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

Let us look at this wonderful Earth
away from the bonds of war,
outside the restrictions of
polarization, far from man-made
boundaries, purely from within
the pulse of our unbounded selves
and be aware, really SEE,
the preciousness of life, of
its sanctity:
the sacred air
the sacred mountain
the sacred tree
the sacred land
its sacred people
our own sacred bodies

With our "inner" sight,
we gently sense the Awake mind,
we see the life force,
the entire body of that force
...resonating...glowing...
this pulsing, vital orb of Earth,
in its 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 depths of this pure
consciousness, with this
"inner" sight, we see that every
being, every person, is
uniquely beautiful,
is illuminated by the light of
this same "Sun",
The One Conscious Mind,
of which we are all
a part

We push 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 infinite love of the Divine,
and see Earth as a manifestation
of that 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 an ocean of
unbounded Being, and we see
that she is Awake, and
a symbol of Love, and we are
filled with that Love as
we look upon our Mother,
our home and our refuge

Looking past Her into stretches
of infinite, 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, too, is alive and Awake

And with this "inner" sight,
we begin to perceive that each
created thing is a perfect
astral light from which it becomes
solidified, resonating from
the finest, purest
celestial element to
the full form of
differentiated life, and from
that astral intelligent life
comes the magnetic field,
electricity, subatomic particles,
atoms, molecules, matter,
space, home

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, so that even
a blade of grass is
a doorway to the Infinite
Being, the Unbounded Mind

Let us, as we gaze upon her with
this "inner" sight, ask that

Earth Mother be
healed, her burden lifted. Let us
see the potential in each being,
and ask that we all be
awakened, enlightened. Let
there be joy once again, and
the light of peace and
knowledge, and where there is
suffering, let our Unbounded Mind
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 it really is so simple that
all we have to do
is go inward and connect with
that perfect Energy...
and ASK

--Two Bit Bard 2013
 
 
(First published November 2011)

This piece is very personal, inspired by the wonderful poet, Maya Angelou, after I first read her poem, "Still I Rise".

In the prison of my youth
there was no telling dawn from night...
crows flew over 
the watchtower, my 
only wings
 
comfort? a thread of cold air,
guard's eye at 
the peephole my only
companion

the sentence unending, no 
reasons given

pricking fingers with stones
to simply feel alive,
I sniffed smoke from the burning pyre 
and fused with a soaring moth 
diving to its flame

I stood

unrepentant

at daybreak, shimmering 
silks of light teased my walls
and I rose, only to fall back 
to blackness

there, a second was a century,
a long wait for the dream of 
freedom to be over

what got me to this place?
mere words

words swept with calm rage
words straight in their coil
words old in young age

they said my words would
make heaven roil, plunging
us all straight to
Hell


they would have shot me
at dawn
but my muse bound
their intent in
primordial ooze

their twisted lies, their
bitter eyes, bore me
terror and fear, the gloom
of a slave

but I stood

unrepentant

break her spirit, they said, 
just as Spirit carried me

to sanctuary among
the holy stars

I climbed til the blackness
fell away like a scab
and I reached my spirit elders
on the old sky road

taking my pen in hand
they blessed it, 
kissed my raw wounds,
emboldening me

risen from despair and

healed, I committed 
new lines to trust, as I do now:

My own holy words,

lasting words,
to baptize in slobber,
offer up like a lamb

--Jo VonBargen 2013

Jo is the author of FROM THIS FAR TIME (The Human Saga) Fierce, taut writing! "Beautifully written!" An epic time capsule for future generations!


 
 

How tomorrow will come,
filled with joy or heavy sorrow,
no one knows

My path may take me
where no foot has trod,
to babbling streams I've loved
or perhaps into that last
dark valley, all family
and friends unremembered

I may continue, aware,
or lose memory of the sun,
this knowing and poetry
done

Though your body is gone,
my clever, beloved Father,
your mind's vigor lives on...
in these words we pen,
all echoes of you...purposeful,
humming bees

The you I could finally hear
in those later years, when we'd
become better friends
and I could feel the love we shared
in the deep bond we forged,
ideas we exchanged

I learned a lot from you, Dad,
and a lot about me, in those
days-long talks we had.
The old bumpy road fades as I
make a new trail, your resonant
words lighting the way

However long my own journey,
I will always, always hear
the sound of your voice

And the day will come
when these humble words,
fed by inherited spirit,
will, to some questing soul,
be welcomed as
seasoned and wise

--Jo VonBargen 2012

 
 
_
when I dreamed down
from the sparkling sky
over palms and
bright gateways
a fingernail at my
throat warned I was about
to be rapt away

I saw, mile after mile,
baskets of
pumice and jasper in
sand, even mud
from the Maker's
clay, and wondered
if this was some new dawn
of an icy museum
stuffed with mummies
and scarabs

I am daughter
of the sun and fly bold -
I soar on pollen
and silk - but felt
a hard sawing of fangs
on my quivering
heart, and in the upward
flaring spark, was
made new, burnt
to ashes

--Jo VonBargen 2012


 
 
_
Kisses, my lovely child,
for loving me in spite
of my limitations,
my absence,
my preoccupation,
my lack

We have adored
one another from afar,
inwardly, in silence,
in secret, when really
it should have been
otherwise, like my
childhood when we were all
one giant teeming mass
of humanity who could never
seem to escape each
other on holidays

Who knows why or how
it came to be the way it is
in spite of our wishing
and wanting; I have never
loved you any less
or let a day go by
without thinking of you

Perhaps this is the ideal;
you are perfect in my
opinion of you, not
ridden with faults
gleaned from too much
togetherness,
though I often feel
I don't know you the way
my heart wishes
to know you,
living so far apart
as we do

That our visits are
rare is a family imperfection
and my lifelong regret,
and I am humbled that
you hold me in high
esteem in spite of it

You are so loved...
beyond words

-- Jo VonBargen 2011


Happy Birthday, my lovely daughter, Charity Noelle!!


 
 
_
CAROLING IN THE COLD

Ah, the evening tastes
like Christmas...wonder
and awe settling on the face
like dew

Through shadowy trees
a dying fleck of sunlight winks
and cold air tweaks
the cheeks

Shivering, puffs of breath
surround, coats and muffs
pulled tight, feet numb
in the powdery snow

Yes! Caroling in the cold,
sniffing woodsmoke on
the drift while joys to the world
spill heartily into the night

~~~

May that singular joy be yours
this beautiful holiday season...


Peace and love to all of you
and safe journeys always....Jo


--Jo VonBargen 2011


 

Poetbird

12/06/2011

0 Comments

 
_
I'm disgusted with my
hands, my non-earning
poverty level hands
 
When at dinner
they ask, "How
did your work go today?" I'll
be thinking, "Oh, I just
pissed into the wind.
How was yours?"

When people ask what
I do, "What is it
you do?"
I should say "I'm
a poetbird. Being a damned
bird is my job.
Superbird."

If there's a
window I'll fly
into it. If there's a
head I'll crap
on it.

I'll zoom in and clip close
to the pathetic forest of human
heads and whisper aeronautic
secrets

Yeah, I'm on a whole different
planet from these people, I'll
be thinking.

They can't classify me, I'm
an airborne fright!

I'll terrorize cats and old men in
ugly pants

At parties I'll say
I'm a poetbird and see
how men react.
"What do you do?" they'll ask.
"Nothing worth a red cent" I'll say
"and it's really, really
hard because
I'm so damned
good at it"

It's a real job, having no
poet job. Even a poet's dog
has a job, for god's sake,
licking faces and
his balls, whacking his
tail twice and
running off
in the damned yellow
dust

--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

 
 
_
all the usual stuff at a fair,
blue ribbon jars of everything good
tho' slightly less good with odor
of cows and their dung
pervading

a longhouse of the latest in
sleek, new cars, where
Daddy got the idea for
a bright red Plymouth station
wagon that could hold six
kids and a dog

the massive sow in repose
on a smelly bed of
straw, ten precious piglets
jostling, elbowing,
to reach the best
teat

best show of the day
was after we left, Dad
stopping at Furr's for a quick
load of groceries to fill
a pantry quick-emptied by
that many young'uns

In the parking lot,
Glen Campbell and his
Sandia Mountain Boys singing
down love from high on
the back of a long-bed
trailer, that boy sure
was fine

--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

 
 


In the rose garden,
protecting the faucets
from freezing, I spy
in the beam
of the flashlight a 
skittering trail  
`;`;`;`;`;

of mole paws

Garden tools ((glisten)) with
cold, cautious beads

Blazing among the barren canes 
are puffed, hard hips, 
swollen red with promise of 
Spring and new roses

Rapt, I listen, holding my
breath as kindred souls {fuse} with
mine in the dark

The idea of connection, of
some vast oneness, 
  descends 

♪ ♫ ♬ music surrounds ♪ ♫ ♬

poets *whisper* cherubic odes,
writers expound

puffs of lone heart songs
~ wafting ~ 

beckoning me to
share
begging me to hear

yearning only to give and receive 
small comforts

and I feel
the warm mist of Spirit 
~ hovering ~

 blanketing me, us, 
the roses

--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

 
 

no more shade from the skeletal
red buds in the yard, no tree frogs,
no trills of the poor
short-lived cicada

no longer the Spring of your
life, no longer time for 
the heat-seeking satyrs who 
devour up the lonely grasping 
hard at some breath of heaven

you, deep-rooted, yet consumed
by the sun, are fragile, lost...
you, to whom zenith, nadir,
and zodiac are all one big blur,
have changed...turned with the
leaves

eventually all faun gods save one
returned to their 
unbounded heaven that transmutes
all, but your breath
still catches, fastening onto
those youthful images and words

the war was inside you, only
child's play at first, but from then 
on, with the faun you chose, 
the going was harder; now your 
friends are all tired of your tears
and who more than you hates whining

you have made your peace, but
what lies beyond the horizon
lures you still, and you will 
eventually hurl yourself up, up
out of the mire at the glimpse 
of a whole, orange moon rising,
beckoning tide 
and love like the Sirens
to lap, lap away at
your heart

--Jo VonBargen 2011


"POWERFUL" "I cannot escape the tearing crash, scrape and rustle of your blind gropings & janglings" YOUR THIN BONES: Letters I Never Sent You http://www.amazon.com/dp/B005LKBR6A