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Bill Watkins, Traveling Poet

~ Words For You, Just Ask

Bill Watkins, Traveling Poet

Monthly Archives: February 2019

Emoji Kiss

24 Sunday Feb 2019

Posted by Bill Watkins in Forgiveness, Love, Poem, Poems, Poesia, Poetic Blog, Poetry

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

CIA, God, Joy, Love, Native, Peace, Poem, Poetry, Politics

Emoji Kiss

We are forgiven the moment
we ask for it;

but we cannot be relieved of
burden, until

we admit the problem.

We stole land in the fifteenth,
sixteenth and seventeenth
centuries because our weapons
were harder and bigger,

because we had a book we loved
and could justify stealing gold
and land with the idea that
bringing brown, naked, natural
people our book would surely
save their lives.

Hell is what you make of it,
heaven, too!

Sometimes there’s nothing left
to do in life on stolen land but
to do!

Kiss your enemy, invite them back
to the table.

Ask forgiveness, admit our faults
today!

Kiss your wife or friend when
the two of you have a bad day.

“Change your stars,” like William
did in that weird, anachronistic
movie with knights and Queen
music!

Slap the CIA an emoji kiss,
and forgive mass murder and lies;

no one I know tries to do wrong;
they at least try to find the right
book to their crimes justify.

The Horrible Sound of Helicopters

22 Friday Feb 2019

Posted by Bill Watkins in Poem, Poems, Poesia, Poetic Blog, Poetry

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

Corruption, Joy, Love, Native, Native American, Peace, Poetry

Vikings1

War is what the British waged,
came here for…

The Spanish from below and around
“west,” thumping bibles

and native skulls.

“Forgive them, Father; they know
not what they do” was written
in the book we thumped, as we
thumped the land’s caretakers.

No harm intended, harm done,
we rise and fall today not unlike
the stars and light, a dance of day
before we stretch into night.

I love the hope that is in a post-rain ‘bow;
the dream of age dies in sagging
parts not up for the challenge
of defeating God, faith and prayer.

Where is the truth?

In a bible?  A book?  A waterfall?
A stream?  A coat, given to me by
native tribes, so I would not starve
and die.

The first winter after our 1607
arrival, honoring the king and
the devil himself by ignoring the
pulse, love, soul and culture of
a vibrant, talented, loving, breathing
native people.

They were brown, naked and natural,
and in our books we wrote them down.

“The king will have us tame them;
and when we do, the riches below
their feet will be ours.”

“What of the Treaties?  The Peace?”

All is fair in love and war, and
we who usurp are just cursed, nothing
more;

just as the Jews who asked Samuel
for a king;

we are cursed like a Viking thing.

The Tender Kiss

21 Thursday Feb 2019

Posted by Bill Watkins in Love, Poem, Poems, Poesia, Poetic Blog, Poetry

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

Earth, God, Joy, Kiss, Love, Peace, Romantic

Kiss1

We peeshaw, as we age
sometimes, the best and most
tender side.

We develop defenses against
abuse, harden to survive.

The baby opens to a kiss,
a smile is from God.

Love and life renews, the earth
spinning around the sun jumps;

it all connects and makes sense,
Love the grease—

moments of bliss decorate the
stars that shadow the face,

Gods and Creator myths smooth
and become real, the water
bending, not breaking around
the rock as palms too weather
the storm.

Fearlessly we kiss; we love and
say thanks!

Then we meet the hard edge,
the stone itself, the back of a hand,
rejection and sarcasm tearing flesh
and ideas of what it all means.

We see a large mass of people
going one way as they age—

It seems “cool” not to love…

Life, what a mess.  Sometimes to
figure it out you gotta be Elliot
Ness, wear a cross on your chest
and love your enemy.

Heaven may be a peace of mind,
eternal lines to time growing,
a cosmic energy you put out
that was positive,

the Karma of that regenerative,
gods and myths blending into one
tender kiss on the mouth of faith.

You can love hate away with belief
and well-placed kisses;

You may be killed in that eternal
embrace, self-will dying in the
ashpit of truth as we take up the
cross that is loving in all conditions,
a default perfection.

Love is one thing.  Its detractor
sleeps next to it, needing your
words to separate it and keep it
at bay as we grow up tempted to
act as old as we are.

Good teachings challenge us to
discard the untruth of age, stay
young, forget our pain and hurts—

land that kiss on Daddy’s mouth
to honor God and forgive his and all
our sins.

The Spirit World

16 Saturday Feb 2019

Posted by Bill Watkins in Poem, Poems, Poesia, Poetic Blog, Poetry, Spirit, Spiritual

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

God, Joy, Love, Peace, Poem, Poetry, Spirit

Sacred1

Shhh.

Hold your tongue, they say,
and we listen as far as our cells
report it’s good;

gong go the seasons, one, two,
three and four—gone when the
dance ends.

Come, friends.  Let’s see if there
is a surprise with me at the
beginning,

you’re free to disagree with
anything, the country is the
world, the

world a word and words, like
Borges said, are fictions, Lao
Tzu warning

against the false Tao, but then
he wrote eighty-one poems
anyway!  Come,

read to me some poem, some
Longfellow-like lullaby to truth
in rhyme, meter

or free to decorate a page or
brains, the imaginary road to
realms near,

far, wondering what we are, until
we unite in song.  This is not
surprising, so…

We trek on, and on, and on until
there is a fact in the grass, the
sweetest dream

known by labor, Robert Frost failing
as farmer as his pen and types did
succeed.

Truth is a beautiful weed.

There—we may have surprised in
that one!  Up goes the crowd,
as the Olympian

crosses the threshold where pain
becomes a second wind; he or she
reaching

to a higher place as they round
the final corner!  Look at him go,
women

on the rise, coming to the top,
restrictions fall being good to
us all;

those in control will not be someday,
so they hold and hold and hold
‘long as they can.

Truth dawns after the rain in colors,
the drench like a fire in reverse
getting us wet

and cleared of doubt.

We cannot deny the facts, now,
Donald, Ricky, Bobby and Mike;
if you do,

tell her you like.  God or Higher
Power, or Native Great Spirit,
this morning shower—

be with us, fill us with the dream
that is a co-opted walk, a lonely
trail joined by shadows until
real.

There’s another surprise, the wind
bringing change which is the hope
over pain.

We let all seasons pass until at
one with the difference, we egg on
diversity

in the sunshine that was the sad
storm of previous clouds, blocks
and ignorance.

We cannot know until we know,
which is why an appeal to spirit
works.

If reading and unsure, stop now.
Shhh.  Pray.

There you are.

Citizenship

14 Thursday Feb 2019

Posted by Bill Watkins in Citizenship, Poem, Poems, Poesia, Poetic Blog, Poetry

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

America, Citizenship, Immigration, Joy, Love, Peace, Poetry, USA

Flag Wall

The skill so grand of mine
to be gloriously born on
American soil!

Never mind I never learned
much law, graduated high
school a drunk.

I belched and laid my first
significant cry right here
in the USA!!

Never mind we skipped over
civics, waltzed around in
a haze of privilege.

I live on stolen Native American
land, hail from immigrants
but am not one!

Never mind the Bible;
Christianity cool when convened
as a wall.

Wide is this path to destroy,
so here we are finding ways
to hate them—

the “immigrant,” figuring ways
to differentiate them from our
fathers, grandfathers—

mothers, too.

Make America white again,
MAGA hats worn by absurd
ignorance;

if keeping score, forgive them—
the land belongs not to man
but God,

Good Orderly Direction, Great
Spirit beyond the divide of
borders,

National leaders, a unity bound
on native blood, slave sweat, tears—
Kennedy murdered

by lies, perfidy and deceit, the
ruse of cloaks, daggers, and CIA
cold war sleet.

Peace is the rainbow following
rain on the other side.  The baby
born

en route to my city, my home;
no skill in birth, yet I came out
documented,

they documented another way
to protect the apparent privilege
of the scared elite.

“A Sunset” by Katherine Mansfield

13 Wednesday Feb 2019

Posted by Bill Watkins in Katherine Mansfield, New Zealand, Poem, Poems, Poesia, Poetic Blog, Poetry

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

Katherine Mansfield, Mansfield, Mansfield Poem, New Zealand, Poem, Poetry, Sunset

Sunset6

A BEAM of light was shaken out of the sky
On to the brimming tide, and there it lay,
Palely tossing like a creature condemned to die
who has loved the bright day.

Ah, who are these that wing through the shadowy air?
She cries, in agony.  Are they coming for me?
The big waves croon to her:  Hush now!  There, now,
there!  There is nothing to see.

But her white arms lift to cover her shining head,
And she presses close to the waves to make herself small.
On their listless knees the beam of light lies dead,
And the birds of shadow fall.

***

(Courtesy, The Society of Authors–Literary Representative of the Estate of Katherine Mansfield)

Pain

11 Monday Feb 2019

Posted by Bill Watkins in Loss, Pain, Poem, Poems, Poesia, Poetic Blog, Poetry

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

Anxiety, Depression, Loss, Pain, Poem, Poetry

Pain3

You thought you had something
you did not; your expectations
not met.

Part-abuse, part-my fault for
residing too close to the truth,
you find that if praying on a thing
not omnipotent and perfect,
there’s a decent chance of failure

by nature of Newton’s laws,
entropy and a tendency for all
things to fail.

A rainbow awaits rain’s end,
and similarly with pain.

There is a shelf-life to pain,
an end game not too far from
“this too shall pass.”

It may be that the expectation
was at fault for the loss, and
it was all in a plan to make us
prepare better for next time.

Everything happens for a reason,
they always say from a place of
comfort—

but they’re right.

The Lock

07 Thursday Feb 2019

Posted by Bill Watkins in Love, Poem, Poems, Poesia, Poetic Blog, Poetry

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

God, Joy, Love, Peace, Romance

Stare2

The earth in her eyes, time
stopping a moment and you see
nothing but the opaque hues,
the amber ruse, the wondering
brow—soul to soul,

and she’s off, a deer in light

an enchanted moment never
explored again, but remembered
forever.

Is Love in the Brain?

06 Wednesday Feb 2019

Posted by Bill Watkins in Poem, Poems, Poesia, Poetic Blog, Poetry

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

God, Joy, Love, Peace, Spirit, Truth

Love11

The answers cosmic to questions
tragic, mystical creation yielding
to childlike intuition.

Is love in the brain?

Heart to heart, the toddler
finds the sandbox and a parent
will remark: look how he plays,
does he know he’s loved?

Does he give and receive with
grace, does he say “thank you,”

Does he have the courage to love?
To be himself?  To give his gifts?

What if he is rejected?

***

We have no power to overcome well
the hurt you feel when your dreams
and feelings expressed get waved off
or denied.

God bless us to a spiritual space,
pass along to our kids not only the
self-confidence to be true;
but the wisdom to keep a Higher Power
there for our appeals in failure.

The higher, mystical truth outside
the lines on structured drawings,
the native Great Spirit—the Hebrew
LORD, Allah, Muhammad and Jesus,
their words, those who raise hands
and praise—

Matoax and her blessings saving a
new white race, the scar of murder
on their face, all forgiven when we ask
for help—

accept her furs, the earth a spaceship
with room for all views, check your
energy, check in prayer every detail.

Are you with Faith or Fear?  How do
we reside where the questions stop,
in peace of mind?

Is love in the brain becomes question
no more on the wind of Spirit, live
for it not her or him, fly with the eagles
and magic, love lost wives and beware
the snares that are mere human
hang-ups, grounding us as long as
resentment lasts.

Ask, receive, love, blast!

Give your song to God and wind
and the denied sandbox dream becomes
only a part of the dance David called
us to before slaying along with
Goliath every prayer-resisting fear.

Wake up, skip the rock and see the
smile on the wind for your life, the hope
the universe has for you being endless
as the pool and its rings in rainstorms.

The rainbow is in the heart;
wait there for all things loving past
insane; it’s all in balance when
love is in the brain.

Dancing on a Star

05 Tuesday Feb 2019

Posted by Bill Watkins in Poem, Poems, Poesia, Poetic Blog, Poetry

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

Dance, Joy, Love, Peace, Poem, Poetry

Stars1

How we wonder, standing, sitting
even dancing on Earth—

about our place, why, and who we are.

I think we’re moving pretty fast,
words chosen almost arbitrary
to describe the true Tao which cannot
be spoken, Borges admonishing the
effort getting paid to write them…

Law writes down what philosophically
or by a vote seems right.

We clap our hands like LeBron James
and the powder flies so high I think
it reaches the stars;

I am awake by word definitions, but
primarily through five senses un-named.

Mom is pleasant but is not a person;
she defines love as I chase LeBron’s
powder off the screen and out my door,
up above the clouds in that dream where
you can fly.

Mom has them, too!

I dream of heat, think Earth is Star-like
in a wind so powerful all is upheld
in Einstein’s space fabric, the listening-
challenged harping on Newton’s
laws and limits saying that’s where most
of the work gets done.

Then Lao Tzu busts in cavalier and sharp
pushing away accolades like Bill Wilson
of AA, everybody vulnerable to the right
punch in the gut, usually coming from
attractive female advance—

the sperm must swim somewhere,
so why not with me on LeBron’s star
so far away until the lava bursts
and all around me is a dance of death—

rebirth to flowers on the mountainside
after the lightning strikes.

So chargy is life, dancing on a star!

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