A Poem for Sharon

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My Teacher

Sharon was a vessel
That held an offering
Form, light, color
The mark of material
Time expanded by finding your mind
She's an image creator

Sharon praised
Or looked up and smiled
When something was worth seeing
She said, "The form that
Repeats in this, the slot
Is placed in a good way."

She would allow me
The opportunity to
Lose my burdens
Inside the making of shapes
Projects proposed to be solved
With her I felt more than saw.

They speak of the artists eye
But Sharon seemed to connect
To the artists skin
As your hands reach
To shape and hold
I feel her here.

Pots always remind me of her
The house with the hangings
Of her sewn cloth, molas, burlaps
Her piano
Her lovely self
wrapped in a ballet

Sharon gave me many
Experiences making
Waxed crayon resists, candles,
Drawing, forms, chalk
Prints of every kind
Turned on her press

I enjoyed her own art
The most, her mind
Her beautiful heart
The patience, the warmth
The uncomfortable sense
I had of her honesty

That mattered most of all.
No easy thing for a vessel to hold
A cup of the truth
Given in hands
Making that work fearing
It might end

Holding onto this from her
Sliding through my hands
The once long ago
I trudge through time
Bearing this into my world
Into everyday
Her heart carried
The gift of my teacher.

A Random Act of Service ....is the love our actions do.

Kiss a frog.
Dress your sister's doll,
Climb an Everest in your way,
Give something to everyday
End this in a hug
Or Dig a flower bed
Or put a little spice in there instead

Any way you see it
When you look around
You can change the world
By serving those you found.

Drop the subject
Carry her backpack
Plan a project
That sends blankets, its all healing logic
Go to places where people have lost homes.
You could cook
Take it over
When your grandma's all alone.

Any way you see it
When you look around
You can change the world
By serving those you found.

Get a shiny quarter
Collect a dulling dime
Gather pennies in your shoe
It not a very hard
Thing to do
send them over
To someone who just really, after all, needs some more of you.

Any way you see it
When you look around
You can change the world
By serving those you found.

You have your two hands
And a beautiful face
You can be so helpful
In this earthly space
Clean a beach
Wash a car
Your actions can go so far.

Any way you see it
When you look around
You can change the world
By serving those you found.

Bending over
To pick up a spill
Is a way of saying I'm here
For you ever still
We serve each other
In the actions that we do
Every minute of our life what we do must be true.

Any way you see it
When you look around
You can change the world
By serving those you found.

Pick a pansy
Make your bouquet
Volunteer your time
There's nothing like today
Brother Martin, he is here
Seeing the actions that you do
Proud of the helping and especially of you.

Any way you see it
When you look around
You can change the world
By serving those you found.

Make a friend
Reach out to those homebound
Take a bit of energy
Make o bit of synergy
You can be the answer
To the problems of the times
Give a little love and watch it spin around.

Any way you see it
When you look around
You can change the world
By serving those you found.


A random act of service is the love our actions do.

Pieces of Eight Cut in Half With a Dull Knife

Bridge

I lie suspended
Disbelieving
Willing myself
To Balance.




Mocking Birds

can't get you

so they fly around your head
Looking at your bald spot
and nose hair

saying

"hey bald spot, hey nose hair
you looking bad"

it gets you

the mockers eyes
are really sharp tuned
to what you sound like
in the shower

keeps em flying
thats for sure

you never hear their notes
not out loud

a mocker is a
self that's mute


Voodoo Doll

If you stick in
Any more pins
To the heart, head, or hands
My mojo is going
To spill all over



Rubber Balls

Aim them high
Rebound traction
Give your balls
A lot of Action

Fling them high
Watch em go
Sling your rubber
Go with your flow.


"I'd Rather See You Dead,
Than With Another Man"
in reply

Sure

You might get that wish
She said dramatically
Penning her goodbye
Baking up actually
a lemon meringue
And folding the wash
again

And here's another
"and" for you too.
I like them
along with this

It's flu season
I could die
And I woke up at 5
Dreaming of an exploding computer

It was signaling
a countdown to
implosion
Way too hot to move

Going to blow me to bits
You too I think
With another man
No that was me
Let's not get too weird here ok

Making bacon bit sandwiches
Escarole salads out of
bread and
Vienna sausage cans

Watching some ham
On the TV mock his life

So you'd rather not
see me
we'd
be better off dead
Be dead over see me
it's a thought

opps wait, got to tell
The gasman
I'm out of checks
Which is another lie
The money is gone anyway

Who needs gas
I could just put my head
In the Easy Bake oven
burn the skin
on my forehead

Would you count that
As dead?
Dead enough.
A deal breaker

Especially since a year ago
you dragged me out to
Death Valley in the
Trunk of your bike
And buried any miracles.

So you are a better husband now.
You say.

I'd rather you crawl out of
My corpse
Than listen to this
You know.

A Day in the Life of the Cafeteria

Butter

Momma sculpted all out food out of butter
Required with searing fury it be eaten
Pies, cakes, roasts, fudge, vegetables
Layered with a stick of fat.
Rich and slimy, like
The witch of Hansel and Gretel
Required me be fattened up
(maybe ready for the Kill)








Woodburn

In my school where i was invisible
In 4th through 6th when not being thrown down the stairs
The teacher said the abuse must certainly be me
I got to going in the kitchen to help the cooks and make some friends.
They let me wrap the silverware and talked about
lives in the mountains, their recipes, their gardens
Miner husbands and often
we would laugh about how harsh kids could be
To me.

They taught me how to make oatmeal no bake peanut-butter cookies
(I also learned in 4 H , home ec. to cook some things)
They taught me to cook white beans, corn bread
green beans with bacon drippings, luscious bread
In time I learned what they did in our small cafeteria.
When I moved on to junior high downtown I spent time there
Doing the same at breaks. Hiding to get there unnoticed.
Learned pizza their style which was very unique,
Pepperoni rolls and the cinnamon buns that were
the specialty. Then I was thin.
That group were more Italian, and they were very
Expressive in the making of food for kids
Remarkably impolite to them.

High school it was different I never ate, sat on a bleacher and studied
Missing those warm kitchens. I've loved
To cook my entire life. I can do it pretty well
I suppose the recipes and the practicalities are all from these places I ate
The food of the schools. It was good in the hills.
It was such a surprise to find the food for kids here in my teaching life
Now it is just pulled and warmed, so unappealing and poorly made
Below what they could do if allowed to cook
And given enough people to do it better.
This seems the way it is in my teaching world.
The cafeteria is managed 'at the top 'and seen to
Compete for salaries or something. no pride.
It makes you sick to see the stuff they serve
Think of the collard greens and other stuff
We once had, golden tomatoes
Mandarin salads, cucumbers in vinegar
And even the franks and beans were good.
Then, when food wasn't my enemy, but a
Salvation from a beating day.

14 Stations

Babel

You alphabetize the U
and misplace the Y for C.

It takes the R in re-direction
T for two is no perfection.

The B cannot
Nor will the A

(No longer can we P)
You can Double every U

And none of us will ever
C the Y as B-ing true.




Orion

A soft voice
Illuminated the sky
Look, you should
See Orion. So
I looked.

It's beautiful I said.

We began to talk
Hushed, calm, lullaby.
Our woolen scarf
Holding us in wonder

You're beautiful we said.

Discovering our Orion
Another way
Inside the looking
Far away
A gentle voice

Buttered up sweet night in reply.



'Observable Universe'

The screaming man at the
Meeting said the universe we see
Was "Just a mistake."

That it was hydrogen
he said, this proved it wrong, then he
chuckled inwardly.

When you see it this way
Time and space he said
Cannot be taken for granted.

Just existence. The oneness
The wholeness, the totality
That's granted. Energy is.

But then he screamed, "You jerk"
Tried to demonstrate the profanity
of the model of the universe he projected it out on me

The 60's came to my mind
When he was screaming jerk on
on Carson and talking then about the circle

Winding up the wheel eternally
Sliding into the womb.
He was such a biter though and smoking his weeds.

Measuring the universe at edges recycling
You should be attacking me
For this he said, question it.

But little gray lambs looked up
Flock in this
Age of reason where time and space defined.





Power roars
I am
Anger spews
It's time.



Gamer

Move your piece
My mind moves mine
My stance is laden
Your ready defeat is time.




Unkind

If you take the
last cupcake.

That actually is divine
(I'll offer of course)

It's completely fine.

Later I'll find a way
To make myself

Another one from clay.




Profaner

Inside the beauty
of a flower
Your heart
Is wrapped by
Knowledge
We want to know
Tomorrow.



Bore

In taking the floor
It became yours
(So I sat down)

Watching you take yourself in arms
On ballroom floor
For the waltz of one.



Withholding

Has its merits.
In the ration

Saving for the "future"
Heightening desire
Control of the day
Share your secrets inside self.

Then to
Channel this into resenting.
The "others"
Those not in on "the plan"
See them fail
To find
The rationality of
Your mind.

A pretty thing I learned
One day while saving this
Time slipped away

I'd rationed freedom
It left my day
Like love it was no game to play.



Dreams

Flash of insight in a night
It held for you a power in flight
You walked in a hall
Glided in a glen
Went to the source and back again.

It could be visions from the hunt
Allude to fears and inner worth
Allow you a stuff to paste
Down things that often
Seem to drown you
Hound you.

Movement in our daily strife
When asleep you strive to come to life.



Da Dub

If 2 hearts can
Beat as one
What's that thumping

Why carry the gun

Mine is thumping in its fears

An early beat
Your running feet

No way
to live with rhythmic
dis-rhythmic

Combined count
I'm out.



Dice

Get rolled
to number six

What thing in life has this ever fixed?

Even if you number seven

Would the win be a lush slice of heaven?

What if you got a double?

Brother you're still
In some real trouble.

Toss them high
In worldly brilliant iridescent sky.

But it looks like your life work
Crap shoot a lie?

Then rolling assuredly we die.


Thief

Ah the back story is
My tummy hurts
Washing every single piece of life

A raccoon with her dinner
Bandit to this
Picnic living.




Scared

This thing you are doing
Is frightening. Scary
It makes you so ugly
Defines you as mean
Mocking in such extreme
Without your path
Of goodness, at my expense, this laugh.

Blowing others to bits
To get them from behind
A guerrilla tactic
You practicing saboteur
Built a wall of distrust
You were offered
A kiss and you
Morphed it into this.


Pandora Held It

Given a key
To unlock the mind
You opened a heart
Hope fled mankind.


Not me, it's you.

A Random Act of...

Ants

These ants in my pajamas came over on the Mayflower, I think.
They are a hearty breed with the temerity to crawl in my covers tonight
To find the piece of cookie that seems to be in the sheets.
No, thanks for the naughty thoughts, the cookie is not mine.
The ants hauled over from the sink in the bathroom where they were invading my underclothes
Planning an assault on the inside of my purse with the mint from the bad Italian place.
Several were reassigned by their unit from the kitchen cabinet wars.
We've been in a battle since October.
They must be winning because the last I looked down fifty in my pants
Had bitten so many burning spots my entire leg is an itching flaming mess
Just like these Mayflower ants, to think you can move in and just take over.

It's interesting to note that typing my little soliloquy running over
The typepad a flank of ants have also been assigned keyboard crumb retrieval.

A Day In A Life Poems

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A Day in A Life Set

I am writing poems


a day in the life of charles dickens


well at least there will be boiled beef
and mashed potatoes for dinner

and a canopy
with good down comforting

and then the morning constitution
and the ferriwethers are over

to sample henri's best
blackberry jams and

then to the thoughts
Of the others in the gutters

Need and her sisters
That pull at the edges of consciousness

For a scrap at the table
I'll raise my pen to draw them out.


A Day In the Life of a 4th Grade Project

Sticky icky melted hot glue holds the fuchsia straw flowers
Around the sugar cube portico
Adobe mache blocks stuck onto the Styrofoam
Painted smell of model paints, stolen from unfinished projects
Here is the school child vision of the "mission".

From days of St. Carmel, San Juan of Batista, from San Diego,
the footsteps of a Father made his way up the coast.
The due date draws near as sweat drives toothpicks
Into the foam core, built from the garage.
A replica of a system and settling in California past.

4th grade project you must build a mission.
To look into the graveyards of the Native workers
Meeting the ends of their times in
Olive trees and courtyards, life vines plastered now in the effigy.
Pieces of sunflower seeds standing in for the swallows of Capistrano.

As the due date quickly approaches.


A Day In the Life of an Art Teacher

Looking into the glass of Chagall
A fire bird rose and flew
Through the minds that design now
In tissue and wax

Glimpse the vulnerable hopes
In the room of nervous glances
As meanings and misses
Are constructed here on your tables

Lifting into images, the light streaming
Filters you illuminating a few marks
Made by your project interpreters
The lessons look to catch a ride inside mind's time.

Crafting their looking glass today, this child, from waxed tissue and your joyful tears.


A Day In the Life of an Elementary Teacher

A smile lit up my day today going home
As Ashley looked happily to see her new teacher name written up
On the school wall, the new year starting

Cortez, she says blinking at me
I would have lost the bet she couldn't read it
Her summer was good, she says smiling at her second surprise.

I'm her old teacher dragging finally home
After labeling, sorting, cleaning, counting,
Decorating and finding no limits in listing the "to do's"

Ashley smiling and holding the baby that came last year
When I thought she meant she got a new doll.
The day she told everyone in sharing her dog brought a baby home.

Another smile day,
"It" does cry and eat, just like she said that day
When I said tell us what "it" does.....And her name is Crystal

She walked over today, the living doll, sharing a hard little push.


The Fall, A Day in the Life

In the perfection before the Apple
Everyone ran around naked
And spoke to the animals
About the flowers and the bees.
Things were pretty sweet

Then the Apple got bitten
By a couple seeking knowing
So now you are sitting here naked
And embarrassed really
You can't get a thing the apes are saying.

Now you know the garden was precious
Life was always gift and blessing
Reach out your hand then
And touch the face of your God.
Like any man, now at last you know.


A Day in the Life Meaning

You bring to every moment
All that you were
All that you are
A day is
You.

A Day In the Life of Golf

I know a man that can't recall his wedding day
But knows every green he ever approached.
Every rough ever navigated.
Every club has a story, and every story has an eagle.

I know a man that once played a nine holed course
Four times on a stormy afternoon
But somehow forgot his 20th Anniversary.
Making his foursome, but opting to walk over a cart.

I know a man that chases around a small white ball
Seeking a handicap that everyone can envy.
Parring is such sweet, sweet sorrow
A true hole in one, this happy golfing man.

A Day In The Life of A Kitten

Mushy milky
claws scrunchy
climb...up that bed
tumbly down
Look it's there
go get
what, get mushy milky

some that's twisty
mommy
crunchy, oops whoa sniffy
lick, mummm
mummm
mummm
a natural flying
opps

mew mew mew
mew mew
MEW MEW
ummmsoft, tumbly
snoozy, umm soft listening purring
thinking of ....pawsies out pawsies in

mushy milky................little kitty.


A DAY IN THE LIFE OF A KITTEN

There was a young kitten from France
Who learned very young how to dance
"Sweet Mister ", she said
As she glanced at his head,
"That hat makes this kitty entranced".

A kitten that came from south France
Learned quickly some interpretive dance
The Provence minstral blowing
Kept cat from plateauing
And so it was dubbed hypnotic trance.
(awful)

Robespierre, Robespierre that cute little kitten over there
Is sure to be your daughter fair
She's also your aunt and cousin we think
And could be niece or some other link
Remember your sister is her mere.
(You old scoundrel kitty with the grey furry hair)

Pink Aquarium, Rain, Love

The aquarium I keep for my 1st graders is pink.
It kind of matters to them with frogs, fish
hey, it's cool.
We have a plecostomus that has grown four inches
He's so big.
Over the winter break someone turned off the power
for two days to the filters, so that they burned out in coming back on,
This is exciting to explain but you have to feed water
Into them starting them up.
They were probably doing some electric check in my room on the
Computers that don't work and so now the few fish left alive are dying.
Or maybe someone just decided to kill my tank.

Try thinking about that the night before school starts.

I'm a teacher, not a savior and so they are just dead.


It's raining outside and it's late and I'm sitting here
Covered with fish water, as I bleakly in vain tried changing the water.
So it's not working.

I'm listening to the rain...drip. Pouring now.

I have no meter.
I'm out of rhyme.
My smile is not good.
And I'm in love with a mime.

Actually I'm in love with a shadow.
Who would probably find this humorous if only for the
Fish germs that I splashed all over myself
And I used words not allowed in school finding this
Wreck of the 1st grade hindenberger.
And then topping that off I'm watching them die.

Were you ever in love with someone?
Someone that was "unattainable" ? And perhaps
A bit of the problem was also that it reminded you of all the other screw up
things in your rather impressive list of screw ups in your life?

Rain reminds me of a funny story. Not about fish.
I used to walk in my hometown. Long
Impressive distances. Like 15 miles to the mall. I had no car
And maybe I walked out of need to move.
I walked to the mall at least 15 miles away but it began to pour and I missed the last bus.
I had no money but the drivers knew me, just missed it.
So I walked. Had to cut over a huge hill and through an area of fields.
In West Virginia, Morgantown, think
Major fields.

I got in thick mud. Which was hard. I was littler then.
My foot went in and the mud took my shoe. It sucked my shoe away. No fishing it out.
So I walked with a bare foot through the rain another, umm ten miles home.
No one noticed at home. It was about 45 degrees. I got sick later from it.
That feeling is how I feel about telling the kids about this tank.
And how it feels this happened.
And how it feels, my love , to know

You are there but I can never know where.
It's raining and I'm headed out.

Sunset 2008

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So on your first day 2008 how was the revolution of the earth,
Tumultuous, fiery, suffused with saffron?
It looked that way as we sat on sand
Watching the turn away tonight into darkness,
Away from the light of the starsun
On January one, 2008.

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Morning broke with Santa Ana fury
Howling all day chasing the kittens into cuddly corners.
The eucalyptus flew all over the roads, pieces as big as cars
But at dusk I went down to walk by the ocean anyway
To say goodbye to the 1st turn of this earth.
Riding, winding around and down to the beach with my daughter.

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It was magnificent, red and pink grapefruit sweet ruby sky,
Against silhouettes of the palms.
The winds retreated to wherever they come from,
So that night could creep in silently.
Calmy. With a prettiness. Like when in love you receive a bouquet,
Tentatively, shyly, red-faced a bit in a blush.

So came our dusk.
2008 coming to our lives.

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