision
peering
into the mystery,

juicing the innocent
with soft buzzes
of knowing.

Slip and Dip

Like the moon
into hiding 3 nights,
my faith can slip
into the sea
of dark matter
enmeshed with us.

Good to know
it has its own light,
where physical eyes
can't go
you can see
the spark.

Slow Saturday

partly sunny today -
a few leaves begin to turn,
groceries just put away,
cats lazy and lounge;

feelings soft, silent
as the neighborhood,
passion rises for a nap
but longs for fire.

Creative Fire

It is little good to sit
in a shimmying shapeless bonfire
throwing a wide
all encompassing circle,

if not also hosting a flame
come to a ragged point
through the crown of your head,
where bone was once soft.