Monday, August 14, 2017

Sax Need…

Post by AquarianM on Dec 2, 2008 at 12:26am

Sax Need…

My fingertips feel the pearly keys long before my hands can grasp,
The vibration of the reed a living thing,
Closely regulated and monitored;
A heartbeat not to let skip,
Fingers be sure and swift - never drift,
Burning brass calling me,
There is only so long I can go,
Before notes sweet or sour break free,
Call it sax need.

AquarianM

By: Daniel A. Stafford
© 11/27/2008

66sax.blogspot.com/

Sunday, August 13, 2017

Dreams Of Wood...

Dreams Of Wood...

Chopping with a swing,
Both hands,
Long axe you feel it,
Not thinking,
Mind wanders as logs split.

Winter is coming,
Your bones feel it.

Aunt Leona and Uncle Harold are too old.

Dad and I are not.

AquarianM

By: Daniel A. Stafford
(C) 08/10/2017

Rembrandt Sleeping - poem #31

Dancing For The Tribe...

Post by AquarianM on Aug 2, 2005 at 10:06pm

Dancing For The Tribe...

My people.
Your people.
Our people.

Varied like daily sunsets.

Changing rules and lies and fears that fade like dust.

It blows down the hill at sunset just before the stars howl.

It was a child's eyes that always saw them moving,
Fleet across the skies like night birds aglow in Heaven,
Satellites are like dreams come true in a way.

If you vanish into the New Mexico desert,
You'll see more Heaven than a lonely campfire could possibly create.

It's in the dark of night that you see the most distant lights.

It has to be dark or you're blind.

Don't stare at the campfire - keep your night vision clear,
Until you're able to see ghosts and whisper to our ancestors.

Stand upon the high rock naked of all but cotton.

Feel what we've been missing, listen to the wind on the rocks -
Maybe you'll hear the treasure of raindrops melting against your skin.

It's the music of falling rain and desert wind,
The merger of camp fire and starlight,
The howl of lonely stars in the sky.

Maybe it's so dark even lies glow an evil red.

It's time to start dancing a prayer of hope and wisdom - maybe deliverance.

Start dancing for the tribe.

AquarianM

By: Daniel A. Stafford
© 08/03/2005

Saturday, August 12, 2017

Quick Reply…

Post by AquarianM on Jan 28, 2009 at 3:14am

Quick Reply…

I'm looking around and seeing no modern day Jesus,
Just men with or without hearts,
Women their equal.

People still thinking they are above and outside the bonds of community,
Because they think they can play the system,
And those who see the necessity but can't find the object.

It's a world in whirling transition out there,
And hip waders will only get you so far,
Especially on TV or in print.

Walking around the edges stinks,
And being at the center is drowning in the dream-turned-nightmare.

It's time for another time,
Another paradigm,
And you just made me write a poem,
Without even thinking deep,
SuSanne.

In response to SuSanne’s “Too Deep To Wade”.
( thegoldenquill.yuku.com/topic/13911 )

AquarianM

By: Daniel A. Stafford
©01/28/2009

Friday, August 11, 2017

Masters Of Reality...

Post by AquarianM on Feb 17, 2009 at 11:23pm

Masters Of Reality...

In a tidal wave of surrealism gone wild,
The Masters of reality have imploded,
Proven beyond a shadow of a doubt their fallacies are waste,
Wanton lot they eat their own children,
Biting the hand that feeds them until the fingers fall off,
As they starve in their feeding frenzy,
Only cake is left,
Full of air and chemical nothingness.

Creatures with huge ears and pointed teeth,
Carrying gilded canes and dressed in,
Fool's gold foil suits,
Rents and tears in their façade scream open,
As the world sees the empires with no clothes,
Delusional and not even realizing their own suicide.

Wisps of false gold smoke drift lazily into the sky,
But the rest of us have already left the dream,
Only awaiting a new vision to replace it with.

Their sky may be falling and their ground fallow,
For us it's still the blue above and naked earth below,
We must breathe life back into it,
The sweat of our brows falling into the still-wounded seas,
As we clean up the dreck and wrack of their plutocratic eewtopia,
Becoming human,
Becoming light itself,
Shining brightly upon all the failing shadows.

AquarianM

By: Daniel A. Stafford
© 02/18/2009

Thursday, August 10, 2017

Cacophony...

Post by AquarianM on Feb 21, 2009 at 2:18am

Cacophony...

The heart is the strangest creation of all,
Filled with soft dreams and aspirations,
A cloud of caterpillars in chrysalis,
As delicate as hair-thin crystal or soap bubbles,
All shimmery and decked in rainbows,
Waiting to be shattered or popped in life’s cacophony,
Broken by the discordant sounds of conflict or loss.

Still – butterflies exist.

Do you suppose that’s why we live?

AquarianM

By: Daniel A. Stafford
© 02/21/2009

Consumption…

Post by AquarianM on Jun 16, 2009 at 1:25am

Consumption…

There was a time of head-in-the-clouds,
Full of thunder and rain,
Raging-hearted desperation,
Shadows and pain-chased dreams,
Filled with fires unrequited and out of control,
A gentle heart tried to reach out,
Burned I was callous and senseless,
Indifference on a cold plate.

I’ve wished I could say “I’m sorry” for years.

AquarianM

By: Daniel A. Stafford
© 06/16/2009

Wednesday, August 09, 2017

Compassionate Community...

Post by AquarianM on Dec 8, 2008 at 6:08pm

Compassionate Community...

As the layoffs and rumors fly,
Hopes and dreams are thin,
Resources even thinner,
Hand to helping hand,
Remember "united we stand,"
Because divided we fall.

The neighbor who lost their job - and internet,
Has no fuel to drive to search,
Give a few minutes on the web,
Job-hunting and State aid sites are great,
If you can find them,
Or will our poets fall off line one-by-one?

We have all these back yards of grass we have to water,
When out-of-work neighbors can pull weeds in all that garden space,
As grocery stores are harder to visit,
Canning parties next fall sound delicious,
When compared to shoe leather boiled in grief sauce.

A neighborhood Captain maybe,
Or better a Yahoo list to go along with Craig's,
Sharing time and resources in exchange for food,
Village projects for solar heaters and hot water,
First to those who need utility assistance,
Then for the rest of us who learn "waste not - want not" first hand.

The time has come my friends,
To know your neighbors,
Trade a little help for a bit of work 'round the house,
Supporting those still working,
So they can support those unemployed,
Grease the local wheels first,
Keep the tall from falling too fast and hard.

It's all of us in the end - salvation from on high may be slow.

AquarianM

By: Daniel A. Stafford
Who Cares About Copyright On This - 12/08/2008

Tuesday, August 08, 2017

Broken...

Post by AquarianM on Feb 24, 2009 at 3:12pm

Broken...

In three places,
My ankle that is,
Beat up by a skinny little snow shovel,
In collusion with cold-hearted driveway ice.

The x-rays are in,
The surgery's planned,
And I'm not moving much,
I'm laying on the lam.

AquarianM

By: Daniel A. Stafford
(C) 02/23/2009

Yep, broke my ankle but good slipping on ice yesterday while snow shoveling. It'll be a week before surgery, then 6-8 weeks before I can put weight on it at all. After that, likely eight months before I can go back to Karate.

Monday, August 07, 2017

Poetry Is...

Post by AquarianM on Apr 10, 2009 at 5:52am

Poetry Is...

I loved all the quotes,
Soaked in the ink-blood of bygone days,
A token and a shield whispering,
In the night the breezes give voice,
Starshine and moonbeams now concrete.

Poetry cleans the heart,
Entombs memories in shining glass,
Leaves you with wanting and wishing,
Swirls your mind in an endless sea.

Seas are ever-changing,
Yet all are water.

AquarianM

By: Daniel A. Stafford
(C) 04/10/2009 (National Poetry Month)

Sunday, August 06, 2017

Black Ice...

Post by AquarianM on Jan 19, 2009 at 10:35pm

Black Ice...

In the frozen chill that is the world right now,
In the dark of silent Winter night,
Smooth riding down the highway of life,
Suddenly you’re fish-tailing wildly,
Heart beating frantic,
Trying to simply recover without getting ditched.

The temperature has dropped precipitously,
The world buried in glistening white,
Tiny flakes swirl about the air like flying diamonds,
A fairy-tale view to a seeming static world,
Hush-muffled and quiet and waiting,
It looks like damp pavement,
The only clue you’ll get.

Watch the road carefully,
Watch and be ready at an instant’s notice,
Black ice changes everything,
Faster than an eye-blink.

AquarianM

By: Daniel A. Stafford
© 01/15/2009

Author's Comments:
We had a wild ride on the way home from the family Christmas dinner this past December 27th. Fish-tailing an 1/8th mile down the white line on I-88 near Dekalb, IL at 12:00 a.m.

Saturday, August 05, 2017

Isla De Los Suenos Malos... (Island Of Bad dreams)

Post by AquarianM on May 28, 2009 at 5:00am

Isla De Los Suenos Malos... (Island Of Bad dreams)

Life on an island,
Late afternoon sun,
Dinner at a sidewalk cafe,
Latin dancing in the streets,
Mission architecture everywhere,
Colorful and beautiful,
A movie crew filming down the street.

High-wire dancing ladies,
Cameras up high on booms,
Rooflines only pictured,
"Psst - why only the roofs?"

"A movie on Global warming, they'll blue-screen the water."
"Won't that be a thousand years from now, that deep?"
"No, a hundred at most, if it keeps going like this."

Wandering home darkness falls,
A six-story apartment house with balconies,
Wide open walls at the ground level,
Looking West waves are coming chest high,
No winds only light warm breezes,
Waves right into the house and rising,
Soaked and shivering climbing stairs,
Fourth floor finally high enough,
Fitful sleep All manage.

Morning comes,
Waves lowered down to first floor now,
Far above the beach now sunken,
No storm - rising water,
Wading to where the beach should be,
Community trying to pile sand to block waves,
Struggling as water washes all away.

Back to the house,
Movie dancers in the air in crystal skirts in the distance,
Giant squid reaching into the house searching prey,
Dodge and walk upland to the air strip.

Small plane very high,
The Earth's curve below,
The land on the map shrunken and sinking in reality below,
Everywhere.

Alarm clock rings.

AquarianM

By: Daniel A. Stafford
© 05/27/2009

Author's note: My dream last night.

Friday, August 04, 2017

Vortices…

Vortices…

Great spinning energy,
Red flame flecks like spinning burning leaves,
Bits of paper in an orange-lit cyclone of mind,
Special places where the fire is a healing burn,
Cracking open the shells of rebirth,
What is a disaster for the old is an usher,
So get ready to dance at the center,
Spinning,
Glowing,
Burning,
Whirling light in the darkness,
Who will be be left standing?

AquarianM

By: Daniel A. Stafford
(C) 11/18/2016

Author’s note:
Every once in awhile I get flashes of insight, and they can be just subconscious imagery. I had a flash of this today. Like the place I was in was at the center of the fires of change, protected, just the place for an audience to ride it out.

The Art Of The Very Small...

Post by AquarianM on Aug 2, 2008 at 7:35pm

The Art Of The Very Small...

Contraction and redaction,
Rome burning its money,
We're all dancing the fiddlers' tune,
Soft-shoe on the stained red carpet,
Roll it up into a bag.

Staycation nation,
The wheels stopped turning,
So the world doesn't - we need a better way,
It's the little things Silly,
Sunlight on hair and a cheap harmonica,
Sunshine in your own back yard.

The proud and the mighty,
Dancing a skull-bones fantasy,
Raving Revengers on the prowl,
Buried in video games and movies,
Burning and shooting and exploding.

The big tickets are over,
The dance is all that's left,
Piper plays and who can pay?

It's the art of being satisfied with the very small -
Mental survival.

AquarianM

By: Daniel A. Stafford
© 08/02/2008

Thursday, August 03, 2017

Fun House Mirrors…

Fun House Mirrors…

I watch the twists and turns of light,
Like a Fresnel lens of insanity,
A beacon of changing tune,
A hurricane-driven weathervane,
An egoic Super Moon of willful ignorance.

Day-by-day we must wonder and fret,
Twisted upon an impaling spike,
Awaiting a hail of stones,
Yet hoping for the kindness of a shovel and bath towels,
Receiving a schizophrenic cyclone.

We’ve eaten more trail dust and grime than an ancient cowboy,
Run over by our own cattle,
No real awareness of the deed,
Oblivious to the utterly warped light,
Of these fun house mirrors in every room we inhabit.

E. R. Murrow is spinning hard enough to burst into flames,
Mirroring our sad excuse for truths and portents.

AquarianM

By: Daniel A. Stafford
(C) 11/16/2016

Better Ways…

Better Ways…
I hear a ticking drumbeat that calls me in the night,
To an other-world,
A place of soft blue light.

All the world places shallow dreams there,
Jokes and screaming and the great salty mind of Humanity,
Raw and yet guarded,
A cesspool full of kittens,
Dreams of the stars spun around dreams of Armageddon.

Then there is this soft place,
An old green garden,
A place where dreams are pinned to the walls,
And our ghosts speak plainly to us,
Everything they ever said at our fingertips.

If I am so driven to pour pieces of my soul into the aether,
I feel that this is a better way.

AquarianM

By: Daniel A. Stafford
(C) 10/06/2016

—
Compassion is the greatest sign of Humanity.

Climbing The Tree…

Post by AquarianM on Aug 15, 2008 at 3:46am

Climbing The Tree…

Drumbeats like gumdrops on my mind,
Ripples on the pool I throw my troubles into,
Prayers of guidance and protection wash my mind,
Lush green and cool in the forest where the cave lies,
Deep inside,
The roots permeate All,
Tree of life,
Up or down I climb,
Another world of symbols,
Like wisps of candle light,
August is half-by,
I am opened tonight.

AquarianM

By: Daniel A. Stafford
© 08/15/2008

Wednesday, August 02, 2017

The Universe According To Space Cowboy…

The Universe According To Space Cowboy…

Some people called him Ray Gunslinger,

And he was kind of cool with that.

He wore a white hat, and steam punk shades,
Carried a weapon that crossed a sonic screwdriver with a badly used lightsaber,
Scared the crap out of everyone he met out there in the wide cosmos.

Space Cowboy also carried a six charge ray gun on his hip,
Modeled after an old Earth Colt revolver and holstered in antique leather.

He was faster than light beamed at a black hole with either,
So don’t mess with the kid.

A guy in a Tardis picked him up out of his back yard,
One crazy Summer day when Ray was ten.

He had some crazy adventures,
Learned all about galaxy-conquering deathbots and how to un-bolt them,
Then escaped the Time Lord of gibbery goodness in a crazy Tardis junkyard.

Ray was a mechanical man,
Even though he was made of flesh and bone.

He cobbled and he cribbed,
Tinkered and jiggered,
And danced off into the galaxy rise,
Proud owner of a fully-functional but butt-ugly time and space displacer,
Which looked for all the universe like a flying garage.

He was great about fixing stuff,
Be it evil or old junk,
But he was better at telling a story.

His yarn didn’t come off a spindle,
No siree, Earthlings,
Space Cowboy’s yarn came from his lips,
But it was so fantastic,
It was hard to figure he could’ve made it up.

If there was an evil critter out among the stars,
Ray would just as soon talk ’em into the Ever-After as shoot a blaster at their behind.

His only regret?

That cobbled-up replicator was only good for beach towels,
Beans and Starbucks coffee.

The cool part?
His go-lever in the Tardis made a sound like “yippee kiyay!” every time he took off.

AquarianM

By: Daniel A. Stafford
(C) 07/14/2016

A Lot Of Candle Light…

Post by AquarianM on Aug 16, 2008 at 3:54am

A Lot Of Candle Light…

It’s August 16th again,
The candles are lit again,
In parade.

The songs we sing are sung again,
For the losses of summer,
Things dear never to be forgotten,
Neither humor nor heartache.

Memphis is glowing tonight.

AquarianM

By: Daniel A. Stafford
© 08/16/2008

In Memory of Elvis Aaron Presley,
01/08/1935-08/16/1977

Tuesday, August 01, 2017

In Between Skins...

Post by AquarianM on Aug 22, 2008 at 9:38pm

In Between Skins...

The drum beats softly,
Heartbeat across lands and continents,
Frequencies of light invisible,
No colors left.

One world - one tribe - one family,
Members bellicose and benign a common thread.

Dance for the world,
Move for life,
Seeing tree leaves and wind and rain,
A web of life interconnected.

Spirit lies between skins,
Breathing the same air and water,
Every soul and piece of creation,
Recycled from endless time.

There is no here and there,
Only everywhere,
Lines in the sand are wind-blown nothingness,
Figment of a moment ephemeral.

Neither the sun nor moon care for sight,
Yet light is given freely,
Stars are had by all,
None is the wiser.

The arts of division equal to a prison,
Something is changing the equation,
Finally we breathe freely,
Regardless of fear or word one world.

Every disillusion must pass - it's clearly time.

AquarianM

By: Daniel A. Stafford
© 08/22/2008