Sticks of wood make a frame
around your picture
your hair flows long
and your beard is running
through the streets of chicago
smoothing lines of anger
I see your glassy frame mounted
in a hundred million houses
and your poems on everyone’s lips
I speak your name
and music runs through the night
on crazy roller skates
I gave the ocean to a girl
at a bus stop
she tossed it carelessly
into her purse
along with the cosmetics, loose change
and papers of identity
then with a practiced step
she climbed into her regular bus
and disappeared
lucky for me I still had the moon
in my back pocket
An uncertain combination
of numbers wires and fingers
brought your voice to mine
it found me lying with nomadic
echoes of my tongue
so we roamed through
the illogical backyards
in the night
chased by telephone poles
down laughing hallways
where the doors just swing and slam
with a click
I returned to another room
where a friend asked me
what was going on
I looked for him
through tangles of impossible kelp
sometimes there are no words to reach me
Note: I have about 30 folders of old poems dating back to 1969. I have been intending to go back and look at them, see if some would be worth posting here. A lot of the early ones almost certainly involved smoking something…. This poem, I think, dates back to 1970, first year university.
The travel agency offers dream cruises
I don’t know how I flew to different worlds
in the twisting dark
there are no straight lines in that land
even the curves are crooked
and everything seems to be falling apart
I gently press things back together
and sleep
wake and sleep
even the circles are not round
where did I go where am I
the colour I miss the most is green
I long for green and blue
I cannot teach the secret of slicing
having to speak the words
can destroy the joy they bring
fruit that cannot be sliced cannot be eaten
the secret of slicing cannot be spoken
speaking the words
destroys the joy they bring
Hunger turned and looked away
empty won’t be filled today
thirst retreated deep in dreams
nothing stays the way it seems
Longing looks within the heart
for future’s promises to start
time is crawling grains of sand
falling gently from a hand
Rise from darkness
sleep with pain
look for meaning
rise again
chapter now
the living book
day by day
book by book
If I took the top off my head
would all the butterflies fly away
or would a few still find it
a comfortable home to return to
after fluttering all day in the sunshine
Answers float around my inner sky
without questions
the disconnected call me
I hear their voices but no one speaks
Sunlight across the path
am I every step further in flight
or closer to the vision
in the eye of the heart
daninmaya 