...transcending polarity

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~ words mean nothing (everything) to me ~

12.30.2008

bodhisattva


you paddle toward Atman
only to lose nirvana –
how's that for divinity?

~*~

~mvh

12.13.2008

Kelp


Sweet salt air laden with hot breath tamps me down
on you. Yesterday you told me we were forever;
forever like poppies, forever like rain
- acid rain -
forever like dying to be born again.

~*~

~mvh

12.12.2008

Selah Cliffs


Rail until it hurts.

That's what she told me
as she threw it in reverse.

And as we fell from
the grace of God and
into the depths of the
abattoir that afternoon,
all I could do was smile.

~*~

~mvh

Seven


Bobby had more GI Joes. His gear included camouflage
oil paint that we'd smear all over our faces and laugh.

Cobra infantry covered a full square of the concrete drive,
black and blue, ready to stomp behind their commander.

He was fair and his freckles stood out
on the bridge of his nose like milk chocolate chips.
The beetles squirmed over each other in bags
that hung from the sapling maples marking the front.
A hornet buzzed in over our heads, swooping in on us
for the occasional lop-sided recon as we set up for battle.

Bobby pushed his yellow-white bangs
off of his sweaty pink forehead
and raised his index finger to the sky.

Scarlett smothered in my fist before I set her free;
she flew too close to the sun without swivel grip.

Some things never change.

~*~

~mvh

12.11.2008

Let it Ride


I watch, suffer
in silence,
and wait.

I don't know what for;
the silence is unsettling.

I won't speak
– don't need to –
words mean nothing
(everything)
to me.

Still, I am still
in unspoken reverence
for all that you are and
all that you will never be.

I imagine
all the possibilities,
scribble them down,
crumple them up
and toss them aside;
I can't throw you away.

My escape is my reality.
It turns me on.
Are you coming along,

or

is that too much to ask?

~*~

~mvh

The Root Cause


I am tired.

I fight my true self each and every time I swipe my badge and pull on a company issued scrub top and pants; it's wearing me down. I wonder at it, and just as fast, I let those thoughts flitter up, up and away as I wrap up my hair and pull the blue head cover down over my ears. I stomp away doubt as I step into the pale blue, often over-sized, shoe covers and trudge the controlled hallway that reeks of sterility.

Procedure does not mix well with passion and innovation is the root cause of deviation. There is no room for individuality and no tolerance for variation. Conformity is the expectation and mediocrity is promoted – literally. Perception makes it true. But don't take my word for it, because I sure wouldn't.

My broccoli remains green. But I can not say, without a doubt, that my green is the green you see – as if there were a standard green we all know to be true and the same no matter whose eyes are looking at it. And just because it's written and approved per standard operating procedure doesn't make it right or true, either, no matter what color paper you choose. But I think that's a secret only the free thinkers that lurk among the work culture are privy to. Shh…

I tell myself that I was not always like this, that I am not like this, but this…this is what I've become. I am a working stiff – vacant and used up – a shell. Even my personal life has been reduced to mere castings of what I used to be; I am living the American nightmare.

~*~

~mvh

12.10.2008

vision


true love is silent;
(beyond affectation or token)
noble reserve unspoken
offered unbroken, sacred and still.

~*~

~mvh

Vicious Circle


I see your profile in the cemetery,
the lean-to tent in the woods just across the bridge;
God, we were young then.

We stood hand in hand looking down at the grave
of your twin not knowing that in a few short years
our only son would join him there.

That day is locked forever in a cold snapshot
of black and white. I tried to dress it up with silver and blue
for you, my cowboy, my captor, my protector -
but it will never be like it used to be.

I look out to the west and I see hope,
I see possibility; the last gate
before the realization of the nexus.
I am drawn to it, but you won't let me go.

~*~

~mvh

King's Ferry



Had I known the poem, it would have been different.

Jailhouse tats, ...dreads?, army green
fall-apart Freddy jeans that hung low,
Vision Street Wear and red Chucks -
you walk the jetty in the nighttime mist,
each stone a step up in my eyes.

Discarded limbs from the feast of the gulls
litter the sand at my feet.

I wonder if they felt their souls ripped from their shells on the ascent?

You balance well above the crashing waves; you always did.
I kick a ragged claw and head back to the car.

I am alone with you, always alone.

You remain facing west, forever
drawn into a world you would never take me.

~*~

~mvh

~ in transit ~

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