I have started making paper today. There are iris leaves boiling in the kitchen. Also I started soaking "duck tails"- the tops of cat tail plants" Typha latifolia.


Cattail fluff is one of the most exquisite things I know
I strip the catacomb shapes delicately
Messier than milkweed pods they expand into the air
Feathery fibers flying everywhere
Softness like a pelt
that conjures images of rabbits, baby deer and fledgling duck
Soft amber and a tan so divine every designer would try to mimic
The rich warmth of these
Colors which shimmer and shift in my hand
And there is a stabbing right to my core
And I suddenly long to be nomadic
To fill the soles of my moccasins
With such luxurious matter
And I become filled with the rustle of the reeds in the wind
The smell of the fecund damp earth
When I try to submerge this fluffy matter in water, it floats
And resists for so long
Showing its strength
And will
And for a second I feel guilty
and it is peculiar to watch it transform
as it shrinks and molds it’s fibers merging together
in a dense tangle
but I think of how it will become a soft
piece of paper so divine
that one could scribe a letter to the dalai Lhama
and I am left in awe

Americana

My life as a carp
Ah the slime and the stench of it
Not to mention what I have eaten
In stagnant brown water foam
I have made my existence
Glaring up at glorious orbs
Of pink cotton candy
Floating by in the sticky hands
Of over excited children
Soon they will travel
On a road
Leading away from the fair
To a town near here
Where you can still smell
the stench of this stagnant air
but their sticky sweet fragrance
will linger on into
their rooms
where dreams will spin like Farris wheels
and all the mad house thoughts of the world
will have been spun out in the dizzying frenzy
of the scrambler and knocked out like bumper cars
and will have melted like cotton candy
until years later
when no ride at the fair
can offer up such sweet bliss
and a carp is a carp
is a carp

carpe diem

junco

junco

Watching the quest
the hunt
watching
survival
as it stands
alert
camouflaged
against the stone
seed by seed
gaining strength
against the prevailing
winds
and pounding
snow
the tiny fragile
feet
clutching branches
scarcely thicker than
hair
leaping to safety
flying away
into the night air

RFID’s
Clouds pass over
as in the time of Zuess and Athena
to the untrained eye
forever circling from here to there
But there are poisons in this atmosphere
It’s a volatile concoction
of hubris and greed
so much is in jeopardy
so many are in need
If I could just pinpoint
when it all began
maybe this madness
will come to a standstill
and the earth will heal again
I’ve been calling to all my ancestors
whose stories I’ve never known
to wrap me in their quilt of knowledge
to face the world less alone
I have seen their eyes blacken
to the horrors I have shown
Now they too walk in disbelief
of how the world has grown
Maybe I take this life too seriously
but I cannot relax when
bombs are currently exploding and
Africa is putrefied with AIDS yet still
New World Order's tentacles are reaching

This violence is grotesque
not beautiful
and we are witness to it all
History has told me continue
like Nazi Germany and Wounded Knee
See now
Proctor, Gamble and Wal Mart
have envisioned the world anew-
implanted with RFID’s
so they always know where to find you
But I find nothing brave
about the world coming into being
Feeling helter-skelter-
what little has been left alone
frantically is fighting
to remain, to grow
But nothing remains untouched
and I see it all escalating
a cataclysmic decline
If I could just pinpoint
when it all began
maybe this madness
would come to a stand still
and the earth will heal again
I hope this madness
will come to a stand still
and that the earth can heal again

The kitchen, a waitress

The Waldheim

life behind the doors
is nothing but a muttering chaos
a frenzy of wants fulfilled
the peephole, a funnel
seemingly intensifying desires
(and misconceptions)
a swirling sea of clamoring movement
opening onto the horizon of expectant eyes

static shiver

Static
I need a
verbal acrobatic
a mind sweeper
storm crusher, crusher of storms
to usher me through
the static
In need of a verbal acrobatic
to push me through the portal
called evolve
At the rush of your words
watch my problems absolve

New moon sliver
I shiver
Winter’s dark
a shadowless blizzard
Early spring buds quiver
as the season delivers
finally the cold
we remember
and dread every
coming November

Trees are moaning
With oppression
tension is taught
throughout the forest
Prickling up the spine
Waiting for release
Tears on my face
frozen
As I ponder
The life
I’ve chosen

Laura Begley

You see the scene
kids as all kids
laughing, playing
imitating
let's play cops and robbers
cops and robbers
cops and robbers
and on the dresser lie a gun
a loaded gun
his 8 yr old eyes
bright eyes which take in everything
his 8 yr old hands seized the gun
never anticipating
life changed forever
forever
life changed
motion of his finger
piercing through the heart
life exploded
left
the day I remember I knew nothing
I knew nothing about life
never forget that look in my father's eyes
when I said that she deserved to die
still tormented by my childish words
I said over a silly girl argument
she was my friend
was my friend
we shared what little we had
each other's hand me downs
and birthday cake
intense brown eyes of light
yeah she had these intense brown eyes of light
which life could not contain
motion of his finger
with one motion of his finger
life exploded
left

unfinished

Crippled by our need
Have we been crimpled since a seed
I see your eyes are fading
Yeah I know mine aren’t as bright
Survival and our dignity we are trading
It’s been a constant fight for what is right
And this society we live in
Where really nothing’s given
You gotta find a way to glow
You gotta find a way to grow

The world’s chess table has been shrinking
Now we’re as close as quick as blinking
And the anxiety it has kicked in
see how the pace it does quicken
and they’ve got us all running
the deer flight more frightful than stunning
we’re burning up our fuel
and heating up the fire
for our own funeral pyre
and as for the chem
\we’ve been taught to desire
we should forget’em and all
return to the shire

ember

flicker
growing
is there a way
to enter
an opening
once it has
been closed
is there a way
to appease
the goddess
of the heart
after she was
betrayed
are there magic words
chants, mantras
if there is a chance,
as small as a lottery
I will take it
I do not know
what can be lost

but what can be gained
is a life
beyond imagining

when you were born; Neruda take-off

Noah,
when you were born
I was watching adults drag race through the street
in green Oldsmobiles and aqua marine Camaroes
I had seen smoke stacks spewing fire in the sky
and I knew we were in trouble

When you were born
I had already seen the jaws of a pit-bull clamped around a chain
being swung by a man with greasy dark eyes
I had flown in an airplane alone, reluctantly and crying
and in my dreams I had flown across brighter landscapes
away from the grey, already longing for the green

Pt 2

Where is this going,
this world?
How?
The quiet rage of defeat
screams constantly in my ear
It is all around me
there are eyes screaming
there are oceans of sound and waves
always moving through and I am here
trying to heal for what’s been lost
and for everything that I feel that is dying
and hoping beauty begins manifesting abundantly and staring wondrously
at starry skies

Red Truck; 2008

I saw a pheasant today

I remember
the bus stop
a red truck
sped up
I'll never forget that
beautiful creature

we are all daughters and sons

I remember those squirrel societies
we use to discuss
over book-bags and restless toes
waiting for that carrier
with its yellow flashing beacon
to hone in on us
and whisk us away
to that place they send us
to be grown

When I listen to you
Images flutter out of my dreams
My thoughts float across landscapes imagined and real
My spirit soars and can’t be stopped

at a loss; 2008

If there are words I do not have them
If they are for sale I can not afford them
if they are for free, I can not find them
If I made them up,
then how would I know
that you understood me
If I could only run the course of my life
like flipping pages through the dictionary
like opening a can of creation

youth; 2002

Youth


I was like a ball of fire rumbling
then like water
squaplash
phew
I thought I was so bad ass
but was I just stumbling like now
amazed at star light and fire
life unfolding deep petals of intricate complexity
I am but a flower's reflection in a dewdrop on a spider's web
but I am the wind through the web
the water released by the cloud
this world is but a handful of vibrations
each bumping and pushing uplifting or suppressing one another
growing or dying
and I am growing
finding roots in the air
sucking the soil like a tree

I walk the earth
These eyes
Dimmer
By the day
The hawk circles overhead
And just ahead the bridge,
the brown river is about to be halted by the dam
And I smell the scent of gasoline
And dust rises from the streets
As the cars glare by
The future is unclear
Murky like the river

washes clean

there are a million ways that I thank you
a million times a day I say your name
full of reverence and awe



I seek the place where the trees are not twisted
where the sun delivers it's virgin light unto the day
where roads are only ethereal footpaths
and the taint of our history upon the landscape
washes clean with the tide

I am a wonderbug
jumping fish
treetop flyer
that likes
word play
soaring light
diving deep
digging down
I am a seed saver
energy maker
walking in prayer