Coffee Cup To-Go

Coffee cup to-go
As simple as
A recyclable paper cylinder
Crowned in a plastic helmet
With one spout of an opening
as if to represent sea mammals
up late studying
Now tepid and more than half-empty
Easy to pick up
With hardly a risk of spilling
for any land-dwelling primate
By the gown of its paper frock
That not too long ago
insulated once-steamy
Coffee, by now serving only to
Advertise in bold font
a well-known author
Appearing in our small town
Who knows where
I don’t care-
I came here for the coffee
to wake up from despair

A Cappuccino of Madness

Holding a cappuccino
By the ear of its cup
Several fingers carrying the
warmth to come
Of a supposed elixir
One finger curled around the handle
Ready to rifle myself out-of-bounds
If not spill a hot liquid-
Unstable.
With my index pointer trembling
Not wanting to be outcast yet again
Sitting at this coffee shop
Cozy and sociable
Invisibly sick
Not knowing if what I want
Is to have a grip on this reality
Or any other, for that matter
To sip by sip, be okay with it
Or to pour dreams into
A cappuccino
To accept destinies of chance
In the cream swirls
Of a not-thinking barista
To give my future
To signs, randomness, the universe,
Trails of imagined deliverance,
In the warmth of a cappuccino,
Seducing me
And yet failing me, always
As, with each sip,
Each gulp
My self gets washed away
As I take on the form of an empty cup
Once again

The Neverending Reality

 

Growing

Uprooted from a humble, shallow home

transplanted in resplendent greens

the earth is still made up of dirt

underneath the scenes,

underneath the greens

though it won’t at first be seen,

the seed holds all the promise

of every single thing,

of all a plant could ever be,

and the air and sunshine and flowers

a plant might never see,

but you’ve been growing upwards

and branching out as well,

tending to your garden

a product least upscale,

that you find your solace

in watering what is silent,

and waiting for tomorrow

to apply your fertilizing talent-

shows the humility in your hands,

the patience in your greenest thumbs,

and the blossoming radiance

that breaks through what is numb,

and sprouts out of a bud long dormant

in kaleidoscopic ways,

but only for the ones who’ll wait

through all the rainy days

princely states

Who knows the rose

who never had a globe?

To keep out the bugs

that made the stems shrug

what is a dove

to an indoor plant?

who gardens its self

on the corner of a shelf

in a cool dim shadow

malnourished and alone

who waters the leaves

to answer its pleas?

The golden-haired boy

arrives on the scene

wearing his cape

and endlessly naive

thinking that he will know

just what to do

to revive this rose,

make it blush from blue

but he asks so many questions

and jumps from here to there

traveling the universe

while the rose is on Earth

learning came easy

to the little princely one,

of all things most exciting

even what was in writing

the further he explored,

the more gold dust he collected,

whimsical wizardry extravagantly sublime:

ideas, friends, and beautiful rhymes

but none of these things

were proof to his heart,

for he had foregone the hard toil

of replenishing the soil,

and the rose had near wilted

under the weight of existence

and no amount of persistence

will raise a rose from a distance

 

hope

 

Hope sounds more exotic in Russian

but you prefer the Western ways

the sunshine and warmth of temperate days

and you see freedom in our flags

You don’t exactly stay hidden

but you know to be careful

for your ultimate mission

isn’t just for you or me

Yes, you swing between languages

and hang with those of many lands

One day may we be global citizens

for now, a netizen of silicon sands

You drench yourself in an online sea

Rather caught up in the internet

than the snares of henchman

out there rounding up the Freshmen

The characters of villains

Are rehearsing their roles

The audience is captive

Not seeing what they came for

it’s real horror-show

as the critics of this theater

are now critiquing heaven

and the light shines bright

on the void of any hero

Hope- a noun and a verb?

Are you enough?

Without a second and a third?

Your heart is many good places

Your thinking will yet develop

As you are what is boundless

A reaching out into the expanse

of all that we need

and haven’t had the chance

to manifest with hope alone

or alone, with hope

As we cast this net into an ocean deep

tighten and stretch the rope

we catch the ones we need to keep

for us to move as one

and pull the ragged dusty rug

out from under the ones who trample over

all beauty, truth, freedom, justice, and love

Constant distractions

Constant distractions

over here, over there

feel like hale pelting

on the top of my car

as I look straight ahead

following the road.

Constant distractions

blinking through my mind

as I try to keep those eyes open

focused on my mission

my purpose, my vision.

Patience eases the effects

of any pitter-pattering

and when I see even each distraction

reflected in the water of my mind

the hale becomes like gentle rain drops

connecting the skies to the sea

Assessment

Where do I go from here?

What have I seen? Who have I met?

What have I learned to take to the next?

What would it mean to be at my best?

Master the self,

subdue my ego (and that of the rest)

humble myself in my work,

my actions, my speech

and my thoughts, above all else.

banish any ambitions for empire,

sit back and listen,

and look within,

let go of any criticism

of the ones I love,

for who am I to judge?

accept the flaws in others and my own,

for truly, knowledge and wisdom don’t sit atop a throne.

expand the reaches of my heart,

dissolve the barriers of different parts,

focus on the vastness of mind

and not the rash desires of this ‘Manas.’

content in everything big or small,

love the crude, the beautiful, the hateful in all,

lying as the fulcrum, steady and tall

balancing the world of wonders,

never beating down,

never going under

Turning point

Reluctant writers

stepping out of the shadows,

out of the cool, damp, mellow home

where we hide our sorrows,

our tortured thoughts

chained to the furnace of regret,

on house arrest for our sins,

and the sins of others,

circling around

in our own captivity

But the light comes through the windows,

through the holes in the roof,

maybe I wasn’t meant to be so aloof.

the doorknob doesn’t seem so scary,

I turn it, walk out, and see,

the light rains down and thunders,

the feeling reverberates in me.

I soak up all around me,

the people and the trees,

growing side by side

with the force of destiny,

the unknown is adventure

with friends along the way,

exhilarated freedom

with every breath I play

father and son dialectic

father and son dialectic

who could have expected?

the pugilist

manas

would return bespectacled

hair curly and erected

mirror image of his Creator

(actually progenerator-

but we’ll split that hair later)

who could have expected?

all his suggestions redirected

all his blessings disrespected

all his lessons met with a skeptic

all the death threats and hate mail

coming from his own toddler tyrant

not to mention the wails

and cries louder than

ambulance sirens

In this I clad you with your

Steely concave chain mail

son and father dialectic

shot forth farther and less hectic

your splitting headaches

agitation

passive aggression and

frustration

multiplied a thousand times

in a dynamo of rhymes

loose connections

spilling out

knotted threads in time

Unraveling with tender strokes

through your hair

the crown that you wear

and my beacon in a crowd

eureka loud

red, orange-grey, white and silver

as we float down this river

The stream of Ravel’s Sonatine

soundtrack to my dreams

Pressed into the keys by

steady freckled hands

bending with the love

that cannot withstand

your rare brutish ways

that I pick apart

with full deluded faith

that to honor my father

is to seek consistency with God

Father and son dialectic

Who would recommend it?

Who would not commend it?

A game of catch

And a wait for a son to catch up

to latch on to the vines

in the fields of wine

to see the Logic in the pines

the patches for the lines

the effort, care, dedication

that cannot be named

the love that cannot be tamed

that would bring me to dependence

all the rest of our years

if I could hang around just a little nearer

only to be pushed away

though you’ve sparked the world

and lit my candle

for me to light more

my emptiness

my nirvana

the trepidation of

my self-determination

feels like losing you

Pupil Pool

I hang around a pond

and the pond becomes a lake,

and I swim in this lake

that is your pupils

 

I realize I can't swim

as well as I thought,

so I tread there-

treading softly and eyeing

the shores of your irises,

flashings of colorful delight

 

I'm in deep waters-

deep black undulating,

Moving slightly, here and there,

widening and widening,

swallowing me whole,

or maybe just the part of me

that had any sense of time,

place, context

 

And I drown-

until one day

my body will be found

somewhere deep below the glossy

surfaces of the watery glass

of your eyes

 

Unable to be recovered

in such a deep well

by anyone else,

but one who could

equally have

channeled

into the chasm of my

once and future

gorge-ous,

gorging

pupils.

Flower Mind

What is that feeling?

What is that feeling when you have something to say?

A question to ask

a gap to connect

a thought pit to make whole

an urge to counter what you've just heard

to improve on what was said

to speak better words

or design a better world

in speech alone

when simple niceties are not enough

and reading the room only goes so far

when conversation is not the goal

but only the medium

and ego reclines

the focus shifting

away from my petty life

onto the pettiness of life itself

or its grandeur

or the unfulfilled promise

of we high potential humans

or the scarcity of time

or the fear therein

of the ultimate unknown

pulling us, bringing us

to our knees

praying "please"

What is that feeling?

that gets back up

stands up

burning as if desirous

of nothing within reach

of my petty life

as of a Higher Power

that does not lord over

pettiness

that does not preach

or promise

or hush the crowds

rather lifting each and every

mind (with ego reclined)

into a daze

as it would feel to our everyday

sensibilities

a stun

a stimulus of enchantment

as the unknown becomes known

and what remains unknown

loses its vice grip

 

What is that feeling

of having something to say

out of a place of ever-flowering curiosity?

 

And what is that feeling

to grasp the fully-bloomed flower petals 

in your palm

shining with all-knowing luminosity?

 

And what could be that feeling

of having no longer anything left to 

have to say?