AD.

WALKING ON THIN ICE

Osculation

Waves draw apart and let open
face emerges from warm water of sleep
to lovely cool softly quenching dark
osculation, then passing through some
swift membrane of consciousness
to early Saturday morning in October
plush novelty and nostalgia
couch throw remembered and tendered
around the shoulders new again

the quiet of shut windows
imparts a crispness to calm thoughts
loud above the muted street noise
the stage sets of the seasons

~ Lady

Lady Poem 8-25-2016

Player piano
presses type in prayer to platen
thinks about the future and its audience
now, a lonely chandelier

Friends in balconies –
elsewhere

Theater curtain whooshes open to acts
and splashes closed
to plaudits

Lady Poem 8/14/2016

Wistful rain
like I am being taken care of
home safe carapace from which I play
the carilon of keystrokes on computer
I sit in comfort of couch in presence of husband of love
the cat shifts her hind toes carefree in plush sleep
knowledge of oatmeal to come berries to pick
bees to visit
wish I could make things good
for all

~ Lady

down into up

happydays

Surprisingly, this moan and groan turns into an affirmation.

Had to cut down on my stress and inner anger level so I’ve cut way down on news.

No longer read editorials, opinion pieces, what-might-happen articles, watched none of the republican or democrat conventions, and stopped following several negative Nortons on Facebook.

It’s mostly lies, smoke and mirrors anyway.

If there were truth in advertising, the republicans would change their name to the repugnants, and the democrats would drop their name entirely since they are definitely not democratic.

Also cut down on news about corruption and police brutality and people killing cops.

We all know corruption flows from the top down – the rich folk flout the rules, hide their money offshore, politicians are mostly bought and sold, the church covers up pederasty, corporations lie, cheat, steal and kill without penalty while not only not paying their taxes but getting large portions of ours as rebates. The military bombs civilians at will killing mostly dark-skinned innocents of all ages. The drug companies in America are some of the best extortion artists around, our health care is the most expensive in the world yet we rank 37th in quality. The oil companies are killing our land, our water tables, and the earth. Our tomorrows aren’t worth the paper yesterday’s printed on.

Pretty much the only folk who are tried and jailed are the little peope who steal or kill small – kill big and they honor you along with the Henry Killingers, fete you with dinners and book contracts and awards.

World’s always been this way, just not as much and not as openly.

About all I can do is follow Mr Roger’s advice and try to clean up my own act, make my corner a little brighter and happier for wife, friends, folk around me.

Zen monks have always said the task is to live a happy life in an unhappy world because the world’s always been unhappy and seems hell bent on staying that way.

I have to admit I’m not very good at brightening my own corner. But I am still trying, have been for decades, but it is so easy to slip and become one with the mudmen.

What helps me is being with the missus and the feline, enjoying the creativity of our friends, the warmth of family, the new baby born to the relatives, writing poems, making art, taking fotos, feeding the birds and listening to their chatter, the peace in the hour before dawn, ornamental grasses, the first cup of pre-dawn coffee . . . the list is literally endless.

And I have a marvelously moral and kind-hearted friend and companion in Lady K. Smith, who has softened and enlightened me these past eleven years with her endless effort to be good and fair to others, even when it costs her, especially when it costs her.

And there is always hope – I mean just think, in the early 1950’s we were ravaged my polio, then Dr Jonas Salk invented the polio vaccine and gave it free to humanity . . . I remember taking his sugar cube doses in three installments standing in long lines at elementary schools in 1955 when I was 9. It meant a lot to me because my father’s left leg was withered from having polio as a child so I knew how dangerous it was.

One day there was no hope, next day free polio vaccine. Who knows what great thing in science or humanity’s heart may come along and heal our current sickness. Maybe the greed and cruelty darkening these days has a cure just around the corner.

Whatever, I still try to keep hope alive in my heart. Begin every day with a refreshed batch of it when I wake, and it slowly leaks away as I stumble through the day until I get a bit depressed by bedtime and go to bed to sleep and recharge – my Sisyphus loop, rolling hope up each day’s new hill.

So here’s to hope, and my patron saints Mr Rogers and Lady.

dreambetween

Lady Poem 7-29-2016

A shearwater nests on the edge of a cliff
to fall in dream to flight in space
its cruciform wings skim tips of waves
and it follows the whales to feed on their wakes

~ Lady

Lady Poem July 28, 2016

Moment courts that I be not afraid but
trust the line I walk to time earned in
expanses of allowed whistles to a song
of self esteem, a bounce in my step, fealty
to sights noticed and ambient sounds heard
generous wallet and spontaneous talk
face slack, relaxed without frantic smile
except one come naturally like
sating rain

~ Lady

1 birth, 1 death = 2 extra sensory perceptions

liberty002

Liberty Lynne Green 5 hours old 7.26.2016

Strange interconnected stuff going on. I’m reminded we are not singularities, but rather interwoven web.

1 birth, 1 death = 2 extra sensory perceptions.

Got up yesterday morning at 4 instead of 5 because Lady was leaving for an 8 mile run. She told me Dedra and brother Jon’s baby wasn’t born yet.

Did back stretch exercise, put on my jeans and t-shirt, turned off the bedroom air conditioner, then realized I should write a poem for the coming baby, but kind of deflated because how do I of all people write a baby poem. I’m 70 years old, never had children, and had myself sterilized 40 years ago to make sure I didn’t accidentally conceive.

As I walked into the bathroom, the phrase “baby being born” flashed through my mind, and I thought it was a fine line for a poem, so sat down on the toilet lid and wrote this in a minute

Small new life creeping
into big old world
as night slips to day

Baby being born

then titled it “Liberty Green 7.26.2016” because the parents had decided the name would be Liberty if a girl and Lincoln if a boy, and for some reason I was sure she was a she. Poem was done before 4:25.

At 5:25 my ma-law called saying it was a girl. Went to hospital to see her and found she’d been born at 4:18 a.m., which is within a minute of when “baby being born” flashed through my mind.

I have no verification except telling my mother-in-law on the fone at 5:25 I’d written a poem and already titled it Liberty.

But I do have proof of a previous interaction.

In 2006, my ex-girlfriend artist/photographer Masumi Hayashi’s spirit visited me in London in my dream within minutes of her being murdered in Cleveland Ohio. The dream was so powerful I got up and blogged it. Few hours later a Cleveland poet emailed me after reading the blog and told me Masumi had been shot and killed for telling someone to turn their music down.

Masumi and I had broken up 20 years before. I never dreamed of her, never thought of her, we never spoke, yet the night she died she appeared in my dream and tried to take me away from Lady. The Pulp Sculptress of Chicago told me I had been Masumi’s strongest relationship, that she’d never gotten as close to any of her other boyfriends in the two decades since. (2006 Masumi blog below).

And my new born niece announces herself in my mind as she’s literally being born.

This is good. I’ve gotten away from seeing the magic, have become mundane, weary, cynical. This is a reminder of how all is connected even if it appears to be discrete segments, and I need to open myself to this again because I used to walk in magic but have stumbled into being ordinary – and none of us are ordinary.

The wall between magic and ordinary seems to thin in birth and death.

Here’s the Masumi Hayashi blog from ten years ago.

2006.8.18 – London, England

Had another dead dream. I woke in tears. Then the cat bit my toe.

Mother Dwarf was in the rest home – they were giving her a party because she was the only one left alive. I arrive and a young, beautiful cream-skinned lady starts dancing with me. Lots of people. Hors d’oeuvres. I say nice party. She says yes, but nobody’s here. What do you mean? She points to mom sitting behind the table – there’s no mom, just a mom-shaped hole cut in the wall. We go thru the hole, trace down events. Find the rest home had burned during the night and Mother Dwarf was dead. So brown lady and I go watch fireworks. She’s hugging and kissing me, telling me she loves me. I laugh, say this is going to sound weird, but what’s your name? She becomes sad. Says Mer. Ask her last name. She says Jam. That makes me remember – she was there 9 months ago when we 1st brought mother dwarf to the home. She loves me because I was good to mom. Everything is fine. Then we’re back at the party and unpleasant Japanese ex comes up, takes my hand. Insults Mer. Mer leaves. Tell ex that was sad, Mer seems nice. Ex sez yes, but I’m stronger. I wake up, crying. Get up to come down, to tell Kathy my dream – and step on the black cat sleeping at my feet, who screeches and bites my big toe. I call to him, apologize, get down and soothe him.

Last dead dream had holes cut in the expensive hotel floor. This has mom hole cut into wall. What am I missing here?

Today’s email from Cleveland Amy concerning my blog this morning about my dream last night in which Masumi appeared:

Steve,
I don’t know if you’ve been told yet, but Masumi was killed in her apartment last night by another tenant in the building, a 19-year-old guy. The artist John Jackson was also killed–he lived in the same building. I don’t know any more information. Both Masumi and John had been complaining about the guy playing his music too loud.
I read your blog about your death dream in which your “Japanese ex” appears, and thought it was eerily appropriate.
Hello to Kathy and hope all is well on your travels.
Amy

My reply to Cleveland Amy:

Amy – I had no idea whatsoever… when I first wrote the blog this morning, I used Masumi’s actual name… then thought that would be rude, ungentlemanly – unfair to her, so I changed it to “my Japanese ex” to be polite.
This is seriously spooky. Do you know what time this happened – because my dream was between 6 and 8 this morning which would make it between 1 and 3 last night your time.

No way can this be a coincidence. . . has to prove something because I never think of Masumi unless folk ask me why I quit dating for 20 years until Kathy came along.

In the dream I thought the cream-skinned lady could be Kathy.

masumi

artist/photographer/teacher Masumi Hayashi 1981

Lady poem 7-17-2016

The colophon of a book
of the paradise of my life – would
I let myself enjoy it – includes block print bees,
fruit trees, pineapples, haystacks and
wheat wreathes, mint juleps and distillations
cultural and otherwise, figures in almanacs
rendered into prizes for specimens shown
at a county fair

We could walk into this streaming sunshine logo, me and thee,
holding hands up to the curlicue of a wooden arch drizzled
in vine, ducking under leaf and grapes and other emblems
of harvest and civilization

Or we can walk into someplace wild named only
by calligraphic monks and keepers of words
glossy books of birds come to life

Summer morning before it gets hot
swallows divebombing us in plucky cheer
us alien in overgrown grasses of a nature
preserve, new eyes of animated stick figures
a children’s drawing taped
on my office cabinet

Lady Poem 6-23-2016

Quartz glints hard in the eagle’s soft eye
flying over the lake’s scintillating stipple
sweep of wings one of time’s serene ways

From a canteen’s metal darkness
lightness is earned soft and wet
relief’s seeping drink

~ Lady

Lady Poem 6-21-2016

The drumming of my feet as I run
heats my blood, pumps my oxygen,
syncs my thought, my strategies to live,
so many strategies –

During planned time with the universe on my couch
I recalibrate, I seek to meet the ideals of my ethos
a breeze comes through the window
I taste serenity in my head
I release myself into being held

Here I am this me and we are we
wrapped in thought and sensation

Out there a nebula looks like
the Madonna and Child, a calm commentary
painted in vast matter and light

~ Lady