I Streaked So Very Briefly

I grew as clean and polished as the perfect desert sandstone

I spun peacefully in an eddy though strong currents tossed all around me

I tumbled with the words from your lips as you mumbled a goodbye

I orbited the earth just fast enough to remain perpetually in the light of dawn

I was lofted somewhere far away, into the golden West upon the prevailing winds

I scattered with the leaves during a few crisp autumns long, long ago

I faded into one or more of those amazing painted sunsets

I was bent by gravity around celestial bodies along with other ancient photons

I rolled up on the beach with many a perfect swell

I twirled slowly to the ground with the fragile apple blossoms

I streaked briefly across the summer sky with a shooting star

I crashed through many canyons in roaring youthful streams

I refracted from the peak along with a billion ice crystals

I ground out the valley, nosed along by a patient glacier

I bathed the room with a streak of brief and pale moonlight

I rose in the air as a life-giving mist after plunging down the gaping cataract

I was taken up by the slanting sunshine and fell again as a gentle rain

I flourished in the ancient forests and then was compressed into a coal seam

I rained slowly down with other fine detritus from the far off surface of the sea

I fell with the million snowflakes as we silently covered the vast boreal forest

I welled up with vital nutrients in the icy water just off the pacific coast

I left questions carved in random patterns upon many jumbled boulders

I faded away in proportion to the increasing heat and the longer droughts

I played my subtle variations on a theme brought to life by a tiny creek

I streaked briefly full of avian color in the blue above a clearing rain forest canopy

I flashed a shining migrating side, momentarily breaking the surface of that great river

I helped form those fantastic images that filled the skies among the holy clouds

I went down in muddy sediment leaving behind baffling, petrified remains

I sighed with the wind in the big trees standing arms akimbo for a thousand years

I fused my atoms with all the others at the center of many suns

I formed mystic patterns of electromagnetic radiation they called the aurora borealis

I raced across the ocean with a pod of warm-blooded giant bluefin tuna

I bathed peacefully in the light of a billion healing springtimes

I disappeared across the event horizon of that black hole at the center of our Milky Way

I spun with the earth about the sun around the galaxy tracing far across but one universe

I left my carcass to the wolves and crows, and my soul to father sun

Waking Dreams

These dreams woke up at last and now they can never seem to rest again

They toss and they mumble fitfully, throughout my long and mindless working hours

I see them fumbling in their pockets for loose change in long gray lines

The alien light of our world creating the strange discolorations of their faces

You get used to not looking right at them or else they will quickly fade away

Their faulty assumptions collapsing beneath the fairy tale castles of their logic

These dreams awaken, stubbled and grimy, having voluntarily left their kingdom

They fill me briefly with their uneasiness as they are passing right on through me

They walk the land alone dissolving soundlessly without leaving any footprints

I watch them fade like old prayer flags just after they emerge fully-formed, upon my way

They leave no trace except the faint and dissolving memories of their passing

Some are so sublime as to be nearly undetectable by the busy conscious mind

Sometimes I pray to mistake gruesome reality for their phantasmal influences

Given off as I walk, they disperse in an illogical ever-thinning aerosol

Waking dreams, trying to tell me how much I need some simple restful sleep

Their seamless reality at least as attractive as our collective conscious hypnosis

There must be more to them than what so simply just fades from my grasp

Experienced as reality, dismissed as foolishness, yet somehow deeply symbolic

Tossed into pens and forced to struggle against each other for supremacy

They woke me up again in uncertainty merely with their deep and utter nonsense

These awaking dreams have not yet reached a full consciousness, nonetheless

These cast out and wandering souls sometimes awaken me in rich tears

We do not speak to each other but I wonder if they observe me as I do them

Sometimes when I come to, I’m laughing, with echoes of their beautiful music still in my mind

Often do I wish to experience their version of reality as more than a mere spectator

Waking dreams, trying to shake and rouse themselves from the depths of the everyday

Began to cry as one of them impinged upon the terrible vacuum of my empty life

Just had to reply as they masqueraded as those I had known and loved so long ago

Their parallel universe inextricably bound to our collective stream of unconsciousness

I could not elude them or escape them, for they awoke with me, as I fled before them

I might still be thinking, even as I talk to them, over their music, all in living color

Happily, as I grow older it becomes less clear when they have overtaken me once again

Quest For Inner Peace V2.0

I simply could not just ignore my body odor in the search for inner peace

Got flipped off while talking to Sally on my cell driving to my yoga class

Well, actually I go a couple times a week and it’s only $35 a month

I think I really noticed something after only a couple of classes

The other day I almost touched my toes for the first time since I cant remember when

I was really getting out there as we lay in the corpse position, then I fell asleep

It felt sorta like I saw myself take off silently in one of those rescue helicopters

Why, the traffic didn’t even bother me as I drove alone all the way back home

I think I scratched the side of a hybrid floating out of my SUV in their parking lot

Shutting down my comm device, I was shedding my earthly concerns before the class

I knew I needed another measured portion of the infinite, really soon

I was still a pilgrim despite the deeply worn tracks I followed thru our rodent warrens

I dropped my thoughts of dinner and even forgot all about my office foes for just a moment

I sought to see myself on a lovely beach in a rainbow sunset framed by reflecting clouds

I was only dimly aware of a woman’s gas in front of me as we assumed the next position

I repeated the computer-generated nonsense syllable that was my unique personal mantra

I pursued this inner quest as vigorously as I had pushed to get the kids thru school

My husband said he had learned to meditate as well and he practiced on the couch at night

Visions of the eternal void maybe just came to me in short bursts, as I exhaled

I took to going barefoot in loose clothes at times, in the privacy of my own home

My cooking shaded away from meat and towards instant packaged Asian main courses

Sometimes I felt a twinge of guilt sipping on a Latte instead of bathing in the Indus

After a long internet search I found a guided Indian Enlightenment tour with a real guru

I began to see a bit of God in all the plants and insects as I sprayed and weeded my garden

Passionate conservatism began to make a lot more sense as my eyes slowly opened

I peeled off layers of consciousness with the onions, searching thru my life’s mandala

Many weekends I applied but a half coat of makeup and wore my hair quite simply

There was so much more to me than these well-tended suburbs could ever reveal

The occasional housekeeping haiku began appearing in my personal diary

I wrote down the dreams that awakened me and tried to fathom them as I blew dry

Sometimes the New Age music cable channel brought quiet, purging tears to my eyes

I spent 20 minutes in the park listening for songbirds on my way to grocery shop

Changed my ring tone to a soothing melody and tried to let up on the car horn

Began to sense the triviality in the banal and un-insightful existence of others

Adopted a Tibetan orphan overseas on the internet and walked dogs at the shelter

Took comfort in knowing that I was following the ancient path of enlightenment

They Could Not Hear It

They could not hear the music which always flowed so smoothly from inside my head

I still could not understand them even when they stooped and shouted right in my ear

They did not feel the sad melodies with which I themed all of their activities

I understood every word they said but in the end I could not grasp their true message

Their motions became quite graceful when put to the rhythms that only I could hear

I shuffled about to those crazy tunes to which they never even knew that I was listening

Since they could not hear it, they determined there must be something wrong with me

But I politely rebuffed their earnest efforts at helping me along my way

My internal occupations made me seem quite inattentive and forgetful to them

I always wandered off course immediately without the strictest guidance

But they could stand me in a corner and I might remain still for hours on end

And how often I was startled by their gentle tapping upon my shoulder

So many times I would finally notice someone had been calling my name

I would smile in red-faced amazement and then simply shrug

Staring straight forward I never even saw the back of her embarrassed head

I waltzed alone to an orchestra that helped me soar and made them chuckle

I thought I sang harmoniously with my music but, to them, it just sounded very much off-key

There was no way I could share with them all of the beauty that I witnessed inside

They laughed and shook their heads as I swayed alone to those inner melodies

I had to turn it up so loud that I was deafened to many important commercial messages

They could not hear and I would not listen and so did my years dance right on by

Steps Toward Creating A Sustainable Destruction

Gonna get to universal healthcare that the government won’t play any part in

Looking to voluntarily solve climate change without hurting our great economy

We’ll maintain a woman’s choice as well as stop this murder of the innocent unborn

Protecting our right to bear arms while getting assault weapons away from criminals

We’ll preserve your privacy and secretly gather personal data vital to our national security

On our way towards reconciling literalist faith with the latest scientific research

Must remain the world’s only superpower while curbing all this military waste

We can reduce our slavish foreign dependence with the tough love of Big Oil and Clean Coal

We’ll find a way to fill our rotten jobs cheaply without using any illegal immigrants

We can end the global war on islamo-facism and we won’t ever have to cut and run

It’s possible to curb our national obesity and not even dictate to people what to eat

We’ll reconcile our treasured civil rights with the biblical ban upon gay marriage

There is a way to retain our beloved land yachts and still get cleaner, higher MPGs

We’re betting corporate agribusiness can self-regulate but still offer up safe, clean food

Surely they can save their rain forests as we recast golf course water hazards as healthy wetlands

Greedy corporate monomaniacs really are morphing into the wise stewards of our society

We’ll have them save more but continue to spend their retirement taxes immediately

Gonna protect tiny blind fish nobody catches as we keep our desert lawns real green

Giving grizzlies and wolves a place while protecting noble ranchers on federal lands

Won’t be pressured by the poll numbers but we must be attentive to the people’s will

Cannot permit their extremist agenda but we must break this legislative gridlock

We’ll continue to enjoy the fruits of cheap asian labor but end their immoral suffering

Our economic ills must be solved without any sacrifices by hardworking consumers

It’s possible to redraw districts in our favor while being sure that every vote still counts

We shouldn’t have to sacrifice any comforts to achieve a proud energy independence

A few tax incentive packages would likely engage the market to curb CO2 emissions

We’ll strike a political compromise to save both hydro power and a couple wild salmon

We will depend on gaming industry taxes as we promote personal fiscal responsibility

We can reach out to the rest of the world in the exceptionist manner our god intended

We must curb our vast wastes but without mandating lame recycling or cost to our convenience

Let us encourage sensible and thrifty habits without threatening consumer spending

We can feed them sugar, not make them brush then have them go find affordable dental care

We’ll force foreign markets open but grant subsidies and raise tariffs here at home

Have to stimulate the all-important economy even as we get this deficit under control

Corporate politicians shall wisely market their donor agenda while pursuing our common good

We’ll place almighty God atop our government even as we condemn islamic religious fanaticism