Cover me
like the scene descending
outside our windows
with a fresh start
with the cold beauty
of pure intent

Blanket me
with sparkling softness
Create me
the world, anew

Give me eyes
like this child's
wide with wonder
seeing
for the first time
this snow

trapped here in the middle creation
that separates heaven and the underworld,
I was struck by blazing arrows coming down
a sign of self-destruction made by the anger of The Almighty..

the days from my flesh banished innocent hearts to arrogance,
all the time as when God saved the Devil;
crawling for forgiveness for something not to be forgiven,
before stepping out from something real but forbidden..

if I'm American...
i might fill my hunger with breads and cakes. not with rice.
and probably encountered temptations of sex-permissive girls
scattered on Vegas lights.

if I'm Mexican...
it would more likely for me to turn to as a boxer.
one of those guys grasping for the healthiest grilled potato,
to beat Pacman the "Mexi-cutioner"...

`

Rough is the wind that flattens
a tree from its anchored moor,

a destiny not too quick to ruin
presents a whispered word to me:

on we traverse without respite
that weary road we take,

what imprint is left behind
that sweeps relentlessly against these walls--

a spectre of bygone landscapes
whose blustering gusts are raptured calls

`

I reside within a room, book
in hands eyes consumed
on the pages between the
lines forming pictures from
words entwined.

without interruption
I read it through impressions
of an author I never knew.

thought brought to a place
where it is witnessed by
the here and now, open to
endless possibility's
which are disciplined only by
the limitations set out by
ourselves and others around us.

"Magnolia you sweet thing
you're driving me wild" *

you shame me with that phase
for i seek you out, but i am made afraid

i understand everything
and yet that changes nothing

for even as I speak
my words remain

hanging lifeless
on a dead frame

my psyche is human
but you have become inhumane

for i am the one
who is in exquisite pain

i am but a copy, a facsimile
of my own unravelled frame...

Bonitaj 11/23/10

*song by JJ Cale about New Orleans

There once was a computer program
that was meant to rival man's smarts
What the program didn't know about
was the largess of our hearts

The gentleness of the soul of us
the ways we operate
Logic doesn't allow for that
but that's what makes us great

It tried to see where the problem was
why it couldn't grasp the sense
Why does man do the things he does
with no seeming recompense?

I am the blue porcelain bowl
got in China
with a chip inside
rim of my bottom ring

only I know it's there

there was a defect
in firing when I was
made -- left a fissure
so small it went unnoticed

lady from San Francisco
who bought me in Guangdong
brought me home
never noticed invisible crack
under me

on trans-Pacific voyage
a little piece fell off --
packing box never told
about sliver of blue

We are not the same persons this year as last; nor are those we love. It is a happy chance if we, changing, continue to love a changed person. -William Somerset Maugham, writer (1874-1965)

We're chained to the post
Prometheus at most
tedious forebears of a terrible task
trying to love those who love us best -
even though the passion has past.

Throwing stones on the pond
the ripples ever widening the effect
on the center
Continually expanding and dividing
our responses changing,
but impasse is a formidable mentor.

As finality draws near
I see the world as ecstacy
beyond transition,
each instant burgeoning delight,
unfolding outwards into endlessness
where every second's thought
becomes eternal,
each moment's choice
a new beginning
reaching to realities unknown
until the present catches up with past
and future hurries by,
time decreasing in echoed infinities
between duration's measure
and hope's treasure
of emerald lands that shout beneath
bright shores by gleaming seas