Selected Poems, by Topic:
Yoga Practice
The Ecological Crisis
Nature
Elegy
Translation
Yoga
Gúruji
O Gúruji, born under Jupiter,
they called you Lion of Poona,
the Michelangelo of Yoga, fierce.
A sickly child, you almost died—
Typhoid, Malaria, TB.
But you were born of fire.
Beaten into yoga by your guru,
you survived. He sent you off to teach.
You called out the yoga mystics:
How can you know God if you don’t know
your own big toe? You challenged us to breathe
through every cell, to be the One who sees.
Guided by Patánjali, you strove—
honed your sword, cut through, unyoked the Soul.
In Memoriam: B.K.S. Iyengar, India (12/14/1918 - 8/20/2014)
—first published in Amethyst Review: New Writing Engaging with the Sacred
Invocation to Patánjali
O Sage Patánjali, who brought us yoga,
We sit before you, palms together, bow,
recite this kernel of your yoga sutras:
Let us study the art of yoga now.
Single-minded practice cuts the stream
of thought, unveils our true identity.
Or else we’re caught up in our dreams
and can’t distinguish truth from fantasy.
O snake-man, shaded by your seven cowls,
incarnation of Lord Vishnu’s cobra,
show us how to burn with zeal,
uproot delusion, discern what’s real,
heal our bodies, turn our minds around.
O snake-man, blow your conch and wake us now.
—first published in Amethyst Review: New Writing Engaging with the Sacred
Downward Dog
If you’ve watched a dog stretch out its legs,
you’ll understand precisely what to do:
from all fours just raise your tailbone through
the sky as you extend your arms and legs
and push your chest in closer to your knees.
Downward dog is not so hard to do.
Kids love it—foxes, cats, and cougars too.
Watch them and you’ll see it done with ease.
Downward dog gives dogs such satisfaction.
After every nap they stretch out long,
wake up their whole body, make it strong,
and give their spine and neck much needed traction.
If you’d like to join them, dog along,
stretch out your whole body, make it strong.
—first published in The Orchards Poetry Journal
Tree
You’ve been standing on one leg, palm
to palm, so long that bark encased your skin.
You watched Eve yield, you shared her dark chagrin.
Siddhartha sat there in your shade so long,
awakened to the morning star’s deep calm,
claimed he’d found the Truth, snapped the lynchpin.
They nailed a blasphemous prophet to your limbs.
Soldiers follow orders, despite their qualms.
They killed Mansoor for uttering four words:
I am the Truth. Be careful what you say.
They’ll take it out of context, cut you down.
So hold your tongue and listen to the birds.
Let the wind sing through your leaves and pray,
palms together, one foot on the ground.
—first published in The Lyric Magazine
Vishnu’s Couch
It’s no small feat to balance on your side,
reclining on your thousand-headed serpent
couch, a lotus sprouting from your navel,
head propped on your palm, three fingers clutching
your big toe, one leg stretched up as if
to show off your supreme divinity,
how casually you dream this fathomless
universe into reality.
Does your beloved, Lakshmi, ever ask
you to consider making a few changes--
to lighten up the cosmic drama just a bit?
Does she, for instance, wonder why you send
those avatars to wake us from our dream,
when waking from a dream is but a dream?
—first published in Verse-Virtual
Stretch of the West
Sit with legs extended, flex your feet.
Breathe in to raise your arms, grow tall. Breathe out
to fold your body forward, hold your feet.
Breathe in to lift your head and chest. Breathe out
to draw your navel in and coax your chest
and chin toward your toes. Breathe in, breathe out.
Place a bolster on your shins and rest
your forehead, slow your breath. Release.
The Indian yogis do their morning prayers
facing East. And so they came to call
this deep bow to the dawn, Stretch of the West.
Little did they know what would become
of yoga taken over by the West—
Cash or credit. Work out, decompress.
—first published in Boulder Weekly
Bridge
What kind of bridge would you prefer to be?
Would you rise above the Bosphorus,
join East to West? Would you span Indra’s Net,
link distant stars, cross the cosmic sea?
Carry the living to their death,
transport the dead to be reborn
in heaven, hell, on earth, connect
this birth and death to what comes next?
On your back, knees bent, feet pulled in close,
lift your spine and pelvis to the sky.
Roll your shoulders under, arch up higher.
Make space for ships to sail beneath your tailbone.
Would you cross the deep dark sea, alone,
knowing you will crumble, stone by stone?
—first published in IthacaLit
Waterfall
Lying on your back with both legs up the wall,
your lumbar spine and sacrum on a bolster,
close your eyes, release your head and shoulders,
transform yourself into a waterfall.
Feel the water cascade from your toes
down your legs to swirl around your navel
and flood the caverns of your heart and skull.
Nothing remains of you but water’s flow.
As your breath moves through your nose,
to do lists rise, past and future whirl
before your eyes and leave you longing
for one more glimpse of your true nature.
Thunder rumbles, the sky cracks open.
The sound of falling water stops time.
—first published in IthacaLit
Ecological Crisis
Grinnell Glacier
The glacier glistens as it glides downslope.
Kneeling, knowing nothing lives forever,
ear to the earth, earnest in prayer,
I listen to the drip, drip, drip,
the silent sorrow of silver ice.
Softly, now, I pronounce your name,
“Grinnell Glacier.” You glimmer, then glare.
Melting slowly, you slide downslope.
Sorry to say, it’s too late to save you.
But you’ll leave a lasting legacy in stone:
the cirque, the saddle, the sand, the gravel,
the tumult of talus before the terminal moraine.
Many will come to marvel at your monuments.
But when the drip, drip, drip, of your melting
stops, and your streams stop, along with the cascades
crashing through crevices and over the cliff,
and your emerald lake is forever empty,
we’ll wonder what we were thinking and why
we allowed the waters of the world to overwhelm her shores.
—first published in The Society of Classical Poets
Big Bluestem
Your turkey-footed seed-heads brush my shoulders.
As I reach out to touch your yellowed leaves
I think of your deep roots, how they hold
the earth in place. I can almost see
your wind-tossed wands slow-dancing all the way
from the Rockies to the Mississippi,
as they once did. But now, with overgrazing
and climate change propelling your decline,
mere patches of your former range remain.
Who knows how much longer you’ll survive,
how long the wind will sing your tall grass blues?
Do you know what it means to be alive?
The child in me wants to believe you do.
When the last of your kind wilts away,
who will greet the morning laced with dew?
—first published in Blue Unicorn
War Elephant —after “Akbar Viewing a Wild Elephant Captured near Malwa in 1564”
Hind legs bound and tied to tree, you stand
poised, ears back, trunk coiled. Captive,
yet you stand with such fierce dignity,
stamping the earth with your tremendous foot.
You tower high above the emperor,
seated there upon his prancing horse,
spear held aloft, as if to fend you off.
A horde of captors stands by holding spears.
How dare they do this to you, noble beast?
You gaze at them with such deep, steady eyes.
Do they not know you mean no harm?
Two other elephants walk by, subdued,
content to let mahouts ride on their backs.
Descendant of the ten-tusked Airavata,
who sucks up water from the underworld,
sprays it into clouds, and rides upon
the skies with Thunderous-Indra on his back,
you will lead the charge of Akbar’s troops
with iron-spiked tusks, ears splayed wide,
whip-like trunk adorned with chains and balls.
Remember Alexander’s soldiers trembling
at the sight of Persian elephants? They saw
a war machine like none they’d seen before.
They didn’t know how gentle and compassionate
you can be. Their solemn sacrifice
before the God of Fear the night before
the battle may have helped them win, but your
outstanding show of force led Alexander
to enlist you in his army. Remember
when the Nanda Empire deployed six thousand
of your kind? That’s why Alexander
halted his advance to India, and stationed
hundreds of elephants to guard his palace.
Remember how you helped King Pyrrhus rout
the Romans, then helped the Romans conquer Britain?
How many of your kind died crossing the Alps
with Hannibal? When he got you drunk
and whipped you to a frenzy, remember those
iron-clad Roman soldiers, how they fled?
When Yemeni Christian soldiers marched on Mecca,
is it true the noble elephant, Mahmud,
who led the team of elephants, refused
to enter the city, thus saving the holy Ka’bah?
When you face extinction at the hands
of those you died for, will you not fight back?
Why not call on Lightning-Wielding Indra
to descend on Ten-Tusked Airavata’s back,
thunderbolt the poachers’ helicopters
and bring them crashing blood-stained to the ground?
—first published in Copperfield Review
Great Blue Heron
Walking around the lake this afternoon,
something about the cottonwood leaves, strewn
along the shore, and how the colors glowed,
and the reflections in the water slowed
me down, let me begin to see, if you
know what I mean, as if I were seeing through
God’s eyes, or dog eyes. Who knows what dogs see,
or how they manage to project such glee,
such wag-tailed joy, despite the constant strain
of living within range of wretched brains.
The sixth extinction can’t be turned around.
If nothing’s done, and soon, we too will drown,
weighed down by overgrown prefrontal lobes,
plotting and scheming, sending out space-probes
beyond the reach of our sun’s golden light,
in hopeless hope of finding other life,
a garden paradise, not yet sucked dry--
Pulled back to planet earth, the sudden cries
of geese, waddling away, the dogs in chase,
geese, water-born, gliding along, dogs racing
to catch up. Suddenly, across the lake,
that prehistoric Great Blue Heron takes
flight, cries out, in her ancient, haunting voice,
asking, asking: Do we have a choice?
—first published in Boulder Weekly
Survival Matters
Give us a pandemic or a war.
They bring out the best and worst of us.
Survival’s what we’re made for. Give us more.
Set the world on fire, let it roar.
We’ll find a way to put it out, no fuss,
and wrangle a pandemic or a war.
When the oceans breach suburban shores
watch what we do to save the upper crust.
Survival’s what we’re made for. Bring on more.
As for the slow creep of global warming
let science-based predictions gather dust.
We don’t need a pandemic or a war
to wake us up to what’s worth fighting for.
Renouncing fossil fuels would bankrupt us.
Survival’s what we’re made for, nothing more.
Our threatened habitats must be ignored.
Wall Street greed is where we place our trust.
Don’t give us a pandemic or a war.
Bottom line, we’re done for. Yet we want more.
—first published in New Verse News
Nature
Water Song
Water burbles over roots and stones,
whispers in smooth, clear elven tones,
saying, Dip your pen into the stream.
Compose a poem made of river-sound.
I plead with it, Don’t interrupt this dream.
But I have dipped my pen, and I am bound.
I came here just to sit and lose myself
in water’s flow. Now I’m hooked, compelled
to write a riff, a rock-strewn water-song.
I frogmarch words into iambic lines,
get rid of misfits that do not get along,
that muscle in on rhythm, tone, or rhyme.
With any luck, I end up with a poem
that sings its way back home to river’s flow.
—first published in Western Quarterly
Water
Immersed in water, I’m transparent.
When a water strider skates
across my dimpled skin, it makes
me ticklish, almost incoherent.
When Jesus walks across me like the wind,
I barely notice until he says, Be still.
Then I know he’s God, and so strong willed
that when he says, Be wine--my head just spins.
When I turn to ice, my thoughts congeal,
and I can see that they amount to nothing,
compared to what I come to know
when I dissolve in water’s flow.
Evaporated, I am next to nothing,
as close to who I am as I can be.
—first published in The Orchards Poetry Journal
Will o’ the Wisp
When I, a man, am forced to shed this all
too frail and frightened body, let it fall
away, were I then somehow free to roam
from form to form, like waves or sand or foam,
or clothe myself in phosphorescent light
that flits above the marshes in the night,
would I still cling to me and mine, would this
perception, this enduring self, persist,
insist on being the center of it all,
trace its misery to a tragic fall?
Or, would I dissolve into a formless life
not subject to delusive thoughts or strife?
No this or that, no you or I, no sun
or moon, just this: unknowing, knot undone.
—first published in The Lyric Magazine
Red Tail
His yellow talons clutch a gnarled branch
not ten yards away. His regal head
turns to take me in. When he turns back
to look across the lake, I take one step
toward him, another. He lifts and swivels his head,
tilts it down, drills his laser eyes
through my tail-tucked chihuahua. I pull her
back behind me, whisper, “Maya, stay.”
He plumps his creampuff chest, turns away,
pivots forward, spreads his wings, lifts
his red-fanned tail, excretes a stream of white.
I scoop up Maya, hold her tight,
look into her almond-sunshine eyes.
The hawk’s dark gaze turns back toward his prey.
—first published in Boulder Weekly
Goose Talk
Cacophonies of geese derail my thoughts.
I stop and turn to look, approach the shoreline,
listen: many voices, intonations,
calls. Some glide together, murmuring.
Can’t make sense of what they’re saying. Others
synchronize their clamor, pick up speed,
flap and splash their way across the pond,
lift off as one, their wings the sound of wind.
I try to join the party, imitate
the chatter of those left behind,
but they ignore me. Suddenly self-conscious
(honking like a goose is not in fashion)
I turn to look. She’s looking at her phone.
I stand between two worlds… alone.
—first published in Autumn Sky Poetry Daily
Lockdown
Yesterday, snowed-in felt almost normal.
Today, as trees loaded with snow awake
to cold blue skies, the world is all aglow.
How could any virus survive such beauty?
By the lake, I keep my six-foot distance,
but what could be more intimate than snow
cascading from a tree onto my brow?
—first published in The Colorado Sun
Elegy
Ode to the Old Barometer
Encased in oak and brass, you point to change,
the smudges on your glass, our family DNA,
the barometric pressure rendered on your face,
a finger’s tap unveils the coming day.
Impermanence is here to stay; it’s all we know.
We thought you’d always be there, next to the door,
relied on you to warn us of the coming storms;
we knew that they were coming: old age, sickness, death.
Some see death as nothing but a wooden box
ascending through a tunnel of light.
Dad’s box pierced the autumn equinox
in the darkest pitch of night.
Days later, Mom choked to death
as the sun turned white.
I took you from the wall before the house was sold.
Your outline lingered there, a silhouette
reminding me of Mom and Dad. Your face was cold,
your hands unmoving, still pointing to change--
broken.
—first published in Blue Unicorn
Bodhi’s Last Days
He started fading on the darkest day.
His heart had grown too big to fit inside
his pericardium. The doctors didn't
know why. Does anyone ever know why?
Why was he gaining weight? Why was he drowning
in abdominal fluid? He never asked,
he only moaned. Some days he refused food
and went outside to lie down in the snow.
I would have let him stay, but she said no.
How do you ask a dog? How do you know
it’s time for him to go? Where on earth
to scatter his ashes? And so they sit
under his picture, gathering dust,
with his water bowl, collar, and bone.
—first published in Verse-Virtual
Fiancée’s Facebook Post
He didn’t wear his flotation suit.
Didn’t think he needed it.
Didn’t wrap the ice-picks round his neck.
I didn’t want to nag him.
Perfect day, he said,
to sled across to Round Island
and fell those trees. I’ll be back for dinner.
Have a good one. Love ya.
The search team found a gash of open water.
Three weeks passed.
His thirty-second birthday, friends
and I set off fireworks by the lake,
as if to numb the pain.
Thin scabs of ice remain.
In Memory of Christopher David Steele
April 9, 1985 - March 16, 2017
—first published in Verse-Virtual
My Grandpa Lost
My grandpa lost his dentures when he dropped them in the lake.
He was doctoring Indians in the Yukon, for Christ’s sake.
After his death I’d see him in my dreams and on the street;
the fish were nibbling on his dentures, staring at his feet.
Swimming to the rescue, I would gasp myself awake:
My grandpa, lost.
His bones got up and walked along the bottom of the lake.
We lost his body fishing in the Yukon for Christ’s sake.
I dove down with his stethoscope and heard his final heartbeat.
My grandpa, lost.
I was only thirteen; death struck like a rattlesnake.
My fault, I thought. That night I heard him groaning; didn’t wake
Mom up or look to see he’d fallen off the toilet seat.
After his death I’d see him in my dreams and on the street.
Grandfather clock struck dead; I gasped myself awake:
My grandpa… lost.
—first published in Blue Unicorn and nominated for a Pushcart Prize)
Translation
The Drunken Boat, by Arthur Rimbaud
The tranquil River carried me downstream
as tribal warriors slashed the hauler’s throats;
my ropes went slack, and I could live my dream!
They nailed the naked crew to painted posts.
I didn’t care about the slaughtered men,
the Flemish wheat or English cotton freight.
When all the mayhem settled down again,
the River taught me how to navigate.
I ran through winter heedless as a child,
through raging storms and riffling, surging tides.
Triumphant over chaos, I ran wild!
Peninsulas began to shift and slide.
The storm blessed my awakening at sea.
Light as a cork, I danced upon the waves
that roll the dead in shrouds and set them free.
Ten nights, and I don’t miss those empty lamps.
Like sour apples tasting sweet to children,
the green sea seeped into my hull of fir,
rinsed out the puke and blotches of blue wine,
and swept away my grappling hook and rudder.
And then I bathed in the Poem of the Ocean,
infused with galaxies of milky stars,
devouring greens afloat in turquoise flotsam,
the thoughtful drowned, with pale blue scars,
the sudden stain of blue delirium,
intoxicating rhythms under spirals
of gleaming light, perhaps a requiem,
fermented, bitter, played on lovestruck lyres.
I’ve watched the sky explode with lightning spark,
watched waterspouts and swirling tidal streams,
observed the flight of doves around dawn’s arc,
and seen what other men have merely dreamed.
I’ve watched the sun grow dark with mystic dread,
ablaze with streaks of ultraviolet light;
the gleaming waves still shudder with the dead,
a re-enactment of an ancient rite.
I’ve dreamed of green nights, dazzled by the snow,
of kisses climbing up the oceans’ eyes,
and brilliant blue and yellow saps that flow,
awakening the singing phosphorus.
Through pregnant months, I’ve followed tidal swells,
hysterical as herds assaulting reefs,
without thinking of Mary’s luminous
feet, battered by the snout of windblown seas.
You know I’ve struck amazing Floridas,
mixed flowers and panther’s eyes in skins of men,
and followed rainbows’ bridals to green herds
that graze beyond the ocean’s last horizon.
In putrid swamps I've seen humungous traps
with crocodiles decaying in the reeds.
I’ve seen calm, shattered by a wave’s collapse,
whirlpools that circle down the dark abyss,
silver suns, pearly water, glaciers, skies,
hideous shipwrecks sunk in murky seas,
and giant serpents feasted on by flies.
I’ve smelled the stench among the twisted trees.
I wanted children’s eyes to see these fish
that swim in blue waves, golden bream that sing
of foam and flowers appearing in my visions
and powerful winds that heave me up on wings.
I’ve rocked so long upon these sobbing seas
that offered me their yellow-suckered flowers,
and I’ve remained a woman on my knees,
at times a martyr, tired of zones and poles,
almost an island, fed up to my gunwales
with blond-eyed birds dropping their slime and gossip.
I’ve sailed on as the drowned began to funnel
down backwards through frail ropes and fall asleep.
And I, a boat lost in the hair of bays,
tossed by the wind into the birdless ether,
my water-drunken carcass won’t be saved
by Hanseatic Coastguard ships. I’ve slithered
free, frothing, riding violet twilight haze.
I, who shot through the sky, a glowing dyke,
who fed the poets jams and marmalades,
the snots of bright blue sky, and sun-blanched lichen,
I ran! Blotched by electric crescent moons,
a mad plank, pushed around by black sea-monsters,
I fled July’s hammering heat, the noon-
day skies, that brilliant blue, those fiery funnels.
I, who shook, hearing moaning Behemoths
some fifty leagues away, and raging whirlpools,
eternal weavers of unmoving blues,
I miss Europe, her old protective walls.
But I’ve seen archipelagos of stars,
delirious heavens that open wide for sailors—
Are you exiling yourself in slumber,
O million golden birds, O rising vigor?
But now, I’ve wept too much. I’m in a funk.
And every moon is horrible, every sun
is bitter. Love is toxic, swollen, drunk.
O let my keel break; let me come undone.
If I want Europe’s water, it’s a cold
black puddle, where a sad child crouches down
to push a boat, as fragile as an old
butterfly, toward the setting sun.