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“Anna’s Song”
While camping in Anza Borego after my separation I did a lot of wildlife viewing. Desert Big Horn Sheep were pretty cool, I never saw a mountain lion in spite of dawn and dusk hikes almost every day. I did see hummingbirds which i have always found pretty magical. The hum of their wings and sheer improbability make them amazing. I am also impressed with how they migrate, flying all the way up until they catch the jet stream. Very cool. In Anza Borego there are rufus and anna’s hummingbirds. The anna’s is a little smaller and a lot more colorful and inspired this little piece:
Flash of Green, pretty Metallic Green
A color I thought was invented by Chevrolet
Flash of Green, shiny Metallic Green
Aquamarine, rose and magenta
But the words that they use to sell automobiles
Won’t take you to the heart of the hummingbird.
Splash of Green, shiny Metallic Green
In the inner ring of her hazel eyes
Flash of Green, Pretty Metallic Green
I swear I see reflections of heaven’s light
But the words that they use to sell salvation
Won’t take you to the heart of another’s soul.
“Gordon Goes To Heaven”
I wrote this poem on the request of my niece after the death of one of her associate’s with severe developmental disabilities. She was struck by his Cookie Monster doll sitting by his plastic palm tree which she had always meant to decorate with christmas lights but never got around to it. Got me thinking about big questions and i wrote this surrealist thing:
The Cookie Monster sat
Under the seven foot cactus
That though never wore Christmas Lights
In this life for sure
Will shine in remembrance
Where we’ll all live the longest
If we get to live at all
The memory mansions of a communal Heaven
A place across the abyss
That is not alone
Many Many Memory Mansions
Are prepared for us for sure
Life without interaction is impossible
And Jesus said he could do it
And Jesus said he would do it
He might have said we should do it
And far greater things
Less we be swallowed up in the unimaginable
Not remembered Not remembering
Swallowed up in the divine for sure
Through the conservation of energy if nothing else
Can’t be all bad
Some noble folk seek it out
As their ultimate goal
But if its communion versus existance
Independent Existance
I stand to be here
To be Me if not I
Humility has its demands
And the Work has too few hands
And there’s shadows grow across the land
‘Midst the dappled sunlight of growth
And the warmth of gentle decomposition
The cycle turns and turns
But passions churn and burn
In their immediacy
The seeds of apocalypse
Are as easy to see as beauty
And which is more real
Only time will tell
That lying bitch
Mother of dogs
Man’s best friend
Do you remember the wolf
That you were
Or the angel you may be
May be becoming
Was a stop in the suburbs
Of arbitrary confinement
And casual nurturance
Worth a step toward the Celestial Hunt
Murderously vain about intelligence
We are
I have to say to not sound threatening
Though there’s no violence on my mind
Except the violence I see
In the stories I hear
In the papers I read
In the people I meet
Arrogant to believe intelligence
Trumps connection
That God does not preserve man and beast
And yet the socially constructed eternal soul
Of personality in interaction
Shines brighter in imagination
A fuller conception of the divine
Aids resonance
Resonance to dance
Outside the hallowed walls
Of someone else’s memory
Skating across the abyss on a name
A hope, a prayer
To soar amidst the other luminescent beings
And share our light
And shine brighter
We are all stars in time
and I swear I will try to remember
You all
In time.
“Jesus poem”
Here is my poetic take on the life of Jesus. Some folks have been offended by my take on things so i lead with that disclaimer. I mean no disrespect and am just trying to paint a realistic picture of what he may have actually been feeling on a personal level. Savior of the world is one thing, being a man and struggling with man things is more interesting to me as a writer. Jesus gave up a lot to do his Jesus thing and I like to honor all of that sacrifice. Happy resurrection day my friend.
Jesus had a hard life
When he walked out onto the stage
With his healings and his feedings
And his tempered sense of rage
At injustice and exploitation
At the priest’s hypocricies
And when he gave his life to the masses
You know that he wanted to flee
Into the arms of a lover
A faithful and caring friend
And was it the Magdalene or the Apostle John
That his thoughts turned to in the end?
The Magdalene had been around
She rubbed scented oil on his feet
And it was better than food for the poor
Even Jesus needed something sweet
But the Magdalene had sold herself
Before Jesus gave her a new life
And if Jesus wanted to sample Mary’s wares
You know he would have made her his wife.
And John was the disciple that Jesus loved
It even made it into the Book
And John rest his head on Jesus’s breast
In spite of how it must look
To the fishermen, turned fisher of men
Come to bid their teacher goodbye
But John needed to make one last act of love
Before he watched his Jesus die.
And the other Apostles followed the martyr’s path
Only John lived to an old age
For he was the disciple that Jesus loved
And Jesus wouldn’t give John to the stage.
“Point Reyes”
This poem was shouted down as hippy drivel by Mike Leonardi the first time i tried to recite it at a party in the Old West End in Toledo. So take it for what its worth, full on exuberance about a really special place. All bad poetry is sincere.
I wrote this at Point Reyes when i was visiting John in the late 90s. He didn’t have a vehicle but we rode out with a mutual friend from CAN, John Davies and the three of us did a five mile hike to a pretty isolated and amazingly beautiful beach/cliff side. John and I camped a few days and then hitchhiked back to Oakland. In addition to what i remember in the poem the other thing i remember is how much sulfur was in the water. We had packed in some, drank sparingly and mixed in the well water when we had too. Harsh. Great trip, the skies in the west are so vast especially with the clean air coming from the vast Pacific. The venerable oak there is still one of my favorite trees, and I wrote this in my head on the walk to and from the tree:
I walked five miles across the ridge top
To get to the beach at Point Reyes
The sun shining over the ocean
Is more beautiful than i can say.
The pelicans fly over the crashing waves
While at camp the kit foxes play
Hide and seek with our apples and t-shirts
While the sun sinks into the Bay.
The constellations shine as we lay on the ground
There’s shooting stars across the Milky Way
The vastness of space surrounds me
Its the perfect end to the day.
We’re out on the trail at the break of dawn
To hike to the ancient oak tree
We sit in the shade of its massive limbs
There is no place that I’d rather be.
I walked five miles across the ridge top
To get to the beach at Point Reyes….
Appalachian Spring #3 (i’ll think of you)
This is the last piece I wrote hiking the southern most piece of the Appalachian Trail in 2000. Overall that was a really rough year for me but this piece has some joy in it. It was in early May and the wildflowers were really spectacular. We bought a little book and tried to learn their names as we went and this piece came out of those efforts. I remember reciting it for a friend and she was rather surprised i had this kind of sentiment in me. Life is not made up all of metaphysics and politics, but it takes a little love now and again as well.
When the Mountain Laurel is blooming
And the Cinquefoil is too
And the Bluets and the Spiderwort
Is such a lovely hue
I’ll think of you
And I’ll think of you
When I have fresh berries
That are so delightfully blue
Or I see the mulberry tree
And stop to pick a few
I’ll think of you
And I’ll think of you
When the leaves start to change
And turn all red and yellow like they do
And I go out walking in the woods
And the Great Horned Owl asks “who?”
I’ll tell him you
And I’ll thank of you
When the first snowfall comes
And turns everything white and new
and the kiddies don’t have to go to school
And the moms don’t know what to do
I’ll think of you
And I’ll think of you
At the stars at night
I’ll think of you
When the sun shines bright
I’ll think of you
Most every season
I’ll think of you
For any reason
I’ll think of you
And I’ll think of you
“Appalachian Spring #2”
Hiking the AT we would frequently hike or hithhike into the nearest town to resupply, get some ben & jerries, do laundry that sort of thing. We saw some cute little towns and met some really nice folks. One town we didn’t much care for was Hiawasee Georgia. First off its one of those towns built around a state route so it sprawls for miles along a busy road being one building thick. Second we had both shaved our heads for the trip and Amee drew a lot of unfriendly looks. It was good to get a room with a bed and a shower but ultimately we preferred the woods. The poem i wrote is only 4 lines and i thought some more would come but except for some false starts its kind of just hung there. For good or ill here it is. It makes me think of the bards of old. You don’t want to offend a poet or you can find yourself knocked in verse.
I’d rather sleep in the rain boy
I’d rather sleep in the rain
Then in a king size bed in Hiawassee
I’d rather sleep in the rain
“Appalachian Spring #1”
In the spring of 2001 my wife at the time Amee and I quit our jobs, sold our stuff, and set out to hike a good chunk of the Appalachian Trail. Not long after we put in notice and right around when we had our sale I found out my mom was diagnosed with lung cancer. What had been the fulfillment of a lifelong dream became one of the most difficult times in my life. Not really understanding the gravity of the situation we started the hike at the trail’s southern terminus Springer Mountain in Georgia and hiked 136 trail miles North to the Nantahala Outdoor Center in North Carolina where our packs were stolen. It turned out to be a blessing as my mom ended up having very little time left and i got to spend a lot more time with her after curtailing the trip. The biggest lesson i learned is not to let your plans, hopes, dreams, or apparent obligations stand in the way of what is really important. Being there in a significant way for the ones you love. It was a pretty emotionally raw time and if i ever find my journal from the time i might write at length about the trip. I ended up writing a fair amount of poetry, almost exclusively silly and placed them in my chapbook “America: Its Land and Its People” under Appalachian Spring 1-4.
Appalachian Spring #1
Sassafras Mountain is green with nature’s love
But its ringed with solitude
For all those who will walk above
The speeding cars and the busy places
The teeming masses of the city spaces
Left behind for nature’s stasis
On Sassafras Mountain
“FREEZING MY ASS OFF IN ANZA BORREGO BY TEALIGHT”
After Amee and I split up I went to camp alone in the desert for some weeks. It was January so I went to the Anza Borrego desert in San Diego county. Very stark and beautiful and cold at night. The nights are long in January, so i spent a lot of time shivering in my tent thinking, reading by candlelight, and a little writing. So this would have been written in January 2002, and less a dark night of the soul then a time to really reflect on my purpose in the world. i got some good answers and it was time well spent. Anyone who comments on this post i will give a copy of my book “America: Its Land and Its People”. (Facebook comments don’t count, they have no history.)
I need to get real with people
Its easiest to do with strangers
With no history
Preconceived conceptions
Or formulaic patterns
To escape reality.
The fascination of discovery
Wonder
Total attention
The Universe condensed
To an understandable packet.
The most beautiful times
Are when that packet
Is the interaction.
The unity of two
The most difficult
To harmonize into the One.
As zero is nonbeing
And one is existance
Than two is one and not one.
Duality, the first separation
But between two is the
First Possibility of communication
A process that is One.
But if only one is being one
There is no communication
Only projections
Of the not one received by the one
And the Universe is the Other
And i am no more
Lost and forgotten
By even myself
I wander not in the unity of the One
Where I belong
Where I am nurtured
Where i am inexplicably me.
But in the Zero
Oblivion
Nothingness
The abyss
So excuse me
If I try
To make you get real
With me
I am only trying to exist.
Cadre Convening
Thursday and Friday I attended a convening of the Missouri Cadre for Co-Occurring Excellence. The Cadre is a group of clinicians and active consumers who meet quarterly to plan and strategize on improving services for individuals who have co-occurring mental health and substance abuse problems. It arose out of funding from the Missouri Foundation for Health hiring substance abuse agencies to do mental health work and mental health agencies to do substance abuse work with the idea that most individuals have both problems and would be better served if their services were delivered that way.
I have been attending for a couple of years, do a little committee work, and now serve on the Interim Committee, a quasi-democratic body charged with navigating us from a project of a foundation to an independent participatory democratic organization. Mostly its educational sessions by the charming duo of Dr Cline and Dr Minkoff, experts in the field of co-occurring disorders.
This convening was held at a Marriott in West St Louis. I was asked to bring along a consumer from Jeff City and agreed to do so. He was a real charming fellow and a bit manic which can be contagious and we had some real animated conversation driving out. It was nice to see someone else managing their disorder in a healthy and independent way and it made the drive fly by.
I had left at the ass crack of dawn, well quarter after, i was running late but was still a little late to the meeting. After wards I was talking to our fearless leader Craig who also sits on the credentialing board and I found out I likely have enough training hours to get my co-occurring specialist certification. This will allow me to bill for doing co-occurring counseling which is mostly what I do but i have to bill it as substance abuse counseling because that’s all the licensure I currently have. That was probably the most helpful thing I learned.
The conference programming was a lot of review and I can’t say I learned a whole hell of a lot. There was some stuff on stage matched groups that was interesting. There was also a role play of a group and the role players were really funny. There was also a lay out for a presentation on anxiety that looks helpful and replicable. Mostly it just validated my own approach to the work, which is good.
The evening of the conference I went and saw an old friend. It was really fun hanging out and we went to The Himalaya and I had my first Nepalese food. It was pretty good and reminded me of Indian cuisine. I also hardly got any sleep. We also watched 500 Days of Summer which was better than I expected.
At the previous conference we had focused on increasing consumer involvement so amongst other things we had a presentation by Tim Hamilton the founder of DRA (Dual Recovery Anonymous) and his wife Betty. Betty had asked for a show of hands of who has a dual disorder and I had outed myself as a lunatic with some drug history for the first time. I frequently do when talking to clients but rarely do when talking to other professionals. Its not relevant or helpful so i have known all these folks for years and then let them know i was on the other side of the fence.
So driving home from the last convening I had thought about the implications of that and it came to me that i should share this poem with them. It talks about being an agent of change and we fancy ourselves change agents in this movement of ours. I kept putting off asking for a little time on the agenda until the last piece. Craig was facilitating updates and it was dragging a bit. He was standing by me so i asked for the last 3 minutes for a closing. I read the following poem:
Becoming Whole
You see the whole absurdity in the human condition
And strive to see the beauty in the life that your living
You’ve overcome the emptiness
And learned the art of giving
And you have broken the chains
That once held you down
You have learned to rearrange
You are an agent of change
You think and you learn and you are
Destined for the stars
You love every part of life
You see the hope and the magic
You smile through the darkest nights
And rise to face the tragic
And you have opened your mind
And reached for the prize
You have learned to feel and grow
You can let people know
Change has happened before
It will happen again
The least shall rise up
The great shall pay for their sins
And you stand upon the rooftop
And shout out your agnostocism
Yet you love your neighbor as yourself
And live out your cathechism
And you have crossed the great valley
And are on the other side
You have faced the great fear
You have crossed the divide
You have learned to overcome
Light shines from your soul
You are mighty and strong and you are
Becoming Whole
It was really well received. I was nervous and put a lot of emotion into it. My proudest part was in my intro I mentioned that I had bi-polar disorder and that one of the gifts of that was poetry. I think I was definitely the only one to refer to bi-polar as a gift. So people liked it. I have pledged to post it on the Missouri Institute of Mental Health co-occurring list serve and Betty Hamilton talked to me about doing a CD for DRA, so maybe something will come of it. I am a little nervous with my increasingly high profile. There are so many apparent contradictions in my life that it just seems like someday they will have to come back and bite me in the ass. Not everyone believes “everything is true, everything is permissible”.
On the drive home i was very jazzed up from the energy and positive feedback. My co-pilot also was inspired and we had a great time making plans. We are going to bring Bruce C. in for a DRA speaker and try to reinvigorate DRA in Jeff City. Good things are coming and it feels good to be part of a movement again.
“Battle of Fallen Timbers”
I saw the Toledo Metroparks are having a March Forth on March Fourth and they are walking the site of the Battle of Fallen Timbers. If you are not a student of history there was a time in the Indian Wars when they were a lot more close. After the Revolutionary War the standing army of the United States was defeated by a coalition of Native American Tribes several years running. Washington finally pulled Anthony Wayne out of retirement who shaped up a pretty tight army which slowly and methodically beat back the indians across the Ohio country culminating in the final battle close to Toledo. Since I’m writing this in English and not Shawnee you can guess who won. In the midwest there is a lot of stuff named for Anthony Wayne most notably Fort Wayne but not so much for the indians. Here’s my poem on the subject again taken from my chapbook “America: Tales of Atrocity and Near Escape”. Ask me for a copy and i’ll give you one.
The Battle of Fallen Timbers
Gave us Mad Anthony Wayne
But the Indians who fought and died there
No one remembers their names
If Deja Vu didn’t have a name
Would I still feel like I’ve been here before?
If there weren’t just a few so incredibly rich
Would there have to be so many billions of poor?
And the winners right the history books
Always to cover their shame
And the winners get so self righteous
They’re never the ones to blame
If Deja Vu didn’t have a name
Would I still feel like I’ve been here before
If there weren’t just a few so incredibly rich
Would there have to be so many billions of poor
Shawnee
Delaware
Miami
Chippewa
Seneca
Ottawa
Potawatomie
Chiksika
Chief Pipe
Seekaboo
Tecumseh
Little Turtle
Stands Between
Weh-yah-pih-er-sehn-wah (Blue Jacket)
Thick Water
Big Fish
Turkeyfoot
Multiconstruct 
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