Poetry

    A portion of my writing is poetry, as poetry was the first thing I began writing, even befor3 creative writing courses in college. A very young man at that time, with very progressive social feelings for the time. The rebel thingy, wearing the freak flag of shoulder length hair and audacious bell bottoms. I as affected by the social issues of not only our time but of my parents and grandparents time. Not that I have lost those insights and feelings.

    When I wrote poetry back in that time the poems were about how I felt about the things historical and current that were socially destructive. Twenty years later when I was traveling and living in Mexico with my future wife, the collections of poetry were about what I was seeing, and feeling in a foreign land. In the late portion of my life the words I put to paper now are learned insights of such things. The human condition unfolding. Over and over. 

Message to a Son ~ First Lesson 

While I walked on the beach in Mazatlán

I saw the places where your

footprints would be were

you there, your caste shadow

a twin star to my own and

when I peer beyond

your pained original face, I

see back in time, to places

visited in youth, where life

was larger than I, and

there was little defense

or refrain

I've walked this beach a hundred times

a hundred, and was there watching

as you came forth into the world

pulling in your first sweet smell

of air, and still you taste

this same breath of life, but

without the awe of adolescence

for now you are a man, who

has yet to walk the beach

alone, to the place where

all one carries is empty hands

and humility

where time is the movement of a breeze

and the song of the surf

and your bread is the hammer

on the anvil, where the spirit

is forged, by the ten thousand

steps along the sand, and

courage is staying your course

true and correct, leaving behind

the petty and the shallow dreams

and illusions, for

it is a predatory place we live, as

men live in fear of their own

machinations, and willingly grab

a hunk of iron to dominate

and control the fearing souls

but,

do not weep for the weak

spending your time in pity

wasted, but work the forge again

and again, step by

step, elongating the molten form

pulling it over itself, then

hammering it back

into one

thus repeated the fifty times

and the beach will offer gifts

which you should share

in the spirit of holding nothing

while touching everything of life, for

when you meet an evil on the shore

of brutes who would do you harm

holding the length of iron

in one hand, and hatred

in the other

you will deftly reach within

yourself, and grasp the forged blade

of the warrior, for

with contented heart

and practiced hand

you will harvest them

to the shame of their ancestors