for Katie on her graduation, 1998 



	DEPTH PERCEPTION

  	Depth requires depth perception,
  	The seeing with two eyes
  	Or more.
  	With soul and measured patience,
  	A study of  all aspects
  	Of shadows and light,
  	An inward sight,
  	To get it right.
 
  	The world shines its artificial lights
  	As means of depth deception.
  	And to the undiscerning,
  	The depth becomes indiscernible.
  	But by this light, the world
  	Throws shadows of its own,
  	Gives up its falsity
  	To those with eyes to see it.
 
  	Consider the source,
  	Not only of rumor and opinion,
  	But of the mitigated truths,
  	Accepted facts,
  	Excepted acts,
  	And 'proofs' built high
  	On sand.
 
  	Consider why the world changes
  	So damn fast.
  	Awash in tides of polls,
  	The answers to questions
  	Designed one simple layer deep.
  	Truths are no more built upon,
  	Considered ancient edifice
  	Not worthy of a modern worldview
  	By the cockeyed architects
  	Of your stolen future.
 
  	Take your future back.
  	Damn it, it's yours.
  	And ride, damn it, ride.
  	Some may call you horse thief,
  	But you have the papers,
  	The bill of sale.
  	And the brand that says it's yours.
 
  	Ride, Damn it, ride
  	And see where you are going.
  	God gave you eyes to use and a mind
  	To discern your path and all the many perils
  	In all the many shadows,
  	And, may you, by your blessed path,
  	Through a cursed, deceiving world,
  	Find depth within yourself.
  	
  	
  	
  	
  	
  	FOR US, THE RIDE IS NOT THE END
 
  	Writers ride on dancing horses,
  	Parading grandly down city streets
  	Amidst the clowns and pickpockets,
  	Or just as often crawl
  	On knees sunk deep in muck behind them,
  	Magnifying glass in hand.
  	Or choose to watch the scene from one eye's corner,
  	Choosing instead the view from the bell tower over city walls.
 
  	We may choose to fly like no one else
  	On pigs with wings,
  	Or hyperdrives,
  	On easy chairs,
  	Or magic carpets,
  	On horseflies,
  	Or on the backs of lovers never known.
 
  	We may choose to dig the depths
  	-Oft times with only fingernails-
  	To find truth in hills of pain,
  	Or diamonds in our backyard,
  	Scoop cheese upon the moon,
  	Or simply mine the foolishness
  	Resident forever between our own two ears.
 
  	We may choose to fight our wars
  	Around some distant star
  	Or battle the cancers within ourselves,
  	Stand at the throne of God,
  	Or piss in Satan's coffee cup,
  	Sink to the gutters on Bourbon Street,
  	Or be right at home in any place in between.
 
  	These fantastic voyages are not ours alone.
  	The gift we bring is not
  	The riding or
  	The vision,
  	The flying or
  	The digging,
  	The fighting or
  	The laying down,
  	But through a meticulous inlay of words,
  	In bringing others with us.





  	THE FLOWER SEES
 
  	Coming from the light
  	Formless becoming form
  	He bowed a smile to me
  	And pulled a gift from
  	'neath his cloak
  	And lay it at my feet.
 
  	He gazed at me,
  	with smiling, knowing face
  	Began to unwrap with care the cherished gift.
  	The wrapping, not mere paper,
  	But the petals of the flower hid within.
 
  	The awe upon his face,
  	As he handed it to me,
  	Was matchless but by my own.
  	This wonder then was doubled
  	As the brown bud blinked a wink
  	And opened another layer yet within.
 
  	And there upon its center
  	A smiling, seeing, knowing eye
  	Sought out my face, my eyes, my soul
  	And seeing all this
  	Smiled a mouthless smile
  	Of approval and sustaining love.





  	COLD STEEL
 
  	Steel gray fog rises from steel blue lake
  	Only slightly less concrete
  	Than the concrete and steel
  	Of the building where I speak,
  	Business-speak.
 
  	This place saps me.
  	Beautiful building, outside
  	Cold steel and concrete, inside.
  	And that's just the people
  	Who here reside.
 
  	It's not this place so much,
  	As the profession I have chosen,
  	Give up my soul as frozen
  	Cryogenics til I retire,
  	By a fire.
 
  	The motion of the bodies
  	A counterfeit of life:
  	Motion, commotion
  	Loco motion, not a notion
  	Of emotion.
 
  	Gotta warm your space
  	But only from the inside out.
  	No warmth 'cept friction
  	Leaves a mental hypothermia.
  	Icy.
 
  	The systems folks with gleaming eye
  	Delight in making protocols
  	To control the mazes that we run
  	Assume that we are witless,
  	And so witless we become.
 
  	No one's conscious fault,
  	Sheep and shepherds all
  	Deluded that "My time as sheep
  	Has qualified my shepherdhood."
  	"Oh, you'd be good."
 
  	Religion has a place here.
  	We pray for the second coming
  	To surprise them with a day off
  	That's not on any calendar,
  	and they have shipments due.
 
 
 
 
 
  	
OUR GLASS
 
Time stands still when the hourglass
has run its fill from top to bottom
and settles to inaction. It's
the turning upside
down of sand
(and man?)
from bottom to top
and the incredible reordering
of grains that makes time begin
to flow anew, a measured pace in
measured space.  As if we never knew.
 
A tight space with the pressure of many
behind and above suddenly Gives
 way to frightening free-fall
And landing, sometimes
hard, once again
 against
your brethren.
Then settle in and wait
 again until the turning hand
sets you in motion up, over and
down again The hourglass serves no
purpose without the constant turning.




Maybe
 
A man has to be more than a provider,
Bastard, leader, asshole.
A woman has to be more than a nurturer,
Bitch, healer, whore.
 
One man, because of his color, still has to be more than the laborer.
One man, because of the silver spoon wedged in his throat,
still has to cough it up and speak out for justice.
No one can be happy in the boxes that our forebears built over
centuries.
None can be truly free if there is any other still trapped in a box
made
by yet another.
 
That is the gift of this generation,
To realize the pain that we inflict,
To realize the truths we hide from,
To realize the power we are wasting in building walls,
Or in keeping the paint from flaking off the tired useless old walls
that already exist.
To realize the power we are denying ourselves, our brothers and our
generations
To realize what God had in mind when He first blew life into clay,
To realize what we can truly become,
To realize that we can dream,
To realize that dream.
 
Maybe.





BOXES, BOXES AND MORE FUCKING BOXES
 
Cubicles
Mortgages
Women
Men
 
Poverty
Wealth
Pollution
Causes
 
Illiteracy
Rote education
Churches
Atheism
 
Illness
Health crazes
Tobacco
Litigation
 
Death
Fear of death
The daily grind
Fear of living
 
Sex
Pornography
Marriage
Self-sufficiency
 
Extreme passion
Extreme passivity
Night blindness
Blinded by the light
 
Science
Fiction
Smooth talker
Friction
 
Youth
Old age
Inexperience
A mountain sage
 
A choked thought
The written page
Traffic jams
Road rage
 
They're all boxes every one and more
They're all boxes if we choose them to be
 
Boxes, boxes everywhere
Each one screaming
"Climb inside
Climb inside.
I'll offer you protection
And a warm dark place to hide."
So many did and died.
 
John sang 'Let it be.'
But we never ever could.
We kept up the other mantra
Oughta, coulda, should.
 
Bust out, God damn it
There'll be pain, no blood
I know it'd be so easy
If the box were made of wood.
 
You'd think all lives before yours
Were lived here just in vain.
Don't die in the boxes that enclosed them
Piled high on an empty plain,
 
They're not for you to die in
But for you to stand on and see.


  
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