Flying Friend

 for Theo Ehrhardt
 
ten years ago he was depressed
now he's manic about music and
Ukraine singing with a choir and
flaunting the colors flying friend
 
youthful earnestness and optimism
seasoned by decades being bipolar
still helps any situation needing help
and doesn't every virtually all the time
 
I assumed he was like me and took
his cheer and helpfulness for good
character and it truly is despite his
varying mood he only wants to help

Real Enough

philosophy in action tells me
sometimes I get to be funny
earth medicine helps remember
everything will still be real or
real enough to make an impression
that's what matters isn't it true
the day is much like any other
serious only if you want it to be

A Simple Rule

 that's so drop dead right on
I can't believe I thought of it
and bothered to write it down
before it dissolved again into a
fog of unrealized potential I
don't really understand how it
works computational equivalence
suggests it's simpler than it looks
and that's the way it seems to me
a simple rule complicated result
the underlying principle is life

On the Rise

how far we are from what's going on

some people still have fun and think

the world exists the way it always did

we alone realize it's almost over well

we're old and it's almost over for us

younger people still have to go on living

we don't like crowds couldn't sit through

a Broadways show kleenex in our ears

against the amplification vulgarity on

the rise as always and we don't miss it

The Question

 not what religion I subscribe to
but what I actually believe is the
question I need to be asking it
isn't easy to think about sunk
in preconceptions and received
systems of thought so basic we
don't even notice assuming life
is what we grew up thinking is
what we assume must be real
because everybody says it is
you have to start all over and
that's impossible having come
this far the boys and girls have
got each other'snumbers in their
phones but usually don't answer if
you don't know where you're going
maybe you have already arrived

Natural Music

 if you are vegetarian
don’t even mention meat
let the animals live
like you and me breathe
deeply or fast as they
tumble frolic laugh and
dance to natural music
 
some are friends some
we cut up cook and eat
chewing delicious morsels
not thinking of the rest
 
if you are an omnivore
you can speak freely of
incorrect opinions tastes
you were hesitant to mention
when you were thinking
about being more pure doing
good for all sentient beings
out of sympathy for the eaten

The Thing Itself

for G.F.

protect the personal while digging deep
and skimming quickly in the real-to-me
fruitless pursuit of what makes it matter
the thing itself for its own strange sake
 
how can I say what I mean when I don't
know don't trust my own thinking circle
down to the empty knowing other people
feel otherwise serve their own obsessions
 
I don't need to know or care to love them
still I wish we could connect be friends and
feel the original sympathy and interest that
made us want to be together love all night

Let Be

 funny that we don't agree about anything really
put that aside glad to be let be without argument
who each is not subject to judgment or discussion
and why should it least of all by our own companion
I'd like a group but then I'd have to deal with egos
theirs and mine raising its head looking for trouble
put that aside I am no critic and not actually alone

Every Swing

the silent sweeping rhythm of the pendulum
demonstrates regularity of laws reconfirming
heartbeat breathing revolution of the spheres
 
knowing what it wants to do it gradually slows
some fraction of energy sapped on every swing
stills to demonstrate verticality till pushed again

Crucial Element

what would you not have done if you could
and how would you be different if you were
can anything be subtracted from the necessary
past are you bearing every single thing in mind
 
time goes both directions the present causing
at least requiring the past as much as vice versa
experienced as sequential though only one thing
this moment not a result but a passing phase
 
how can you regret what had to be mistakes
made to be left behind when freshly painful
reluctance to choose propelled by doubt itself
a crucial element in already complete unfolding