I send these tiny scraps of postmarked
stamp licked paper to family and friends;
sometimes they bear pictures of places
or humor, sometimes bearing the stain of
yellowed and aged paper holding emptiness.
On the back the small space allows for
minute bits of information, blips of communication;
an address.
Connections amount to no better than a pat on the shoulders, a
quick embrace, sometimes a slap on the head.
These minutias are bits of me for any that
care to read the outlines of my life and to
connect over the miles of space and tired trees and
even though you might not be able to decipher the scribble,
maybe a connection could happen-
a word, an image, even a laugh which would dive below
finger and eye, sinking beneath surfaces and we
might glance each other’s face.
“I wait for your
Response.”
Richard W Smith
February 21, 2011
Friday, February 25, 2011
Life Dyads
Deconstruction
Reconstruction
Shattered Glass
Mosaic
Meaningless
Meaningful
Faithless
Courageous
Journey
Oasis
Blind
Sighted
Deaf
Hear
Cling
Trust
Slip
Adhere
Hesitate
Abandon
Despair
Wonder
Falling Apart
Pulling Together
War
Wholeness
Rain
Parched
Wilt
Bloom
Ending
Beginning
Richard W Smith
February 24, 2010
Reconstruction
Shattered Glass
Mosaic
Meaningless
Meaningful
Faithless
Courageous
Journey
Oasis
Blind
Sighted
Deaf
Hear
Cling
Trust
Slip
Adhere
Hesitate
Abandon
Despair
Wonder
Falling Apart
Pulling Together
War
Wholeness
Rain
Parched
Wilt
Bloom
Ending
Beginning
Richard W Smith
February 24, 2010
Tuesday, February 15, 2011
I Live In An Insane Asylum!
No insult intended.
I live in an insane asylum!
consciousness, the wheels of my
intentionality, the beating heart
the images of imagination are all medicated
rationalized and socialized in a constant system of
existing that is appalling
sickening and untrue.
TV eyes me every evening
programs and advertisements
full of empty unintelligent humor
driving me hypnotically to purchase some item
I’m convinced I “need”
all along this false desire
is useless. This unneeded item will be
replaced by technology in a few months
and it will perform much better
and for more money (or less)
doing what I didn’t need it to do to begin with.
Communication
instantly; unintelligible, inarticulate, incomprehensible.
No faces and pulsing blood needed, machine-talk
replacement for mind-talk, heart-chatter, saccharin for sugar.
Noise, now called music, in every corner of my
life banging and blearing, vibrating my insides
covering over any perception of life. Noise from traffic and
trains, footsteps pounding city pavement at high
decibels causing deafness, alluring my total
attention from the tragic
unjust and invisible nations and peoples
throughout the planet, imprisoning them at places
far from sight, only a 60 second blurb on the news
then forever forgotten.
Speed, a former drug in the 70’s, now an
addiction again, no stopping production or performance.
An elderly lady riding the same train for 30
years, back and forth for two hours, each way-not
alive, not alive! Rush, time-clock shuffle the dance
of faceless mega-companies, multinational hybrids
poaching and feasting on the unknowing speedsters.
Speed a way to mindlessly jog through an
unthinking, nonresponsive, numbness substitute
life into a dead end meaninglessness and a yard
all our own called “alienation.”
And lest you
imagine this asylum is only American
I assure you the halls of this place
extend throughout this Planet
and into all countries. This insanity is
toppled regimes and violence
where we sacrifice
lives for power and greed
kill each other “to get ahead”
try to outdo each other
like Cain and Abel
eventually killing each other
and constantly switching roles throughout history.
There is no political solution;
democracy or socialism,
of course not totalitarianism.
For these systems
are driven by human hearts;
broken, alienated,
estranged humans that will never be full,
unwilling to be healed
this people continues to drive the political.
Reminds me of an old actor, George Sands,
hung himself, left a note “Good by world, I’m
bored with you.” Other notes might be left; “I’m
afraid there’s no hope.” “I’m tired of hitting my head
on a wall eight hours a day seven days a week.”
Or the young married couple when asked about children replied,
“Who would bring a child into this world?”
The insanity can only be made palpable to those rich enough
for the anesthesia: entertainment.
The great majority of the world’s
people cannot afford the drug
so they live their nightmare
from moment to moment
as characters in our movies.
The puddles remaining from this violent sea of insanity,
this hydrotherapy controlled by the status quo
sometimes puddles along the floor,
leaving possibilities in its aftermath
hopefully enough to nourish the rare
but not totally unseen
seeds of optimism.
Richard W Smith
February 15, 2011
I live in an insane asylum!
consciousness, the wheels of my
intentionality, the beating heart
the images of imagination are all medicated
rationalized and socialized in a constant system of
existing that is appalling
sickening and untrue.
TV eyes me every evening
programs and advertisements
full of empty unintelligent humor
driving me hypnotically to purchase some item
I’m convinced I “need”
all along this false desire
is useless. This unneeded item will be
replaced by technology in a few months
and it will perform much better
and for more money (or less)
doing what I didn’t need it to do to begin with.
Communication
instantly; unintelligible, inarticulate, incomprehensible.
No faces and pulsing blood needed, machine-talk
replacement for mind-talk, heart-chatter, saccharin for sugar.
Noise, now called music, in every corner of my
life banging and blearing, vibrating my insides
covering over any perception of life. Noise from traffic and
trains, footsteps pounding city pavement at high
decibels causing deafness, alluring my total
attention from the tragic
unjust and invisible nations and peoples
throughout the planet, imprisoning them at places
far from sight, only a 60 second blurb on the news
then forever forgotten.
Speed, a former drug in the 70’s, now an
addiction again, no stopping production or performance.
An elderly lady riding the same train for 30
years, back and forth for two hours, each way-not
alive, not alive! Rush, time-clock shuffle the dance
of faceless mega-companies, multinational hybrids
poaching and feasting on the unknowing speedsters.
Speed a way to mindlessly jog through an
unthinking, nonresponsive, numbness substitute
life into a dead end meaninglessness and a yard
all our own called “alienation.”
And lest you
imagine this asylum is only American
I assure you the halls of this place
extend throughout this Planet
and into all countries. This insanity is
toppled regimes and violence
where we sacrifice
lives for power and greed
kill each other “to get ahead”
try to outdo each other
like Cain and Abel
eventually killing each other
and constantly switching roles throughout history.
There is no political solution;
democracy or socialism,
of course not totalitarianism.
For these systems
are driven by human hearts;
broken, alienated,
estranged humans that will never be full,
unwilling to be healed
this people continues to drive the political.
Reminds me of an old actor, George Sands,
hung himself, left a note “Good by world, I’m
bored with you.” Other notes might be left; “I’m
afraid there’s no hope.” “I’m tired of hitting my head
on a wall eight hours a day seven days a week.”
Or the young married couple when asked about children replied,
“Who would bring a child into this world?”
The insanity can only be made palpable to those rich enough
for the anesthesia: entertainment.
The great majority of the world’s
people cannot afford the drug
so they live their nightmare
from moment to moment
as characters in our movies.
The puddles remaining from this violent sea of insanity,
this hydrotherapy controlled by the status quo
sometimes puddles along the floor,
leaving possibilities in its aftermath
hopefully enough to nourish the rare
but not totally unseen
seeds of optimism.
Richard W Smith
February 15, 2011
The Weight of Christ
St Christopher stood seven foot five.
Seeker of servanthood; serving a King or following the Devil,
until he was found by a Child working
the dangerous river
bearing the travelers from side to side
sometimes on a terrifying journey.
Bearing the Child seemed so simple, so light
yet barely was the saint able to move between the shores
hardly could he lift those strong legs
to carry this traveler.
Shoulders bent, neck in pain, arms worn out
aching as he strode from shore to shore.
The child emerging from this hazardous journey
spoke of the weight on Christopher’s shoulders;
“The weight of the world from the Creator of the
World,” in response to Christopher’s lament
feeling as if he were bearing the weight
of the world.
Christ weights me down; wears me out,
sucks all my energy out from the struggle
of living life as a follower of the Child,
a curious and hopeful student
of this God-created world.
Sometimes madness wears my thoughts like a coat
covering me with the temptation of
things and wealth and amusement
turning me aside from a focused following.
Weighed down by Christ; trying to discover
ways to face society’s caged consciousness,
herd mentality (a la Kierkegaard) thoughts
in hypnotic trances that
fail my heart, often suffocating my desire
to be human
into robot-like playing with gadgets,
thinking of buying, buying, buying.
Christ weights me down
when all the minor notes, lesser gods
singing to me create illusions which I often mistake for truth.
Weighed down, deep down, by oppressive attention
and faulty perceptions enslaved into seeing reality or
what appears for reality until the
Child climbs across my shoulders and back
and journeys with me, travels
across the baptizing-stream throughout my lifetime
making reality hard and enabling the mud
to sift between my toes and it’s earth crust
and my ash to combine
transforming my servanthood
from the weightlessness of air to the weight of glory.
Richard W Smith
February 15, 2011
Seeker of servanthood; serving a King or following the Devil,
until he was found by a Child working
the dangerous river
bearing the travelers from side to side
sometimes on a terrifying journey.
Bearing the Child seemed so simple, so light
yet barely was the saint able to move between the shores
hardly could he lift those strong legs
to carry this traveler.
Shoulders bent, neck in pain, arms worn out
aching as he strode from shore to shore.
The child emerging from this hazardous journey
spoke of the weight on Christopher’s shoulders;
“The weight of the world from the Creator of the
World,” in response to Christopher’s lament
feeling as if he were bearing the weight
of the world.
Christ weights me down; wears me out,
sucks all my energy out from the struggle
of living life as a follower of the Child,
a curious and hopeful student
of this God-created world.
Sometimes madness wears my thoughts like a coat
covering me with the temptation of
things and wealth and amusement
turning me aside from a focused following.
Weighed down by Christ; trying to discover
ways to face society’s caged consciousness,
herd mentality (a la Kierkegaard) thoughts
in hypnotic trances that
fail my heart, often suffocating my desire
to be human
into robot-like playing with gadgets,
thinking of buying, buying, buying.
Christ weights me down
when all the minor notes, lesser gods
singing to me create illusions which I often mistake for truth.
Weighed down, deep down, by oppressive attention
and faulty perceptions enslaved into seeing reality or
what appears for reality until the
Child climbs across my shoulders and back
and journeys with me, travels
across the baptizing-stream throughout my lifetime
making reality hard and enabling the mud
to sift between my toes and it’s earth crust
and my ash to combine
transforming my servanthood
from the weightlessness of air to the weight of glory.
Richard W Smith
February 15, 2011
Saturday, February 12, 2011
Crawling Toward the Light
Life is surfacing, escaping, crawling toward the
light as the winter thaw arrives. Smashing the grip of
blizzard’s snow, the frozen arctic blasts which pain
the lungs, catching one in the intake. Puxatony Phil
clambers from his chamber, February forecasts,
looking, spying, stretching to see his shadow predicting
how much longer we all stay below; within the blankets,
the covering of snow, the warmth of stoves.
We seem to crawl towards the light as springtime
Approaches; searching for that shadow in our heart,
Begging for the thaw to release our chilled self (that
Doesn’t give a dam about much). Reaching and pawing,
maybe some Top Hat old man will raise us overhead and
declare that we have found our shadow and now are
free to embrace it and be done with the current freeze and
winter snows that encase our lives.
Richard W Smith
February 12, 2011
light as the winter thaw arrives. Smashing the grip of
blizzard’s snow, the frozen arctic blasts which pain
the lungs, catching one in the intake. Puxatony Phil
clambers from his chamber, February forecasts,
looking, spying, stretching to see his shadow predicting
how much longer we all stay below; within the blankets,
the covering of snow, the warmth of stoves.
We seem to crawl towards the light as springtime
Approaches; searching for that shadow in our heart,
Begging for the thaw to release our chilled self (that
Doesn’t give a dam about much). Reaching and pawing,
maybe some Top Hat old man will raise us overhead and
declare that we have found our shadow and now are
free to embrace it and be done with the current freeze and
winter snows that encase our lives.
Richard W Smith
February 12, 2011
Egypt is Free Now
We watched the screen as people battled
for freedom. We are distracted, distant, not understanding
what had been thirty years of life beneath
the hand of a unsympathetic ruler, a non-Egyptian.
We onlookers stepped back, for the most part, still indulging
our habits, rituals, appetites, personal concerns
while the circle filled with brave people, young, old
workers, struggling to live, gave shout to their
frustration, resistance, an end-of-the-rope anger
standing together and against unjust power and wealth and
control and abuse and injustice and fears.
The long eighteen days filled with camaraderie and uncertainty, fears, confirmed as horses raced their terror
In the circle but left the people unchanged and more certain of their commitment. Those long days; rocks flying, fists smashing,
shouts and stand offs. Jobs abandoned, homes empty,
tents constructed, make-shift triage. The cost, the payment
for freedom is high, life threatening, no guarantees. Most
nations were bystanders from afar, hands off, watching with economic interests, fears of contagion and
political disease passing throughout the east of the world. But revolution is no small act,
no short term fix or unthought-of track. Who knows what might happen with this house-cleaning,
who knows whose hands will grasp the loose reigns of a country and government?
Most people never change! This individual revolution
is as rare as the revolution of a country. Some people
struggle, most stand under the self-regime
which has been ruling them for a lifetime, unaware.
Blind and inattentive to the hardships, injustice, oppression
in their own lives as they live within the power of self-rule.
Watching from the distance, outside themselves, an act rarely
attempted, and the reporters within, silenced, jailed so as
not to communicate the movement that is mounting deep
within. Fearful of the arousal and new consciousness which
might break through. So fearful and self-destructive is the movement
that the self totters in vertigo even at the whisper of rebellion.
The ruler turns up the army’s vigilance and grants it extraordinary power to intimidate.
Maybe the ruler’s control comes with entertainment, shopping and gadgets
and devices for instant miscommunication, quick meals and wines, movies and warm houses.
The control comes like hypnotism from things and styles and GNP concerns, Wall Street gambling,
their retirees futures guaranteed. This kind of human injustice, technologically driven,
is as oppressive and insidious as Egypt’s Mubarak.
No wonder they killed Jesus!
Richard W Smith
February 12, 2011
for freedom. We are distracted, distant, not understanding
what had been thirty years of life beneath
the hand of a unsympathetic ruler, a non-Egyptian.
We onlookers stepped back, for the most part, still indulging
our habits, rituals, appetites, personal concerns
while the circle filled with brave people, young, old
workers, struggling to live, gave shout to their
frustration, resistance, an end-of-the-rope anger
standing together and against unjust power and wealth and
control and abuse and injustice and fears.
The long eighteen days filled with camaraderie and uncertainty, fears, confirmed as horses raced their terror
In the circle but left the people unchanged and more certain of their commitment. Those long days; rocks flying, fists smashing,
shouts and stand offs. Jobs abandoned, homes empty,
tents constructed, make-shift triage. The cost, the payment
for freedom is high, life threatening, no guarantees. Most
nations were bystanders from afar, hands off, watching with economic interests, fears of contagion and
political disease passing throughout the east of the world. But revolution is no small act,
no short term fix or unthought-of track. Who knows what might happen with this house-cleaning,
who knows whose hands will grasp the loose reigns of a country and government?
Most people never change! This individual revolution
is as rare as the revolution of a country. Some people
struggle, most stand under the self-regime
which has been ruling them for a lifetime, unaware.
Blind and inattentive to the hardships, injustice, oppression
in their own lives as they live within the power of self-rule.
Watching from the distance, outside themselves, an act rarely
attempted, and the reporters within, silenced, jailed so as
not to communicate the movement that is mounting deep
within. Fearful of the arousal and new consciousness which
might break through. So fearful and self-destructive is the movement
that the self totters in vertigo even at the whisper of rebellion.
The ruler turns up the army’s vigilance and grants it extraordinary power to intimidate.
Maybe the ruler’s control comes with entertainment, shopping and gadgets
and devices for instant miscommunication, quick meals and wines, movies and warm houses.
The control comes like hypnotism from things and styles and GNP concerns, Wall Street gambling,
their retirees futures guaranteed. This kind of human injustice, technologically driven,
is as oppressive and insidious as Egypt’s Mubarak.
No wonder they killed Jesus!
Richard W Smith
February 12, 2011
Thursday, February 10, 2011
Morton's Blizzard 2011
Winter’s blizzard blew in and covered roads
and homes and trees-and
filled the local arboretum up with snows
deeper than in many years of the
past.
The white covering blew and flew throughout the
Woods and up hills and over ponds
down paths and up onto a few nests
and down into a couple of holes where fox hid out.
The storm was furious, exhaling in gusts,
some seventy miles an hour,
blowing recognition away its’ breath
showing only whiteness covering the earth,
with quick bursts of high energy that
withstood any attempts to stand upright and rigid in
protest.
So the trees, thousands of them, assorted
varieties, shook and bent and some even snapped
beneath the beating winds, the moist weight upon
their branches. Trees swayed and broke bitterly frozen
upon the ground, exhausted from the beating;
bearing so much snow, so much wind,
some stood silently, others screamed with
falls left over leaves
fluttering to death in voices of outrage.
Animals
currently sheltering beneath these mainstays of life
stoically huddled, nests and tiny bird feet clinging to
branches, held on and hoped for sun to rise soon.
The darkness covered the destruction, staying longer
this night than usual as the skies
clouded from the blizzard refused to release the day
resisting the morning light, gripping the earth, rocking the trees
separating branches and dragging them helplessly
through the shadows scattering them across the fields,
among the paths, around the buildings that huddled along
the ridge overlooking the destruction.
The aftermath revealed the next day were like
the dead upon a battlefield, without medics available.
No trees stood all were at least bent
overwhelmed with the weight of frozen snows,
some trees shattered and splintered; a foot or two of trunk
upright, the rest felled and covered again and again
by deep snow. So life was stopped, inactive, decimated
pieces and pieces of life wrecked and strewn across
the fields and over the paths
and yet despite the cloud filled grey sky,
despite the inability of caretakers to arrive and
heal the wreckage-Spring will resurrect the blossom
and the tree.
Richard W. Smith
February 10, 2011
and homes and trees-and
filled the local arboretum up with snows
deeper than in many years of the
past.
The white covering blew and flew throughout the
Woods and up hills and over ponds
down paths and up onto a few nests
and down into a couple of holes where fox hid out.
The storm was furious, exhaling in gusts,
some seventy miles an hour,
blowing recognition away its’ breath
showing only whiteness covering the earth,
with quick bursts of high energy that
withstood any attempts to stand upright and rigid in
protest.
So the trees, thousands of them, assorted
varieties, shook and bent and some even snapped
beneath the beating winds, the moist weight upon
their branches. Trees swayed and broke bitterly frozen
upon the ground, exhausted from the beating;
bearing so much snow, so much wind,
some stood silently, others screamed with
falls left over leaves
fluttering to death in voices of outrage.
Animals
currently sheltering beneath these mainstays of life
stoically huddled, nests and tiny bird feet clinging to
branches, held on and hoped for sun to rise soon.
The darkness covered the destruction, staying longer
this night than usual as the skies
clouded from the blizzard refused to release the day
resisting the morning light, gripping the earth, rocking the trees
separating branches and dragging them helplessly
through the shadows scattering them across the fields,
among the paths, around the buildings that huddled along
the ridge overlooking the destruction.
The aftermath revealed the next day were like
the dead upon a battlefield, without medics available.
No trees stood all were at least bent
overwhelmed with the weight of frozen snows,
some trees shattered and splintered; a foot or two of trunk
upright, the rest felled and covered again and again
by deep snow. So life was stopped, inactive, decimated
pieces and pieces of life wrecked and strewn across
the fields and over the paths
and yet despite the cloud filled grey sky,
despite the inability of caretakers to arrive and
heal the wreckage-Spring will resurrect the blossom
and the tree.
Richard W. Smith
February 10, 2011
Tuesday, February 8, 2011
Flickering Mind
Flickering Mind
By Denise Levertov
Lord, not you,
it is I who am absent.
At first
belief was a joy I kept secret,
stealing alone
into sacred places:
a quick glance, and away-and back,
circling.
I have long since uttered your name
but now
I elude your presence.
I stop
to think about you, and my mind
at once
like a minnow darts away,
darts
into the shadows, into gleams that fret
unceasing over
the river’s purling and passing.
Not for one second
will my self hold still, but wanders
anywhere,
everywhere it can turn. Not you,
it is I am absent.
You are the stream, the fish, the light,
the pulsing shadow,
you the unchanging presence, in whom all
moves and changes.
How can I focus my flickering, perceive
At the fountain’s heart
the sapphire I know is there?
By Denise Levertov
Lord, not you,
it is I who am absent.
At first
belief was a joy I kept secret,
stealing alone
into sacred places:
a quick glance, and away-and back,
circling.
I have long since uttered your name
but now
I elude your presence.
I stop
to think about you, and my mind
at once
like a minnow darts away,
darts
into the shadows, into gleams that fret
unceasing over
the river’s purling and passing.
Not for one second
will my self hold still, but wanders
anywhere,
everywhere it can turn. Not you,
it is I am absent.
You are the stream, the fish, the light,
the pulsing shadow,
you the unchanging presence, in whom all
moves and changes.
How can I focus my flickering, perceive
At the fountain’s heart
the sapphire I know is there?
On Being
These two poems were very meaningful to me today, thought I’d share them---
On Being
By Denise Levertov
I know this happiness
is provisional
the looming presences-
great suffering, great fear-
withdraw only
into peripheral vision:
but ineluctable this shimmering
of wind in the blue leaves:
this flood of stillness
widening the lake of sky:
this need to dance,
this need to knee:
this mystery:
On Being
By Denise Levertov
I know this happiness
is provisional
the looming presences-
great suffering, great fear-
withdraw only
into peripheral vision:
but ineluctable this shimmering
of wind in the blue leaves:
this flood of stillness
widening the lake of sky:
this need to dance,
this need to knee:
this mystery:
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