59. Thankyou - David Palmer Grenell

To the little girl

Sitting next to me

On the cold bus

The aroma of warm crayons

Thankyou 

58. Definitions

comes the definition of love
between two
comes the definition of love
then three

comes the definition of love,
man, woman
comes the definition of love,
child

comes the definition of love,
mother, father

comes the definition of love,
the country

comes the definition of love,
the Buddha

comes the definition of love,
whispers of all

57. Point In Living

What is the point in living?
There is no point in living.
Because in living
there is no singularity.
The number of points in living
is a small infinity.

55. Infinity Begins At The Thumb

From: Brodie's Report by Jorge Luis Borges.

"I have spoken of the king and queen; I will now say something about the witch doctors. I have mentioned that there are four of them; this number is
the largest that the Yahoos' arithmetic comprehends. They count on their fingers thus: one, two, three, four, many, infinity begins at the thumb"

Infinity begins with the thumb and connects you
to the rest of infinity between one and two.

Past the thumb everything is other,
not me, not you
that which is beyond us,
everything else,
the completion/complexion of a circle, of infinite other.

The witch doctors knew.
We are surrounded by infinity
We are filled with infinity
We are infinity

Our touch circle - hard-bound.
Our smell circle - expanding and contracting.
Our vision circle - far reaching.
Our hearing circle - hits of molecules.
Our empathy circle - complexions of concerns.

The four of us and then the many.
The saint may encompass those past four
but we cannot see beyond our reach.

54. As My Nation Grows

.
As my nation grows
it expands as branches do from trunk to stem,
from nation to citizen
and we as rivulets flow together to
become a great river.

What flows out of us makes our greatness.
What flows into us creates the humanity
of a new destiny.

The fragility of greatness.
The decay of greatness.
The parts that decay.
the parts that grow.

The growth of understanding you/they are us
and need our help.
Spreading compassion with our wealth,
consigning political openness, free expression,
religions galore
and walls of laws.

Concentrations of compassions,
dispensations of tolerance
with the strength of forgiveness.

Us.
Them.
We.
Alike in our dichotomy.

And in our future, the complete American,
with a Chicano smile, Asian eyes,
African tans, Nordic hair, Roman noses.
We Americans, a product of the whole godgiven world.

53. Willie Nelson Warms

Sitting in this cold room
listening to Willie Nelson
I realize that music warms,
I don't think science knows this yet.

God bless you Mr. Nelson
for warming an old man
with 'old worn out memories' and
'themselves and their slow moving dreams'.
Transforming sound into a warm glowing inebriation.
Inebriation's of vibrations.

52. My City

.
There are wonderful places in my city,
mirrors behind counters reflecting forgotten visions,
warm wood beer bars,
parks that disappear in
vertical streets, views of blues and whites,
corners that aren't, apexes of angles,
controlling colors, that only
the aware know and love.

Unknown by newspapers, televisions, radios,
tourists, concierges, incomers.
Intersections
of awareness where
dabbles of happenings
created places that were cases of misunderstandings.

We aware
keep them to ourselves
attending them with private pleasure and hidden love.
Outliers happy to have our special moments there where
the verbals
are unaware that something special
is about.

We, the aware, who are strangers to each other
glance across the room and recognize our kinship.
The understanding of unique beauty placed before us.
Visual LSD.

A melding perception of us
into a clarity of you, me,
in this together.

Look, see, feel, enjoy,
be aware.
Understand the silence that surrounds you
and enjoy the confusions.
Learn to ignore the language
controlling your thoughts.

51. The Stuff Of Atoms

.
The stuff of atoms that came from everywhere all the time
and
merged into:
folded into:
joined into:
energized into:
togethered into:
turned into:
twisted into:
cahoots into:
a minded body

that looked around and became a continuing.

That is why it is so important to
eat your cereal with a smile and
keep those babies coming.

50. Cracks

.
The truth is I measure cracks.
A life spent in measuring cracks
is not understood,
walls, floors, ceilings are easy
but then there are sidewalk cracks
that depend upon my mothers back.
Cracks are big in my mothers world.

Inches of space are big in my world.
To see them everywhere
requires belief
in the uncertitude of future events.

Hairlines in bones
are mercies of unknowing.

A life spent measuring cracks
means you live alone
in small rooms.
Boxes of pressure.

The street you walk on is
moving by unfelt forces
and the three ravens flying overhead
have meaning.

49. Message To Icarus On The Water

Hug is such
an ugly word for such
a simple pleasure.

As I would save you,
my hug gently placing you
on the land where you
would create futures of children.

Our flights are separate
and part of the whole.

Alone together,
Living in this forth dimension of years,
you, me,
two thousand five hundred years.
A pittance of tears between us.

A father who causes the
death of his son.

Living with the death ache.

"Save me father!"

48. Growing

.
Describe our mother sitting there
weave your hands in flowing hair.
Describe our father running there
push the walls of weak despair.
Describe our sister ridding there
see the infant in repair.
Describe our brother silent there
see the child stop and stare.

We grow into maturity as skirmishers
advancing through the country,
alert to the necessary hurt.
Accumulating the necessary ammunition
to face the enemy.
Whoever.
Whenever.
Wherever.
Accumulating options of illusions.

How to describe such bangs?
Hits of hurts
or jolts towards loving growth?

47. Living In Two Worlds

.
One world provides order
requiring one step leading to another step
where action has consequence,
where senses are coordinated to the life
of f0rwardness and sequence,
aware of but not understanding the other.

And then, into the other
where everything is permitted and accepted.
This world has no awareness of the other.
This world takes you to everything, all possibilities,
all sequences,
moving in, on, around, back,
where time is not a substance that can be divided.
Understanding is not borrowed
and truth is not required.
All memories appear and fade.
A glade of consequence creating a memory
of infinite options.

The perfect time of day
sliding into bed knowing its over
and you can resume your journey
to the other land where what
happens is not constrained by the pillory of reality.

46. Religious Poem For Cosmologists Part Two

.
In the beginning came agitated fast stuff
creating some-where from no-where
spreading to every now-where.
There was no in or out, no up or down,
no cross town buses.

Then the slowing began.
Breaking apart began.
Waves of things appeared.
And the fast stuff began to lump
but not yet in the throat.

And the lumped stuff came together.
Hardness appeared.
Distance appeared.
Pulling appeared
as in the dance.

Pushing appeared from everywhere

Waves of time appeared.
Hard things began to stick to each other.

And in the end of that now
memory appeared on the face of the earth.
And, as in this poem, the error of completion
confused the understanding knowledge
which will never be complete
and gives a reason for moving on.

45. The Essence of Language

.
Gravity, the essence of togetherness.
Togetherness, the essence of matter.
Matter, the essence of structure.
Structure, the essence of form.

Energy, the essence of movement.
Movement, the essence of time.

Water, the essence of life.
Life the essence of continuity.

Poetry, the essence of language.
Language, the essence of civilization.
Civilization, the essence of our future.

Mindfullness, the essence of thought.
Thought, the essence of awareness.
Awareness, the essence of memory.

Music, the essence of joy.
Joy, the essence of loving.
Loving, the essence of being.
Being, the essence of living.
Living, the essence of remembering.
(The essence of love is the departure of self
into the essence of being)

Family, the essence of humanity.
Humanity, the essence of our definition.

Children, the essence of us.
You, the essence of me.

Death the essence of past.
Past the essence of future.

And we?
Together we are the essence, the protozoa,
of a future intelligence.

44. Religious Poem For Cosmoligists

.
There was now.
There is now.
There will be now.
Nows of knowledge,
nows of passings
and in-decisions.

Wave-arch, wave-fall—
conscription's of events
of doubtful doings
and ding-a-lings of reversals.
Until that end, the floating back,
to the next mix.

43. Old

(After seeing a photo of an old woman holding
a photo of herself when young)

I was beautiful
and sat beautiful
horses on beautiful days.
Thru parks of people
who greeted me
in recognition of my beauty.

On stage, at the end of
my performance, the sound
of clapping embraced me
in gladding affirmation.

Yesterday I became old
with slow needs
and memories of beauty.

Today, an old man winked at me
in memory of my beauty.
In gladding affirmation.

43. Three AM

The pleasure of waking
at three ante meridiem
to a cool dark quiet hour.
Then light and a book of poetry
that provides awareness of a defined complexity.

A complex awareness of a defined destination
finding a poem that scratches an itch
I did not know I had
in the certitude of night.

42. The Damn Thing

Having absorbed
metaphor and simile,
the old versifier
now knows
it is enough
just to get the damn thing out.

41. Nows

There was now.
There is now.
There will be now.
Nows of knowledge,
nows of passings,
and in-decisions.

Wave-arch, wave-fall.
The wonder of life,
living with conscriptions of events,
of doubtful doings, that include
ding-a-lings of reversals.

Learn to control the tumbling
so that at the end
there is a smoothness to
the floating back to
the next beginning to
the next mix.