Author: neil reid

double dog dare you

        alright, my lyric here is more imagination than historic
        but so gimme a little forgetful memory break.     OK?

 
 
do the Hokey Pokey, OK begin

put your big foot in
take your big foot out

put your big foot in
and you shake it all about

you turn yourself around

that’s what it’s all about.

put your whole self in
take your whole self out

put your whole self in
and you shake it all about

you turn yourself around

that’s what it’s all about.
 
 
OK, still with us here?   are you smiling yet?

life gets different, but no better than this.
 
 
       time to dance, and oh yea, a bonus too

 
 
 
 
image:   Bryan Ledgard, Wikipedia
   PS.   how’s this for a loud noise?
 
 

make a loud noise like this

do you hear the plates move?

no, not the ones where you put your food,

the earthen plates underneath your feet.

do you hear the magma cracking rock

moving toward the beach.   here and

there, it wants to take a peek at you.

do you hear the waves when they speak.

they don’t always.   are you there when

they do, despite the ruckus storm.

do you hear the Sun when it shines,

it does you know.   fire makes noise.

do you hear the rain when it rushes

past, teasing your feet to go its way.

do you hear the hillside scrub painting

the air.   do you put it in a jar, then

bring it home with you.   do you?

open the lid.   let it loose.
 
 
 
 
 

my eyes far seeing home again

a visual poem of home where I was grown, not born shy but later was, didn’t learn what I should’a learned, then left, yet tethered, where mom yet lived, the way she did, where I came back again, then again, and cried sometimes quietly, privately, till that day, her last and held her hand, the way it should be, human care, and now what remains is dirt and grass and trees, a trace of water here and there, and unseen, that scent, oh that scent of warm Summer manzanita scrub with its deep red sloughing parchment skin, else brief Spring when green is the color coming home, again, another circle, till when I might return, a foreign bird.   my bag of words.   like this beauty is.

                     

                  think of all the many strangers

                  now tumbled kin, on a stroll down

                  the mountainside.   some bear

                  green in remembrance of water

                  past, where footsteps are landed

                  now.   near too rich a beauty for

                  one life, one breath to inhale.

                  still, I recognize this face.

 
 
 
 
 
 

catch and release

 

   words are meant to fly, so
   don’t keep them in your mouth
 
 
 
Oh No, I know, it’s a color I mustn’t

admit to having in my pocket, somewhere

between a lovely shade of lavender, and

but did I already say, a rabbit in the hole

or was it hat?   yea, it was hat.

reach in deep if you want the ears.

I remember now what I forgot.   is that a fib?

       see,

I can hum jabberwocky too, my way
three times before you spell

       miss issippi.   lovely girl.

wait, no no no – it’s fall in love

at the drop of a hat
 
 
that’s me.    good boy, fetch.
 
 
 
 
 
 
if you knew me, you’d know
I’m not that polite afterall

 
 
 

my hand in the light


call me moth.
 
 
a pale reflection of something

almost lost.   I am like stars overhead

at noon.   I am a white flag in your eye.
 
 
whatever does that mean, no,

you, you answer first

else, I am a flicker that you missed.
 
 
I am not the moon.

I confess, I like being near to flames.

are you burning my friend?
 
 
 
I get to see Light reflected

back into me.   landing here

I get to know this unseeable face.

I get to know, it’s me.   but

it’s also you.
 
 
 
 
 

maybe faith looks like this

          l i s t e n

 
 
Let me fall
Let me climb
There’s a moment when fear and dreams must collide

Someone I am is waiting for courage
The one I want
The one I will become will catch me

So, let me fall
If I must fall
I won’t heed your warnings
I won’t hear them

All I ask
All I need
Let me open whichever door I might open

Let me fall
And if I fall
All the feelings may or may not die

I will dance so freely
Holding onto no one
You can hold me only if you too will fall
Away from all
These useless fears and chains

@

Someone I am is waiting for courage
The one I want
The one I will become will catch me

So, let me fall
If I must fall
I won’t heed your warnings
I won’t hear them

Let me fall
If I fall
There’s no reason
To miss this one chance
This perfect moment
Just let me fall
 
 
Cirque du Soleil, Mathieu Lavoir, “Let Me Fall”

something wonderful for you to read is

the mumblery   (she doesn’t)   Heather Brittain
I would like to give you permission go see
 
 
 
 
 

we bloom

the language of rain

 
 
there was a woman who pronounced herself – I am a multitude.
true said for the many of us here.
 
 
 
rain speaks with many tongues.

where does a circle start.   understand.
 
 
there’s a trickle coming from the arroyo wall,

climb down from the adobe home, empty plastic
bottles in hand, fill them full, not so light climbing
back up again.   yes, respect for water.

fresh running creek from mountain snow,

cold, shining wet, pure enough, cup your hands,
drink.   valley walls, hundreds times taller than me.
a long walk, thirsted, water satisfied.

silent white geese gliding down to land,

only the sound of air on feathers, where land is a lake,
come to rest.   we say a flock.    we say float.

land breathes, deep and shallow, both,

land is filled with rain, resting, like geese I suppose
moving up, rising high, eager for thirst to return.

ocean too, adores gravity, yet loves the sky,

here, my body is given up to you.   drink of me.
 
 
granting every wish of water circling home again,
rise, fly, soar, swim in heaven’s blue, turning round
like an ocean in the sky.

clouds.   more than counting understands.
 
 
now rain becomes a bloom on the mountainside.

        purpose well spent.    circular.
 
 
sometimes it’s hard to be small when the world is so big.

        thank god, rain speaks to all of us.
 
 
 
 
 
 
image:   Please expand this image to it’s very most full size.
                More than first meets the casual gaze.   Promise.   see the people?
photograph of the Sonoran Desert in Southern California by Cindy Knoke
Please visit and follow her website.   Cindy is a quietly gifted observer and photographer.   She seems able to see and show the nature of nature.

with thanks also to this season’s uncharacteristic generous rains.
image used with her kind permission
 
 
 
 

mother has more than only one day


Mothers.   what am I doing writing this?   my mother is gone.   many years now.   but she yet resides here, inside me.   this morning I read two poems by my friend, Bridgette.   if I thought I was at peace with my memories of my mom – I was wrong.   Bridgette’s poems opened my heart more than I was before.

I understood my mother’s life was not all easy.   maybe her relationship with her own mother wasn’t all so loving as it might have been.   wheresoever her pains originated, she passed them on to me.   not by intent but just because that’s who she thought she was.   I did the same.   I swallowed her pain, made it my own.   it lived with me many many long years.   colored me.

here, nearer to the ending of one life, I see better now.   Bridgette is right,
that relationship, mother & child – it is complicated.   40 trillion times or so.

a teacher of mine once said, we are each doing our best to express love, as best we understand what love is.   neither time nor place to detail or debate, but when I look, this looks like true.   obvious enough that how some of us understand love leaves much to be desired.   but within our individual realities, that’s how we try to be.

I remember in young childhood nights when shadows seemed too ominous, it was mom’s name I called out, quietly lest the shadows hear my fear.   but it was mother who heard, who stepped out of bed, crossed the short distance, her voice to comfort me.   love, no shame.

life is both ways, all the time.
 
 
 
 
artwork by Paul Nzalamba, “Love”
 

thirty poems

        
This poem series is now completed.   For any so dedicated or stubborn the entire series is available in sequence without any other intervening posts.
thirty poems is located either in the link here provided or in the blog “book” page main menu.   (menu via click 3.bars upper left of page)

poems 2023.04.09 to 2023.05.12

practice, practice sometimes being the key.   short poems I’ve already written, but there’s a difference when you directly intend to devote thirty poems worth of attention to a specific if simple form (in this instance – a poem of 5 to 6 lines) (usually) (remembering, rules are made to be wiggled appropriately)

the experience doing this poem process has been rewarding, showing me possibilities I didn’t see before.

Of course I hope you will be finding some threads meaningful for yourself.

     neil