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Section F: .................................................................. June 15, 2001

OF ETERNITY
(Swimming in the pool at Panksomion)

Why is it in this lunar haunt
that a seething torture churns?

The opulence of boundless love
demands I give it up

As a well of water
that is flooded
I must let it go to the sea

I must let us be
the boundlessness of eternity

Carolyn Mary Kleefeld
info@carolynmarykleefeld.com

THE POET

Better to embrace
the holier language, silence.
Better to endure the lonely
mountain walks to the high
peaks of God. Better to
receive (there) than than to give.
But my heart remains
somehow human, takes flight
for expression or deftly plunges
to explore...
While the whispering river
of the poet's cry sings
of what can't be uttered,
to what audience listening?

VIBRATING STEM

Know that in silence
I am speaking to you.
Know that in silence my soul
rings out like a light to you.
Know that every whispering
branch on the tree of life
is my breath whispering for you.
Blow through me, my eternal wind.
Blow through me, my eternal mistress,
my most holy dear.
Blow through me,
leave not one clothed leaf wavering
on my vibrating stem.

SHALL I TREMBLE

Shall I tremble
infinitely when you
place your hands
upon me?

And what flames
flashing lie waiting
in your feminine fingers
makes my phoenix rise?

Oh are you
the bird of my dreams
soaring?

Or are you
the whole sky
the image of my love
takes flight in?

David Dunn
ddunn3@earthlink.net

TIME IS MASS

1
this is the what
we have
to work with

2
contrails over me
splay two bright
light rails from SFO
to LAX

down here
i want to relax

3
that was the very
last word i held out
to Mother

Mother

i said
why don't you
just relax

nothing more to
tangle through
the curly cord

4
i am sitting here
beneath my daughter's
basketball hoop
far far beneath
the invisible threads
that link SFO
to LAX

is it time to cry
is it time to laugh

Time is mass

5
i feel this force
sometimes
evaporating
but as my friend
my good friend

dear John

said it is harder
to die than you think

in his habitual Chinese
café on Alvarado Street
in old Monterey that was

awhile before his cancer
bed floated him off and
away so long John

so long my Brother

6
there are tiny moths
betwixt oak twigs the cat
is stalking for jays

which means caterpillar
munching is nearly done

O Mighty Live Oaks
of California

i have had only half
a mind to note

Time is mass

7
how to research this
sculpting time

row row Rodin
fluttering Calder

Mister Moore

on my knees
you all

oooh Venus
of Willendorf

the phone is ringing
well of course

WAIT

i am not holding sway
here between SFO
and LAX

10
a solitary nighthawk flies
high from south to north

the moths are building
into a tiny frenzy
which is what moths do

Time is mass

i am intact
i am at ease

i am relaxed

11
i could yodel
like a simple lad
in the shadow
of the Matterhorn
ah yo do ling

if it will make do

THIS QUINTESSENTIAL
TRANSCENDING
MOMENT

12
you are actually
incarnate too?

well fine

hold it
hold on

there's an emergency
in the kitchen

absolutely nothing
it is

don't even ask

Time is mass

SOL NIGER

there is a dragon
in the cavern

cavern is deep
dragon never sleeps

no mortal can advise
the foe is not human

neither the alchemy

no running place to hide
no surmise

the problem is
wider than the sky

the stones are
watching

stars flee

night prevails
Dawn is

impaled

Another Scene, Other Players

John Dodson
flute@acharantos.com

UNTITLED

Walking from my doctor's office, a habit now,
feeling medically and professionally tired,
exhausted from medication, from side-effects
from medication given to offset other side-effects.
Feeling on an AMA carousel with no music.

Walking past a white wall, tall wall,
wall of a three story building,
seeing a dog at the base of the wall
squatting to pee, regarding me sidesaddle
with gentle elegant canine intelligence,
seeing a woman wheeled past the wall,
a woman all in white: white hair,
white face, white hospital blanket
pulled up to her neck. All her focus
is on breathing and it isn't easy
as she is wheeled in a black wheelchair.

And I think such an odd maudlin moving thing:
of how I am going to miss all this;
this sunlight, this wall, dog, wheeled woman.

Then smiling thinking I won't remember it
a month, maybe weeks, later.
That it was only a blink ago
when the dog was a blind pup,
groping for a teat,
when the old woman was
young and comely, tantalizing boys,
when I was young, supple, indefatigable,
when the wall wasn't even there,
just the sun shining on another scene, other players.

I walk to my car still smiling, thinking
how much more than just this scene
there is to miss:
all the tumbling glimpses of myriad life;
and, above all, the tantalizing.

THE KNITTING SLEEP

Love to lie abed
a thick white duvet atop
an orderly snowfield
from my chin chucked view
plopping drifts generous over the bed's edge

Bedside lights diminish the world
to where flannel sheets shape
your hearthside body heat curved
making me smile Laurel and Hardy safe

A wonderful mottling tumbles
with only the replenishing
reminding roof tapping rain
the last thing known
until first light when our dog
tells us her delight

Donald Marsh
marsh@cruzio.com
(To receive one of these free original poems emailed each Monday, contact Donald Marsh.)

Section E: .................................................................. May 13, 2001

UNTITLED
(A lament)

you used to come in the morning,
do you remember?
now, after many long days of silent
suffering you show your face again.
i remember.
and if i reach out too eagerly for you,
don't retreat, do not run away.
it is only that i have missed you
and still desire you to be nearer, nearer.
so come, come close my darling
and tell me what a fool i've been that
i did not bow lower in your absence.
tell me that my patience needs yet
to be born and my soul, if it is to
survive, must learn to be still.
O solitude. O aloneness.
why is it that your pleasures are always
laced with deep bitterness? and how far
do i have yet to travel to return to that
place where solitude is sweet again?
O how far?

David Dunn
ddunn3@earthlink.net

My mother died last October.
This was a very complex death concluding a very complex life...
Fulfilled in the final breaths... The final syllables...

UNTITLED
(A fragment of a larger poem.)

full of watching
    abiding still

I watch the whole Earth
from space focusing on
that southern Applachian
zone and how the neutrinos
speed through her body
as it lays drained of blood
and cold as the aluminum case
and concrete shelf of its
perpetual resting place

and wonder

why this death seemed
such a disappointment
to her

such a failure
for us both

John Dodson
flute@acharantos.com

IN EASTER AIR

Your voice tiptoes in glee to see
me striding legless in wildflowers
in easy Equinox in Easter air

Fully carbonated and chilled
to see you in lilac light
smack firm substantial rump high thigh
then shoot eyelashed impudent dares
from palmed budding hips
while newly mint green insects
hiccup and rollercoaster in mid air
and everything says: It's here,
the grand rockcandy time is here

STORIES

Everyone has them.
Constantly present,
they are always changing.
All of them are believed.
None of them really exist.
None of them is true.

All of them are who we are.
All of them are who we long to be.
All of them are who we fear we are.
All of them are true.

Donald Marsh
marsh@cruzio.com
(To receive one of these free original poems emailed each Monday, contact Donald Marsh.)

Section D: .................................................................. April 15, 2001

IMAGES

down below, under the full moon-light
the guiltless sea like a fulfilled dream
exposed itself; untroubled, her doubtless
silver voice like a whispering mirror...

TEMPLE

the way the light was falling through the forest
you'd think there was a church nearby, but with
dappled leaves for doors and certainly no walls;
immense depth, the sky for the ceiling.

the way it felt sitting there you'd think animals
had been by just before and had performed their
own kind of mass, right there in the bushes, alien
to most people.

you could dream the redwoods were priests
the way they stood there, so tall and erect, bowing
to no one, but sometimes breaking in the storm.

and the way it sounded in that forest glen you could
imagine the birds had formed a choir with their songs
and the sun that spread yellow wings in the waning
afternoon was their leader, calling all the angels...

David Dunn
ddunn3@earthlink.net

QUESTION

I was rummaging,
came upon a rifle,
dust softened.

Put the muzzle
in my mouth.
Tasted of cold
eternity.

Felt to see
if thumb
reached trigger.

Fled the rummaging.

Some few know their fate.
Most don't.

Donald Marsh
marsh@cruzio.com
(To receive one of these free original poems emailed each Monday, contact Donald Marsh.)

Section C: .................................................................. March 15, 2001

Perhaps this is appropriate for LBOL. My father, 91, passed on Dec. 17, 2000.

A BIRD STORY

After my father died I was standing alone at the kitchen sink in the morning and saw a sparrow on a high limb in the ages old tall lilac bush. The bird flapped its wings to fly off and all it did was fling itself upside down, still attached to the twig. It hung there. It flapped its wings and could fling itself upright for a moment only to fall upside down again attached to the twig.

Aghast, I knew I couldn't run out and try to get a ladder into the snow on the steep bank and climb up twenty feet. Five years of running to the emergency room had honed me for crises. I just didn't want to watch any more slow death but my eyes were fastened to the scene. Was it caught somehow or were its feet frozen to the twig?

Two other sparrows flew a few inches from the distressed bird. I thought they are like the geese who, when one is injured and grounded, one or two stay with it on the ground as the flock flies on. One came closer as if to try to do something. The trapped bird flapped its wings and the others got scared and flew away.

Alone, trapped, dying, hanging upside down on a cold winter day. I shook myself by the shoulders and said to myself, "This morning your daily reading was about faith, to believe even though you can't or don't know the future or can't know ahead of time the results of simply having faith. You are an expert at imagery. You are exact, centered, know energy healing, and are well practiced. Use it. Have faith!"

I made the decision that its feet were frozen to the twig. I centered, sent healing, and imagined a tiny hair dryer blowing warm air at the twig where the feet were attached. Intensly focused I held the image.

The bird flew away!

Mary R. Ruth
maryruth@deskmedia.com

BIG DOME (Point Lobos)

this gong hung on high
swings

low and heavy

resonates through each
and every

cell within me

in all sounds
always

and without me

as the nuthatch
persistently

relentlessly

raves for its purposes
through the cypress

as the sea roars and

arises in galactic
white and curls

ravishing aquamarine

never this Universe
not my inner ears

no silence here

John Dotson
flute@acharantos.com

PACKRAT MEMORY

Each of us
has a packrat memory
we can't explain
why it gnaws gently
on the wainscoting
of our lives

For me it is driving
in a car in Trenton
thirty some years ago

Sullen summer heat
deep green lawn
a man sitting under a willow
relaxed against the trunk

From a clapboard house
a blonde woman strides
screendoor slapping behind her
carrying a tray
of sandwiches and beer

The man sees her
and they smile you know
then swing
out of sight behind me
until in a susurrus
the packrat
brings them again

Donald Marsh
marsh@cruzio.com
(To receive one of these free original poems emailed each Monday, contact Donald Marsh.)

Section B: .................................................................. February 15, 2001

Remember, this is a song!

GOOD WOMAN DOWN

I've been through trials and tribulations
I've seen troubles by the score
When I'm in a touchy situation
I say, things have been worse before
Because you can't keep a good woman down
I will bounce back every time
You can't keep a good woman down
I look out for me and mine

I had a doll when I was five
The prettiest thing, you see
My brothers laughed when I said she was alive
And they hung her upside-down from a tree

{Chorus}

My choice of men in my early days
Left something to be desired
Whoever was love-starved and had a line to say
Could set my heart on fire

{Chorus}

(Repeat first verse & chorus)

Mary K. Croft
marykmusic@webtv.net

UNTITLED

Free
from the gravity of stars
there is
the abyss

Floating

Past caring
razor at the wrist
the abyss

Beginning

each day there is
work
order love
sleep rest
nearby

the abyss

A thought

When a friend dies
where does his voice go
her humor
their failings
laughter

Gone

in a misstep
a wave good-bye
a long sigh
an empty house
a pinprick
mind in a mist

Wonder

confusion
littleness
clarity
finally
atoms ashes
drifting to

the abyssÊ

Donald Marsh
marsh@cruzio.com
(To receive one of these free original poems emailed each Monday, contact Donald Marsh.)

Section A: .................................................................. January 15, 2001

My friend Dru and I were taken by surprise when we got this for a song on our Ouija board (at which we'd become proficient.) Much-maligned and misunderstood as a psychic tool, the attitude of the user must be open and honest, or it can get out of hand, so to speak. This piece was written while being dusted by Mt. St. Helen's (we abandoned Idaho for Arizona that year.)

ELEMENTARY

The fire of vengeance is burning tonight
The water of cleansing will rise
The air of expectancy sparkles so bright
The earth is moving around.

The people are gasping for some sort of sign
Demanding their voices be heard
The heaviest planets soon will align
And celestial thunder's the sound...

Fire's the element bringing the new
The phoenix will rise from the flame
Air will his wings seek for their fame
And tame the winds of change

Earth to nurture the food of the gods
The seedlings of the new age
Water for sustenance, cooling man's rage
And Aquarian life re-arrange...

Mary K. Croft
marykmusic@webtv.net

COME IT IS TIME

Depression is the yearning
of the soul

Pay attention it pleads
something sacred
is near

Come it is
time

Take off the clothes
of doubt of disgust
of disguise

It is time
to shed the hairshirt
of insignificance
and dance
seen in your self
and the air all around
celebrated

Every day
people die little deaths
for others
for us

It is time

Donald Marsh
marsh@cruzio.com
(To receive one of these free original poems emailed each Monday, contact Donald Marsh.)

I invite readers to share their own creative works (poems, stories, images, comment, etc.) in Letter Box On Line (LBOL). I look for work and comments I feel support understanding and encouragement of the creative process, and hence, the process of life.

The Editor

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