Poems




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            Casualties of the Appetites

            Regard this hodge-podge gathering of souls,
            this collection of square pegs that didn’t quite fit
            in the race of ego – perhaps to their credit?
            They’ve been bent to their knees
            and have joined together only due to their failure
            to corral some wild horses of their natures, 
            wanting more, and more, and more!
            They wanted more . . . of something . . .

            Drinking from the well of shared weakness,
            they’ve to their surprise found strength together –
            strength to tame those horses, 
            knowing the horses are still bigger than they are
            and not to be ridden.
            Having a weakness, they’ve learned they’re not weak.
            They’ve been granted vision to imagine the possible 
            and found it within their reach,
            finding even what they didn't know they wanted.

            In turn they quietly shine the light their stories hold
            into the darkness they came from, a beacon to 
            light the way for other casualties of the appetites
            to find the well where they’ve quenched their thirst.

            B N




            Catching the Show

            I dreamed I was flying
            High up above my eyes could clearly see
            The Statue of Liberty
            Sailing away to sea             Paul Simon, “American Tune”


            As the day is dying
            under a dark blue-gray sky,
            a reddish-orange glow lights clouds on the horizon 
            from the sun that has already 
            slipped below the curve of the Earth.
            I look at a disappearing contrail
            swiped across the sky like a scar 
            from a jet long gone.

            The New Mexico sky puts on a show 
            like this more nights than not.
            You have to catch the moment 
            as the light fades quickly
            into the coming night. 

            Like that contrail 
            our less perfect union 
            has been scarred and wounded,
            dying into a darkness
            that hides so much in the shadows.

            Liberty’s symbol is drifting out to sea,
            perhaps toward the country it came from.
            It remains to be seen if that nation
            or any other can carry the torch it holds.
            Don’t blink – make sure you catch the show
            before it’s gone.

            BN



            Everything Is Practice

            Someone told me once
            Just think of it as practice,                 
            and suddenly the atmospheric pressure dropped.
            I  feared if I didn’t do something right 
            it stamped Failure on my forehead
            and everyone would know.

            I knew practice improves performance, 
            but this part of my brain didn’t know
            what that part of my brain knew.
            I didn’t know it for me 
                 until I saw in his eyes and heard in his voice 
            that he didn’t see an F on my forehead.
            Like an old rock and roll song says –
            I’m gonna do it wrong till I do it right.*
            Failure is what we do until we succeed.

            So everything in life is just practice?
            Practice for what? 
            For the rest of my life, I suppose. 
            And There is no there there to get to,**
                      no place to reach where I’m finished. 
            I’m just a work in progress that’s never complete.
            Life is just one damn thing and then the next,
            but it doesn’t mean it’s not an adventure.
            Like the ash tree out my window –
            it just keeps making new branches.

            BN


​          Monkey – There Is Here

                There is no there there. Gertrude Stein

        For years I carried a monkey on my back,
        chattering in my ear, holding up to me 
        my failures and shortcomings, 
        clothing me with a shirt of inadequacy
              that I wore as if it belonged to me.

        It was hard to teach myself
        that the chatter was only what I learned
        in life’s twisted school, which I could unlearn
            if I took a stand and held my ground. 
                      Consider the source of that opinion.

        Now I know there’s no cosmic judge waiting for 
        my arrival in his court for conviction and sentencing,
        and no happiness waiting for the achievement 
                of something called “good enough.”
                        Good enough for whom? Good enough for what? 

        Life is a daily process of weeding out 
        the truth from the lie.
              I’m continually becoming the man 
                    who will every day be a bit different 
        than the man he was the day before
        but never finished because there’s 
        no end of the road, 
                    no There to get to.
        There  
            is simply right here. 
        So I’m already there,  
                  right here, right now.

        BN