Imagination & Emotion
~ Coded in Words ~
Eye STUCK on I
In darkness of night
mind's eye focused inward
thoughts stirred
I was stuck
wheels spun in a rut
muddy mind
beauty blind
A W A R E
Bliss Spot
quiet hours of dawn
self-absorbed ego maniac gone
eyes open
chin up
on mountain top
looking outward
aware
feeling clear
in morning light
all is new and bright
Treasure Time Together
Who is talking revolution?
Who is moving forward?
Who is gathering treasures?
Who is holding on?
Who is gathering together?
Where are their visions taking them?
Where are your visions taking you?
Where do you want to be?... with who?
ABOVE THE COPING
Bowl riding Santa Barbara skate park
I realize, this the where I am supposed to be
Not so long ago, fearful, it seemed so large
Now I drop-in and kick-turn with ease
All that changed is perspective
CLEAN UP AFTER YOUR PERSON
Homeless
person
dog
walking
service
Prism in prison window
Rainbow on death row
Colors radiating bright
Sunshine's healing light
No Illusions Between Us
Our paths are not parallel
Better to have loved and feel loss
Then not feel loved at all
I feel myself pulling away
I told myself don't get attached
I knew you couldn't stay
Just sit awhile longer
I just want to stay in this moment
Be still my bleeding heart
Imagine a migration
Bicycles and sailing ships
Cooperatively owned land trusts to national forests
People not diggin' it in cold or heat
Move when leaves fall
Going where air is clean
Away from headache city roadside toxic inhalation
And mind cluttering images and messages
Tell me...
The below is a poem I wrote in the third grade. I found it recently in an old notebook, and copied it as it was written.
Flower of every hue- Red yellow, pink, wite and light blue
beauty so bright in the sunlight
Ah... fair flowers sur-Round you
sweet perfumes filles the air sweet as the breath of the fair spring
pretty flowers sway in A Dainty way all the petAls seen to say. Let's dance to-day
every flowers a dream come true red rose as firelight. Daisy Gold and sunbright
Violet's of the deep blue every one a dream come true
Ah-Ah.... Spinning whirLing Dancing Twring
Every Lovely BuD unflurLing
Sprinning swaying playing
Turning round and round
Red Rose as Firelight
daisy gold and bright
HH- come join the team as they Bend and sway
A Dancing rainbow on a sumer
Nobody makes me happy.
No one makes me angry.
I choose to feel the way I do.
Every moment I reinvent myself.
Life is what I make it.
My world is heavenly.
I can’t think of anything better... than a warm hug from someone I love, sitting by a camp fire, listening to a friend play guitar.
I am surrounded by angels.
I am an actor--an action hero--some times a romantic, or a comedian.
Life is a drama on a stage that moves with every step.
I choose my props and co-stars.
My script is improv.
The sound track influences the mood of a scene.
My photographs are still frames of a film that began at birth and ends with my last breathe.
-me, oct. 11, 2000
Desiderata, written by Max Ehrman, in 1927, copied below:
Go placidly amid the noise and haste
and remember what peace there may be in silence.
As far as possible without surrender,
be on good terms with all persons.
Speak your truth quietly and clearly and listen to others,
even the dull and ignorant; they too have their story.
Avoid loud and aggressive persons; they are vexatious to the spirit.
If you compare yourself with others you may become vain or bitter,
for always there will be greater and lesser persons than yourself.
Enjoy your achievements as well as your plans.
Keep interested in your career, however humble;
it is a real possession in the changing fortunes of time.
Exercise caution in your business affairs,
for the world is full of trickery.
But let this not blind you to what virtue there is.
Many persons strive for high ideals
and everywhere life is full of heroism.
Be yourself.
Especially do not feign affection.
Neither be cynical about love,
for in the face of all aridity and disappointment
it is as perennial as the grass.
Take kindly the counsel of the years,
gracefully surrendering the things of youth.
Nurture strength of spirit to shield you in sudden misfortune.
But do not distress yourself with imaginings.
Many fears are born of fatigue and loneliness.
Beyond a wholesome discipline be gentle with yourself.
You are a child of the universe no less than the trees and the stars.
You have a right to be here.
And whether it is clear to you or not,
no doubt the universe is unfolding as it should.
Therefore be at peace with God,
whatever you conceive him to be,
and whatever your labours and aspirations in the noisy confusion of life,
keep peace with your soul.
With all its sham and drudgery and broken dreams
it is still a beautiful world.
Be cheerful. Strive to be happy.
An Oak Tree
As time passes so does pain
We have so much to see, learn,
So much to gain.
Love is Love and will always be
As time passes we shall see
What is meant for you; for me.
Like an oak tree we are
And will always be...
Solid, strong, growing, changing;
Reaching to higher places, yet never
moving from where it is meant to be.
Like an oak tree, our spirit will always be...
ROOTED.
-Donna Gaddess
THE WELL
At times you sink, you fall
into your hole of silence
into your abyss of proud anger,
and you can scarcely
return, still bearing remnants
of what you found
in the depth of your existence.
My love, what do you find
in your closed well?
Seaweed, swamps, rocks?
What do you see with blind eyes?
bitter and wounded?
Darling, you will not find
in the well into which you fall
what I keep for you in the heights:
a bouquet of dewy jasmines,
a kiss deeper than your abyss.
Do not fear me, do not fall
into your rancor again.
Shake off my word that came to wound you
and let it fly through the open window.
It will return to wound me
without your guiding it
since it was laden with a harsh instant
and that instant will be disarmed in my breast.
Smile at me radiant
if my mouth wounds you
I am not a gentle shepherd
like the ones in fairy tales,
but a good woodsman who shares with you
earth, wind, and mountain thorns.
Love me, you, smile at me,
help me to be good.
Do not wound yourself in me, for it will be useless,
do not wound me because you wound yourself.
-Pablo Neruda
Risk...
To laugh is to risk appearing the fool,
To weep is to risk appearing sentimental,
To reach out for another is to risk involvement,
To expose feelings is to risk exposing your true self,
To place your ideas, and your dreams before the crowd is to risk their loss,
To love is to risk not being loved in return,
To live is to risk dying,
To hope is to risk despair,
To try is to risk failure.
But risks must be taken, because the greatest hazard in life is to risk nothing.
The person who risks nothing... does nothing... has nothing... and is nothing!
One may avoid suffering and sorrow, but simply cannot learn, feel, change, grow, love, or live.
Chained by the certitudes,
The individual is a slave
And has forfeited freedom.
Only a person who risks is free.
Author unknown
Poems from The Gift, by Hafiz, The Great Sufi Master:
DROPPING KEYS
The small man
Builds cages for everyone
He
Knows.
While the sage,
Who has to duck his head
When the moon is low,
Keeps dropping keys all night long
For the
Beautiful
Rowdy
Prisoners.
BECOMING HUMAN
Once a man came to me and spoke for hours about
"His great visions of God" he felt he was having.
He asked me for confirmation, saying,
"Are those wondrous dreams true?"
I replied, "How many goats do you have?"
He looked surprised and said,
"I am speaking of sublime visions
And you ask
about goats!"
And I spoke again saying,
"Yes, brother--how many do you have?"
"Well, Hafiz, I have sixty-two."
"And how many wives?"
Again he looked surprised, then said,
"Four."
"How many rose bushes in your garden,
How many children,
Are you parents still alive,
Do you feed the birds in winter?"
And to all he answered.
Then I said,
"You ask me if I thought your visions were true,
I would say that they were if they make you become
More human,
More kind to every creature and plant
That you know.
THE INTELLIGENT MAN
The intelligent man quickly realizes
The impotence of
Gold
FIND A BETTER JOB
Now
That
All your worry
Has proven such an
Unlucrative
Business
Why
Not
Find a better
Job.
Lousy at Math
Once a group of thieves stole a rare diamond
Larger than a goose egg
Its value could have easily bought
One thousand horses
And two thousand acres
Of the most fertile land in Shiraz
The thieves got drunk that night
to celebrate their haul
But during the course of the evening
The effects of the liquor
And their mistrust of each other grew to such
An extant
They decided to divide the stone into pieces.
Of course then the Priceless became lost.
Most everyone is lousy at math
And does that to God--
Dissects the Indivisible One,
By thinking, saying,
"This is my Beloved, he looks like this
And acts like that,
How could that moron over there
Really
Be
God."
I Have Learned so Much
I
Have
Learned
So much from God
That I can no longer
Call
Myself
A Christian, a Hindu, a Muslim,
A buddhist, a Jew.
The Truth has shared so much of Itself
With me
That I can no longer call myself
A man, a woman, an angel,
Soul.
Love has
Befriended Hafiz so completely
It has turned to ask
And freed
Me
Of every concept and image
My mind has ever known.
THE GREAT RELIGIONS
The
Great religions are the
Ships,
Poets the life
Boats
Every sane person I know has jumped
Overboard.
That is good for business
Isn't it
Hafiz?
I will not play at tug o' war.
I'd rather play at hug o' war.
Where everyone hugs, instead of tugs,
Where everyone giggles and rolls on the rug,
Where everyone kisses and everyone grins,
And everyone cuddles, and everyone wins.
-Shel Silverstein
Woulda - Coulda - Shoulda
All the woulda-coulda shouldas
Layin' in the sun,
Talkin' 'bout the things
They woulda-coulda-shoulda done...
But those wouldda-coulda-shouldas
All ran away and hid
From one little did.
-Shel Silverstein
To see a world in a grain of sand
And a heaven in a wild flower,
Hold infinity in the palm of your hand
And eternity in an hour.
-William Blake (about 1803)
the music flows through my veins
pulsing with a beat that makes me twitch
from the bob of my head to the tapping of my feet
it pulses through me
as i drink in the music with suhstantiel gulps
i dance
-Jessi V
Survival Struggle
Slippy sliding down and around
In the gooshy gushy slimefy mud
Mecking underneath my nails
Mud like a rainfall,
And when it dries
Crick crack sun
Baked Mud Smud
A 5 pointer 'quake
Rises towers from the
Ruwins and as I sit overlooking
The eathers and embernts
I wonder what will happen next
When a buzzing and the New Yorkers
Smelling of Z'expinseve cologne
In their armaani suits drop in and invase
Painting the towers and ex-town red with
well-to-do brand names
We fight and fall smackly down
into the ruwins
-Jessi V
First they came for the Jews
and I did not speak out
because I was not a Jew.
Then they came for the Communists
and I did not speak out
because I was not a Communist.
Then they came for the trade unionists
and I did not speak out
because I was not a trade unionist.
Then they came for me
and there was no one left to speak out for me.
-Pastor Martin Niemoller 1892-1984
(about his experience with the Nazis)
Journals including poetry
January 21, 2003 - The Gift, Poems by Hafiz, The Great Sufi Master
November 21, 2002 - Prism in prison window
September 27, 2002 - Pamela, one of the girls at Portage, gave me this poem she wrote
Feb 5, 2002 - Desiderata
October 21, 2002 - No Illusions
Between Us
Feb 11, 2002 - Spell of the Yukon, by Robert Service.
August 22, 2002 - Dan Bern's song Jerusalem
September 17th, 1998 -
Only a person who risks is free.
November 1st, 2000 -
A poem I wrote in 3rd grade.
July 11, 2003 -
I'll be your mirror
July 15, 2003 -
Imagine a migration
