TYPES

Intervention

Maybe other people have problems
So you will examine yourself

I keep wanting to help, help, help
But maybe when you are a shining light
They will find you.

I’ve always felt a power within me
To one day help those in need.

I keep thinking
Is it today? Am I ready? Who am I qualified to help?

I watch interventions
And start to feel discouraged by our weakness as a species.

We are so prone to mental illness in myriad forms
Manifesting as compulsions, substance and physical abuse

These minds of ours, so highly evolved
To detect and solve problems

We create problems
When no danger exists

A vacuum in need of dirt

Keep the kids busy so they stay off the streets

In a world whose real dangers were conquered long ago
Meditation is all we have left to quiet the mind without drugs.

But what fun is that?

(June 2, 2009)

Many Faces

To the world I am many faces
A character for each theater

One face for a close friend
One for a stranger
One for my animal
One for my mother
One for my sister
My father, my brother

If each had equal weight
I’d be a saint and a sinner
A ray of sunshine and a quitter
Impatient and polite
Depressed and always happy

No one knows who you are
Except you
And you can choose which mask to wear
For whom.

A character for school and one for home,
One for work and one for the street
Or one for each person you meet.

We can’t control how others perceive us
So we must decide who we want to be
And let everyone see a piece of that face.

(May 30, 2009)

Potential

Sport teaches us to be
Completely in the moment
To focus
Discipline
It gives us a yardstick
By which we measure our
Growth
In points, rebounds, feet, seconds, tackles, catches, home runs
We learn things about our bodies
We never would have noticed on our own
Our thoughts become manifest
Our weaknesses become manifest
Our strengths manifest
In our movements through space and time
We are as good as we believe we can be
Sometimes we feel the power of the gods
Sometimes we feel lower than scum
But sport shines a light
On us
And in that spotlight
Others watch as you choose
Courage over fear
Or fear over courage
And pride is bound to surface
When the light on you feels hot
But we must always remember
We were chosen to perform
And we did not turn on that light.

(February 19, 2009)

Rain on Me

One rainy night
I got caught.
One can get away
With habits of haste
And complacency
As long as conditions are perfect.

But on a rainy night
You might slip in your haste
And break the delicate glass
That held your dreams.
The shards will cut deep
Into your hand
And force you to start
All over again.

On that rainy night
Those that drink from your cup
Will miserate in the cold
And wonder what you are doing.
‘Why must we wait outside?
We should walk away.’
They can’t see you or hear your
Sighs of regret
Through the dark, pounding rain.

On a sunny day
You get the benefit of doubt.
You don’t have to be perfect
When they’re are all having fun.
You can cut a few corners
And no one will care
Until it rains.

(February 9, 2009)

Sold Your Soul

Now that you’ve sold your soul,
It’s an eye for an eye.
Everything that can go wrong,
Will go wrong.

Now that you needed the devil’s
Easy way out,
You must endure his
Nasty tricks,

Twisted promises,
And outright lies.
A fructose-sweet smile at first
Concealed her forked tongue.

Now that the contract is signed in blood
And your debts are paid,
You can’t turn back,
Even though

The walls begin to reek of sulfur,
The horns come out all around,
And your feet begin to burn,
But there is nowhere to run.

Like a puppet in the hands of Fate,
You are no longer in control.
It’s not long before you don’t recognize
Yourself by your actions.

You’ll lay your firstborn on the altar
And drive the stake
All the way through.
But the games have just begun.

And the devil is laughing
A wicked laugh behind your back,
While you wonder how much more
You’ll have to endure…

An infinity? You didn’t even read the contract.

(January 31, 2009)

Chaos

The anarchists are almost right
Chaos is freedom
In a perfect world

We all want to be free
To float around our planet
Whenever the wind blows us

Happiness is losing control
Or realizing you never really had any
Peace is the dawning
That the sun will rise whether or not
We sleep

When we accept the full burden
Of any of life’s challenges
We take on too much
And the body suffers

Half must always be left to chance
Chance is opportunity
We don’t create opportunity
We invite opportunity

Opportunity is the sum total
Of all the variables our limited minds
Did not consider

We can sense it only
When we are open to chaos
When we stop trying to control
Our situation
Our loved ones
Strangers

We observe the bliss
Of pi
As a circle
Only happens in perfect chaos.

Do more by doing less.

(January 21, 2009)

Bodies of Light

Devouring tasty light
Savouring every molecule
I lick the light off my lips

Expert wall builders
A word hits us sideways
And we throw up a steel wall

I’m practicing to
Tear down that wall!
Right after I throw one up.

I don’t want to live in
Those lonely, dark shadows
Of my own walls anymore

Forgetting is easy
When words hit you like light
Just keep your rose-colored lenses on

People’s fears reek like death
You are punished for your fear
By those that love you

They will hold up mirrors
Until you take off
Your ugly mask

The most feared among us
Just wants to bask
In love’s sunshine

Next to the rest of us
On the shores
Of heaven’s ocean

Some get fed by people
Some get fed by nature
But all can taste the silvery liquid
Of love’s grace.

(December 6, 2008)

The Life I Never Wanted

Somehow
I ended up with the life
I never wanted

I wanted to be a teacher.
I wanted to settle down and make babies
Right after school.
I never wanted to wear a suit
To work
Or sit at a computer all day
I never wanted a career
I never wanted to be someone’s boss
Or waste my time counting money

I wanted a simple life
Full of friends and family
But somehow I made it
Complicated
And now I’m somewhere inbetween
Who I am not
And who I wish I was

Part of me had to test the grass on the other side of the fence
Just to see what it tasted like
Now my head is stuck in the barbed wire
And the cowboy isn’t nearby.

And I feel like a failure
Because I took a full plate
And didn’t eat it all
And I want to run outside and play
But Dad says I have to sit at the table
And finish my food
Because in some parts of the world
People don’t have any food.
And I’m lucky to have good food.
So I have to finish everything on my plate
Even if I throw up at the table.

I wasted my talents on aimless ambition
But hindsight is 20/20.
What have I done?

(October 26, 2008)

What is the Reason?

We wake up in these bodies
That change everyday
We self-help
And group help
To repair our brains

But what is the purpose?
The ultimate goal?
Are we conscious just so
to experience our soul?

From ashes to ashes
And dust to dust
What’s the point of the detour?
Wasn’t dust good enough?

Why did dust need to breathe
And get teased in its youth
Then spend college years
Searching for truth

We pursue peace and joy
To balance our vices
We fall, get back up
And warn those behind us

Being human seems a unique
Punishment
A strange way to experience
The vast firmament

More eyes than a rock
Less heart than a dog
More freedom than the tree
Less freedom than the fog

So we live day to day
Inside of these bodies
And open our minds
So we can find God.

(September 12, 2008)

Pain

The only way out
Is through
Stop running
Let the pain
Pierce your heart a thousand times
Or a thousand days
If that’s what it takes
Scream in your grief
Acknowledge your loss
Let your faults, errors and shortcomings
Stream from your eyes
Stop drinking.
You think your numbness
Keeps you from dying
But your pain won’t kill you
Only you can kill you
And that is your choice.
You can kill yourself slowly with a bottle
Or quickly with a gun
Or you can let your greatest fears
And feelings of failure
Die in your chest
Instead
Don’t let them take you down with them
You are not your pain
You are not your past
Choose life
Choose pain over death
Pain is a teacher
Swallow your shame
Like medicine
Let it seep into every cell
And it won’t kill you
Only you can kill you
Study your pain
Feel where it lives in your body
Like a needy child,
It just wants your attention
Your pain will purify you from inside out
If you let it teach you who you are
And who you are not
And eventually if you keep your head up
You will see the light at the end of the tunnel
And life becomes beautiful again

(September 5, 2008)

Balance

Work till you collapse
French Fries & ice cream
Find a place that doesn’t hurt
And watch a movie
Chase a dream
When you catch it
Rub the fairy dust off its wings
Drop it like a fall leaf
Leave it to die
Then spring forth anew
This is what cats do
When there are no mice to hunt
And their stomachs are full
Swatting at flies
A game of skill and speed
And ennui

(August 29, 2008)

Repeated Until Learned

My grandmother wore $1 flat shoes her whole life.
Even after she married someone with money
He didn’t buy her new shoes
Her daughter, my mother, thought she deserved new shoes
Nice, comfortable shoes.
Grandma raised a dozen children and never complained
She was a good person.
She never asked for new shoes
And never got them.

I always had holes in my socks.
I hated going to new people’s houses
Because I might have to take off my shoes
Then everyone would see the holes in my socks
I thought I deserved new socks.
Mom and dad couldn’t buy new socks.
Someone gave us new socks one year.
I was embarassed.

I hated being dropped off at school in our rusty old car.
Everyone else had a nice car that looked new and didn’t make funny noises
I thought I deserved to ride in a nice car

I grew up and studied hard and bought my own new socks
And I never made my friends take off their shoes when they came to my new house
And I gave everyone rides in my new car
I was so generous
I gave lavish gifts
Like no one had ever given us

Then I moved to a new city
And sold my car
And I sold my house
And I started all over.
And I was a good person for a very long time.
But no one bought me anything.
And somehow I thought they should have.
Because grandma deserved new shoes.

(August 18, 2008)

Open

When everything feels like nothing,
And no one is your friend.
All the doors are slamming shut,
And no one seems to care.

Your head is spinning,
It’s full of words,
And you chase each one down.
Grinding your teeth and pulling your hair,
You run yourself into the ground.

When you’ve done all you can,
And it all turned to dust,
And nothing is what you planned,
Take a step back and put your hands down,
Lift your eyes to the sky and just stand.

And the little things you never noticed,
Speak volumes to you then.
Nothing feels like everything
And loneliness is your friend.

You can’t work hard enough
To buy a sunset.
The birds all sing for free.
The emptiness you felt was separation
The void, eternity.

In the end, your blind pursuits
Were just a waste of time.
Small things matter more.
The answers come when you’re out of your head.
Stop running, and open the door.

(August 13, 2008)

Dreams

It was a flamboyant party
In a beautiful mansion
With Gold, Purple, and dark Velvet Red
We all knew each other distantly
Some intimately and secretly
They were all men
They kept singing the same electronic
Song that they loved
I was tired of it
They handed me the mic
That distorts your voice
And I could only sing
No We Can’t
They took the mic away
And went on with the party
I closed my eyes
And swam to the ocean’s surface
And listened to a story about a beautiful house
With a green lawn and a white door
And the dock I was floating at
Had a white gate
And a lush green lawn
So I pushed up onto it
Like a mermaid coming ashore
And wandered into an open room next door
I marveled at the exotic red and brown treasures
on display all over the walls
And the chinaman laughed
Because everyone thinks they are treasures
But the goods are all local
I went back into the now quiet dance house’s kitchen
And the owner returned an old gift to me
It was a simple painting with a bendy silver frame
that wouldn’t stay square anymore.
It was cheap and he didn’t want it
He told me to choose one of his beautiful paintings for myself
I looked around the room
I liked the one with the roadrunner
My friend did too
But he had cut them all into puzzles
When I was away
And I didn’t want one so badly anymore.
I chose the one I didn’t really want
The one with the brown rabbits
Then I felt like it was time to leave.

(July 2008?)

Madonna

Bubbles as passion
T-shirts as fashion
Slicing the apples
Blow out the candles
Spicy and smooth
Get in the groove
Laughing and dancing
Old-style romancing
Feeling a song
Staying too long
Missin and kissin
Chat in the kitchen
Naughty and nice
A fresh look on life.

(June 5, 2008)

Ever-Changing

When I was young
The stories made sense.
The lessons were clear.
The entertainment was pure.
The more I learned
The more critical I became,
Lest I seem foolish.
I reasoned and dissected
And sorted fact and fiction
According to what I ‘knew.’
But Alas,
The more I learned
The less I knew.
And I came back to my child
For knowledge built on reason is
But a house on shifting ground
I’ve seen facts come and go.
What was the last great fact after the earth is round and we are not the center of the universe?
Don’t bore me with your new facts,
Fool’s gold.
Science is finite and I’m a skeptic that it can tell us anything we really need to know.
Yes it is useful, like the Neanderthal’s tools.
Chip away at this disease.
Keep you from playing the lottery.
But leaning on science for all your answers is a limitation.
You will only be as wise as the number of theories in your pocket.
Know that everything you need to know is all around you.
Science is a magnifying lens through which we explore a part of the whole.
But the possibilities and joy are endless through the eyes of a child.
As I change, so do my theories.
But the infinite is infinite.
Thank God.

(April 20, 2008)

All I Need

No saints have shown me miracles
I have no special powers
I can’t see auras
But I can feel your sadness and connect to your heart
God is nebulous
But power & beauty is everywhere
And when I’m driving in the fast lane
And the sun is setting
I turn the music high
And feel it in my veins
and I have all I need.

(October 3, 2007)

Music

I let the music in, and it lifts my heavy heart
with the grace of invisible marionette strings
It dances within me.

My heart, light, floats and bounces
High within my chest
My thoracic void lit with joy

The healing waves of sound
Clean my insides and
Sway my torso to the beat

The music moves me.
So I dance.

(February 22, 2007)

God

God made lepers, conjoined twins and supermodels
in his own image.

God made viruses, wooly mammoths, and homosexuals
in her own image.

God made thieves, Tyrannosaurus Rex, and midgets
in its own image.

God made cats, molesters, and nuns
in their own image.

God made axe murderers, butterflies, and venus fly traps
in my own image.

God made sunsets, hurricanes, retards, crackheads, the obese, anorexics, priests, carnies, victims, slugs, eagles, palm trees, ozone, gravity, the oceans, land, and all that inhabits here and beyond,
in our own image.

(March 1, 2006)

In God’s Own Image

I’ve felt the breathless power of the universe in the jolt of a quake
The kind that shakes you to your core
and reminds you that you are more than just yourself
I’ve touched…
I’ve ripped the wings off a creature and watched it as it died
A part of me died too
‘Cause we’re all made in God’s own image
I’ve seen…
I’ve held a grown man as he wept for what was lost
And if there’s one thing I’ve learned,
All our joy and pain is the same,
‘Cause we’re all made in God’s own image

(March 1, 2006)

Reflections

My life is a sickening sweet bliss of a nightmare.
The highs are absolute and the lows freeze time.
I want babies.
I lust for sunsets, mountains and water–
Especially water.
Do pencils kill passion?
I couldn’t handle fame.  I’m happy when I’m invisible.
Unless I want to be seen.
Emerge from your bubble slowly,
Or you’ll be ignored.

(June 2001)

Rivers

Rivers don’t get nervous
They flow
Sometimes rushing mad down the middle,
Taking anything with them
And pushing obstacles aside
Sometimes pausing to churn in side-pools
Resting, swirling, but
Always moving
Necessary for life
Intricate, detailed, beautiful
Shallow in parts
Deep at times
Never complaining
Never resisting
Too hot and they disappear, too cold and they freeze

(January 2001)