Poetry, Older

when poeting

when poeting,

I'm blown
by the wind
of the words;

everything I do
does me, too



between the earth

between the earth and the sky and the sea
there are many beings that call themselves me;
they're the children of my birth
and vie for my total affection-
each one is precious and pure,
and each one is totally, completely me



remembering that life

remembering that life is a series of moments, all at once and each for all eternity, i hear harmony in the stillness and singing in the silence. i hear water...

the water is always in the same place, and yet always it moves, always it seeks, always it sounds and shapes its own passage; and tomorrows are washed ashore borne on the waves of every yesterday

remembering that we are water,

and that we are always in the same place yet always in motion, and that we are eternal, then nothing can break our inner knowing or separate our end from our beginning;

and life can end, and begin again, and the music can keep playing, and the sea can keep singing, and the world can keep becoming, and infinite tomorrows can continue to be borne on the tides of unending yesterdays



a kitten's purr

a kitten's purr
an ocean's roar
rustling branches
/in a soft spring breeze
the buzzing of an insect
a frog at 4 am

/i want to stay here
and hear the
song of earth

/forever



falling

somewhere in the lotus sutra,
buried amid thickets of eastern scrabble,
a reference is made to a
leaf falling,
all the leaves that have fallen,
all the leaves that will fall,
falling
falling
falling
/
all the falling gives me vertigo.
yet,
of that peaceful canopy of
grace and quiet power
that held me rapt and silent
for what seemed like
half an hour,
i begin to suspect that it has
just changed my life
forever



the end came while

the end came while
everyone slept
millions of different
life-forms
gave up the ghost and
just plain went away
neat periodic-table-stuff like
cesium and strontium 90
got snuck into our H20 and
we didn't even have to pay
extra
a dividend for dreamers as 
everyone slept
forests fell like rain
and holes were torn in the
brown and broken sky
air stuck to windowpanes
and the whole place
prepared to die
but at least
we were asleep



these are the thundering skies

these are the thundering skies of america;
bound to her soul by pillar and post,
locked in the soil by the blood of her hosts,
etched in her granite by fears and by hates
reaching down to her bedrock and tectonic plates,
screaming for future on destiny's shore
writhes FREEDOM;
st a gge r in g, standing and falling,
whining and winning, crying and calling-
aged imperfection can easily die,
under the blighted and sprawling american sky.



bend a note like monk

bend a note like monk
make the sound of a gong (there's a way)
play a seamless 2-octave chromatic scale in less than a second
submit
this is a dare



sometimes my words

sometimes my words fill the page
like little rabbits fill a cage
easily
more often they hit the fan
like birdshit hitting the
windshield -

shamelessly



waiting for hope

'Life does not cease to be funny when people die any more than it ceases to be serious when people laugh.' - George Bernard Shaw

I'm waiting for the easy smiles on busy city streets again/

I'm waiting for the leering to stop and the flirting to begin again/

I'm waiting for the sound of someone practicing the saxophone down the street/

Not really all that good yet, but with a dream in mind/

And you can hear the belief, the faith, that aspiring to a far-off goal is not some idle waste of time, time better spent playing the stock market or selling real estate/

I'm waiting for some of the ozone layer to come back/

I'm waiting to hear some good news about space/
We're going to Mars again? Good/ It's about time/

I'm waiting to hear that people are being fed again, that war is over for good, and that the children of the future won't have to use oxygen tanks and radiation suits to go outside to play/ And

Every time I turn on the TV, I see a red-faced, angry, shouting white man, accusing someone of doing something or of not doing something or of being alive or of not yet being dead yet or something/

And a team of blonde white women agreeing with him/
I keep seeing men with no lips and no love in their eyes/
Women/ lipless/ loathing behind their eyes/

I hear a shrill wail, a continuous thready rant that runs behind every word and every gesture and every shifty-eyed nuance, behind every lie or accusation or call to justice or appeal for harsher punishment/

I see quiet priests behind blind dead eyes who are not going to jail for crimes that are unspeakable, while others get 25 to life for being sick and poor/

I sense a presence/
It's like smoke/
It's more than a chimera, though/
It reeks/
It casts shadows/

It's fear/

Women with no lips, no love, but fear moves like smoke behind their eyes/

So I am waiting for hope to come back/
Music helps me hold it my own/
My friends help me keep it, and my family is the best reason not to let it get away/

But you might know what I mean/
I am actually waiting now, for hope to come back to the world/



all of us fall back

all of us fall back into the background noise
that is really the echo of the
big
bad
bang
but once we start we can't stop going
up and down the entropy slope/
...see, you and i are monopoles
(synchronous)
beacons in the dark
communicating across parsecs;
(star stuff speaks if given time and the proper conditions;
given enough time, it speaks of love)
so now, at least we'll slip back into the
quiet roar of creation
knowing each other
holding each other/
giving each other
another reason
to
live
again!



being old doesn't make you automatically wise; it just makes you old

Over the years, one says or writes a very few lines that might be considered as worth remembering, if only to be used as canon-fodder to fire a needed salvo across a deserving miscreant's port bow.

I've uttered or written a few memorable one-liners in my time here, and the only problem with that is trying to remember a few of them!

I'm sure the best of them are gone forever.

Here's a few that I do remember.

1 Part of getting older is knowing what to do when the pharmacies are closed.

2 Women are expected to have 'alibis' for being creative.

3 Big gigs are concerts; little gigs are gigglings. Having no gigs is being gigless.

4 When I play I give people 'surcharge amnesia'. If there's any one reason I'm a successful musician it is this: I play music simply and to the point and it hypnotizes people and makes them forget about surcharges.

5 Jazz poodles say 'wow, this player is FAST'. Yes, and they said that about Doc Holiday just before his head exploded, an event triggered by someone else being slightly FASTER.

6 As for any jazz musicians who think that they are 'famous' (God, what an incredible leap for a mind to make!) and think that playing an instrument really really fast makes you a MUSICIAN (!): Get stuffed! Save up and get a LIFE!

7 My duty (as defined by me) is to bring that sacred act (playing my piano) unscarred and unsullied through to the last day of my life, in pristine condition, ready for trade-in.

8 I think that what distinguishes us from other primates is our inherent ability to play a few wailing choruses of 12-bar, B flat blues.

9 Getting older is like always having a mild case of the flu; that's what it feels like to me.

10 I think that's it's a myth that we all have jobs to do, all of the time. I think it's perfectly OK to do nothing at all.

11 I think It's more important to be a musician than to be a pianist.

12 Your dreams are your sacred truth.

13 Anything that gives one an opportunity to experience Sartre's 'nausea' without actually reading Sartre is probably a good thing.

14 An individual can sacrifice for the good of others; they must never compromise for the good of others. The moral dilemma of altruistic thought is that it makes no distinction between the two.

15 It is unavoidable to be sometimes beaten down by others; it is never ok to be beaten down by yourself.

16 Genius does what it must; talent does what it damned-well pleases.

17 Everything I do does me, too.



All poetry ©1975-2007, Jessica Williams, JJW Publishing