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Bio :
Jim Lyle. EMail: jimlyle@earthlink.net.
A professional designer in Industrial,
Interior, Graphic, and Building for over thirty years. He was a founding
partner in Pacific Design Group, a Design firm located in Campbell, CA..
Taught Project Management in the Design department of San Jose State University
for 5 years. Closed his business in 1991 to write and paint.
Jim is nationally published. His first
book Things Seen in the Desert was released in 2001. In 1997,
he moved to Lake County, CA and a year later was the selected the first
Poet Laureate of that county. He was a member of the Editorial
Board of Review for the Montserrat Review for five years. He
is a frequent featured speaker in Northern California, and has been a guest
lecturer at Mission College, Menlo College, Phoenix University, Cogswell
College and Lake Community College; all in the greater bay area.
In 2003, Jim moved into the Veteran’s
Home of California at Yountville. He continues to be active in writing
and speaking.
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THERE IS A
POEM HERE SOMEWHERE
This nation,
home of the
free, kills...
children, mothers,
and fathers!
Whole families, complete clans, and
dynasties disappear as our very own
monstrous War
Mongers try to oil their addicted mouths!
Slimy slithering censors are more profane
and dirty
than the "S-H-I-T!"
they cut from the work of serious Poets.
Censors never run out of work;
they find more
evil whenever they need more income.
After all, they "define" the standards,
that justify their labor, and…
they can contradict
themselves at will or opportunity.
Who censors the censors?
Like Batman’s signal in Gothom’s sky,
they paint crosses in our night!
They organize Witch hunts to catch the
selected sin de jure...
Tonight: wanton serving wenches!
Tomorrow: topless entertainment!
They find vast bubbling reservoirs of
vintage sin...
where most
of us find ordinary life.
They are blind to the boulder in their
eye, but stumble over our gravel.
They pray for obvious signs, but use
the tinted glasses of ratification.
But we scribblers... those who mail line
Poetry... we are junkies!
We like it! It’s the monkey
on the back side of our mind!
We write witch doctor prescriptions
in exchange for a little free love,
We are Pimps getting laid in meter,
we Pantoum, and Haiku, and, Villanelle,
and flaunt
our thread bare Caesura.
We will drip Sonnets at the mention
of Love.
We shoot up in strange public places,
main line in Coffee dives, compose
on napkins
at parties, and we sometimes leave Limericks on walls!
There are even reports of otomotopaia
in the presence of children!
But, we pay our dues, there is always
a fee for free verse!
If it sells there is a tax. If
not at market, then paid to the muse.
Shoot up, drink down, inhale, shout it
out, suck it in, do it all...
Poets have secret knowledge and weapons!
Freedom is addictive but love is never
dirty.
Critics and Censors get here the same
way we did…
life’s first
poem is jump started…
a sharp smack
on our wet bare butt!
Our first poem was an angry cry of protest.
And,,, when death comes, the proper
response is still death!
But so far… up to now...
Poetry records, sorts, catalogs, and
explains…
far better than History!
(C) Jim Lyle 7 Oct
MIXED MEDIA
First,
Water base:
thin, flat, stiff, stubborn;
no film, no sheen.
Background, primer, base, foundation.
Next,
Oil base:
thick, domed, fluid, yielding;
tough skin, shining.
Lines, splashes, strings, blobs,
positive and negative imprisoned;
colored repulsion.
Then,
Magic trick, household spray cleaner:
slick, soapy, surfactant, solvent,
cutting oil, thinning water.
Pale pigment gruel bites into base.
Oil veins bleed across canvas,
twisting, mixing, staining skin;
changing neighbors, moving self;
revealing history, evolving,
recording past vectors.
Webs, swirls, tides, ebbs, nets, waves, drips,
canyons, reefs, ponds, marshes....
...accidents.
...eye delights.
...unexpected flower bursts.
First,
You are water.
Next,
I am oil.
Now,
We need magic.
The only trick I know
is love.
(C) Jim Lyle 1997
LOCKS AND KEYS
Yes, I agree
It is too easy to create metaphors.
No, there is nothing wrong, (at least
not... intrinsically)
this sorting, matching, cataloging,
and organizing life...
We all do.
I did.
If you organize black and white...
If your eye is finely calibrated...
If you see without colored filters...
If that... then there is
no wrong in metaphors
Yes, I know, I am talking
in metaphors
But, try this one:
Locks and Keys.
We are all "Locks and Keys"
Nothing wrong with that analogy...
(it is we,
we are it, and that is us).
The only choice we have is one or the
other.
(binary).
Which is, in a basically male and female
world,
all we have
to work with… anyway
(I have no
problem with single flavor recipes,
but,
they are not to all tongues)!
But! On more subtle scales, I am wrong!...
some of us are doomed:
some of us are are always locks… or
always keys,
and
sometimes we refuse to fit anywhere.
When that happens,
when… by chance...
when… we refuse
to fit...
when… we can't
be fitted...
when… we live
by being uncomfortable….
or.
by being force fitted…
then:
We are drifting searching scraps
of keys with
torn edges searching for
fitting but
un-opened locks.
Sometimes we fit the lock, and sometimes
if we are lucky,
the lock fits us... our key!
Isn’t it a miracle how old worn locks
can sometimes
redeem failed
keys?
The sorrow is keys and locks that never
fit...
If you can put
that into words,
You can be.
and are, the first.
Being a lock when the situation needs
keys...
Being a key when no lock fits...
Well,
when we define, “failure”…
that, is as close to the heart as is allowed.
I am, I fear, a lock that rejected
right keys.
I know I am the key that sometimes found
refuge, but
never a fit.
Do you claim easy fix, with
wide open doors and seldom hidden treasures?
I will die, not knowing which, when,
or why
I found, spent, wasted, or ignored.
Those who think they know they have found
a fit…
And those who have had that experience…
really know only one thing:
the current
situation is!
And...
it begins again…
tomorrow…
unless tonight
night changes everything.
Still… lovers are always right…
(as long as it lasts)..
© Jim Lyle 21 Jan O6
SWIMMING IN LOVE
In this simulated war game we call love
I have played villain, spectator,
and both hero and
victim.
I have watched lovers, some of them mine,
thrown from high cliffs, cast
from safe shores,
marooned on lifeless islands, and
drowning…
fallen from seemingly
sturdy ships.
Or, buoyant with love and swimming to
distant shores.
Or, broken by love and making no effort
to swim.
Many watch;
few attempt to help.
And, I too have walked the plank a time
or two.
Drowning becomes a spectator sport:
complicated by inept instructors,
ignored by derelict life guards,
panicked by instinct,
and
aided and disciplined
by sharks.
At some time, most of us will be cast
adrift; but
if we make it to shore, we forget how,
or who helped, or,
forever after, (remembering too well),
we shun the beauty
of cliffs, and rocks, and
the leaping, clawing
breakers below.
Fearing Tsunami’s of love, we don’t even
risk the wide sandy beach.
After all, there are rip tides, rogue
waves, sharks, and
strong seductive selfish swimmers luring
us
beyond the reef of
our skill.
And Darkness is always just below the
light sparkling surface
membrane,
and,
the hissing, lingering,
froth
of last passage.
© Jim Lyle Oct 05.
OUR OWN PERSONAL BAYOU
Those…
who aspire
to be,
come to be
or just must
be…
poets…
Those…
who, coincidentally,
are not the
same
as those who
just assume,
they write
poetry…
No! not those…
the other ones
the ones who
are
in fact poets,
those either
learn, or are
naturally prone,
to living
with their
minds seemingly at home,
when
actually adrift in trackless mazes
of illogical,
tangled, unstructured, and
bewildering connections.
For those, often lost, but still at home
in the mangrove swamps…
there
is beauty,
there
is mystery,
there
are alligators, insects,
and venomous snakes;
But…
there
are also Orchids,
and another
bayou to try…
always.
Sometimes, there is no way out;
but at
times…
that can also be pleasant.
The trick is in finding beauty
and meaning
in the
swamp where you are
rather
than
where you think you should be.
Salvation, sanity, and… when
we are lucky,
poetry…
these…
all these...
are fruits
of discovery.
© Jim Lyle Oct 05
HAPPY BIRTHDAY
Another year
another birthday;
you there, me here,
we, growing old.
I play with words,
meanings, loneliness
and unanswered hope…
over and over and over.
They haven’t worked…
not once…
not since you called to say you were
wrong.
But then, you stumbled again.
You,
again admitting wrong
is the only fantasy I have left.
I have catalogs of stage settings
for possible dreams…
(the old house on second street is my
best).
I have standardized communication skits:
some the way I wrote them,
some the way you saw them,
some, hopefully, the way they really
happened
or might have happened,
or should have happened.
I can’t trust my memory in these things,
then again, I can’t
trust yours either.
I have tried ritualized openings;
some might even work.
Some surely won’t.
So far, none of them have.
Some have variable endings
and unexpected curtain falls.
In fact,
I have a life time script available…
still.
And there are wounds…
deep, raw, ugly.
I may be blind;
memory may have failed me,
but, so help me
I can’t find where
or why, or how
love turned to anger.
Best I remember,
I was invited to play.
And now
we live so far apart
(no, its not the miles… I’d walk
them all if that would work).
The real trouble is the alternate Universes
we live in.
I don’t know where they came from
or what crack, cave, hole or trap door
put you where you are.
Sadly, I think I was tripped,
pushed, discarded, and disposed.
I am your trash
that won’t go away
and is packed so tight, it won’t burn.
But, don’t give up.
I’m growing thin and
transparent.
I may just blow away; or evanesce into
ether;
or rust in place
till the flakes combine with earth and
weeds.
Maybe nothing will remain
but flowers.
But, if I go first
you, of all people,
should remember…
all flowers are weeds
until
someone
loves them.
© Jim Lyle Apr 05
BEAST OF BURDEN
For you,
life happens at chance nodes
where push pulls, or pull pushes.
For you, morality tips to the nearest
mass
even if leaden and inert.
You never move, ever,
unless one polarity surges,
or another gravity burps as the prior
sneezes
and spins you in to a different wind.
When thrown,
stasis returns and
present inertia cancels older attractions.
With harness, all riders feel alike.
Without a burden, you feel insecure
and lost.
But that’s also welcome;
convenient mustang rides are similar.
One rodeo is as dangerous as the next
and every ass needs a saddle.
Sometimes it isn’t who rides.
Sometimes it isn’t who carries,
and it’s never about
waiting
with the traces on.
Sometimes
it’s just running…
together.
© Jim Lyle May 05
HOT HARVEST
Spring,
pale green wheat sprouts
lawn high and mile square,
from distant horizon
to purple sage blossoms beyond fence
row.
Early summer,
dark, green wheat crop stands…
heads nodding in gentle wind.
Flowering tassels bud and
drink from passing thunder heads.
June.
Yellow wheat dries, grows, hardens.
Drifting cottonball clouds cast sliding
shadows.
Cobalt skies frame tall chartreuse stems
and feed firm seeds.
Harvest.
The wide mower
whips hard brittle amber grain into
bin.
Hot dry wheat dust
chafes and itches under my collar
and beneath my belt.
Golden sundown evening,
cut stubble glows
under distant clouds.
From wind mill pump,
cold water shower cooled
and removed itch.
Still virgin.
I could not imagine better bliss,
or physical pleasure.
Next winter I fell in love.
Even when ice sealed the stock ponds,
warm sweating exploration
required cold showers…
© Jim Lyle - Jan 06
RECYCLING:
Isn’t it fascinating?
Has it occurred to you?
Do you understand…
that almost
everything we call history
comes
from graveyards and debris?
Some of this exists as worn old mounds
Some comes from dusty tombs or
scratches
in rock, or
marks
on leather, or
scraps
of paper, or
or shards
of metal,
and fading photos of sad old love.
.
But, almost everything we call history,
whether natural
or contrived…
is in essence,
…graffiti.
Some of this was here when we started.
Some of it was handed to us;
Some of it, looks like beautiful hills,
which, when
opened…
prove to be
ossified left-overs, lost love,
discarded excess,
broken dreams,
or, on occasion,
the remnants
of Scientific experiments.
Only the Poets and Artists are direct,
whether honest;
or liars,
whether lovers
or cess pools of hate., and
whether they
leave beauty or
horror…
they do create
their residue on purpose.
© Jim Lyle 17 Nov 05
KNOWING
We can know , not know and partially
know
but we can’t know that we will know
we know everything
just because we no longer want to know
more.
Or, for that matter, how frightening
it is to know that we really don’t
know unless we, in fact, know how much
there is to know, or
somehow know that we already know all
that can be known.
The greatest of all sadnessess is knowing
just enough
to know there was so much you never
knew.
Then you will know that what you know,
is all there will be to know,
or is so much less than could have known,
and may well
be all you will ever get to know..
You see, my love, there is one rock bottom
knowing…
One that needs no proof by someone else
knowing…
We are all given this one gift: we can
know, we love.
I know that about me about you.
But, sadly, I know that you
may not care about such knowing
may not understand how to know such
knowing
may think you know that knowing isn’t
important, and
may think I should know better.
But I know you better than you know you;
Someday, you will suddenly know how
it feels
to have chosen not to know.
Then… knowing will let you know
how knowing this kind of knowing… feels…
like a great emptiness full of to much
knowing.
Saddly, I know some people never know
this in time;
They never truly know how really knowing
feels.
© Jim Lyle 8 Aug 05
THE AMAZING GRACE OF
A LITTLE ALZHEIMER'S
I find I am amazed at my amazement.
And amazement requires both wonderment
and the ability to
ignore, which
in turn requires
boredom,
tolerance of ignorance,
prior preparation,
assumed mastery,
and, or, resignation, which,
in turn,
leads to circular
reasoning,
which, in turn, requires
the ability
to ignore the fact that, by now…
the wonderment is gone…
boredom has returned…
and
amazing isn’t
was it?
On the other hand:
interest is of some
interest
until…
washed, bleached, rinsed, and
accidentally flushed down the drain,
or some other “black
hole” of opportunity,
at which point retention and possession
are often no longer interesting…
anyhow, very.
And no!
I don’t think any of us should loose
interest!
But, I am interested that we so often
do!
Sometimes… even me… when I remember?
And…………….
What were we talking about?
© Jim Lyle, Nov 05
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YOU KNOW
(for my daughter, Dineh Tummillo)
My Father couldn't understand;
"Why'd you want to adopt one?"
“One what, dad?”
"You know, a baby?"
We had two, my wife was again pregnant,
"Because there are babies who need love."
"But, why'd you want to adopt one of those?"
"Couldn't you get a white one?"
"Yes, Dad but 'Dineh' needs some one to love her".
He didn't understand, but then,
the little girl called him "Grampa".
He fell in love;
Dad was also born that way.
A year later, my mother watched her play,
"Well you got a smart one."
"Smart what, mother?"
"You know, a smart one."
They gave us food, medicine, land, and, by example,
taught Democracy; but Mom couldn't conceive or say,
"a smart Indian."
Mother was born that way.
Gradually, the little Navaho captured Grandma;
In grade school she took out the school bully, a year older,
he learned some humility.
And it helped when she made the honor roll.
Mom was, after all, born that way too.
“Yes, Mom. Yes, Dad. Yes, we know, we all know.”
“But no, we are not, ‘just born that way’.”
© Jim Lyle January 00
VISION
Just by thinking so:
We… ride electrons in orbit; parse protons from nuclei;
and posit galaxies in coffee cup scum;
We… explore endless caverns between sand grains;
plot neutrinos through earth’s basalt heart;
and swim gray veins in Michaelangelo's marble;
We… fly with crows above Van Gough's tortured fields;
skip from drip to drip in Pollack's ragged lace;
surf the crest of Mozart's counterpoint;
and live lonely moments in the mind of Dylan Thomas.
Just by thinking so:
We… stick our fingers in horizon's wall,
and expand it… just… that… much;
We… can scuff our toes along the Milkyway
kicking small stars as we go.
Up down, forward back. Micro and Macro.
Time and Distance. They're natural for our mind.
Without measure, without limit, we fit these dimensions.
It makes sense… we float lightly on this river of time.
Gravity is a warm blanket and we fantasize in harmony.
Here, where we are, it's as light as our dreams choose
...even if no light gets out.
But darkness waits… just beyond our dreams are things too dark
to conceive:
as dark…
as narcotic temptations for children;
as dominion without presence;
as ruling without responsibility;
as judging children for their parent's sin.
The pandering purveyors of belief,
Believe!
They revel in just such darkness.
© Jim Lyle 23 November 02
STRONG FIBER
Cleaning my desk,
I reread unorganized stacks of truth
in great amounts;
but
contents blend with overgrowth
and begin to escape.
For some people,
smooth slipping touch
guides and adequately
handles life.
Bamboo
cuts that way;
bows to wind and fire;
grows back next year;
and,
does things a Redwood fails.
But, the Sequoia
bleeds,
does not bend, and
weeps each axe and fire
for a hundred years.
Both have a job.
© LYLE APR
04
EROSION
Rain, draining across flat ground
starts, stops, pools, backs up,
surges suddenly over slick muddy dams,
cascades away into side ponds…
stills… dries… and
earth cracks.
No thought of powdered older tracks in dry dust.
No thought of muddy splashing and laughing
and bouncing and cascading through
grand canyons, or,
gathering and joining, and leaping and
weeping over micro-inch waterfalls
A twig? A leaf? A pebble? A random heart?
Sometimes very small matters determine!
Maybe it was yesterdays bubble gum, or
meaningless, harmless, random things like
old feathers in abandoned nests?
Or maybe new chance tire tracks squished prior love,
and controlled time, and destination, and pruning,
while denying salvage.
Even delicate broken butterfly wings wedged
between twigs
can filter, slow, determine and direct…
water, dust, mud, and seeds.
Some times we don’t know which thorn might stab the heart;
or which sweetest bounty fruit in your garden harbors
pests,
or bank poisons, or feeds deadly fruit with acid rain,
or burns, drys, and blows away because of too much wind,
or
requires to much time and memory between drinks.
Dry lonely throats do not sing well, and
the dying flowers shed the fragrance of their own epitaph
.
Flood can kill, but… so can dust.
© Jim Lyle, Aug 06
ONIONS and POETRY
Raw onions
tart, crisp,
stinging, biting…
they clean our tongue
and sometimes bring tears to our eyes.
Cooked onions
sweet, smooth,
slippery, and sticky…
they coat our tongue
and marry and bind the soup.
Over done,
they fall apart,
dissolve,
liquefy,
and
loose identity within the sauce.
Poetry is much like onions:
raw , it can sting your soul,
clean your mind,
liquidate prejudice,
balance obsession,
blend, bind, marry opposites,
and
spice the things we love.
Over done,
it caramelizes,
leaves sticky residue in your mind,
overpowers delicate tastes,
leaves foul odors,
and
sometimes…
it is almost impossible to clean the
pot.
© Jim Lyle 30 Apr 06
POETRY IS:
Poetry is where love goes
when no one wants it.
Poetry sings about plowing,
or smoothing,
or planting
or harvesting;
but
seldom sings about
“leaving be.”
(That happens with out request
or song.)
Poetry is remembering yesterday.
Poetry is dreaming tomorrow,
Poetry is complaining,
and cheering,
and cussing,
and poetry is about what should be done,
and when,
and where,
and why no one is…
doing,
But, now
never calls for poetry
until then is here.
People know something is missing;
they wonder where love went;
They don’t understand:
Poetry is much like love and air.
You can’t breath out
without first breathing in.
© Jim Lyle 17 Mar 06 \
PRAIRIE FIRE
Watch while Texas burns!
Have you ever wondered… have you ever imagined yourself
burned black by a flame you thought
was Love,
and left with your edges crumbling charcoal?
Have you ever wondered if rain and seed and time
scorched with Love’s flame,
could ever cause a burned black prairie
to grow flowers again?
No! don’t misunderstand, I’m not asking if you hurt…
but love departed hurt is not love discarded
hurt!
Love lost at love’s hand, is lost presence.
Love lost at love’s choice, is lost future.
Love lost because love left, is… everything lost.
Love separated is different than love discarded!
When love departed, still loving,
did you look out, and see black as far as
plains eyes could see?
did you wonder, if any thing would ever grow…
again?
did you wonder if plowing, and planting,
and watering ,
and feeding,
was worth it? Again?
did you wonder if anything would ever grow?
Have you ever considered how different departed is from discarded?
No, don’t answer, This is all just thought exercise.
But if not, well then, maybe you don’t know how “discarded”
feels.
When love looses love because life takes life…
then two memories live in one.
and Love still remains.
But, when love burns love…
everything is black… for a long,
black, dry, scorched time.
On some prairies, on some beaten hard pans,
on some scorched earth… and in some lives:
love never grows, or grows stunted,
or grows crooked, or…
manages to live,
but does never learns how to bloom.
© Jim Lyle 19 Mar 06
TEST POINTS OF LOVE
If tested, there are behaviors, compulsions, habits, ideals, and
calibrations about “The” Love that can
be run and classified
against “a” Love. But what
about the Lack of Love?
O.K. So then what, if then, and what then?
Are there clinics, “half-steps, ” and proven techniques?
If I check in and say I am a love junky,
are there half-way houses of good repute
and if so
what brand of masturbation and/or
how many beautiful surrogates do they
use
to bring me Up from the depths so
I can lay it on the line and get pointed
in any direction?
Some where, some one should demand that “Love”
stand before the Judge!
Maybe that's where the crime happened!
How can one love pick a new “Love” while discarding old love and…
again say “love” to the
next love, and the next love, and the next?
“Get over it!” I hear that… doesn’t work!
“Get laid!” I’ve tried that… doesn’t work!
(not even if I can keep
on keeping it up).
I’ve been toking on the same sweet wilted love poppy for 20 years,
All the other weeds do is blow smoke.
I haven’t had a lid, warmed
a spoon, snorted a line,
inhaled, swilled myself
a drunken high, chased cheap comets,
had a kiss, been seduced,
drained a keg, took a slug,
inhaled, snorted, chug-a-lugged,
used a needle, or, for that matter,
made love:
not since you!
No, not even when love that might have become “LOVE,” loved.
It just wasn’t... “the” Love!
PRAIRIE FIRE
Watch while Texas burns!
Have you ever wondered… have you ever
imagined yourself
burned
black by a flame you thought was Love,
and left
with your edges crumbling charcoal?
Have you ever wondered if rain and seed
and time
scorched
with Love’s flame,
could
ever cause a burned black prairie
to grow
flowers again?
No! don’t misunderstand,
I’m not asking if you hurt…
but love
departed hurt is not love discarded hurt!
Love lost at love’s hand, is lost presence.
Love lost at love’s choice, is
lost future.
Love lost because love left, is…
everything lost.
Love separated is different than love
discarded!
When love departed, still loving,
did you look
out, and see black as far as plains eyes could see?
did you wonder,
if any thing would ever grow… again?
did you wonder
if plowing, and planting, and watering ,
and feeding, was worth it? Again?
did you wonder
if anything would ever grow?
Have you ever considered how different
departed is from discarded?
No, don’t answer, This is all
just thought exercise.
But if not, well then, maybe
you don’t know how “discarded” feels.
When love looses love because life takes
life…
then two memories live in one. and Love still remains.
But, when love burns love…
everything
is black… for a long, black, dry, scorched time.
On some prairies, on some beaten
hard pans,
on some scorched earth… and in
some lives:
love
never grows, or grows stunted, or grows crooked, or…
manages
to live,
but does
never learns how to bloom.
© Jim Lyle 19 Mar 06
PIETY
From the western border of Texas
draw a line due east across the top
of Oklahoma;
don't stop until you reach the Atlantic.
We all know about the dirty laundry
behind the whitewashed curtains
that hang on that line.
For most of two hundred years
this foul dark cesspool of piety
stayed home!
Now, it has moved to Washington.
But this dirty, soiled, self-titled,
“Christian Administration”
left part of their Creed behind;
all they brought with them was…
“Do unto others!”
© Jim Lyle Feb 03
SUN GIFT
It isn’t really so faraway;
just ninety three million miles,
just eight and a third minutes ago,
warmth, light, and
life itself…
left the Sun.
This source that allows everything else,
streams through
totally invisible absolute darkness
until it hits something …
or us.
If we were in space, and couldn’t see
the sun or other stars,
or their reflected
light on parts of our vehicle,
or from ourselves… we could
not see anything.
Yet, any random speck of meteorite
would blaze like…
well… like the sun.
And, surprise! We are in space,
and we do sometimes see just such.
This has been going on for as long as
“ever” has meaning.
We owe life, our current warmth,
and everything we love,
to ancient energy beamed through lifeless
total cold.
And, color… neither life
or love would exist without color.
Do I need to say there is no color without
light? No? Yes?
Well,.. it isn’t quite that easy.
our eyes are sometimes wrong,
A Morpho butterfly is not actually blue,
nor are Peacocks
a rainbow carnival,
nor is Mother of Pearl an iridescent
hue;
they, themselves, are not the color
we see.
Nor, in fact, are clouds
the color of the rainbow, and
sadly, the
rainbow itself doesn’t even exist in any material sense.
All these are results of diffraction,
They are small, intimate, personal,
examples of colorless energy
beamed from the sun…just those few small
minutes ago!
There at home in the Sun in all that
heat, they would be totally consumed.
Here? Where we are?
Color is a gift our earthly eyes give
back to the Sun.
© Jim Lyle 30 Oct 05
IF THERE WERE ONLY
100 OF US
AND OUR NEIGHBORHOOD
THE WORLD
Fifty seven, near and far, are cast in
yellow hue.
Twenty Europeans found, are near, and
here, and there,
About fourteen of us (no more), from
north and south and east,.
Will walk, and talk, and live, and die
in Western Hemisphere.
Just fifty two are women, and will follow
female plans,
The rest are more overt, and yes, are
plumbed a lot like me.
A thirty count is sort of white,
and eight are Africans.
Just thirty follow Jesus though they
preach and work for more.
Eleven sleep in same sex beds, and use
a different plan.
And sixty of each hundred things, no
matter what its deeds
is owned by six, --give a guess-?
Yes-, all Americans.
On half of all of us, foul malnutrition
sucks and feeds.
While twenty sleep in decent beds,
just one in seven reads.
Just one will have computer use.
Just some, with Art adorn.
Just one will go to college, and one
now ends their deeds.
But don’t give up, hope still
survives;
One now is being born.
Data from the Internet. Poetry © Jim Lyle Aug 05
GESTALT
Its something that happens
in our brains and our hearts.
No!
Not the one that looks
like cheese.
Not the pulsing pump that
looks like liver.
And it’s not flesh or
blood, or bones or arteries.
Nor is it snapping synapses,
jerking muscles,
or the air soft tender touch we save for our children.
None of it comes
from the chemicals that equal us when totaled.
But, still, we are living,
tasting, testing, walking laboratories.
It’s the things, the ones
we hang on the chair beside the bed:
the non-living self-images carefully draped to avoid creases;
the templates and notes to rebuild our courage next morning.;
the necessary warm self-love we may need in a cold world;
the naked mocking lies the world dictates we wear.
and, soiled old bandages from wounds rendered by love splinters.
And this doesn’t even include
that large upright chest…
you know… the one with the trick doors,
and mirrors that might force truth on us and
unlock dark hidden vaults full of the caricatures we use
to calibrate our memory.
It all allows us to recognize
ourselves, and sometimes…
it helps to tie us to the mast when storms rage.
We give this backwash of
debris names:
Art, Invention, Inspiration, Loyalty, Duty, Patriotism, God, and…
oh yes! Love!
But when the boxes open,
some are full of shinning treasures, while
others hold nothing but the crumbs of old bones
and past hope.
At first soft breath,
the powders of those old bones and false love,
will both blow away,
and dust is very hard to reassemble.
© Jim Lyle 17 Nov 05
COMMON PATH
Bruno, Galileo, Copernicus, Einstein,
Wittgenstein,
and every wondering child dissecting
leaves,
crushing sand castles, and weeping lost
pets…
and, our ancient brothers gazing at
stars, making mummies
chipping tools of war, and contemplating
the entrails of animals;
all these…
Socrates, Jesus, Plato, Luther, Moses,
Buddha,
Omar Khayyam, Shakespeare, Beethoven,
Mozart and Mahler
lonely sheppards with pan pipes
playing under wheeling stars,
every single rejected lover, and every
searching Atheist
lost in timeless wonderings;
all these…
Then and now, nameless and dateless artists
at ancient walls,
the creators of pyramids, and images,
and effigies;
Van Gogh, Matisse, Michangelo, the Pharaohs
and Mayans
and nameless other sculptors, painters,
and builders
whose hand prints, scratches, and pictures
chronicle dreams, mark caves, adorn
cliffs, prophesize
and slice tracks in mountainsides;
these…
all of these
ask the same question.
With wonder and awe, with conceit and
bluster,
with love and humility,
they invest their bodies and minds while
waging
their doubted souls and asking this
one simple question …
“Is what we see, what we get”?
Side show Carnies, Seers, and Priests
proclaim their knowledge…
But in their con, no matter how dressed
and garnished,
proof of Now always sleeps in Someday.
This manipulation feeds and serves them
in life…
then they also die.
© Jim Lyle Jul 03
AGNOSTIC RECOGNITION
Their thundering addiction for your name
drowns your song;
"a still small voice"
never seems an option.
Denouncing science and blossoming creation,
they do not hear
"rocks cry out";
they forbid divinity
in progress and process.
Burning crosses foul night, blacken stars,
and blind the heavens
to which you pointed.
They proclaim your royalty, but forget
your humble clothes.
They turn "the least of these" away,
never dreaming you
among the forlorn seekers.
They praise fish and loaves but deny
food to the hungry.
They condemn contraception and then
murder to protest abortion;
yet they ignore children
who starve smelling the banquet,
and freeze just beyond
warm insulated doors.
They dream your descent from heaven
wrapped in power
and radiance,
but never consider...
such power might already be here…
unannounced.
I never, ever, see you in their posture,
or from their pulpits.
I do not know you by their works.
I do catch quick freeze-frames of presence
in crowds...
remnant graffiti
wrappings from gifts of grace;
warm auras of comfort
and sympathy;
radiation from exchanged
love;
and, within children,
the spreading infection of forgetting and pardon.
Then, do I dare dream renewal.
But, I do not soil myself, nor ever
misunderstand you...
by following!
In my mind, I enjoy walks side by side,
together... You and I...
and Buddha,
and Lao Tsu, and Socrates, and
Zarathustra, and
Maimonides the Rambam and
all the unnamed others...
the whole lonely gang...
all the ones who
really wanted to understand;
and could see,
and could learn,
and could love,
and could teach,
and dared to do so.
(C) Jim Lyle, Christmas 1999
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