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Was it you, unknown hand
pulled me into the wreck of my life?
I leaned over the bridge
the air, black
blood in my veins like ice

your hand held me hard
its grip in the blackness tightened
strangely warm

rain braided down, down my hair

you groped for a vestige
inside a mountain
a barrow of sand heaped in my heart
to suffocate love's voice

rain eroded the sand,
exposing your footprints
in the hardpan mud

your grinning skull emerged
rain became blood
beating down on me hard and
with it your claw
your handsome impostor claw

my cross's fiber
juts skyward from rotten flesh
of these fragile
and shattered dreams

--Jo VonBargen 2011

"POWERFUL" "I fumble for keys as you fall on the ground and roll under the tires" YOUR THIN BONES Letters I Never Sent You - on Amazon http://www.amazon.com/dp/B005LKBR6A

White Blur

11/16/2011

See in your deepest, strangest
imaginings, how we blazed
like crimson sleds
over silent, powdered snow
in a headlong rush of
years, singular experiences a white
blur, moments nothing tactile,

insignificant after all

White blur. Uncountable
crystalline flakes lying in drifts
of undefiled connectedness, soil of our
imperfections covered and dark
beneath, downplayed by
the magnitude of infinity

Landscapes of stark,
savannas of white, our
tears and celebrations muffled
in the cruel, icy wind
of centuries

Mysteriously, love abides
undiminished in all that vastness,
each act building on the last,
a continuance of what was
our splendor mid the sanctuary of
flurries,

a radiance of
hearts across the eternal,
reflecting a brilliance outward,
upward, to warm the cold,
clear stars

--Jo VonBargen 2011

"Beautifully written!" Time capsule for the future. FROM THIS FAR TIME (The Human Saga) Fierce, taut #poetry! http://www.amazon.com/dp/B005KJLCLC

A Poet's Eyes

11/10/2011

Didn't Ulysses, eyes tired,
weary of wonders, weep
with absolute joy
upon seeing his Ithaca,
beautiful and green?

We have those eyes...
seeking...no...needing,
an endless, verdant
eternity, all dawns
and sunsets, humble
and immortal

But the eyes within,
white-tipped canes
negotiating the way
through the outrage of
our lives, provide instead
our truth, our humanity,
the poetry in our
daily living

When we see what
is laid on the fine paper
there, we weep with
wonder at our Ithaca, our
experiences weedy,
green and alive,
our gift to eternity's rolls
past the death of our eyes,
our bleached bones,
our ashes

--Jo VonBargen 2011

"Beautifully written!" Time capsule for the future. FROM THIS FAR TIME (The Human Saga) Fierce, taut poetry! http://www.amazon.com/dp/B005KJLCLC

Where Will I Bury The Gold

11/05/2011

During my long journey down
the creek without a paddle,
there was the inevitable
satyr, recognized by the miraculous
lope of his stride, his soaring
step that alternately bound
and divided, kicking up gravel from
beneath my body all moist
and conquered, and surely
all but I witnessed the darkly wavering
light spilled from his eyes as
he gazed into mine, or saw
the wiliness of his easy amazement
or the havoc of my feathers mangled
by a single clutch of his
faux-cherubic hand

He was a tender carnivore, that
faithless, alluring genie of the
briar patch, and didn't see that I was
a child, nor the wings gracing
my shoulders or the sign on my
brow, this bloody cross, chrism,
incantation, vow of damnation, disaster
and salvation!

As for me, I couldn't see then
whether he was weasel or wonder
but he got under my skin, so with whom will
I share that journey's discovery?

Where will I bury the gold I carry inside
me?...that bittersweet ember still
hissing within as strongly as
before leaving me,
he turned away and never
looked back

--Jo VonBargen 2011

"Beautifully written!" A time capsule for the future. FROM THIS FAR TIME (The Human Saga) Fierce, taut #poetry! http://www.amazon.com/dp/B005KJLCLC

Every Dead Soldier

11/03/2011

You have not fooled us, you hawks
sitting tall in our halls of proud Freedom

You have fouled Earth instead,
with waves of red blood on every far shore

We have seen how you plunder and
plump up your coffers
and how deeply they hate us
from without and within

We have seen our fair mothers with fragile
hearts broken, how every dead soldier
becomes a rifle with eyes

Watch how quickly for each of your crimes
a bullet is born that will one day
head straight for your hearts

We are long-burning wicks that have faith
in our dead who are not merely roots
neath your bloodstained stones
but shove fists through dirt and life rises!

Mothers shed mourning, forge tears
into metal for the long deserved strike
in the night

Broken eyes keep vigil, you
unfeeling vipers from the pit
of Hell

Our swords are at the ready, filled
with courage and fire
and our visions of dawn, you
quartered and hung

--Jo VonBargen 2011

"Beautifully written!" Time capsule for the future. FROM THIS FAR TIME (The Human Saga) Fierce, taut #poetry! http://www.amazon.com/dp/B005KJLCLC

Photo of the WWII Memorial by Jo's son, Ken Phillips

New Mexico Apples

11/01/2011

Even by the bushel, they
didn't last long, those sweet,
juicy apples from over
by Corrales, way, way down
North Rio Grande past
long haciendas, lushly
treed land

From sleepy roadside stands
they beckoned, Yellow
and Red Delicious, fresh from
the orchards, dirt cheap

Sundays, Sandia Crest
loomed blue over valley below,
the fast-spreading city and
ten thousand hazy
tomorrows

Turns hairpinned down
through aspen golds,
wide russet oaks,
and apple stands stood there
as well, with spring cold
cider, sparkling,
undeniably made
by the gods

Here, too, a hand-picked
bushel, polished with promise,
(top layer only), and
as paragons go,
an only occasional
worm

--Jo VonBargen 2011

"Beautifully written!" A time capsule for future generations. FROM THIS FAR TIME (The Human Saga) Fierce, taut poetry! http://www.amazon.com/dp/B005KJLCLC

Cool Water

11/01/2011

Perched above the river
on the overlook
of our farewell encounter
an underwater
brightness flows, distorting
the womanly curve
of hills, our faces

Climbing down
in front of the falls
we wade out
into cool water
and it wavers,
our agonized gestures
cutting away
then appearing,
disappearing,
in this medium that absorbs
every wake, closing over
our passage

We have wept the
last tears and
you have kissed me
goodbye; our once-love
and this rarified air
settling down, down
down, sealing
the sleep
of stones

--Jo VonBargen 2011"Beautifully written!" A time capsule for future generations. FROM THIS FAR TIME (The Human Saga) Fierce, taut poetry! http://www.amazon.com/dp/B005KJLCLC

The Awake Mind

10/29/2011

Nothing so far has worked.
Shall we go within, you and I?
It's an intriguing place, within.
Somewhere we rarely visit.

Let's look at this wonderful Earth
with new eyes, free of
the surly bonds of war
and polarization, ignoring man-made
boundaries, purely from within
the pulse of our unbounded selves
and be aware, really see,
the preciousness of all life,
the wonders and gifts
of rivers and land,
mountains and trees,
all forms of wildlife,
humanity...

with our inner sight,
we gently sense the Awake mind,
we see the life force,
the entire body of that life force
...resonating...glowing...
from this cradle called Earth,
with its wellspring of
infinite energy

we perceive thoughts of
our own individuality and see
that these are sparked
by the silent, pure Mind,
the life consciousness within

we rise, with joy, with freedom,
into this vast ocean of
boundless pure consciousness
which is fathomless,
silent, infinite

and in the depth of this pure
consciousness, with this
inner sight, we see that every
creature, every person, is
uniquely beautiful,
illuminated by the light of
this same Sun,
The One Conscious Mind,
of which we are all
a part

we sink more deeply into this
silent awareness and sense that
it is omnipresent, and we soar
on the wings of this Infinite
Mind, entirely free...
and we can see the whole
of creation emanating, resonating,
phasing from the light of
Pure Consciousness,
which manifests Earth, space,
air...and us

and as the heart of this great Mind
wakens within us, we sense
the unconditional love of the Divine,
and we see Earth, indeed ourselves,
as a palpable manifestation
of this eternal love

rising on wings of this Pure Mind
way, way above mountains
into the sky, we gaze back upon
this beautiful, blue planet
shining in a sea of
unbounded Being, and we see
that she is Awake, alive with
all the glorious possibilities of
the Universe

looking past Earth into stretches
of starry, galactic space, we
see that this perfect pulse of
the Unbounded Mind has
manifested the wonder
and fullness of a vast cosmos,
stretching forever without
end or beginning, and all of
this is alive and Awake
as well

and with this inner sight,
in the silence,
we begin to perceive that each
created thing is a perfect
astral light from which it becomes
solidified, resonating from
the finest, purest celestial to
the fully physical form of
differentiated life, and from
that astral intelligent life
comes the magnetic field,
electricity, subatomic particles,
atoms, molecules, matter,
space, our own beings

and within each created object
the perfect tone, sweetly
harmonic, resonating, each tone
pure, each tone unique, each thing
imbued with all tones, all thoughts,
all knowledge, and so even
a blade of grass is
a doorway to the Infinite
Being, the Unbounded Mind.

as we gaze upon her with
this inner sight, let us
decide that Earth be
made whole, her burden lifted,
so that we honor the potential
in each created being, each soul,
and determine that we
will all, to the last person, be
awakened, enlightened.

let there be joy once again!
the perfect light of peace and
knowledge!
where suffering lingers, let
our common humanity work
to provide healing and peace.

let us see, finally, that
the answers are not "out there"
or "up there"
but within our own inner
light, which is part and parcel
of the abundant Whole.

and all we have to do
is go inward and connect with
that perfect energy...
and each other...and
make it so

-- Jo VonBargen 2011

"Beautifully written!" A time capsule for future generations. FROM THIS FAR TIME (The Human Saga) Fierce, taut poetry! http://www.amazon.com/dp/B005KJLCLC

Whichever Body

10/28/2011

I think of you, Sarasvati, and imagine
steps to the temple where you
sit, and now I know a ray of sunlight
can also be flesh and blood
if here on my own steps thinking
of you, I feel eternity's face on mine and
your hand holding my pen

Opening, I yield to what
you knew was waiting to be
brought forth into living, breathing
form, yet I am barred from
knowing any god that knows that, or
can a god not be known?

I think not, except for that
spark in us that is a mere
cup of the ocean we call God, that is
beyond thinking, both all and nothing,
neither is or is not, outside
of time and space, wholly
transcendent

You must laugh at my
writhing around
to tap into that elusive divine
energy and grace but Lord knows it
will be be my quest til they throw
me on the pyre and you and all
the thunderbolts fate has tossed me
cannot stem what is loosed

I have assumed a body both
male and female; I have become Love
and Hate, Thanatos and Eros, I am You
the Past and You the Future, good
and evil, right and wrong, and
whichever body I assume today, through
that body I am served, World
without end.

In this short time, my muse,
have you told me
anything I was not ready to hear?
On surface, yes. But I threw myself
on your mercy and the appetite
for creating has returned, full
measure, affirmed, and I stand again
at the portal of
~everything~

--Jo VonBargen 2011

"Beautifully written!" A time capsule for future generations. FROM THIS FAR TIME (The Human Saga) Fierce, taut poetry! http://www.amazon.com/dp/B005KJLCLC