have no fear. come close, she says. I did. and now I live in the sea.
glasswork courtesy of the artists at Tessuti Zoo in Pacific Grove California.
a wonderful place for childish imaginations
touch
sky showing
when sky reminds us what color is about. why color is here.
how it bouys our sight our breath.
I need observe a second time somedays, how this gossamer garment dresses our limbs our motion over this landed face our lives themselves. it contains all our breaths, all of them. whispering or else in storm.
we forget. but by sight we better recognize – grace.
you are ocean and we the fish.
all songs too from your lips. all sound. sweet and course. raw.
here, described as an arc.
we rest at your feet. annealed.
Archival Pigment Print by Wei Chen “Encounter” Night of Silence series
it happens like this
And it’s all that knowledge
that conceals what a thing is.
Derek DelGaudio
there was a man,
this man had body issues that kept him apart from
most sense of physical experience. what could this
man do? so the man learned. he learned to cut
his skin just so much as to feel some sense of body
connection. to be awake. what he now calls
pleasure,
in whatever way available to him.
seems like ample pain in this world. real and imagined.
is there a reality where pain is received in gratitude?
just to be alive.
the closer we look, the less we see of sky.
sailors say, some waves know your name.
many just ignore you, unless provoked.
if you don’t know how to do. do. allow,
allow not knowing to find its own way.
draw small circles from far away. like we do.
which of these threads have only a single source?
to see a thread is to become that thread. more.
more than chemistry.
all this,
this is what I go to sleep with and,
and what I wake up with each day.
it’s not so much being brave about life.
it’s more about surrendering. happiness comes.
like rain does,
embrace
two surfaces finding each other.
like planets do when they begin gathering.
gathering home. this could be me.
the wish fulfilling jewel
a Found poem, for his Holiness the fourteenth Dalai Lama
the same crow in the morning awakens us.
the same bowl of rice. tell me a story.
you never cried.
on the roof a pair of crows nested when
you were born. like before.
a door speaks before it opens. listening.
he says he wants to go where heaven begins.
you are here to love all living things.
mother mother why do you leave me here?
these shoes are mine. too big, but mine.
to look is to have confidence in one’s
own ability to end suffering. all beings
desire happiness.
separation has an abundant face.
I don’t want you to go.
what can I do? I am only a boy.
I will take those sheep. all of them.
inside my care.
I write without writing. I write words inside thoughts.
I write air. I give my breath to you.
make no barrier where a face is meant to shine.
to l o v e it takes a long time.
how long holiness? I don’t yet know.
all things will become nothing. I will become nothing.
yet here I am, inside you. we say our names, continuous.
the moon is full.
these stones we pile for you, saying where we have been,
saying our way home again. change is this much high.
we give this sand back to you.
this home. these fingertips.
we pour ourselves into the seas.
I am a reflection of the moon on water.
why? to be a good man.
neil reid © 2015 november
t o u c h s t o n e
poem in progress, not done yet
t o u c h it comes in twos, doesn’t it?
dark, no, late into the body of the night. truth resides
anywhere it wants to do, no difference a frown.
it takes the place of gold. landscape face.
it is joys first step. landscape feet.
no matter the dress, always welcome at the door.
so that says the who we mean when we say who.
it is everything we care to want. it is heavens coin.
(it is in every single pocket.) (it wants to be found.)
its favorite color right now is red. no big deal, you know,
changing desires is as fast as lightning is. as fast as
I turn the page.
say your name into the air.
feel the reflections coming back (no surprise)
now listen as well, echoes. inside what feels,
how they mean differently.
charming. charming the way heaven works.
even tells tales.
there are shelves abundantly. fall leaves do fall,
do make this floor celebrate.
amber and rust, we say, pretend not by saying yes.
but true, we thirst then joy then thirst, then yes,
your eyes were always first. not my fault.
it is only to joy they fall. there is no other soil.
middle of the night, you know, and I could believe
just about any small boys tail, the way they wave
the way they dance.
neil reid © 2015 october
wordswerepoemsfirst.com 