STARVING ACTIVIST?

Go to YouTube Trailer

BLOGGING FOR DOLLARS

     Over the past few years, I have created an online suite of my music, nonfiction articles, fiction, poetry and illustrations, and I have invited everyone to enjoy it for free. Now, unfortunately, I am too sick to work regularly due to a chronic illness, and I no longer have a stable income. On top of that, my wife of thirty years recently left me to rekindle a teenage romance, a turn of events that remains a shock.

     Instead of crawling into a black hole, I have decided to be proactive about my survival.

     I have established an account with Vimeo On Demand to sell video books containing my music, writing, and illustrations. So far, I have created over a dozen video books ranging from children’s stories, nonfiction articles, short stories, poetry, and a short novel. I plan to release a new video book every week, which I will feature on this site.

     This week, I am featuring a children’s book called Claire’s Musical Journey on this blog, and on a companion blog, for one time only, I am featuring a video book with vocal music that explains the reasons for the break up from my point of view, called 30 Years of Marriage in 14 Songs. I have provided a link to the trailer under the illustration at the top of the page and another link to Vimeo On Demand at the bottom of the page.

     I plan to sell each video book for $25.00, which I believe is a fair price since I have spent countless hours over many years working on the music, text, and illustrations. Some of you know that I have been an environmental activist for over thirty years as well as an artist in one way or another since I could pick up a pencil. It is obvious to most, I’m sure, that a person cannot be an activist, writer, composer, painter, photographer and blogger if he doesn’t have any money.

     I am not asking for charity. The video books that I have created are of the highest quality and I can say without boasting that they are unique. No one else to my knowledge has created works of art containing their own music, writing, and illustrations. They are worth checking out—and worth the price.

     Support the arts. Support involvement in the democratic process. Check out the video books ….Go to vimeo.

HAPPY VALENTINE'S DAY, 2017

Rivulet Eroding Old Road

FINDING NEWTS AT THE CREEK AGAIN

For Sylvia

The storms have knocked down many trees.

A spate of rain water digs a deeper chasm

In the old road. Fresh grass flourishes

In the ancient trails, the first fiddleneck

Unfurling near house pits. A newt plods

By a mortar brimming with rain water

And plops into the swollen creek,

The pounding stone under a fallen oak.

Newt next to Mortar in Pounding Stone

Suddenly I see a whole tribe of newts

In the shallows, some of them looking up

At me.  They seem to shout: We are back—

The world is fresh again. You are free

Of history. Whatever ill you have done

Out of fear or in the name of love

Is utterly forgotten. Go, cleanse

Yourself every moment in the world.

HOW MANY HAVE SEEN YOU

Lupine and Poppies

HOW MANY HAVE SEEN YOU

for Sylvia

How many buildings have seen you

the way I've seen you? Do palaces view

your golden crown? Do churches

behold the glittering diamond

above your head? Do skyscrapers

know your ladder to the eternal? Have

observatories observed your sun? Do

studios capture the rainbow flowers

Poppies

of your aura, the soft pink

of your heart? Do stores order

your golden cups and plates

or your pure white tablecloths?

Do doctors' offices examine

your golden caduceus or the light

of your sword? Have any

work spaces ever noticed

your golden, equal-armed cross

or the golden threads of your voice?

Have any, any at all, glimpsed

your eye that somehow sees me?

THE MAGIC WINDOW

Fairy Lanterns, Chinese Houses, Tarweed, Wally Baskets (Ithuriel's Spears)

THE MAGIC WINDOW

For Sylvia

We've spent thirty years together gazing

through our windows. Before it's too late, I

want us to peek into a deep pool bordered

by fairy lanterns, walley baskets, larkspur,

and Chinese houses, where a snake glides,

eyes above water, and frogs, face-down, cling

to stone, where orioles and tanagers flash

through branches, where a deer peers at us

from behind ferns and a wildcat crouches

in grass near an outcropping of rock. Perhaps

a golden palace looms on some far-off cliff,

but the treasure we want abides in this window:

Path 12

a golden, equal-armed cross; golden cups

and plates on a brilliant, white tablecloth;

an invisible sun rising through a lemniscate;

a glittering diamond rooted in the depths.

This window remains too deep to fathom.

In some windows we have witnessed strife

and sickness, tawdriness and horror, reflections

and extinctions, yet in this pool, our souls,

with birds and massive trees and rocks, rise

into exaltations of the sun. If some day

I am gone, seemingly nowhere to be found,

remember, I will be there, waiting for you.

TREASURES IN THE TREE

Ithuriel's Spears, Fiesta Flowers, Fiddleneck

VISIONS OF TREASURE

The day had come to say goodbye,

the rooms gathering their endings,

eyelids closed near worn-out paths,

my body a discordant, ravaged hive.

When I closed my eyes, buildings

emptied themselves of me, decades

of webs cleared in a moment. Free,

I found a path near a looming tree.

Leaving my knife on the shore, I

stepped on slippery, unstable stones

and plunged into a river. Pulled toward

its strongest current, I knew no lifeguard

nor doctor could save me, so I drifted,

still as a Buddha, free of thought, toward

slow currents in the crust of oblivion,

toward threads of the soil, tangled

Fiesta Flowers, Chinese Purple Houses

in light, in a flowing tapestry

of petals and tongues and wings,

my body tumbling and rising

to a simple mantra of creation:

Let go, let go, only know the sun—

In the void a great tree sighing

that I was climbing, like a child,

away from toil and destinations,

a tree with watery roots and branches

in a sky of water, a sea with stampeding

herds and creatures glowing in blackness,

each following their own paths.

Immobile, in a sunken bank

without currency, I could see

treasures that no one else

could see, a golden pentacle,

an equal-armed cross, a lemniscate,

a golden plate and chalice on a pure,

white tablecloth. In a deeper cavern,

I glimpsed the sun at midnight. 

Wind Poppies

In the deepest recesses, I drained

all darkness in myself away

and peered into—then out of—

a diamond, the jewel in the lotus.

I wanted to show all eternal children

these wonders that cannot be touched,

but I was anchored, alone in the sea.

In the last vision, far below mouths

opening and closing on the flowing

surface of the water, I could see

threads everywhere dissolving.

Not knowing if I was disintegrating

or approaching unity in a blazing light

of negative existence, I opened

my eyes, still breathing,

my hands together, my legs stiff,

returning to an incurable illness

in a failing body, knowing light

in the earth, light in each cell, light

in the deepest roots of the mind.

THE FOUNDATION

Foundation of House near Kings River

THE FOUNDATION

For Sylvia

Some places have the significance of a dream

that surfaces again after many decades,

like the foundation of the house in the flood plain

of the Kings River. Oaks have grown where the floor

used to be, and brambles, on one side, have conquered

the concrete broken up by roots. When I was twelve, I chased

my brother through oaks and pines beyond a sandy beach

where our father was fishing and discovered

the foundation of the mansion next to the river. After I

inched like a tight-rope walker on the unbroken concrete

of the foundation, leaping across spaces where doors

had once stood, I stopped in front of broken, tilted chunks,

disappointed that I could go no further. My brother

dashed away, ditching me again, but I remained,

alone, confused and fascinated. Suddenly

I heard a male voice state that I would be back

Foundation Broken Up by Roots

in thirty-five years. I couldn't tell if the voice

was in my head or if it came from somewhere

nearby. I searched, but I couldn't see anyone.

The voice terrified me, but like so much in childhood,

I eventually forgot about it. Thirty-five years later,

I was driving on the narrow road along the Kings River

and happened to look down at the exact moment

when the foundation was visible through the trees

in the floodplain below; if I had looked down a second 

before or after, I would have missed it. I pulled the car over

and hiked down to the foundation, retracing my steps

along the low concrete wall. When I reached

the broken concrete, I waited to hear the voice

again. Why had I come back? Nothing. What

has survived the past thirty-five years

is my love for you and our children,

the oaks towering over the foundation,

the brambles still flowing

over the broken concrete.

HAPPY ANNIVERSARY, 2016

Wind Poppies, Chinese Houses

AFTER TWENTY-SEVEN YEARS

For Sylvia

Once I didn't know the blade of grass

is linked forever to the stars. I clung

to a story about crippling isolation

and misery. I have a new story

of light at the heart

of cells, light beyond the farthest

reaches of space. We

have stood together

every day in that light:

Because of you I know the light

at the heart of uncountable

atoms in a vast tapestry,

the two of us in our humble home

like atoms linked

to other atoms trillions

of light years away.