Pen

My fountain pen is sometimes a snout, 

sniffing paper, poking here and there,

leaving a trail of random thoughts 

with quick trips down a rabbit hole.

Its discoveries are kept secret from me 

despite my hand’s guidance.  

There is persistent resistance

from it, like teenage angst.

When I want to write some thoughts 

about the nine different colors on my walls

(and darned if I know which to choose), 

or to wonder if I am as old as I really am

(just yesterday I was ten or fourteen or something),

I am harassed with irritating, ill-tempered penmanship 

and drawings of geometrics that appear in the margins.

My revenge is to recap the rebellious snout,

to let it lie on the pad in darkness,

expecting better behaviors

the next time it’s freed

from its solitary 

confinement.

From: Getting There

Unpub. MS p. 10

Prayer Of Saint Francis Of Assisi

Lord, make me an instrument of your peace.

Where there is hatred, let me sow love;

where there is injury, pardon;

where there is doubt, faith;

where there is despair, hope;

where there is sadness, joy.

O Divine Master, grant that I may not

so much seek to be consoled

as to console;

to be understood as to understand;

to be loved as to love.

For it is in giving that we receive;

it is in pardoning that we are pardoned;

and it is in dying that we are born to eternal life.

Amen

A Woman Of Reticence

She was cleaning 

her dining room table

of the miscellaneous piles 

of accumulated stuff she had been

too distracted to care about—

papers, letters, coupons, bills, tax forms, 

and unopened mail.

She inserted stuff into file folders

or threw things into the trash bag,

already half full.

We sipped wine unhurried,

tossing each other bits of conversation

and notations on the miscellany of life.

There was an occasional trip down a rabbit hole;

the music continued while brats simmered in beer.

I couldn’t keep my eyes off her.

She was such a beautiful woman

and knew I was attracted to her.

I wondered if she saw me squirm just a little.

She told me I couldn’t 

fall in love with her,

suggesting only friendship.

Wanting more, I was either too hopeful 

or too foolish to understand why I couldn’t love her.

Yet I did, and painfully so,

eventually surviving the rigors of rejection.

From: In Transition

Unpub. MS p. 25

Are We There Yet

Don’t give me a rational path to God.

Where would that take us? 

Inside boundaries and fences.

That’s not a good fit.

Desire and Imagination—think that.

Universal and Infinite—think that.

The soul’s joy would be found 

in the what and where of nature’s kingdoms.

Lose your preconceptions

of the sacred, the holy, the frightened, 

the unredeemed, the vulnerable, and the sinful.

Think the how of the sweetness of grief;

the where of the freedom of limits;

the why of the warmth of being naked;

the what of the art of eloquent silence.

There exists a barn of words

full of its own blue emptiness.

Does anything really need to be heard

from there?

Cultivate silence.

Besides, what is the answer to the question, 

Where is There?

What of simplicity?

Sunrises and sunsets,

water flowing down your throat

on a dusty day,

the passions of loving,

and ocean up to your knees at the beach.

Compare that to the tragedies

of drowning in whatnots;

of your feet stuck in the mud 

and your head lost in the clouds.

Where is There?

There is wherever your heart will take you.

From: A Preface To The Universe

Unpub. MS p. 24

Kids Daydreaming In Willcox

Summers, 1957-1963

It was something in the shape of the landscape,

the weight of light and darkness, our impressionable age,

the shrug of the wind, the chatter of creatures, and how 

the moon poured itself into the tangles of fear and fantasy.

The neighborhood dogs became animals

of unusual stature. They walked taller

so we gave them new names like 

Bruiser, Ginger, Fang, Casper, and Winnie. 

Sometimes we wondered if time stood still 

on the cloudy days. Watches were unaffected.

Andy said that real time stops.  All watches are

past real time. They could be years ahead.

There was no reason to doubt him.

Judy liked to collect rain water. 

When she got a full cup, she watered the 

little rock garden she kept in her bedroom.

Mary, Judy’s little sister, applauded when 

she saw everyone being followed by flutterbys.

Sue and Bertha saw flocks of birds they had never seen.

They named them ‘Garblers’ for their confusing song.

They came every summer until Sue and Bertha 

started high school. The birds were sadly missed.

We clothes-pinned canasta cards to our bicycles 

to slap against the spokes. We all rode Harleys,

bravely exploring the wilderness.

On moon-lit nights we rode our Harleys into the sandpit,

singing Ghost Riders, the balm to our grief,

asserting freedom from the chaos of some of our homes.

We were the Paladins who kept our world right side up

so it would spin into another day, and all would stay well,

with never a thought that one day all this would disappear.

From: Stumbling Through Dreams, Memories

and the Unintelligible

Unpub. MS p. 8

Up The Fall Snow Down Flake

Late winter, Coyote staring at a creek

This side of madness

is the last place of the downy flake.

In the up of the waterfall,

only the mad look would know to 

among the worn stones round and smooth,

where water like rambunctious children flows,

where leaves like rudderless boats

for the seasons dried

to their next life are carried,

where up the flake of the snow down falls.

From: The Coyote Writings

by Marc A. Crowley writing as Coyote

Soon to be published, p. 5

A Rambling Sense Of Things

I’m rainy with things physical

and transient, of little and great import,

old beliefs and new about 

how the world should be

but isn’t and never was.

Possessed by an intractable 

sense of romance, my heart

I still wear on my sleeve

for everyone to see.

Memories will not turn loose 

of certain lost things— 

the childhood toy that ignited a galaxy,

the special friend from school

who saved my life more than once,

that one lost love, the one I thought 

was the fire of life,

as clear now as they were then,

simply the stuff of life.

Between being awake and dreaming,

in the realm that seems like nothing,

there is an entire universe in vitro,

a secret slowly growing a heart and soul,

a Breath within a breath,

becoming an eternal presence.

From: Memories Of Things

Left Behind: A Non-linear Recollection

Unpub. MS p. 31

A Monster So Unkind

The oldest wind of the Sonoran Desert 

is also the youngest; stealthy, from newborn 

to maturity in minutes, filling the sky sandy gray.

We watch it roar into our towns and cities, 

a wall of dust infiltrating every opening 

and crack around doors and windows.

Watch what it grabs and what it doesn’t;

a formless goliath that shoves us around, 

yanks our clothing; ferocious and taloned,

it rips off branches and roofs.

Seemingly vengeful, it’s just wind and dirt,

nature so simple, yet so inescapable 

is its grip on catastrophe.

From: Small Places, Big Places, Everywhere

Unpub. MS p. 5

Fire, Passion, And Stairways To Heaven

Ask a question any way you want.

The truth of the answer it won’t change.

Could the answers change the questions

into some other grammatical form or language?

Some day I will reach a place of Knowing nothing.

I’m wondering if invisible I will be. Or empty?

Better you’re transformed into the fullness of a symphony

with lots of brass, with a conductor with strong arms,

swamped by sound, swamped by the sound of love, 

by loving the harmonies, the chord progressions,

digressions, compressions, suggestions, avoiding the

false prophets and easy answers to abstract questions.

But what pain will it bring us, who knows, 

when our kisses fail to rise above simple disguises,

kisses of no fire, no passions, no stairways to heaven?

Answer from fullness, not from emptiness.

Answer with Mozart, with Bach, with Tchaikovsky.

Answer in full voice, sing in full harmony.

From: A Meandering Search for

Innocence, Time, and Love

Unpub. MS p. 12

Notes From Another Realm -- Part II

There is nothing less than anything; look we do, 

and breathe, and voices of Rosemary and Sage 

spread their fragrant anythings in less 

than all things nothing.

~Coyote

Fragmented poetics, non-linear beauties;

words, unexpected choruses, and

finally, the iambic bluster.

The difference between passionate love

and madness is like the difference

between red and red.

From wine is the richness of Life;

from Tequila is the fullness of Earth,

but it’s the fragrances of flowers 

that make the stars twinkle.

When is it time to discard useless things?

When you cannot see yourself in the mirror.

Know yourself by what you discard. 

Life took me by the hand and such 

a grip it was, but I thought 

I was waiting for the amorous glance.

Is home a place or a longing for a place?

Or a condition of the heart?

Or is it nostalgic for something 

that never was but could have been?

Can you feel the offer of serene greetings?

I’m aging, though not old and 

not finished growing or growling.

What is the way of coming out of yourself,

that brings another world right to you,

to land on your shoulders like a bird?

When that time comes, you will have

passed the vanishing point.

From:  Finding My Way:

One Man’s Spiritual Quest

For The Divine Presence

Unpub. MS p, 30

Notes From Another Realm -- Part I

Poetry he has written, for clues Poet looks, 

seeking a sense of Divinity, awkward decorum, 

and syntax wayward. A bumpy road it is. 

~Coyote

Then we grew up losing the 

best part of ourselves— 

that wild landscape 

and our souls’ starry constellations.

We knew how to measure success,

but we didn’t know how to measure 

what was lost.

I don’t remember a time as strange as now.

My first inclination is to run away to hide.

When I look in the mirror, I sometimes see

a scared twelve-year-old boy.

The passions of music break down 

the barriers between this reality and any other. 

Love opens doors to mystery 

and a yearning for the presence of the Divine.

How can one be without the other?

Politics is like a harem of fondled hatreds.

Today we get too much of the world

and we are weary of it.

Our souls need emptiness

to make way for the unintelligible, 

pointing us to a path unseen, 

so we go willingly.

Sunrise came with the roosters’ insistence

that orange predominates. 

Protestors fluttered into an eternal quest

for a divine shade of blue.

Friend Sapphire dances in the sand, 

sings to birds, runs into the wind, 

and begs the ocean’s magic to give up itself.

She makes her life unusual and beautiful.

From:  Finding My Way:

One Man’s Spiritual Quest

For The Divine Presence

Unpub. MS p, 29

Today

It's the Sunday go to meetin',

a right we all have (I think);

we have other rights, too, don't we?

I vaguely remember something

about due process...

I'm having coffee in the safety of my home,

but isn't it true that no one is safe?

I'm thinking I can't wear my heart

on my sleeve anymore.

Would that brand me as dangerous?

How about you? 

Where is your heart?

Closed for the holidays and then some?

We can still care, right? 

For all to see Hope.

See it! Feel it!

HOPE.

And where is that bastard

who murdered Renee Nicole Good?

Falling Asleep After Reading The Book Of Revelations

Seeing nothing except a white horse

running through snow, 

its hooves throwing winter

from its softened thundering gallop,

spraying pearls into the heavens

that become rambly, twinkling stars.

It turns toward me, its wild mane 

swirling in the wind, its eyes are glowing embers.

But with its dreadful approach comes heated breath,

from its massive hooves, relentless, appalling thuds,

coming closer, ever louder, the ground quaking, 

the stars flaming into creation, igniting fires in our hearts,

fearing life and death and the beginning and end of time,

devolving into unbridled dissonance and chaos,

coming face to face with a distorted, awful presence

until everything crashes into silence.

From: Stumbling Through Dreams, Memories

and the Unintelligible

Unpub. MS p. 12

A Voice Of Madness

Last night I dreamed

about forgetting and frustrations,

losing and finding and not finding,

especially destinations;

how earnestly we seek them;

how elusive they can be.

A woman claiming to be lost

asked me if it was easier to be on the road

rather than being sedentary.

Well...yes and no.

I asked if there were road maps

for living past seventy.

She said, Use metaphors.

Okay.

What I want to know is who was

the raven-haired, self-proclaimed

‘magical woman’ in my dream,

blazingly passionate and alluring.

I was told she was spending time

in another place in some other time,

or something like that.

I’ve heard about those mysterious destinations.

Magical Woman said there are five.

Is she messing with me?

Lost Woman said, Yes!

And out stumbled another 

voice of madness.

From: Stumbling Through Dreams, Memories

and the Unintelligible

Unpub. MS p. 17

After Listening To Brahms

Symphony No. 4 in E Minor 

Taking off my shoes this chilly summer evening,

seeing redwoods as masses of  green

close to the shore,

but knowing at the changing seasons

the wind will be asking

to speak to anyone willing to listen, 

along with the horses and dogs

running on the beach,

asking, Are we here for real?

Sunrise to sunset to sunrise. 

I accept my past losses

and hopes for the future.

Now an ocean wants to speak

and there I am, naked on an empty beach, 

walking on the foamy rim of the world.

Easy now, they admonish, those mystic voices 

from silence so far yet so near, 

Don’t let the future

confuse you or the past destroy you.

Start now in silence.

Step into wet sand,

watch the water squeeze out 

and flow back to fill your foot print,

only to disappear.

A deep breath.

I can only say, 

Just listen…

the heart will hear 

the rhapsodies of the Universe.

From: A Preface To The Universe

Unpub. MS p. 26

What There Are

On your Journey,

what seems to be sometimes isn’t;

what isn’t could possibly be.

It isn’t necessary to know

which is which,

just as long as you know

there are possibilities.

From: Finding My Way:

One Man’s Spiritual Quest

For The Divine Presence

2010 - Present

Unpub. MS p. 1

A Very Short Love Story

Of the finest silk and wine.

Love, long endured, gone awry;

a lonely farewell.

From: Short Poems On How We Ramble

Unpub. MS p. 54

A Journey Of Dreams

Yellow seasons, red clouds,

drinkable dawns—

we certainly indulged.

Then an orchestra,

sprawling, treacherous, lavish, 

with wilding percussion,

rainy brass, nervous strings,

chatty woodwinds.

A growing dissonance of voices

on top of the deep roar of traffic

and sirens, a scream for help,

then the crash of cymbals, bossy and jagged, 

tumbling down concrete stairwells, 

cut through all things fearful,

then quiet but for the breezes sighing

through the barb’ wire fences

and over the range grasses.

The road is elusive.

Always was.

Search for it where it is not.

From: Small Places, Big Places Everywhere

Unpub. MS p. 38

The Grassland Paladin

Hereford, Arizona

Winter

Alone in my gazebo at midnight, 

I’m wrapped in a blanket; there are no voices,

no wind, but the chill of the grassland is flooded

by the half-moon’s light. A few coyotes bark,

great horned owls sing their four notes

to each other from the tops  

of the utility poles along my road.

I have to stifle my inclination 

to talk to myself. I’d be an intrusion

in the order of the night,

though my neighbor’s rooster

lets loose a reminder that 

he is awake and on duty,

a paladin assuring everyone

that he is in charge 

of the grassland’s tranquility.

From: Small Places, Big Places Everywhere

Unpub MS p. 27