I.

The Hammer

I don’t know when the hammer will fall.

I don’t know when tomorrow will cease

as a hopeful taste

within a bad moment.

I come across myself each heartbeat,

discovering very little about my plans

for the next moment…..I am an organism

in a sea of questions.

But nevertheless I continue on…why is that?

The mechanics of the heart are beyond me,

and the blood that flows is smarter than I am,

since it goes where it is

 supposed to go…

And the steps I take, one foot, then the next

inexorably moving somewhere, like the blind,

in a dream, in the fog, alone.

I reach out my hand to take another’s,

and they smile at my innocence,

that they could guide me somewhere helpful,

since they are blind, in a dream, in a fog,

            also.

So the march of us, the crowd of us,

connected and not, loving and hating,

dependent and not, moving and moving

like a swarm of birds

guided by the magnetism of life,

as strange and occasionally wonderful as a flower,

as furious and as glorious as a violent storm,

we move, and then the hammer

            falls…

II.
The Earth

What pathetic drivel – hammers, and the blind

and the fog, ciphers of a troubled mind.

Would you dare to breathe easy,

would you simply turn the

            fucking page?

Bright lights are everywhere as prominent

as pits and caves and self-monitored despair.

Take your angst and stick it,

perhaps your should buy a

            lollipop!

Around every tree is protective bark.

Squirrels gnaw at it, birds peck at it,

cars run into it, children carve in it – guess what?

            It grows back.

Life comes with a single bit of paper,

(if you are lucky) saying you’re born in a few words,

it only needs a few.  

The stamp of your existence is pressed

into the universe like a knife in the belly.

Scream all your want, but stop screaming

            for a few moments.

Look with the eyes of the hawk

at the earth beneath your feet.

It does not tell you to put one foot after the other.

It only gives you a place

            to put them – where you choose.

III.
The Smile

The spirit of the rose is not

the spirit of the fish, or of the human,

their languages are more than different

slices of DNA, or the effects of

            summer breezes.

An enigma grows where it is planted….

be it in the heart or in the earth.

Solace is found not in glass temples, or

in fertilized troughs of

 deep thought.

In fact, it is never found…. rather being

like a sprite, who dances on one’s finger

in the wind, or intrudes in moments

            of profound indecision

when one finally comes to the end

of their own cipher, and looks out

across the plain of nebulous creations to see

            the beauty of nothing.

Is that an evil portent for sorrow,

or is it the same riveting meld of motion

that makes the tick-tick of life go on

            in any case?

Calm your selves, and hold hands.

Believe in nothing, hope for nothing,

turn your face toward your own mirror,

            and smile.