Maestro Fear

Maestro, 

Spinning your web among the shadows

Stringing present times with a skewed teenage me

My only accompaniment for too long

I've allowed your cacophony to cloud my view of the horizon

Anxious that a pastime of counting the hours of silence would return.

Thought a concert of tears past cried, I rise and suffer no more.

It's time to dampen your impact and await permeating melodies

No need for an encore

The coda has passed.

Tangerine Sun

Aiming forward through the suspended dew
Squinting at dawn's tangerine sun 
Chasing a state of mind where she can
Let go of familiar comforting fears

Philosophies are tested, 
and her pendulum oscillates too far
Soon, she will settle rhythmically 
On a new unexpected equilibrium

This year's Dave Matthews at the Gorge photo. AMAZING!

Haiku for Chet

Fashionable goof
Can camp 'n 'board like a star
And light up our days

Darkroom

Images captured

Her timeline has ticked forward

She’s been long sorting the negatives

By a dim red light

Irises just slivers here, well adjusted

To discerning depth in shadows

She’s choosing those worthy of keepsakes;

Though, not recognizing the players

Enlarging and exposing,

Washing away remnants before hanging

Allowing for frozen memories,

Knowing not what they will become

She emerges terrified,

Being deprived of light too long

Bodhisattva

Sit, enter the mind
Chase away that wind, those sighs
Focus, breathe, let go
The mind travels to where
A pyramid with glass walls rises
Into a dwelling to protect from the world, yet
observe it
He came in sight with pants frayed near the heal,
round pinky toes visible, and piercing insight intact
He's here by the expansive shade of a Bodhi tree
An embrace of thought conforts the soul
My lips rise in the corners
He promises a next time

Haiku for Rocio

Rocio or Pam

We kick balls; rock trivia;

Have heart and joke 'round

Day dreams

The gentle sounds of an acoustic guitar creep in

And brings its friendly message to a worldly wanderer

The brooding cello joins and swells;

Moody, but warmly content

Unapologetic snowflakes float and fall where they please

As high notes of a piano tickle his ears

Opera voices deepen his thoughts and take him away

Aperture

After erosion, a deep crevice remains
An arid wasteland surrounds,
Where tears flow, but do not nourish;
Logic is endangered here
Reason cannot triumph over Goliath-sized fears, lurking
A paltry self cowers in hidden spaces
Surveying the scene through wide aperture
Blurring the edges where the cacti may prick
Delusions that being an achromatic drone is safer, preferred,
To navigate from heart to mind
Vowing to let the extraneous turn to dust;
And to continue the odyssey

Self-talk (written Dec. 14, 2011)

Driving through crying eyes
Towards distracting pastimes
Knowing happiness is temporary
When your heart is this heavy
You'll face the dark again,
Sweet self,
until then, pray you abide

Fermented

Homogeneous, the soul is not,
Contaminants may surface
After being stirred
What has not been dealt with
Sinks to the bottom of the abyss
Waiting to ferment once again.
Facing a mass being more insurmountable
Than a slurry of rubble
Better to spread the hurt,
Break it into palatable remnants,
Boil them down, let the volatiles escape
Leave the gravities in the remains of the mind
And own them in every part of your being