Tag Archives: Joy

I’ll Miss the Winter

12 Saturday Jan 2019

Posted by in Nature, Poem, Poems, Poesia, Poetic Blog, Poetry

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winter

Before the change, you wait
until lo and behold: it’s too late,
the wind and the spin of the planet
beginning again around the sun,

ninety to a hundred times seen
per blessed life, Hebrew kings
and justice is still right.  Pinch here,
pinch there, we’re different

I’ll miss her.

As long as I’m alive I’ll live July
missing winter.

Something dreams and I’m stronger.
We get up in peace, as long as we
yesterday struggled and sacrificed
enough, took our shopping money

to the street, clothed a man on his
last leg, wet pants—you said and did
the right things, changed him with
a tear as he said three cheers.

You walk at limp pace with the suffering
masses, being sure you’re not “ahead
of your skis,” the advanced run wisping
by trees toward Heaven.

There are no signs for it, minus the
aforementioned dreams.  And they do
not come remembered until you commit
to truth, take off your own threads,

give your life to powers unseen, see
your part in the general flow, put an
extra coat on—hoping for one more
splash in the song that is today.

I’ll miss the winter, when long
from it I wet my own sheets dreaming
of she’s and he’s who like me, admit
they can’t do it alone.

I’ll miss the winter, when in the Truth
of now I shine a light on age, rocks
sagging off a sheened rebel coast,
Scotland crags, Welsh hills awaiting
decoration—

As we stand to holler one more time.

I’ll miss the winter, as I shout my
colors into the wind, national flags
sagging likewise around children and
infants raped by ignorant knives

as mother cries, father and so many
on the wide path of “I don’t know”
and “Whatever they say—”

We abdicate our will to white coats
until grace appears at point of death.

We see light at last, breathe and smile.
Dealt this, we cope, try to accept the
wrongs but call them out so the next
little boy and girl tastes opportunity
and freedom sooner you hope—

than you did.

Sighs breed change as winds their
leaves returning—yell out “God”
or something like it now.  Grab
today!  The hope, stay warm at night
say good night and pray.

It’s getting warm again, as you knew it
would.  You shake it off, stare at the
firewood.

“Until next year,” you think of things
only God should.

Around the Sun Again

01 Tuesday Jan 2019

Posted by in New Year, Poem, Poems, Poesia, Poetic Blog, Poetry

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sunset-815270__480

Happy New Year, much like
the old cheer—

games played by humans and other
beings to remember now against
the hurling, tumbling dreams and
action of the ages;

actors, dancers and sages passing
away in body but leaving spirit
soaring, the steady drum of the awake
seeking truth with proof that cannot
be faked, no matter the tone and
tenor of presidential tweets.

God forgive our missteps, and guide
us onto the straight and narrow path
that defines “respect,” universal codes
sought instead of deified leadership
posts, politicians giving money back,

realizing the community needs workers
not suits, keep dreaming on—this could
be a call to you for more.

But if addicted to the clichés that made
us, the alcohol posing as “drink,” colorless,
flammable and volatile as we slurp the
toxic clink,

studying harder we drink instead of
God and life, water less strife, the
grape juice better than whine, the
ripe tasted better than moldy on the
cursed vine, so we walk away as the
band plays—

Happy New Year!!

A song with cheer, a moment we raise,
the only true melody one of praise,
Higher Powers are at work, supplication
keeping me from lonely worries about
sad mortality, the end in a wink of
this life is not what we think—
the native way to discard the concrete
and the fray,

be calm, take off your shoes and see yourself
a part of the earth we burn too much.

Sink your toes in the sand, eternity
is in oneness with the grains and time,
laugh at our journey ‘round the sun
again, roman calendars marking it
the first step of 365 logged here
and somewhere else…

That place or thing that runs all
things, places markers in energy
for which we strive.

We celebrate another trip around
the sun made, this spaceship earth
calling all to pride, think of it
and others to high levels and never
think yourself apart but instead a
special part.

Eternity is in forgetting the self,
seeing ourselves as one with All.
Be not deceived into isolation’s
worry and regret, go out and
leave a prayer in their place, be
free in your signature, writing your
name in this vast space.

Happy New Year!

Be the smile we occasionally offer
on the whole of time’s face.

Wind Chime

16 Sunday Dec 2018

Posted by in Beautiful, Poem, Poems, Poesia, Poetic Blog, Poetry

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The best spaceship is Earth,
moving and singing through space,
the wind whipping through
bringing tears to our collective face.

God is not myth, it’s concept;
look it up, Google’s okay, a red
book from the past defining all
words as words, inventions—

we made them, including these…
up.  We did not make the waterfall,
the rocks, the snow—interventions,
song-like, beauty with or without…

words.

Wind chime, lost in souls out of
time, God is the good, orderly
direction needed to stay on the ground;
without supplication, we fly

un-humbly off the cliff, where strong
physical facts land, bloody and
definite.  There is a power greater
than ourselves, this is a fact,

leaving the atheist looking foolish,
mad at the hatter for not making
us warm enough shoes.  Peace, with
or without the letters is a feeling

much in line with the calm after rain,
the end of pain a mixture of symbols
that collide with other words describing
bodily fluids and explosions of thought;

neurons that if not written, would
surely be forgot, time is ticking as
the wind chimes nothing, one, two—
the Earth has again moved.

So predictable until we swing and miss;
we thought we knew so much,
then looked into a baby’s eyes,
a revolving door of life making the

annual turn around the sun so unique
and amazing this 2018 that poets are
on the move too—so much so, we
chime our own winds, try to make up

some new words, ways to say them
so me and the Earth can again be friends.

We Can Rise

14 Friday Dec 2018

Posted by in God, Health, Men's Health, Poem, Poems, Poesia, Poetic Blog, Poetry, Spiritual

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The seed wars to become a flower.
Democracy lies—calls people power.

Songs rhyme, the words nothing compared
to truth itself.  You pause, pray,

Give strength clean away, turn it over
We can rise.  With a god of your own
understanding, we can rise, the mystic
reason for the four seasons calling
in the night, dreams the funeral of
ignorance, chopping off parts of a penis

while our infants cry; listening to the
devil, the easy way, “What did the white
coat say?”

***

Great native spirit, aboriginal ESP, a poem
scribbled into sand by Vikings or Celtic
sages, Romeo and Juliet giving English
reasons like seeds to sprout and spread
like a wildfire of color across a northern
California coastal hill.

“God” is the name itself for some, the
goal heaven, and for it we rise.

We can overcome the worst, from ashes
bloom again, seven deadly sins trying to
burrow into holes made before we make
first decisions.

The cliff upon which we walk is forged
to challenge, the echoes of forefathers
and foreskins causing blood to pour out
in lines, the prayer a call of the realistic,

the humble are true when they admit they
cannot without divine help reach the
golden crest that is Peace of Mind.

We can rise.

But we must first admit we fell, ring the
bell that we’ve been to hell.

God, forgive us, let’s mobilize with every
breath to make amends for friends like
wind forgotten with circumcised sips
of flammable liquid passed down from
generation to generation,

Friends in armor, friends who gave
us warmth and farming techniques,
helped us survive winters before
we cast them out at gunpoint, claimed
to found a nation already here.

I’m a white man living on stolen land,
littered concrete and asphalt, helicopters
screaming war while anyone standing
high enough for peace is shot down from
Gandhi to Jack to Martin to Bobby to Oscar
to John of the Beatles, the evil wind
soaring never changed.

We can rise, the minority report flourishing
at times, enough to give us hope
like a birdie between double bogies,

We can rise.

With an ounce of truth told into the
hurricane of lies, we can turn the evil
ship around, apologize.

Admit we raped, pillaged and stole,
see the humanity we are—naked
and part of the earth.

Don’t ever snip earth worn naturally
by children, mutilate a baby against
God’s will.

The baby’s cry is God’s protest; stop
cutting, start listening.  Get out of your
car, join me on the walk to Heaven.

Jack

09 Sunday Dec 2018

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jfk

I don’t know it all, of course—
the in’s, the out’s, the going to
war, learning how to kill and
justify killing.

You learn the devil’s code against
10 commandments or other
dreams available to children
by listening.

Murder is never defense, the
attacker you fear’s heart does
not have to stop beating to
cease as threat.

John F. Kennedy was from so-
and-so peeps, Catholic Church,
big money from Dad’s bootlegging?
No matter to me.

He captained a boat, killed Japanese
people, survived a crash, helped
fellows survive, as the story goes—
that’s Jack.

The ignorance of alcohol abounds,
I used to call the Catholic Church
the Alcoholic Church, and why not?
It hurts!

They say he womanized, the sinless
throwing stones—many thrown by
his killers I’m convinced, evil converging
on 11-22-63.

A different time and era, sad for
those sad at tragedy; a father and
husband murdered, how different
from the Japanese?

Picked off sadly from a Texas knoll,
confused, bedeviled soldiers carrying
out orders of revenge for Bay of Pigs,

Clearing the deck for bloody Vietnam.

It’s tempting to be angry at death
and evil, but one must not play into
it—and instead love our enemies, they
hate it before converting.

“You think you can change the world?
It cannot be done,” yells Lao Tzu
thousands of miles and years away, yet
still we try!

Whatever Jack was before 1963,
he had become quite a voice for peace,
probably the world’s leading one
at death.

Same could be said of Gandhi. Martin,
Bobby, and John in December of 1980,
so many things we cannot control—
evil hurricanes!

I pray for the CIA, for murderers’ row
full of “Who knows?” and fraudulent
piety known as national security!

They need hugs not scorn, so hello,
I love you won’t you tell me your last
name?  No?  I love you anyway, I’ll
love you

until Truth sets you free.  To tell it
we must have safety, and with Higher
Power like the Jewish LORD psalmed
wisely by David

who could be against you if you
decided to break ranks with Fear
and blow the whistle, “Jack!!!  We killed
Jack!”

And we are sorry.  Sorry for Vietnam, for
the lies, for war and evil and injustice—
the money was good and we took it.

We didn’t know that fear is often
False Evidence Appearing Real, and
that there is a God, and that there
is a Heaven.

Find Love and God now!

Turn and find Jack within, forgive
yourself, see the less fortunate,
the unclothed give them a bite!

See that we could go further than
free the slave, we could give them a
piece of the profit they stoked,
the Native American pushed out
or killed

there and waiting to regenerate the
land with us, the litter we fanned
too much, the noise we fueled
to crush—

the Great Spirit battling serpent
covert ops, the secret devil in you
ready to be banished when you
accept poverty,

say no to easy money, lift palms
to the sky, see your spirit and
love connect embracing earth
and life.

Die now, old life!  To the killers of
Jack and to the Devil himself I
say no thanks, I give you my back,

and I smile because I love the fight
that wins every time we surge
to declare Truth at the scary dinner
table,

three-piece suits and cigars over
flammable liquid sold and bought
as “drink,” the devil alive with every
clink,

Jack with the saints because with
his last breath he declared Peace.

Maga

26 Monday Nov 2018

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Donald Trump is not the problem.
He is not the disease, nor King Evil
in this experiment we call the “United
States!”

He did not come over by ship and armor,
lay down a fort, look down a nose
at brown people who saved white lives
from starvation and cold,

praise God and Matoax, her servant—
protect us from ignorance, racism
and violence, Trump a Symptom of
“More-ism,” he’s not the first.

Trump not the devil, just a man vulnerable
to the elements and bedevilments
we’re all susceptible to falling into, the
hole is endless!

We fall and we fall, thinking we’re flying
until we walk into a doctor’s office
and let him or her be our god.  They
tell us we’re sick, and we’re ready
to die…

Maga!

We think politics is power, we hail
chiefs and man’s achievements—
putt-putt, we burn earth going fast
downhill, the cement and asphalt holding.

The cake baked on native blood, risen
up by the yeast of black slave labor,
we push it all aside, fight for white
rights, push all aside that might slow us.

God forgive the right.

Maga!  The fly in the ointment,
the lie in the fight!  Trump the evil
he projects, fake news, a total loser
like me I’m a drunk!

But in admitting truth we rise,
asking for help, apologizing, doing
the humble things that yield peace
of mind!

We cry at Trump’s tear gas at the child?

We cry at shooting towels and lies while
Puerto Rico suffers dark and prolonged death.

We cry at the protest leaving one dead,
talking about “culture” and race?

He separates mothers from children,
desecrating his own mother left and right,
the sickness is not his alone he’s got
ten thousand at the rally,

millions okay, coming out against
difference, immigrants, ethnic
cleansing disguised in code language
like “Make America Great Again.”

“When was is great, sir?”  Maga,
hah!  A slogan so negative and backwards,
flying under radar like it’s no big deal!

Make America White Again!  Bring
back the good old days!

A native American thinking “great!”  You
mean the days before white men brought
disease and beer?

Cursing and disrespect for the earth?

Maga!!  Throw tear gas on the little
girls, they’re brown,

reminding those with soul of Andrew
Jackson’s Trail, Donald’s favorite
president of course, mass murder a thing
okay as long as money’s in it!

Donald Trump is not the disease,
nor King Evil in this experiment we
call the “United States!”

God, not presidents—are solution.
Higher Power, Earth, the great
Mother, Great Spirit, gratitude
for one more day of life.

Maga!  The suit is toxic, embrace
our child, get out of the car, walk
a while barefoot on Truth.

Only God is great.

To Be Whipped

09 Friday Nov 2018

Posted by in Blues, Music, Poem, Poems, Poesia, Poetic Blog, Poetry

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Blues is not in the color
of skin, but in the life lived,
the pain felt, a willingness to
report it—

We convert it to beauty, try
to please the LORD with
sounds off the Mississippi River
whether you live there or here.

We see and feel a roll of shore-
break, the beat reminding, the riff
from God descending so that we
can rise every other line.

We drive directly into the pain,
know we can do no good by
skirting it to the flank; we give all
we can against the grain.

We see a break in the clouds,
an end to the rain—so keep playing
our woes, the dog barking, the bird
low, inspired chuckling,

Yes we even learn to laugh, as
someone listening understands what
we say!  Has had that bummer, too!
It’s only real if unaltered, just come

with the Truth.

“Anything more would have seemed
too weak” said the poet next to a
farm he farmed poorly but unique,
his pen a fountain run by bugs

and fireflies, wisdom and changing
skies; say it, repeat it and change it
to a good riff, may we smile and laugh
many times before they say we die.

Billy’s War

31 Wednesday Oct 2018

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We shot our play guns, built forts
in sand—wide is the path to
destruction, narrow to heaven
maybe one in ten.

God forgive the dishonest step;
the careless dream un-whispered
in the vanity of perceived peace of
mind through wealth.

God forgive us as we forgive those
who come across us hard, no one
wanted to wrong it’s just the most
common of songs!

God forgive us!  The chase, the lack
of study, the cramming alcohol down
throats because it looked cool and
signified plenty.

God forgive us the blind walk into
cars, paving roads over native hearts,
concrete over natural falls and rivers,
putting our mark down…

down, down, until the Lower Power
drills into us, putting his mark on us.

God forgive us—we had to decide
to win to win, even if winning was losing
with honor, pick up your feet declare
Victory over Defeat!

God forgive us!!

Give before, impede us from judging,
from playing your part, keep us
enjoying in our lane—make it that
narrow path to heaven;

widen it out for others to follow,
the art to be inspired and in the glow
tell them what you see and know
if frozen pray and go.

God forgive us, the first step without
you nearly off a cliff or worse, we
started to think of you, God, the
Great Spirit, the Hebrew

YHWH, never in vain, keep a few
things sacred, make a study of study
and study hard—not because they
told you but because…

Because you see.  And in seeing, those
momentary glimpses.  Ha!  Pick up a pen
or the artist’s brush, the guitar sitar
stomp a drum out of paper,

Writing it down for the next group,
who, zombie-like, are tempted to
drive off the cliff as you were, having
been told lies.

The devil’s the devil because of his
apparent credibility, the sparkle in
the drink, the sales pitch too good
to be true—

but easy.

Words

30 Tuesday Oct 2018

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Evolving spirit, I revolve the revolving
door revolutions salute when revolting;
turn back to my past with a key called
loneliness turned into twelve steps turned
into intimacy with one, two, three, until
lo, and behold:

I love all people in the world.

Nothing is possible—to do nothing better
than a thousand bad things—heck,
study the Tao Te Ching!

Evolve spirit, build a bridge… not of
bricks only but perhaps with words,
as well, sharp in spots, muddy!  Get
down into it with those you don’t
understand, open their book and
read their words!

Build a bridge, then reach into the pen
that sets down truth like cold the
‘fridge, giving God a run for money
is the wordless feeling streaming
from extremes called compromise
and peace of mind.

Build a bridge; the words can if
you let them, speak your truth when
the coast is clear—

and when it is not?

Retreat!  Pick a mountain spot, a dream,
a beach or any other sky that’s
pretty in pink.  Take off your dress, the
tie you were tempted to wear
because the others said it was what
was needed there…

Take it all off and jump into the pool
of love that is the true words spoken
in safety on the day of your awakening
of spirit.

I wish you truly well!

Even the folks I felt didn’t treat me so
swell!  We all did our best, even in the
late night mistakes of doing our worst.

The devil is a tempty little punk, but
love him too because without a
challenge like rain—

where would we ever find the rainbow
that is akin to overcoming our pain?

God grant us truth!  A safe room or
space in which to tell it; Courage to
speak the true words,

help us cast the safety of lies away
for good and forever.  Point us the
way toward a better earth, the return
of first peoples, first plants, a rebirth
of native culture—

the wisdom of studying all God’s things,
even that trail of ants.

Renew us in your waters; run the sauce
over our face, cool and calm—

each word a bridge now, each effort a
song to sing as we tidy up the nursery
of our ignorance; the past itself a broken
down palace of god-striving kings
who wallow until the ‘bow that Spring
will surely bring.

Home Runs with Dad

27 Saturday Oct 2018

Posted by in My Dad, Personal, Poem, Poems, Poesia, Poetic Blog, Poetry

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Baseball1

A favorite person forms like
a wave inside your own front door,
waiting for him to return from
Jorgensen Steel.

6 o’clock, on the dot it seemed, by
the bannister I waited for him
you could hear a pin drop, the
clippity-clop of the business suit
with shoes,

Old Spice aftershave, and if there
was a smell of coffee or smoke
on a jacket, this was the seventies,
Dad a people person with all types,
smoking, drinking—getting a deal
done, let’s smile but first:

Let’s be safe.  Clean is safe.  The Navy
is clean.  One, two, three, four—
we succeed by clearing the deck of
debris.

Loose will not do.  We can party
later, but for now: it’s time to clean
up our acts, lickity-split get the turkey
in the oven, a ballgame’s on the TV.

Ouch, that’s hot.  Stay away from that,
Billy.  Stephen, can you get my mitt?
Where’s Missy?

Johnny’s hiding?  Oh, he’s with Billy.

Watch out!  That’s hot, too!  I hope
they learn their way—

Crack, I knew it off the bat; Steve Garvey
went deep, Pedro Guerrero, I’ll lift
little Billy in the air until he’s too heavy
or I’m too old, or both.

It’s good to be the king.  It’s good to
win one, but you can’t count on it,
so think of others.

Don’t wait for them to clear the deck,
be ready to do it yourself.

Follow God, through His son Jesus
Christ.  Hold the LORD’s prayer tight.

Be the apple in the eye of all that’s
right—do your best, there’s nothing
more we can.

Crack off the bat, another home run.

Where’s little Billy?  The best us is you
and me, Adele and the song we play
at Christmas time.

Did you get your wreath?

We’re Celtic and Roman and Christian,
go back a long ways, Welshmen brothers
three sailing with Captain John Smith,

we made it with Native help, thank
God every morning and day, say
three prayers at night before you hug
your rainbow-colored pillow, furniture
I bought and painted for your room.

I didn’t do it all my way, her way, their
way.  God runs this ship.

I just kept the deck clear.  Stephen!  Johnny!

Katherine!  Billy!!

The deck’s all clear, deck the halls
do it all with cheer and know I’m always
here.

Did you get your wreath?

Yes, Dad, thanks.  We love it.  We always
do.  Thanks for thinking of us, for going
to Jorgensen everyday for us, for the
lives you touched, for the effort you
made.

The deck is now clear, for the church
and your wreath—the spirit you always
bring, the effort, the song and dance—

a soft shoe because David did it too.

Thanks for a chance to please the LORD,
honor you and Mom.  1925 to 2017 are
numbers, ninety-two times around the sun,
shining bright.

My dad was a clean hit over the wall in
center, a moon over night, a dream for
five year olds at a bannister waiting to
laugh and grow, be first after God in the
heart of an Alhambra-born hero of seven
kids destined to make more, be more, and
do good for as long as I write.

Ted and Eddy, do your parts.  Ring out
to Orange County, Central Coast, the East
and from there across the ocean and
see the Celtic cross we brought across.

Giving effort!  Protecting your family!
Leaving your mark at God’s feet, kneeling
before every strike to be the best
person he could have been.

Rise up, all, with John Watkins in
your heart and step, finish his work
well, never fully-dressed until smiling
meaning the deck is clean, and
the boat’s on a proper course.

The next challenge will be there.

Not with me, but with what you learned;
so turn, don’t… it’s up to you, but know
I’m with you, and hope as I always did
that you turn out well!

Dad.jpg

John Francis Watkins

(1925-2017)