Window Wondering

First a burst - fire when ready
you were always ready
No violence please - just ideas
in any form - hairy scary winter airy
shivers on the spine - tingles
they touch you when you speak
without thinking
pulses from beyond
you know the things you used
to call the collective insane
that unspeakable place inhabited
by detatched thoughts no longer claimed
by you or anyone else, remainders
not carried over to the next  . . . whatever
Just sitting, idle in my time, window watching
waiting for an idea or two - a string of intent 
to connect them - You used to be good at that
Just saying things and wham - great idea or two
would come storming up in my noodle grey brain
Nothing much appears before me
both inside and out - the window is clear
but my mind is in doubt
Yesterday is done - today you are gone
Wondering why

©Frank Coughlin 2011 july 

The Medicine of This Moment

I am for this moment of healing

calm – balm for my frenzied soul 

manifests in the the form of

sitting lightly, palms upward religiously

wondering where this gossamer feeling will lead

First) a foreword before we go backward:

to the Christian, of once I was,

it is prayer, a connection to something Greater,

to the Taoist, it is a search

for the possible Possible.

Etheric yet tenuously tangible –

a sacred something I can use.

Now the leap of blind faith takes place

to where Connection had taken place before,

gone but not forgotten and the question is:

Have we forgotten the Way ?

And more importantly:

Have I become too cluttered and clogged ?

Too blessed with everyday chores and whatnot ?

Has my Sunday become the Twelfth of Never ?

A manana mantra of missed Connection ?

An anxious answer this way comes:

One cannot lose what one existentially is,

The pretense is revealed as such:

All but the Way is acting:

A sort of self-imposed exile from ectasy:

To cease this nonsense, I must be committed

away from all routines which cement my wings.

©Frank Coughlin June 2011

You Could

Imagine following a dozen dancers as they enter the ballroom
Standing, you do nothing, lying still until someone notices
Things just don't match up with the way someone said it was supposed to be
Then of course you laugh, and act as if this was planned, this chaos,
this rumbling of motion with you somehow its paradox due simply to your lack of motion
This is what you intended all along. And if they persist in their assumption that the beauty
of this moment is nothing but a fraud then you bring out the heavy hitters
who carry the big guns - they call the crowd a bunch of idiots simply because
there is difference to their point of view. Of course this is just another piece of nonsense
in your stream of consciousness, so what else is new ? They have already made their thoughts
of your exploits known long before you arrived - some agree and some disagree - the ones who are your true friends of course. Now ball all of this wax, paper it up and down, there is television but that counts
for nothing - And in the end, when all is revealed, you will have the last laugh, for no other reason than you are the last man standing - unless of course you are not - either standing (for lord knows there is a lot that
you cannot stand for and up to) or a woman in which case everything I said changes depending upon whether or not you are considered either 'In' or good looking or both (so very rare but you could be the one in a million that brakes the mold, smashes all sense of norm, and dances as immortal simply because then you must be a goddess - in which case it does not matter if you enter with a dozen gay dancers all lithe and smooth in graceful steps - they do not hold a candle to you. But you could.
And that is all that matters.
In the long run.
In the end.
 
©Frank Coughlin June 2011

Questions I Have Answered Wrongly (Knowing the Truth)

Under the Whys, I place the following:
When parents fight, is it always hidden
hoping the children will not see or hear
Just pretend and go on wondering, where
the money goes - it flies off fancifully into
landscapes they cannot attend - No, bother
but mother does and is - she wants more when
there is no more - when he is not willing to give.
When fathers stray, does the battleground have to
be on children's sakes, whether they care or not
to be included - who wishes themselves to be
landing ground for verbal jousts and missiles hurled
in general directions of what used to be a partner -
these scars heal they say with time and temperance
but children know better. They learn to lie in just the same way.
Lastly, does silence ever speak - does the mute answer
say anything except the obvious - do the creators of turmoil
believe it is over when it no longer affects them ?
When I have tackled these queries, I have not told the truth
Not even to myself.

Late One Misty Evening

Listen for the water
sounds so subtle
trickling deep, drop after drop
Quiet your breath
close your eyes
it does not matter
you will not see them
anyway. Fairies pick an' choose
what flower needs, what flower does not.
They make no sound, none you can hear
there is only the feel of loving care
that you can tell they were there.
When you begin to feel their tiny feet
upon your arm it is too late,
their dance is unnoted - you are asleep.

©Frank Coughlin June 2011

Beneath the Sky, Above the Clouds

Heaven we are told, is there
way up in the sky above the clouds
But having flown high in a jet plane,
way above the clouds, my eye
never fixed upon God in his throne,
not once did I see angels by his side,
nor did I cast upon my dead relatives,
not even the saintly ones.
When I was in small school,
the school small children go to,
we were told, one and all, that
God was everywhere, an all knowing Dude.
He was Big Brother, before George O. let me know
that such a thing was pure evil.
Somewhere between the words of wise and wacky,
I figured it out - no one really knew -
the sky was metaphor - code for above us,
which was code for better than us, which was code
for a lever with which to control,
for what better way to do this
than to say God told you so.
Now I sit beneath the sky, yet my mind is beyond the clouds,
or so I am told - I see God not in the judge's chair
nor do I see God in the jailhouse floors,
I see God in the mirror smiling back at me.

©Frank Coughlin June 2011

Cold Wind, Kind Wind

Amid the morning sunshine,
a cloud appears and as it blocks the loving rays
of Sol, its brother, the western wind comes
to me, brushing my shoulders in cattail sensation,
it gives me bumps, such is the eerie feeling,
of being touched by non-human hands.
He is the friend I have made in the wilderness,
he has come to teach me his ways,  he says,
in the words of the breeze, his touch is chilling
not in winter icy type but rather in summer hot relief.
I welcome him in terms of my soul's smile
and I listen this day.

©Frank Coughlin May 2011