Madonnas painted now, will not be the sameas the ones painted then.
The only thing of value is the pigment foundon a painter’s hands. We’re drawing
pencil sketches of blossoms
while they nuzzle their naked bodiesagainst air-

magnetic fields, lyrics
Grand pianos crash together when my boy walks down the streetThere are whole new kinds of weather when he walks with his new beat Everyone sings hallelujah when my boy walks down the street Life just kind of dances through ya from your smile down to your feetAmazing he’s a whole new form […]

from siddhartha series
Pilgrim Wheel
I went aloneto seekthe salve.My teachers failedto help melift ironfromcoaland I surpassedtheir skill.This is the way ofpulling foodfrom the handsof the hungry.This is the wayof taking taffetafrom the robesof a queen.I close my eyesand put my handsin heart mudra.I am the magicbeingwho levitatesabove rings of fireI am the fortune tellerwith a red […]

The time of the fireflies comes soon, I know,and small fingers on branches,and fists of tulips, I know,want to open.
These are times filled with wonder,water is the vein I need to open, I know,will thread me right to the center of the earthand it cascades open, like a ballerina’s skirt.
Those who have stood still before […]

for Sylvia Plath-draft one-
It was for three daysI knelt beneath the rootsof poplar trees,their sinewy limbspainted silver by rain,the master’s brushupholding all this springbut I beckon death.
But the door was opened,and I was discovered beforemy breath became a trail of white doves, and I was called the woman Lazurus.
They put me on a clotheslineto be […]

this was written stream of consciousness at a buddhist festival in Ladakh, India July 2001-unedited-
drum and bell
we have gold faces and gold ears we move just as slowly as before but we are wise our drums sound like the red rock falling through the red rock valled this does not have to be perfect we […]

draft
after “Sometimes” by Herman Hesse
The rain in the mountains, green apples
bobbing in the waterways, mud in the
soles of my lover’s boots. It was
not so long ago, when wind swept
through a pipal tree and I thought
I don’t want to go back to heaven,
this is it.
Sometimes, when a bird cries out,
we think […]

My diamond jewel goodbye.The good night has cometo take you to the other sideof the waterway.Do not be sad.I will always rememberhow we first met.

Love Knot Wheel
This is a love knot.Ribbons matewiththe idea.Can your words foldand weavethe way water does?Can they undowhat has already been done?Can they turnhistory on its head,and make ithold itselfupside downuntil the ticking stops?Make way,this is the chosen timethe bodhisattvawill be born.

rewrite-in progress
I.
I’m a harp sometimes.I stay up late, praising the darkness.Praising the deer inside the darkness.I’m a china vase with a red peony dream.I’m a haiku, the third line left unwritten.I’d like to be fearless, like the ebony on the piano.
II.
The man who cannot see has ears made of gold.He can hear when the wind […]